Nicola Cornick - The Lady and the Laird

Fortunately for her, Lachlan was the most unobservant of men and was far too concerned with his own feelings to notice hers. “Of course I’m sure,” he said. “It’s a disaster, Lucy. I love Dulcibella. I was going to make her an offer myself. I just hadn’t got around to it, and now Methven has got in first.”

“Lord Brodrie probably wants more for his only child than a younger son,” Lucy said. She kept her gaze averted from Lachlan’s while she steadied herself, while she drew breath.

“But I’m the younger son of a duke!” Lachlan protested.

“And Lord Methven is a marquis,” Lucy said. “He is a better catch.” Her voice was quite steady now even if her pulse still tripped and her body felt heated and disturbed.

Robert Methven was getting married.

She felt light-headed and shocked, and she had no notion why. It was not as though she knew Lord Methven well. Shortly after the night eight years ago when they had met on the terrace at Forres, he had suffered a terrible rift with his family and had left Scotland. He had gone to Canada and was rumored to have made a fortune trading in timber. It had been shortly before Alice had died and Lucy had not paid much attention. She remembered very little from that time other than the smothering sense of grief and the empty ache of loss.

Then Robert Methven’s grandfather had died and he had inherited the title and returned to Scotland. Lucy had seen him a few times recently at the winter assemblies in Edinburgh, but the easy companionship she had found with him that night at Forres had vanished. They had exchanged no more than a few words on the most trivial of topics.

Lucy found Robert Methven physically intimidating, as well. The men in her family were all tall and lean, but Lord Methven was powerfully built as well as tall. His body was hard-muscled, the line of his jaw was hard and the expression in his sapphire-blue eyes was hard. He was overwhelmingly male. That masculinity was so blatant that it was like a slap in the face. Lucy had known nothing like it.

He had changed in other ways too. He was somber and the light had gone from his eyes. All the power and authority Lucy had sensed in him that night was still there, but it felt stronger and darker. Tragedy had a way of draining the light from people. Lucy knew that. She wondered what had happened to Methven to change him.

They had nothing in common now. And yet...Lucy’s fingers clenched. She felt the smooth paper crumple beneath her touch. There was something about Robert Methven. Her awareness of him was acute and uncomfortable. She did not want to think about it because doing so made her feel hot and breathless and prickly all over. It was odd, very odd.

She sat down at her desk, smoothing her papers with fingers that were shaking a little. She was aware of an unfamiliar emotion, a curious sensation in the pit of her stomach, a sensation that felt like jealousy.

I am not jealous, Lucy thought crossly. I cannot be jealous. I am never jealous of anything or anybody. Jealousy is neither appropriate nor ladylike.

But she was. She was jealous of Dulcibella.

Lucy pressed her fingers to her temples. It made no sense. She could not be jealous of Dulcibella. Dulcibella had nothing she wanted. Lucy did not want to marry, and even if she did, Lord Methven in no way constituted her idea of a perfect husband. He was too intimidating and far too much of a man. He was just too much of everything.

“What am I to do, Lucy?” Lachlan asked, reclaiming her attention, holding up both his hands in a gesture of appeal. “Dulcibella would not dare go against her father’s wishes. She is far too delicate to oppose him.”

Delicate was not the word that Lucy would have chosen. Dulcibella was feeble. She had no steel in her backbone. In fact, Lucy had sometimes wondered if Dulcibella had a backbone at all.

“There’s nothing you can do,” she said briskly. “I am sorry, Lachlan.” But you will be in love with another lady in the blink of an eye.

“I need you to write one of your letters,” Lachlan said, sitting forward, suddenly urgent. “I need you to help me persuade her. Please, Lucy.”

“Oh no,” Lucy said. “No and no and no again. Have you been listening to a word I said, Lachlan?”

“I’m sorry about last time.” Lachlan did at least have the grace to look a little shamefaced.

“I don’t expect you are,” Lucy said.

Lachlan shrugged, admitting the lie. “All right. But my intentions are honorable this time, Lucy. I love Dulcibella and I know you would want us to be happy. I want to marry her, Lucy. Please...” He let his words trail away as though he were brokenhearted. Most artistic, Lucy thought.

“No,” she said again. “Apart from anything else, I hardly think that Dulcibella would be persuaded by that sort of letter. She is a very sheltered lady.”

“Well,” Lachlan said, grinning, “you may need to tone it down just a little.”

“No,” Lucy said for the sixth time. She was thinking of Robert Methven. “They are betrothed, Lachlan. It would be wrong.”

“Please, Lucy,” Lachlan repeated, with more pleading in his tone this time. “I really do love Dulcibella.” He threw out a hand. “How can she be happy married to Methven? The man’s a savage! He’s not like me.”

“No,” Lucy said. “He most certainly is not like you.” Robert Methven had none of Lachlan’s refinement. He had rough edges, a roughness that had been rubbing against Lucy’s senses for the past three months like steel against silk. Once again she felt that shiver of awareness tingle along her nerves.

“I can’t help you, Lachlan,” she said. “You should leave well enough alone.”

Lachlan’s face took on the mulish expression Lucy remembered from when he was a small boy who was not getting his own way.

“I don’t know why you would refuse,” he said. “No one would know.”

“Because it’s wrong,” Lucy said sharply. A little shiver rippled over her skin. She knew she had to refuse even if Lachlan’s feelings were genuinely engaged. It was not fair in any way to sabotage Robert Methven’s betrothal. Besides, more practically, Methven was not a man to cross. He was hard and dangerous, and she would be foolish to do anything to antagonize him. If he found out, she would be in a very great deal of trouble.

“You need the money,” Lachlan said suddenly. “I know you do. I heard you telling your maid the other day that your quarterly allowance was already spent.”

Lucy hesitated. It was true that her allowance was already gone, given away to the Greyfriars Orphanage and the Foundling Hospital as soon as it was paid to her. Lachlan did not know, of course. He thought she was as extravagant as he was and saw no shame in that. He had no notion that her remorse over Alice’s death prompted her to give every penny she had to try to make up for a guilt that could never be assuaged.

“I’ll buy you the bonnet with the green ribbons you were admiring in Princes Street yesterday,” Lachlan said, leaning forward.

“I’d rather have the cash, thank you,” Lucy said. For a moment she allowed herself to think of all that she might buy: new clothes and shoes for the children, books and toys, as well.

There was a sliding sensation of guilt in her stomach as she realized that she was going to do as Lachlan asked. She tried to ignore the feeling. She told herself that there could be no danger of Lord Methven discovering what she had done because Lachlan’s name would be on the letters and as long as he held his tongue, no one would suspect her. She told herself that she would be able to buy more medicines for the children at the hospital, as well. The bronchitis was particularly bad this winter.

“How much?” Lachlan asked. He uncoiled his long length from the chair and stood up.