It's Getting Scot in Here (The Wild Wicked Highlanders #1)(2)
The lads—grown men, now—were not at all happy suddenly to learn about the responsibilities and rules foisted upon them by a woman they barely remembered. Being wily, freehearted, and exceptionally handsome men accustomed to doing things their way and certainly not bowing to the demands of a demented Englishwoman, they determined to go down to London not to comply, but to outwit their mother and upend any plans she had for them. And thus, dear reader, begins our story.
Chapter One
“I can smell the shite from here.” Niall MacTaggert pulled up his bay gelding, Kelpie, at the top of the low rise. “Bloody Saint Andrew,” he muttered, swinging down to the ground. The sight before him—a vast sprawl of hazy, smoke-shrouded streets, the peaks of bell towers here and there the only bits that had managed to break free of the gray to stab into the overcast sky—had both a scent and a sound he hadn’t even the words to describe. “Have ye ever seen the like?”
“Nae.” His oldest brother, Coll, Viscount Glendarril, remained aboard his massive black Friesian stallion, Nuckelavee, but he leaned forward to cross his wrists over the saddle’s pommel. “I reckon we’ve found hell.”
As they gazed at the loud, fog-bound morass, Niall’s second oldest brother, Aden, drew up behind them. “Finding a bride here’s nae the first thought that strikes me,” he commented, patting his chestnut thoroughbred, Loki, on the withers. “I reckon we should rescue our sister from that blight and make for the Highlands.”
“And send her to a nunnery,” Niall added. “If we can keep her from marrying, we’ve nae reason to tote posies about and read poetry to some fainting English hothouse flower.”
That had been the plan he suggested, but Coll had overruled him, insisting that the three of them could convince Francesca Oswell-MacTaggert to tear up the agreement. Coll always had favored battle, a direct confrontation, over delicacy or subterfuge. And his methods generally succeeded—the main reason Niall and Aden had agreed to give it a go.
Niall turned to see the quartet of outriders and two wagons of luggage accompanying them come into sight. It all looked impressive, which had been the point; they all knew that no Sassenach traveled far without half his worldly goods accompanying him. Now, though, he had to consider that having to repack all of it would considerably slow any getaway they might attempt. Then again, they could always taxidermy another red deer stag if they had to leave behind the one they’d brought along.
Most of the rest of it was nearly as unnecessary. Then again, Francesca claimed to want her sons about. Well, here they were. All three of them. And not a one in the mood to be cooperative. Niall stepped into the stirrup and remounted Kelpie as his brothers returned to the rutted, muddy road and the wagons. London. He’d rather take a wade through a peat bog than spend an hour in London. Their da had signed a paper, though, and then seventeen years later had refused to rise from his sickbed—his deathbed, according to himself—to join his sons in disputing it. Angus MacTaggert, Earl Aldriss, a roaring giant of a Highlands warrior and evidently too scared of his estranged wife to leave his estate and go set eyes on her. Not that Angus would ever admit to that.
On a sunny day, if such things existed here, the oak and elm trees scattered along the road might have provided a pleasant shade. Today they mostly made Niall miss the pines and the craggy, snow-topped peaks of the Highlands. Christ, had it only been five days since he’d last seen them? It was warmer here, or at least the breeze, even with the rain hanging just behind it, didn’t have that chill that dug into a man’s bones.
He fell in beside Aden, with Coll and his great black warhorse a few feet ahead of them. The outriders had been more for show than for anything else; he doubted even some damned Sassenach highwayman would care to run up against the MacTaggert brothers. Still, someone had to lag behind with the wagons and protect the stuffed stag and their shaving kits. Their grand arrival wouldn’t change the fact that they’d left behind an ailing father and a busy season of new lambs and growing crops, that they’d had to postpone the Highlands games that had been a tradition in June for the past two hundred years, and dozens of other things that all needed tending. And a fair crop of young ladies who’d be lamenting his absence.
“Ye ken if yer face freezes like that a hundred lasses will perish from sorrow.”
Niall sent Aden a sideways glance. “If I’m forced to wed some pinch-faced flower of the south, those hundred lasses will all be perishing from loneliness and sorrow. Even the lot chasing ye might frown for an entire minute once they read about yer nuptuals.”
“Dunnae underestimate Coll’s lack of enthusiasm at having Francesca choose a bride for him.”
“Aye. Thank the devil he’s the one lost the card turn. I’m surprised he has any teeth left, the way he’s been grinding ’em for five days.”
With a swift look toward at their brother’s backside, Aden pulled a deck of cards from his coat pocket and shuffled it one-handed. “I reckon he’ll fight harder for us with himself in the hangman’s noose.”
Aden’s swift expression of amusement as he pocketed the cards again might have been simple appreciation, or it might have been one of his rare admissions of trickery. Either way, Niall was abruptly grateful not to be the present Viscount Glendarril. It was horrifying enough to be ordered to choose a Sassenach bride; to have a woman he’d not seen in seventeen years pick out the lass he was to marry would have been enough to make him consider fleeing to the Colonies, regardless of the consequences to Aldriss Park.