So many people and things everywhere! Even in the parlor there was furniture everywhere in a crowded room all covered with beautiful fabric. A table for tea, two footstools for someone’s feet, several lamps, and even a beautiful clock. Glass window of good manufacture in the window covered by silk fabric. This was the parlor of a wealthy woman and she…
She looked like a rat dragged in by a stray cat. And without a significant dowry, she might as well be a rodent.
“Good heavens!” a woman exclaimed.
Mairi spun around. There, standing in the doorway and obviously horrified, stood a lady who had to be the Dowager Countess of Byrn. Mairi attempted a smile. She was sure it failed miserably. She chose instead to curtsey.
“Oh my heavens!” the woman gasped. “Parry! Who is in my parlor?”
The butler crossed over to her. “She appears to be Scottish, my lady.”
That was it? That was all he had to say? She’d told him who she was.
“She has a letter,” continued the butler.
The woman frowned. “A letter? Where?”
Couldn’t anyone speak to her? She was standing right here. Except, of course, they had trouble sorting through her accent. Holding onto her temper as best she could, she pulled out the letter and held it out to the countess. The lady took it between two fingers. And, damn it, the paper looked like a smudged, dirty rag, so she couldn’t really blame the woman.
“Oh! Heavens!”
The woman clearly had a limited number of curse words at the ready.
“What happened to her?”
“Robbed, my lady. Found by two watchmen who await you there.” He gestured with his right index finger to where the men fidgeted with their caps by the front door. The younger one opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off when the older one shoved an elbow in his ribs.
“I don’t need to speak with them,” the woman said, her voice curdling with disdain.
“Yes, my lady.”
“You, however,” she said as she looked at Mairi, “are a different story. Have you nothing to say for yourself?”
Yes, she did, damn it. There was a lot she could say about what she’d been through in the last two days. Worse, she hated the thought that perhaps there was the tiniest possibility that Liam and Connall had been right, and she should not have travelled alone. But that didn’t matter now. She was here, and she’d be damned if she let it all go to hell now.
“I am Mairi, daughter of the MacAdaidh laird. My blood is proper, my face is fair, and my morals are pure. I come to London in search of a husband, and Lady Clara said you would be my sponsor. Was she wrong?”
Stupid to challenge the woman this way, but Mairi was not used to being so dismissed. Plus, pride was her only defense against the miserable way she felt. So when the lady didn’t respond, Mairi pushed her luck.
“Do you have nothing to say for yourself?” she demanded.
Far from being offended, the woman’s lips curled in an odd sort of smile. Half sneer, half amusement. As if she was unused to expressing humor at all.
“Do you have a dowry?”
“A large one,” she lied. It was panic that made her lie. She couldn’t be turned away. Not after everything! She couldn’t go back to Scotland with yet another failure.
“I thought you were robbed.”
“It comes from my laird and will be transferred to an English bank as soon as he can manage.”
“Hmm. Does it?”
Mairi nodded then pulled out her copper necklace. That was all she had left of her money. But she had to pay her way somehow, and so she might as well make it clear. “This should be enough to get me started, shouldn’t it? For you and for my dresses?”
The woman glided forward, and her eyes narrowed as she inspected the chain. “Take it off.”
“Do I stay?” Mairi returned.