The Duchess Read online

  But now he sat on a three-legged stool against one wall and watched this romantic young American with this old man and he saw MacTarvit in a whole different light. Angus MacTarvit was a man out of the past. He was a throwback to another time, a time when the clans were powerful and they warred with each other. MacTarvit was from a time when men were valued for their handiness with a weapon and not with a money ledger. He was a man whose family had served another for generations, and now he was the last of his clan and he was trying desperately to hold on to the old ways.

  “What be you lookin’ at?” MacTarvit said belligerently to Trevelyan.

  “Don’t mind him,” Claire said. “He looks at everyone that way. It makes him feel that he knows more than they do.”

  Trevelyan snorted at that. “More than the two of you do.”

  “And now, lassie, why are you here?”

  “I’m to marry the duke,” she said brightly.

  MacTarvit looked at Trevelyan.

  “She’s to marry Harry,” Trevelyan said softly.

  Angus frowned at that, and Trevelyan knew he had no idea what was going on, for MacTarvit had recognized Trevelyan the moment he had seen him. And if he knew who Trevelyan was then he knew he was the oldest living son and therefore the duke. Trevelyan smiled at the old man’s puzzlement, having no intention of giving him answers to his unasked questions.

  “Then what are ye doin’ with this lot?” Angus said, pointing his glass at Trevelyan.

  Claire looked at Trevelyan for a moment. “We’re friends,” she said and smiled. “At least we’re becoming friends.”

  Trevelyan gave Angus a smug little smile, which made the old man grunt, then he turned back to Claire. “So they’ve sent you to run me off, have they?”

  “No one sent me. I’ve come on my own.” She took a breath. “I’ve come to tell you that when I am the duchess you may stay here all your life and you may try your best to steal my cattle. In return I shall steal all of your whisky, even what you have in stock. I’m sure it will age better in my cellars than wherever you have it hidden.”

  Trevelyan looked at Claire in disbelief. He had expected her to tell the old man she thought all the stealing was a dreadful thing and why couldn’t they all live in peace?

  Angus’s old face also registered disbelief for a moment, then he made a rumbling sound that was probably meant to be laughter and took Claire’s hand in his. For a moment Trevelyan thought he was going to kiss it. “Would you like somethin’ to eat, girl?”

  At that Trevelyan nearly choked on his whisky. The MacTarvits were known for their stingy ways. In a land that was infamous for its parsimonious ways, the MacTarvits were legendary. There was one story that told how a woman had seen a MacTarvit pour milk the cat had not finished into his tea. Once the MacTarvits had been crossing a toll bridge and had peacefully paid the toll of a shilling, but a penny had dropped between the cracks of the bridge and been lost. The toll master said the MacTarvits owed him a penny. Rather than pay the penny Angus and his sons had blockaded the bridge for two days, allowing no one to pass. Trevelyan’s father had at last come, given Angus his penny, and the bridge had reopened.

  Now he was offering food to this rich American.

  “You may not like it,” Angus said. “It is humble food.”

  “She eats anything at any time,” Trevelyan said, then leaned back against the wall and watched as the old man prepared a meal for his guest. Trevelyan was very curious as to what he’d serve. A dish of water, perhaps?

  MacTarvit went to his fireplace where a meager, smoky fire burned, reached up into the chimney, and withdrew a piece of cheese. The outside was black with smoke but when Angus cut into it, it was white. He shaved off a few slices, then put them into a skillet near the fire to melt. As they were melting he went outside and returned with three pieces of meat—from the stolen cows no doubt. “I guess you’ll be wantin’ somethin’ too,” he said to Trevelyan, and there was no doubt that he begrudged Trevelyan the food.

  “I’d be delighted,” Trevelyan said. He watched as Angus heated another skillet and began to broil the three steaks. When the cheese was melted, he poured in a little thick, rich cream, and swirled it all together. When it was bubbling, he quickly added a generous splash of whisky, the steam rising from the mixture.

  From the top of the hearth he took a chipped and cracked plate. It was dirty, but he rubbed it with the grimy elbow of his old, greasy tweed jacket, put a steak on it, and covered the meat with the cheese-and-whisky sauce. He took a knife and fork from a jar on top of the mantel, rubbed them on his sleeve, and handed them to Claire.

  Trevelyan watched her, wondering what this multimillionairess would do, but she just smiled at Angus as though he were the Prince of Wales and cut into her steak. “Heaven,” she pronounced it. “This is delicious.”

  Angus smiled in a doddering way that made him look even sillier than he normally did and took another plate from the mantel. He didn’t bother to wipe it off but slapped his steak on it, covered it with sauce, and sat on a stool across from Claire and began to eat.

  Trevelyan saw that he was going to have to get his own food. He picked up a dirty plate from the mantel, and when he started to wipe it off Claire gave him a look that stopped him in his tracks. Obviously she thought it would be a breach of etiquette to clean his plate. With a grimace he bent to the two skillets. The piece of meat that Angus had left him was by far the smallest. Trevelyan scraped the skillet for the last of the sauce, then took a dirty knife and fork, went back to his stool, and began to eat. At his first bite, he looked at Angus with new respect. The food was indeed delicious.

  “It wouldn’t be half as good if it hadn’t been stolen,” Claire said. “Now, my lord, do you sing, or play, or do you know any poetry?”

  Trevelyan laughed at that. Ol’ Angus MacTarvit singing. It would sound like a bullfrog.

  Angus didn’t so much as acknowledge Trevelyan’s presence. “I do a bit of Bobbie Burns.”

  “My favorite,” Claire breathed.

  For an hour Trevelyan watched and listened as MacTarvit quoted the romantic lines of Scotland’s beloved Robert Burns. Trevelyan had read the poems, of course, but only because he’d had to. They had never meant much to him, but now, hearing Angus quote them was altogether different. Within minutes he saw tears in Claire’s eyes.

  “Are you sure you’re American, child?” Angus said.

  “I’m as much a Scot as you are, Angus MacTarvit,” she said with an accent as heavy as Angus’s. “It’s just that my family has been visiting America for a bit—a few hundred years or so.”

  The old man laughed with her. “Now, girl, what do you want to do?”

  Trevelyan stood. “We need to get back. I have some work that needs to be done and—” He might as well not have been in the room for all the notice they took of him.

  “I want to hear pipers,” Claire said. “I haven’t heard a pipe since I arrived in Scotland.”

  Trevelyan rolled his eyes when he saw the two of them exchange looks that said this was the greatest tragedy that could ever have happened to a person.

  “I’ll see to that,” the old man said and left the cottage.

  “We have to go back. I have things I must do and—”

  “Then go,” Claire said. “I’m sure Lord MacTarvit will take me back to the house. Or Harry will be back this evening and someone can tell him where I am and he can send a carriage for me.”

  What she said made sense, and he knew there was no question of her safety. From the look on MacTarvit’s face he’d protect her with his life—not that there was much danger in the Scottish countryside. She might fall into a peat bog or, knowing Claire as he was beginning to, she might eat and drink herself into a stupor, but he didn’t really think she was in any danger.

  “I’ll stay,” he said.

  She smiled at him and slipped her arm through his. “It might do you good to get out of that tower of yours.” She stepped back and looked at him. “
Do you know that you’re looking better than you were when I first met you? You no longer have that greenish cast to your skin.” She put her hand up, cupped his chin, and turned his face to one side, then the other.

  The moment she touched him, she knew she shouldn’t have. She was warmed by food, whisky, and MacTarvit hospitality, and Trevelyan was much too human-feeling. She had meant to be sisterlike when she touched him; she’d meant to tell him he was growing more handsome with each passing day. But the very second she touched him, he turned those eyes on her, looking at her in a way that made her step away from him.

  “I…I think we should see what Lord MacTarvit has planned.”

  Trevelyan smiled at her, knowing what she was feeling. And why not? She was young and healthy and he, for all she referred to him as an old man, was not old. Grinning, he started to leave the cottage, but as a dizzy spell overtook him he held on to the door frame. He stood still a moment, not wanting to leave the warmth of the cottage because he was feeling the chill of the day begin to seep into his bones. Malaria was not something a person ever got rid of.

  It was early afternoon when they left the cottage and it was dusk when they started home. During the long afternoon Trevelyan sat on the damp ground, trying to wrap his father’s plaid around him as he watched Claire with the growing crowd of Scots men and women. Angus had unearthed one piper, but soon there were two more people playing the pipes. Someone put two rusty old swords on the ground and a young girl began to dance over them. Claire asked if she could learn the dance.

  Trevelyan sat on the ground, leaned against the wall, and watched as Claire, feet flying, moved over the swords. She picked up the steps quickly and within a couple of hours was doing quite well. The pipers, all of them flirts, as most Scotsmen were, picked up the pace of their tunes until Claire was moving so quickly one could hardly see her feet.

  Trevelyan was used to being an observer. In his many travels he had sat and watched many things. He had seen, as Claire had said of him, savagery beyond compare. Once, in a village in Africa, to celebrate his arrival they had crucified a man. He had seen hundreds of slave caravans. The “civilized” world was so horrified at the indignity of slavery, but Trevelyan could tell them that what went on in the villages of primitive people on a daily basis made slavery look like a seaside holiday.

  Someone always kept Trevelyan’s whisky glass full. Scotch was the best-known help for the wet cold of Scotland. The men started drinking it in the morning and didn’t stop all day. Yet rarely did you see a drunken Scotsman, for the cold took so much energy to fight off that it burned up what was in the whisky.

  He sat there for hours, sipping the whisky and watching the people as they laughed and at times sang. It wasn’t long before people began to walk in from cottages miles away. It was said that a walk of ten miles was a mere stroll to a Scotsman.

  He watched Claire and he began to believe what she’d said about being as much Scots as Angus was. Watching her now, he could see she was more Scots than either he or Harry was, or any of the other people living in the big house were. How long had it been since any of his family had been off the estate grounds? When Harry wanted something, such as new clothes or an adventure, he went to London. The rest of the family moved from one estate to another, not caring which house they were in. It was true that the MacArran title was Scots and in theory the duke was the clan chief, but how long had it been since that meant anything to his family? Trevelyan’s father had spoken of tradition but he had talked only to his oldest son, the son who was to inherit. To Trevelyan he had said little about anything—except to reprimand Trevelyan when he got into one scrape after another. The oldest boy had been his father’s darling and Harry had been his mother’s. Trevelyan had spent his time alone, finding out what he could about life and trying not to get caught.

  But in the end he had been caught and he had been sent away, returning over the years for short visits. He had gone from being part of the family to being a guest—an ignored guest.

  “You’re shivering,” Claire said, leaning over him. Her pretty face was pink with exertion and he’d never seen her look lovelier.

  Trevelyan didn’t want a pretty girl to be a nurse to him. “Perhaps you need spectacles. I’ve never felt better in my life.”

  Claire smiled at him, then announced to one and all that she was exhausted and must leave, that it was a long walk back. They were surprised that a lady would walk. “It’s merely a wee jaunt. It won’t take me but a moment,” she said, laughing.

  She held out her hand to Trevelyan to help him up, but he got up by himself. MacTarvit took one look at Trevelyan and offered him the use of a wagon.

  “It’s a cold day in hell when I can’t walk on my own two feet,” Trevelyan growled and started off through the brambles toward the big house.

  After saying good-bye to the crofters, Claire ran after him. “That was certainly rude of you. They were very kind to us.”

  “Kind to you maybe, but not to me.” Already he was beginning to feel his legs weaken. Now he wished he’d accepted the old man’s offer of a wagon, but he wasn’t going to return and admit his weakness in front of all those people. And, more important, he wasn’t going to be made to look a weakling in front of Claire.

  Claire walked behind Trevelyan, wondering what he was thinking about so hard. He had his head lowered and his shoulders set forward; he looked as though he were a man with a mission. He stabbed the ground with his iron cane and when he moved he leaned heavily on it. Also, she wondered why he’d said the people’s kindness had been extended only to her. At least four times she’d seen men stare at him, then nod in recognition. And three of the older women had seen to it that Trevelyan had always been supplied with food and drink.

  As they walked, twice he stumbled. The first time she went to help him, he waved her away. The second time, she wouldn’t allow him to push her away. She put her arm around his waist, and it was then she realized he was burning with fever.

  She looked up at him, saw the determination on his face. In spite of the fact that he was very ill he had stayed with her because she’d wanted to stay, and when Angus had offered him the use of his wagon, Trevelyan had turned it down. Pride and stubbornness, she thought.

  He started to push her away but she held on to his waist. “There’s no use pretending with me,” she said. “I can see that you’re so sick you’re staggering. You can keep your silly pride in front of them but you can’t keep it with me. Now hold on to me and we’ll get you home.”

  For a moment Trevelyan was indecisive as to what to do, but then he relaxed against her and let her help him. “Friends, are we?” he said and there was amusement in his voice.

  “Yes, I think we are.”

  “Then what are you and Harry?”

  “We love each other,” she said softly.

  “Is there a difference between lovers and friends?” he asked as they crossed a stream.

  “A great, great deal of difference.”

  “And which is more important?”

  She thought for a while. “I think a person can live without lovers but no one can live without friends.”

  Chapter Nine

  By the time they reached the hidden door of the west wing of the house, Trevelyan was shaking so hard Claire could barely hold him upright. Once inside the door, she called for Oman to help her. The tall man appeared almost instantly, put his arm under Trevelyan’s, and half carried him up the stairs.

  Claire stood to one side as she watched Oman put Trevelyan into the bed. She had never seen anyone shake as he was shaking, had never seen anyone quite as ill as he was. Trevelyan curled into a ball and Oman pulled the cover over him.

  “Will he be all right?” she asked. “He doesn’t look as though he’s going to live.”

  Oman shrugged. “It is the will of Allah.” With that he left the room. Claire assumed the man was going for medicine or for something to give Trevelyan comfort, but when the man did not return, she went to the sitti
ng room and there Oman stood, calmly eating a piece of fruit and looking out the window at the moon.

  Claire knew she could not leave Trevelyan alone. “I want you to go to my sister,” she said as calmly as she could. She was fed up with servants who did not serve. “Do you know who my sister is? The young girl?”

  Oman looked at her and nodded once in acknowledgment.

  “I want you to go to her and have her tell the family that I am ill. I don’t want anyone to know I’m not in my room tonight. Get her to tell Harry I’m too sick to see him and—” She looked away. What should she do about horrid Miss Rogers? Brat could figure out what to do. “Tell my sister that no one is to know where I am. I will pay her well.”

  Oman nodded once before he slipped from the room. Claire went back to Trevelyan. “What can I do?” she asked him.

  “I am cold. So very cold.”

  She didn’t hesitate before she climbed in bed with him and held him in her arms to try to get him warm. His shaking was so violent that it shook her too; she couldn’t imagine how it felt to him.

  Claire held him to her, stroked his damp hair, and murmured soothing words to him as though he were a child. It felt strange and familiar at the same time to have a man’s body so near hers. He clung to her, holding her, clutching, almost as though he were afraid she would leave him.

  “Sssh, my love,” she whispered. “Sleep now. Go to sleep.”

  She didn’t know if he heard her or not but the words seemed to have an effect as he relaxed in her arms as she stroked his broad back.

  He buried his face in her neck, his chin on her shoulder, and after a long time, the awful shaking stopped. She caressed his temple, smoothing his hair back, and smiled at him. He didn’t seem so large now, so infuriating, with his cynicism and his belief that the world was a bad place. Right now he seemed like a sweet, lonely little boy who needed her. She smiled again and kissed the top of his head as he nestled closer to her.