Oscar began nodding. “Aye. I can do that. But what will ye be up to? I cannae fool everyone.”
“I’ll be getting dressed. Tell Gavin to saddle Kelpie, and I’ll go meet the damned lass myself. Keep an eye out for Coll; ye’ll have to tell him what we’ve decided he’s been up to before the countess catches sight of him and he bellows out the truth.”
“I’ll see to it. Saint Andrew knows it willnae be the first time I’ve bent the truth into a knot for one or the other of ye.” The valet sniffed. “I put clean clothes out for ye,” he went on, pointing a finger toward the chair by the dressing table.
“Tapadh leat,” Niall returned, thanking him with a grateful nod. “Where’s Aden? I’ll wager ye didnae try waking him up.”
“That Smythe fella said he came home about dawn. Ye can sack me, but I’m nae risking my neck to wake him up unless his bed’s on fire.”
Niall finished pulling on his dark-brown buckskin trousers. “First of all, this isnae home. Scotland is home. Aldriss is home. This is our prison, where we’re to stay for a time because that woman ordered us here. Second, aye, leave Aden be. He sounds like he’ll be more trouble than he’s worth. Go tell yer tale before someone else delivers the countess a different one. If Aden wakes, tell him, too.”
“Aye.” With a resigned scowl Oscar fled, shutting the door firmly behind him.
Niall stifled his cursing long enough to shave. Damned Coll knew how important this match was. Even if the viscount didn’t want the lass, he needed to at least make it look like he’d put some effort into courting her, and make the failing look like her doing. And he couldn’t go about saying things like he had last night. They weren’t the only Scotsmen in London.
If Francesca spoke any Gaelic, all three of them might have woken this morning to find themselves destitute, cut off from their mother’s funds. Because Coll hadn’t said he was going off to find an English beer during Romeo and Juliet. No, Viscount Glendarril had declared he would stab himself in the eye before he’d wed a sharp-tongued harlot who’d likely try to make him prissy and English. And that was a very large problem. The only positive thing he’d done was to say it in a language both the lady and his own mother didn’t understand.
Oscar had laid out a brown waistcoat and a cravat in addition to the buckskin trousers and a blue long-tailed coat; evidently they were supposed to dress like Sassenach here. Well, they’d dressed up on occasion, for some lass or other’s come-out party, so he supposed he could manage it again. He didn’t have time to dig through drawers and find where the valet had stashed all his clothes, anyway.
As he shaved and dragged a comb through his unruly hair it occurred to him that he did this fairly often. Not go out to escort English ladies promised to his oldest brother, but sweep up after Coll’s misadventures. A large man with a larger stubborn streak, a title, and a very short temper frequently didn’t consider how a sharp word from him could be construed as a blast from a twenty-pound cannon by most mortals.
Aden had mastered the technique of stealth, which left him free of most of the consequences of the MacTaggert brothers’ follies, including his own, but Niall couldn’t manage that. He liked mayhem in general, but when it affected people without their resources or standing, he’d always felt … responsible for setting things right again. And here he was, doing it once more. In this instance, with the outcome vital to not only their futures but those of the nearly three hundred cotters and villagers on Aldriss land, it seemed both necessary that he step in, and very nearly unforgivable that Coll continued to make himself scarce.
He put a simple knot into his damned cravat and headed for the bedchamber door, nearly taking a blow to the head as it flung open again. “Oscar, how many times have we asked ye to knock before ye barge in, for the devil’s sake?”
“I knew ye didnae have a lass in here,” the valet returned, looking over his shoulder as he crowded into the room and shut the door again. “I told her majesty yer brother went out already, and now she’s headed up here to, and I quote, ‘see if Niall can provide me with some insight into Coll.’”
Niall cocked his head. “Ye do a fine Sassenach accent,” he noted. “For a minute I almost thought ye were civilized. Did ye tell Gavin to saddle Kelpie?”
“Aye.”
Retreating toward the window, Niall pushed it open. “Then I’ve left for the morning to go prancing about the park and ogle all the eligible English lasses there,” he said, and ducked outside to grip the garden rose trellis. Thorns made a wreck of one shirtsleeve, but he tucked it up into his jacket sleeve as he reached the ground.
As he made his way to the stable he brushed rose petals from his jacket and trousers. Out in front of the wide double doors Gavin, the groom they’d brought with them from Aldriss, shoved an English fellow away from Kelpie’s bridle as the bay stomped restlessly. “Gavin, it’s too bloody early for a brawl,” Niall warned him.
“This amadan says all the horses in the stable are in his charge. I’m about to introduce his backside to the ground.”
The older man tugged on his coat. “I am Farthing, Lady Aldriss’s head groom,” he said stiffly. “This … buffoon is permitted in my stable only as long as I say so.”
“Gavin, ye buffoon, dunnae shove Farthing unless ye reckon Nuckelavee’s about to eat him,” Niall ordered, naming Coll’s notoriously bad-tempered stallion. There was a reason Coll had named him after the black demons of the northern isles.
Gavin snickered. “Aye. I reckon I could be persuaded to save the Sassenach’s life.”
“Good.” Taking the reins, Niall swung up on Kelpie. “Now. How do I get from Upper Brook Street to Wigmore Place, Farthing?”
Farthing furrowed his brow. “Weymur?”
Niall sighed. “Wigmore,” he repeated, enunciating it as Mrs. Baxter had last evening when Amelia-Rose’s mother had insisted on the outing.
“Oh. Wigmore Place. Head that way”—he pointed east—“on Upper Brook Street, then north up Duke Street. Turn right onto Wigmore Street, and you’ll find Wigmore Place on your left. It’s just about half a mile from here.”
With a nod, repeating the street names to himself, Niall kneed Kelpie into a trot. He’d been to Inverness on half a dozen occasions, so the crowded streets of a town weren’t entirely foreign to him. London, though, felt more like a noisy, smelly maze than a place where anyone would choose to live.
Kelpie didn’t like it, either; the bay skittered every time an orange girl scurried into the street or a milk cart rattled out in front of them. Niall patted the gelding’s withers. “Easy, lad,” he crooned. “We’ll nae be here for long.”
That didn’t reassure either one of them, but since Farthing’s directions were good, at least they didn’t become lost in this devil’s bog. He turned Kelpie up Wigmore Place, hopeful that he remembered the street number he’d heard from Mrs. Baxter. He did not want to spend his morning riding up and down the road to find his brother’s Sassenach lass.
The door at 129 opened as he approached, and a stoop-shouldered man in black livery stepped into the doorway. “Lord Glendarril, I presume?”
“Nae. I’m his brother. He sent me to fetch the lass.”
The butler opened his gobber and shut it again. “Your calling card, then,” he said, holding out a hand, “and I’ll inform Miss Baxter of your arrival.”
“I’ve nae card. Tell her Niall’s here, and I’ll be taking her to the damned coffeehouse to meet Coll.”
“Hm. Wait here … Niall.”