The Scot Corsair Page 2

  With one smooth move, Sir Duncan slid off the bed and retrieved his hat.

  "How dare you come into my room without knocking first!" Elspeth cried. Anger was all she could find. She was shaking, refusing to think, refusing to comprehend the consequences of this discovery.

  "I did knock, my lady. You didnae reply."

  Sir Duncan was picking his coat off the floor.

  "I will bid you good night, your ladyship."

  He bowed, and by walking boldly towards the door, obliged the frozen-faced Mrs Leslie to stand aside to let him pass.

  Elspeth was left crouching alone on the bed, clutching her skirts uselessly to her ankles, staring in terror into the housekeeper's remorseless, implacable eyes.

  Chapter Two

  "What am I supposed to do with you? In the name of all that is holy, Elspeth, how can I make you understand your responsibilities?"

  James was very nearly an old man, Elspeth thought suddenly, as she noticed the top of his head glinting in the weak afternoon sunlight coming through the long windows in his study. There was a full, pink, shiny strip of scalp visible, with only greying curls of dark hair on either side. He had let them grow too long, over his collar, as if to compensate. No doubt he mourned the passing of the fashion for gentlemen's wigs.

  She was back, to her extreme disgust, at Dunwoodie House. The old witch must have sent some kind of express to her brother in Aberdeen-shire, for within two days a carriage-and-four had arrived in Charlotte Square with Mr Spiers—her father's steward—himself in attendance to escort her home. Whether anyone had communicated with her sister, still off playing nurse in Fife, she knew not. She found her trunk had already been packed, and within half an hour of the carriage arriving she had been whisked away from the life and lights of Edinburgh along the dark, rainy east coast road north.

  She affected not to be in awe of her eldest brother, the Earl of Atholl, but she was trembling when she was presented to him in his large, library-like study. He had asked to see her as soon as was decently possible after her arrival, and she barely had time to wash and change her gown before she found herself standing on the fine Indian carpet before his handsome mahogany desk.

  He used the desk rather like a shield, retreating behind it when he wanted to maintain a distance and pacing around in front of it when he was trying to be direct, or merely agitated. He was pacing now, his hands folded behind his rather old-fashioned velvet frockcoat, darting quick painful glances at her. It was as if he could not bear to look fully at her.

  "Mrs Leslie must have misunderstood what she saw, sir," she tried, in a voice that came out rather lower and shakier than she had intended.

  "Excuse me?" He shook something that was in his fist. Elspeth supposed it to be the harridan's letter. "Mrs Leslie is an intelligent woman, sister. I do not think what she says she saw could possibly be misunderstood."

  "What does she say she saw?"

  She had the satisfaction of seeing him go purple in the face. "I will not—this is not a conversation fit to have—the indelicacy—and you know very well. And yet God help me, you have no proper womanly delicacy at all. My own little sister!" He put his fist to his forehead.

  In fact, he seemed close to tears.

  Elspeth felt a prickle of shame, and dismay. She looked down.

  "Sir Duncan Buccleuch," he continued in a rasp. "The lowest of the low. Notorious rake, one of Viscount Daventry's set. How could you even be in company with such a man? After what happened in London—"

  "That too was misrepresented!" she cried, with a return of boldness.

  "I am not going to discuss that again," he said, wearily. "Just tell me, Elspeth—why? What cannot you behave decently—normally? Were you not taught good principles? Miss Gowrie was governess to you and Henrietta both, and your sister is as truly good and honest a young woman as there ever was."

  Perhaps Henrietta had always been too plain to have faced temptation to be otherwise, Elspeth thought sullenly. She said nothing. She had faced a similar barrage of agonised questioning and hand-wringing after the incident, and she had learned then that she had no real response. She did not know the answer herself.

  "Some brothers would have you thrashed for less," he continued, still pacing. "Is that what you need, Elspeth? But what good would it do now? Perhaps I should have taken the rod to you myself after what happened before, but it is too late." He shook his head.

  Elspeth took this threat no more seriously than she had when he had made it at the time. She knew very well that her brother would never lift a finger to chastise her, nor allow anyone else to undertake the task. In their family, the girls had always been spared the rod.

  "I have kept knowledge of your latest transgression from my father. He is not well enough to have such grief heaped upon him. I do not even propose to tell Henrietta, I will write to her to say that your removal from Charlotte Square was at your own request. That you wished to be at home, to spend time with our father in his final days."

  "She will not believe that!"

  "How sad that she should likely not, sister. Nevertheless, it is imperative that knowledge of your vicious tendencies and particular offences is kept within as tight a circle as possible. I cannot have your character known. Good God! If Buccleuch should boast of his conquest—"

  "He didn't conquer me," Elspeth muttered.

  James stopped dead in his pacing, and for the first time glared straight at her. His voice rose half an octave. "This is not an occasion for pleasantries, sister! Nothing about this is amusing! You may have ruined—but no, it cannot be so, it must not."

  "Ruined what?" For the first time, it began to dawn on Elspeth that her brother's agitation was considerably greater than it had been two years ago after the incident. She had imagined he was angrier with her because she had compounded the offence, but there was something else simmering behind his flushed face and pale-rimmed, staring eyes.

  More pacing succeeded, while Elspeth watched and waited. He seemed to be working up to something. Eventually, he said in a more measured tone, "This is something you are not to discuss with anyone. Do you understand?"

  "Since I am to be seeing nobody, sir, I don't know whom I would find to discuss it with." She didn't know why she had to speak so tartly. Perhaps it would be more politic to be polite and appeasing, but the sharp words always seemed to tumble from her unbidden.

  James, however, seemed too preoccupied to notice her impertinence. In a solemn voice he said, "Last week, I made an offer of marriage to Lady Arabella Grenfell, and—conditional of course upon her father the Duke's approbation—she accepted me."

  "Lady Arabella Grenfell?"

  James at least had the good grace to look embarrassed. He rubbed his hands together nervously, glanced anywhere but at her, and turned yet a deeper shade of puce.

  Elspeth was genuinely flummoxed. If she had not known it to be dangerously inappropriate, she would have laughed out loud. Lady Arabella Grenfell was nineteen, perhaps twenty years of age, and had been the reigning queen of the ton since her presentation at Court two years ago. Elspeth knew her pretty well in a superficial way, as they had been presented in the same season, and she had therefore attended many of the same balls and soirees until the incident had prematurely ended her London career.

  Lady Arabella was the only child of the Duke of Westmorland, reputed to be the wealthiest nobleman in England not directly connected to the Royal family. But she was not merely sole heiress to a great fortune; the Duchy of Westmorland was one of the rare peerages inheritable through the female line. The Duke was elderly and infirm, Lady Arabella's mother was past the age at which the sudden appearance of a son was at all likely, but otherwise known to be in robust health. There was very little doubt that Lady Arabella would one day, and in all probability soon, be Duchess of Westmorland in her own right. Which meant, of course, that her offspring would inherit the title in due course.

  This peculiar combination of circumstances made Lady Arabella the most eligibl
e, the most fabulously desirable prospect in the land, falling little short of a princess in her allure. Given these advantages, it would only have been justice had she been plain and dull. But instead, she was undeniably beautiful, with an elegant, fair, delicate loveliness that befitted her station; and while her wealth had of course purchased a full range of accomplishments, she was also said to be clever. She was certainly said to have read a lot of books.

  Elspeth had not known her well enough to hate her, but all of a sudden she hated her now.

  And James... James had made a foolish love-match at the age of twenty-four, to a girl who was no more than the daughter of a country gentleman, and who brought with her a very modest fortune. It had been at the time a great scandal within the family, apparently, though as Elspeth had been all of one year old, she had known nothing about it. She remembered Mary only as a very dignified, very suitable Countess and future Marchioness, and indeed a very kind older sister. Her death, three years ago, had caused Elspeth great sorrow, the more so as it had seemed to compound the greatest sorrow of her life.

  But Elspeth's grief for her sister-in-law had been nothing compared to James's, for he had remained devoted to her through sixteen years of marriage. There had been no children, no consolation for the widowed husband and of course, no vitally necessary heir.

  Elspeth was not surprised that James should look to marry again, to supply that deficiency if nothing else. She was very much surprised, however, at his choice; both that he should dare to aspire so high, and that she should have accepted him.

  "Lady Arabella Grenfell," he repeated, testily. "Now, as you are I hope aware, her father would not allow her to connect herself with a family where there was the least hint of scandal, or impropriety. I fear we are already on dangerous ground with John, and his—unfortunate associates, and of course Robert..."

  John was another of Elspeth's older brothers, one of twins. Identical twins, indeed, and yet there could not have been a greater contrast between these two halves of the same person. Gordon was in Parliament, representing the seat that was in the Dunwoodie family's gift, and looked set to become one of the younger Ministers of State. John fancied himself a poet, had followed no profession otherwise, and had disappeared to Italy with a set of fellow Romantics to live no-one knew how.

  At least John, if he was living disreputably, was doing so on a distant foreign shore and was not really inconveniencing the family. Robert was a far graver concern, for Robert was at present the heir presumptive.

  The eldest child of the Marquess's second son, Charles, Robert was Elspeth's nephew, though he was four years her senior. At age twenty, he had been sent down from Oxford for fighting a duel and wounding his opponent. Since then, he had proven himself an increasingly dissolute wastrel; drinking, gambling and even a threatened breach of promise action by an actress on the London stage. At twenty-four he had already cost the family dearly in monetary terms, but he threatened to cost them far more in reputation in the future. It was becoming very obvious that if he carried on his present course, a worse disaster could not befall the Marquisate of Crieff than for Robert to succeed to the title.

  Only James's remarriage to a lady likely to bear him a son could avert this catastrophe, and Elspeth admitted that it was a matter of importance. But Lady Arabella Grenfell? Why was he making things so difficult for himself? And what was she about, accepting him? He was more than twice her age, and he was bald. And he had never been handsome in the first place, and he was hardly a sparkling wit.

  "Has she really accepted you?" Elspeth blurted out, before she could reign in her incredulity.

  "Why should she not?" he demanded. "I would have thought that the title of Marchioness of Crieff is as ancient and honourable a one as any in our two kingdoms, fit enough to offer even to a lady of her exalted rank, and—personal attractions." He stumbled on the words.

  Elspeth gaped. No doubt her brother had no objections to Lady Arabella's wealth and consequence, nor the prospect of his firstborn being in time Duke of Westmorland as well as Marquess of Crieff, but she saw all of a sudden that these were not the reasons he wanted to marry her. The poor dolt was in love.

  This was worse and worse. The fear of disappointed ambition was one thing, but thwarted love was quite another. She began to be afraid.

  "I'm very happy for you, sir," she said meekly. "Lady Arabella is a delightful girl, I look forward to welcoming her as a sister."

  "Yes, well. That is as may be. The fact is, Elspeth, there will be no match at all if it becomes known that my youngest sister is—is lost to all decency. His Grace would not allow his daughter to marry into a family where she would be sister to such a woman. You do realise that at this moment, your reputation and my happiness is entirely in the power of Mrs Leslie and Sir Duncan Buccleuch?"

  "I did not do so very much that was wrong—"

  "You were discovered unclothed with Buccleuch in your bed, sister!" he cried. "Why? How?" He broke off in despair, and rubbed his face with his hands. "The Duke is at present in Bath, taking the waters for his gout. It will be some weeks before I can meet with him to apply for his daughter's hand. Until then, very properly, Lady Arabella has made her acceptance conditional only. So much could go wrong before then."

  "Do not worry, sir," said Elspeth. "Until you can obtain the Duke's consent, I will remain here at Dunwoodie, being very good, and very quiet. I cannot possibly cause mischief here." And she meant it. She had no desire to blight the prospects of her brother, if Lady Arabella really was the chosen of his heart.

  He gave her a long look. "Oh, you will do more than that." With a sudden decisive motion, he yanked open the drawer behind his desk and pulled out a sheaf of papers with such haste that two or three of them fell to the floor. He shook those that remained in his hand in her directions. "This is a correspondence I have been undertaking—since not long after—I obliged you to leave London following your first—indiscretion. I thank God for my foresight now, and that events have fallen into my hands at such a crucial time."

  "A correspondence with whom, sir?" She could see that most of the papers were letters, and she was sure that the frank upon the envelopes was a foreign one.

  "With Mr Isaac Crowther, a gentleman who owns one of the largest sugar plantations in the West Indies. He is a connection of my poor Mary's family, his father was the younger son of a cousin of hers... Well, his family is of no matter, except that it is a respectable one, and that Mr Crowther's father, though practically penniless himself, went out to the West Indies as a young man and made a very considerable fortune there. His fortune and estates are now in the hands of his son, who was born in Barbados and has never left there, and has therefore never had the opportunity to find a wife. He wishes to marry, as is very natural, and—"

  "No!" Elspeth screamed in utter horror. Her suspicions had been mounting as James had stammered belligerently through this family history, his gaze deliberately averted from her.

  "Mr Crowther, and I have the very letter here, you may see it presently—Mr Crowther wishes to offer his hand in marriage to Lady Elspeth Dunwoodie—er, to you. Sister. It is addressed, as is proper, to my father, and I answered on his behalf, giving his consent."

  "His consent? What about my consent?"

  "This was two months ago, and by great good luck his reply arrived only a week ago, confirming the arrangement. A packet leaves for Barbados from Southampton at the end of the month, Charles had made arrangements for a Captain Melville, who is a good friend of his, to take you from Aberdeen to Southampton in his own ship, in good time."

  "But—James—I do not want to go to the West Indies. I do not want to marry a Mr Crowther or a Mr anyone!"

  "Elspeth—let me be very clear—you have absolutely no alternative. The entire future of the family depends upon my remarriage, depends upon my producing an heir who is not Robert. And at this moment in time that depends on you being safely and respectably married, and a very long way from here."

  "What about
me?"

  "This is in your own interests as well. You are well on the way to being ruined, Elspeth. Henrietta ceases her vigilance for a single night, and you are found in bed—in bed—with a notorious rake. You are very fortunate that you have the opportunity to be respectably married before this could become known. I cannot take the risk of allowing you to run free any longer."

  "I'm sorry! I won't do it ever, ever again, I swear! Just please do not send me to the other side of the world and make me marry a man I have never met!"

  "I would have thought that since you seem so well disposed towards men, sister, the prospect would please you rather than otherwise."

  If this had been intended as a witticism, it came over as a heavy insult. Elspeth had dissolved into sobs which were part real distress and part calculation, as she hoped to soften her brother's heart. But she knew that the circumstances were too serious for sentimental yielding. His difficulties with regards to Lady Arabella were deadly serious.

  He started pacing again. "Mr Crowther is not, of course, a man of rank, not the match I would under ideal circumstances have considered suitable for a young lady of your station, but he is, as I have said, a distant cousin of my own dear Mary—from a respectable family in Ayrshire."

  "That is not what I care about!" she cried, although it was a lie. She hated the idea of being a mere Mrs someone; or rather, retaining the childish nomenclature of Lady Elspeth all her life, and never attaining a title of her own. Lady Elspeth Crowther!

  "He is not above thirty years of age, and as I have already told you, he is one of the wealthiest plantation owners in all of the West Indies. By all accounts you will have a handsome establishment there—"

  "Oh, do not send me away overseas! I shall die. I shall die of a tropical fever, brother, and then you will be sorry! I will marry, I will marry anyone you tell me to, only let it be someone in Scotland, or England—"