Chapter 2
Captain Ingram fixed Jane with eyes as gray as winter and as cool, and she couldn’t catch her breath. A spark lay deep within those eyes, gleaming like a sunbeam on a flow of ice.
He was not a cold man, though, she knew at once. He was containing his warmth, his animation, being polite. Of course he was—he’d been dragged here by John, likely expecting an ordinary English family at Christmas, only to be thrust into the midst of eccentric Randolphs and MacDonalds.
Jane forced her limbs into a curtsey. “Good evening, Captain Ingram,” she said woodenly.
Captain Ingram jerked his gaze to her hand, which he still held, Jane’s fingers swallowed by his large gloved ones. Ingram abruptly released her, a bit rudely, she thought, but Jane was too agitated to be annoyed.
“Greet him properly, Jane,” Grandfather said. He pushed his way forward, leaning on his stout ash stick, and gave Captain Ingram a nod. “You know how.”
Jane swallowed, her jaw tight, and repeated the words Grandfather had taught her years ago. “Welcome, First-Footer. Please partake of our hospitality.”
Why was she so unnerved? Grandfather couldn’t possibly have predicted that John would step back and let his friend enter the house first, in spite of their conversation earlier today. Grandfather didn’t truly have second sight—he only pretended.
Captain Ingram’s presence meant nothing, absolutely nothing. After the war, John would propose to Jane, as expected, and life would carry on.
Then why had her heart leapt when she’d beheld Captain Ingram’s tall form, why had a sense of gladness and even relief flowed over her? For one instant, she’d believed Grandfather’s prediction, and she’d been … happy?
A mad streak ran in Jane’s mother’s family—or so people said. It was why Grandfather MacDonald spouted the odd things he did, why her mother, a genteel but poor Scotswoman, had been able to ensnare the wealthy Earl of Merrickson, a sought-after bachelor in his younger days. Jane’s mother had enchanted him, people said, with her dark hair and intense blue eyes of the inhabitants of the Western Isles. So far, her daughter and son had not yet exhibited the madness of the MacDonald side of the family, thankfully.
Only because Jane, for her part, had learned to hide it, she realized. Given the chance, she’d happily race through the heather in a plaid or dance around a bonfire like the ones the villagers had built tonight. And feel strange glee at the thought she might not marry John after all.
John, oblivious to all tension, hefted a cloth sack. “I’ve brought the things you told me to, Mr. MacDonald.”
“Excellent,” Grandfather said. “Jane, take the bag and lay out the treasures in the dining room.”
Jane’s cousins surged to her. They were the carefree Randolph boys, from her father’s side of the family. The three lads, ranging from sixteen to twenty-two, fancied themselves men about town and Corinthians, well pleased that Jane’s brother, who was spending New Year’s with his wife’s family, stood between themselves and the responsibility of the earldom. In truth, they were harmless, though mischievous.
“Come, come, come, Cousin Jane,” the youngest, Thomas, sang as they led the way to the dining room.
Jane took the bag from John, trying to pay no attention to Captain Ingram, who had not stepped away from her. “How are you, John? How very astonishing to see you.”
John winked at her. He had blue eyes and light blond hair, the very picture of an English gentleman. “Amazing to me when we got leave, wasn’t it, Spence? Thought I’d surprise you, Janie. Worked, didn’t it? You look pole-axed.”
Jane clutched the bag to her chest, finding it difficult to form words. “I beg your pardon. I am shocked, is all. Did not expect you.”
John sent Captain Ingram a grin. “I beg your pardon, she says, all prim and proper. She didn’t used to be so. You ought to have seen her running bare-legged through the meadows, screaming like a savage with me, her brother, and her cousins.”
Jane went hot. “When I was seven.”
“And eight, and nine, and ten … until you were seventeen, I imagine. How old are you now, Janie? I’ve forgotten.”
“Twenty,” Jane said with dignity.
“Mind your tongue, Barnett,” Captain Ingram broke in with a scowl. “Lady Jane might forgive your ill-mannered question, as our journey was long and arduous, but I would not blame her if she did not. Allow me to carry that for you, my lady.”
He reached for the bag, which Jane relinquished, it being rather heavy, and strode with it into the dining room where the rest of the family had streamed.
“He’s gallant that way,” John said without rancor. “I knew you’d approve of him. You’ve grown very pretty, Jane.”
“Thank you,” Jane said, awkward. “You’ve grown very frank.”
“That’s the army for you. You enter a stiff and callow youth and emerge a hot-blooded and crude man. I crave pardon for my jokes. Have I upset you?”
“No, indeed,” she said quickly.
In truth, Jane wasn’t certain. John was changed—he had been, as he said, stiff and overly polite when he’d come out of university and taken a commission in the army. This grinning buffoon was more like the boy she’d known in her youth.
John offered her his arm. “Shall we?”
Jane acquiesced, and John propelled her into the dining room. The cousins had already emptied the sack and now sifted through its contents with much hilarity.
“A lump of coal—that’s for you, Thomas.” His oldest brother threw it at him, and Thomas caught it good-naturedly.
“Excellent fielding,” John said. “Do you all still play cricket?”
“We do,” Thomas said, and the cousins went off on a long aside about cricket games past and present.
Lord Merrickson roared at them to cease, though without rancor. Lady Merrickson greeted John and Captain Ingram with a warm smile. John took on the cross-eyed, smitten look he always wore in front of Jane’s mother. Jane did not believe him in love with her mother, exactly, but awed by her. Many gentlemen were.
Captain Ingram, on the other hand, was deferential and polite to Lady Merrickson, as was her due, but nothing more.
As Ingram moved back to Jane, she noted that his greatcoat was gone—taken by one of the footmen. His uniform beneath, the deep blue of a cavalryman, held the warmth of his body.
He leaned to her. “Do they ever let you insert a word?” he asked quietly.
Jane tried not to shiver at his voice’s low rumble. “On occasion,” she said. “I play a fine game of cricket myself. Or used to. As John said, I am much too prim and proper now.”
“No, she ain’t,” the middle Randolph cousin, Marcus, proclaimed. “Just this summer she hiked up her petticoats and took up the bat.”
“A pity I missed it,” John said loudly. “We ought to scare up a team of ladies at camp, Ingram. Officers wives versus …”
Marcus and Thomas burst out laughing, and the oldest cousin, Digby, looked aghast. “I say, old chap. Not in front of Jane.”
“Your pardon, Jane.” John looked anything but sorry. He was unusually merry tonight. Perhaps he’d imbibed a quantity of brandy to stave off the cold of the journey.
“I am not offended,” Jane answered. “But my mother might be.”
Lady Merrickson was not at all, Jane knew, but the admonition made John flush. “Er …” he spluttered.
“Whisky!” Digby snatched up the bottle and held it high. “Thank you, John. All is forgiven. Marcus, fetch the glasses. Mr. MacDonald, the black bun is for you, I think.”
Grandfather snatched up the cake wrapped in muslin and held it to his nose. “A fine one. Like me old mum used to bake.”
Grandfather’s “old mum” had a cook to do her baking, so Jane had been told. His family had lived well in the Highlands before the ’45.
Outside, the piper Grandfather had hired began to drone, the noise of the pipes wrapping around the house.
“What the devil is that?” John demanded.
“I believe they are bagpipes,” Captain Ingram said. His mild tone made Jane want to laugh. “You have heard them in the Highland regiments.”
“Not like that. Phew, what a racket.”
Grandfather scowled at him. “Ye wouldn’t know good piping from a frog croaking, lad. There are fiddlers and drummers waiting in the ballroom. Off we go.”
The cousins, with whisky and glasses, pounded out of the dining room and along the hall to the ballroom in the back of the house. John escorted Jane, hurrying her to the entertainment, while Captain Ingram politely walked with Grandfather. The terrace windows in the ballroom framed the bonfires burning merrily a mile or so away.
Three musicians waited, two with fiddles, one with a drum. They struck up a Scottish tune as the family entered, blending with the piper outside.
Guest who’d been staying at the house and those arriving now that the First-Footer ritual was done swarmed around them. They were neighbors and old friends of the family, and soon laughter and chatter filled the room.
Grandfather spoke a few moments with Captain Ingram, then he threw off his shawl and cane and jigged to the drums and fiddles, cheered on by Jane’s cousins and John. Ingram, politely accepting a whisky Digby had thrust at him, watched with interest.
“I am not certain this was the welcome you expected,” Jane said when she drifted near him again.
“It will do.” Ingram looked down at her, his gray eyes holding fire. “Is every New Year like this for you?”
“I am afraid so,” Jane answered. “Grandfather insists.”
“He enjoys it, I’d say.”
Grandfather kicked up his heels, a move that made him totter, but young Thomas caught him, and the two locked arms and whirled away.
“He does indeed.” Some considered Jane’s grandfather a foolish old man, but he had more life in him than many insipid young aristocrats she met during the London Season.
The music changed to that of a country dance, and couples formed into lines, ladies facing gentlemen. John immediately went to a young lady who was the daughter of Jane’s family’s oldest friends and led her out.
“Lady Jane?” Ingram offered his arm. “I am an indifferent dancer, but I will make the attempt.”
Jane did not like the way her heart fluttered at the sight of Captain Ingram’s hard arm, outlined by the tight sleeve of his coat. Jane was as good as betrothed—she should not have to worry about her heart fluttering again.
Out of nowhere, Jane felt cheated. Grandfather’s stories of his courtship with her grandmother, filled with passion and romance, flitted through her mind. The two had been very much in love, had run away together to the dismay of both families, and then defied them all and lived happily ever after. For one intense moment, Jane wanted that.
Such a foolish idea. Better to marry the son of a neighbor everyone approved of. Prudence and wisdom lined the path to true happiness.
Jane gazed at Captain Ingram, inwardly shaking more than she had the first time she’d fallen from a horse. Flying through the air, not knowing where she’d land, had both terrified and exhilarated her.
“I do not wish to dance,” she said. Captain Ingram’s expression turned to disappointment, but Jane put her hand on his sleeve. “Shall we walk out to the bonfires instead?”
The longing in his eyes was unmistakable. The captain had no wish to be shut up in a hot ballroom with people he didn’t know. Jane had no wish to be here either.
Freedom beckoned.
Captain Ingram studied Jane a moment, then he nodded in resolve. “I would enjoy that, yes.”
Jane led him from the ballroom, her heart pounding, wondering, as she had that day she’d been flung from her mare’s back, if her landing would be rough or splendid.