Of Kilts and Courtship
ARABELLA HUGHES HAD been sentenced to one of Dante’s nine circles of hell for the summer.
Scotland, to be precise.
After five days in a carriage jolting over Scotland’s muddy roads, dealing with grumpy innkeepers, and the Scottish accent thickening with every mile they traveled north, Arabella was at her wits’ end.
She was out of the country, out of reach of civilization, and out of patience.
And now this.
She stared down at herself, damp and mud-spattered, then lifted her eyes toward the damaged carriage, feeling a growing sense of helplessness. She wanted to throw something. Instead, she settled for kicking the broken axle. A streak of pain shot up her toe and she winced.
That was her reward, she supposed, for being unladylike.
Ironic, since being unladylike was what had gotten her into this mess in the first place. She wouldn’t be here—cold, wet through, and foul-tempered—if she’d been the ladylike paragon her parents expected her to be. She’d still be in London, enjoying the end of the Season.
“Miss Hughes?” The driver cut through her melancholy thoughts. “The village is about a mile up. I can unhitch one of the horses for you, though you’d have toride—”
“I’ve no intention of riding bareback.” She pulled her cloak tighter around her. “We’ll walk.”
“But Miss Hughes!” came Molly’s whine. “Walk in this?” Arabella’s lady’s maid gestured up at the sky, still letting down a steady rain. “Why, it’ll be the death of us both, it will. We should wait here, in the carriage, for someone to—”
“Rescue us?” Arabella interrupted. “We’d be here the whole summer. No, we’ll walk.” And ignoring Molly’s protests, Arabella turned and started up the hill, cursing the day she’d ever thought kissing Mr. Gresham was a romantic idea.
The thick mud sucked at her boots, and she kept her head down, trying to keep the rain out of her eyes. Molly’s piteous cries followed her all the way up the hill, and by the time she entered the village’s one small inn, The Fox and Crown, Arabella felt ready to snap.
Instead, she found the ruddy-faced proprietor who took one look at her and grunted. “Ye’re drippin’ water a’ ower mah flair ’n’ mah guidwife wull nae be happy.”
While she didn’t understandexactlywhat he was saying, she certainly understood the gist. It took a great deal of effort not to inform the man that his country had dripped water all overher.
She drew in a slow breath.Be a lady.“Yes, sir, and I am sorry. We’ve had some trouble with our carriage and need assistance. And perhaps a room where my lady’s maid and I could dry out while we wait.”
The man grunted again, returning to his ledger. “Thir’s na yin wha kin hulp ye th’day.”
His dismissiveness cut through her. “No one who can help ustoday? What about tomorrow? How about by next Tuesday?”
He didn’t even bother to look up. “Ah will hae th’ missus see aboot a room fur ye. Mrs. Ferguson!” he shouted.
Arabella was seething. She’d never been so ill-treated in her life. Her parents hadn’t been exaggerating about the ills of Scotland.
The innkeeper’s wife appeared, a short plump woman, hair laced with gray.
The man gestured toward Arabella. “A room fur th’ lassie ’n’ her maid tae freuch oot.”
“Seòmar don bhoireannach. Ach gu dearbh!” She turned to go. “Lean mise.”
Thus far, the thick Scottish accent had been difficult to make sense of. But this woman’s words sounded like another language entirely. Arabella could feel a headache coming on.
Yet she dutifully followed, and the woman settled them in a cozy parlor, leaving their cloaks drying by the fire. A quaint table sat in the middle of the room and Arabella took one of the wooden chairs.
“A whole summer here,” wailed Molly, retreating to one of the corner chairs. “In this uncivilized country. Oh, what did I do to deserve it?”
Arabella was already tempted to leave Molly here at the end of the summer. After a week of the girl’s whining, she was beginning to think Mother had hired Molly as part of her punishment.
Luckily, Molly’s complaints were soon quieted as she drifted off to sleep. Arabella leaned back against the chair and closed her eyes, shutting out the world. Welcome though the reprieve was, Arabella couldn’t help but let her thoughts drift back to London, to the missteps that had led her here.
It had started out innocently enough.
