Page 20 of The Scottish Duke
Louise bit back her impatience with some difficulty, managing to answer in a reasonably calm manner.
“Alex is a grown man, Mary. I do not dictate his movements.”
“Someone should, if he’s going to take such chances. Do you know how many carriage accidents happen in this kind of weather?”
If she didn’t stop the younger woman, she was certain to be lectured with facts, figures, and hideous details. Mary read the newspapers and broadsheets from first page to last and accumulated data about horrors the way other women collected gloves, fans, or love letters. Unfortunately, she also had a good memory, which Louise fervently wished were put to better use.
Mary was Alex’s sister-in-law. The woman had been at Blackhall for five years, ever since Ruth married Alex. As daughters of an impecunious earl, they’d lived in the family home for which Mary claimed a particularly dramatic attachment. Thornhill, however, was practically a ruin, with a destroyed tower and a roof like a sieve. Instead of spending a fortune repairing and restoring it, Alex had simply offered Mary a home here.
Louise had wished, on more than one occasion, that her son had spent the money on the Taylor family home.
Mary had a habit of bursting into her apartments with little provocation in order to make breathless announcements of minor events. Yesterday it was that the majordomo and Mrs.McDermott were at odds about the silver polish. The day before that it had been that Alex hadn’t appeared at breakfast and was he wasting away?
In addition to intruding on her privacy, the young woman sought her out everywhere, such as now in the family parlor. Blackhall possessed seventy-two rooms, and there were only a few places in the castle where she could escape from Mary.
Louise disliked traveling, but when the weather was better she was going to Edinburgh to hide in their home there. She would give out that she was going to Paris or staying with friends, anything but have Mary follow her. Not that she would as long as Alex was in residence at Blackhall.
“When is he going to return?” Mary asked.
“I don’t know. When he does, I imagine.”
“How many days, Louise?”
She really disliked being talked to in such a fashion, but for the sake of accord, she merely turned and went back to the potpourri.
“I don’t know, Mary.”
The woman had not endeared herself to Louise from the moment she’d met her. In that first encounter, Mary had made it known that she knew Louise’s antecedents and, in her opinion, they failed to pass approval. Louise’s grandfather was an earl, the same rank as Mary’s father. Therefore, in Mary’s mind, she was a more noble member of the nobility.
In that first meeting it had been evident that Mary was one of those people who had an opinion on everything and wished to share it with the world. Unfortunately, she never changed her opinion. Incidentals like new facts or information never altered what she believed about anything.
“He didn’t tell me he was leaving.”
“Do you require that he does so?” Louise asked, as pleasantly as she was able.
She occasionally wanted to put her hands on Mary’s shoulders, look deep into her eyes, and tell the young woman that she had failed to grasp the reality of her situation. She was here because of Alex’s generosity. She was not truly family. She had no right to question everything that went on at Blackhall. Or to comment endlessly about it. Unfortunately, giving Mary a stern talking to wouldn’t change anything, least of all Mary’s behavior.
Glancing over her shoulder at the other woman, she said, “You do realize that he has no obligation to report his comings and goings to you.”
“Of course I do,” Mary said, her cheeks deepening in color. “But he asks for my opinion on certain matters and I share my thoughts with him.”
Unfortunately, Mary shared her thoughts with everyone. As to asking her opinion, Alex was a man of great tact when he wanted to be. She didn’t doubt that her son had asked Mary’s advice on something in order to be kind.
Being pleasant to people was more important than lineage, bloodline, or even a title. That knowledge had come to her from her grandfather, the earl, as well as her husband, the eighth Duke of Kinross, a man beloved for his kindness, not the fact that he was a duke.
How nice it would be if Mary could learn that lesson.
Louise hadn’t found many people at Blackhall who liked the young woman, with the exception of her personal maid, Barbara, a woman who was known to carry tales, and the stable master, who praised Mary’s seat.
Being a good horsewoman did not equate to possessing a good character, but Louise had never made that comment to Mary.
She wished Mary would take herself off to the stables now and spend some time with the new chestnut mare Alex had given her. She didn’t begrudge her son one cent spent on his sister-in-law. She knew exactly why he did so, the same reason she would have gladly given Mary anything in order to be spared her presence. The more one kept Mary entertained, the happier everyone was.
More than once, she’d suggested that Mary travel to Inverness, there to be put under the tutelage of Louise’s cousin, who had some reputation of guiding a young woman onto the matrimonial mart. Mary had countered that she was the daughter of an earl. Such a rank should be rewarded with an appropriate union. She wasn’t, therefore, interested in marrying just anyone.
Louise wanted to tell the poor girl that she had as much chance of marrying a catch as a toad did of changing into a butterfly. She didn’t, of course. Just because Mary was rude didn’t mean she had to be.
Although Ruth had been an undisputed beauty, her younger sister hadn’t the same appearance. Their hair was the same color, but Ruth’s blond color had glorious gold and reddish highlights, while Mary’s was rather dull. Ruth’s nose had been aquiline and nearly perfect; Mary’s had a hump on it and her nostrils were, regrettably, overlarge. Ruth’s mouth had been generous but perfectly proportioned. Mary’s, on the other hand, seemed abnormally large for her face and was made even more so by the fact that she never seemed to stop talking. Ruth’s face had been a perfect oval. Mary preferred to pull her hair back into a bun, which only accentuated her wide, high forehead and pointed chin. But for the exact shade of blue eyes, one would be hard pressed to think the two women related at all.
