He glanced around at the others with a bit of smile as if he were patiently appeasing a child. “Aye, quite near.”
“But the Highlands are so dreadfully large!” Anna blithely continued, smiling at the others. “Surely you can narrow its location for us?”
Ardencaple’s smile was looking less and less charming. “If I said it was near Stirling, would that tell ye where she is, then?”
“Of course it would!” Lucy furiously insisted.
“Then my sister is a better student of geography than I am,” Anna laughed. “I shall have to find it on my atlas,” she said pleasantly, and picked up her fork. “And I suppose you must have a castle of some sort there at Ardencaple? One of those massive medieval structures?”
“Miss Addison!” Mr. Bradenton said, laughing. “Would you have us believe that you’d judge a man by the size of his castle?”
The gentlemen around the table laughed aloud at that, Ardencaple the loudest.
“Oh, I do beg your pardon, my lord,” Anna said, nodding demurely to the Lying Scotsman as everyone began to eat. “It’s just that I’m absolutely titillated by Scotland. I find it so frightfully interesting, what with all the old earldoms.”
“Oh, me too!” Elizabeth Seaton avowed. “It seems a lovely place. Do you have family, Lord Ardencaple?” she asked, sparing Anna the necessity of doing so.
“Aye,” he said. “Siblings and parents and even a dog. Miss Seaton, ye must send my congratulations to yer cook. The venison is delicious!”
Several agreed that it was and turned their attention to the dish.
Anna, however, was not the least bit put off and carefully laid her fork aside. “Come to think of it, I am quite certain I’ve heard the name Ardencaple,” she said thoughtfully, tapping a finger against her bottom lip. “Ardencaple… isn’t that a name closely aligned with the duke of Argyll?”
Ardencaple abruptly looked up. Surprisingly, Mr. Bradenton chimed in with a hearty, “Argyll! Yes, of course! I had occasion to meet his grace at a shoot just last autumn. Quite a lovely chap, really. Are you acquainted, my lord?”
Slowly, Ardencaple shifted his burning gaze from Anna to Bradenton and smiled. “I’ve had the pleasure of being introduced to his grace,” he said amicably. “But I canna say we are close acquaintances.”
“Really?” Anna said. “So there is no relation?”
“Perhaps his lordship has brought his family tree, Anna, so that we might all study it closely,” Lucy said, to which several chuckled.
“That’s exactly the thing we need!” Anna said brightly, and a few of the gentlemen laughed with her.
But not Ardencaple. If looks could kill, she’d be dead and quite deeply buried. Anna laughed, picked up her fork again, “I must beg your pardon, again, my lord. My curiosity has overcome good manners.”
“No’ at all,” he said, for what else could he say? Anna smiled at him across the table. Ardencaple smiled back, but she could see the murderous glint in his eye.
She did not have another chance to goad him, for Bradenton began to talk about his family, which, Anna had to admit, was rather fascinating in and of itself, as no one knew much about him other than that he was quite wealthy and quite unmarried.
When the venison was cleared and the ices were served, the conversation deteriorated into little cliques, leaving Anna to try and make conversation with Fitzwater again. From where she sat, she could see Lucy and Drake in a deep tête-à-tête, and Ardencaple charming the silk drawers off Elizabeth Seaton and Barbara Lockhart. She was relieved when Lady Seaton reappeared and suggested the ladies withdraw so that the gentlemen could enjoy a smoke.
In the drawing room, Anna parked herself on a settee and watched as Lucy joined their mother and told her about Anna’s behavior during supper. She knew exactly what Lucy was doing, because her mother kept looking aghast at her, and Lucy kept sneering.
When she saw Barbara Lockhart approaching her, she moved a little on the settee and made room. “Barbara, how well you look,” she said politely as Barbara settled her large bottom on what was left of the settee.
“My father paid thirty pounds for this gown,” she said as she attempted to straighten the feather in her hair that kept dipping over her eye.
“Shocking!” Anna obliged her.
Smiling, Barbara planted her pudgy hands on her knees and looked about the room. “Wasn’t supper lovely? I thought it was lovely,” she sighed.
“Yes, quite lovely.”
“Ardencaple is lovely, too, isn’t he?” she said. “So exotic, really.”
“Mmm. Rather reminds me of Captain Lockhart.”
“Does he, indeed? I hadn’t thought of it!” Barbara said. Her brows knit in a frown. “He does rather resemble the captain, doesn’t he?”
Yes, he did. Exactly how, Anna hadn’t quite figured out. But she’d wager they were brothers. Cousins at the very least.
“He’s quite taken with your sister, isn’t he?”