Page 20 of The Last Debutante
“It is something akin to a lord,” Mamie sniffed. “Butnota lord. A decided step down from that.”
Daria waved her grandmother off. “Go on,” she urged him.
“The truth, lass, is that your Mamie is the one who shot me.”
Daria reared back and slapped a hand on the table. As opposed to his face, as was her instinct. “Do you take me for a fool?”
A slow smile appeared on his lips, and he shook his head. “No’ even a wee bit,leannan.”
The way he said that word, whatever it meant, sent a shiver down Daria’s spine. What wretched game was he playing with her? She looked to Mamie for help, but Mamie had sunk down onto a chair, looking suddenly much older than her sixty-some-odd years. And something in her expression made Daria’s belly knot.
“That’s ridiculous,” Daria said angrily, appealing to her grandmother to correct the record, to offer a reasonable explanation,anyexplanation.
But Mamie seemed only to sink lower into her chair, her lips pressed together into an intractable line.
Daria’s belly began to churn and she pressed the flat of her hand to her abdomen. “Mamie, please, I am begging you—thetruth.”
Mamie sighed. She pushed her hair back from her forehead and lifted her gaze to Daria. “Is a woman not permitted to defend herself?”
Daria’s heart sank as Jamie Campbell erupted.
“Defendyourself! Madam, I was unarmed!”
“I didn’tmeanto shoot you,” Mamie said to him, and to Daria, “I had the gun for protection, naturally. I am here alone, and a strange man had come to my door. It... it went off—”
“When my back was turned,” Mr. Campbell said. “Ach,woman, you dissemble yet!”
“Did you announce yourself?” Daria demanded of him. “You must admit that you are intimidating in your appearance, especially to a woman who resides alone.”
He looked very surprised by that. “Intimidating? In what way?”
“Well, your size, for one.” And his hair, hanging to his shoulders. Broad, barely clothed shoulders. “And your... dress,” she added carefully.
His brows dipped into a dark frown. “Mydress? Buckskins? A linen shirt? A coat and a plaid for warmth? These are intimidating? What, must a man wear lace to quell the fears of an English rose?”
“I amnotan English rose! I mean that you might appear, at first glance, perhaps a bit...” She shifted in her seat. “Savage.”
“Savage!”he bellowed. “I will have you know that I’ve been welcomed into ballrooms across London and was no’ thought asavage!”
“I don’t mean that youarea savage, but only that to a woman’s eye, there might be a moment of consternation if one is not acquainted. That’s all.”
He was not appeased. He shifted forward again, propping his good arm against the table so that he could pierce her with his dangerously dark eyes. “Allow me to tell you why your grandmamma shot an unarmed man,” he said, his voice dangerously low. “I didna intimidate her. I scarcely had opportunity, aye? She met me at the door with a gun. Iannouncedmyself. I told her I had come to inquire why she unlawfully divested my addlepated uncle of one thousand pounds. Her response was to shoot me. Now—have you any whisky? I find all this more than a wee bit trying.”
Daria was appalled. “Now you accuse Mamie of not only shooting you with your back turned, butstealingas well? I think you are as mad as she!”
“I beg your pardon, I am notmad.” Mamie stood, reached up to the top shelf, and brought down a green bottle. She took down three small glasses as well, and put them all down with a loudclapbefore Jamie Campbell.
Daria did not generally imbibe. But in this extraordinary circumstance, she eyed that bottle of whisky. So did Jamie Campbell. He reached for it, filling the three glasses, then making quick work of one. As he poured another tot of whisky for himself, Daria moaned, laid her arms on the table, and rested her forehead against them, her eyes closed, trying to absorb another impossible turn of events.
“Oh, Daria, dearest,” Mamie said sweetly, and Daria felt her grandmother’s hand on the back of her head, stroking her. “I am so very sorry for the trouble I’ve caused you.”
Daria was beyond apologies. She was wildly alarmed. She had no idea what she was to do, and Daria always,alwaysknew what to do. When Mr. Anders, a bachelor with thinning hair and bony fingers, had pursued her quite ardently last year, she’d known precisely what to do. When Mrs. Morton had confided in her that Daria’s good friend Lady Ashwood was rumored to have contributed in a nefarious way to the death of her first husband, Lord Carey, Daria had known precisely how to scotch the rumors. But God help her if she knew what to do in this little cottage with these two.
“Go on, then. Tell her,” Jamie Campbell rumbled. “Tell your granddaughter why you robbed my uncle of one thousand pounds, aye?”
“I didn’t rob him of a thousand pounds!” Mamie said angrily, causing Daria to lift her head. “Do I look as if I have even five pounds to my name? If you must know, Daria has come to Scotland to deliver a banknote—” She stopped herself and closed her eyes a moment, her fingers wrapping around one of the glasses of whisky. “Never mind that. The point, Mr. Campbell, is that I shot you quite by accident and I have endeavored to repair the harm and save your life in the process.”
“Diah,”he muttered, throwing up a hand in frustration.
