Page 22 of The Last Debutante
“Whatever she has taken, we will repay,” Daria said quickly. Campbell looked as if he were prepared to argue. “Mamie,” Daria said quickly, and put her hands on Mamie’s shoulders. “Will you please go and dress?”
Mamie’s eyes widened with surprise. “But I—”
“Please, darling,” Daria pleaded with her. “You’re wearing yesterday’s gown.”
Mamie glanced down. She pressed a hand to her hair and frowned at the feel of it. “Yes, all right; perhaps I ought.” She walked out of the little kitchen, looking defeated.
Daria waited until she heard the door of Mamie’s room open and close, then whirled toward Jamie Campbell.
“Donna even try,” he said. “I do no’ give quarter to thieves and liars.”
This was clearly going to be a tussle.
Eight
ON AN EARLY-SUMMERday the previous year, much like this one, Jamie had sat in the laird’s chair at Dundavie, his finger tracing over the crack in the leather, and received the Murchisons, a well-to-do English family who had purchased the land next to the Campbell clan lands and infested it with sheep. Mr. Murchison had made an enticing offer to some Campbells to buy their parcels of land, which they had accepted. Many in Jamie’s clan didn’t fully grasp that the ability of each of them to prosper was based on their ability to prosper as a whole. Each clan member owned his or her parcels of land, but the yields from those lands went into clan coffers and benefited the entire clan. So when parcels were sold, it reduced the land available for the clan to profit from.
Change was coming swiftly to Dundavie, and Jamie was trying his best to steer a rocking ship to the new reality. However, he was naturally predisposed to dislike the Murchisons, who had come that summer day with an offer to buy more acreage.
But what Jamie recalled about that day was how Murchison’s daughter had interrupted her father twice to make a point of her own that she seemed to think critical to the conversation. He’d been surprised by it, for women generally were not present when matters of business were discussed, and if they were, they certainly didn’t speak. Particularly Englishwomen. He’d never known a young, unmarried Englishwoman to be any more engaged than a piece of furniture in matters of business.
Miss Daria Babcock, he was learning, was in some regard much like that young Englishwoman. Give her a podium and a proper cause, and he’d wager she could beat men into submission with her tongue. She was certainly trying to subduehisrage, talking quite a lot as she paced before the table, her robe trailing behind her, her knotted hair swinging loosely above her waist, her arms wrapped tightly around her.
He liked the way her hips swung as she paced, the way she knit her brows as she concentrated on her argument. He liked the curve of her neck, the swell of her bosom above her folded arms. If the circumstances were different, he would like her quite a lot.
Miss Babcock suddenly halted and stared at him, clearly waiting for a response. When he did not offer one, she demanded, “Have you heard a word I’ve said?”
Jamie shifted uncomfortably. He’d heard some of her words, although which ones he could not say. It hardly mattered—nothing she could say to him would change his mind. He was of the firm opinion that Mrs. Moss should be cast into gaol and left to rot. But as he had no gaol to cast her into, he’d not decided what he would do with the old woman quite yet.
Miss Babcock suddenly leaned across the table so that she was at eye level with him. “She’s ill, Mr. Campbell, quite ill, deserving of your compassion. You have my word that I shall see your uncle’s money repaid if you will allow me to escort her home to Hadley Green, where my mother might care for her as she needs.”
Jamie cocked his head to one side. “Do you suggest that I allow you and the old woman to leave Scotland, then wait patiently for one thousand pounds to magically appear?”
“I gave you my word.”
Jamie smiled. He slid his hand across the table and wrapped his fingers around her wrist before she knew what he was about. She tried to yank free, but he pulled her closer until she was forced to brace herself on her elbows, bent halfway over the table, her face only inches from his, her light brown eyes sparkling with ire. “Yourwordwill no’ be sufficient. That old woman deserves to be put away, if not hanged, aye?” His gaze slipped to her mouth. “Consider yourself fortunate that she’s no’ been dealt a Scot’s justice quite yet. Or you, for that matter.”
“Me?What have I done?”
“In the Highlands, a family stands on the actions of one.”
Miss Babcock yanked her hand free and stood back, glaring down at him. “You will not frighten me with threats, sir. I think it is clear that my grandmother isnot herself. I’ve known her for one and twenty years and I’ve never known her to do the slightest bit of wrong.” Her expression softened, and the young woman suddenly looked very weary. She sighed and slipped into the chair directly across from Jamie. “She is the kindest, most generous woman,” she said sadly. “I have always adored her.”
“Touching,” Jamie said. “But no’ enough to sway me.”
“Oh!”she snapped, and shifted around in her chair so she was facing to the side, her arms folded tightly across her chest once more.
“I beg your pardon if you are offended. I donna know how the English treat those who will, unprovoked, shoot a man in the back, but in Scotland, generally speaking, they are no’ allowed to roam freely.”
Miss Babcock glanced heavenward and closed her eyes. “Then would you at least consider helpingme?”
He snorted. “You?”
She cast a cow-eyed look at him. “Surely you can appreciate how difficult this is for me.”
He could not begin to guess why he should care, given the injustice that had been done to him. He suspected the Brodies were behind it all somehow, seeking vengeance for the trouble with Geordie. If that were true, it only made Jamie want to put the old woman away that much more. But he could not look into the lovely eyes in the lovely face across from him now and say so, though he would like to. He gave her an indifferent shrug.
She twisted in her chair once more to face him. “The irony, Mr. Campbell, is that you are the only one who can help me now. Isn’t that absurd? But it’s true! Who else butyoucan help me discover what has happened to my grandmother?”
