Catriona choked on laughter, then feigned a few coughs when the duke turned to her with an arched brow. Oh dear heavens, was he serious? She’d thought he was merely trying to shake off Marilla.
“Well,” Taran declared, filling the awkward silence, “we’ll find something for everyone. In the meantime, let’s get the rest of you settled. Where is Mrs. McVittie? Oh, there you are!”
His housekeeper nodded from the doorway.
He flicked a hand toward every female besides Catriona. “See these three up to their rooms. And, ah, Robin and Byron, why don’t you go as well. Just to make sure everything is as it should be.”
Lord Oakley shook his head. “As it should be,” he repeated in disbelief.
“Give Lady Cecilia the blue room, or at least the one that used to be blue, and Miss— Well, actually, it really doesn’t matter. Give them whichever room they want.” Taran turned back to Catriona and the duke, who were still standing by the fire. “I’ll see what I can find for the two of you.”
“Bretton can have my room,” Lord Oakley said, standing in the doorway as everyone else filed out.
“No, really,” the duke responded, his voice a mocking monotone, “I couldn’t possibly inconvenience you.”
Lord Oakley rolled his eyes and exited into the great hall.
It was only then that Catriona realized she had been left quite alone with the Duke of Bretton.
Chapter 3
John Shevington had been the Duke of Bretton since the age of forty-three days, and as such, he had been inflicted with a legion of tutors, each of whom had been given the task of making certain that the young duke would be able to handle any situation in which an aristocratic young man might reasonably expect to find himself.
Reasonably.
Astonishingly, his tutors had not considered the possibility that he might find himself accidentally kidnapped by a stark raving lunatic, trapped in a carriage (his own carriage, mind you) for two hours with four unmarried ladies, one of whom had groped him three times before he used a bump in the road as an excuse to toss her across the carriage. And if that hadn’t been enough, he’d been deposited into a barely heated castle guarded by a roving pack of ancient retainers hobbling along with weapons attached to their kilts.
Dear Lord, he fervently didn’t want a stiff wind to lift any of those kilts.
Bret glanced over at the young lady who’d been left in the sitting room with him, the one old Ferguson claimed had been snatched by accident. Miss Burns, he thought her name was. She seemed to know Taran Ferguson better than any of the other erstwhile captives, so he asked her, “Do you think our host will find rooms for us?”
She huddled closer to the fire. “I can almost guarantee he’s already forgotten he’s meant to be looking.”
“You seem to be well acquainted with our host, Miss . . . It was Miss Burns, wasn’t it?”
“Everyone knows Taran,” she said, then seemed to remember herself and added, “Your Grace.”
He nodded. She seemed a sensible young lady, thankfully not given to hysterics. Although it had to be said, he’d come close to cheering her on when she’d given old Ferguson a tongue-lashing. Hell, he’d been hoping she’d wallop the old codger.
Miss Burns returned his gesture with a smile and nod of her own, then turned back to the fire. They’d both been standing in front of it for several minutes, but if her fingers were anything like his, they still felt frozen from the inside out.
If he’d had a coat he would have given it to her. But his coat was back at Bellemere, along with the rest of his things. He’d meant to stay for only two days; it was a convenient place to stop and rest his horses on the way back to Castle Bretton from the Charters shooting party in Ross-shire. In retrospect, he should have just remained with his friends for the holiday; only a fool took to the roads in Scotland at this time of year.
But he’d always had a sentimental streak when it came to Castle Bretton at Christmastime. He might make his home in London for much of the year, but he couldn’t imagine being anywhere else when the Yule log was lit and Mrs. Plitherton’s famous Christmas pudding was brought to the table. He had almost no family with whom to celebrate—just his mother and whichever of her maiden sisters chose to join them. But the lack of Shevingtons had made the holiday a jollier, less formal affair, with songs and dancing, and the whole of the household—from the butler down to the scullery maids—joining in on the fun.
Now it seemed his tradition would be broken by Taran Ferguson, the improbable uncle of both Oakley and Rocheforte.
Oakley and Rocheforte. He’d nearly fallen over when he saw them. He’d known Oakley since . . . well, since he’d punched him in the eye their first week at Eton and gotten a bloody lip in return. But it had all been good since then.
As for Rocheforte, Bret didn’t know him well, but he’d always seemed an amiable, devil-may-care sort of fellow.
Bret glanced out the window, not that he could see anything. “When you said it was going to snow tonight,” he said to Miss Burns, “had you any thoughts as to the amount? Or duration?”
She turned to him with frank dark eyes. “Are you asking me when we might be able to leave?”
He liked a woman who got to the point. “Precisely that.”
She grimaced. “It may well be three days, Your Grace. Or more.”
“Good Lord,” he heard himself say.
“My thoughts exactly.”
He cleared his throat. “Has Mr. Ferguson ever done . . . this before?”
Her lips pressed together with what he thought might be amusement. “Do you mean kidnap a duke?”
“Kidnap anyone,” he clarified.
“Not to my knowledge, but he did run bare-arsed through the village last May Day.”
Bret blinked. Had she just used the word “arse”? He tried to recall the last time he’d heard a gentlewoman do so. He was fairly certain the answer was never. Then, as he watched the firelight flickering across her skin, he decided he didn’t care.
Miss Burns wasn’t beautiful, not in the way Lady Cecily was, with her rosebud mouth and heart-shaped face. But she had something. Her eyes, he decided. Dark as night, and blazingly direct. You couldn’t see what she was thinking, not with eyes so dark.
But you could feel it.
“Your Grace?” she murmured, and he realized he’d been staring.
“I’m sorry,” he said automatically. “You were saying?”
Her brows rose a fraction of an inch. “Do you mean,” she asked with careful disbelief, “for me to continue the story about Taran Ferguson going bare-arsed through the village?”
“Precisely,” he clipped, since if he spoke in any other tone of voice, he might have to admit to himself that he was blushing.
Which he was quite certain he did not do.
She paused. “Well,” she said, clearing her throat, “there was a wager.”