Kathryn Caskie - [Royle Sisters 02] (8 page)

“I don’t understand.” Laird looked up at Apsley, sure that somehow he had missed something.

“Gorblimey!” Apsley suddenly focused his gaze upon the Royle sisters, and then exclaimed, “You’re those chits! Remember? I told you on our walk here that her name sounded so familiar to me.”

Elizabeth made her way to Anne and held her hand for support.

“Do you know who they are? They’re the
Royle sisters
.” Apsley grew more and more excited as he waited for Laird to make some connection. But none was to be had.

“I have been in mourning for my brother…and father for a year, Apsley. I have been in St. Albans, in the country, not in London. So if there is something I should know about the Royle family, do tell me.”

“Good God, MacLaren! Only the juiciest bit of society gossip to touch the lips of London’s
Quality.” His eyes were wide. “Miss Anne and Miss Elizabeth, they are—”

But it was Anne who completed Apsley’s sentence. “It has been rumored that Maria Fitzherbert was once with child. There are indications that my sisters and I are
possibly
the results of her confinement.
Triplets
. The secret daughters of the Prince of Wales and Maria Fitzherbert.”

Laird stared at Anne. The claims he was hearing in this household grew more outlandish by the minute. “But if you are the prince’s daughters, that would mean, by blood at least, you are—”

“Princesses
.” Lady Upperton beamed excitedly. “Yes! So now you understand why those letters are so important to us all.”

This was all too much to absorb in his mind.
Bloody hell
. Just whom had he involved himself with last night?

Or had Apsley gotten it right when he suggested that the sisters and the Old Rakes had targeted him? Could they have deceitfully and purposely woven their way into his life?

No, no. This was all too outrageous to believe. All of it.

Laird’s temples began to throb painfully, and
he raised his glass to MacTavish. “Do pour me another brandy, man. Please, hurry.” Then suddenly he flipped his wrist and halted the butler. “No, wait.”

“Aye, my lord.” The butler settled the bottle of swirling amber spirits back to his salver. “Have you changed your mind about a glass of brandy, sir?”

“I have. Just bring me the whole damned decanter.”

“O
h no,” Anne muttered to herself. No more delays. She could not bear waiting any longer to be gifted with the details of her fate as a betrothed woman.

Lurching forward, she managed to intercept MacTavish’s dutiful delivery of the brandy decanter. Then, with a firm grip, she ringed its cut-crystal neck between her index finger and thumb and settled it atop the tea table. “Lord MacLaren, far be it from me to deny a guest a libation,” she said, “but we still have so much to discuss. I gather that the stories you have heard this night about your father may have been largely unknown to you, but you, my lord, possess information that is still unknown to me. I would be most pleased if you would share it.”

“I beg your pardon, Miss Anne.” The earl appeared confused, but, la, he was not fooling her. He knew exactly to what she referred.

“Oh botheration.” Elizabeth folded her hands across her chest. “She wants the hideous details of your betrothal.”

“Ah, yes. That.”

“Lord MacLaren, I do not wish to delay our discussion another day. Waiting all day and half the evening for you to arrive was vexing enough.” Anne crumpled a handful of her skirts in her fist. “So, since I know how important it is that your mind remain clear before discussing such matters, perhaps you would care for a dish of Bohea tea instead, hmm?”

The earl momentarily rested his forehead in his hand, and she could have sworn she heard him groan softly. “I do admit my mind was wholly distracted upon hearing of my father’s past deeds.” He turned his piercing cobalt-blue eyes from Anne to Lotharian.

The earl’s lips seemed to thin, and for the first time, Anne began to doubt the wisdom of divulging his father’s involvement in the mystery of her heritage.

“While the specifics of my father’s unyielding
drive to succeed in Parliament are unsettling,” Lord MacLaren somehow managed to say without moving his lips hardly at all, “I do not question your account, sir. Not in the least. My family has long suffered my father’s lofty political ambitions and his willingness to sacrifice
anyone
and anything to achieve them.”

Apsley expelled a nervous laugh at the earl’s comment. “Well, well, let us not dwell on the past, I always say. You know, I believe I am still chilled from our walk to Berkeley Square. Aren’t you, MacLaren?” Apsley made a show of rubbing his hands before an invisible fire in the cold hearth as if to warm them. “I agree with you wholeheartedly, Miss Royle. Tea would be just the thing to warm our bodies. Thank you.”

There was a clatter of china in the passage, and Anne looked up just as Cherie, the silent maid-of-all-things, appeared in the parlor doorway with a tray filled with a steaming pot of tea, biscuits, linens, and dainty blue and white teacups.

MacTavish hobbled over to the tiny maid, took the tray from her, and began to lay the tea table for service.

Anne never ascertained how the wordless
maid always seemed to know the family’s desires or wants before the wish was spoken, but somehow she did. This seemingly preternatural ability to anticipate, coupled with her silent, gentle manner, quickly had made her an essential member of the household staff.

Before quitting the room, Cherie stepped forward, luring Anne’s eye back to her. The maid directed her gaze to the cup separated from the others. Anne peered down and saw the teacup with a tiny crack sloping down from the lip. She would be sure to take that cup, and obscure from the earl’s notice her family’s need to economize whenever possible.

She nodded her thanks to Cherie, and then, as the eldest able member of the family present, Anne took on the role of Mother, and began to pour the tea. Her hand shook slightly, sending the teacup rattling on its dish when it came time for her to serve the Earl of MacLaren.

He reached out as if to take the dish of tea from her, but instead guided her hand and the jiggling teacup to the tray. When she set it down, she raised her eyes to his.

“Honestly, Miss Anne, there is only one thing I require of you,” he said softly, the talk of his
father having drained the fight from his limbs and vinegar from his lips. “Grant me just a few minutes of privacy, if you please, so that we may discuss, as you have requested, the terms of our betrothal. I do not wish for you to be vexed any longer.”

“Oh. Right, then.” Anne nodded in assent, and after excusing herself from the gathering, led the earl down the dark passageway to the library.

The library door was already open and the flicker of candles softly illuminated the book-filled cases lining the walls. A newly lit coal fire burned in the grate, urging a tiny smile to Anne’s lips. Cherie had been here, likely even before tending to the tea.

“Miss Anne,” the earl began, the precise moment she opened her mouth to offer him a chair. “Let me begin by asking that you avoid spending any time alone with my mother.”

“Your mother? I do not understand.”

“We cannot allow her to learn your true reason for entering my bedchamber. Though I had my differences with my father, I wish to preserve her loving image of her husband. Hearing of his political ploys would destroy her memory of him.” Laird raised his hand to stop the string
of questions he obviously anticipated from her. “I vow, it will not be an easy to task to evade Lady MacLaren’s company. She is already very curious about you, and is quite formidable. She will wish to know you much better and most assuredly will take it upon herself to teach and guide you in the most effective ways to establish a place for yourself within society.”

Anne gestured to a chair near the hearth, but he paid her hospitality no heed. His eyebrows were drawn close, and he began to nervously pace the length of the Turkey carpet, giving her yet another glimpse of broad shoulders.

Lud, what did he need to admit that had him so agitated? Anne warily eased into a companion chair and sent her gaze trailing after him.

Well, now. His tailor was clearly quite good, she decided, for his coat was perfectly fitted to hug his muscular form. As were his breeches. Splendidly done. Why, she could not tell if the definition in his thigh muscles was truly just that, or a clever trick courtesy of his tailor. Of course, he had been blessed with a fair form. No question about that. Still, well done. Well done, indeed.

“Miss Anne?”

She looked up. Lord MacLaren had stopped pacing and was just standing there, looking at her.

“Yes, my lord?”

“Is there something amiss?” He glanced down and checked the fastening of the buttons at the fall of his breeches.

“Why no, my lord.” Anne redirected her gaze to her hands for a moment, hoping, rather ridiculously she supposed, that perhaps he didn’t notice her…er…appreciation of his tailor’s skill.

When she looked up at him again, she saw that his dark eyebrows were cinched, as if they were determined to meet at the bridge of his nose.

Criminy.
Anne shrugged. “You have seen through me, I was lost in my own fretful thoughts. I do beg your pardon, Lord MacLaren.”

“Laird
, please.” The earl exhaled. “When my father died, we were estranged. Every time I hear ‘Lord MacLaren,’ I feel it as surely as a slap to my cheek. So please, at least when we are alone…
Laird
.”

Laird. Strong. A leader. Rugged.

Oh, the name fit him as perfectly as his clothing. Defined him so well. But, la, she felt almost
wicked using his Christian name. Unless…its use was a trade.

She looked up at him through her lashes, feeling oddly coquettish. “Perhaps, if you call me Anne. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” But then a crooked grin curved his lips. “Though, after you hear the terms of betrothal, I shall not blame you too much if you call me any number of more colorful names.”

Anne shuddered inwardly, reminding herself that he was a rake—and rakes could never be trusted. “My lord—”

“No, lass,” he said in a most affected brogue. “Weave a wee bit more Scots into your pronunciation.
Laird,
not lord.” He waved at her as if he wished her to stand, or something. “You try it now. Go on.
My Laird
…”

Heat flooded Anne’s face. She swallowed deeply and forced herself to ignore his rakish game and continue with what she had planned to say. “
Laird
, I do not possess a flair for the stage. I loathe attention. It frightens me. And what you ask of me…well, I am not sure I can carry it off.”

“And yet you have already charmed your audience.” He strode back across the library and
came down on his knee before her. “
Anne
.”

Good heavens
. A wild jolt streamed through her limbs. He was not going to truly ask for her hand in marriage, was he? All to avoid disgracing his mother?

No, this was too much. Her legs twitched, and Anne twisted in the chair, thinking she might slip past him.

He saw her intent too quickly and slapped a hand to each of chair’s arms, effectively preventing any escape.

“Why the ruse?” she whimpered. “I understand your desire to protect your mother from the embarrassment of our sham of an engagement—”

He was shaking his head, and for some reason, Anne found herself focusing on the cleft in his chin.

“I do wish to protect her,” he was saying. “She has endured enough. But I ask you to pose as my betrothed
for me
. No one else.”

In the haloed golden candlelight of the library, dust motes rode the air like fireflies in the night.

Even Anne’s eyes sparkled like a gilt frame rounding a looking glass, reflecting only the
darkness of his coat. Her chest rose and fell, and it required all of Laird’s presence of mind to hold only her gaze, and not her person.

He thought just a moment ago, when he caught the armrests of the chair, that his sudden closeness disturbed her. Now he was not so convinced, for the rosy flush in her cheeks just now urged him to reexamine his hasty conclusion.

“What do you mean,
for you
?” Her voice was thin and breathy, and he felt his gaze dipping to her mouth.

Then the irony of the moment struck him coldly.

Here he was, desiring nothing beyond pressing his lips to this beautiful, utterly fascinating paradox of a woman…when he was about to beseech her to help him win the hand of another woman.

Abruptly Laird pushed back from the chair, rocked onto his heels, and came to his feet. He stepped toward the mantel, feeling unable, at that moment, to face her.

He knew she only agreed to remain betrothed until the end of the season because he was forcing her. It was not the gentlemanly thing to do. He’d sworn that he would change, become a bet
ter man, and he had over the past year, more or less. This evening, definitely less.

He’d seized the opportunity the moment he spied the Old Rakes in his garden in shackles. Like Lotharian, he was a consummate gambler, and knew that on occasion it was worth the risk of three spades of rank to open the queen of hearts to play.

Laird drew a breath deep into his lungs and willed himself to turn and meet her gaze as he spoke. “Anne, the Laird Allan who left London more than a year ago was exactly as you heard: a cad, a blackguard, and a Lothario of the worst sort. He cared nothing for the women whose hearts, and sometimes reputations, he had shattered. He had been shallow, had thought only of himself and his own pleasure. He’d enjoyed gaming, wicked games of the mind, but most of all, he’d reveled in humiliating his father, the censorious Earl of MacLaren, before his peers.”

Anne tilted her head and seemed to study him for some seconds before speaking. “I do not understand. You said you knew how important his standing in the House of Lords was to him. Why would you seek to humiliate him?”

“Yes, I knew. I think I mentioned, too, that we
were estranged.” Laird coughed a short laugh to break the emotional wedge that had risen in his throat. “As a lad, I never managed to meet the lofty expectations he had placed on his heir. He told me so, again and again. By time I was at Oxford, I had given up. I no longer tried to earn his praise and respect. In fact, I did the opposite. I did my damnedest to excel at exactly what repulsed him most. I drank and gambled heavily. I even wooed the wives of his peers, all to humiliate him. And, fancy that, I did very well.”

“I’m confused why you are confiding in me about this.” Anne came to her feet and implored him, “Please, just tell me what you expect of me.”

“I am getting to that.” Christ, he wished she would stop looking at him like that, all innocence and delicacy, when he knew, from her willingness to slip into his own bedchamber to steal from him, that she was not nearly as guileless as she pretended. “My ill reputation was well deserved. I freely admit that fact.”

She sighed at what she clearly perceived as another delay to his revelation of terms. “Hardly a secret, Laird. All of London knows as much.”

“Exactly. After a time, my antics no longer
seemed to irritate my father. And truth to tell, his approval, or rather lack of it, no longer seemed to matter to me. I was a man, no longer a boy needing a pat on the head. So I vowed to put my wicked ways behind me. To marry, and to live the rest of my days as a good and respectable man—like my brother, Graham.”

Bloody hell
. This was too damned hard. Laird looked around the room. “Any brandy about?”

Anne crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “You do not need a libation. You need to finish confessing whatever it is that you must, and then tell me what is required of me!”

Laird exhaled. “Getting there.”

“But not quickly enough.
Please
.”

She was right about his need for confession. Laird needed to tell someone all this. He just didn’t know why, after all these years of walling it up inside him, he needed
Anne
to be his confessor.

“But as you said, Anne, my black reputation was well known by every proper lady of Quality. But then, when in St. Albans, I met a widow, Constance, Lady Henceforth.”

“And you offered for her, and she accepted, but cried off…when somehow she learned of
your past.” Anne’s eyes brightened, and she took a step toward him. “Am I correct?”