“This is a serious business!” their uncle said with a scowl. “Only one left, I think. Fiona’s sister.”
His ancient lieutenant nodded gravely.
Byron ground his teeth. “Robin, please escort Miss Burns, Miss Chisholm, and Lady Cecily into the castle. It’s freezing, and they aren’t wearing cloaks.”
“Didn’t have time for that,” Taran said cheerfully. “I snatched them straight out of the ballroom. Marilla Chisholm, there’s no hiding in that carriage,” he bellowed.
The last young lady appeared, pausing dramatically at the top of the carriage’s steps. She was very young, very blond, and very beautiful, and she swayed gently. “What is happening?” she cried, her voice wavering. “Oh, what is to become of us?”
“You are perfectly safe, Miss Marilla.” Byron held out a hand to support her as she stepped down. “I am Lord Oakley. I offer our deepest apologies, and my assurance as a gentleman that you will be speedily returned to your family.”
“No, she won’t,” Taran said. “Snow’s already closed the pass. Should be two to three days before anyone makes it through.” He pushed the carriage door shut. “Let’s get inside. It’s as cold as a witch’s teat out here, and we’re done.”
The carriage door slammed open again and an exquisite Hoby boot landed decisively on the ground. A deep, irritated voice said, “Not quite!”
Byron’s jaw dropped.
Robin turned around. “Holy hell, Uncle, you’ve kidnapped the Duke of Bretton!”
Chapter 2
Catriona Burns was a practical girl. One had to be, living as she did in the Highlands of Scotland. When it was December the seventeenth, and the sun rose for barely six hours per day, and the temperature hovered somewhere between freezing and dead, one had to be prepared for anything.
But not this.
It was two in the miserable morning, she’d lost feeling in at least eight of her toes, and she was standing outside in three inches of snow. With an earl. And a French comte. And a duke. Who’d been kidnapped.
“Taran Ferguson, you insufferable miscreant,” she practically yelled. “What do you think you are doing?”
“Aye, well, y’see . . .” He scratched his head, glanced at the carriage as if it might offer advice, and then shrugged.
“You’re drunk,” she accused.
His mouth twisted so far to the right it seemed to turn his head. “Just a wee bit.”
“You kidnapped the Duke of Bretton!”
“Well now, that was a mistake . . .” He frowned, turning to his loyal retainers. “How didwe end up with him?”
“Indeed,” bit off the duke. Normally speaking, Catriona would not have found him terribly fearsome. He was a rather good-looking fellow, with thick, dark hair, and deep-set eyes, but there was nothing wild or untamed about him.
That said, when the Duke of Bretton speared Taran Ferguson with a furious stare, even Catriona took a step back.
“What were you doing in the carriage?” Taran demanded.
“It was my carriage!” roared the duke.
There was a moment of silence—well, except for the French comte, who wouldn’t stop laughing—and then Taran finally said, “Oh.”
“Who,” the duke demanded, “are you?”
“Taran Ferguson. I do apologize for the error.” He motioned toward Lady Cecily, then waved his hand past both Chisholm sisters. “We only meant to snatch the women.”
Marilla Chisholm let out a delicate cry of distress, leading Catriona to let out an indelicate grunt of annoyance. She’d known Marilla for every one of her twenty-one years, and there was no way she was the least bit distressed. She’d been trapped in a carriage with a duke, only to be deposited at the feet of two other titled gentlemen.
Please. This was Marilla’s wildest dream come true, and then inflicted upon the rest of them. Catriona looked over at Marilla’s older sister, Fiona, but whatever she was 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.”