“It’s quite all right, Lady Lockhart,” Anna said. “We wrote my parents and explained everything.”
Aila sank into a chair and threw a hand over her eyes.
“I suppose we’ll have yer story soon enough,” Liam said, “even though ye swore ye’d no’ hie yerself home with a wife—”
“Liam!” Ellie chided him.
“But what of the beastie, Grif?” Liam demanded. “Dudley said ye had found it. Where is it, then?”
Grif and Anna exchanged nervous glances. “With MacAlister,” Grif said.
They all leaned forward.
Grif shrugged.
“I’ll ask,” Carson said. “Where, then, is MacAlister… and the beastie?”
Grif cleared his throat. “I, ah …I wouldna rightly know, Father.”
There was a moment of stumned silence. “Wouldna know?” his father echoed incredulously.
“All right, here it is, then,” Grif said, and set Anna away from him, lest there be any hurling of objects. “We had the beastie, we did, in Gretna Green. But then… then there was the matter of our wedding,” he said, flashing a smile at his bride. “And MacAlister, well…he wasna alone.”
All eyes widened; no one as much as blinked.
“He, ah…he saved an Irish lass,” he tried to explain delicately.
All eyes went wider.
“Which I didna know, for we’d split apart, aye? For I was…well, essentially, I was kidnapping Anna—”
“Aaah!” his mother cried.
“I had no choice, Mother,” Grif hastily explained. “There were certain to be rather dire consequences if I was found with Anna and the beastie—probably a hanging, it would seem, as our cousin Lockhart suspected foul play, and then all would be lost, aye? So Hugh and I… we agreed to go our separate ways and meet in Gretna Green in a fortnight, and he arrived with a lass.”
“And?” Carson roared.
“And…” Grif sighed. There was no getting around it. “And he stole the beastie on our wedding night, and he and Miss Brody fled with it.”
The thunk they heard was Mared keeling over. With twin shrieks of surprise, Ellie and Aila were instantly at her side, and a wail unlike anything Grif had ever heard rose up from his sister.
“What have ye done, Griffin?” his father roared. “What in the bloody hell have ye done but bring us another mouth to feed?”
Everyone gasped with shock and looked at Anna. She looked at Grif with fear in her eyes.
Natalie walked calmly across the room, slipped her hand into Anna’s. “You mustn’t worry about Grandfather,” she said. “He often says things he doesn’t mean in the least.”
“Aye,” Carson said with a weary sigh, and walked to Anna, his arms open. “I’m sure ye’ll grow on us, lass. The last one certainly did,” he said, and hugged her, welcoming her into their fold.
Thirty-two
I t took less than a month for the family to cherish Anna as one of their own, particularly when she announced that she was with child. Nothing might have endeared her as quickly as that.
Aila and Carson, after much consideration, penned a letter to Anna’s parents, to inform them that she was indeed quite well and cared for and the love of their son’s life. In a month’s time, they received a reply from Lord Whittington, who, surprisingly, expressed his great relief and pleasure that his Anna had found happiness, and that he’d been rather fond of the Scot—far fonder of the Scot than his English cousin, who, it seemed, would become his son-in-law by marrying his youngest daughter, Lucy.
But Lord Whittington further wrote that while he was happy for his daughter’s good fortune, and had always wished a match that would suit her uncommon spirit, the same could not be said for his lady wife, and it might be some time yet before that rift was healed. He mentioned in passing the scandal Anna’s flight had caused, and sent a bit of money for her keep as his wife refused to send Anna’s dowry, given the circumstances. It wasn’t much, but it was a welcome relief to the Lockharts.
And last, but not least, Lord Whittington reported that Mr. Fynster-Allen had surprised everyone by offering for Miss Amelia Crabtree. The two were to be married at the Christmas season. Grif was quite pleased to hear it.
Most evenings, the Lockharts played a game in which they tried to determine where Hugh might have gone with the beastie. His father, Carson’s old friend, had not heard from his son, nor had Hugh’s friends in Edinburgh. And with the exception of the day Grif had come home, Mared had remained remarkably serene about the whole thing, worrying her parents and delighting her brothers.
But on one very sunny afternoon, as Ellie and Anna continued work on the gazebo, Mared sat and stared at the mountain that separated Talla Dileas from the Douglas estate.
“In truth, Mared,” Ellie said carefully, “Douglas seems a good man.”
Mared snorted.
“It won’t be so very bad, marrying him,” Ellie added. “He seems to rather esteem you. He’ll make a fine husband.”