“You’re not Mary.”
Jane quirked an eyebrow. Ah. He had mistaken them. “I most certainly am not.”
“But—” He looked around the room at the other two men. One stood near the door, the other was by the fireplace.
“Hello, Niall,” she greeted the one standing. She wasn’t acquainted with the third man.
“Jane!” Niall’s face creased into a large smile as he strode across the room and bowed over her hand as though she were the queen of England. “How lovely to see you.”
“You do realize the three of you just abducted me?” she asked, standing now so that she was on even footing with them. She was not the boldest woman there ever was, but she was also not particularly pleased with the sequence of events.
“Jane?” Duncan said, squinting clearly, obviously not placing her. She sighed inwardly, but managed a small smile.
“You do not know me, then?” she asked, and he shook his head nearly imperceptibly.
“You are familiar…”
She held her tongue between her teeth as she raised her eyebrows.
“Yes. I am rather forgettable, aren’t I? Jane Campbell,” she introduced herself. Again. “Mary’s sister.”
“You don’t know Jane?” Niall cut in. “You’ve met her before, Dunc, I’m sure of it.”
“He has,” Jane confirmed. “Quite a few times.”
Duncan was rubbing his forehead, his handsome, sculpted face twisted in consternation.
“Listen, Duncan,” she said, folding her hands together, wishing she was wearing something besides the plain cotton dress she had donned for an evening alone, “you were quite obviously looking for Mary, but I must tell you that she has…” Jane paused for a moment, collecting the right words, trying to determine a kind way to ease the truth without inciting Duncan’s famous anger. “Well, she has moved on. I know you were engaged to be married, and she really should have spoken to you directly rather than simply run away, but she knew my father would never allow it. Anyway, she is quite happy now, and she will not be returning to Scotland.”
Duncan offered no words but continued to stare.
She considered him. “Did you really think abducting her was the best way to win back her affections?”
Duncan glowered at her in silence for a moment before sighing and beginning to pace the room. Niall was watching him with amusement, while the other man who had jauntily introduced himself as Keith with a wave from the fireplace seemed quite entertained by the entire display in front of him.
“I have no intentions of winning her back,” Duncan muttered.
“No?” Jane said, tilting her head in curiosity. “Then why would you come all this way?”
“I am taking her back,” he said, stopping his pacing and laying his hands out in front of him, “to your father.”
“Goodness,” Jane said, taken aback by the news. “I knew my father was upset, but I never thought he would go to such lengths.”
“We had a discussion following Mary’s… departure,” Duncan explained gruffly. “I would never forcibly marry a woman, of course, but your father implored me to fetch your sister. He asked me to take it on as a job, if nothing else, but I did so due to his long loyalty to the McDougalls over the years.”
“I see,” Jane said, tilting her head down, saddened by her father’s inability to understand that Mary had taken the actions she did in order to find happiness for herself, and questioning how much Duncan’s own pride had played into his decision to do her father’s bidding. “But Mary does not want to go. In fact, she will not go. Her life is here now, in London.”
“What are you doing here, Jane?” Niall interjected. He had been a friend of hers since she was a child as her home was in Aldourie, between the McDougall and MacTavish lands.
“I am here visiting my sister, of course,” she said, uninterested in providing Duncan with the full details of her reasons for being in London.
“Does your father know you’re here?” Duncan asked gruffly. “He never said anything about you when I last spoke with him.”
Jane hedged before answering. “He will by now.”
Duncan’s head snapped up, and he looked at her with eyes wide in astonishment. “You left without telling him as well.”
“I left a note,” Jane defended herself with a shrug as guilt coursed through her anew at her deception, but it had been the only way. “You must have met with him just as I was planning to leave. And I am not here forever. I will return in a couple of months’ time.”
“You will return with me,” Duncan said, folding beefy arms across his chest, and Jane had to forcibly prevent herself from rolling her eyes at his inability to realize that not everyone responded to his every whim. “You and your sister. We shall fetch her in the morning.”
“You will do no such thing,” Jane said quietly. “Mary will be staying in London. As will I.”
Duncan advanced on her, clearly trying to intimidate her, but despite everything within her crying out to retreat, Jane forced herself to hold her ground and not move back an inch. It led to her vision being filled with his chest, which was straining beneath the white linen shirt he wore over top.
“You will,” he repeated. “Or else…”
“Or else what?” she asked, calling him on his bluff, and he let out a loud “humph,” and strode away, causing Jane to grin, an expression Niall returned. He was obviously enjoying seeing someone stand up to his friend.
“Or else, we will forcibly take you both.”
Jane sighed. She hadn’t wanted to offer up this information, but it seemed she had no choice.
“Mary cannot travel at the moment,” she said, finally looking up to meet Duncan’s eyes.
“Why not?” he asked with exasperation, raising his hands out to his side.
“Because,” she said as she calmly explained, “Mary is with child, and it is a very delicate situation.”
Duncan didn’t say a word in response. He didn’t have to. His expression said it all.
With child? The woman had left the Highlands less than a month ago. While Duncan hadn’t yet had the opportunity to procreate — that was to have come after his marriage to Mary — he was well aware of how these things worked, and he would have assumed that it would take far longer for Mary to even discover that she was expecting. How would Jane know of it?
“You are quite obviously lying,” he scoffed, “for there has not been enough time.”
Jane looked at him as though he were soft in the head, an expression that he had been the recipient of far more often than he would have liked since she had arrived… although he supposed “arrived” was a strong word for how she had come to be here.
“Billy — the minister — had been travelling through Scotland over the spring and summer,” Jane slowly explained, and Duncan was momentarily distracted by her wide blue eyes — the color of the loch next to Galbury Castle, he noted. “When he arrived in Aldourie to visit his cousin, he met Mary and they were quite… taken with one another. That was April. He continued travelling and returned a couple of months later. As it’s December now… there was plenty of time for a baby to be created. Mary and I were quite creative in hiding her… situation.”