It's Getting Scot in Here Read online

  Begin Reading

  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  Thank you for buying this

  St. Martin’s Press ebook.

  To receive special offers, bonus content,

  and info on new releases and other great reads,

  sign up for our newsletters.

  Or visit us online at

  us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup

  For email updates on the author, click here.

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  For my mom, who still insists on purchasing extra copies of all my books to make sure I remain gainfully employed. I love you, màthair.

  Prologue

  Once upon a time—in May 1785, to be exact—Angus MacTaggert, Earl Aldriss, traveled from the middle of the Scottish Highlands to London in search of a wealthy bride to save his well-loved but crumbling estate. Aldriss Park had been in the MacTaggert family since the time of Henry VIII, when Domhnall MacTaggert, despite being Catholic and married, declared publicly that Henry should be able to wed as many lasses as he wanted until one of them got him a son. Aldriss Park was the newly minted earl’s reward for his support and understanding.

  For the next two hundred years Aldriss thrived, until the weight of poor harvests, the ever-intruding, rule-making Sassenach, and the MacTaggerts’ own fondness for drinking, gambling, and wild investments (including an early bicycle design wherein the driver sat between two wheels; sadly, it had no braking mechanism and after a series of accidents nearly began a war within the MacTaggerts’ clan Ross) began to sink it into disrepair.

  When Angus inherited the title in 1783, he realized the old castle needed far more than a fresh coat of paint to keep it from both physical collapse and bankruptcy. And so he determined to go down among the enemy Sassenach and win himself a wealthy bride. The English had made enough trouble for him and his over the centuries, so they could bloody well help him set things right.

  On his second day in London, he met the stunning Francesca Oswell, the only offspring of James and Mary Oswell, Viscount and Viscountess of Hornford—who had more money than Midas and a bevy of very fine solicitors—at a masked ball where he dressed as a bull, and she as a swan. Despite the misgivings of nearly everyone in Mayfair, Angus and Francesca immediately fell madly in love, and married with a special license ten days later.

  A week after that, Angus took Francesca back to Aldriss Park and the Highlands, where she found very little civilization, a great many sheep, and a husband who preferred brawling to dancing, and he discovered that her father’s solicitors had arranged to keep the Oswell family money in Francesca’s hands. This made for some very spectacular arguments, because there is nothing more combustible in the world than an impoverished Highlands laird in disagreement with an independently wealthy English lady about his own ancestral lands.

  Over the next thirteen turbulent years the estate prospered, and Francesca gave Angus three sons—Coll, Aden, and Niall—and with each one became more concerned that this was not a life for any civilized person. She wanted to bring the boys back to London for proper educations and to live proper lives, but Angus refused, stating that what had been good enough for him would be good enough for his lads.

  When a fourth child, a daughter, arrived in 1798, Francesca reached her breaking point. No daughter of hers was going to be raised with an uncivilized accent in a rough country where she would be ridiculed by proper Society and unfit to marry anyone but a shepherd or a peat cutter. Angus refused to let his lads go, but he allowed Francesca to take young Eloise and return to London—on the condition that she continue providing for the maintenance of the estate.

  Francesca reluctantly agreed, but given that she controlled the purse strings, she had her own conditions to try to keep some influence with her wild sons: All three boys must marry before their sister, they must wed proper Englishwomen, and at least one of them must marry someone of her choosing.

  She knew Angus would raise them as he pleased, but they were her children, too, by God, and she meant to see to it that they had some semblance of propriety in their lives—she was a viscount’s daughter, after all, and certain things would be expected of her offspring. She refused to allow them to be viewed as unsophisticated wild men by her London neighbors, and she remained determined to have a presence in their lives.

  To enforce her will, she convinced (or rather, coerced) Angus to put his signature to the agreement, which contained this provision: If young Eloise MacTaggert did marry before any of the boys, Francesca would cut off all funds to the estate. If they were to insist on defiance, they would have a heavy price to pay for it—one they and their tenants could not afford.

  Angus had no choice but to agree, and considering that Coll, the oldest, was only twelve at the time of Francesca’s departure and Eloise was but a wee bairn, he was willing to wager that he would have time to renegotiate. Angus and Francesca remained married, but neither would bend enough to visit the other ever again. As far as the lads were concerned, their mother had abandoned them.

  In the spring of 1816 Angus received a letter from Francesca announcing their daughter’s engagement, and he promptly collapsed. He’d hoped his sons would have found themselves Scottish lasses by now and shown their mother she couldn’t control their lives after all, but the lads were defiant and wouldn’t be rushed. Now it appeared to be too late.

  He summoned his sons to his apparent deathbed and confessed all—Francesca funding the estate, the pernicious agreement, and their mother’s grasping claws, which he explained was a symptom of all Englishwomen and their weak, clinging, cloying ways. For the sake of the property and their tenants the young men must go to London. At once. No sense even taking time to put him in the ground, much less mourn him, because Francesca wouldn’t excuse the loss of time, and they needed to marry before their sister.

  The lads—grown men, now—were not at all happy suddenly to learn about the responsibilities and rules foisted upon them by a woman they barely remembered. Being wily, freehearted, and exceptionally handsome men accustomed to doing things their way and certainly not bowing to the demands of a demented Englishwoman, they determined to go down to London not to comply, but to outwit their mother and upend any plans she had for them. And thus, dear reader, begins our story.

  Chapter One

  “I can smell the shite from here.” Niall MacTaggert pulled up his bay gelding, Kelpie, at the top of the low rise. “Bloody Saint Andrew,” he muttered, swinging down to the ground. The sight before him—a vast sprawl of hazy, smoke-shrouded streets, the peaks of bell towers here and there the only bits that had managed to break free of the gray to stab into the overcast sky—had both a scent and a sound he hadn’t even the words to describe. “Have ye ever seen the like?”

  “Nae.” His oldest brother, Coll, Viscount Glendarril, remained aboard his massive black Friesian stallion, Nuckelavee, but he leaned forward to cross his wrists over the saddle’s pommel. “I reckon we’ve found hell.”

  As they gazed at the loud, fog-bound morass, Niall’s second oldest brother, Aden, drew up behind them. “Finding a bride here’s nae the first thought that strikes me,” he commented, patting his chestnut thoroughbred, Loki, on the withers. “I reckon we should rescue our sister from that blight and make for the Highlands.”

  “And send her to a nunnery,” Niall added. “If we can keep her from marrying, we’ve nae reason to
tote posies about and read poetry to some fainting English hothouse flower.”

  That had been the plan he suggested, but Coll had overruled him, insisting that the three of them could convince Francesca Oswell-MacTaggert to tear up the agreement. Coll had always favored battle, a direct confrontation, over delicacy or subterfuge. And his methods generally succeeded—the main reason Niall and Aden had agreed to give it a go.

  Niall turned to see the quartet of outriders and two wagons of luggage accompanying them come into sight. It all looked impressive, which had been the point; they all knew that no Sassenach traveled far without half his worldly goods accompanying him. Now, though, he had to consider that having to repack all of it would considerably slow any getaway they might attempt. Then again, they could always taxidermy another red deer stag if they had to leave behind the one they’d brought along.

  Most of the rest of it was nearly as unnecessary. Then again, Francesca claimed to want her sons about. Well, here they were. All three of them. And not a one in the mood to be cooperative. Niall stepped into the stirrup and remounted Kelpie as his brothers returned to the rutted, muddy road and the wagons. London. He’d rather take a wade through a peat bog than spend an hour in London. Their da had signed a paper, though, and then seventeen years later had refused to rise from his sickbed—his deathbed, according to himself—to join his sons in disputing it. Angus MacTaggert, Earl Aldriss, a roaring giant of a Highlands warrior and evidently too scared of his estranged wife to leave his estate and go set eyes on her. Not that Angus would ever admit to that.

  On a sunny day, if such things existed here, the oak and elm trees scattered along the road might have provided a pleasant shade. Today they mostly made Niall miss the pines and the craggy, snow-topped peaks of the Highlands. Christ, had it only been five days since he’d last seen them? It was warmer here, or at least the breeze, even with the rain hanging just behind it, didn’t have that chill that dug into a man’s bones.

  He fell in beside Aden, with Coll and his great black warhorse a few feet ahead of them. The outriders had been more for show than for anything else; he doubted even some damned Sassenach highwayman would care to run up against the MacTaggert brothers. Still, someone had to lag behind with the wagons and protect the stuffed stag and their shaving kits. Their grand arrival wouldn’t change the fact that they’d left behind an ailing father and a busy season of new lambs and growing crops, that they’d had to postpone the Highlands games that had been a tradition in June for the past two hundred years, and dozens of other things that all needed tending. And a fair crop of young ladies who’d be lamenting his absence.

  “Ye ken if yer face freezes like that a hundred lasses will perish from sorrow.”

  Niall sent Aden a sideways glance. “If I’m forced to wed some pinch-faced flower of the south, those hundred lasses will all be perishing from loneliness and sorrow. Even the lot chasing ye might frown for an entire minute once they read about yer nuptuals.”

  “Dunnae underestimate Coll’s lack of enthusiasm at having Francesca choose a bride for him.”

  “Aye. Thank the devil he’s the one lost the card turn. I’m surprised he has any teeth left, the way he’s been grinding ’em for five days.”

  With a swift look at their brother’s backside, Aden pulled a deck of cards from his coat pocket and shuffled it one-handed. “I reckon he’ll fight harder for us with himself in the hangman’s noose.”

  Aden’s swift expression of amusement as he pocketed the cards again might have been simple appreciation, or it might have been one of his rare admissions of trickery. Either way, Niall was abruptly grateful not to be the present Viscount Glendarril. It was horrifying enough to be ordered to choose a Sassenach bride; to have a woman he’d not seen in seventeen years pick out the lass he was to marry would have been enough to make him consider fleeing to the Colonies, regardless of the consequences to Aldriss Park.

  The scattering of farms gave way to densely packed shops, businesses, hotels, inns, brothels, taverns, and stately homes, looming out of the fog like giant, steep-edged ravines to tower halfway into the sky. Along with the buildings came the people, shouting in a hundred accents and several languages, offering oranges, fish, pies, glimpses of the far-off Orient, and themselves. So these were the civilized folk, turning to stare at the trio of riders as they passed—as if the Highlanders were the odd birds. “It’s a madhouse,” he muttered, reining in Kelpie to avoid a scampering, nearly skeletal young girl scooping horse shite into a bucket.

  “What in Saint Margaret’s name is that?” Aden commented, flicking the end of his reins toward a street corner.

  Niall followed the gesture to spy a tall, thin man dressed in a lime-green jacket so tight he wouldn’t have been able to lift his arms above the elbow. The points of his shirt, white and stiff, dug into his earlobes, and his blond hair had been curled tighter than sheep’s wool. His trousers were a peacock blue, his waistcoat a patterned yellow and green, and the black boots he wore shone like water and had heels as deep as a horse’s hooves. “I saw one of ’em in a fashion catalog Eppie had on her bed stand,” Niall replied. “That, Aden, is a dandy.”

  “I’m stunned enough that I willnae ask what ye were doing in Eppie Androw’s bedchamber. A dandy. Do ye reckon he can walk?”

  “If he takes wee-enough steps, aye. And ye know damned well what I was doing in Eppie’s bedchamber. I’m four-and-twenty, nae eleven.”

  Ahead of them Coll consulted a folded paper, then headed right down a narrower, quieter lane. The houses here were larger and didn’t share common walls, with more windows and quaint-looking gardens in the back. A street or two beyond them, the homes had short front drives, overhanging roofs for leaving carriages without getting rained on, and stables alongside the gardens in the rear.

  Though Coll had initially been against it, they’d sent word that the MacTaggert brothers were traveling down to London. Niall could see the benefits of surprising Francesca Oswell-MacTaggert, putting her back on her heels and maybe even frightening her into tearing up the damned agreement. On the other hand, she’d sent the letter announcing Eloise’s betrothal, so she would have a fair idea that her sons would be arriving sooner rather than later. And he personally didn’t relish the idea of having to sleep in the stable because no additional rooms had been opened for them.

  They trotted past a small park dotted with bairns in frilly dresses or short pants, together with women dressed in caps and dowdy gowns—nannies, he supposed—before Coll led them down another lane. A labyrinth of climbing roses and wrought-iron gates surrounded them now, not as closed in as the bordering streets but just as suffocating. When Coll finally drew Nuckelavee to a halt, Niall felt somewhat relieved; he could imagine a hell where one rode through flower-choked lanes endlessly searching for a tavern that would never appear.

  “This one,” Laird Glendarril grunted, his gaze on the stately gray house on the right.

  “Write out the direction for me before we step outside again,” Aden requested. “I’ll nae find it again otherwise.”

  “With any luck we’ll be back home before ye have to memorize it,” their oldest brother returned, and sent the big black warhorse up the half-circle drive. “Hallo the house!”

  The front door opened. Servants started fleeing the house in front of them, maids and kitchen help and footmen all straightening caps and coats willy-nilly as they ran out the door. For a hard half a dozen heartbeats Niall thought they’d caught the house on fire and were running for their lives, until he realized they were lining up on either side of the doorway. He did a swift count—fifteen of them. With that many servants, a man wouldn’t even have to hold his own kerchief to blow his nose.

  “We’ve merited a parade,” Aden noted. “Do ye reckon they do this every time someone approaches the house?”

  Niall stifled a grin. “That wouldnae seem very practical, but the English are all mad anyway.”

  The narrow man with the most gentlemanly attire bowed as the thr
ee of them lined up on horseback. “Welcome to Oswell House, Lord Glendarril, Master Aden, Master Niall.” Down the line the other servants bowed and curtsied in fairly impressive unison. “Lady Aldriss awaits you inside.”

  Behind them the first wagon turned onto the drive and stopped, the other one just behind it. Charles and Wallace, the two men seated beside the drivers and brought down expressly for one purpose, stood and pulled their bagpipes from beneath their wooden seats. At Coll’s nod and after a few off-key groans to fill the bags with air, they began playing “The White Cockade” at full volume. Now that felt like a proper greeting.

  Niall dismounted, handing Kelpie’s reins off to a stunned-looking lad who wore stable livery. Windows of the neighboring houses began flying open, maids and footmen and anyone else in earshot trying to get a look at whatever was making that noise. Before the first refrain they’d gathered a crowd on the street behind them, clapping to the reel.

  “I reckon we’re overdressed,” Aden commented as he handed Loki off to another stableboy.

  Sweet Andrew, Oswell House seemed to have a lad for every horse in the stable. “That was the point, wasnae?” Niall straightened his fox-fur sporran and fell in with his brothers. Scarlet plaid with thick lines of black and green, the colors of clan Ross had to be the grandest and brightest in the Highlands. And with the three men all pushing past six feet tall, they were definitely not about to be missed—or mistaken for anything but what they were.

  “Won’t you…” The butler fellow cleared his throat. “Won’t you come inside?” he repeated, more loudly.

  “They havenae played ‘Killiecrankie’ yet,” Coll returned. “And ye’ve nae introduced us to all these folks who’ve lined up so proper to say hello.”

  Because he’d been watching the doorway, Niall saw Francesca Oswell-MacTaggert, Countess Aldriss, the moment she left the shadows. He’d been but seven years old the last time he’d set eyes on her, but he would have recognized her among a crowd of hundreds. Aye, her black hair had lightened to a peppered gray, and the angel’s face he recalled had widened a bit at the jaw, but it was her. In fact, the one thing he hadn’t expected was that she would be so … tiny. The top of her head wouldn’t even come to his shoulder.