Page 53 of Highland Fire

Caitlin studiously tipped her soup plate at the correct angle, slightly away from her, and plied her silver soup spoon in the manner polite usage prescribed.

She was excruciatingly self-conscious, as was to be expected.

She was playing hostess to a distinguished group of about thirty people, all of them either Rand’s family or friends, and all eyes were on her.

She wasn’t imagining it, though the glances were covert.

Suspense seemed to hang on the air, as if their guests were waiting for the moment to arrive when she would finally disgrace herself and run screaming from the room.

Sometimes, such as on the present occasion, the temptation to do just that was almost irresistible.

They had put her down as a northern barbarian, strange and unpredictable, and she longed to prove them right.

For two pins, she would throw down her napkin and pick up her soup plate, put it to her lips and suck it dry with as much gusto as her hound emptyied a drinking trough.

It was what everybody expected her to do.

Only one thing stayed her hand. No one would blink an eyelash.

No one would comment upon it or laugh or show the slightest discomfort.

It was enough to drive any sane Scot to murder and mayhem.

She had discovered that one of the distinguishing characteristics of the English aristocracy was the knack of turning a blind eye to any social solecism committed by one of their number.

If she were to strip naked, right this minute, she could almost predict everyone’s reaction.

There would be a slight hiatus in the buzz of conversation.

Rand would call for more champagne, and as the servants hastened to do his bidding, the conversation would resume.

He would thereupon rise from his place at the head of the table, converse easily with various guests as he made his way down to her, and before a minute had passed, his dark coat would be around her shoulders, covering her nakedness.

She would then be escorted to her chamber by one of the footmen.

On returning to his place, Rand would look around at the assembled guests and say in that easy way of his, “Now where was I?”

The English hated scenes, and their way of dealing with them was to act as if they had not happened.

She knew all this because she’d had ample proof of it in the few days since they had arrived at Cranley, beginning with the moment she had stepped outside the carriage and had come face to face with her husband’s mistress.

It wasn’t until this very morning that the dowager had taken her aside and had complimented her on her presence of mind, saying something to the effect that it was all a regrettable misunderstanding and she never would have invited Rand’s mistress to Cranley if she had known that he was a married man.

Mistress! It had never occurred to Caitlin that Lady Margaret was Rand’s mistress!

She was too patrician, too well bred, and much too refined for that role.

Good grief! She was an earl’s daughter and the widow of a gentleman who had left her a considerable fortune.

When Caitlin thought of mistresses, she thought of Doris at The Fair Maid, or the more exotic Nellie—vulgar women who painted their faces and tarted themselves up to advertise their profession.

Lady Margaret was a vision of loveliness.

In Caitlin’s ignorance, on first having set eyes on her and witnessed that lingering embrace, she had assumed that the poor woman was Rand’s betrothed or near enough as made no difference.

She’d felt guilty as sin for stealing him away from her, which was why she had stood there like an abandoned, battered portmanteau waiting for someone to claim it.

And when that passionate embrace had played itself out and Rand had made the introductions all around with his usual aplomb, she’d stifled her jealousy, allowing the dowager to lead her into the house, conscious that Rand and the vision of loveliness had turned aside for an intimate tête-à-tête .

She’d felt, then, that it was the least she owed them.

When she had discovered this morning in what relationship the two stood to each other, she had wished she could go back to the moment she had stepped down from the carriage.

If she had known then what she knew now, she would have thrown such a temper tantrum that Lady Margaret would have thought herself lucky to escape with her life.

Naturally, the first thing she did was tackle her husband about it.

“I never said I was a monk before my marriage,” Rand said, dismissing her allegations with a wave of his hand. “Margaret, that is, Lady Margaret, need not concern you. She is my mother’s guest. That’s all you need to know.”

“Your former profligacy is not what is at issue here.” This wasn’t precisely true, but she did not want to appear irrational in the face of his reasonableness. “Surely you must see how improper it is?”

“It’s a little awkward, I grant you. But there is nothing improper about it. We are not involved in a ménage à trois . My whole family is in residence. What could be more proper that that?”

His eyes were dancing in that roguish way which never failed to raise her hackles. “If ‘Meggins,’” she said pettishly, remembering the twins’ nickname for the lady, “had an ounce of breeding, she would pack her bags and make some pretext for returning to London.”

“That is where you are wrong,” corrected Rand.

The humor had faded from his eyes and he was watching her speculatively.

“If Lady Margaret were to do anything so precipitous, tongues would begin to wag. Before you know it, it would be bandied about all over London that there had been a falling-out between my mistress and my wife. The gossips would make capital of it.”

“So let them! What do I care what a few gossips want to make of it? Anything is preferable to living under the same roof as that woman.”

“You are not the injured party here. My relationship with Lady Margaret hurt no one. Neither of us was married at the time.”

His logic, of course, was unimpeachable. She tried a different argument. “Do you suppose I enjoy those avidly curious looks everyone is slanting at me?”

“Who is looking at you?”

“Your sisters!” she snapped.

Again, she wasn’t being as scrupulously honest as she might have been.

It was Lady Margaret’s looks which bothered her the most. The woman had a trick of making her feel small.

It didn’t help that she was small in comparison to all the females in Rand’s family.

She felt like a dwarf set down in a tribe of Amazons; albeit handsome Amazons.

Tall, willowy blondes, every last one of them, including Lady Margaret.

Only one of Rand’s sisters-in-law broke the monotony.

She was a redhead. Even so, Caitlin envied Frances her inches.

And they were all so sophisticated. Their fine clothes, their manners, their cultured accents, their conversation—everything about them intimidated her.

With Lady Margaret, however, it was calculated.

When that woman widened her beautiful eyes and allowed her gaze to linger on Caitlin’s coiffure, or on the hem of her gown or wherever, Caitlin itched to find a mirror and set herself to rights.

Anyway, how could she not feel all the disadvantages of her position when Lady Margaret’s conversation was all of the Prince Regent and of the illustrious personages who moved in her circles?

Caitlin could not compete, and she had the sense not to try.

Even to return some commonplace had become a trial when Lady Margaret lost no opportunity in drawing attention to her “quaint” Scottish accent.

She had allowed Lady Margaret to have her petty revenge out of a sense of guilt.

The information that the lady was not a jilted fiancée, but in fact her husband’s mistress, had touched Caitlin upon the quick.

She was incensed, not only at Lady Margaret but at the whole tribe of Randals for subjecting her to an insult no bride should be made to endure.

They were a queer lot, these English Randals, and as like to her as creatures from another world.

She had not been with them a day when her own abigail, Maisie, had regaled her with such scandals as would set the Highlands back on its heels for a long time to come.

Elopements and forced marriages seemed almost de rigueur in this strange family.

It was no wonder that not a soul had looked askance when Rand had introduced Caitlin Randal as his bride.

Nothing could shake them. If Armageddon suddenly exploded around their heads, she wondered if any of them would lose the thread of conversation or do more than politely remark on it in passing.

Of course, in her husband’s case, she knew that his public face was not the one he wore in private.

“I don’t like the way your sisters watch me,” she had elaborated, driving home her point. “I feel as though they are waiting for the fireworks to go off.”

He had taken her words as a jest. “You must mean the twins. Their manners leave much to be desired. I shall have a word with them.”

She had meant the twins, but she wasn’t going to allow him to make light of it like this. “It’s not only the twins. Everybody is watching me. Oh, they are too polite to do it openly, but they are watching me just the same.”

“You are imagining things. Why should they watch you?”

Because they wondered what Rand had seen in her when his mistress surpassed her on all suits. “Because you and your mother have put me in an intolerable position. They are waiting for me to make a fool of myself.”