Chapter 8
Lying naked in his bed, with a hand resting absently on his stomach, Arran stared at the flames dancing in the fireplace.
After he’d spent time with a still slumbering Campbell and conversed with the doctors, Arran sought out a set of guest chambers in his family’s ancestral holding.
The reports from each surgeon were reassuring enough that everyone retired—each McQuoid and Smith confident in a stubborn Campbell’s swift recovery.
Which was saying something indeed, as there wasn’t a single topic under God’s sun their obstinate lot agreed upon.
That’d been until now…
Arran angled his head towards the velvet tray where his watch fob rested. He squinted to catch the black numbers amongst the shadows playing off the glass.
One hour.
He’d been lying in this damned bed for over an hour, unable to sleep.
To be fair, since Arran began his career as a privateer, he hadn’t claimed a single peaceful night’s rest.
Not that he believed he deserved it. On the contrary.
The memories of war never left a man. As a gentleman who operated for gain—albeit within the sanction of the Crown when Boney began wreaking hell upon the Continent—the quest for power and wealth came with a hefty price.
Giving up on any rest this night, Arran swung his legs over the side of the bed. Barefoot, he padded across the hardwood floors and stopped at the Bath stone fireplace. He stared through the brass grate and into the healthy flames dancing before the screen.
He’d acquired ships, spices, teas, jewels, golds, silver, and treasures too great to name. But as a captain of lawless seas, Arran also carried a different type of loot. One a man didn’t speak of: the acrid stench of gunpowder and smoke on the air. Blood thirsty cries of battling soldiers.
Oh, Arran’s career on the high seas hadn’t started as ignominiously as all that.
As a younger son of an earl, a path in the military had been the natural course for him.
After England’s heavy losses at the start of the Napoleonic Wars, they’d needed privateers to expand their reach.
Not just any privateers, but rather gentlemen like Arran who came from noble families with funds to outfit a vessel.
If he were a better man, Arran would feel greater shame than he did for his work. He didn’t. Which is likely why the demons of moments and fights at sea kept him company at night.
One nightmare carried as a token of a time at sea was the same as the next.
That’s what he’d believed anyway.
He’d been so wrong.
Arran scrubbed a hand along his jaw.
There’d been one battle, one sailing, that showed Arran just how bloody wrong he’d been.
He’d convinced his young cousin Linnie to join him on a sailing. He’d never considered he’d land her trapped in the middle of the bloodiest battle he’d ever wage.
The brass hearth reflected the bitterness he carried in the lines of his face.
This night, however, it was not the nightmares that robbed him and then lulled him into a blank sleep.
It was her.
Filled with a wave of restlessness, he quit his post at the fireside and went and collected a fresh set of garments.
The stranger amongst them.
While everyone else, reassured by Campbell’s recovery, slept deeply, Arran kept his focus on Lucy. He’d given up his regular bedroom suite in exchange for a set of guest chambers on her corridor.
And he was rewarded for his suspicions.
Click.
Arran went still for only a second.
Fully alert, he hurried to collect a change of garments. He hastily drew them on as he went, and then, unlike the mysterious Miss Lucy LeBeau, exited the room like a specter.
As he pulled the door shut soundlessly behind him, Arran adjusted his eyes to the dark.
Then, with careful steps, he set out after the lady.
Lucy LeBeau had a lead on him, and yet what she maintained in distance, she lost completely in furtiveness.
All the while she wound her way through the halls, the curious minx alternately muttered and whispered to herself. She stopped several times. And then resumed her search for…whatever it was she sought.
Arran kept close in the shadows and followed her all the way downstairs.
He ducked his head around the corner, just as the young woman sailed inside…the kitchen.
His brow dipped.
What in hell?
What secrets did the lady think to uncover down here?
The possibility she intended to slip out the servant’s entrance was quashed by a thundering clang.
If she was a thief, she was a rotten one. And if she was a spy, well, she was even worse at that.
“You jobby,” the curious Scot chastened herself. “Wheest, will you.”
Telling herself to shut up?
Despite his misgivings, Arran found a reluctant grin tugging the corners of his lips. Ah, so she wasn’t completely unaware of her subpar subterfuge skills.
His smile faded.
Bad as she was at slipping about and letting herself into parts of this household, she had no place being, the fact remained that Lucy LeBeau was here while the entire household slept, and seemingly for a reason.
Creeping closer, Arran rested his back against the right entrance to the kitchen and waited.
“…There you are…didn’t think you’d be here,” she exclaimed triumphant.
Arran stiffened. He strained his ears to pick up on the answering reply—that didn’t come.
What did come was the clang of pans and plates.
All the while, Miss LeBeau narrated for what would appear to be… herself.
No.
Arran blinked slowly.
He stood corrected.
The young woman also…sang.
“…Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne?”
Slightly discordantly but with a zeal that leant a refreshing quality to her dulcet tones.
“For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne,…”
His lashes dipped low.
“…we’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne…”
His breathing grew slower.
Miss LeBeau also possessed a deep, husky contralto that gave her natural brogue a home, and invited thoughts of the minx…in a bedroom.
A realization he’d have felt a great deal of guilt about if he believed with absolute certainty she was, in fact, Campbell’s betrothed.
“…And surely ye’ll be your pint-stoup…blast!”
As quick as she’d cast her seductive spell was as fast as she broke it with a curse, followed by a sigh.
He gave his head a firm shake.
“Failin’ means you’re playin’,” she muttered that old familiar Scottish phrase.
His lips gave another twitch. “And just what it is you are trying to d—?”
The wily Scot shrieked.
As she wheeled to face Arran, she lost hold of the object in her hand.
It whipped across the kitchen with the velocity of a bullet.
Albeit a, fortunately, soft missile.
Cool, damp dough slapped him square in the face.
Alternately shocked and amused, Arran peeled the dough from his forehead and eyes first to reveal Lucy, her face endearingly dusted with flour. Her eyes bigger than the cups out for measuring.
He made to speak and then recalled he still wore the rest of whatever she’d been making.
The troublesome minx found her voice. “Jingles and Christmas,” she whispered.
He’d gleaned a lot about the young woman’s habits in a very short span. As such, he took her faint exclamation as the self-speak it was.
“I do believe the phrase is jingo and crivvens,” he drawled.
That jolted Lucy from her state of shock. The Scottish minx gave her abundant tresses a shake.
“Aye.” Snatching a towel from the worktable she’d made for herself, she hastened over. “But I first heard it around one Christmastide season when I was a wee lass. I loved all things Christmas, and got it all mixed up.”
While she spoke, she used that cloth to dust flour from the collar of his shirt.
“… my da and mum, and everyone else around, came to adopt the phrase as well.”
Bemused, Arran found himself riveted.
Odd that what annoyed him in polite society misses had been their senseless chattering. From Lucy, it felt somehow different. Because it was different.
Because she was going on about the Christmastide season, which few within the peerage, let alone outside it, looked forward to with the joy McQuoids did.
“There you go,” Lucy said cheerfully, letting up her efforts.
She took a step back and looked at him. A frown formed on her heart-shaped lips.
His gut tightened.
A becoming blush splashed across her cheeks.
She opened her mouth to speak and stopped.
His gut tightened. “What is it?” he said stiffly.
She’d gathered his interest.
Interest?
Bloody hell, man! What is wrong with you?
No, it was his focus. He was focused on her.
He knew better than to fall for a mystery woman. At that, one reported to be engaged to his cousin Campbell.
“I… you…” Lucy gestured at Arran’s face. “It’s just…”
He tensed.
“You have some flour remnants here.” She drew a finger in the air, gesturing to the area in question. “If I may?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. With an unapologetic boldness, the mysterious young woman, cloth and hand, wiped at his cheek. His chin. All the while, she spoke nearly inaudibly to herself.
“… And here… And here… Some here…”
Arran found himself strangely compelled. He had been touched by women in every way there was to be touched.
Or so he’d believed.
The act Lucy performed was an intimate one. A young lady of polite society would never dare venture. A wicked lady bent on seduction would never bother.
Rather, hers was that of a devoted wi—
He blanched.
Lucy seemed to mistake his response as one directed at her. She dropped her arm and hurriedly stepped aside.
“I believe I have it all.”
She was going to step away and return to doing whatever it was she had been doing when he intruded.
He took in the scene again with weary eyes.
Arran dropped a hip on the edge of the table. Here she was, a stranger who would come into their household, escorting an unconscious Campbell, and, of all places, being here. In the kitchens?
There were no secrets hiding down here.
He looked at the ingredients scattered about.
He eyed Lucy as she set out a fresh ball of dough and proceeded to smooth it out.