Catriona couldn’t fault him for that. She’d have cuddled up to Marilla just then if it meant raising her temperature a few degrees. The only people who didn’t seem to be shivering madly were Taran’s two nephews, who, it had to be said, were almost as pleasing to the eye as the duke, and not the sort of men one would think would need to have women snatched from a party.

Then again, Taran Ferguson was as eccentric as the summer day was long. And the last time she’d seen him he’d been going on about the fate of Finovair after he was dead and in the ground, so she supposed she shouldn’t be too surprised that he’d go to such lengths to secure brides for his nephews.

Lord Oakley led the entire crowd into a small sitting room off the great hall. It was shabby but clean, just like most of Finovair, and most importantly, there was a fire in the grate. Everyone rushed forward, desperate to warm his limbs.

“We’ll need blankets,” Oakley directed.

“Got some in that trunk,” Taran replied, jerking his head toward an ancient chest near the wall. His nephews went to retrieve them, and soon they were passing the blankets along like a chain until everyone had one draped across his shoulders. The wool was rough and scratchy, and Catriona wouldn’t have been surprised if a flotilla of moths had come spewing forth, but she didn’t care. She would have donned a hair shirt for warmth at that point.

“Once again,” Lord Oakley said to the ladies, “I must apologize on behalf of my uncle. I can’t even begin to imagine what he might have been thinking—”

“You know what I was thinking,” Taran cut in. “Robin’s dragging his feet, pussyfooting around—”

“Uncle,” Oakley said warningly.

“As no one is going anywhere tonight,” Mr. Rocheforte said, “we might as well get some sleep.”

“Oh, but we must all be introduced,” Marilla said grandly.

“Of course,” Taran said, with great enthusiasm. “Where are my manners?”

“There are so many possible replies I can hardly bring myself to choose,” the duke said.

“I am, as you all know, the laird of Finovair,” Taran announced. “And these are my two nephews, Oakley and Rocheforte, but I call them Byron and Robin.”

“Byron?” Fiona Chisholm murmured.

Lord Oakley glared at her.

“You seem to be the Duke of Bretton,” Taran continued, “although I don’t know why you’re here.”

“It was my carriage,” Bretton growled.

Taran looked back at his men, one of whom was still toting his claymore. “That’s what I don’t understand. Didn’t we bring a carriage of our own?”

“Uncle,” Rocheforte reminded him, “the introductions?”

“Right. Maycott’s probably busted it up for kindling by now, anyway.” Taran let out a sorrowful sigh. “Speaking of Maycott, though, this one is his daughter Cecilia.”

“Cecily,” Lady Cecily corrected. It was the first word she had spoken since their arrival.

Taran blinked in surprise. “Really?”

“Really,” Lady Cecily confirmed, one of her brows lifting in a delicately wry arch.

“Hmmph. So sorry about that. It’s a lovely name.”

“Thank you,” she replied, with a gracious tilt of her head. She was remarkably pretty, Catriona thought, although not in a flashy, intimidating way like Marilla, whose blond curls and sparkling blue eyes were the stuff of legend.

“These two are the Chisholm sisters,” Taran continued, motioning to Fiona and Marilla. “Fiona’s the elder and Marilla’s the younger. They’re good Scottish ladies, but they have been down to London. Got a little polish, I hear. And that’s about it.”

Catriona cleared her throat.

“Oh, right!” Taran exclaimed. “So sorry. This one is Catriona Burns. We took her by mistake.”

“Ye said the one in the blue dress,” one of Taran’s men protested. Catriona had met him before. She was fairly certain his name was Hamish.

Taran jabbed a finger toward Lady Cecily. “That one’s wearing a blue dress.”

Hamish shrugged and jerked his head toward Catriona. “So is Miss Burns. And they have the same coloring.”

It was true. Brown hair, dark eyes. But while Lady Cecily was delicate, and moved with an ethereal grace, Catriona was . . . Well, she didn’t know what she was. But she wasn’t delicate. And she probably wasn’t graceful, either. She generally tried not to dance for long enough to know for sure.

Taran looked back and forth between the two brunettes for a comically long few seconds. “Right, well, the problem is,” he finally said to Catriona, “I wasn’t expecting you. I don’t have a room ready.”

“You will give her my room,” the duke commanded.

“I don’t have a room for you, either,” Taran said.

Lord Oakley groaned.

“It’s very kind of you to have rooms prepared,” Marilla said prettily.

Catriona could only gape. Taran Ferguson had kidnapped her and she was thanking him?

“I’m not really sure where to put you,” Taran said slowly. He looked over at the sofa, frowning thoughtfully.

That was it. “Taran Ferguson,” Catriona fumed. “I am not going to sleep on the sitting room sofa!”

He scratched his head. “Well, now, it’d be a sight more comfortable than the floor.”

“And I am not going to sleep on the floor!”

The duke stepped forward, his eyes deadly. “Mr. Ferguson, I suggest you find a chamber for the lady.”

“I don’t really—”

“Or you will answer to me.”

Silence fell. Catriona looked over at the duke, stunned that he would come so fiercely to her defense.

“Miss Burns may share a room with me,” Lady Cecily said. Catriona shot her a look of gratitude.

“Can’t do,” Taran said. “There’s only the one small bed.”

“Put the sisters together,” the duke suggested imperiously.

“Already have,” Taran replied. “You’ll be sharing a bed, lassies,” he said to the Chisholm sisters, “but it’s comfortable enough. Never had any royal visits here, so no need to get any of our extra bedrooms fancied up.”

“We have two very nice guest rooms at our home,” Marilla said. “We once hosted the Earl of Mayne.”

“In 1726,” Fiona muttered.

“Well, it’s still the Mayne room,” Marilla said with a sniff, “and if any of you came to visit, that is where we would put you. Well, except maybe you,” she said, blinking in Catriona’s direction.

“Marilla!” Fiona gasped.

“She lives just five miles away,” Marilla protested. “She would hardly need a guest room.”

“One apparently never knows when one might need an extra guest room,” the duke said dryly.

“So true,” Marilla said. “So very, very true.” She looked over at him with that annoyingly catlike tilt of her head and batted her eyelashes. “Are you always so very, very wise?”

Bretton, apparently at the end of his rope, just looked at her and said baldly, “Yes.”

Catriona choked on laughter, then feigned a few coughs when the duke turned to her with an arched brow. Oh dear heavens, was he serious? She’d thought he was merely trying to shake off Marilla.

“Well,” Taran declared, filling the awkward silence, “we’ll find something for everyone. In the meantime, let’s get the rest of you settled. Where is Mrs. McVittie? Oh, there you are!”

His housekeeper nodded from the doorway.

He flicked a hand toward every female besides Catriona. “See these three up to their rooms. And, ah, Robin and Byron, why don’t you go as well. Just to make sure everything is as it should be.”

Lord Oakley shook his head. “As it should be,” he repeated in disbelief.

“Give Lady Cecilia the blue room, or at least the one that used to be blue, and Miss— Well, actually, it really doesn’t matter. Give them whichever room they want.” Taran turned back to Catriona and the duke, who were still standing by the fire. “I’ll see what I can find for the two of you.”

“Bretton can have my room,” Lord Oakley said, standing in the doorway as everyone else filed out.

“No, really,” the duke responded, his voice a mocking monotone, “I couldn’t possibly inconvenience you.”

Lord Oakley rolled his eyes and exited into the great hall.

It was only then that Catriona realized she had been left quite alone with the Duke of Bretton.







Chapter 3

John Shevington had been the Duke of Bretton since the age of forty-three days, and as such, he had been inflicted with a legion of tutors, each of whom had been given the task of making certain that the young duke would be able to handle any situation in which an aristocratic young man might reasonably expect to find himself.

Reasonably.

Astonishingly, his tutors had not considered the possibility that he might find himself accidentally kidnapped by a stark raving lunatic, trapped in a carriage (his own carriage, mind you) for two hours with four unmarried ladies, one of whom had groped him three times before he used a bump in the road as an excuse to toss her across the carriage. And if that hadn’t been enough, he’d been deposited into a barely heated castle guarded by a roving pack of ancient retainers hobbling along with weapons attached to their kilts.

Dear Lord, he fervently didn’t want a stiff wind to lift any of those kilts.

Bret glanced over at the young lady who’d been left in the sitting room with him, the one old Ferguson claimed had been snatched by accident. Miss Burns, he thought her name was. She seemed to know Taran Ferguson better than any of the other erstwhile captives, so he asked her, “Do you think our host will find rooms for us?”

She huddled closer to the fire. “I can almost guarantee he’s already forgotten he’s meant to be looking.”

“You seem to be well acquainted with our host, Miss . . . It was Miss Burns, wasn’t it?”

“Everyone knows Taran,” she said, then seemed to remember herself and added, “Your Grace.”

He nodded. She seemed a sensible young lady, thankfully not given to hysterics. Although it had to be said, he’d come close to cheering her on when she’d given old Ferguson a tongue-lashing. Hell, he’d been hoping she’d wallop the old codger.

Miss Burns returned his gesture with a smile and nod of her own, then turned back to the fire. They’d both been standing in front of it for several minutes, but if her fingers were anything like his, they still felt frozen from the inside out.

If he’d had a coat he would have given it to her. But his coat was back at Bellemere, along with the rest of his things. He’d meant to stay for only two days; it was a convenient place to stop and rest his horses on the way back to Castle Bretton from the Charters shooting party in Ross-shire. In retrospect, he should have just remained with his friends for the holiday; only a fool took to the roads in Scotland at this time of year.

But he’d always had a sentimental streak when it came to Castle Bretton at Christmastime. He might make his home in London for much of the year, but he couldn’t imagine being anywhere else when the Yule log was lit and Mrs. Plitherton’s famous Christmas pudding was brought to the table. He had almost no family with whom to celebrate—just his mother and whichever of her maiden sisters chose to join them. But the lack of Shevingtons had made the holiday a jollier, less formal affair, with songs and dancing, and the whole of the household—from the butler down to the scullery maids—joining in on the fun.