Once Upon a Tartan

“Or maybe they cast each other aside.” Joan closed paint-stained fingers around the teapot handle. “I will ask Mama about this before I decamp for Paris this fall.”

“Tiber—Spathfoy said you were longing to live there.”

“Hah.” Lady Joan sprinkled salt on her eggs. “Longing is such a polite word. I am desperate to go there, mad to live there, ready to commit rash acts and so forth. Fortunately, Tye has convinced his lordship to allow it.”

“The marquess was quite set against the notion?” This was shameless prying, but Joan didn’t seem to regard it as such, and Hester was willing to exploit any avenue to gain insight into the man who’d turned her— Fiona’s—life upside down.

Joan picked up a point of buttered toast and considered it. “I suspect Papa is contrary as a means of gaining Mama’s notice, and she’s indifferent as a means of maintaining his. The four of us children have learned to navigate between the two, though I must admit this is part of what makes Paris attractive.”

“You want to get away from your family?” And this was the milieu in which Fiona was to be raised?

“I adore my siblings.” Joan tore off a bite of toast with straight, white teeth. “And when I was younger, Mama and Papa were alternately squalling like cats and cooing like doves. I shudder to think what manner of husband Papa would have found for us if Tye hadn’t intervened.”

Hester’s breakfast started a quiet, uncomfortable rebellion in her vitals. “I beg your pardon?”

“Papa was grumbling about it even yesterday: he promised if Tye brought Fiona to Quinworth, then Mary Ellen, Dora, and I might have our choice of husbands—within reason. Fiona’s here, and my sisters and I are breathing a collective sigh of relief. My year in Paris was part of the bargain as well, though I suspect Tye is footing the bill rather than Papa. More tea?”

“Please.” Hester pushed her cup and saucer across the table only to realize the cup was more than half-full. “Just a touch.”

Joan topped up the teacup and went back to studying her toast. “When I was a girl, we were happy. I cannot pinpoint exactly what changed, but there doesn’t seem to be any changing it back. Is Tye going to marry you?”

Hester took as long as she could with a sip of tea. “He has offered. I have declined.”

Joan beamed a toothy smile at her. “Oh, that’s lovely. Tye adores a challenge, positively thrives on it, which is fortunate, since running the marquessate is nothing but a challenge. May I ask why you turned him down? He dotes on you and our mutual niece ceaselessly, and though he’s my brother, I’m enough of an artist to pronounce him quite luscious.”

“Dotes on me?” He was luscious.

“I cannot recall the last time he invited a guest to this house, and I cannot recall when he last went riding with a lady, even in the stultified confines of Town. He was supposed to spend two days in Aberdeenshire, you know, not two weeks, and at meals, he is forever glancing at you sidelong and pushing his food around on his plate. You’ve put him off his feed, I fear. I never thought I’d live to see it.”

“I never intended to put anybody off their feed.”

“Which is why,” Joan drawled, “your eggs have gotten cold on your plate, hmm?”

Hester glanced down at the omelet congealing before her. “I served myself too large a portion. If you’ll excuse me, I’m off in search of a book. His lordship’s library is truly impressive.”

“Books, bah. You’re hiding from Tye, and I am anxious to see how this little drama plays out. If you see Fiona, tell her to bring me some flowers, and we’ll paint a portrait of them. I refuse to sketch that carrot-pig masquerading as a rabbit one more time.”

“I will pass your message along.”

Hester rose without finishing her tea and made her way to the library, blind to the Quinworth wealth arrayed around her.

Tye had fetched Fiona here to rescue his sisters from the kind of match his parents had made into a living purgatory. This was the leverage his father had over him: three women could look forward to happy adulthoods, provided Fiona was sacrificed to a childhood away from those who loved her.

Hester pushed the library door open, lost in thought.

And Tye had said he honestly believed he’d be improving Fiona’s circumstances, plucking her from penury into a life of guaranteed privilege.

Merciful Saints. That a father would put his son up to such an undertaking was an abomination against the natural order, but again, Hester had to wonder what motivated the marquess.

She did not wander the bookshelves as she had on many occasions. She instead sat at the huge old estate desk by the windows and tried to wrap her mind around the choices Tiberius had faced. Outside the windows, a lovely day was unfolding, full of sunshine and fresh breezes. Inside the library, Hester rummaged for writing implements, intent on sharing the morning’s revelations with Aunt Ariadne, and Ian and Augusta MacGregor as well.

Pen and ink were not difficult to find, but the nib needed trimming, so Hester opened more drawers in search of a penknife, sand, and wax.

She found… documents. A large cache of letters addressed to Deirdre, Lady Quinworth, in a slashing hand that looked very like what she’d seen of Tiberius’s writing.

Why would the lady have left her letters here if she dwelled in Scotland?

Tamping down the clamorings of conscience, Hester opened one letter:

My dearest wife,

The Holland bulbs you planted on the tenth anniversary of Dora’s birth are springing up in profusions and glories, carpeting the hedges in bright colors and sweet aromas. Were you here, I would walk the paths with you. You would tell me which beds need to be divided and which might be left undisturbed for another year. Were you here, we might ride to the river and picnic there among the willows, while I read to you from the wicked French novels you used to hide under our pillows…

God in heaven. Hester folded the letter up with shaking hands. The love letter. She dared not read further, but glanced at the date and found to her shock it was but a few weeks ago.

And this was not a draft. The missive had been through the mails, apparently twice.

“The poor man.” And the drawer was nearly full of such letters. What wrong had he done his lady to merit this treatment? No chance to explain, no chance to make reparation, no hope of forgiveness? She closed that drawer so quickly she nearly pinched her fingers, then opened another.

Still no penknife, but a single, very official-looking document. Her planned correspondence forgotten, Hester started reading.

Thirty minutes later, she was still staring at the Last Will and Testament of Gordon Bierly Adolphus Flynn when the marquess came striding into the room, tapping his riding crop against his boot.

“Miss Daniels. Good day. Spathfoy tells me you might soon be returning to northern climes.” He advanced on the desk, his expression curious. “I’d rather hoped you’d bring the boy up to scratch and do something about that moping child while you were about it. I know not who is the more cast down of late, the man or the girl.”

“I wonder you’d notice such a thing, my lord, while pining for your own lady.”

“I beg your pardon?” He gave his boots a sharp thwack with his infernal crop. That was nothing compared to what Hester would do to him.

She pushed out of the chair and came around the desk to stand directly before Quinworth. “I’ve read Gordie’s will, your lordship. I am certain Tiberius has not been given that privilege.”

“You pried into the private papers of a family who opened their home to you as a guest?” He did not yell; he kept his voice menacingly soft.

“I went looking for a penknife and found some answers, you dratted bully. How could you do this to Tiberius, to Fiona, and to her family? You lied, you manipulated, you misrepresented, you abused the trust of those around you, and the trust placed in you by a son dead and gone and unable to speak for his own wishes.”

“I’m seeing those wishes carried out, Miss Daniels, and I will not be made to answer to the likes of some poor Scottish relation who thinks the hand of the Quinworth heir beneath her. Leave any time you like. I’ll manage my granddaughter and my son without your further interference. Good day.”

He strode out of the room, boots thumping, crop thwacking, making Hester want to call him back so she could tear another strip off of him.

Many, many strips. What he’d done was an unimaginable transgression of the good faith family members