“I’m still wondering that myself. What are ye doing here?”
Stratford covered his eyes with his hands, a gesture Duncan had only seen him make on a few occasions when he had to plan a particularly difficult sortie against the enemy. “It’s one of the Wellesley sisters.”
“Yer almost cousins, the ones ye’ve been squiring aboot the last few weeks?”
“Yes. Emmeline Wellesley ran away.”
“Which one is she? Nae the mannish one?”
Stratford stiffened and lowered his hands. “She’s not mannish.”
“I dinnae mean in appearance. I willnae argue that she has a fine pair of—”
“Eyes?” Stratford said coldly.
“Those too. But any man who spends three minutes in her company kens that she has her own mind and wants her own way.”
“Yes, well, apparently she has decided she’s attended her last ball and has run off to God knows where. I need paper and pen to let the baron, and through him her mother, know I have her and will return her today.”
“Ye think she will go so easy?”
“I think I’ll have to drag her kicking and screaming.”
The woman who had been cleaning the tables approached with a basket of warm buns and asked if they’d like tea or coffee. Duncan would have preferred whisky, but he settled for tea. He and Stratford were on their third cup of tea and their fourth basket of bread when Beatriz made her way down the stairs. Duncan hadn’t exactly been looking for her, but she caught his attention as soon as she stepped onto the landing. She wore the same yellow-and-white striped dress as she had the day before, and her hair was secured in a simple tail down her back. Her coffee-colored eyes swept the room, and he felt his throat go dry when her gaze landed on him.
Duncan didn’t make a sound, but he must have done something because Stratford turned in his chair and looked at her. “Is that your problem?”
“Aye.” Duncan stood, grabbed a chair from a nearby table and gestured for her to come over. She did, her cheeks pink when she looked up at him. She looked far too pretty with those pink cheeks and her simple yellow gown in the morning sunshine. Duncan made the introductions and pushed the breadbasket and pot of tea toward her. Stratford tried the two or three Portuguese phrases he knew, but her answers were unintelligible to both men.
“I need Nash,” Duncan said. “I have nae idea what she’s saying. Her family is probably worried aboot her.”
“Perhaps she’d like to write them a letter,” Stratford suggested. “You can send the letter when you see Nash and either take her back yourself or send her back in a mail coach.”
“Good idea,” Duncan said then sat straight. “Dinnae look now, but yer cousin is on her way over.”
“I’ll just go fetch the paper,” Stratford said, rising.
“Ye would leave me here undefended?”
“It appears I would.” Stratford rose and was gone. A moment later Duncan rose and offered his chair to Miss Wellesley.
“I trust ye remember me, Miss Wellesley,” he said.
“You are hard to forget, Mr. Murray.” She gave him an odd look when he introduced Beatriz, and then she did something even stranger—though nothing Emmeline Wellesley did could really surprise anyone.
“Would you leave us alone for a moment, Mr. Murray?”
Duncan cocked his head. “Leave ye alone with Beatriz?”
“That’s what I said.”
“But why? The lass doesnae speak any English.”
Miss Wellesley just stared at him, and finally Duncan sighed, stood again, and went to find Stratford. Apparently, it wasn’t just Portuguese women he couldn’t understand.
Four
EMMELINE
“Do you want to tell me why you are pretending not to speak any English, Miss Neves?” Emmeline asked.
Miss Neves lifted her teacup and took a long sip. “Thank you for not saying anything, Miss Wellesley,” she finally said. “The moment I saw you, I thought my ruse was at an end.”
Emmeline could understand why. Miss Neves was well-known among the ladies of the upper classes. Emmeline, along with every other fashionable lady, had patronized the lace shop Miss Neves’s sister owned in Town. Catarina lace was à la mode this Season.
Emmeline put a hand on the lacemaker’s arm. “I assumed you had your reasons. Has Mr. Murray abducted you? Is he holding you against your wishes?”
The lacemaker gave her a wistful smile. “Nothing like that, unfortunately.”
Emmeline sat back. “Unfortunately? Do you want to be abducted?”
“Some days I think so.” Miss Neves turned toward the window, watching the scattering of townspeople walking past the brown stone houses and shops. “It seems vastly more romantic than working with thread and bobbins all day.”
Emmeline could understand that. Though the creations the lacemakers crafted were beautiful and exquisite, the work was undoubtedly monotonous at times. As someone who had embarked on her own adventure just yesterday, Emmeline was in no position to judge anyone else. Still... “But surely you don’t want Mr. Murray to abduct you. He’d take you back to Scotland with him.”
“I hear Scotland is quite beautiful. And who would not want Duncan Murray to sweep her away?”
Emmeline smiled. “He’s a bit wild for my taste, but I can see you like that sort of thing. He might be big and brawny, but he’s no fool. He will find out who you are sooner or later.”
“And then he will take me back to my sister as quickly as possible.”
Emmeline stared out the window as a mother led her daughter by the hand along the other side of the street. “Perhaps I can help you.”
Miss Neves gave her a sharp look. “You would do that, Miss Wellesley?”
“Who am I to stand in the way of romance?”
The lacemaker laughed. “I would not say it is a romance. Yet. Oh, but forgive me. I did not realize you had married. I should wish you happy.”
Emmeline shook her head violently. “I haven’t married.” The idea was ridiculous. “Mr. Fortescue is not my husband. He’s my—well, it’s difficult to explain, actually. He’s a distant cousin, I suppose. Our mothers are close friends.”
“Oh, I see.” But Miss Neves wrinkled her delicate brow. She was such a small, slender thing that Emmeline felt like a giant beside her. “I thought because you were traveling together, you must be...”
“We’re not traveling together,” Emmeline said. “I am running away, and he wants to send me back.”
“Why are you running away?”
“I suppose because this is my fifth Season, and I don’t see the point anymore. No man will want to marry me. Not any man I want to marry, at any rate. And the more years I have spent at balls and dinners and soirees, the more I realize that I am wasting my life hoping for some man I don’t even know to notice me. What do I care if some man notices me? Why can’t I do as I please and hang what any man says or thinks.” Why should she ever marry and give a man control over her? She’d had enough of being controlled for twenty-three years.
“Oh, you are wildly inappropriate,” Miss Neves said. She grinned. “I like it.”