Bloody Skirmishes

5

Bloody Skirmishes

    Miss Bon-Dutton returned from a visit to the old Miss Dalziels with a warm invitation for her young friend to visit. Miss Dalziel and Miss Myrtle Dalziel were not, as the absence of titles indicated, very closely related to His Grace of Lochailsh; they were in fact the daughters of one of his great-uncles. And lived in a neat little stone house in Lochailsh town, with a faithful parlourmaid who appeared even older then they were, and was scarcely distinguishable from her mistresses: only the slightly less elaborate style of her cap, and the fact that her black gown was woollen rather than heavy silk, indicating her position. The house was darkly panelled throughout, very much after the style of an earlier day, and featured a great deal of dark wooden furniture, an amount of faded brocade, several stiff family portraits of which Eudora privily warned Raffaella the old ladies were very proud, and three giant gingery cats. After not very long at all it became apparent that these monsters ruled the roost at the Miss Dalziels’. Benjamin had his own chair and emitted a horrible snarl at the sight of Miss Bon-Dutton attempting to sit upon it. On her hurriedly removing herself to the sofa, however, he did not claim his chair but remained on the windowsill, glaring. Charlotte did not care to be stroked by strangers, Contessa. Raffaella’s hand retreated abruptly as the creature lifted its lip at her. And Annabel was always allowed a little morsel of cake: that was why she was looking, so! Limply Raffaella gave the grossly fat Annabel the better portion of her slice of cake.

    Virtue was not rewarded, and the Miss Dalziels’ little house was not visited by a title while the ladies were there.

    “Never mind, we shall call at the Palace,” said Eudora soothingly.

    At Lochailsh Palace Lady Honoria Macdonald, Lady Elspeth Dalziel and Lady Clara Dalziel (his aunts, and all very elderly), received Miss Bon-Dutton, her cousin, and the Misses Dewesbury most kindly. It was delightful to see Miss Bon-Dutton again, and how was her dear mamma? And yes, they had very lately had the pleasure of a visit from the Misses Dewesbury’s sister Gwendolyn, and dear Lord Ferdy Lacey!

    Lady Honoria, Lady Elspeth and Lady Clara did not have fat cats. However, just as certain persons were silently congratulating themselves on this point, Flora of Ailsh, Diarmid of Ailsh, Hamish of Ailsh and Anne III of Ailsh were introduced. White Scotch terriers? This misconception on the part of some was very speedily put right. And Miss Nellie Dewesbury’s posterior was very speedily removed from a little wee chair that Lady Clara explained was Diarmid of Ailsh’s favourite spot. No-one else had to remove, possibly because the other chairs were all out of the reach of the fat, wheezing white creatures. Anne III also dribbled, and Lady Clara explained her troubles with her teeth in great detail. Which at her age was only to be expected, but she went on marvellously well on the whole. Hamish of Ailsh, meanwhile, breathing stertorously, went and laid himself not at, but on, Miss Bon-Dutton’s feet: Lady Honoria explaining with a doating laugh that he was addicted to feet and had been from a puppy! Possibly he had not been quite so heavy as a puppy, and the sensation had been slightly more bearable.

    Poor Raffaella then committed the frightful faux pas, in the mistaken belief that she had learned the correct etiquette at the Miss Dalziels’, of offering Flora of Ailsh, who was squinting horribly at her, a portion of her slice of cake. No, no, no, my dear Contessa! One did not feed the dogs tidbids, they had their own special diet!

    “How did the creatures get so fat, then?” she wondered sourly as the guests tottered out at long last. Not of course having laid eyes on anything that even looked like a Duke.

    “The diet is reputed to consist of minced steak, steamed trout, filleted, and good Scottish cream,” replied Eudora neutrally.

    She smiled reluctantly. “That would explain it, yes.”

    On the morrow Raffaella concluded crossly that the visits had been useless: but Eudora returned solemnly: “Just wait.”

     Her Grace of Munn was in residence, and was pleased to receive Miss Bon-Dutton and her cousin. The gracious many-chimneyed stone mansion which had replaced the original dwelling of the Dukes of Munn was charming inside, but charming in the grandest way. Her Grace was in the small sitting-room that gave onto the conservatory, the butler explained courteously. Help, if the immense gallery lined with white marble statues on marble plinths was a mere hall leading to a small sitting-room that opened onto a conservatory, what could the more formal parts of the mansion be like? The hall was in delightful taste: behind the white of the statues and the dark, red-brown, almost Sienna shade of the plinths, the walls were a light blue, and the long windows which gave onto a prospect of stone terrace, wide lawns and the sea, were hung with deep blue brocade. Here and there in embrasures large china vases picked up the shades of blue and red and added touches of gold to the scheme. Her Grace’s little sitting-room was also charmingly tasteful: hung in shades of a dusky pink, this colour being repeated in the brocaded furnishings; but with its high ceiling, its long windows and its quite beautiful white marble chimney piece, it was not precisely a cosy room. At the far end glass doors were open onto a forest of lush greenery with here and there an elaborate china pot echoing the pink shades of the sitting-room. Delightful. Providing one had the income to support it, yes.

    The Duchess of Munn was, as Miss Bon-Dutton had earlier warned her connection, very grande dame, but she received them most kindly. She was most certainly an elderly lady, though dressed very smartly, and the consequent mental arithmetic resulted in the not entirely encouraging conclusion that the Marquis of Glenrowan must be at least forty years of age: he was her oldest child and not merely her oldest son, as the broken reed, after some brow-wrinkling, had managed to recall. Of course this did not entirely rule out the possibility that his eldest son might be of a more suitable age. But where was he?

    There were, in fact, no gentlemen present. The Dewesbury ladies were sitting with Her Grace, as also was her companion, a Miss Anstruther, a lady in her mid-years and of a rather fluttery disposition, her eldest unmarried daughter, Lady Rosamund Lacey, a meek-faced women of perhaps Eudora’s age, and her youngest daughter, Lady Laetitia Lacey.

    On Eudora’s remarking politely that she had not expected to see Lady Laetitia still here, for she thought there had been some scheme of her joining the Throgmortons for September, her Ladyship, a merry-faced creature with a mop of dark curls and striking blue-green eyes, replied with a glance at her formidable mamma: “Oh, but Miss Bon-Dutton, it has fallen through, and Mamma is so cross with the Throgmortons!”

    “I am very sorry to hear that, Duchess,” said Eudora formally.

    “Thank you, my dear. I own I am very deeply disappointed in Hugh Throgmorton: he did give us to understand that his cousin’s boy was quite willing.”

    “Tommy Throgmorton,” said Laetitia helpfully to the Contessa. “Terribly good-looking, you know, so of course one was not precisely reluctant. But after one look at me, he turned tail and ran off with a farmer’s daughter!”

    “Letty exaggerates. And of course we had not nearly got to the stage of agreeing to an engagement,” said her mother. “They had scarcely met. But it is true that the boy has contracted a most foolish alliance, yes.”

    “They are sending him to the colonies,” said Letty, “and Mr Throgmorton is furious!”

    “My dear, Hugh Throgmorton is not a gentleman who indulges himself in any display of passion,” said her mother calmly. “Pray do not give our visitors the impression that he is. –He is certainly displeased,” she said to the company.

    The company nodded palely and gave forced smiles.

    After that it was quite a relief, really, when a scruffy red-headed boy came in together with three small black dogs and the Duchess, becoming not precisely enthusiastic but certainly rather less stiff, allowed that yes, they were Scotch terriers, Contessa, of course! And this was her grandson, Douglas Lacey. Douglas, my dear, were those hands clean? Douglas was a well-grown lad but he obediently showed his Grandmamma his hands. Which were clean. Certain persons reflected that one would have to be an imbecile to come into the Duchess’s sitting-room with hands that were not.

    Douglas was allowed to stay and help the ladies consume cake. No-one ventured to offer any to the dogs, the which was just as well, for Miss Anstruther mentioned to the company that Glenrowan claimed the ladies of the household over-fed the dogs and had strictly forbidden them to give them tidbids.

    The Contessa and her cousin left without any sight of a male member of the household except for the red-haired young Douglas, but all was not lost, for Her Grace had issued a very definite invitation to dinner!

    … “That was a trifle odd, actually,” admitted Raffaella.

    “What, those fat, short black dogs of the Duchess’s?” said Eudora with a smile. “Are they not quite common in Scotland?”

    “Very witty. No, um—did you notice that that boy’s name was Douglas?”

    “Glenrowan’s boy? Yes, I suppose it was. Why?”

    “The agent told me that the horrid boy who tried to chouse five shillings out of me was called Douglas and was his younger brother,” said Raffaella cautiously.

    “It is quite a common name in Scotland, I think,” she said mildly.

    “Mm. It—it seems an odd coincidence, that is all.”

    Miss Bon-Dutton was elegant in dark blue silk with a lace shawl, and the Contessa was charming in a pink silk which her cousin’s maid had made over for her, Eudora having claimed that it was by far too girlish for herself. On arrival Miss Dewesbury was revealed to be positively fairy-like in palest blue gauze and Miss Nellie boringly Missish in white muslin. Lady Lavinia was completely imposing in silver satin with the matching turban, if that could signify.

    As the Lacey ladies, Miss Anstruther and the Dewesburys were in “the blue salon”, which was most certainly blue, it could not but be an overwhelming relief that one had not worn green; it would have been disastrous in that room. Lady Letty was fairy-like in palest jonquil gauze but on reflection she must be all of twenty-three. And of course a close relation.

    There had been time to wonder if perhaps the ladies were alone at the Keep of Munn, when the door opened and two gentlemen in evening dress walked in.

    Raffaella gasped, and sat up very straight, her cheeks bright red.

    “There you are, my dears,” said Her Grace placidly. “Miss Bon-Dutton, do you know my eldest son? –Glenrowan. And his son, Andrew.” She moved on. “The Contessa dalla Rovere.”

    The burly Marquis with the Romantick streaks of silver in his thick, dark hair bowed slightly and greeted her politely. Andrew Lacey, bowing most properly and expressing his pleasure, then asked calmly: “And is this your first visit to this historic part of Scotland, Contessa?”

    “Yes,” she gulped, trying to smile.

    “You will find,” said Andrew, straight-faced, “that we are very historic indeed: quite like something out of Rob Roy, in fact.”

    She smiled palely.

    Rather fortunately, Lady Letty then came to the rescue and saying cheerfully to her nephew: “Good gracious, Andrew, young ladies are not interested in your boring old history: go away, if you cannot be lighter of touch in your conversation, and let me talk to the Contessa!”, sat down beside her and proceeded to chat vivaciously.

    Worse, of course, was to come. For Miss Anstruther was just saying: “Now, I do wonder where that naughty Alasdhair can be,” when the door opened and in came Sir Lionel Dewesbury with a heavy-set elderly gentleman with a thick shock of white hair, supported by a shatteringly handsome young man with Romantick dark curls and dancing sea-green eyes… Dio mio.

    “–Lord McDiarmid,” said Glenrowan, after Raffaella had made her curtsey to the Duke. “May I present the Contessa dalla Rovere, Alasdhair: I do not think you have met, before?”

    “Oh, I am quite sure I should remember, had we met before!” he said gaily. “Delighted, Contessa. Perhaps you might allow me to show you some of our more interesting ruins one day—the old Keep here is fascinating, you know.”

    Raffaella was incapable of even a smile.

    After that, somehow the dinner had to be got through. Far from languishing after a title, Raffaella could only thank her lucky stars that she was placed at the greatest possible remove from all of them. Oh, what an abject fool she was!

    The period after dinner passed more or less unnoticed. Well, poor Katie Dewesbury was tortured into performing upon the pianoforte, and then Lady Letty played while the Marquis of Glenrowan sang; most beautifully, had one been in the mood to appreciate it. After which there was general conversation, in the course of which Lord McDiarmid managed to mention ragged boys and historic Keeps only something like five times…

    “Well?” said Eudora after an interval of musing silence, as the Keep of Munn’s carriage conveyed them back to the inn.

    “It was them,” she said grimly.

    “Yes?” said Eudora politely.

    “Go on, LAUGH!” she shouted. “Mr Andrew Lacey was the agent’s son and Lord McDiarmid was the horrid boy, and now tell me he owns half SCOTLAND!”

    “Not quite. But he is not much more than a boy, really.” Her lips twitched. “I would not have said that Mr Lacey has a joking bone in his body, but evidently I am incorrect.”

    “Be SILENT!” she shouted.

    “I did not think it went so badly,” offered Eudora mildly.

    “You did not know the whole, Cousin. They were laughing up their sleeves at me the entire evening!” returned Raffaella bitterly.

    “Well, of course I did not have sufficient information to judge,” said Eudora, very dry. “But I would not say, looking back, that that was so. Er—and to be frank, Lord McDiarmid has not yet reached his majority, and I am very sure that his family has plans for him.”

    “And so do the Duke and Duchess and Lord Glenrowan for Mr Lacey; you need not say it!” she said crossly.

    Eudora sighed a little, but did not say it.

     The Contessa had plenty of time for gloom, despair, and it must be admitted, bitter recriminations, the next day. The following morning she had not visibly cheered up, but Eudora took her firmly out for a walk. They rambled along the shore, not talking very much, but enjoying the smell of the sea, the wind off the heather-clad hills, and the peace. And returned in time for an excellent meal of fresh fish and new-baked crusty bread.

    “Perhaps we should just have a lazy afternoon,” suggested Eudora, as Raffaella could not think of anything she wished to do.

    They had settled in the little private parlour with their books when Mrs Macdonald bustled in all agog. Callers! Young gentlemen from the Keep of Munn!

    Of course it was a terrible pity that Raffaella was only in a crumpled pink and fawn print, but it could not signify too much, and she sat up very straight, with shining eyes. Perhaps the Scottish raid had not been a complete waste of time and effort, after all!

    A most flattering invitation had been received from Lady Honoria Macdonald, the eldest of His Grace of Lochailsh’s paternal aunts. The Contessa cleared her throat.

    “Go on,” said Eudora drily.

    “Er—well, dear Cousin Eudora, I was wondering if you could tell me,” said Raffaella with an artless look, “exactly what type of lady the Duke of Lochailsh affects?”

    “No,” replied Eudora frankly.

    “You must have some idea!” she cried, very flushed. “You know him!”

    The well brought-up Miss Bon-Dutton swallowed. “Er, well, I suppose I could tell you about the ladies whom he—er—”

    “Go on!” she urged. “I am a widowed lady, after all, dear Cousin!”

    “Um… There was Lady— Oh, dear.” Eudora looked at her limply.

    “Would it be easier if you did not tell me their names?” said Raffaella kindly.

    “How foolish: yes, it would,” she discovered feebly.

    Raffaella smiled at her. “You have very nice instincts: even I, old in sin though I am, and completely devoid of them myself, can see it! If you could just describe Lady Oh Dear?”

    “Well, she is—was—is,” admitted Eudora, swallowing, “dark, very tall, with a commanding presence, and extremely handsome. –I’m sorry, you did ask. She speaks several languages and is known as a witty raconteuse. Er—at least his own age: does that make it better or worse?”

    Raffaella smiled weakly. “I’m not too sure.”

    “No, quite. Well… there was Mrs—let us call her Mrs Er. A fair woman, with one of those—er—trilling laughs. Very much admired by—er—many gentlemen. Quite tall, with a—a buxom figure. Not particularly witty, I suppose, but a very lively manner, and a notable hostess.”

    “Help,” muttered Raffaella. “How old?”

    “Well, at the time they— Um, at the time, I suppose she would have been in her mid-thirties.” Raffaella merely grimaced, and she went on uncertainly: “I have got them out of order. But there was Mrs Ja—Um, a Mrs J., a notable horsewoman; one of those dark-haired, very pink-cheeked women. She affected a rather manly style of dress but as her figure was, um, on the voluptuous side, it did not have a— Er, the effect it had was not—”

    “–discouraging,” finished Raffaella heavily. “Was she clever?”

    “Extremely well-read and a coming political hostess; in her fact her husband is now—” Eudora broke off abruptly.

    “Is there more?” said Raffaella heavily.

    Miss Bon-Dutton cleared her throat. “Well, yes. He is not, of course, a young man… Well, there was a foreign lady, let us call her the Señora, though she was not Spanish. Generally admired: a very winning, gay manner: charm, you know?” Raffaella nodded gloomily. “I suppose she was not technically pretty but nevertheless one of the most popular women in London and reckoned to have scores of gentlemen at her feet.”

    “Was she Portuguese?” demanded Raffaella abruptly.

    “What? Oh; no, no: the Portuguese Widow was never one of his, my dear.”

    “Oh. So was this Señora tall?”

    “Medium height only, and nothing particularly distinguished about her figure: average, I suppose.”

     “You have almost confused me sufficiently, so you had better get it over with.”

    “Er—I suppose, Frau X.”

    “Do not say it: she was not German.”

    “Well, no. Something European. Very blonde, with striking large blue eyes. A tall lady.”

    “Buxom?”

    Eudora sighed, but admitted: “I would not say that. A very graceful figure. Extremely clever, with a gift for telling witty stories that generally have a sting in their tale. And a notable hostess. She is over forty, I suppose, but then, as I say, he is not young.”

    “I collect this is a recent one?”

    “Well, quite recent, my dear, yes. –You did ask.”

    “So,” concluded Raffaella grimly: “he likes witty ladies, of a political turn of mind, and prefers them tall, with the exception of a señora or two. And though one may say he has a taste for the buxom, it is not a pre-requisite.”

    “Ye-es… They are all quite sophisticated women,” said Eudora on an apologetic note.

    “And older,” said Raffaella, beginning to pace about Eudora’s bedroom, scowling.

    “Mm.”

    “Possibly he will be struck by something younger and fresher, then,” she said eventually.

    Eudora tried to smile in agreement, but very apparently did not succeed.

    “I cannot grow ten inches overnight,” said Raffaella sourly.

    “No,” she agreed feebly.

    “Nor age ten years or more, neither! Though something might be done, with the right garments… And a change of hairstyle.”

    Again Eudora tried to smile in agreement, but again, she did not succeed.

    … “Let Miss Bon-Dutton have the Duke after all!” suggested Nellie Dewesbury, giggling. “You can have Glenrowan and I’ll have Lord McDiarmid. Then Katie can have Mr Lacey: that will please Mamma, even if it will make her Gwennie’s niece!”

    “No!” replied Raffaella angrily. “I have made up my mind to it that a duke shall not escape my net; I have not come all the way to Scotland for nothing! And I know I owe the trip entirely to Miss Bon-Dutton’s good offices, but she does not want him!”

    “You said yourself he never even glanced your way at that dance at Sommerton Grange,” said Nellie in a bored tone.

    “That was merely a preliminary scouting expedition,” explained Raffaella with a martial glint in her eye. “This is to be a bloody skirmish.”

    Miss Nellie Dewesbury, sad to relate, collapsed in giggles.

    Raffaella ignored her. “I shall be sophisticated,” she announced grimly.

    Nellie saw nothing at which to cavil in this statement: she of course perceived the Contessa dalla Rovere as quite old: so she nodded in innocent agreement. Katie, however, might have been seen to swallow; but she said nothing.

    Since Miss Bon-Dutton had already generously offered her cousin the pick of her wardrobe, the Contessa duly approached her again. Eudora looked dubiously at Raffaella’s shortish, very curvaceous form. Really, the pink dress which she had already given her had been the only one at all suited to her age and colouring.

    “There is an emerald-green dress which I have to admit was a mistake. But I think with your pink cheeks and dark eyes you could get away with it.”

    The emerald satin was duly tried on. It looked quite stunning on Raffaella: but stunning in not perhaps quite the right way. It made her look terrifically exotic and foreign. Raffaella, however, was clearly thrilled with this effect, so Eudora refrained from pointing this out. She might as well have the thing: she herself would certainly never wear it. “You do look older,” she said in a shaken voice, as Raffaella knotted her curls on top of her head in order to suggest what the final effect would be.

    The Contessa nodded and beamed.

    Lochailsh Palace was a pleasant enough stone house: quite large, rather austere, in the Scottish style, as to its outside, but very comfortable as to its interior appointments. And no more old-fashioned, according to Miss Nellie Dewesbury, than her grandmother’s house in Bath. And the three old ladies most definitely not as terrifying as Aunt Margaret Thwaites, née Hammond, Aunt Harriet Cantrell-Sprague, née Dewesbury, and Great-Aunt Eliza Dewesbury! Raffaella had nodded feelingly and cited the instances of the late Gianni’s Zia Anna and Zia Beatrice, and her own Aunt Beauchamp.

    There was, however, absolutely no justification—none whatsoever—for the Duke of Lochailsh’s seeing fit to greet his guests in boring black pantaloons and a neckcloth so moderate that the late Gianni dalla Rovere would not have been seen dead in it. Not even satin knee-breeches!

    “We are not at Almack’s Assembly Rooms, after all,” murmured Katie, à propos.

    Airily the Contessa replied: “I have no notion what you mean, cara.”

    Under cover of the kind but horribly firm interrogation of Miss Bon-Dutton now being undertaken by Lady Catriona Forsyte, née Dalziel (his sister), Katie murmured: “You know, the Laceys do not wear Highland dress, either, except very occasionally at some local celebration such as Hogmanay.”

    “Then it’s just as well that you did not lay us odds your prediction in re swirls of Romantick Highland kilts would be correct, Nellie,” said Raffaella on a sour note.

    “He never so much as glanced at you!” hissed Miss Nellie Dewesbury crossly.

    This was horribly true, if she meant the Duke: he had glanced at the Contessa, gloriously sophisticated in emerald satin, for no more than five seconds: about the same time, indeed, which he had accorded Nellie, boringly Missish in white muslin. Positively the only consolation was the fact he had not appeared to recognise any of them as the maidens who had impertinently addressed him on the Isle of Ailsh.

    “The evening,” returned Raffaella grimly, “is as scarce yet begun, however.”

    “Let’s hope so,” agreed Katie mildly.

    Raffaella looked at her uncertainly.

    “Well, do you wish us to be the only guests?” she hissed.

    “Well?” said Nellie crossly, as Raffaella had still not answered.

    “Yes,” she said tightly, her eyes on the Duke of Lochailsh, who was chatting to his brother-in-law, Sir Humphrey Dauntry, Bart., and Sir Lionel Dewesbury with a bored expression on his hawk-like face.

    Nellie gulped, and was silent.

    After a moment Raffaella admitted: “They might invite Lord McDiarmid for you, Nellie, with my good will, but that will be sufficient.”

    “But after all, what competition can this little Scotch country neighbourhood afford you, Raffaella?” said Katie with a naughty twinkle in her eye.

    “Or at the least, that emerald gown of Miss B.-D.’s!” agreed Nellie with a choked giggle.

    They were very shortly to find out.

    … “MRS!” shouted Raffaella terribly, hurling her, or more accurately, Eudora’s emerald-green reticule across her little white bedroom at the conclusion of the frightful fiasco.

    “Would this be Mrs McIntosh, the lady in the mustard brocade, or Mrs Burrell, in the blue taffety with the pearls? Or possibly the lady in the puce satin with the swaggings and the silver tasselled cord: Mrs Edmond Burrell?” asked Eudora.

    “Be SILENT!” shouted the Contessa furiously. “They are all married HAGS, and it was a complete waste of an evening!”

    Eudora’s shoulders shook, but she managed not to laugh. And noted in her mildest tones: “It is not my blame, nor, indeed, your own, if Lochailsh prefers older married ladies whom he has known since their cradles—nay, their mutual cradles—to yourself in emerald satin.”

    Raffaella took a deep breath. “Well, at least Lord McDiarmid was not there: so much for that silly Nellie Dewesbury!”

    “No, well, she has the opportunity to see him every day at the Keep— I never spoke.”

     Raffaella collapsed onto her bed with a groan, and covered her face with a pillow.

    “You did say yourself that you did not affect Lochailsh,” ventured Eudora.

    Raffaella peered out at her from under the pillow. “Cousin, you are too impossibly good. Please: just go away.”

    Silently Eudora went.

    On the morrow Miss Bon-Dutton managed to draw Miss Dewesbury aside while the younger ladies were wandering around the shore of a rocky little loch, and consult with her.

    Katie said uncertainly: “Did she seriously expect she was going to enslave Lochailsh?”

    “Not entirely seriously, I don’t think: no,” admitted Eudora with a sigh.

    “I suppose I see,” she conceded.

    “Mm. In short, the evening was a dismal failure. Er, well, the dinner was excellent, but I gather we discount that?”

    Katie eyed her uneasily. “I think so, yes.” –After dinner she herself had first been tortured by one of the old ladies into playing the pianoforte. The Duke had listened politely. Then his aunt tortured Miss Bon-Dutton into ditto. He had given it about half a minute and then begun a joking conversation in an undervoice with the mustard brocade Mrs McIntosh. After a little Sir Humphrey Dauntry had suggested cards and Lochailsh’s three old aunts had positively leapt on the idea. Very possibly the evening had been a dismal failure from their point of view, too.

    Eudora sighed. “Raffaella is very young,” she said on a listless note.

    Katie looked at her very sympathetically and did not say that she thought Lochailsh’s aunts and sisters had all realised that and had thought very little the worse of the Contessa for her misguided attempt, early in the evening, to thrust herself into His Grace’s group. Nor did she make the point that the Duke’s younger sister and brother-in-law, Lady Anne and Sir Humphrey Dauntry, moved in very fashionable London circles indeed, and that it was highly likely that they had heard the Italian version of Raffaella’s story. It would have been too cruel. Added to which, very clearly it would have been redundant.

    And as there was no way she could politely say that poor Miss Bon-Dutton had bitten off more than she could chew by taking the Contessa under her wing, she did not point that out, either.

    Sir Humphrey Dauntry, Bart., had come to a conclusion about the dinner party which was very similar to that reached by the Scottish Raiders.

    “Putrid,” he noted over the breakfast table, grinning.

    The two gentlemen were breakfasting alone. His brother-in-law eyed him sourly.

    “Your contribution helped greatly, Alec, old chap,” he added.

    “Have an oat-cake,” replied Lochailsh sourly.

    “Poor old Aunty Honoria was quite upset,” he noted, taking an oat-cake and spreading it liberally with butter.

    “Possibly that will teach her not to invite the B.-D. hag to my house in future.”

    “No, but it may teach her not to invite the combination of the Burrell hag, damned Edmond Burrell’s wife, and the McIntosh bitch,” allowed Sir Humphrey fairly. “Or at any rate, not when you is in residence, old boy.”

    “Edmond Burrell is the best whist player north of the Border, and you, Humpy,” said his brother-in-law sweetly, removing the dish of butter from under his nose, “are possibly the worst on either side of it.”

    Sir Humphrey ignored this superbly and said airily: “Those little gals were all dashed sweet, I thought.”

    “Give it up, Humpy, I’m old enough to be their father,” said Lochailsh in a bored voice, getting up.

    At around this point it registered on the cheery baronet that his relative by marriage was wearing a tattered shirt and a very, very old kilt. “Here, I say! You’re not goin’ off to the Isle, are you?”

    “Yes,” he said unpleasantly.

    Sir Humphrey sprang to his feet. “Here! No, I say, Alec! You can’t do that! And leave me with that pack of women?”

    “Yes,” he said unpleasantly.

    “I’m coming with you,” Sir Humphrey decided grimly.

    “You will pay for it later,” he warned calmly, going out.

    Sir Humphrey scurried after him. “I dare say I shall, but it’ll be better than spending the day here listening to ’em rehash last night’s damned fiasco!”

    “That,” agreed Alec with precision, “was precisely my thought. Come, if you’re coming.”

    “But I haven’t got a hat— I’m coming!” Sir Humphrey hurried after him, hatless.

    “We went out early, you know not where,” said Alec to the footman in the front hall. He paused. “Or if you prefer, Malcolm, you never laid eyes on me this morning.” He ran lightly down the steps, whistling.

    … “Lochailsh,” concluded his oldest sister, Lady Catriona Forsythe, grimly, “is impossible. And if he ever does marry, I pity the woman!”

    The seasons were changing, as was their wont, regardless of the hopes of mere mortals. Gwennie and Ferdy Lacey had already deserted the Keep of Munn in favour of England, and Lady Lavinia and Sir Lionel Dewesbury were reported to be considering departure also. And, indeed, Munn himself would probably not stay for very much longer at his ancestral home: he disliked the Scotch winters. Miss Dewesbury had been allowed by her Mamma to drive down alone to the town, and she reported all this, plus the fact that at this precise moment Nellie was sitting by the fire sulking, in company with Letty Lacey, also sulking.

    “It is Scotland, after all,” she murmured, as the Contessa hunched into a large woollen shawl.

    “Yes,” Raffaella agreed with a sigh.

    “Are you very disappointed about Lochailsh?” asked Katie kindly.

    “Well, not very, very, Katie, cara! But quite; you know? It would have been so pleasant to have been a duchess… But I must say, I am wholly indignant at his positive slighting of Cousin Eudora!”

    “Yes,” she said with a frown, “it was not particularly well done of him.”

    Raffaella sighed. “Oh, well: it was but a bow at a venture.”

    “Mm. And—and the Laceys?”

    “Well, the Marquis is a pleasant man, is he not? But it is as plain to me,” said Raffaella with a twinkle in her eye, “as it is to certain others sulking beside a fire at this moment, that he regards me in the light of a niece!”

    “Yes. Well, I dare say he is as old as Papa,” said Miss Dewesbury in a vague voice.

    “Oh, si, undoubtedly. And between you and me, although I suppose I would not say No, if he said, Will you?, I confess I cannot work up even the tiniest flicker, in his direction!”

    “I think that is just as well,” admitted Katie, smiling at her.

    “Si. And Mr Lacey is pleasant, too, but alas, there is not even a flicker there, either!”

    “No,” said Katie with her kind smile, refraining from pointing out that neither Munn nor the Duchess would ever allow that.

    The following day the Contessa discovered Cousin Eudora in the little inn parlour, frowning over the letters which had arrived that morning. “I hope it is not bad news?” she said politely.

    “No,” said Eudora with a sigh, folding the last letter up. “Merely that Mamma has not only written me in the most minatory tones, commanding my instant return, she has also got all of my sisters and even two of my sisters-in-law to do likewise.”

    “Help. Even though there is a duke in the offing?”

    “Yes, well, regardless of the fact that in the past Mamma spent three successive Seasons throwing me at him, she is apparently persuaded that I am showing myself up, or making a spectacle of myself—words to that effect—by appearing to chase him all the way to Scotland.”

    “In my opinion she is miffed because she did not think of it first.”

    “Yes!” said Eudora with a startled laugh. “Why, yes, you are right: how very percipient you are, Raffaella,” she said slowly.

    “I don’t think so; merely, I have a tribe of female relatives in Italy who would all react that way! So, shall you return?”

    “The weather is not conducive to staying on,” she murmured.

    “True,” she agreed, shivering slightly.

    “Have you truly had enough, my dear?”

    “Um—I would quite like to get over to Ailsh once more: preferably without Nellie Dewesbury!” admitted Raffaella with a guilty laugh. “But that apart: yes, I have had more than enough: I am used to warmer climes, you know.”

    “We cannot leave immediately, for we have accepted one more invitation from Lochailsh Palace, I will not say from Lochailsh, and one more from the Duchess of Munn: but after those?” suggested Eudora, raising her fine eyebrows.

    And so it was agreed.

    Miss Bon-Dutton had warned her cousin that as the invitation from the palace had said: “To celebrate the anniversary of Lady Clara Dalziel”, the evening would probably be impossibly Scotch. The Contessa was therefore, as the amused Eudora did not fail to register, all agog.

    “What on earth is that noise?” she wondered as they bowled up to the door of Lochailsh Palace. In style, Lady Honoria having sent the carriage for them. “Is it too much to hope that one of those frightful little white dogs is murdering one of the Miss Dalziels’ horrible cats—or, better, vice versa?”

    Eudora cleared her throat. “That is the noise of Scotch bagpipes,” she said feebly.

    “I thought they were very Romantick?” cried Raffaella. “That noise is…” Words failed her.

    “Horrible?” suggested Eudora.

    “Si. Is the noise inside the house?” she croaked.

    Eudora at this smiled and admitted: “I do not know a single person not of Scotch extraction who can bear the bagpipes. –Come along; but for the sake of my nerves, refrain if you can from mentioning murdered cats, strangled brutes of yapping lapdogs or, er, squeezed haggises.”

    “What?” said Raffaella numbly

    “It’s a stuffed sheep’s stomach, or something equally nasty.”

    “Yes, I know, Mrs Macdonald told me all the details. I did not like to say so, but the receet does not sound so very, very different from the sausages they make in the country-house kitchens in Italy!” owned Raffaella. “But how can a musical instrument— Very well, I shall not enquire!”

    The door was opened by a footman in conventional livery but immediately on entering the front hall the ladies were confronted by an immensely tall man in a kilt, standing upon the stairs, playing what were undoubtedly the bagpipes. Poor Raffaella gulped: she had not taken Miss Bon-Dutton’s reference to a squeezed haggis seriously for a moment.

    Then there was the sound of men’s laughter, and with a swirl of kilts—a most Romantick sight indeed—there emerged from a little passageway His Grace of Lochailsh, The McDiarmid, the Marquis of Glenrowan, and Mr Lacey.

    As the piper had momentarily stopped, Raffaella’s gasp was quite audible.

    Miss Bon-Dutton was greeting the Duke in a colourless voice, saying she trusted they were not too early, and Lochailsh was replying, even more colourlessly, that they were not, at all; he had merely been showing the gentlemen something in the trophy room in order to settle an argument…

    The ladies were aware that it was not to be a very large party, as of course Lady Clara Dalziel was a very elderly lady. It was, however, quite large enough. As well as Glenrowan and his son and young cousin, the Duke and Duchess of Munn were both present, with Lady Rosamund and Lady Laetitia, and the Dewesburys. And so, also, were the three sisters of the last encounter: Mrs McIntosh, Mrs Burrell, and Mrs Edmond Burrell. Tonight Mrs McIntosh was in a sea-green satin with diamonds, Mrs Burrell in crimson silk with a spray of feathers in the hair, and Mrs Edmond in a lilac sarsenet trimmed with silver lace, the turban likewise; none of this helped, really. If all three outfits might have been defined as ageing by the uncharitable, they were nonetheless very elegant and becoming; one immediately felt like an inky-fingered, untidy-haired schoolgirl. For which there was not the slightest justification! In especial as Raffaella was again in the wonderful glowing emerald satin. And as Eudora’s Jane Watkins in person had done her hair it was not untidy at all, but on the contrary, glowingly lovely.

    Very, very fortunately for her peace of mind, she was not to know that shortly after entering the sitting-room Lochailsh drew Glenrowan aside and said into his ear: “What exactly is the opposite of ‘mutton dressed as lamb’, Wallace?”

    “Hey? Oh!” he said, looking at Raffaella with a smile. “The little Italian lovely! Her mother was that frightful bosom-bow of the Hamilton woman’s, did you know?”

    “God, was she? The Principessa Whatsername?”

    “Mm, so they tell me: poor little soul. Ain’t she sweet? Bright, too. Well, very obviously the mother never taught her to dress like a lady; and I dare say, with only Miss B.-D. to keep her in order she’s getting away with murder! –Though I cannot tell you the exact phrase, Alec.”

    Alec nodded, and smiled a little.

    “I have been trying to encourage Andrew to take an interest,” admitted Glenrowan with a sigh.

    “Eh?” he said in horror.

    “Oh, not seriously, of course: not with that background! No, but I thought she might be the very thing to bring the fellow out of his shell a little.”

    “And has she?” said Alec drily.

    “Well, I don’t think it was her alone: more the bunch of ’em, that have brightened him up a bit, poor dear fellow.”

    “Glad to hear it.”

    Dinner being announced not long after this, the company adjourned to the dining-room. Where it speedily became apparent that the fell hand which had assigned the seating had not had the interest of, to name only two, the Contessa dalla Rovere or Miss Nellie Dewesbury at heart. For His Grace of Lochailsh was at the top of the table, with his elderly Aunt Clara, no doubt in honour of her birthday, at his right, and Her Grace of Munn, no doubt as the senior lady present, at his left. The which was only to be expected and at least that cat Mrs McIntosh was nowhere in his vicinity. Mrs Burrell was next but one to Lady Clara, too close, but possibly one had to be thankful for small mercies. Raffaella herself was awarded a very young Mr Proudy on her left and a gingery person with prominent teeth on her right, Miss Dewesbury being the unfortunate who was on his right. As Katie had Andrew Lacey on her other side it was very clear indeed that anyone who might have tried to tell herself there was very little in being the daughter of a wealthy English baronet, not to say the cousin (and granddaughter) of a marquis, would have been entirely misguided.

    Those whose spirits were lightened after the gentlemen had rejoined the ladies by the announcement that there was to be dancing, found them speedily dashed again. For the doors to the big withdrawing-room were thrown open, the piper came in, and it was discovered it was all to be Scottish dancing! With a troop of kilted Highlanders to start it off.

    “It was so Romantick, was it not?” said Katie next day, as Miss Bon-Dutton, firmly rescuing her from the wake that was being held in the inn parlour, led her into the fresh air.

    Eudora smiled. “Oh, very. What with the sword-dancing, the skirl of the pipes, and the positive festoons of tartan; the men all looking, I have to admit it, quite wonderful!”

    “Indeed. It is difficult to understand why your cousin is in such a gloom,” she said naughtily.

    Miss Bon-Dutton eyed her drily. “Is it? Well, there is the point that Lochailsh ignored her again, poor child. Added to which I think she had no notion that in Highland dancing, it is largely the men who perform. Personally I was highly edified,” she said with a glint in her eye, “by the sight of Lochailsh and Glenrowan dancing in their skirts, but I am afraid that by that time her nose was so thoroughly out of joint that she was unable to enjoy it.”

    Katie nodded, trying not to laugh.

    “I was glad to see she did not make a set at Andrew Lacey,” admitted Eudora. “True, I don’t think she affects him—though I will admit she seems to like him.”

    Katie swallowed. “Mm.”

    “What has she said?” demanded the Contessa’s cousin grimly.

    “Oh, dear. She said,” admitted Katie, “that since Lochailsh seems determined to ignore her, and Glenrowan treats her like a niece, that the only thing for it is to fall back upon a man who will at least be a title some day. Even though that day may be so long in coming that her mother may never have to curtsey to her. –I’m so sorry,” she ended lamely.

    “No; thank you, Katie,” said Miss Bon-Dutton with a sigh. “Fore-warned is forearmed. Not that it could ever happen. The Duchess is a reasonable woman, but I am afraid she would never countenance such an unequal match. And although Glenrowan seems a sensible man who would not stand in the way of two young people’s happiness, provided their temperaments were suited, I cannot see Munn’s standing for it for an instant.”

    “So one had imagined,” croaked Katie.

    “I think it is just as well that we are leaving,” concluded Eudora calmly.

    Miss Dewesbury nodded in fervent agreement with her.

    The last dinner at the Keep of Munn, or rather at what Raffaella had taken to calling sourly “The House of Munn” was, alas, not dissimilar in kind to the final fiasco at Lochailsh Palace. If not so Scotch. The party was remarkable only for Glenrowan’s cheerful order to his son and his young cousin to escort the ladies on the first stage of their journey home.

    Miss Bon-Dutton returned to the maternal roof after the Scottish trip, but only to inform her Mamma that she was taking a small house in town. The which she did before she had even taken her gloves off.

    Lady Harold so far lowered herself as to scream out something about being thought as bad as her cousin Eloise Stanhope, jaunting about all over Scotland with a pack of dubious females, and now planning to set herself up in town, alone! And did she wish to become notorious?

    “No,” said Eudora, very white and pinched as to the nostrils, “but I can see that it will not be your fault if I do not. I shall go, now, before I say something quite beyond the pale. But just permit me to add this, ma’am: if I were the most notorious Amazon known to Society, I could not be so unhappy as I have been in your house any time these last fifteen years. Goodbye.”

    Disregarding Lady Harold’s scream of rage and immediate outburst of hysterical sobbing, she went. Not breaking out in trembles until she was safely in her carriage.

    After a while, since she had not given an order, her coachman looked in upon her. “Where to now, ma’am?”

    “Oh. Head back to town, please, Lipton: I need to see my lawyer.”

    “Yes, ma’am. Begging your pardon, Miss Bon-Dutton, ma’am, but was you meaning to rack up for the night along the way?”

    “Certainly,” she said grimly. “Why?”

    “Only that the nags could do with a rest, Miss!” he lied quickly.

    Eudora looked at him drily. He had known her all her life. “Yes. Well, as you may see, Lipton, Lady Harold and I have had a falling-out. I shall write asking her to send on my clothes. And you and Jane will have to chaperone me.”

    “Aye. Begging your pardon, Miss, but there’s always Miss ’Ewitt. I did hear as her last young ladies, they was grown up and getting married an’ all.”

    “Of course, yes: the younger Skelton girl is to marry Guy Purle; that set the cat amongst the pigeons!” said Eudora with a smothered laugh. “Er—well, yes, Lipton, the very thing: I shall write her tonight!”

    “You do that, Miss. And meantime, don’t you have no fear as you won’t be well-protected!” he said grimly, touching his forelock and disappearing.

    Eudora leaned back in the coach and sighed. Was there not somewhere on the face of the earth—or at the least in genteel British society—a man of the goodness, probity and loyalty of Jim Lipton, but with the addition of a smattering of brains and education to his name?

    Well, on the evidence thus far: no.

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