If You Give A Girl A Viscount

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

A week later

Charlie stood in front of the Keep and looked out over the glen. Far off, a little dot in the distance, with smoke curling from its chimney, was the modest cottage Daisy was subleasing from a tenant farmer. Mrs. Montgomery, Perdita, Cassandra, Joe, Hester, and all their pigs, sheep, and goats lived there with her.

Charlie liked coming out here each day to check on her. As long as smoke was coming from the chimney, he assumed everything was all right.

Well, as all right as it could be.

He hadn’t been over to Vandemere yet to check the condition of the grounds and the actual living quarters. Going there brought back too many painful memories.

He’d hate to see it without Daisy in it. Empty. Hollow. Without the sound of her laughter.

He wondered, not for the first time, how she was managing to pay her current lease. Most likely, the eleven pounds she’d saved toward the feu duty was coming in handy at the moment.

Miserable and out of sorts, the state he’d been in since Daisy had left, he shoved his hands in his pockets and began his daily walk down to the village. Every day since the debacle at the Keep, he’d endured the unspoken question he’d read in the villagers’ eyes: why hadn’t he gone back to London?

He endured … and he ignored.

They were cold to him. He was an absentee property owner who didn’t give a fig about their well-being. They felt he was responsible for the Keep’s stagnation and, in an indirect way, the derelict condition of Castle Vandemere, even though the residents were supposed to maintain the castle and the grounds. That didn’t matter.

He was the laird, and their beloved landmark was in sad shape.

As such, he was going to have to endure their disapproval.

They were also upset about the ruined ceilidh. He couldn’t blame them for that. They’d been looking forward to some merriment, and a wicked visitor—a guest he should have kept his eye on, as host—had ruined everything.

But Charlie thought they were primarily angry with him about Daisy’s moving the family out of Castle Vandemere. No one had liked to see that happen. It had been reassuring to the village to look up the mountain and know the family was there, including Joe with his small flock of sheep on the hillside.

Now the last local tie to the Keep and the castle had been cut.

And it was all Charlie’s fault.

Silence greeted him when he entered the new pub.

Gavin MacKee, the owner, barely nodded his head. “We hear you’re looking for a new title holder to take your place.”

“Yes, I am,” Charlie answered him. “With the properties as they are. If I can find someone.”

The room was so quiet, no one moved. Not a single man picked up a drink and set it down. Outside, the wind howled and gray clouds scudded across the sky.

It was a miserable day, in more ways than one.

Charlie sighed and looked down at his boots rather than at Mr. MacKee and his customers. Their approval of you doesn’t matter, he told himself. You’ll be out of here soon and back to your life in London, a bit worse for wear but wiser.

But then a penny on the floor caught his eye.

It was as good a distraction from the tension bowing his shoulders as any.

Of course he’d pick it up. He was damned rich, but a penny was still a penny. He twirled it on the counter and remembered his lucky penny, the one that had been snatched from him on the way to Glen Dewey.

Without that lucky penny, a fortress and a castle had landed in his lap.

But he’d lost Daisy.

His Scottish grandfather’s words came back to him: “Here’s your lucky penny. What you see is what you get. Dinnae forget that, laddie.”

What you see is what you get.

Charlie looked closer at the penny. It was dull. It had seen many hands. He spun it again, and in the light of the candle, for a brief moment, it became gold.

What you see is what you get.

Somewhere in his hurting heart, a flame of understanding lit. It wasn’t the luck Granddad had wanted him to hold on to. Charlie now had a sneaking suspicion the old man hadn’t believed in luck.

And it wasn’t even the penny.

It was the philosophy: how you perceive the world is how the world will be.

If you feel lucky, you’ll be lucky.

But if you don’t, you won’t.

What you see is what you get.

You see betrayal all around you, you’ll get betrayal. You see distrust, you’ll get distrust.

And if you see love …

A picture of Daisy’s face swam before his eyes. Daisy, concerned for him. Daisy, being brave and saying she loved him, even when he’d been nowhere near the man she deserved.

He jumped up from his chair and flipped the penny to Mr. MacKee. “Here’s your lucky penny. What you see is what you get. Dinnae forget that, laddie.”

Mr. MacKee caught the penny handily. “Where are ye going so fast? You look on a mission of some sort.”

I am, thought Charlie, to get love. But now was not the time to announce that fact to the world. The getting would take him some planning. Some time.

And a great deal of effort on his part.

“Don’t worry,” Charlie told the room. “I’ll be back to finish that pint. I’m just going down the road to visit the mayor. And Mr. MacKee, the next round’s on me.” He dug a sovereign out of his pocket and laid it on the bar.

He’d gotten it from the small safe at the Keep, the one Mr. Beebs had used to store money to pay laborers. That pint would be the first thing Charlie had purchased since leaving London.

“Why the sudden change of heart, my lord?” the barkeep asked. “Ye’ve been so dark and grim.”

Charlie nodded. “I have, haven’t I? But I’ve got a lot of work to do. There’s no time to be blue.”

“What kind of work?” asked one man.

“Fixing up the Keep and Castle Vandemere.” Saying the words out loud brought home to Charlie how right his plan was. “I want them sparkling, in tip-top shape, before the Londoners arrive.”

“Londoners?”

Yes, why not?

Charlie scratched his head. “I think it’s a good idea they get up here before the snow comes, don’t you?”

“I suppose, but why are they coming?”

Charlie grinned. “To see the properties, of course.”

“I thought you were getting rid of the castles, ‘as is,’” said Mr. MacKee.

“I thought so, too,” said Charlie. “But not anymore. By the way, I’ll be holding a ball after the Londoners get here. A small hunt, too, if the deer are running. You’re all invited.”

He left the pub then, but not before he heard Mr. MacKee say, “He’s a bit crazy, that one.”

“But I like him,” one of the customers said.

He heard them all laugh in a good-natured way.

Which was why walking down the high street, Charlie began to whistle.

Daisy scrubbed and scrubbed, but the ink stains on her favorite gown—the strawberry-striped one she’d made from the settee—wouldn’t come off.

She knew very well Perdita had ruined the dress, just as she’d done a week before with Daisy’s lemon tree. Her stepsister had been a holy terror since the night of the ceilidh, when the international guests had learned that Perdita’s Highlander was a woman dressed as a man.

According to Hester, the Spanish marquis had laughed until he cried. But the other men were highly incensed at being taken for fools.

No longer was Perdita fawning and obsequious to Cassandra and Mona. No, she began to treat them poorly, the way she’d always treated Daisy, at least until that special chat they’d shared at the Keep.

Back at Castle Vandemere the evening of the visitors’ rapid departure, she’d vented her spleen on Daisy. “I take back all the nice things I said to you today. Now that the Spanish marquis has laughed at me, I hate you more than ever for raising my hopes about him.”

“I’m sorry,” said Daisy, and she had been. But it had been difficult to care after the day she’d already had.

Meanwhile, the very next morning, with no money to be had, Daisy convinced her household to depart Castle Vandemere before they were thrown out by Lord Lumley. Gathering up every coin they possessed—and three pairs of candlesticks—they paid six months’ rent to a tenant farmer in the glen and moved into Rose Cottage.

Space was limited, so Daisy and Cassandra shared a straw tick in the loft while Hester had her own small palette right next to theirs. Joe slept on a blanket by the fire. Mona had the only private room, which contained a comfortable bed she shared with Perdita.

It was as if Lord Lumley had never appeared in their lives. They were back to the old days but even worse: the worse being not their cramped new living arrangements, which were bad enough, and the precarious state of their future, which was quite slippery, but what was happening with Cassandra.

For the first time since Daisy had known her, Cassandra appeared genuinely sad.

She was done making fun of Hester and Joe. Completely finished with insulting Daisy. Every day, she made a feeble attempt to be rude, but she couldn’t quite manage it.

“I’m perfectly fine,” she kept saying when Daisy asked.

But it was so clear from her troubled, forlorn gaze that she wasn’t.

Daisy didn’t know what to do.

The worst was when Cassandra came to her one evening, with tears trickling down her cheeks, to apologize about the trick she’d played on her with Cousin Roman.

“We never talk about it, but we both know we’re sisters,” Cassandra said. “And when Mr. King frightened me so much, it made me think how afraid you must have been that night when you woke up in Roman’s bed.”

Daisy acknowledged this was so, but she felt compelled to apologize to Cassandra about her role in the debacle with Mr. King, as well.

“You already said you were sorry,” Cassandra said, wiping her eyes. “You told me that day. But the truth was, I was willing to marry and bed him because he was rich and powerful. I simply had no idea he was also a very bad man, and that—”

“And that what?” Daisy had asked her.

“Nothing.” Cassandra refused to confide in her further. “And it’s best we not talk much. Mother will be angry if we’re … getting along.”

“I agree,” said Daisy. “Are you all right, though, Cassandra? I mean, I know you know the facts of your birth.”

Cassandra rolled her eyes. “I’m thrilled that she’s not my mother. It’s been the only thing that’s kept me sane all these years.”

And so they went out of their way to ignore each other.

Mona, meanwhile, lounged about the cottage as if she were still ensconced at Castle Vandemere. She was waiting, she said quite frequently, for a turn of events.

“A turn of events,” she proclaimed, “that will land us in clover. Daisy”—she never neglected to look at her with narrowed eyes—“don’t forget your purpose: you’re my companion for life unless you produce more rich gentlemen for me to meet.”

Her attempt to lure Mr. Woo to the marriage altar had failed miserably.

Daisy immersed herself in work around Rose Cottage and spent all her free time with Joe and the sheep. Occasionally, she’d steal glimpses up the mountain to the Keep and Castle Vandemere when she pretended she wasn’t really looking. But she couldn’t resist—something was happening up there. All kinds of work was going on at both places. She even tried to figure out if any of the tiny people she saw moving about up there was Charlie.

“I see you looking up there, Miss Daisy,” Joe said one afternoon while fixing his pipe.

She couldn’t deny it. When she went to the village, she heard the gossip. Charlie hadn’t left for London, as everyone had expected he would. Old Mrs. MacLeod said that try as the villagers might to ignore him, they’d given up because he was employing every man in the village and glen who wanted work.

The biggest gossip in Glen Dewey, Mrs. MacAdoo, said he was cheerful, as if “nothing in the world were botherin’ him.”

And Mrs. Gordon confessed to Daisy one day that every woman in the village found him entirely charming.

All observations that both infuriated Daisy and broke her heart into even tinier pieces.

“He’s fixing up the Keep and the castle,” Mrs. Gordon told her with some satisfaction. “And then he’s bringing some Londoners up to see it.”

“Possible buyers?”

Mrs. Gordon shrugged. “That’s what they’re saying.”

“And then he’ll be gone forever,” Daisy said with feeling.

Mrs. Gordon cast a glance at her. “Aye. He just might.”

She saved sharing the news with Hester until Mona had gone out with Cassandra and Perdita to the village to sell eggs, a chore which Mona had at first been reluctant to perform but which she’d eventually agreed to—because it meant she could visit with old Mrs. Dingle, a former London lady’s maid who was nearly as judgmental as she was.

Hester’s face was lined with concern. “And how will you feel about the viscount’s leaving, lass?”

“Hmm,” Daisy said. “Let me think on this.” She tried to roll out some dough for pasties, but she quit and burst into tears. “I’ll be miserable. That’s what.”

Hester put aside her own work, which was making the delicious filling to go with the dough. “Och, it’s difficult to be in a houseful of brokenhearted women.”

She hugged Daisy close and let her cry for a minute.

“I know Perdita’s pining after the Spanish marquis,” Daisy said. “But he’s long gone. I feel terrible for getting her hopes up about him.”

Hester patted her shoulder. “Ye were only trying to help. No, lass, I’m not talking only about Miss Perdita. I’m speaking of Miss Cassandra.”

A heavy weight fell on Daisy’s heart at the thought of Cassandra unhappy. “I’ve been concerned about her, too,” she said. “I think she’s having trouble getting past that night with Mr. King at the ceilidh. It must have been traumatic for her.”

“Oh, she’s weathered that crisis just fine.” Hester sprinkled some flour into a bowl. “She’s broken up about Mr. Beebs. She gave her heart to him long ago.”

Daisy gave a little laugh. Poor Hester!

“Cassandra doesn’t fancy him,” she told her dear friend kindly.

Hester shot her a sideways glance. “Don’t get all superior. She does. Every time he rode by and waved at her, she pretended she scorned him. But she didn’t. I could tell by the way she’d come into the kitchen, all breezy and free and pleasant. It was the only time she’d ever be that way, and although it lasted only a few minutes, I knew Mr. Beebs had caused it.”

Highlanders were awfully forthright. And damned perceptive.

Daisy sighed. “I—I did see her paying attention to him after he saved her from Mr. King, but I thought it was because she was grateful.”

Hester nodded knowingly. “It was more than that, and it’s cruel to pretend it’s not happening. Ye’ve got to say something to her. Let her air her grief.”

“Oh, dear.” Daisy bit her lip. “I feel terrible that all this while, Cassandra’s been suffering in silence.”

Daisy knew how it felt to love someone and then realize it was over. It was a living hell, was what it was.

“Mr. Beebs may be older, but he’s not a bad man,” Hester reminded her. “You have to let Cassandra fall in love her way, not yours. Or anyone else’s. If you care about her happiness.”

“Of course I do, but it doesn’t matter anymore. He’s gone.”

Hester made a scoffing noise. “He’s not gone. He’s away, not thirty miles from here. He’s managing a property in Glen Muldoon.”

Daisy stared at her. “How would you know?”

Hester shrugged. “I’m an old woman with my ear to the ground.”

Daisy paused at the small window near the fireplace and looked up at the Keep. She could swear she saw Charlie on the sweeping grassy lawn, looking out over the glen, and he was looking at her little cottage.

“What are you going to do about him?” Hester asked her.

“I don’t know,” she said with a shake of her head. “I really don’t.”

“You’ll think of something.” Hester squeezed her shoulder. “And while you do, I’ll ask a man in the village to set off first thing tomorrow morning for Mr. Beebs.”

“Will you?” Daisy felt so grateful.

“We’ve got to get Miss Cassandra happy.”

Daisy glanced once more at that little stick figure on the hill in front of the Keep.

If it were Charlie, was he thinking of her?

Or had she already become a distant memory?

She didn’t have time to think any more on the matter, however, because Cassandra came running to the door of the cottage, a bright smile on her face and a piece of paper fluttering in her hand.

“Come outside,” she said. “Look what Mrs. Skene’s son brought by.”

“A message from Mr. Beebs,” said Joe, hobbling as fast as his legs would carry him. His broad face beamed.

“He arrived back in Glen Dewey today.” Cassandra’s voice trembled a wee bit.

“He did?” Daisy exchanged glances with Hester.

“Yes,” said Cassandra. “He’s working up at the Keep again, and he’s to come see me in the morning. He says Lord Lumley is perfectly amenable to the idea—in fact, he insists upon it.”

“That’s marvelous news!” Daisy hugged her.

Hester chuckled. “Oh, I like when a man doesn’t need any coaxing to come see his lady love.”

Cassandra hugged her, too.

“It’s a braw, bricht day,” said Joe, doing a little jig, which he somehow managed even with his lame foot. “It’s a braw, bricht day!”

“Yes, it is, dear brother,” Hester murmured, her cheek still resting on Cassandra’s.

Daisy gazed with them, off into the distance, to the moor and the sky and the craggy mountains rising high above the loch.

It was a beautiful day, a day which would make even the most despairing woman in love dare to hope for a happy ending, especially when she knows the man she adores has righted a wrong—and has made sure she knows about it!