Page 33 of A Dash of Scot
Sir George sputtered, hands pressed to the arms of his chair, knuckles going white. What exactly had she told her father? For Dougal was certain she’d told him a tall tale.
Dougal remembered that night, though not very well. The rounds and rounds of ale. The drams and drams of whisky. How his friends, including Colonel Austen, had hoisted them on their shoulders. How Lucia wasn’t supposed to be out. How she and several of her friends had somehow managed it, meeting up with the lot of them at someone’s house. A friend he couldn’t even remember now. The scandal that should have gone in the paper but didn’t because they’d all kept quiet about it.
“Is it not your birthday in a fortnight?” Lucia asked shyly. “I’ve never forgotten.”
Dougal felt as though he’d slipped into a nightmare that he couldn’t get out of. This was ridiculous. He wanted to shout, “If ye’d not forgotten, then where have ye been? What is going on right now that has made ye come back?”
“I do believe there’s been a misunderstanding.” Dougal was quite proud of the way he kept his tone even.
Did Lucia believe him such a gentleman that he wouldn’t rat her out for her debauchery?
“I don’t believe there’s been anything of the sort,” Sir George said, and Dougal felt bad for the man being so thoroughly duped by his daughter.
The right thing to do would be for Lucia to tell her father. Which did not appear to be something she was interested in doing.
Dougal looked at her pointedly, encouraging without words for her to come clean. But the stubborn chit raised her chin and gave him a look that he’d seen a hundred times on Mary’s face. She was digging in her heels, and she was going to make him pay if he so much as tried to change her plans.
Fabulous, he thought with all the sarcasm he imagined Poppy would say.
“You had an agreement to wed on your twenty-ninth birthday,” Sir George continued as if Dougal had agreed. “Now, given it is in a fortnight, I’m not certain that we’ll be able to make that date, but we can get close if we begin planning now and announce the banns.”
Lucia nodded and glanced at her father with a treacle-sweet smile, then back to Dougal, her expression cooling. “Your sister has very kindly offered to help. And I’m so glad she contacted me when she did to let me know you were finally ready for me to come back to London and begin a life with you. I do hope you’ve enjoyed these past years and the special gift of time I gave you.”
Dougal almost spit out his tea, but rather than the tea spewing from his mouth, he sucked it back in, choking on the leafy water. He started to cough, hoping that maybe the tea would take him out now. Dying seemed preferential to whatever this madness was.
Neither of his guests offered assistance. Lucia looked put out that he would cough over what she’d said, and her father looked at Dougal as though he were a toddler throwing a tantrum. The both of them were horrid people, he decided. Absolutely horrid.
Horrible people often made friends with one another, which explained Lucia and Mary’s connection.
Of course, his sister was behind this. And contrary to what Lucia had said, Mary had never done anything kind a day in her life. But that also answered a burning question he’d had for days: who had orchestrated all of this? Lucia, though clever and devious as she’d proven, still didn’t strike Dougal as a mastermind.
Mary, on the other hand, was a schemer to a fault and constantly looking for ways to ruin his and everyone else’s lives. He wouldn’t doubt that she’d kept a note in her diary to send Lucia a reminder of their promise and ticked off the days over the last ten years until she could make that happen. But perhaps his obvious interest in Poppy Featherstone had been the straw that broke the camel’s back. For whatever reason, Mary could not abide the two of them being happy together.
“Are you an honorable man, Lord Reay?” Sir George asked, his yellowing teeth showing in what might pass for a smile if he were a monster hiding under the bed.
Dougal gritted his teeth. “Of course, I am.” For the man to suggest otherwise was a great insult, and in his own home no less.
“Then I do not think we have anything else to discuss other than the marriage settlements. I’ve taken the liberty of having my solicitor draw up an appropriate contract, sir.” He reached into his coat, pulling out a thick packet of papers.
Dougal cleared his throat, grateful for a wee reprieve as he tried to buy a few minutes to think about this. He would certainly not sign the stack Sir George held, and he also couldn’t agree to look it over. He wouldn’t go to his desk, pull out paper and take notes on terms to send to his solicitor. That would only give credence to this insane situation. When a man and woman married, they should both want it. And it wasn’t as if he’d gotten Lucia with child and was honor-bound to marry her. Hell, he hadn’t even kissed her. Though he’d watched her kiss plenty of the other lads that night.
If every man who declared his love for a woman while in a drunken haze was then reduced to marrying her, the world would be a very wedded place. And to be fair, he’d only once told Lucia he loved her.
He glanced down at her midsection now, wondering if she’d gotten into a bad way with someone abroad. If the result of that union had forced her to seek him out, Mary’s letter had come to her at a most fortuitous time. Was she trying to pawn a bastard off on him?
Lucia glared at him when he met her gaze, but nothing in her angry expression gave away the truth. He’d only be able to find that out when she started to round and then only for certain when she gave birth. And he’d have to stay away from her, never lay with her, just as proof. But by then, they’d already be wed, this farce complete, and nothing he could do about it.
There was always an annulment. But what was the use of even putting himself into a situation like that? It would be stupid.
Time for him to put an end to his meeting.
“I dinna discuss anything without my solicitor, nor do I look over terms without him,” Dougal said. “And he is currently out of town. I will send him a note to be in touch with me upon his return, and then we will contact ye in regard to this matter.”
Lucia scowled at his terminology, but Dougal didn’t want to put voice to anything close to betrothal that could be construed as consent to the agreement.
Besides, Mr. Cole, his solicitor, was not out of town. Dougal would be certain to have a meeting with him as soon as he could get these two out of his hair.
“I do hope you understand the seriousness of this situation,” Sir George said, speaking to Dougal as if he were a child in need of education.
