Mad Plaid and Dangerous to Marry Read online

  Mad, Plaid and Dangerous to Marry

  Book IV of the Highland Brides

  Elizabeth Essex

  ERB Publishing LLC

  Dedication

  to Tracy Brogan,

  * * *

  brilliant author, steadfast friend and

  superlative road trip companion

  for teaching me that all the small moments

  could add up to something bigger, many thanks.

  * * *

  and

  * * *

  to Celeste Bradley,

  * * *

  another brilliant author and steadfast friend,

  who was kind enough to suggest the change from the Byronicly-inspired

  original title to the far more delightful

  Mad, Plaid & Dangerous to Marry.

  Author’s Note

  December, 2018

  * * *

  My Dear Readers,

  * * *

  I am very pleased to bring you this second edition of this story with a new title, new cover and selective edits to the text, originally published in April of 2018 as “Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Marry.” But never fear—behind these changes it is the same story of loyalty, devotion and and unwavering belief in true love. I hope you will love Greer and Ewan as much as I do. So I will wish you, as always, Happy Reading!

  * * *

  Cheers, EEx

  Contents

  Prologue

  Letter of I April, 1782

  Letter of 14 May, 1782

  Chapter 1

  Letter of 1 April, 1784

  Letter of 6 May, 1784

  Chapter 2

  Letter of 1 July, 1784

  Letter of 12 August, 1784

  Chapter 3

  Letter of 8 October 1784

  Letter of 12 November, 1784

  Chapter 4

  Letter of 20 December, 1784

  Letter of 28 January, 1785

  Chapter 5

  Letter of 11 April, 1785

  Letter of 17 July, 1785

  Chapter 6

  Letter of 18 October, 1785

  Letter of 14 January, 1786

  Chapter 7

  Letter of 11 March, 1786

  Letter of 26 June, 1786

  Chapter 8

  Letter of 11 August, 1786

  Chapter 9

  Letter of 8 October, 1786

  Chapter 10

  Letter of 11 December, 1786

  Chapter 11

  Letter of 1 February, 1787

  Chapter 12

  Letter of 24 May, 1787

  Letter of 28 July, 1787

  Chapter 13

  Letter of 2 March, 1788

  Letter of 20 April, 1788

  Chapter 14

  Letter of 5 September, 1788

  Letter of 20 October, 1788

  Letter of 22 November, 1788

  Chapter 15

  Letter of 6 March, 1789

  Letter of 1 April, 1789

  Chapter 16

  Letter of 2 November, 1789

  Chapter 17

  Letter of 6 February, 1790

  Letter of 18 March, 1790

  Chapter 18

  Letter of 16 April, 1790

  Chapter 19

  Letter of 2 May, 1790

  Chapter 20

  Letter of 12 May, 1790

  Chapter 21

  Letter of 26 May, 1790

  Chapter 22

  Letter of 1 June, 1790

  Letter of 2 July, 1790

  Chapter 23

  Letter of 2 December, 1790

  Letter of 20 January, 1791

  Chapter 24

  Letter of 10 March, 1791

  Letter of 6 April, 1791

  Chapter 25

  Letter of 28 May, 1791

  Chapter 26

  Letter of 1 June, 1791

  Chapter 27

  Letter of 8 July, 1791

  Letter of 24 August, 1791

  Chapter 28

  Letter of 16 November, 1791

  Letter of 18 December, 1791

  Chapter 29

  Letter of 6 June, 1792

  Letter of 18 July, 1792

  Chapter 30

  Letter of 1 August, 1792

  Letter of 16 August, 1792

  Chapter 31

  Letter of 1 September, 1792

  Letter of September 4, 1792

  Epilogue

  Note from the Author

  About the Author

  Excerpt from MAD FOR LOVE

  Excerpt from MAD ABOUT THE MARQUESS

  Also by Elizabeth Essex

  Prologue

  Edinburgh, Scotland

  September, 1792

  * * *

  Ewan Cameron, Duke of Crieff’s joy was a rare and exhilarating thing, like the hot tot of strong Scots whisky he tossed back to celebrate his good news. The letter in his hand settled it—he was going to be the happiest man on earth.

  He was going to be married.

  In two days’ time, the woman who had been chosen to be his bride would arrive at Castle Crieff, and they would at last become man and wife.

  He was ready—in fact, he had never wanted anything more.

  Let other men gnash their teeth and complain of the parson’s mousetrap—he would step gladly into the Eden of having the woman he had admired, adored, and grown to love over the course of ten seemingly short years of correspondence, at last by his side.

  All was in readiness. The final settlements were signed and sealed. The hall and drawing rooms of Castle Crieff glowed with polish. The chambers he had refurbished for his intended bride were everything refined and serene.

  It only remained for him to finally meet her.

  Lady Greer Douglas

  Dalshee House

  Perthshire

  * * *

  1 April, 1782

  * * *

  Dear Lady Greer,

  * * *

  I thank you for the honor you do me in consenting to be betrothed to me. I look forward to the day in the future when we shall eventually be married. It is a great relief to know my future, and the future of Crieff, is secure. I hope you will like me.

  * * *

  Your servant, Lord Ewan Cameron

  Lord Ewan Cameron

  Castle Crieff

  Perthshire

  * * *

  14 May, 1782

  * * *

  Dear Lord Cameron,

  * * *

  I thank you most kindly for your letter of congratulations. Mama (who helps me write this) tells me it is I who am honored by your kind condescension, and that I should pledge that I will use the years between now and our marriage to make myself into a helpmeet worthy of both you and Crieff, though I had rather just ride my pony up the moor. But I do hope I shall like you, too. That would be nice. As nice as if you liked me, too, though Mama says that it is my place to make myself pleasing to you. I suppose I might do so, if I knew what you thought pleasing. But all that seems terribly complicated ~ let’s just like each other, shall we?

  * * *

  Your devoted friend, Lady Greer Douglas

  Chapter 1

  Castle Crieff, Scottish Highlands

  September, 1792

  * * *

  It was always going to be a delicate, tricky thing, to marry a man one had never met before one’s wedding day. But until the moment Lady Greer Douglas was seated in the carriage, on her way to her bridegroom, she had not suffered a single twinge of worry—for all that she had never met her bridegroom in person, she and the Duke of Crieff knew each other well.

  Well enough to marry, sight unseen.

  True, she did have a miniature of the duke, tuck
ed safe in her pocket, like a map to show the way in a foreign city. But the painting was from some eight years ago—he would have changed since then. He would have grown into a man.

  Yet despite not knowing his face, she knew his character. She knew him by the hundreds of letters they had exchanged since the day they had become betrothed, some ten years ago. Letters he had faithfully—and hopefully, joyfully—written to the last, setting the date for their wedding.

  That last letter—the one telling her he was ready to marry, if she were also—along with the first he had ever written her, were folded deep in the pockets beneath the petticoats under her silk wedding-day gown, tucked away for safekeeping with the miniature—sacred talismans she could touch for strength and reassurance.

  And she needed that reassurance now, as the carriage at last began the long descent from the moor down toward the village of Crieff. This would be her home now and forevermore, this side of the mountains, this village, these people. She would be responsible for them and to them.

  Just as it should be. The bright morning sun slanted through the trees and dappled the carriage windows and making the sunlight dance across the seat cushions, as if nature herself were as simultaneously excited and delighted as she.

  Greer let down the window sash so the late summer wind could blow the uncharacteristic nervous excitement from her mind. It was natural to be both excited and nervous—after all, it was her wedding day.

  That nonsensical thought put a smile curving across her lips just as the coach began to shudder to a sudden stop.

  “Whoa there!” The coachman, Fergus Fenner, was sawing at the reins to bring the team of four horses to a jangling standstill.

  “Fenner?” Greer exchanged a puzzled look with her parents, the Earl and Countess of Shee, before she called, “What is the delay?”

  “There be a mon in th’ road, mileddy.”

  “A man? What do you mean?” Greer craned her neck out the window. “What does he want?”

  “Jesus God,” the coachman swore. “I think ’ee mebbe dead.”

  Dead? Greer was already out the door and onto the dirt of the road.

  “Greer! Wait for your father—” Mama called after Greer. “Oh, for goodness— Mind your skirts!”

  Greer dutifully grabbed up an armful of the embroidered cream silk taffeta, but what were clarty skirts to the life of a man, whoever he was? He was sprawled face-down in the mud and damp of the road, the back of his head a blackened, bloody welter of dried blood and dirt.

  The sight knocked her to her knees. “Oh, sweet Lord.”

  “Be he dead, mileddy?” The coachman was still fighting to keep his nervous team under full control.

  “I can’t tell.”

  “Stand back, my dear,” Papa instructed.

  But, of course, she did not—Greer had never been the sort of person who could stand by when she might be actually doing something useful. “I think his chest is moving.” She carefully put her hand to the fellow’s grimy, outstretched wrist, feeling tentatively for some pulse of life.

  His skin was cool and damp to the touch, and his clothes were torn and ragged and soaked, as if he’d been caught out in the rain. But the weather had been unseasonably sunny for days—Greer had thought the fine, early autumn weather a good omen for her future.

  And yet, here the man was, white with cold—or perhaps from blood loss. She moved her hand to touch his neck, and he groaned away from even that slight pressure.

  But alive, then, God help him. “He lives.”

  “Get a rug!” Papa ordered the groom.

  “Get two!” Greer added. “One to cover and warm him, and the other to get beneath him to carry him—where?”

  “The coach.” Papa, bless his steady heart, didn’t hesitate. “We’ll take charge of him to the village. Come help me,” he called to the groom.

  Greer touched her hand to the injured man’s chest. “Can you hear me?” she asked the insensate fellow. “We’re going to help you.”

  A low sound crawled from his mouth.

  “He’s trying to say something!” Greer bent her head low to the man’s battered lips.

  He made the barest breath of sound. “Crieff.”

  “Aye, of course. We’ll take you to Crieff straightaway,” she assured him, though she had no idea if the man meant the village or the castle. But really, it did not matter—time was of the essence.

  “Robbie,” she called to the groom, “fetch my medical case from the boot of the coach, if you please. Quickly now, before we move him.” She had perfected the case, adding and subtracting medicines and supplies through the past year of travel on the continent. She had intended to bring such preparedness to Crieff, so that in the future, she might convince her bridegroom that he could travel in comfort and health. “We’ll staunch the bleeding and bind his head up before we put him in the coach, and take him on to the village.”

  The village was closer than Castle Crieff, and a doctor was more like to be found there.

  “Yes, let us get him there immediately,” Mama agreed from the carriage. “I bid you consider, Greer, darling, that good men are seldom set upon for no reason, while bad men are invariably set upon for very good ones. And Crieff may not approve of your bringing a nearly dead vagrant with you to your wedding.”

  Surely the Duke of Crieff would approve. But Mama did not know Ewan as intimately as Greer did—she was sure her bridegroom would not mind if she finessed the niceties. “I am confident His Grace would be gratified by my swift application of both charity and bandages to bring one of his injured retainers to him, instead of letting the fellow die by the side of the road.”

  “Quite,” Papa agreed. “Let us proceed.”

  Greer gingerly wrapped the man’s head in linen bandage strips before she took the blankets from Robbie. But the injured fellow was far too large for her to shift on her own. “Robbie, I need you there.” She directed the young groom opposite. “Can you lift him so?”

  “Can I be of assistance, mistress?”

  Greer turned to see a wizened, tweed-clad man setting his brake and alighting from a sturdy working cart in the direct, no-nonsense way of a working man who knows his profession and his own worth. He introduced himself with a simple tug on his tam. “Billy Dewar, mistress. Moorkeeper tae His Grace o’ Crieff.”

  “Oh, yes!” Relief was like a heartening cup of tea. She knew the older man’s name the same way everything she knew about Crieff—from Ewan’s letters. He had described the moorkeeper with much admiration. “Thank you, please, Dewar. If you could just help me shift this rather big man onto the rug? He’s badly injured.”

  “Aye, mistress.” But when the elfin moorkeeper came close enough to get a good look at the injured man, Dewar let out a low Scots Gaelic curse and dropped to his knees on the road. “Jesus God, lad.”

  “Do you know him?” Curiosity warred with relief—it would be a great help if Dewar knew where the injured man ought best to be taken for help.

  Dewar shot her a surprisingly sharp glance. “Do ye no’ recognize ’im, then?”

  “No,” she admitted, puzzled by his question. “I can’t think he’s from Dalshee”—she cited her father’s estate, located on the eastern divide of the moor—“or one of us”—she indicated her father, the coachman, and the other servants—“would likely recognize him, blood and all. But we’re so much closer to Crieff here. And he said something that sounded distinctly like ‘Crieff.’”

  “Oh, aye?” Dewar was all skeptical reluctance. “I reckon he’ll be a local lad—he does ha’a look that’s perhaps familiar. Though it be hard tae tell frae sure, mistress.”

  “Aye,” Greer agreed. “He is rather badly cut up. Even his hands. But do you have an idea of where we should take him? The direction of the doctor in the village, or the apothecary?”