Page 42 of The Last Debutante
“I didna say we dress in rags and animal pelts, did I? The gown is bonny enough.”
Daria smiled. “Thank you. That’s precisely what I hoped you’d say.” She was still determined to win Bethia over, but it was proving a difficult challenge. “Do they gather for wine beforehand?” she asked as she absently sorted through her jewelry.
Bethia’s answer to that was stated in rather heated Gaelic. Daria was pleased that she actually thought she made out one or two words, one in particular that sounded like Gaelic for “wench,” which Dougal had taught her.
The prospect of the supper—a small but nonetheless important victory for Daria—was wearing on her nerves. The laird had unnecessarily warned her that she’d not be welcome. One need only roam about Dundavie for a few days to know that people were inclined to dislike her. She’d worked very hard to prove she was not the unfeeling beast they believed her to be, and while some had warmed to her, others had not.
Hamish’s immediate family was the hardest mountain to climb. They turned their heads and refused to acknowledge her at all.
But it wasn’t the fear of rejection that made her feel as if she were a new debutante coming out at her first ball. It washim.
The laird. The man who looked more robust and handsome with each passing day. It was ridiculous to think of himthatway, given that she was his captive, but she’d felt something different between them today. They had gone beyond tolerance of one another, or even friendship. The press of his lips—his lips!—to her temple felt like desire. At least inherheart it did.
As she dressed for the evening, taking pains with her hair—Bethia was no help, apparently believing that a woman who could not dress her own hair was not much of a woman at all—and applying a bit of rouge to her cheeks, Daria chastised herself for believing in her own fantasies. It was the height of foolishness to dress up for a man who held her captive, and she could all but hear Charity’s cackle from Edinburgh.
But there was a force at work that was far more powerful than her usual common sense. It was the rapid beat of her heart this afternoon, the heat of her skin where he’d touched her. She was incapable of dismissing the idea that therehadbeen a few moments in which they’d drawn close.
“Diah,is there to be a bloody ball tonight?” Bethia grumbled when Daria emerged from behind the dressing screen.
“One never knows, Bethia. That’s why it is always prudent to be prepared,” Daria said with a wink, and she went out.
At the doors of the great hall, Daria took a moment to square her shoulders and lift her chin, assuming the correct posture for a well-bred woman.“There is no greater impact than a lady’s entrance,”Lady Ashwood had counseled. So Daria put a smile on her face, put both hands on the knobs of the double doors, and opened them at the same time, stepping across the threshold and expecting to find Campbell and his family—
There was no one within.
Were they truly so uncivilized that they did not come together for a glass of wine before supper? Disappointed in that lapse of gentility, Daria dropped her hands with a sigh and walked into the great hall. Someone might have informed her where, exactly, the Campbells dined. She left the great room and walked down a long, dark corridor lined with armaments, portraits, and tapestries so old and dusty that she sneezed.
As she moved down the corridor, she heard voices coming from behind a closed door at the very end. The voices were raised, speaking rapidly. Daria walked to the door, hoping to hear something that might identify a person to her, but she could not make them out. She leaned closer, her head turned so that she might hear better.
The door suddenly opened, and Daria gasped, stumbling backward with shock.
Standing in the open door, Young John looked just as shocked to see her there. As he moved aside, Daria saw the Campbells gathered in a loose semicircle, staring at her.
“I beg your pardon,” she said breathlessly, and frantically searched for some explanation as to why she was lurking on the other side of the door. “I was looking—”
“Please come in, Miss Babcock.”
She hadn’t seen him before that moment, standing off to the right. He’d put his hair in a queue, and his square jaw was clean-shaven. He wore a coat of navy superfine and a gray waistcoat. He looked like a king, a highborn English lord, save one small detail—the knee-length plaid wrapped and belted about his waist. His muscular legs were encased in woolen socks. In fact, every man in the room was dressed the same, and the only woman among them, whom Daria did not know, wore plaid draped across her shoulder.
Daria’s beautiful gown was woefully underplaided.
“Allow me,” the laird said, and moved forward with only a slight limp, his arm extended to her.
Daria put her hand on it; it was wide and as solid as a tree. She found it oddly comforting.
The laird shepherded her into the small room while everyone else stared at her as disdainfully as one might view a traitor to country and king.
“Allow me to properly introduce Miss Daria Babcock,” the laird said to those assembled.
“Isn’t she a bonny lass, then?” an old man with a balding head said.
“Aye, that she is,” the laird said, and Daria felt a ridiculous swell of pleasure. “Miss Babcock, you’ve met my brother, Geordie, and my cousin Robbie. May I introduce you to Mrs. Aileen Campbell, Robbie’s wife.”
Aileen Campbell nodded coolly.
“And of course, my uncle Hamish Campbell. You’ve heard a wee bit about him.”
It was one of those rare moments when Daria really did not know what to do. As she had not been schooled in the proper etiquette of captivity, she erred on the side of caution and dipped into a graceful curtsy worthy of royalty. “It is an honor.” She stopped short of saying it was also a pleasure.
