The Lady Most Willing

“Oakley was going to be wed,” Taran said briskly, “but he caught his intended practicing steps with her dancing master that were never meant to see a ballroom floor.” He paused dramatically. “Her French dancing master.”

“Didn’t you just say your other nephew is French?” one of his men asked, rubbing his hands on his kilt for warmth.

Taran brushed this aside. “It pains me to say it, but neither lad can be trusted to find a bride worthy of Finovair. And marry they must, or our birthright will crumble to dust.”

“Half there already,” someone muttered.

“It behooves us”—Taran paused, so pleased with the word he thought it bore repeating—“it behooves us, my fine companions, to make sure both my nevvies marry Scotswomen. Or at the very least, someone with enough blunt—”

“Get to the bloody point!” shouted someone with freezing fingers and a wife at home. “What are we doing here?”

No one could fault Taran for missing a good exit line. “What are we doing?” Taran bellowed back. “What are we doing?” He rose in his stirrups and, wielding the great broadsword of the Ferguson over his head, shouted,

“We’re going to get us some brides!”

Chapter 1

Finovair Castle

Kilkarnity, Scotland

December 1819

“Remind me again, why are we here?”

Byron Wotton, Earl of Oakley, took a fortifying gulp of his whiskey and nudged his chair closer to the fire. Castles were notoriously difficult to heat, but it was bloody freezing at Finovair. He knew his uncle was short on funds, but surely something could have been done about the arctic breeze that ran like a snake through the sitting room.

“I believe you left a woman at the altar,” his cousin Robin said with an arched brow.

“We were a month away from the wedding,” Byron shot back, perfectly aware that he had risen—or rather, descended—to Robin’s bait. “As well you know.”

He might have pointed out that he’d caught his fiancee in the arms of her dancing master, but really, what was the point? Robin knew the whole story already.

“As for me,” Robin said, leaning forward to rub his hands together near the fire, “I’m here for the food.”

Anyone else might have taken it as the dry riposte Robin had intended it to be, but Byron knew better. With nothing to his name but a defunct French title, Robert Parles (Robin to everyone but his mother), quite likely had come to Finovair for the food.

A rush of cold air hit Byron in the face, and he bit off a curse. “Did someone leave a window open?” he asked, scowling as he glanced around the room. The sun had gone down hours before, taking with it its pathetic delusion of warmth.

Byron stomped to his feet and crossed the room to inspect the windows. Several were cracked. He peered out, into the worsening storm. Was someone out there? No, no one would be so mad as to—

“What happened to Uncle Taran?” Byron asked suddenly.

“Hmmm?” Robin had let his head loll against the back of his chair. He did not open his eyes.

“I haven’t seen him since supper. Have you?”

Robin snorted and sat up straighter. “You missed the show. After you went off to God knows where—”

“The library,” Byron muttered.

“—Taran got up on the table in his kilt. And let me tell you”—Robin gave a shudder—“that is not a kilt one cares to peer under.”

“He got up on the table?” Byron could not help but echo. It was outlandish, even for Uncle Taran.

Robin gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Some of his liegemen came to drink with him after supper, and the next thing I knew, he was on the table, thumping his chest and raving about the glories of the past, when men were men and Scottish men were thrice as manly. Then he called for his claymore and the whole lot of them disappeared.”

“You didn’t think to ask them where they were going?” Because that was the first thing Byron would have demanded.

Robin eyes met his with the barest hint of amusement. “No.”