Chapter 27
The steady pop of—what the bloody hell was that?—slowly dragged Deidre back from the abyss of sleep she’d fallen into after Ewan extracted her promise to marry him. She was filled with a deep sense of satisfaction. Except for that damned pop.
“Gavan, stop. Leave them be.”
“Absolutely not. I’ve been waiting ages for this day—”
“You are being highly immature.”
“And I intend to enjoy every minute of it.”
Ewan groaned. Another small impact, this time with force, landed directly between his eyes. As it fell between them, Deidre realized it was a chestnut.
“Go to the devil, Gavan Dalreoch,” Ewan groaned.
It seemed Ewan was familiar with their new arrival, and not overly concerned by his presence. Considering every other acquaintance had been a cause for great tension in her future husband, Deidre found herself very curious. She tried to catch a peek at him, but Ewan’s shoulders blocked her view.
“Good morning, cousin!” The cousin’s voice was overly loud and chipper, making Ewan wince with each syllable.
“Go away.” Ewan dragged the tapestry they’d improvised as a blanket farther over Deidre, doing his best to cover her.
“Ewan.” The settee indented as their visitor sat on its edge. “Am I correct in assuming that you and your lovely companion have recently indulged in an excess of whiskey?”
“Just him.” Deidre craned her head so she could look at his cousin. There was little to indicate they were family—he was lean where Ewan was broad, dark and pale where Ewan was tan and russet. There was a mischievous twinkle to his green eyes, though, that Deidre liked. “Hello.”
“Even better, and hello. Are you the Miss Morgan I’ve been hearing about?” he asked, as if there were nothing at all odd about their circumstances.
Deidre was hardly shy. She twisted under the blanket, nestling her backside against Ewan. “That depends. Who are you?”
“Gavan Dalreoch, Earl of Rhone, and all-suffering moral compass for this degenerate . . .”
Another earldom. Bloody hell. Was there a corner where someone just handed the things out?
“Hannah,” Ewan called over the back of the settee. “For the love of God, can ye stop his mouth, even just for a minute?”
“I wash my hands of you both.” The clipped English accent of his cousin’s wife drifted toward them. “But for Miss Morgan’s sake, I will make the attempt. Gavan?”
Deidre stiffened. There had been a second voice, hadn’t there? And a female voice, at that. Where were her clothes?
Lord Rhone arched an eyebrow over the back of the settee before continuing to speak to Deidre. “Where are my manners! Miss Morgan, may I introduce you to my wife, the Countess of Rhone.”
For God’s sake. Any hope she’d had of starting this new life out on the right foot was completely sabotaged. She was meeting a countess while stark naked.
With a sigh, a tiny brunette came into view. She smiled at Deidre, holding out her hand. “Goodness, you’re gorgeous. Call me Hannah, please. I apologize for my husband. He is overly fond of the absurd.”
“Properly fond of the absurd,” Lord Rhone corrected.
“Properly a jackass,” Ewan growled.
Deidre clutched the tapestry to herself, taking the offered hand. She searched for some sign of disdain, some indication of judgment, but there wasn’t any.
Hannah pinched her husband in the ribs. “Get up and let them put some clothes on.”
“I’m—”
“Going to be the one to explain to Fiona and Jane if they find us before you start behaving yourself.”
Hannah thought her husband was the one behaving badly? Deidre was stretched out, nude, with a man who was not her husband. He would be, but they couldn’t know that yet—she’d only just agreed herself. Who were these people? And who were Fiona and Jane?
It was the earl’s turn to sigh. He stood up from the settee with the promise, “If you’re not out in ten minutes, I’m coming back in. I know what sort of—”
He was cut off as his wife pushed him out of the room.
“And that’s my family,” Ewan said with a lopsided grin.
“Is it too late to change my mind?” Deidre joked.
“Aye. Yer stuck with them, same as I am.”
***
It took longer than ten minutes to find Deidre something to wear—Ewan considered the possibility that he needed to stop ripping her clothes off, but decided he’d rather just buy her more clothes—but Gavan did not make good on his promise. They came down the stairs into the great room to find it set for formal breakfast.
“What the—”
“Good morning, Lord Broch Murdo.” The cryptic baritone of Gavan’s butler met him at the bottom step. “Congratulations on your new title.”
“Thank ye, Magnus.” To his cousin, Ewan said, “Of course ye brought half yer household with ye.”
“Traveling light is for peasants,” Gavan said from his place at the table.
Christ. Would Deidre know he was joking? Was there any point in trying to explain Gavan to her?
“Ewan!” A flurry of skirts and dark curls barreled into him, nearly knocking him off balance. “Angus said you were tortured.”
“What’s this? Practicing sounding like an Anglish, are ye?” Ewan squeezed the girl around the shoulders.
“It’s part of my education,” Fiona said with her nose in the air. “So I sound like a lady when we go to London.”
“Well then, Lady Fiona, may I introduce ye to Miss Deidre Morgan?” Ewan was holding Deidre’s hand, and Fiona looked at it with marked suspicion.
“That depends. Who is she?”
“My wife, eventually.” He winked at Deidre. “Deidre, meet my younger cousin, Fiona.”
“Pleased to meet you.” Fiona dropped into a mostly proper curtsy before immediately turning back to Ewan. “Is it true? You were tortured?”
“Aye, but it’s nae talk for ladies. Or for breakfast.”
Jane Bailey, Hannah’s companion-turned-civilizer of the young Fiona, arrived to rein in her charge. “He’s quite right, Fiona.”
“Ladies aren’t allowed to talk about anything interesting,” Fiona complained.
“That’s not true, there’s . . .” Miss Bailey pondered for a moment. “Oh, bother. I can’t think of anything, so you may speak about whatever you like—as long as you do it at the other end of the table and let your cousin eat his breakfast in peace.”
Fiona sprinted off to Angus’s end of the table, chattering away.
“I told ye. Dinnae I say so?” the old Highlander responded.
Ewan raised his eyebrows at Jane. “Miss Bailey, are the Dalreochs wearing off on you?”
An embarrassed blush crossed her face. “I’m afraid they must be.”
“It suits ye,” he said back with a wink. It was good to see her relaxing a bit. In London, she’d been terrified of her own shadow and rigid as an oak.
“Miss Morgan, come sit by me,” Hannah called to Deidre. “We have a great deal to discuss.”
Deidre stiffened beside him. Ewan gave her a reassuring squeeze and led them to an open pair of chairs.
“About?” Deidre asked as she sat down next to Hannah.
“Smuggling,” Hannah said. “I hear you’re something of an expert, and the taxation on our whiskey shipments is abhorrent. Until we get Parliament to sort it out . . .”
Ewan settled back, letting the discussions ebb and flow around him, surrounded by the people he loved most.
“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Gavan leaned back with him.
“Aye.” Ewan turned to his cousin. “How’d ye ken to come?”
“Angus wrote us when you tried to get yourself killed. I told Hannah you’d be fine.” Gavan grinned. “But she insisted we cut the honeymoon short. The woman has no faith.”
Hannah overhead him and leaned across Deidre. “Don’t listen to him. The captain almost threw us overboard twice because Gavan wouldn’t just let the man do his job.”
“His sailing speed was highly inadequate.”
“We’re here.”
“Far too late. If he had actually been on his deathbed, and not just faking it, he would have died long before we arrived.”
Deidre was watching the back and forth.
Ewan leaned over to her, placing his lips against the soft skin of her ear. “Ye all right, leannain?”
“Is it always like this?” she asked in a low voice.
“Aye, for the most part.” He reached for her hand. “Is it too much? Say the word and we’ll toss them all off the cliff.”
She laughed, filling the great hall with the joyful sound, and shook her head. “It’s wonderful.”
Aye, it was.