Free Mia Marlowe by Plaid Tidings

impression of a gargoyle, but he wouldn’t budge. “Cromwell banned Christmas ye know for bein’ a pagan festival. Ye English have started up celebratin’ it again with all manner of foolishness, but I dinna want me nieces tainted by yer foreign ways.”
    “I hardly think they’ll be corrupted by a little wassail and mistletoe,” Alex said.
    “Still, they’ll need a chaperone as they’re motherless lambs, the poor dears, so it’s me bounden duty to serve as such,” she argued. “Lucinda, get ye out of that conveyance now and help me set the house to rights afore I close it up. The rest of ye may go on yer way. Only mind ye be at yer best comportment till I get there, Aileen MacOwen—aye, I’m lookin’ at ye, girl—or I’ll know the reason why. Mary, ye’re the only one with a lick o’ sense in the lot, so mind that yer sister doesna disgrace us with a lack of manners.”
    Lucinda had always prided herself on having a good deal of sense. So much for “poor dears,” she thought, bristling a bit. The MacOwen girls had degenerated from motherless lambs to ninnies who didn’t know how to hold a spoon properly in one swift tongue-lashing.
    As if Aunt Hester could hear her rebellious thoughts, the old woman cast a gimlet eye at her. “I used to think ye the most likely of the bunch till ye went and got yerself betrothed to an Englishman and a MacGregor to boot.” Hester turned back to Mary. “Tend yer flibbety-gibbet sister for me ’til I get there.”
    Lips drawn in a tight line, Alex opened the coach door. Lucinda tamped down her irritation and supposed he was right to let Aunt Hester have her way in this. It was less trouble than trying to thwart the old biddy.
    She slipped her hand into Alexander’s as he handed her down from the carriage. Ordinarily, she’d have enjoyed his warm grip, but she sensed his frustration in that brief touch. He was as anxious as she to be gone from Hester MacGibbon’s dictatorial presence.
    They weren’t the only ones.
    “I thought we were rid of that auld harridan,” Brodie MacIver grumbled in her ear as he held tight to her shoulder.
    While Lucinda’s ghost was charmed with the sound of his own voice often enough, he was less forgiving when others bumped their gums constantly. Or, as in Hester’s case, so authoritatively.
    Brodie had been upset at being left behind while Lucinda went with Alexander to buy his horse yesterday, so he wasn’t about to be separated from her now. Brodie clamped a firm hold on Lucinda’s shoulder with both hands as she waited for Aileen to hand her hatbox down.
    It was deemed too frail to ride in the baggage cart. Lucinda couldn’t chance anything happening to the delicate box or its precious contents before her wedding day.
    “Discretion is the better part of valor,” Alex quoted under his breath as he took the hatbox from her.
    She shot a glance at Alexander from under her lashes. His face was a bland mask. She could well believe he was a masterful card player as he ordered the driver to take Aileen and Mary to Dalkeith Palace and then return to collect the rest of the party.
    Badgemagus trotted behind the carriage, rolling his eyes and shying to one side when he passed Lucinda and Brodie. The hitched team hadn’t responded to the ghost’s presence at all, but the blinders with which they were fitted might have had a hand in that.
    No worries about that blue eye at all, Lucinda thought. Badgemagus seemed to see Brodie just fine.
    “Worthless beast,” Alexander muttered.
    He might have been of a different opinion if he’d been aware there was a ghost hovering nearby, but Lucinda wasn’t about to tell him about Brodie. Certainly not before the knot was tied good and tight.
    “Be sure to leave the gelding at Dalkeith,” he called to the driver. Alex kicked at a stone in the road. “It’ll make a good rest for him on the way to the glue factory.”
    “Ye dinna mean that,” Lucinda said as she followed Aunt Hester’s