He wolfed down a sandwich and started on a second while she nibbled at hers. Yes, she felt famished, but a lady did not stuff food in her mouth as if she were worried that someone else meant to take it from her.
“Myles was invited,” he said, between bites. “I’ll go along as his guest.”
“Oh. That’s good, then.”
He eyed her. “Ye’ve nothing to worry over, Charlotte. As long as ye dunnae give Berling a dance while I’m there.”
Warmth swept through her all over again. Was he jealous? He certainly didn’t sound like a man who’d scratched an itch, so to speak, and was now continuing on his merry way. On the other hand, she well remembered what had happened the last time he and Berling had met over her dance card.
“I would hope, Ranulf, that if you and Lord Berling did meet again, you would decide not to hit him, simply because you’re an intelligent, articulate, thoughtful man who has no need to resort to the basest method of … anything.”
Ranulf chewed and swallowed. “And I say again, dunnae give Berling a dance, and ye’ll nae have anything to worry over.”
If her miniature tirade hadn’t wiped the easy amusement from his face, perhaps she had made some progress with him. Deciding this was worth risking his ire, she held out her right hand. “An agreement, then. I won’t dance with him, and you won’t punch him.”
Wiping his hand off on the blanket girding his waist, Ranulf reached across the table and with obvious care gripped her fingers. “Aye. An agreement.”
Charlotte smiled at that; she couldn’t help herself. Because if he could decide on some restraint, of serving his mind rather than his pride, then perhaps they weren’t as entirely incompatible as she’d thought. And perhaps they could arrange to see more sights in London they would never actually visit before he went back to Scotland to marry a lady who wasn’t a Sasannach.
She shook off that thought. He wasn’t with some Highlands lass at the moment, and she’d never spent as enjoyable a day as this. “You still have my hand, sir,” she pointed out, her grin deepening.
“Do I, now?” Without warning he tugged her over the top of the table and kissed her. The remaining sandwiches and the tray bounced to the floor.
She settled onto his lap, wriggling her hips as she felt him hardening beneath her thighs. Male anatomy truly was a wondrous thing. No wonder young ladies were supposed to remain ignorant of it until marriage; knowing the delights of sex would, in her opinion anyway, alter the way a woman looked at every potential beau. She, at least, would certainly insist on first seeing a prospective husband naked.
A polite knock sounded at the door. “I’ll send yer Simms away, shall I?” he murmured, slipping his hand into the folds of the sheets she wore and flicking a fingernail across her nipple.
She jumped, desire spearing through her all over again. Oh, she wanted to send everyone away, to spend every remaining moment in the ecstasy of his embrace. But her maid waited just outside, along with her reputation and her family and Society. With a last, lingering kiss she pushed away from him and stood. “You should put your clothes back on, too, so you can see me home.”
Narrowing one eye, Ranulf climbed to his feet. “As ye will, then, Charlotte.”
While she walked to the door, he collected his boots and trousers, along with his shirt, coat, cravat, and waistcoat. When he stopped in front of her, Charlotte looked up into his deep blue gaze.
“Sròin,”
he murmured.
“Beg pardon?”
With a faint smile he leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose.
“Sròin,”
he repeated, and pulled open the door with his free hand. “I’ll be in the room across the hallway if ye should have need of me.” Ignoring the stiff, wide-eyed Simms, he left his bedchamber.
Charlotte took a deep breath. “Simms, come help me dress.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Dropping the sheets to the floor, Charlotte went to find some of her things.
“Sròin,”
she said experimentally, touching her nose.
Somewhere in the past fortnight her life had become interesting, unexpected, and even exciting. She knew precisely whom to thank for that, and with all her heart she hoped it would continue. Whatever it was she and Ranulf had—a mutual attraction, a sense of incompatibility that had, at least on her part, begun to weaken—she looked forward to discovering what came next. And she wondered if, and hoped that, Ranulf felt the same way.
* * *
“Aren’t ye going to ask me about Lachlan?” Arran asked, as he and Rowena and Jane sat in the Hanover House garden.
She shook her head. “No. I’ve given him a chance to miss me, or to come after me. If he hasn’t done either, well, I want nothing more to do with him.” It sounded like something she should say, anyway, and beside her Jane was emphatically nodding her head.
Her brother didn’t look nearly as convinced. “A month ago ye swore to me that ye loved him and meant to marry him. And so ye’ve been saying, since ye could talk.”
“I was a little bairn—baby—and I was wrong.”
“I’m glad yer heart can mend so quickly then, Winnie,” he returned, “though ye should know that Lachlan volunteered at least twice to ride down to London and help Ran fetch ye back.”
Rowena shrugged. “Two English lads have already proposed to me, you know. After three or four dances. Lachlan’s had eighteen years.”
With a nod her brother reached out to pull a petal from a rose and roll the delicate white thing in his fingers. “If ye can forget him so easily, it makes me wonder how much of yer heart he truly had in the first place.”
She held his gaze. “No more than I had of his heart.”
Rowena had lately begun to realize that making Lachlan MacTier jealous—when he remained hundreds of miles away surrounded by pretty, fawning lasses all fluttering their eyelashes and admiring his property and not telling him he was an idiot—was a hopeless proposition. It cut her deeply that he hadn’t bothered to so much as send her a letter.
After last night, though, she’d begun to think that perhaps something more pressing was afoot. She could hardly believe that her oldest brother, always so concerned with the rest of the family’s safety and the entire clan’s well-being and happiness, might have found a lass who kept his attention for longer than a day. But something had convinced him to purchase a house in London. And something had sent him out sightseeing, unexpected as that was. And she was fairly certain it wasn’t anything she’d done. And the fact that the lass was a propriety-minded English lady of all things … She didn’t have any idea what to make of that.
All the same, it felt important that she at least discover the truth. And that, after everything he’d done for her since her earliest memory, she do whatever she could to determine whether his heart was truly involved, and if the woman he’d perhaps selected was the right one to become a part of Clan MacLawry, to become the Marchioness of Glengask, and to make Ranulf finally and forever happy.
A few minutes later Rowena heard a carriage clatter up the front drive and stop. She pushed to her feet. “Ran and Charlotte are back, I think.”
The three of them made their way in through the back of the house, until Arran caught her arm and slowed her down. “Is Ran courting Lady Charlotte?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
“I’m not certain,” she answered truthfully. “I mean to find out, though.”
He nodded. “That’s why I’m here, as well. He sent me a letter about buying that house. I couldnae figure out why in God’s name he would do such a thing. What I
did
see was the way he kept mentioning a lass called Charlotte.”
“
That’
s why you came to London?”
“Aye.”
Oh, dear.
Rowena took a quick breath. She loved all her brothers, and she well knew that her second-oldest brother was the most logical of the lot of them. Ranulf listened to Arran’s advice more than he did to anyone else’s. And she couldn’t imagine that Arran would ever suggest that Ranulf bring an Englishwoman back to Scotland.
She jabbed a finger into his chest. “You just keep your opinions to yourself, Arran.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “My opinions aboot what?”
“About everything. You don’t know what’s going on here.”
“And ye do?”
“Not yet. But at least I mean to figure it out before I step in the middle of it. This isn’t about who they are or where they’re from. It’s about how they feel about each other. I like her, and I don’t care that she’s English. And you’re not permitted to give Ranulf your opinion until you exchange more than half a dozen words with her.”
For a long moment he looked at her. “So says the lass who tries to woo her man by leaving the country and swearing never to return.”
She drew herself up as tall as she could, which was still only to Arran’s shoulder. “Perhaps I came because I wanted to know what—who—else was out there. And as it turns out, Lachlan MacTier isn’t the only man in the world.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “So what do you think of that?”
“I think I’ll keep yer advice in mind, Winnie, and hold on to my opinion where both ye and Ran are concerned. I’ll nae promise more than that.”
That was something, anyway. “Good. Because Ran’s intentions don’t concern us.”
“Everything Ranulf does concerns us. All of us. The clan and the family. And while I mind yer advice, ye’d best remember what I’ve said, as well.”
He might keep his opinions to himself for the moment, but he wouldn’t do so forever. Which meant that she needed to figure out what was going on between Ranulf and Charlotte before he did. Because he would weigh whatever Ran wanted against how it benefited the clan—and with the MacLawrys, the clan always came first.
Chapter Eleven
Ranulf heaved another stack of charred lumber into the back of the wagon. As he did so a barouche full of young ladies passed by—the second time they’d done so. While he would have preferred to offer them a two-fingered salute, he was being gentlemanly today. Instead he sketched a jaunty bow.
“I feel like a damned animal in a menagerie,” Owen muttered from beside him as the footman emptied a shovel into the wagon’s bed.
“Ye think those lasses were ogling you, do ye?” Debny put in with a snort.
Clapping his heavy work gloves together, Ranulf returned to the stable ruins for another load. His white shirt was torn and filthy, but according to Ginger an aristocrat did not appear bare-chested in public in London. He
had
untucked the thing, and decided if it fell off on its own he would bloody well call it providence and leave it that way.
“They do have men ye can hire to haul away rubbish such as this, ye know,” Owen pointed out, helping to stack another set of ruined, warped boards.
“Less gabbing, more cleaning,” Ranulf grunted, heaving the mass onto his shoulder and making his way back to the wagon.
Yes, he might have hired men to tear down the remains of his stable and haul it away. In truth, though, since he’d been in London the most exercise he’d managed had been in bed with Charlotte yesterday. At home, at Glengask, there was always some task or other that needed doing, from helping to clear a new field to cleaning out irrigation ditches to helping a cotter replace a roof or helping to shear the fat Highland sheep—the only kind he would tolerate on his land.
Here, today, the ache and flex of his muscles made him feel as if he were accomplishing something, whether he might have hired someone else to do it or not. Rolling his shoulders, he returned for a stack of roof shingles.
“Where’s Lord Arran off to, if I might ask?” Owen said, dragging a blanket covered with singed and melted tack away.
“He went to find some of his army friends,” Ranulf answered. “Fergus’ll keep an eye on him.”
He hadn’t quite believed Arran, actually, when his brother had announced that he meant to spend the morning visiting. It seemed an odd choice after he’d ridden all the way down from Glengask to perform some sort of rescue. Then again, perhaps his brother had realized that a rescue wasn’t necessary.
After all, Rowena hadn’t repeated her oath not to return to Scotland—not in his hearing, anyway. And owning a house in London made sense, if it gave him more of a presence in standing against his unhappy fellow Scots. Whether or not they would admit to being Scots at all.
With him and most of the staff working at it, they should have the old stable cleared away sometime tomorrow. And then he would hire someone to build him a new one. The Duke of Greaves had offered use of his stable for as long as necessary, but Ranulf didn’t like owing a favor to a man he didn’t know.
None of this would prevent Berling from stopping by and burning down a new stable, or even the house, of course. He did have a few thoughts on that subject, however. Charlotte had asked him not to fight Donald Gerdens at tonight’s soiree. She hadn’t said anything, however, about afterward. And he’d found on a few previous occasions that a direct confrontation together with a concise explanation and demonstration of consequences could cool many a man’s ire. After all, most men were cruel only when they thought they could get away with it.
Charlotte.
The moment he conjured her in his thoughts, which he seemed to be doing almost constantly today, she refused to depart again. God knew the trail would have been easier if he’d set himself after some bonny Scottish lass who understood how troubles were dealt with in the Highlands and had no difficulty with that fact. Someone who knew how a laird was expected to lead a clan and wouldn’t even think to disagree with his methods.
But it wasn’t a Scottish lass who’d caught him up in her skirts and made him half mad with wanting her. It was Charlotte Hanover, and if he couldn’t turn away from her, she would twist more than his heart. That would certainly be simpler, to leave London immediately and go home to marry the first lass he set eyes on.
What if Charlotte didn’t wish to live at Glengask? After what he’d experienced with his own mother, he certainly wouldn’t—couldn’t—force her into that kind of life. Other clan lairds lived far from the Highlands. One or two had never even set foot there. They went about making that so-called barren land they owned as profitable as they could, setting sheep to graze it and hiring thugs to burn out the few cotters remaining on their ancestral soil.