Chapter Seven
“Are you sure this is where we are meant to meet?” Angus was looking at Callum in a doubtful manner. The park, with its paths through lush green grass and shady trees, was hectic with strolling persons, while carriages and riders vied for space on the wider trails.
“This is it,” Callum said.
Angus grunted. Callum felt like pointing out that that was not what a gentleman did in polite circles, but he doubted Angus would appreciate his helpful advice.
The older man directed his attention to a gentleman in skintight pantaloons, his cravat so high he could barely turn his head, and his hat perched on top of curled and primped hair. “Look at yon peacock,” he said, forgetting to lower his voice.
The gentleman in question turned to stare, lifting a quizzing glass to his eyes. He took in Angus’s splendor—he was wearing a kilt—and smirked before turning away again.
Until then, Callum had been pleased that Angus was here with him. There was something about the man’s pithy comments and occasional deep laughter that made him feel less homesick. Now he was wondering if it had been a mistake. Especially when he had insisted on wearing his kilt as usual.
“I am what I am,” he said, when Callum had tried to tell him that the people of London were not used to seeing a man in a skirt. “You should be proud to wear the MacKenzie colors. What would your father say?”
Callum struggled briefly with his doubts but eventually he had worn his kilt too. The dark green tartan was firm about his hips and swung jauntily as he walked. The cool air on his lower legs, and higher too beneath the shielding fabric, was pleasingly familiar.
And yet they were the recipients of stares and whispers, and a nursemaid walking with some children gave a little shriek and pulled her charges to safety.
Penelope was not going to like this, but he told himself any woman he chose to marry would have to get used to seeing him in his native finery.
“What a place this is!” Angus growled, sending a scathing look after the nursemaid. “I would never question your father’s decision to send you south, but surely there are wives aplenty at home.”
“He says we need a gentlewoman,” Callum reminded him.
“A well-bred lady who knows which spoon to use at the dinner table and what to say to awkward guests. The ladies at home look down upon us. And sometimes . . .” He bit his lip.
“You remember when Sir Hector insisted Cook had not made the oatcakes the way they should be?”
“Aye, and your mother told him to go and cook his own,” Angus said with a laugh.
“Well, a lady would not do that. She would smooth over the situation, not make it worse. Sir Hector refuses to speak to us now.”
“Your mother has a temper, aye, but she is still a lady.”
Callum knew that to be true, but his mother had never been very good at diplomacy. If the MacKenzies were to rise through the ranks of nobles to the top, where they belonged, then they needed someone who could navigate a way through the pitfalls.
“I’m not saying it is what I want, but my father is ambitious for his children,” Callum said. “He has a vision for our future. He wants us to give the orders rather than bow to those who currently make them.”
Angus gave him a bewildered look but was wise enough not to argue.
Callum understood his father’s desire to see his children thrive in a cut-throat world, but he was not sure he shared it.
He was happy with the way things were, with his quiet life at Bonnyrigg.
If his wife wanted to rub shoulders with titled gentlemen and ladies, she could, and good luck to her, but he preferred to spend his days away from such distracting noise.
A horseman rode by, and Callum looked after him longingly, thinking of Midnight, but Penelope had specified they were to be on foot.
Perhaps she did not trust him. Perhaps she thought he might gallop at full speed through the park and frighten everyone.
Callum was not a fool, he understood he couldn’t do that, but he needed to be patient with her until she declared him ready for Aunt Jennie’s ball.
His aunt had spoken to him this morning over breakfast. “I think I would like to hear from Miss Armstrong herself when you are ready for the ball. It will give me a chance to discuss your progress, and I am curious to meet her.”
Callum had shrugged. “I think I am progressing very well. Walking in the park can’t be that hard, can it, Aunt?”
Jennie had paused with her coffee cup halfway to her lips. “I don’t know, Callum. But I remember your father in his kilt on his wedding day. No one had ever seen the like.”
Callum smiled. He imagined Maxwell on that day, marrying the duke’s daughter in all her finery. And they were still together, still in love, and he did not doubt they would remain so. If he could find someone like that, he would have made his father happy, and himself too.
And yet whenever he thought of that faceless bride, he pictured Penelope on his arm, smiling up at him. Perhaps she had cast a spell on him after all.
He was relieved when Angus interrupted his thoughts. “I don’t understand why they are all staring,” he muttered. “We are wearing clothes, aren’t we? We’ve combed our hair and washed our faces?”
“Perhaps they’ve heard about my attack on the boar,” Callum said with a grimace.
“Aye, mabbe.” Angus grimaced too. “Don’t worry, the memory will fade soon enough, if you don’t do anything else to get tongues clacking.”
“I have already said I won’t. I was sloshed. I drank that whisky to give me courage, and I went too far. If I could do it over again . . .” He hmphed.
Angus made a noise of his own but thankfully said no more.
They strolled on for a little, and then Angus said suddenly, again his voice far too loud, “Is that them? Coming toward us now? The wee lady in the pale blue gown and the muckle one in green?”
Callum looked up. The two women approaching were indeed Penelope and Selina.
He was more concerned with the former, noting her fair hair fashioned in ringlets that peeped out from under her bonnet and danced about her lovely face, while her silver eyes were narrowed against the sun.
Or perhaps . . . were they narrowed because there was something about him she disapproved of?
He admitted he wanted Penelope to approve of him, but at the same time he enjoyed unsettling her.
She was so calm and composed that he longed to cause her eyes to narrow as they were now, or even to flash.
He wanted to dig beneath her unruffled exterior and reveal the real woman he knew was hiding there.
He wanted to see her smile as she had yesterday.
As for what else Callum wanted to do to her . . . well, they were the sort of ungentlemanly thoughts he should not be having right now.
When the two parties met, Penelope held out her hand to Callum. “My lord Marquess,” she said, and gave a little curtsy.
Callum bowed. “Miss Armstrong. What a surprise! What are you doing here this fine day?”
She blinked. Her gaze dropped to his kilt and he waited for some pithy comment, but instead she said, “Shall we go for a stroll? Please, will you join Selina and me?”
“With pleasure.” He turned to Angus, who was observing them with amusement. “Angus? Will you stroll with us?”
Penelope arched a fair eyebrow. “You have not introduced us to your companion, MacKenzie. Who is this fellow?”
Damn, she was good! “This is Angus Grant, my manservant, bodyguard, and friend. Angus, this is Miss Penelope Armstrong, and Miss Selina . . .?
“Halliday,” Selina said, with a glance at Penelope. “I am Miss Armstrong’s maid, and although I would like to claim I am her bodyguard, I’m not sure what that entails.”
“You are my friend, too,” Penelope said quickly. “And I don’t think I need a bodyguard.”
“You never know,” Angus replied, with a wink at Selina. He gave a bow to them both. “Miss Armstrong. Miss Halliday.”
“Mr. Grant,” Penelope replied serenely.
Selina said nothing, seemingly fascinated by Angus’s legs.
Callum could see that they were particularly hairy but surely not so different from anybody else’s.
Hadn’t she seen a man’s legs before? But then he remembered how she had seemed fascinated by his bare chest and thought that perhaps she had not.
The formalities over, the four of them set out for their stroll, Callum and Penelope in the lead, and Angus and Selina following behind.
Callum tucked Penelope’s gloved hand into his elbow, and she didn’t demure.
He also made sure to shorten his steps to match hers, ignoring the rude stares they were garnering.
These were the sort of courtesies he would have shown back home at Bonnyrigg, and nothing to do with learning to be a gentleman.
Perhaps he wasn’t such a brute after all.
“Is your family close by?” he said, thinking of his own. He couldn’t imagine not living near to his own family.
“No.” She gave him a sideways glance as if judging whether to share a confidence with him. Callum waited, hoping she would trust him. When she spoke, her voice was cool and matter-of-fact. “I am an orphan, MacKenzie. My parents were killed in a coach accident just over ten years ago.”
That shocked him. He tried to imagine it, his parents gone in a moment and him left alone in the world. The Scottish slang word slipped from his lips before he could stop it. “Jings!”
“I hope that wasn’t profane,” she said gravely, but her lips twitched as she restrained a smile.
“No, no, I was just surprised,” he assured her, recovering himself. “And you have no one else? No other family?”
“My brother, and I have an uncle.” Her expression altered slightly, and he thought that fact did not give her pleasure. Secrets. Penelope had secrets, and Callum wanted to know what they were. But he understood that quizzing people, unless you knew them very well, was impolite.