Chapter 2 #3
“I, for one, am not in support of opening our family’s Christmastide tradition for a gentleman only newly familiar to Arran,” Linnie said.
Her pronouncement ushered in another show of fireworks amongst the group.
Just like that, she lost her cousin Cassia.
“But ’tis Christmas!” the marchioness cried out. “A time with which to open our homes and hearts . . .”
“What is the harm, Linnie, in his joining us?” her mother beseeched. “He is a young, respectable bachelor and, at that, an earl.”
“That right there!” Linnie pounced. “Can we cease to pretend there is any other reason to allow some arrogant, stuffy gentleman at our family gathering?”
At her side, she felt Arran’s increasing tension. Good. Let him stew.
She’d not be stopped. “That is, invite him for the holiday season for any reason other than the very clear one of finding me a husband.”
“Linnie-Lou,” Mother scolded.
Linnie was nowhere near done. “Oh, and building an alliance between Cousin Arran and his new best friend. On what grounds do we blindly give the gentleman our loyalty?”
“That is enough, Linnie,” Arran ordered quietly, silencing both Linnie and the rest of the room with the same authority he likely wielded when presiding over his ship.
Unnerved by the show of seriousness from her affable cousin, Linnie found herself drawing back in the leather folds of her seat.
Arran came slowly to his feet. He paused to look around at the assembled McQuoids and Smiths.
“I never believed I’d see the day when welcoming a guest for the holidays would be met by anyone in this family with such apathy,” Arran murmured.
Linnie’s gaze pricked with the focus of everyone’s gazes landing on her.
This was where they expected Linnie to respond with a modicum of shame or regret, but alas, they were to be as disappointed with her current response to this castigation as with all her previous ones this night.
She kept her focus centered at the adjacent wall.
Arran continued. “Whether Linnie wants a marriage or doesn’t with Culross, or any other man for that matter, is far from my business,” he said.
“Do I hope Linnie enters into a union with an honorable gentleman who treats her well and for whom she has affection? Yes. That being said, I’ve merely asked that we open our home to Culross and show him the same grace we have, do, and would to anyone else. ”
Linnie wrinkled her nose. Whiskers on a kitten, Cousin Arran was good. He’d managed to turn the entire lot not only silent but also . . . sheepish. Suddenly, she could see how he’d put down a mutiny aboard his ship.
“I will say, though,” Cousin Arran added, “when it comes to making a match, Linnie could certainly find herself doing far worse than marrying a fellow like Culross.”
And when it came to her glib cousin, he’d just proven the exact reason she’d been right in doubting his pretty assurances.
“I didn’t believe my situation was quite so glum,” Linnie mumbled.
She might as well have saved her breath.
Aunt Catherine gave another clear clap of her hands. “Now, I will ask those of you who favor inviting Arran’s new friend and business partner, Lord Culross, to take part in the McQuoid-Smith holiday gathering to please indicate so at this time. Who is in favor?”
Several hands shot up before the countess’s question even fully left her mouth: Linnie’s cousins Arran and Dallin, along with Linnie’s mother.
The countess cleared her throat loudly.
Startled, Uncle Harold dropped his reading material and glanced about.
“Up,” the countess whispered loud enough for all to hear.
The endlessly befuddled earl instantly complied. As soon as he’d cast his vote, he collected his newspaper and resumed reading.
Her cousins Cassia and Myrtle at least made an effort to pretend to consider their responses before ultimately adding their ayes, with their husbands following suit.
Not that Linnie expected the equally austere duke and marquess to throw support behind her. Those two noblemen would follow their wives to the ends of the earth, which was what Linnie herself had—and still—longed for.
Given that each married McQuoid or Smith enjoyed a love match, none of them seemed to think anything of expecting Linnie to consider entering into an arranged marriage.
Traitors.
Aunt Catherine looked around the room. “As I see it, the matter is settled. Lord Culross shall join us this holiday season.”
While the rest of her kin came more slowly to their feet, Linnie jumped up. She’d attended more family meetings than she cared to count. She’d never been the central focus of one. And she’d never been gladder to leave one.
Setting her jaw, she hastened from the room.
As she stormed down the straight, high-ceilinged corridor, the McQuoid-Smith ancestors memorialized within gilded frames followed her steps with jovial smiles and rosy-red cheeks.
Of course. Because all McQuoid-Smiths, the ones in the hereafter and Linnie’s living relatives, who still mingled in the drawing room, were pleased with the outcome of that family gathering—a discussion that hadn’t really been a discussion.
Fuming, Linnie lengthened her strides.
She had gone into the meeting believing they’d been called to speak on Arran’s fractured relationship with Captain Jeremy. But no, the concern instead lay with building a relationship with Cousin Arran’s new friend and business partner.
The gall. She’d expected better from each of them.
Linnie gritted her teeth, as enraged on Captain Jeremy’s behalf as she was on her own.
Finally, she reached the nearest stairwell. With the promise of privacy and freedom from her irksome kin, Linnie rapidly ascended the ivory-carpeted steps.
“It appears I’m to be shown the same manner of loyalty Captain Jeremy received,” she muttered.
Linnie reached the main landing and turned to head for her rooms. Alas, two people had reached that spot before her.
Linnie shrieked.
Her heart racing, she glared at Campbell and Cousin Arran, who, with arms folded, flanked either side of her ornate, arched doorway.
“We took the servants’ stairwell,” her brother explained. “To make sure we caught you.”
To make sure they caught her?
“Never tell me,” she said dryly. “You’ve come to fetch me for some other family vote. What is it this time? Which McQuoid or Smith is to be cut from the fold? If so, I’d say there’s hardly a reason to include me in a vote, when I know what way it will go.”
Her—previously—favorite male kin exchanged looks out the corners of their eyes.
Campbell frowned. “Hey, now, Linnie-Lou. There’s no need to be melo—”
Her eyebrows shot up.
“We’ve sought you out for entirely different reasons that have nothing to do with the holidays or Culross,” Cousin Arran quickly cut in, interrupting the impending fight. “Or rather, it does not have anything to do with the holidays directly, more indirectly.”
He dangled that bit of information in the exact same manner he’d waved a handful of sugarplums to get her to take part in some sort of troublesome antic he, Brone, Campbell, and Dallin had cooked up.
And drat if Linnie wasn’t as enticed now as she’d been then.
She eyed them warily. “Oh?”
Arran and Campbell eased closer.
“You,” Cousin Arran urged Linnie’s brother.
“You’re the one who had the idea,” Campbell countered.
“Yes, but—”
“Would one of you just get on with telling me whatever it is?” Linnie whispered exasperatedly.
Campbell slammed an elbow into their cousin’s side.
“Ouch. Fine. I’ll tell it,” Arran muttered. He opened his mouth to speak again but stopped himself.
Only further adding to Linnie’s intrigue, her cousin stole a furtive glance up and down the hall.
After he’d verified they were, in fact, still alone, he spoke.
“We are attending Lord and Lady Rutland’s masquerade,” he shared so quietly it was hard to fully make out what he said. “It takes place tomorrow evening.”
Linnie frowned. “And?” Surely he knew better than to gloat.
“And we understand you are frustrated and disappointed and feeling a bit powerless,” her brother interjected. “As such—”
“We’re inviting you to accompany us,” Cousin Arran said before Campbell could finish.
She stilled. This time of year, the holiday season unfailingly brought Linnie a sense of joy and lightness, but this particular year had proven the exception.
With Arran’s split from Jeremy, and Jeremy’s absence from the McQuoid-Smith family Christmastide festivities, she’d known only the greatest sadness.
Until now.
Linnie looked at her brother and cousin, each looking as pleased as punch with themselves.
Surely, they were jesting or playing some horrible trickery, for which she’d never forgive them. “Are you saying you’ll escort me to Lord and Lady Rutland’s masquerade?” she whispered.
“That is precisely what we’re saying, Linnie-Lou,” Cousin Arran said before Linnie’s brother could.
For the first time in longer than she could remember, happiness filled every part of her being.
With a squeal, she flung herself at Arran.
Laughing, he immediately folded his arms around her and gave her an enormous hug. “I thought that would help cheer you from your doldrums. Can’t have you sour and sad at Christmas. It is, after all, your favorite time of year,” he said, setting Linnie away.
All the while, excitement sent her thoughts rolling wildly.
“Hey, now, why did you get to tell her?” her brother groused.
The cousins, who were brothers in nearly every sense of the word, immediately launched into a quarrel.
“You were the one who encouraged me to speak, when what you really meant was you wished to share the best part of—”
Linnie couldn’t hear anything beyond her own imaginings about the Rutland affair. She, after two full Seasons, had not attended anything remotely exciting, and now her brother and cousin intended to bring Linnie, an unmarried lady, to that event.
The scandal if she was discovered . . .
She . . .
Linnie frowned. “I don’t have a costume,” she said, stricken.
That penetrated her brother and cousin’s bickering.
Their like frowns indicated they had also failed to consider that detail—a very important one for a masquerade.
Yet again, Arran revealed his command as a captain this night. “I shall see to it this evening. There is a modiste whom I—” He abruptly stopped himself. Color splotched his cheeks.
Linnie wrinkled her brow. “There is a modiste?” she prodded.
Campbell guffawed.
She turned a frown on him. “What?” she asked, perplexed.
Her brother cleared his throat. “Forgive me,” he said, after he’d mastered his amusement. “You were saying, Arran? There is a modiste you know whom . . . ?”
Arran glared in return. “I’ll take care of it,” he said tightly. “I’ll see the modiste is paid well to complete a suitable costume for you with the short notice given.”
With a little squeal, Linnie hugged each man.
“Hey, now,” Campbell grumbled, as uncomfortable with sisterly shows of affection as he’d always been.
“Not that we need tell you or remind you, this is not a McQuoid-Smith-mother-sanctioned decision,” Arran said after he’d returned her hug.
She nodded.
In other words, the rest of the family couldn’t know, or Linnie’s one enjoyable night would end before it even began.
“Thank you so much, Arran. Thank you, Campbell,” she whispered, her voice thick.
And as her brother and cousin went off to see to the last-minute details before the next day’s masquerade, Linnie slipped inside the rooms she’d been given to call her own as a girl of five.
Never had she needed them more.
Once inside, she turned the lock. Leaning her back against the oak panel, she clasped her hands together and rested them against her still wildly beating heart.
All the McQuoid or Smith women near in age to Linnie had known great excitement in their lives, whereas Linnie hadn’t.
Cassia had sneaked off and boarded what she’d believed to be Arran’s ship—which actually turned out to be the wrong one, belonging to her now devoted husband.
She’d seen the world and even faced a battle at sea.
While Linnie had never left the comforts of her family’s homes, Myrtle went off to finishing school, and then, six years earlier, had been left behind in London—granted, she’d been forgotten.
In that time, she’d survived in a household without servants, chased off burglars bent on robbing Uncle Harold’s archaeological collection, and fallen in love with the Mad Duke, who’d actually turned out to be, though terrifying to everyone else, a loving, loyal, and outrageously romantic husband to Myrtle.
A smile teased at her lips.
But they’d never been to Lord and Lady Rutland’s masquerade. And no unmarried lady had been without a mother or female companion in attendance.
This would be Linnie’s grand adventure—the one she’d been waiting for to come along.
And all because of Campbell and Cousin Arran.
Her grin froze.
Cousin Arran, who’d been so very grim and cold about Linnie’s support of Captain Jeremy Tremaine during the meeting a while ago. Just as she’d been as furious, disappointed, and disgusted with him and the rest of her disloyal family.
Selfishly, she’d been so caught up with excitement about her grand night out tomorrow, she’d proven to be just as perfidious as the lot of them.
She’d allowed Arran and Campbell to all but bribe her into being happy for the holiday season.
The fact she’d betrayed Jeremy managed to dampen some of Linnie’s joy at attending her first masquerade, but shamefully, not enough.
With a squeal, she spun herself in a little pirouette.