The Lady Most Willing

thinking, it was well hidden behind her spectacles.

“Bret,” said one of the men—the stiff and serious one who had already apologized six times.

The duke’s head snapped around, and Catriona saw his eyes widen. “Oakley?” he asked, sounding well and truly shocked.

Lord Oakley jerked his head toward Taran and said, “He’s our uncle.”

“Our?” the duke echoed.

Lord Rocheforte—or was it Mr. Rocheforte? Catriona didn’t know, he was French, for heaven’s sake, for all that he sounded British. Whoever he was, he clearly saw no gravity in the situation, for he just grinned and held up his hand. “Hallo, Bret,” he said in a jolly voice.

“Good God,” the duke swore. “You too?”

Catriona looked back and forth between the trio of men. They had that air about them—five hundred years of breeding and a membership to White’s. One didn’t have to venture far beyond the Highlands of Scotland to know that once one reached a certain social level, everyone knew everyone. These three had probably shared a room at Eton.

“Didn’t realize you were in Scotland,” Mr. Lord Rocheforte said to the duke.

The duke cursed under his breath, following that up with: “Forgot the two of you were related.”

“It still quite frequently comes as a shock to me, too,” Lord Oakley said in a dry voice. Then he cleared his throat and added, “I must apologize on behalf of my uncle.” He jerked his head furiously toward Taran. “Apparently, he—”

“I can speak for myself,” Taran cut in.

“No,” Lord Oakley said, “you cannot.”

“Don’t you speak to me like that, boy!”

Oakley turned to Taran with a fury that even outstripped the duke’s. “Your judgment—”

“He was asleep in the carriage,” Catriona blurted out, jumping into the fray. The men went silent for long enough to stare at her, so she quickly added, “When you and your men threw us inside. His Grace was already there, asleep.”

“Did he wake up?” Mr. Lord Rocheforte murmured.

Catriona blinked, not sure if she was meant to actually answer. But she had a feeling that if she did not maintain control of the conversation, the other three men would come to blows, so she said, “Not right away.”

“It was right easy,” Taran boasted. “We just went in, snatched them, and left. No one even put up a fuss.”

Lord Oakley let out a long, agonized breath. “How is that possible? Surely your parents . . .”

Fiona Chisholm cleared her throat. “I think the guests thought it was all part of the entertainment.”

Rocheforte started laughing again.

“How can you find this funny?” Lord Oakley demanded.

“How can you not?” Rocheforte sputtered.

“I feel faint,” Marilla twittered.

“You do not,” Catriona snapped. Because really, the whole thing was bad enough without Marilla’s nonsense.

Marilla gasped in outrage, and Catriona had no doubt that she would have hissed something monstrously insulting if they had not an audience of unmarried gentlemen.

“Might we go inside?” the Duke of Bretton asked, each syllable icy sharp.

“Of course,” Lord Oakley replied quickly. “Come in, everyone. We will get this sorted out and have everyone back on their way home”—he glared at his uncle at that—“posthaste.”

“We can’t go home,” Catriona said.

“What do you mean?”

“The roads are impassable.”

Lord Oakley stared at her.

“It’s a miracle we even made it here,” she told him. “We certainly cannot return tonight. There is no moon, and”—she looked up at the sky—“it’s going to snow again.”

“How do you know?” Lord Oakley asked, with perhaps more than a touch of desperation.

She tried not to stare at him as if he were an idiot, she really did, but his white-blond hair was practically glowing in the moonlight, and with his mouth still open in horror, he looked like a traumatized owl. “I have lived here my entire life,” she finally said. “I know when it’s going to snow.”

His reply was something that should never be uttered in front of a gently born female,