Chapter 2
When Cameron’s carriage arrived at its destination in London, the driver opened the door for him.
Cameron thanked him and was poised to step down when he saw that the area of the street directly beneath his hovering boot was a veritable river of muck, offal, and human waste.
The raw yellow reek of it hit him like a tree branch across the face, and his eyes immediately began to water.
It had been raining in the city for several days (and on the road leading to it as well), turning the muddy mire of the avenue into a churning excremental deluge.
Cameron raised an eyebrow at the driver, trying to keep his good humor. “Pardon me, my good fellow, but mightn’t we find a somewhat more hospitable area of the street for me to disembark?”
The driver shook his head. “They’re all much the same as this one, guv. Best get used to it, like. Come on, step down! Those look like good sturdy boots you have on. I’m sure they’ll endure a bit of dirt!”
A bit of dirt is one thing, Cameron thought distastefully. This is something else entirely.
As he stepped down into the street and heard it squelch beneath his boot (stirring it up enough to release an even more potent burst of foul odor), he grimaced, feeling his gorge rise.
His entire life, he’d been told of how the English looked down upon the Scots, thinking of them as wild and barbaric, nothing but a pack of shaggy and feral animals squatting in crude stone forts built hundreds of years ago.
Now that Cameron was looking upon England with his own eyes, though, he found a grim irony in that. In his estimation, the English were the true savages if they were content to live among such horrid filth in their daily lives.
Cameron was no stranger to good honest dirt, having been born and raised among farmlands, not to mention the grassy expanses and tangled forests of the Highlands.
But what he found himself surrounded by now was quite another matter; not only did the most putrid effluence flow freely in the roads and gutters, but everything appeared to have a thick layer of black soot smudged over it, and the air was so thick with coal smoke that it was difficult for him to inhale without coughing.
He stepped around the carriage (continuing to wince at the squishing sounds of his own tread), and looked up at the townhouse that his father had arranged for him.
It would have been difficult indeed to express precisely how alien this landscape appeared to a man like Cameron, who had never once ventured into a city in his life.
Indeed, he had rarely set foot outside the borders of his own clan’s territories, except in those rare instances when he visited the strongholds and villages of neighboring clans.
He’d never seen structures arranged in such a peculiarly compact manner, built tall instead of wide, and standing shoulder to shoulder with the buildings on either side, with little to no space between them.
Bigger than cottages, smaller than castles.
Just small enough to keep from seeming noble or significant in any way and just large enough to be a nuisance to clean and keep up.
That was how it struck him, at least.
Indeed, just standing and looking at the thing seemed more absurd to him by the moment. It all felt less and less real, as though he had only traveled to London in some bizarre dream, except he knew full well that even his own imagination could never conjure sights such as these.
He heard the sharp cry of a man’s voice just an arm’s length away, and a split second later, he was nearly run down by a pair of horses drawing a coach.
The horses reared, and the flailing hoof of one of them came within barely an inch of striking Cameron in the head (which would most likely have killed him on the spot).
The coach flew past him, continuing down the street as the man holding the reins expelled a long string of curses.
“Might do you well to keep an eye out for that sort of thing while you’re here, guv,” the driver quipped. “It’d be a funny thing indeed for a fellow to travel all the way from Scotland to here, only to be trampled on his first day. Help you with your things, guv?”
“Er, no, thank you,” Cameron replied, removing the small chest he’d brought along from the carriage and slinging it onto his shoulder jauntily.
He had barely brought anything with him.
Laird Cawley had assured him that all of his needs would be attended to upon arrival.
Especially new clothes, since his own were sure to draw stares and laughter from Londoners.
As he peered around, Cameron realized that this was certainly true. Passersby were openly gawping at his tunic and kilt, and he heard snatches of sniggering, as well as a couple of Scottish jokes made at his expense.
He didn’t bother to address these insults. He saw no point to it. And further, he supposed that getting into a brawl in the street and getting into trouble with the local constabulary would be the same sort of “funny” as being trampled by a horse.
Which was to say, not funny at all.
Instead, he simply gave the driver a final nod and trudged to the front door of the townhouse. When he got there, he raised his fist to knock loudly, then paused, seeing a rope hanging next to the doorway.
He’d heard of these. It was his understanding that the proper thing to do was to grab the rope and pull on it briskly, thus ringing a bell inside the house to alert them to his presence. It was more civilized than banging on the door like some invading force using a battering ram on a gate.
So he clasped the rope and gave it a sharp tug.
Too sharp, as it turned out, for the blasted thing came off in his hand, hanging limply from his fist like a snake that had had the life squeezed out of it. He stared at it for a few moments in vague bewilderment.
The door opened, and a short, slender man with a neatly-trimmed mustache looked at Cameron balefully.
“There was no need to pull on the cord quite so vigorously, sir, or even at all. After all, this is to be your domicile for the foreseeable future, and so you are not obliged to announce yourself thusly. Or to wait to be admitted, for that matter. You may simply enter.”
“Ah, well, thank you,” Cameron replied awkwardly. “I wasn’t sure and had no desire to presume, eh? Where I’m from, a fellow who walks into the wrong home unannounced could well end up with a sword through his belly!”
The man winced distastefully. “I can assure you, sir, that such things will not be of any great concern to you during your stay in London. Now: My name is Carstairs, and I shall be your personal valet.”
“Oh.” Cameron paused, processing this information as best he could. “I assumed you were the man my father rented the house from.”
“Having received his recompense for this imposition, he chose to make himself scarce rather than remain to greet you,” Carstairs said dryly. “That honor has fallen to me.”
“I see. And, um, what does a ‘valet’ do, exactly?”
Carstairs didn’t roll his eyes, but Cameron got the distinct impression he might have if not for the restraints of decorum.
“I will be only too happy to answer any questions you may have, sir. But first, might I suggest we continue this discussion indoors? Otherwise, word might spread among your new neighbors that this house’s latest inhabitant quite literally doesn’t know enough to come in from the rain.”
“I take your point,” Cameron answered a trifle sheepishly, entering the house.
“Might I recommend removing your boots, sir, so that I might give them a thorough cleaning? They are somewhat the worse for wear after being subjected to the vagaries of the London streets.”
He nodded and kicked his boots off. “Hardly see the point, though, you know? They’ll only be dirtied up again within moments when I leave the house. No one will notice your efforts.”
“I shall notice them, sir,” Carstairs assured him tightly.
“And once I have, I shall lay out some new clothes for you to try on so that you will be well prepared for the season. Your father instructed that such garments should be purchased in advance of your arrival and that they should be tailored to you at the earliest opportunity.”
Cameron looked down at his clothes ruefully. “So you do not think these will make me well-accepted by high society, then, eh?”
Carstairs turned his nose up disdainfully. “I believe if you attempt to enter the parlor of any respectable entity wearing what you have on, they will mistake you for some sort of foreign invader and pour boiling oil down upon you, sir.”
“I see.” Cameron nodded with mock seriousness. “In that case, you have my eternal gratitude for sparing me from such a gruesome fate.”
“The wages paid to me by your father, sir, will be gratitude enough. Now, to answer your previous inquiry: As your valet, it will be my task to see to your immediate needs at any given moment. Most especially, I am to help you dress.”
“Help me dress?” he balked. “I’ve been dressing myself my entire life! I certainly won’t be needing any help now!”
“If your current raiment is meant to be an example of how you have ‘dressed yourself your entire life,’ sir, then I believe you will require all the help you can get,” the valet retorted with a smirk.
“You will find that the manner in which a gentleman dresses in London differs significantly from how it is done in your homeland. For example, English gentlemen do not, as a rule, expose their legs in public, nor are they commonly seen without a cravat.”
“I am no English gentleman, Carstairs,” Cameron reminded him, “nor will I allow myself to be molded into one.”
“No, I don’t imagine you will,” Carstairs replied.
“However, it is my understanding that you have been sent here to seek out a bride, and their fathers, whom it will be your duty to impress, are English gentlemen. You would do well not to offend them with the roughness of your foreign ways, I think.”
“Tell me, is my father paying you extra to teach me how to behave myself properly in these situations?”
“More than you can possibly imagine. Yet, having now interacted with you, I am still left to question whether the sum shall be sufficient. If you will excuse me.” Carstairs bowed, then left the room.
Cameron noticed that there was a fire crackling merrily in the hearth, and he walked over to stand in front of it. He rubbed his hands before it and turned this way and that, doing his best to get warm and dry after standing out in the rain. He supposed the new clothes could wait.
Given Carstairs’s haughty and commanding tone, Cameron found that he had to remind himself that the man was there to take orders from him, not the other way around. Still, the valet’s contempt and exasperation were palpable, and they had barely spent a few moments in each other’s presence.
This was who Cameron was meant to share the house with? A fellow who found him to be an uncultured lout?
He stared into the dancing flames and sighed heavily, wishing he were home again.
His journey had barely taken a week, but he still found that he missed his brother and sisters fiercely.
Not just that, but he missed the view from his own bedchamber and the clean scent of the fields surrounding the castle.
I must do as my father demands, he brooded. But that does not mean I am obliged to like it or prolong it. Hopefully, I will be able to find a suitable candidate for marriage relatively quickly so I can return home at once.