Page 44 of The Last Debutante
At first, Daria had not trusted her. But then she’d been among the first to fall under her spell. She would never forget how earnestly and sincerely Lady Eberlin had befriended her.
Daria glanced across the table at Aileen, wondering if she could find the fortitude or the patience to do the same. But Aileen was making every effort to avoid Daria’s gaze. If she studied the pattern on the china any more closely, she would see nothing but tiny royal-blue flowers for days to come.
Daria looked hopefully at Robbie Campbell, who happened to catch her eye, and before he could look away she said, “Dundavie is a very interesting place, is it not? Have you always lived here, Mr. Campbell?”
Robbie Campbell looked confused and glanced uncertainly at the laird. “Aye,” he said. “Where else would I live?”
Where else indeed. Still, Daria forced a smile and turned it on the most recalcitrant Campbell of them all. “I admire your brooch, Mrs. Campbell,” she said. “It’s quite pretty.”
Aileen’s fingers went instantly to the brooch at her throat.
“It’s a bird of some sort, is it not?”
“A swan,” Aileen said. “One of our clan symbols.”
“Oh? What does it stand for?”
Aileen frowned. “It means glory, Miss Babcock. The glory of the Campbell name, aye?”
“What a lovely sentiment,” Daria said cheerfully. “Did Mr. Campbell give it to you?”
Aileen frowned again. “And which Mr. Campbell would that be?”
Which one! The most obvious one, that was who!
“Just say the name, lass,” Uncle Hamish said, very lucid all of a sudden. “Too many Campbells underfoot to be proper about address, I say. Unless, of course, you mean Keith. Wouldn’t do at all to call the laird byhisgiven name.”
“Jamie,Uncle,” Robbie muttered.
He might have a point, but Daria was not going to let that stand in the way of protocol. “Thank you, but I haven’t the right to be so familiar with anyone here,” she said, and smiled sweetly.
The laird arched a brow. “No one? But you have seen me at my worst, Miss Babcock.”
Warmth sluiced deeply through Daria at the memory of his naked body in Mamie’s cottage. “Then you must call me Daria. It seems only fair.”
She heard the sound of Geordie’s chalk on slate. He handed it across Daria to Jamie so that she could clearly see the chicken scratches he used to communicate.Donna dress her atol.
“I think you mean address,” the laird said, waving the slate away.
Daria was sympathetic to Geordie’s rage—she would be just as angry if someone had used Mamie as they accused Mamie of using Hamish Campbell—but Daria had endured Geordie’s wrath for several days now in the form of hard looks and some rather pointed comments to her and about her, the deciphering of which sorely tried her patience.
Geordie wrote something else and showed it to Robbie, who laughed roundly, and finally, Daria lost her composure. “Look here, Mr. Campbell, I have tried to explain myself, but you seem determined not to listen! Or perhaps you did—but it is notmyfault I can’t read your atrocious spelling.”
Jamie laughed.
Geordie’s face darkened and he jotted,No me fal you her.
“There, you see? It would take a scholarweeksto decipher that. I am teaching Peter to communicate. Why not you? Yet when I suggested that I might teach you, one would think I had suggested putting you on the rack, so great was your objection.” She glared at him. “It is not your doing that I am here, you are quite right about that. But you may as well get used to it. Bethia says I won’t leave, and she claims to have the second sight.”
Aileen gasped; Robbie looked at her in shock.
Daria looked around warily. “Why are you all looking at me in that manner? You can’t trulybelieveher? It all seems rather convenient to me, the second sight. I only meant to make a point to the most intractable among you”—she glared at Geordie again—“not startle you. I hoped you would laugh.”
The laird chuckled a little, but Daria had the distinct impression that he was not laughing at Bethia’s second sight, but at her.
“Bethia has a gift,” Aileen said gravely.
“Now see here,” Daria said, bracing her hands on the table. “I have freely admitted that it would appear my grandmother and Mr. Hamish Campbell had a misunderstanding of some sort, and I am as eager as you to rectify it.” She paused, glancing at the laird. “Not so eager, mind you, that I would have resorted to kidnapping, but enough to do my utmost to see that reparations are made.Noneof us should fear that this arrangement,” she said, gesturing between them all, “is in any way permanent.”
