Page 28 of Sinful Scottish Laird
How was it that everyone in the Highlands knew of this woman’s predicament? Did they have nothing to occupy them but to guess at what she was about? “Perhaps,” he said with a shrug.
Murray chuckled. “It’s common knowledge, Arrandale. I myself have heard it from Ned Burns, just returned from London. The lady caused a right scandal, she did, when she upended her house and brought it here.”
Cailean shifted his gaze from Mr. Murray to Lady Chatwick again. “And what sort of man, do you suppose, would make a bargain that gives control of the purse to his wife?” he drawled.
“A desperate one, aye? Look around you,” he said. “Look at how they smile.”
Cailean’s gaze landed on Somerled across the room. His smile was simpering. He would feel like a fool when Lady Chatwick took her leave to wed a captain in the Royal Navy.
“Any man with a need for fortune might strike a bargain here tonight,” Mr. Murray said. “Mark me, the lady will no’ remain in Scotland for long. These young men, smitten as they are by her fine looks, will be tricked into a situation in which she has the upper hand. I’d no’ be happy with a wife who instructed me,” he muttered.
“I’d no’ be happy with a wife,” Cailean said, and the two men laughed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
INHINDSIGHT,ASmuch as Daisy hated to admit it, the meet-her-neighbors evening did not appear to be one of her better ideas.
She looked at the guests around her dining table. Mrs. Finella Murray and Miss Catriona Mackenzie had their heads together, talking in low voices, ignoring everyone else. Daisy had tried to engage them, had asked Mrs. Murray if she’d ever been to Auchenard before.
Mrs. Murray shook her head. “Only in passing.”
Daisy didn’t know what that meant, precisely—they were at the end of a road, and one could hardly pass by Auchenard without splintering a carriage wheel. But she’d said, “I hope now that we have refurbished it, our friends will come often.”
The two young women exchanged a look. “Well...in the winter, it’s right hard to reach Auchenard, aye?” Miss Mackenzie said.
“Is it?” Daisy smiled and absently looked down at the table, wishing someone else would join the conversation. No one was paying them any heed. When she turned back, the two women were whispering to each other. About her? No, no—they whispered about a man, surely. At that age, Daisy herself had been quite single-minded about men.
She wished Belinda was here, but her cousin had retreated as soon as she was able, citing a headache from the damp.
The men poured their own whisky now, having brushed aside the attentions of Rowley. Their plates, scraped clean, had been pushed away, so that Rowley and Mr. Green had to lean far over the guests to clear the table. Gone were the polite formalities her guests had shown upon arrival, and Daisy heard more than one belch. They were all of them laughing uproariously at one another, slipping in and out of their native tongue and English. Uncle Alfonso sat at the other end of the table, as far into his cups as some of the others, laughing louder than anyone else.
At least he was enjoying himself.
Arrandale didn’t seem to be enjoying the company at his end of the table. He sat stoically, his empty whisky tot pushed away, listening impassively to Irving MacDonald, who had commanded the floor with yet another tale of a shipwreck. To hear him tell it, it seemed as if ships were wrecked in droves near Skye.
Daisy had thought this would be a proper supper party like those she’d hosted in London. She should have known it would be impossible here. Now she wished they’d all go home.
She couldn’t suppress her second sigh, and she quickly straightened in her seat, hoping that none of her guests had noticed. Naturally one of them had, and that one arched a brow, as if silently chastising her. Daisy gave Arrandale a withering look.
“Beg your pardon, madam, but is there more of Arrandale’s fine French wine?” Mr. Murray asked jovially, and the others laughed roundly.
Arrandale?Did they think he’d brought the wine to this supper? “Of course,” Daisy said. “Allow me to bring it.”
With a look of horror on his face, Rowley rushed to her chair to stop her from rising.
“It’s quite all right,” she muttered to him. “I really need to take some air.”
He nodded. The poor man looked as if he could use some air, too. He pulled back her chair, and Daisy stood.
No one else stood. It surprised her, and she hesitated a moment, waiting for the gentlemen to rise, as they ought to have done in deference to her. As gentlemen across London did at the mere suggestion she might rise. Arrandale seemed amused by her look of astonishment. Her uncle didn’t notice her at all. Was there no one in the Highlands with a proper set of manners?
With a slight roll of her eyes, Daisy quit the dining room and moved down the hall toward the kitchen. As she neared the kitchen, she could hear the banging of pots and the slosh of water as Mrs. Green and her girl cleaned up. She stopped a few feet from the kitchen entrance at the door of the larder and took a candle from the sconce on the wall. She heard someone coming down the hall, and assumed at first it was Rowley, whose years of training would not allow his lady to fetch wine herself. But that was not the footfall of Rowley.
Daisy held the candle aloft and peered into the shadows. She couldn’t make anything out and lifted her candle higher. Then she sighed. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you, aye?” Arrandale said. “Your uncle had a wee bit of apoplexy for want of a cheroot. I promised I’d return with the tobacco with the speed of an angel, lest he perish before us.” He smiled.
Daisy must have had more wine than she realized, because she was thinking how his eyes seemed almost gray in the light of a single candle.
