A Scandalous Scot Read online

  A Scandalous Scot

  Karen Ranney

  Dedication

  To Heather Griffis

  Just because

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Romances by Karen Ranney

  Welcome to the World of Karen Ranney

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  Ballindair, Scotland

  Summer 1860

  RULES FOR STAFF: When being addressed, stand quiet with your hands folded together in front of you.

  Jean MacDonald dropped down behind a dusty bureau, wrapping her arms around her knees. Silence was a necessary requirement for seeing a ghost. So was patience. She’d been patient for the last year. All she’d learned in that time was that this business of ghosts was a delicate one.

  According to the other maids who claimed to have seen him, the Herald had no qualms about appearing even in daylight. A handsome soldier, clad in kilt and shirt with a set of pipes slung over his shoulder, he didn’t announce death as much as change.

  The Green Lady wasn’t supposed to be that difficult to find, either, since she was reputed to appear in the coldest spot in a room.

  She had yet to see either of them.

  Nor had she seen the French Nun, but no one had. That ghost was proving to be elusive. Was it because the nun still felt shame, even a hundred years later?

  Jean yawned, clamped her hand over her mouth and shivered with fatigue.

  Her aunt, Ballindair’s housekeeper, had set them all to working like dervishes this past week. The Earl of Denbleigh himself was due to visit in ten days. Although Ballindair was normally spotless and perfect, she insisted that the entire castle be cleaned again. All the chandeliers, ornate picture frames, urns, and silly little statues of posing shepherdesses and dogs that really didn’t look like dogs had to be dusted over and over again. All the ornate furniture must be treated with a special beeswax and turpentine mixture. All the fireplaces must be blackened, even though that chore had recently been done, and the shiny andirons polished still further. The floors were scrubbed, then buffed using a lamb’s wool pad, until Jean could see her face in the dark oak boards, and each of the carpets brushed and beaten until her arms ached.

  Her knees were abraded and her hands swollen and red. She’d worked as hard as any of the others—except, perhaps, for one person. Her sister, Catriona, had the ability to escape everyone’s watchful eye.

  Jean sometimes thought that Catriona believed she served the world simply by looking beautiful. Perhaps she did, at that. Most people stopped and stared when first viewing her. Catriona had bright golden hair, and eyes a deep blue, a color Jean had never seen in another. In addition, Catriona was dainty and delicate, unlike her own too tall frame.

  Even the Presbyterian minister, sermonizing on the evils of the flesh, had allowed his gaze to linger on Catriona during Sunday services. Before they left for church the next week, Aunt Mary had given all the maids a stern lecture on comportment. Catriona only smiled sweetly, as if not realizing the admonishment had been pointedly directed at her.

  What would it be like to have a man fall at her feet? Or to have a man stare at her across the room? That had happened on a great many occasions when they lived in Inverness, but the attention was always on Catriona and never on her.

  She sighed. What a waste of time to think about such things, especially since it was doubtful she’d ever attract any man’s attention, being a maid at Ballindair.

  Tomorrow they were to start cleaning this very suite. When all the work was done, her aunt would have the rooms locked, just to make certain all stayed in readiness for the earl.

  Tonight was the last opportunity she’d have to see the French Nun. Since the nun was rumored to haunt the Laird’s Tower more than any other place at Ballindair, she couldn’t overlook this chance to see the ghost.

  She lay her head back against the wall, grateful the floor was hard. At least she was in no danger of falling asleep. To be a little more comfortable, she untied her shoes and set them to the side, wiggling her toes in pleasure.

  Why was the earl coming back now?

  “He had business in England,” Aunt Mary had said. “He was a representative peer for Scotland at Parliament.”

  Evidently, no longer.

  What her aunt hadn’t said was that the earl had disgraced himself, and was returning to Scotland like a fox going to ground. Jean had only learned that through the Laird’s Lug—a cunningly designed tube in the wall leading to the Clan Hall. She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, truly. But when Mr. Seath and her aunt were talking and the earl’s name was mentioned, it had been impossible to turn away and pretend an interest in dusting the painting of a long-dead person.

  “Why ever did he do it?” Mrs. MacDonald asked. “Why couldn’t he let the situation stand as it was? He wouldn’t have been the first man to endure that kind of behavior.”

  “He has his pride.”

  “Too much of it, I’m thinking,” she said. “If he damages the reputation of the MacCraig family for it.”

  The two of them had moved away, leaving Jean wishing she knew more. What had the Earl of Denbleigh done?

  After five years away he was finally coming home to Ballindair. Why hadn’t he returned in all that time? Was it because he preferred London to his own country?

  She much preferred Ballindair to Inverness. Inverness was filled with memory. Here, at least, her recollections were only a year old.

  The past had a way of creeping into her mind like the mist over Loch Tullie. First, you couldn’t see your feet, then your legs, and before you knew it you were enveloped in a neck high cloud. She’d learned never to consciously remember Inverness. Or, if memories slipped up on her unawares, to run from them as quickly as she could.

  Ti tak the bree wi the barm. One of her mother’s sayings: to take the rough with the smooth. The past had been rough.

  The life of a maid couldn’t be said to be smooth, not with all the rules to learn and tasks to master. Her time was regulated from dawn until two hours after dinner, when she was expected to return to her room, prepare herself for bed, and go instantly to sleep. No daydreams were allowed, or dreams, either. Sleep was only a restorative, to ensure that Ballindair had an eager and rested staff.

  Leaning back, she glanced at light filtering through the emerald curtains. In the Highlands the sky didn’t darken until nearly midnight. Earlier, she hadn’t needed a candle when she left her room—against the rules—and crept through the castle to the tower.

  Moving a few inches to the left, she studied the Chamber of State, the old name for the suite of rooms: bedroom, sitting room, and bathing chamber occupied by the Earls of Denbleigh.

>   The four-poster bed was heavily carved, with a headboard inscribed with the earl’s crest—an eagle with outstretched wings holding a cluster of thistles—and dominated the dais on which it sat. The bed had been made in Scotland; that much she knew from her instructions. Her aunt insisted that each of the maids learned not only how to clean Ballindair, but also the history of every room, the better to appreciate the value of those items entrusted to their care.

  A secretary and chair sat opposite the bed, with a large fireplace on the adjacent wall. The bureau behind which she was hiding was the match to an armoire, both pieces festooned with curlicues and crafted from the same cherrywood as the bed. The room was spacious enough to accommodate a round table in the corner, along with two chairs and a small settee beside which stood a table and lamp.

  The entire lower floor of their house in Inverness could have fit comfortably within this chamber.

  No, thoughts like that would only lead to tears.

  Yet wasn’t it normal to feel the past so strongly when she was waiting for a ghost? Didn’t a ghost belong to the past? Didn’t ghosts wander through the present because of sins they’d committed, or wishes left unfulfilled, or longings that would not let them pass into eternity?

  Would she be a ghost one day? Would people study her life the way she’d pored over the book, The Famous Ghosts of Ballindair? Would they speak of her in low voices, pity coloring their words? Poor, dear Jean, plain as milk. Died alone and single, of course. What man would want her?

  There she was again, thinking of a man’s attentions. Just as she was aware of Catriona’s beauty, she was conscious of her own appearance.

  Her face lacked any distinction at all, being an oval shape. Her eyes were brown and average, and always looked too large for her face. Her mouth was average. Her chin neither jutted out nor receded. Her nose was neither too long nor petite. Her forehead was neither too high nor too short. She was simply average and regrettably indistinct—plain as milk.

  In addition to lacking her sister’s looks, she also possessed a mind that was a constant source of irritation to some people. Even after the wisest woman in the room subsided into silence, she kept asking questions.

  “Is ‘why’ your favorite word?” Catriona asked once.

  “Why shouldn’t I want to know?” she’d responded. “Have you no curiosity about the world?”

  Catriona only shook her head and moved away, dusting the bric-a-brac on the mantel with a desultory sway of the feather duster.

  “What does it matter what you discover? It doesn’t change your circumstances or make them better.”

  Granted, the world had been a difficult place for both of them in the last two years, but surely Catriona had more hope than that.

  When she’d said as much, her sister laughed.

  “Hope is just another name for wishing, Jean. Wishing never made anything better.”

  “If you don’t have hope, Catriona,” she said, “what do you have?”

  Catriona had smiled. “You have the world as it is. And you must make do with it.”

  At that moment her younger sister seemed so old and worn that she had been silenced.

  At least they had a roof over their heads and food to eat. During that last month in Inverness, she’d doubted they would survive. Hunger had been one of those constants like sunrise and sunset. If she was awake, she was hungry.

  Then the letter had come from their aunt, offering them both positions as maids at Ballindair. Catriona was sent to tend to the public rooms, while she had been designated a general maid. She’d had to learn a great deal about the workings of a large home when her only experience was a small house of seven rooms.

  Circumstances change. You must adapt. You have to accept certain realities about life. On that she agreed with Catriona.

  She hadn’t the education to be a governess. She lacked fluency in French and she was abysmal at watercolors. Her alternatives were few: become a bedewoman, a licensed beggar, or allow her sister to become a wealthy man’s mistress. More than one man had hinted at an arrangement with Catriona.

  At least being a maid was a decent occupation.

  When they came to Ballindair a year ago, she had a choice: bemoan what had happened to them or accept her new life. She’d grown tired of grief, of worry and despair, so she took up her aunt’s lessons in earnest, deciding to become the very best maid she could be. She’d taken pride in each task given her, learned as much as she could, and tried to become a valuable addition to the castle staff.

  Along the way she found nuggets of joy in each day, like the sight of a flower in bloom, the breadth and depth of the night sky, or the flicker of a candle flame.

  The book she’d borrowed from Ballindair’s library was one of those nuggets, leading to her interest in three of the castle ghosts: the Herald, the Green Lady, and the French Nun.

  That interest was why she was here in the middle of the night, trying to find the ghost of a woman whose life had been, in contrast, so much worse than hers.

  At least, so far.

  “The thing is to decide what to do with the rest of your life,” Andrew Prender said. “Since you’ve surrendered your position at Parliament.”

  “I didn’t surrender my position,” Morgan said. “I was asked to give it up for the good of Scotland.” The last part of that sentence was the hardest to say and tasted like bile on his tongue.

  Andrew waved a gloved hand in the air as if to dismiss his banishment.

  “They’ll come around.”

  They wouldn’t come around. He was a scandal. He, Morgan MacCraig, 9th Earl of Denbleigh, was a detriment to his fellow Scottish peers. His father had been the Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland, while his son was a disgrace.

  He hadn’t been prepared for the reaction of his friends. People he’d thought would understand had turned their backs on him. More than once he’d greeted another man at an event, someone who suddenly found the floor, the ceiling, or the opposite wall of great interest. Even those whose opinions didn’t matter to him pretended he was invisible. No one curried his favor any longer. He’d become a social and political pariah.

  Only Andrew had remained a friend, even going so far as attaching himself to him and expressing a sudden and fervent desire to accompany him home to the Highlands.

  They’d traveled by train to Inverness, and from there in a carriage his steward had arranged. When he’d questioned the driver how he knew they were arriving on that particular train, the man just tipped his hat and grinned.

  “I’ve instructions to wait for you, Your Lordship. However long that might be.”

  Morgan’s eyebrows rose. “Even at dawn?”

  “Whenever the train comes in, Your Lordship.”

  “I’m not due for another ten days.”

  That made the man grin even more. “Your father had a habit of always arriving early. Mr. Seath, sir, thought you might do the same. Besides, sir, you’re the MacCraig of Ballindair.”

  He’d felt absurdly grateful for the man’s comment, the first sign of anything other than disgust he’d received in months. He nodded, entering the carriage and remaining silent for a while. Andrew was content enough to leave him to his thoughts until the last hour. As the sun rose, so did Andrew’s curiosity.

  He’d known better than to try to change Andrew’s mind about coming with him to Scotland. Once Andrew was set on a course, nothing could alter it. Their friendship had begun as boys at school. Together, they had suffered privations and admitted their homesickness to each other.

  Andrew’s father had been a wealthy merchant, Morgan’s father a hero of Scotland. Hell, he’d even died a hero, attempting to save a child after his ship sank off the Isle of Man. Andrew’s father had expired in his bed, but both men left their sons a well-funded legacy.

  Sometimes, especially recently, Morgan thought he’d much rather have Andrew’s life. His friend dabbled at anything he wished—painting was his newest interest—and once bored, found something
else to pursue.

  A trait he carried over to women, his most important occupation.

  The Duchess of Montrose had once told him that Andrew was the perfect companion, even married as he was. His wife kept to his country estate, leaving Andrew to the pleasures of London.

  Andrew’s handsome face always bore a pleasant expression. He even smiled in his dreams, an observation Morgan had made when they shared a cold and comfortless room at school. Andrew listened intently, told a great jest, and made each woman believe she was the only object of his affection.

  Rumors about his equipage, spoken in tittering whispers, were true.

  “God gave me another few inches there,” Andrew once told him, “to make up for my lack of stature.”

  “How are you going to deal at Ballindair?” Morgan asked him now. “Without one of your lovelies on your arm?”

  “I’m not skirt chasing on this trip. I’m merely enjoying a little taste of Scotland with a friend,” Andrew replied. “I’ve brought along my paints, and I’ll capture your bucolic scenery on canvas.”

  Morgan smiled. “It’s not exactly bucolic,” he said. “It will take your breath away. Nothing like your England with your hazy air and rolling hills. The Highlands demand your attention. Summon it. Pull your eyes to the mountain’s summit, make you gasp at the sight of the lochs.”

  “Spoken like a true Scotsman, for all you’ve been an expatriate for the last five years.”

  Andrew’s comment might have been correct, but he didn’t have to like it. Morgan turned away, his attention on the view.

  His heartbeat quickened at the sight of the hills in front of him. An Englishman would call them mountains, but a Scot knew they were only nubs, nothing like Ben Nevis or Ben Macdui and the rest of the Grampians.

  “You didn’t answer,” Andrew said. “What are you going to do with yourself now?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

  For most of his adult life, he’d done his duty to the family at the distilleries bearing his name. He’d acted in every capacity, working his way up through the ranks until he understood everything about making whiskey. Not for him the indolent occupations of his friends.