Once Upon a Tartan

English aristocracy. Tye wondered what his mother might have said about the effect on a Scottish woman of marrying an English noble.

“If you prefer port, Spathfoy, I’m bound as your host to provide it, but I’ve some whisky I typically bring out only for special occasions, if you’re game.”

“I’m a special occasion?”

“To your family you likely are, but it’s plain to me I haven’t gotten you drunk yet, so I’m resorting to my best stratagems.” Balfour offered this comment with such candid good cheer, Tye almost believed he was teasing. Almost.

“And why must I become inebriated?”

“Let’s take our drinks on the back terrace, shall we? I love the gloaming, and if the dew is falling just so, I’ll hear my wife singing the bairn a lullaby. I can become inebriated on that alone.”

Balfour was shameless about his family attachments, which was so different from what Tye had been raised with, Tye couldn’t find it in himself to be appalled.

They stopped by a library, which wasn’t exactly crammed with books, and Balfour opened a sideboard and passed Tye a decanter. “We’ll use glasses in case her ladyship tries for a sneak inspection from the nursery window.”

“Somehow, Balfour, if she’s spying from the window, I doubt she’ll be doing so for the sake of evaluating our etiquette.”

Balfour smiled wolfishly. “Perhaps she won’t be.” Tye was surprised when the man did not wink but led him through French doors straight to the terrace.

“You are a guest under my roof and distant family, so I will appreciate some honesty,” Balfour said as he took a bench at the edge of the terrace. He poured them each a drink and passed one to Tye, who remained standing. “To your health.”

“And yours.” Tye sipped his drink cautiously, but God in heaven, it was sublime libation. He took a place beside Balfour on the stone bench. “What is this?”

“We’ve taken to calling it the laird’s cache. My master distiller and I came across about twenty barrels of this when we were doing an inventory last year. I suspect it’s at least twenty years old, but McDowell claims it’s twice that. We’re decanting it one barrel at a time.”

They sipped in respectful silence for some minutes. Tye tried to mentally describe the flavors gracing his palate, but it was pointless when faced with such variety and subtlety. The drink didn’t burn its way into his vitals, it illuminated him from the inside out—like a certain young lady’s smile.

“Do your royal neighbors know you’ve drink like this to offer your guests?”

“Oh, of course. We send over a few bottles in welcome every summer. Albert is a man of refinement, so at least we know it isn’t going to waste.”

More silence as Balfour topped off their drinks. “I’m plying you with my best whisky, Spathfoy. I expect a few honest answers in return.”

Ah, so the real questioning was going to begin. “I am generally considered an honest man.”

“Did you know Matthew Daniels has initiated a suit to assume legal guardianship of Fiona?”

Tye let the glow of his last sip of whisky fade before he answered. “I did not.”

Balfour’s disclosure made sense though. This might account for Quinworth’s sudden interest in the child. A marquess might ignore his granddaughter, but only as long as nobody else—no other wealthy, titled Englishman, for example—was stepping into the breach. Still, Tye felt a spike of resentment that his father had sent him into battle less than well informed.

“Neither did I. I’m not sure Mary Fran knew. Matthew is devoted to the child.”

As Quinworth had not been; as Tye had not been. “That is commendable.”

“To see the girl leave Balfour House about tore the heart from my chest.”

Scottish hyperbole, no doubt. “She’s a delightful child.” Which was English hyperbole.

“She’s a damned force of nature, like her mother. She’s also the first good thing to happen to this family in nigh fifty years. I say this, though it means I must overcome my reluctance to admit anything good could come of yet another decent Scottish girl’s rape at the hands of an English soldier. Excuse me. Perhaps I am the one becoming inebriated.” He lifted his glass to peer at his drink. “I meant seduction, not rape.”

Tye set his glass down between them on the stone bench. “You accuse my late brother of rape?”

“No… no, though I’d like to.” Balfour’s tone was thoughtful. “I accuse him of seducing an innocent, getting her with child, and having every intention of leaving the girl ruined if she refused his suit.”

“Now this is interesting.” Tye kept his tone speculative, though the insult intended was blatant. “My family regards Fiona’s origins as an example of yet another loyal English soldier being led astray by a local woman intent on insinuating herself into the coffers of his wealthy and titled family.”

“Interesting, indeed. I think I would have noticed my own sister doing this insinuating you mention, particularly when we haven’t a Quinworth copper to show for it—nor a single letter or note from the wealthy, titled family since Fiona’s birth years ago.”

A valid argument. Tye remained silent while Balfour poured him another two fingers.

“Mary Fran was barely eighteen, her virtue something I, my three brothers, my grandfather, and assorted uncles and cousins would all have staked their lives on. She was headstrong, true, but not wicked. The woman knows not how to scheme when direct measures will serve. You have sisters, Spathfoy.”

God yes, he had sisters. If he’d had no sisters, there was no power on earth that could have sent him on this fool’s errand for Quinworth. “A woman at eighteen generally knows her own mind.”

“And is this why English law forbids her to wed without parental consent until she’s twenty-one?”

Now why would a Scottish earl bother himself with English law? Tye took another sip of his drink, and in his head began to count to one hundred in Gaelic.

Balfour gazed up at the darkening sky. “I read law, Spathfoy, lots and lots of it, with lots and lots of English barristers and solicitors. Here is what I want you to ask your dear papa: What Scotswoman in her right mind, much less the daughter of an earl, would cast herself into the arms of a penniless English soldier if she were intent on marriage? As I heard it, your own mother, who was no more wellborn than Mary Fran, was reluctant to take on a marquess and hasn’t exactly remained at his side since the nuptials.

“Your brother was pretty,” Balfour went on, “but prettier, wealthier officers were thick on the ground. Mary Fran was the highest-ranking eligible female in the shire. She had no need of Gordie Flynn’s hand in marriage. She took her flirting too far perhaps, but Gordie was older, more worldly, and arguably raised as a gentleman. My sister married well beneath her justified expectations and very much against her preferences.”

He sipped his whisky placidly, but his arguments settled into Tye’s thinking brain and blended with several other trains of thought.

The marquess had not told Tye that a guardianship suit was pending. What else had the marquess failed to tell his firstborn son and minion? That Balfour was a lawyer certainly didn’t help matters at all.

Mary Frances MacGregor, as described by her brother, was wellborn enough to have no need of association with the Flynns, something the marquess had also never acknowledged in Tye’s hearing.

And there was more. In a casual tour of the house, Tye had seen a portrait of Mary Fran as a young mother. The lady was gorgeous, putting Tye in mind of his own mother’s height, red hair, and feminine figure. This too, would have given her more marital options besides a marquess’s younger son sporting around in regimental colors.

And eighteen in a proper household could be innocent—very likely had been innocent.

“More whisky?” Balfour was the soul of good manners now that he’d rattled swords and upset Tye’s enjoyment of very fine spirits.

“No, thank you. This is drink to be savored.”

“It is. Just as Fiona is a child to be loved.”

Damn the man. “I cannot fault my father for attempting to redress what could be seen as previous neglect of his granddaughter.”

“He can redress all the neglect he wants—set up a trust fund, send you along on annual inspections, have Fee down to visit her aunties when she’s old enough to sit still on the train. An old man is entitled to deal with his regrets. He’ll not be taking our Fee, though, not unless Mary Fran herself tells me to allow it.”