Midsummer Magic Read online

  “No, Hawk. I shall be fine—for several weeks yet. I will live to see your wife, ‘tis a promise.”

  Hawk felt tears clog his throat and shook his head. “You have never broken a promise to me,” he said. “Never.”

  “I do not intend to begin now. Go now, my boy. I wish you well with your courting.”

  It was dismissal and Hawk rose as quickly as he had when he was younger, heeding his father’s orders. He looked toward Conyon, standing silently at the foot of the bed, lightly daubing a handkerchief over his bald head, but Conyon lowered his head.

  “I will return with my bride as soon as is possible,” Hawk said, turned, then paused a moment. “You will be all right, Father.”

  “I will be waiting,” the marquess said. “Hawk ...”

  Hawk stared down at his father, trying to control the burning tears that threatened to overflow.

  “You’re a son to be proud of.”

  Hawk could only nod. He turned and strode from the bedchamber.

  At seven o‘clock the following morning, Hawk bid his father good-bye, relieved that he looked no weaker. He had a hard journey before him, five days to the northern end of Loch Lomond, where the Earl of Ruthven lived in Castle Kilbracken. Another week to select one of the daughters, he thought, as he tooled his matched grays down the long drive lined by naked-branched elm trees, then a couple of days to let her ready herself for her marriage, then five days to return. No, he silently amended to himself, with a lady, it would take him longer to return. Damned weak women. Damned miserable situation. He cursed softly under his breath.

  “We’re going to Scotland.” Grunyon said the obvious after some twenty miles of silence.

  “Yes,” Hawk said between his teeth. “To get me married.”

  “Lucky girl,” Grunyon said in a dry voice. He added, seeing the frustrated fury mingled with deep concern for the marquess in his master’s green eyes, “His lordship is tougher than old Sergeant Hodges. He’ll survive, my lord, you’ll see.”

  “Old Sergeant Hodges died in his bed. I heard about it from Lord Saint Leven just last month.”

  A poor choice of examples, Grunyon thought, picturing the crusty one-legged old soldier who would follow Major Hawk to hell and beyond. Died in his bed. It wasn’t to be thought of.

  Grunyon sighed deeply. He sincerely doubted that life would be pleasant in the near future.

  Frances Kilbracken stood at the northwestern edge of Loch Lomond, staring out over the calm, clear water. A cloud drifted across the sun, and the March air chilled suddenly. She wrapped her shawl about her shoulders, knotting it over her breasts. It was absolutely silent. Since the trees were still naked-branched from winter, there were no leaves to rustle. The birds were even muted today. Instead of the peace that usually filled her when she came here alone, away from her family, away from everyone, she felt as if her nerves were disordered, a condition her younger sister, Viola, indulged in quite often. When Frances would tell her to stop being a silly ninny, Viola would turn her languid eyes on her and say in a voice that brooked no argument, “But, Frances, I read that all ladies, real ladies that is, are highly sensitive.”

  Frances smiled and closed her eyes, finally hearing the soft lapping of the water against the craggy rocks near her feet. Slowly she sat down, wrapping her wool skirt about her legs, and hugged her arms about her knees. She stared toward the tall, rugged peaks of Ben Lomond and Ben Vorlich. Just beyond her, in the narrow upper reaches of the loch, she could picture the wild torrents, the rough crags, and the thick pine woods. A true Highland glen, she thought, untamed, uncivilized, and her favorite place in the whole world. She wouldn’t leave here. Never. She felt a frisson of dread as she played again in her mind the incredible scene with her father just an hour before. One of her sisters would have to leave. She didn’t want to think about it, but she couldn’t help herself.

  Frances, her older sister, Clare, and seventeen-year-old Viola were seated in the sparse and severe drawing room. Their father strode into the room, flanked by Sophia, their stepmother, and Adelaide, the daughter’s governess and companion, now the unofficial tutor of little Alexander, the earl’s only son.

  Alexander Kilbracken, Earl of Ruthven, a handsome man, a formidable man, tall, barrel-chested, still possessed of a full head of auburn hair, paused before his array of daughters, looking at each of them in an assessing way.

  “Papa, what is this?” Viola asked, fidgeting on the edge of her chair. “Kenard is to visit and I must see to my toilette.”

  “I think,” Frances said, studying her father’s face, noting the barely suppressed excitement in his gray eyes, eyes the same color as hers, “that we are about to see enacted a Family Drama.”

  A smile played about Ruthven’s mouth at his daughter’s tart voice and words. “Have you nothing to add, Clare?” he asked his eldest daughter, his voice bland.

  “No, Papa,” Clare said in her calm, well-modulated voice. “I will lose the morning light, however.”

  “You can dabble with your painting anytime,” Sophia said, her voice a bit sharp.

  Clare shrugged and fell silent. Frances was right, Clare thought, mildly interested. Something was going on.

  Ruthven walked with his light step to the fireplace and leaned his shoulders against the mantelpiece. “I have three very lovely daughters,” he announced. “You, my dear Clare, are all of twenty-one now, ready to be a wife and a mother. Despite your occasional lapses into the artistic realm, and your vagueness, you’re a good soul.” At this double-edged compliment, Clare started, staring at her father, but his attention was now fastened on Viola. “And you, child, are but seventeen, but a woman grown, nonetheless. You are bright, vivacious, vain, probably too pretty for your own good, and spoiled.”

  “Papa!”

  “Aye, ‘tis true, lass, and you know it. However, you too would make a passable wife, if your husband took the time to beat the foolishness out of you.”

  “I’m ready,” Frances said, grinning and crossing her hands over her breast in a martyr’s pose. “Bring out your finest artillery, Papa.”

  ‘You, Frances Regina,“ Ruthven said, unperturbed,”are a handful. Willful, too independent, a mouth that won’t be silenced, and a damned excellent animal healer. You would be sorely missed by our people were you selected.“ He didn’t add that he would be the one who would miss her the most; he didn’t have to. She knew it.

  “Selected for what?” asked Viola. “Papa, please! Kenard will be here shortly, and I must—”

  “Marriage,” Ruthven said, interrupting Viola. “One of you is shortly to be wed.”

  There was a moment of stunned silence, then a volley of exclamations.

  “Whatever do you mean, Father?” Clare said, her voice at attention.

  “Oh dear, what have I to wear?” Viola wailed, quickly reviewing her wardrobe.

  “This is an altogether ridiculous display of drama!” Frances said, cutting to the core.

  “The man who will make his selection is an English nobleman, the Earl of Rothermere, to be exact. He will arrive shortly.”

  There was another moment of shocked silence; then Frances said, laughing, “What a plummer, Papa! What would a proud Sassenach have to do with us? Come, I wish to go riding. Finish your jest and be done with us.”

  “Frances,” Ruthven said with awful calm, “shut your mouth. Now, all of you will listen carefully. You all saw the servant that visited us, did you not?”

  “I liked his livery,” Clare said, lapsing into her artistic musings. “The gold and red—most impressive. I should like to paint him. His features were most interesting.”

  “The man was tired to death, not interesting!” Ruthven clamped down on his impatience. Frances was right, he thought, mocking himself silently. He did enjoy a bit of drama now and again, and here was Clare, taking all the fun out of his announcement. Paint a liveried servant, for God’s sake! He cleared his throat, recalling all the wandering attention.

  “He wo
n’t be here long enough for you to paint him,” Sophia said, inadvertently taking the wind out of her husband’s sails once more.

  Ruthven cleared his throat again. “He is a servant of Lord Chandos, the Marquess of Chandos, to be more exact.”

  “We now have two very exact gentlemen,” Frances remarked.

  “Who is he, Papa?” Viola asked, cocking her head to one side. It was a pose she’d practiced before the mirror for many hours. She knew it made her thick hair tumble seductively over her right shoulder, showed off her slender neck. She would save her special pout for a more appropriate moment. “Is he a relation we didn’t know of? How very odd.”

  “No, not really, but he soon will be,” said her father, not noticing her feminine efforts.

  Frances sat forward in her chair. “Tell us,” she said, her voice suddenly tense, for she knew when her father was serious and when he was not. He meant what he said now, and she felt suddenly frightened.

  Ruthven responded to the seriousness of Frances’ voice, and said, “Listen well, all of you. It all began seventeen years ago, just after your mamma died in childbed. I was in the Lowlands, visiting a friend near Lockerbie—”

  “More like you were raiding,” Frances said, trying to break her awful uncertainty through jest.

  “Not that time!” the earl roared. He mopped his brow, and continued more calmly. “I’d just left old Angus and was on my way home. It was late and a dark moonless night, and had started to rain. I sought shelter. Instead I found a villainous nest of bandits. They’d captured the Marquess of Chandos, planned to butcher him after they’d gotten some ransom money. In any case, I saved his skin. He was most grateful, as you can imagine. Couldn’t believe that a Scot would save an Englishman, and all that. I told him I’d been educated at Oxford. The long and short of it was that he offered me anything—money most likely was on his mind.” Ruthven halted a moment, shooting a look toward Sophia. He cleared his throat again, and plowed forward. “I’d just lost your mother, and was feeling like a miserable excuse for a man—indeed, that was why I risked my hide for the fellow. I simply didn’t care. In any case, I never intended at that time to remarry. And I had three daughters whose futures were uncertain at best. I told Chandos that I wanted a husband for one of my daughters. He agreed. And that, my dears, is that.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Frances said sharply, breaking the silence. “A very long time ago. I have difficulty believing that this Chandos would truly give up his son, particularly to a Scottish nobody. That is not the way marriages are made. Particularly not in England, as Adelaide and Sophia have told us many times.”

  “Lord Chandos is a man of honor,” Ruthven said, his voice a bit cold and formidable. He looked toward plump, serene Adelaide. “Why do you think she’s been here for the past sixteen years?”

  For the first time Adelaide spoke. “Why, sir,” she said, her placid eyes twinkling just a bit, “you didn’t want your daughters to speak with a brogue as thick as the clouds at Ben Nevis.”

  Frances had a brief bout of insight. Was that also why he had remarried—an Englishwoman? Sophia was well-bred and educated, no matter that her father was an ironmonger in Newscastle. Was that the reason no soft brogue was allowed out of the mouths of any of the Kilbracken children? It was a chilling thought.

  “True,” said Ruthven. “Now, girls, have you any questions?”

  “Questions!” Frances jumped to her feet. “You’ve never said a word about any of this! Questions, indeed! This is ridiculous! Marry a man none of us has ever seen? What could you be thinking about? What if he is a toad? A wastrel? What if we all hate him? I can’t imagine that he could possibly have any fondness for us!”

  “Fondness has nothing to do with this,” said Sophia sharply. “He will be here shortly and ... well, look each of you over, I expect. The advantages can’t be lost, even on you, Frances. The earl is wealthy, he is heir to his father’s estates and title. The one he selects will be able to help the others. A Season in London, new clothes, parties, eligible gentlemen, and all that.”

  “It’s barbaric!” Frances shouted.

  “Hush, Frances,” Viola said, her green eyes narrowing in thought. “There are three of us. What makes you think the earl would select you?”

  Because Frances is beautiful, intelligent, loving, and only occasionally willful. She is more like me than any of you. Ruthven said nothing aloud, merely looked from one daughter to the next.

  “It’s still conscienceless,” Frances said. “Clare, you are appalled, aren’t you?”

  “Clare,” Sophia interrupted, “just like you, Frances, and you, Viola, will wed the earl if he choses her. I needn’t tell you that we are living in improverished splendor. Dear Alex will have little enough when he reaches his majority, not the way we are progressing, despite all your dear father’s efforts. Indeed, it’s true all over Scotland, as all of you well know.”

  Sophia was silenced at a look from her husband. We aren’t all that impoverished, he was thinking. He would take care of his son, damn his mother’s sharp tongue and her father’s generous dowry. He said, “I have corresponded with Chandos over the years, as I told you. He has offered a settlement of ten thousand pounds—yes, that’s right, ten thousand pounds—upon the marriage. And there’s another advantage. The sister the earl selects will be able to help the other two.” Sophia had already spoken volubly of this advantage, but he had seen the mulish set of Frances’ mouth, and said it all again. “He is well-placed, needless to say. A Season in London would not be amiss, an opportunity for all of you to marry well.”

  “What does the earl look like, Papa?” Viola asked, cutting to the root of the matter.

  “A fine-looking young man, so Chandos has told me,” Ruthven said. “He was the second son, but after his brother died over a year ago, he became the marquess’s heir. He was Lord Philip Hawksbury, but now is the Earl of Rothermere. He is about twenty-seven and was a military man until the death of his older brother.” Actually, Ruthven thought suddenly, Chandos had thought to marry his elder son to one of the girls, until four or five years ago. Then he’d changed his mind, for whatever reason.

  “Humm,” said Viola. “Have you a likeness of him, Papa?”

  “It’s ridiculous,” said Frances. “And I’ve heard all about likenesses. Adelaide told us about the supposed perfect portrait of Anne of Cleves sent to Henry VIII. She turned out to be a squat, myopic—”

  “I wonder if he’s interesting enough to paint,” said Clare in a wistful voice, interrupting her sister’s tirade.

  “Do you know, Papa, what kind of lady he fancies?” Viola asked, trying another practiced ploy of running her fingers through a lazy curl of dark red hair on her shoulder.

  Ruthven was quiet a moment, marveling at the different tracks his daughters’ minds took. He remembered the words from Chandos’ last letter. “Yes, a bit,” he said. “He evidently fancies ladies who are charming, witty, very gay, in fact. And of course beautiful.”

  Viola laughed her gayest laugh. “Ah, how marvelous!”

  “All of you are pretty enough to attract his attention,” Sophia added, “so we needn’t concern ourselves about that. I’m sure it will be a simple matter of personal taste, and none of you girls—I repeat, none of you—will be jealous of the one he picks.”

  The questions had flowed on and on until Frances was ready to scream. She’d escaped Castle Kilbracken as quickly as possible, tugged on old walking boots, and made her way to the loch. She was not, she thought now, shivering again, so conceited as to believe that it would be she the earl would pick to marry. Viola, although very young, was quite pretty and as charming and gay as any man could wish. As for Clare, at twenty-one, she still had the fresh innocence of youth and the softness of a compliant wife, despite her bouts of artistic endeavor. A compliant wife was certainly something a man wanted, no matter how witty she appeared before company.

  “What a ghastly mess,” she said aloud, and a bird chirped back at he
r from an overhead branch.

  It came to Frances suddenly, and she leapt to her feet, staring over the still gray water of the loch. I will ensure he doesn’t want me. He wants a witty, charming, gay lady. Well, I shall be a mouse—boring, timid, diffident, a nonentity.

  You’re being silly, she told herself. Such a ruse won’t be necessary. He wouldn’t want you. Still ...

  She touched her hand to her thick, untamed hair that tumbled down her back in a profusion of wild curls. Her father had once told her that her hair was the color of autumn in the highlands, an uncivilized blending of blond, red, and brown. Since his thick hair was the same combination of unlikely shades, she’d ignored his brief outpouring of parental compliments. A bun, I think. Yes, a very severe bun at the back of my neck. A high-necked gown—my old gray muslin, I think, should do it. It would make the earl bilious. And a sampler to stitch—there must be one somewhere, perhaps tucked away in the nursery. She wasn’t really undermining her father’s plans, she decided, turning away from the shore. The dear earl would be happier with either Clare or Viola as a wife. She was merely reducing the field, so to speak, saving the poor man time and effort.

  Smiling, she strode from the loch, through the thick pines, back up the steep rise toward the castle. And, she thought, as a crowning touch, I will save the precious earl’s groats. I should never want to go to London for one of their silly Seasons.

  Never.

  2

  O, she is the antidote to desire.

  —WILLIAM CONGREVE

  “Reminds me a bit of the rough hills in Portugal,” said Grunyon.

  The earl cursed by way of reply as he gently eased his horses, beautiful matched bays, over the rutted stretch.

  “See yon, Major Hawk, in the distance. That must be Loch Lomond, and there, on that rise, Castle Kilbracken.”

  “I’m enthralled,” said Hawk, staring a moment in the distance at the stark gray-stone castle with its crenellated towers. “It looks to be crumbling.” He closed his eyes a moment. “My father was senile seventeen years ago.” He ignored Grunyon’s use of his army name, used now by his valet only in moments of stress or excitement.