Page 31 of The Last Debutante
Duff grinned as he heaved himself out of his chair. “That’s about bloody time.” Duff was not the sort of man who had much patience for lying about. If Jamie were a betting man, he’d wager that Duff had done a fair amount of pacing these last few days, alongside Geordie.
With Young John’s help, Jamie dressed in buckskins, a lawn shirt, and a waistcoat. He shooed Young John away when the butler presented neckcloths and coats to him, as he was ravenous and could think of nothing other than breakfast.
As Jamie headed downstairs, pleased that he could walk without searing pain, he caught the scent of ham. He knew that would be accompanied by haggis, black pudding, and eggs.
His mouth was watering.
“Aye, good to see you up on your feet again, Laird,” Mrs. Murray, Dundavie’s head cook, called out to him, having spotted him as she made her way out of the dining room with an empty platter.
He smiled and nodded at her as he walked into the morning dining room.
His brother Geordie was present. He wasn’t eating but was leaning across the table, his head propped on his hand.
“Madainn mhath,”Jamie greeted him.
Geordie sat up. He picked up his slate and wrote something, which he held up to Jamie.
Jamie paused to squint at it. “What is that? Gaelic or English?” He continued on to the sideboard, where he picked up a plate and began to fill it. From the corner of his eye he saw Geordie wipe the slate clean with his sleeve. By the chalky look of that sleeve, he’d done it more than once today. He wrote again, and when Jamie took his seat across from his brother, Geordie held up his slate.
Muny?
“Mooney?” Jamie read. Geordie frowned, turned his hand over, and rubbed his fingers together.
“Money, then,” Jamie guessed. Geordie nodded. “I assume you mean the money Hamish lost. I told you, lad, it’s in the English lass. The money is tied up in a lady’s skirt, so to speak.”
Geordie’s expression darkened. He shook his head, pushed away from the table, and walked to the window, bracing his arm against the frame and staring out.
It had been like this since Geordie had been rendered mute by the cut of Cormag Brodie’s sword across his gullet. Mute for now or forever, no one knew. But since the doctor had forbidden him from trying to speak for a full year to allow any healing that might be done, Geordie had taken to brooding.
Brooding was not something Jamie could easily abide, and it had created a silent rift between him and his brother. He had quite a lot to keep him awake at night as it was, and besides, he missed Geordie’s counsel. But Geordie’s spelling was so wretched that it made it difficult to communicate at all. Jamie was therefore relieved when his cousin Robbie entered the dining room with Duff. Geordie was better endured with company.
“Jamie, lad!” Robbie said cheerfully. “I’d given up on you.” He clapped Jamie on the shoulder and leaned across him at the sideboard to pick up a plate. “You’ve been set to rights, aye?”
“I am feeling more hopeful that I have.” Jamie finished filling his plate and sat at the table. “What have I missed, then? Where is our ransom this morning?” he asked, and shoved a forkful of haggis into his mouth. “And where are the dogs? I’ve no’ seen so much as a hair of them.”
Duff snorted. “I suspect she’ll be in to join us shortly.” He turned his attention to the sideboard.
“I donna need to see her; I want only to know where she is. She is a thousand pounds walking about Dundavie.”
“I think you’ll no’ have much choice. She’s rather made herself at home, she has.” Duff smiled thinly and sat heavily at the table with a plate piled precariously high with food. “She took your words to heart, she did, and has made herself familiar with every inch of Dundavie.”
Jamie could not recall what he’d said to her in the foyer. He didn’t know what he’d expected, really—likely nothing, given that he was on the verge of death when they’d ridden into the bailey. And that he was not in the habit of taking a hostage to be exchanged for ransom. Be that as it may, Jamie hardly cared what she did, as long as she didn’t leave Dundavie.
And the last thing he wanted to dwell on was an English rose traipsing about his home. “What else, then? Any trouble from Murchison—”
“What a wonderful sight! You’re awake!”
That lilting voice heralded the arrival of Miss Daria Babcock to the dining room. The men all seemed to remember themselves at once, finding their feet as she winged into their midst on a cloud of blue muslin. Her hair was wound up in a style Jamie knew was fashionable in London. Her skin was flushed, as if she’d run to the dining room, and she was smiling broadly. The lass looked very different from when Jamie had last seen her, bedraggled and stained with his blood. Today, she was enticing. She appeared sophisticated, a woman who very clearly had been trained to be a lady.
Jamie realized he was staring at her and instantly averted his gaze—which landed on his dogs, which he hadn’t noticed until then. They were trotting obediently along behind her, and now he understood what Duff had meant—the bloody hounds had betrayed him.
“How happy I am to see you at last on the mend!” Miss Babcock cheerfully observed as she came to a halt before him, beaming up at him as if she’d somehow had a hand in it. She absently put her hand down on Anlan’s head and scratched him behind the ears. Aedus immediately tried to nose his way in. “I had begun to fret for your well-being, in truth. I begged Mr. Duff to allow me to see you and he would not.” She paused to give Duff a withering little look before turning her smile, full and bright, to Jamie once more. “He had me rather convinced that you were not improving as I hoped.”
Duff grunted and resumed his seat and his meal.
Geordie suddenly appeared at Jamie’s side. He picked up his slate and scrawled,She leve us.
“Ah... Miss Babcock, if I may, I should like to introduce my brother, Geordie Campbell.”
