Chapter Five #2
“Only that Rob likes Lady Lucy MacMorlan rather a lot,” Jack said, his grin broadening.
“Thank you, Jack,” Robert said dryly. “A helpful intervention, as always.” He stood up. “You mistake. I do not like Lady Lucy at all and I do not trust her an inch.”
Lady Methven looked scandalized. “Robert! She is a sweet girl.”
“She is a manipulative little minx,” Robert said brutally.
He thought about Lucy. He had every right to be angry with her, but he could not deny that he was still attracted to her.
He thought about the taste of her and the feel of her in his arms. She might be a deceitful hussy, but there was a spark that burned between them like a flame on dry tinder.
That heat and desire were exactly what he would have wanted from the woman in his bed.
If only he could trust her.
Mr. Kirkward cleared his throat. “Lady Lucy is heiress to sixty thousand pounds, which will be paid upon her marriage.”
Jack whistled. “A not inconsiderable sum. Not that you need the money, Rob.”
Robert did not. He had made a vast fortune of his own in Canada, trading in timber, but to marry an heiress was never a bad thing.
“She is also a most generous donor to charity,” Mr. Kirkward continued.
Robert’s head snapped up. “With what?”
Mr. Kirkward looked confused. “With the earnings from her writing, my lord. Lady Lucy is a benefactor to both the Foundling Hospital and the Greyfriars Orphanage. She donates anonymously, but it was not difficult to discover.”
“Your skills of detection impress me, Kirkward,” Robert said. He remembered Lucy claiming that she wrote for the money. The one thing she had not done was to justify her actions by telling him she gave the money away to charity. He wondered about her motives.
“You see!” Lady Methven said triumphantly. “I told you she was a sweet, generous girl.” She sighed. “I’ll allow that Lady Mairi might have been a better choice of bride, though. She is older, widowed and therefore has no false illusions about the married state—”
“Thank you, Grandmama,” Robert said, “for the vote of confidence.”
Lady Methven snapped her fingers. “You know what I mean, Robert. Besides, Lady Lucy is very particular. She had two seasons in London and three in Edinburgh and refused every suitor.” Lady Methven wrinkled her nose up.
“The gossips say Lady Lucy’s heart was broken when her fiancé died and she has never met another man to match him, but personally I think that is so much nonsense.
Duncan MacGillivray was a dry old stick and no suitable match for a young gel, but whatever the case, she has turned down many proposals of marriage. ”
“She will not have the chance to turn me down,” Robert said smoothly. “I cannot afford a refusal.”
He pushed the hair back for his brow. He knew he had no choice other than to marry Lucy. “Do you know whether Lady Lucy returned to Forres or to Edinburgh after the wedding, Grandmama?” he asked Lady Methven.
Mr. Kirkward cleared his throat delicately.
“My lord, I made discreet inquiries into the whereabouts of the duke’s daughters once I realized they might be eligible.
...” He flicked through the papers. “Apparently they belong to a club called the Highland Ladies Bluestocking Society. It is an elite and prestigious society for Scottish ladies with academic credentials and it meets regularly in a different castle each month.”
“So I have heard,” Robert said. The Highland Ladies Bluestocking Society was as famous for its secretive nature as for its scholarly interests.
No one who was not a member could attend the meetings, and no one quite knew what those meetings entailed.
Robert imagined an esoteric group of ladies sitting around discussing dry-as-dust history and literature all day before changing for dinner and indulging in more discussions on intellectual subjects.
“Unfortunately,” Mr. Kirkward continued, “I have been unable to ascertain where they are currently meeting. It is secret information.”
“Grandmama?” Robert said. He knew that Lady Methven was not a member of the society, but she knew plenty of ladies who were.
Lady Methven smoothed her skirts. “Really, Robert,” she said. “The Highland Ladies is a secret society. The clue is in the word secret. You cannot expect me to give away any details.”
“Even to save Methven?” Robert queried. “I need to find Lady Lucy quickly and make her an offer of marriage.”
“What unromantic haste!” Lady Methven looked down her nose. “You should be trying to woo her, Robert, not dragoon her into marriage!”
“I do not have time to be romantic,” Robert said.
“I’d like to see you even try,” Jack murmured, sotto voce.
Lady Methven gave an exaggerated sigh. “Oh, very well, but do not let it slip that I told you or I will be drummed out of Edinburgh.” When Robert merely raised his eyebrows she said, “They are meeting at Durness Castle.”
Robert managed to swallow the instinctive curse that rose to his lips.
It would not do to offend his grandmother with his language.
She already considered him sadly uncouth.
But Durness was remote, in the far north of Scotland; it would take him several days to reach it, longer if the weather turned bad.
Worse, Wilfred Cardross owned the estate adjoining Durness.
It seemed more than a coincidence. He had seen Cardross paying court to Lucy at Brodrie, and now he wondered what the earl was planning.
“The Highland Ladies like to travel,” Lady Methven said. “It broadens the mind.”
Robert sighed sharply. Some of his own estates, including the northern Methven stronghold of Golden Isle, lay in the same area. He had not been there since Gregor had died.
The day seemed darker all of a sudden, the gray clouds gathering and thickening into rain.
“It will be good for you to wed a member of the Highland Ladies Bluestocking Society, Robert,” his grandmother said thoughtfully.
“An educated woman will have a civilizing influence on both your manners and your mind after all those years living in the wilds of Canada. She may instruct you in both the social refinements and any intellectual accomplishments in which you are deficient—literature, mathematics, astronomy, geography, manners and conduct...”
Behind him, Robert heard Jack give a snort of laughter and made a mental note to threaten his cousin that if a word of this conversation ever reach the inns and clubs of Edinburgh, he would be a dead man.
He half expected his grandmother to start issuing him with instructions on how to fulfill the other requirement of the treaty, the need to produce an heir within two years. Her advice on that would be a step too far.
As far as he was concerned, Lucy MacMorlan would give him a far greater gift than that of scholarship: the ability to claim his estates unchallenged by anyone, take them and hold them safe. All he had to do was persuade her to marry him.
Lady Lucy owed him a bride. Now he was going to collect on the debt.