He grimaced. “It means we’ll see.”
His sister threw her arms around him. “Oh, thank ye, Ran. Thank ye, thank ye.”
Blue eyes met Charlotte’s over his sister’s head. “It still means we’ll see. I make ye no promises.”
“I know, I know,” Winnie returned, releasing him and pirouetting back to Honey, the mare Charlotte’s father had given over for her use. “Because once ye give yer word, it’s as good as carved into stone.”
“Aye.” He watched as his man lifted Winnie back into her saddle, then offered his arm to Charlotte. “What shall we do now?” he drawled.
If it hadn’t been for her riding gloves and his sleeve, she thought touching him might have caused her to burst into flame. “The … um…”
“We should get ices,” Janie thankfully put in. “And I want to show Winnie the Kensington Palace gardens. They’re so lovely, and there’s a pond with fish.”
Charlotte cleared her throat. “I believe Janie’s planned out the rest of our morning quite well,” she managed, then lost her composure again when Ranulf put his large hands on her and lifted her back into the saddle. Good heavens, what was wrong with her?
He swung onto his own brute and nudged it up beside Sixpence. “Was that yer first kiss, sweet lass?” he murmured, a soft, self-satisfied grin touching that very capable mouth of his.
For heaven’s sake.
This time, at least, she was glad for his arrogance. It quite dumped her out of whatever silly stupor she’d fallen into. “You surprised me, Ranulf,” she returned in the same tone, willing her voice into steadiness. “But no, that was not my first kiss.”
She caught sight of his smile dropping just before she turned Sixpence around and took the lead. Urging the mare into a trot while they had a moment’s space to do so, she headed them back across the bridge in the direction of the closest ice vendor’s cart.
She wasn’t entirely certain why she rushed, or why she felt so … unsettled both by the kiss and by the man. Had she flirted with him? Certainly she’d enjoyed some of their discussions, even if his appreciation of violence didn’t sit at all well with her. And perhaps there had been some satisfaction in the way the other ladies had looked at him at Almack’s when it had been her dancing the waltz in his arms, and again today in the park when he’d been riding beside her. But that didn’t mean …
Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of the bay’s nose drawing alongside her again. Frowning, she nudged Sixpence in the ribs, and the mare smoothly accelerated into a canter. She was not some simpleminded little thing to be kissed and dazzled by a rude Scotsman. She knew better than that.
The head drew up even with her knee again. The bay was still at a trot, damn it all. She gathered the reins in her hands and clucked. In an instant they were galloping. Somewhere behind her Jane called her name, but for once she ignored her sister. And she ignored the startled, annoyed looks of the pedestrians and other riders hurrying out of her way.
She risked a glance over her right shoulder, but the bay’s nose—and his rider’s—were nowhere in sight. Good. She needed two blasted moments to think.
A hand reached over from her left and grabbed Sixpence’s bridle. “Whoa there, lass,” Ranulf said in his deep brogue, and he reined in his big bay with one hand while holding her mare with the other.
Blast it all.
He likely juggled bears for fun and amusement, as well.
He pulled them easily to a halt. “Lord Glengask, is she unhurt?” Jane’s rather high-pitched voice came. “Charlotte?”
“She’s fine,” he said, before she could answer. “Dropped a rein, is all.”
“I did no such—”
“Ye want to explain to these sheep why ye were stampeding them, then?” he interrupted in a terse voice.
He made a good point, damn it all. “No,” she muttered back. “I’m fine,” she called in a louder voice, twisting to glance back at her sister before she straightened again.
“If ye dunnae like me kissing ye, lass, just say so,” he continued in the same tight voice. “Nae need to flee from me.”
“It’s not—I wasn’t—”
“Ah,” he broke in again, his voice warming. “Good, then.” She heard him take a breath. “What were ye thinking, galloping off like that?”
“I was thinking about James Appleton, if you must know,” she burst out, turning Sixpence away from him and setting off again at a much more sedate pace.
“And who is James Appleton?” he demanded.
She kept her gaze between Sixpence’s ears. “My fiancé.”
Chapter Four
Fiancé.
Ranulf stared at Charlotte’s deliberate profile. It made no sense. Neither did the angry, sick feeling in his gut, as if he’d just missed the last boat leaving a sinking ship, but he preferred to consider her statement itself rather than how … surprised it left him feeling. Because it must be surprise roiling through him. Nothing else made sense.
“So where is this bonny James Appleton, then?” he forced himself to ask.
Her hazel eyes flicked in his direction, then away again. “I beg your pardon?” she asked faintly, an unexpected affront in her tone.
He had no idea what had raised
her
hackles; he was the one who’d just had a fiancé flung at him. Not that it affected anything but his curiosity, of course. Even if he might for a moment consider her attractive, even if he might for a moment have imagined her naked in his arms, she remained the one thing that could never be a part of his Highland life—an Englishwoman.
“Ye heard me,” he pressed anyway. “Who is this fine fellow who couldnae be bothered to join ye at Almack’s, or fer a pleasant ride on a fair morning in Hyde Park?” He shifted in the saddle, wanted to grab her arm, to make her look at him, but restrained himself. It was still merely curiosity, after all. “Ye ken what I think?” he continued when she didn’t respond.
“I’m certain I haven’t the slightest interest in what you think, my lord.”
Somehow he’d gone back to being “my lord” again, a sure sign that he’d stumbled across something that made her uncomfortable. A true gentleman would likely stop pursuit of the topic, but everyone in London knew he was no true gentleman. Instead he edged Stirling closer. “Well, I’ll tell ye, anyway,” he pushed, keeping his tone low enough that the throng around them couldn’t overhear. “I think there’s nae such man as James Appleton.”
This time she turned her head to face him fully. Her fair cheeks went white.
“What?”
“That’s it then, aye?” he went on, his gaze lowering to her soft mouth almost in spite of himself. “Ye cannae abide a devil like me giving ye a kiss, so ye conjure an imaginary beau fer yerself instead of telling me to my face that ye want naught to do with a Highlander. It’s a cowardly English lie, Lady Charlotte, and I’m sorry t’admit that I thought better of ye.”
For a long moment she stared at him, her entire body shaking. If she meant to faint he would have to catch her, he supposed, but that would be the end of it. No more touching her, no more thinking about her. He was the damned chief of Clan MacLawry. And he had better things to do than waste a moment daydreaming about a lass who wanted naught to do with him. For Christ’s and Saint Andrew’s sake, women fought among themselves for a night in his bed. This was ridiculous.
Her hands clenched around the reins, and for a heartbeat or two he thought she meant to slap him.
Ha.
That would put a nail into her coffin of abhorring physical confrontation—though that had all likely been a lie, as well, something meant to keep him at a distance.
Then she reached up and with trembling fingers unfastened the small oval locket from around her neck. She held her arm out, the locket dangling from her fingers. “Take it,” she bit out.
Kneeing Stirling closer, he took it from her fingers. “I didnae give it to ye, lass.”
“I know that. Open it. The little fastening on the side.”
Reining in the bay, he did as she ordered. The thing was old and absurdly delicate, but with a bit of effort he managed to get it open without breaking it. On the inside of the lid he made out the inscription “Forever in My Heart.” The opposite side held a wee portrait, a young man with light hair and rosy cheeks, a high cravat covering what looked like a soft chin, and soulful green eyes that gazed out at nothing.
“That, Lord Glengask, is James Appleton.” She’d stopped close beside him, he realized, her voice quiet and controlled. “The reason he didn’t join us at Almack’s, and the reason he isn’t here riding with us today, is because three years ago he tripped on a dance floor and fell into a potted plant. And then he decided to challenge the first man who laughed at him—and there were several—to a duel. He was killed the next morning. Because of a waxed floor and a potted plant, and because he was embarrassed.” She held her hand out to him again, palm up. “Now return him to me, if you please.”
“The…” Trailing off, he handed her locket back to her. This time he’d put his foot in it, all the way up to his thigh. No wonder she loathed prideful violence. “Lass, I—”
“No. You kissed me, and I thought of James. He reminds me not to fall for the charms of hotheaded, thin-skinned brawlers ever again. I did not lie to you, sir, and I am not a coward. You, however, are a savage and a devil. And I am finished talking to you.” With that she clucked to her horse, and the chestnut mare trotted over to where her sister and Rowena giggled about something or other.
A savage and a devil. Well, he’d been called worse, and with less cause—which was likely why Charlotte Hanover’s words stung. He deserved them. However much an idiot her fiancé might have been, Ranulf had jumped to a damned conclusion—a wrong one—and she’d called him on it. Almost no one had ever done that to him before. The lass owned a bloody ocean of courage to stand up to him, and that was damned certain. And those things she’d been saying about how words could bite as deeply as a sword felt abruptly and painfully true. She’d cut him deeply, no doubt about that.
Now he needed to apologize. It wasn’t something he did often or well, but by God he was man enough to own up to a mistake when he made one. He turned Stirling—and Fergus gave a low growl to his left.
At the same time the hair on the back of Ranulf’s neck pricked. That wasn’t a growl for showing off. One hand sliding toward the pistol in his pocket, he shifted a little to look in the direction both dogs were now staring, bodies low and tails stiff and parallel to the ground—awaiting his order to charge.
A trio of riders stood to one side of the path, all three of them gazing at him. None of them had weapons aimed at Rowena or him. Good. Then he might not have to kill any of them today.
Out of the corner of his eye he noted Owen and Debny cutting a path through annoyed park visitors, closing in on where Rowena and the two Hanover lasses were now enjoying a lemon ice. They knew their duty. Above all else they—Rowena—needed to be protected. Likewise a lass with sunshine hair who’d lost her love to his own pride was not to be put in danger because of another man’s. The strength of that particular thought surprised him, but just as swiftly he put it aside for later contemplation.
Turning his attention back to the motionless trio twenty feet away across the path, he deliberately took a moment to assess each of them in turn. The man to the right possessed so many overly large muscles he likely didn’t have much space left for thinking. He would be the enforcer, then. By contrast, the man seated to the left was sleek as an otter, garbed all in black and his eyes shadowed by the black beaver hat on his head. The adviser, who would try for a knife to the back rather than a punch to the face. By far the more dangerous of the two. Which left the man in the middle.
“Good morning, Lord Glengask,” that rider said, inclining his head and smiling too widely. Pale blue eyes flicked from him to the three lasses and back again.
Ranulf wondered if the man realized how precariously his life was balanced, and how swiftly it would end if he moved so much as an inch toward them. “Berling.”
“How pleasant to see you out of the Highlands,” Donald Gerdens, the Earl of Berling, continued coolly. “The last time we spoke, I believe you said something about it taking the devil and a dozen horses to remove you from Scotland.”
The precise speech, the way Berling carefully quashed any trace of brogue in favor of the most polished of Oxford-educated accents, had seemed pitiable in Scotland. Here, it felt almost criminal. But Ranulf was well aware that the residents of Mayfair thought otherwise. Here,
he
was the ruffian, and Berling was the civilized English gentleman with a country seat in the Highlands. “I recall that conversation,” he said aloud. “Ye ended with a broken nose and a warning to stay well off my land.”
The muscled man gathered in his reins and sat forward, as eager to charge into battle as the hounds were, all of them only waiting for a word from their respective masters. Berling, though, kept the smile on his face, as if some lass had told him he looked less like a donkey when he grinned. She’d been wrong, whoever she was.
“Yes,” the earl returned. “There I was, visiting my small holding just north of Glengask, and offering—”
“Sholbray,” Ranulf interrupted for clarification, since they were evidently reciting their history for any onlookers. “Yer small holding is called Sholbray. A hundred years ago it was the Gerdens family seat, until ye burned out yer cotters and handed it over to a thousand sheep.”
“My family’s seat is Berling Court in Sussex,” Berling said stiffly, his smile as chill as an icy northerly wind. “And when I offered you a very reasonable sum for grazing rights on your ill-used pastureland, you pulled me from my horse and broke my nose.”
“I was trying fer yer jaw, to stop its flapping. I see ye still have the problem of speaking when ye shouldn’t.” He tilted his head. “Shall I give it another go, then?”
“Brave talk for a man with three servants and two dogs for a clan.” Pale eyes darted again in Rowena’s direction, but evidently the earl knew what would happen if he as much as mentioned her.
“I suppose we’ll find that oot.”
Berling laughed loudly. “Yes, I suppose we will find that ‘oot,’ Glengask. But not today. Don’t you have some cows or cabers that need to be tossed?” With that he turned his black gelding, and the three men vanished into the crowd back the way they’d come.