“Which is the last time ye should be drinking,” Niall pointed out, folding his arms over his chest. Coll knew that; hell, they all knew that. But they also knew how frustrated he was by all this. “I should’ve followed ye.”
“I dunnae require a nanny, Niall. Some damned coffee and someaught to eat, aye.”
Niall eyed his oldest brother. “And ye’ll nae leap out and drown Aden the moment I leave?”
Coll narrowed his eyes, sending a sideways glance at their middle brother. “Nae. I was stupider than a new lamb, wandering into a Sassenach lair, letting ’em convince me to have a drink, and then downing everything they put in front of me. I knew they wanted a fight, but I wanted one, too. Didnae reckon they’d put laudanum in my whisky and then throw me in that wee hole with nae a ladder in sight.” He shuddered a little.
Saint Andrew. Drinking and small spaces, and laudanum to put Coll more out of control than the drink or the small space would have made him each on its own. Those fools were luckier than they deserved. But his brother sounded more than half on the sober side already, so with a nod at Aden he slipped out of the bedchamber and made for the stairs.
Lady Aldriss waited in the middle of the foyer, Eloise lurking in the morning room doorway just off to the left. Niall acknowledged their presence but went past them to the kitchen and requested bread and a chicken soup and some strong coffee. “Knock on Aden’s door, leave it on the floor outside, and go away,” he ordered, and the footman present gulped and nodded.
That was bonny. Now the MacTaggert brothers were both barbarians and monsters, and he couldn’t say or do much to convince anyone otherwise—especially since the barbarian part had been intentional. He shed his damp coat, putting it over one arm as he returned to the main part of the house.
“In there,” he said as he reached Francesca, indicating the morning room. “I’ll tell ye both.”
Once inside he shut the door and went to sit on the front edge of the deep, brushed-velvet couch. Eloise sat beside him, but the countess kept her hands clasped in front of her and paced to the window and back.
“He didn’t take Amelia-Rose Baxter to coffee this morning,” she stated after a moment. “That was you, wasn’t it?”
“Aye. Is that what ye want to chat about, then?”
“No. Of course not. But evidently everyone”—she shot a look at her daughter—“has been lying to me, and I’m attempting to decipher a bit of truth.”
“Is Coll well?” Eloise asked, putting her hand around his arm.
“Aye. He … About three years ago we figured Coll needed to stop drinking. Liquor. At all. He mostly doesnae drink any longer, but then in the space of a week we thought Da fell on his deathbed, we discovered we were all ordered to wed English wives, and then Coll lost—won—the card turn so he had to marry the lass Fran—Lady Aldriss chose for him. Then without a night to sleep in London he gets dragged off to the theater to meet the lass, and he…”
Niall trailed off. How did he describe this part? Coll had called Amelia-Rose a sharp-tongued harlot, but that was hardly fair. The viscount had barely spent five minutes talking to the lass, and it would take far longer than that to decipher Amelia-Rose Baxter. She wasn’t sharp-tongued. She was interesting and had opinions, with steel enough in her spine to convince him to take her to the picnic this afternoon.
“He what?” Francesca prompted.
“She’s nineteen. He’s nearly thirty. At first glance he didnae think they’d be compatible.” There. That didn’t insult either one of them. “He went off to go find a brawl, and ended at an establishment called The Pugilist.”
The countess’s cheeks paled. “He didn’t.”
“Aye. Aden and I reckon those buffoons at The Pugilist figured they’d waylay and rob him, and they … convinced him to have a whisky. A few whiskies. And one of ’em with laudanum in it, as far as we can tell. Then they tossed him in the fighting pit, likely with the idea of wagering on who could beat him down. Coll doesnae like small places.”
The countess had moved to place one hand over her heart. “I remember. Before you were even born, Niall, he and Aden were playing and Coll got locked in a wardrobe. It took us four hours to find him. He avoided small places after that.”
Niall nodded. “He still does. So nae, he isnae a bedlamite. He is angry and mayhap a bit shaken, with a splitting head and too much drink in him.” Narrowing his eyes, he willed them to take the next part seriously, for all of their sakes. “I’d nae recommend coddling him or pitying him, because he’s likely to fling it straight back at ye. If he wants ye to know someaught, he’ll tell ye. Otherwise, I’d feign ignorance.”
“Amelia-Rose said he’s to escort her to the Spenfield ball on Thursday,” Eloise said, her expression somewhere between relieved and worried. And that over a brother she’d never met until yesterday. Eloise was a better sister than the lot of them deserved, and he needed to see to it that Coll and Aden both knew that.
“Aye. I reckon I can convince him to give her a second look.”
When Lady Aldriss opened her mouth, he shrugged out of his sister’s grip and stood. “I’m nae yer toady, màthair, and I’m nae yer ally. I’m here to help Aldriss Park.” With that he went back upstairs to make certain he still had two brothers alive.
Francesca Oswell-MacTaggert sank onto the couch beside her daughter. Her oldest son was nearly six and a half feet tall. A man grown. Well grown. Nearly thirty, as Niall had said. And small spaces still troubled him. She never would have suspected such a thing, and in an odd way she found it encouraging. Not Coll’s troubles, but the fact that Niall had told her about them. They might still be a united front against her, but she wasn’t entirely an enemy.
It wasn’t that, however, that made tears run down her cheeks. “Goodness,” she said.
Eloise hugged her. “They’ll come around, Mama,” she said. “It’s only been a day, and they seem to be very stubborn. I’m certain they don’t detest you.”
“That’s not why I’m weeping, my darling,” Francesca returned, smiling. “Niall just called me màthair. That’s Gaelic for ‘mother.’ He called me mother.”
Her youngest son. The one she’d had the least hand in raising, and the one who had least cause to remember her. The one about whom she’d been the most worried, even knowing the well-earned reputations of the other two. How odd, and heartwarming, that Niall Douglas MacTaggert also seemed to be the one who most closely shared her sensibilities. She couldn’t tell him that; he wouldn’t believe her, and would likely be offended at the suggestion.
But then she’d managed to navigate thirteen years with the volatile Angus MacTaggert, and then another seventeen in London keeping her reputation, her wealth, and the entire Aldriss empire intact despite living the length of Britain away from her legal husband. Whether that made her a protector, or a diplomat, or something closer to a martyr, every day of those seventeen years away from her sons had hurt. She’d put aside her own happiness so they could grow up free and wild and independent, not smothered by the rancor festering between their parents.
Now that she had them back, she wasn’t about to let anything happen to drive them away again—even if it meant pushing them to marry women they might not otherwise have considered. If they’d known Eloise better, if she hadn’t taken her daughter south at such a young age, the brothers might have had more connection with the females of the family. They might even have visited from time to time. That was only one of several regrets she had. Balancing the life Eloise had in London against what she would have found in a wild corner of the Highlands couldn’t be measured, though. That had been her compromise.