Page 14 of The Devil Wears Kilts
“What are ye smiling at?” he asked, his glance taking her in before he shifted his attention back to their surroundings.
“Honesty,” she replied.
***
Almack’s.
Ranulf had read about the supremely proper Assembly, of course, mostly with a degree of disbelief that anyone would actually tolerate attending such a place. He’d half decided that the stories must be an exaggeration, tales that grew in spectacular fashion with each retelling.
As he stood, stiffly dressed in a new black jacket and gray trousers, with a plaid black-and-gray waistcoat—a poor tartan lacking the red threading of the MacLawry banner, but the only bit of Scotland the strict dress code would allow—he could see with his own eyes that the stories were all true. Damnably, horrifyingly true.
“What do you think?” Lady Charlotte asked from beside him.
He chewed at the inside of his cheek. If he said what he truly thought, he would be asked to leave. While that notion actually cheered him a bit, a glance at his pink-cheeked, white-draped sister clutching her new friend Jane’s hand was all he needed to tell him he should curb his tongue.
“It’s an odd mix,” he finally commented. “Old frumps and fresh-faced lasses.”
She nodded, her wavy golden hair pulled into a tight knot from which not a strand would dare escape. “The oldertonlike it because it’s so… conservative. The young ones are only here because, well, everyone must come at least once.”
“And it’s amusing to attend when there aren’t any other parties going on,” Jane put in. “Or so I’ve been told.” She pointed at a small group of mature ladies seated to one side of the room. “Those must be the patronesses,” she breathed.
“Yes, they are.” Lady Charlotte stepped between the younger lasses and the objects of their interest. “Don’t stare.”
“Oh, they don’t look so fierce,” Rowena commented. “I expected a gaggle of warty-faced witches and harpies.”
“Don’t be fooled,” Charlotte said quietly. “They are the arbiters of fashion. If you wish to be able to waltz, you need the voucher they can give you.”
“Then they’d best nod,” Ranulf murmured, studying the half-dozen women. “Harpies” was likely an apt description.
“And being banned from Almack’s means being banned from many of the older, more conservative households… and their soirees.”
He turned his head, catching her gaze and hearing the note of warning in her smooth voice. “So they mean to judge me as well, do they?”
“You walked through their front door, my lord. So yes, they feel they have the right to judge you.”
For a moment he wished he’d allowed Arran and Bear to journey down with him to London. Together the three of them would give those stiff-necked geese something about which to disapprove. That, though, would only leave Rowena heartbroken and once again blaming him for a life unexperienced.
“I’ll stand here,” he said aloud. “I’ll smile when they look at me. But if they give Rowena anything other than a damned nod, I’ll show ’em precisely what I think of their strutting little peahen ways.”
Lady Charlotte cleared her throat, the hint of a smile in her expression as she looked away. Tonight she’d worn a simple, high-necked silk gown of a light meadow green. If he’d been the sort of man who preferred English ladies, as his father had, he would have been hard-pressed to keep his hands off her. As it was, the idea that he desired her only served to annoy him. A great deal.
“Ran, thank ye again for allowing this,” Rowena whispered as she walked up to him, her teeth chattering. “I know ye don’t like it here. Ye do look very fine, though.”
He reached out to grip her shoulder. “Not as fine as ye do, my heart. Dunnae ye fret aboot anything.” He caught himself nearly telling her how much she resembled their mother, but that was the last thing he wanted in her head. Even if it was true. She was Scottish, and this was only a holiday. She would enjoy herself as much as he could possibly arrange for her, and then they were going home.
A dozen lasses wore white this evening, each one more pristine and virginal-looking than the last. With Lady Charlotte whispering in his ear to tell him what was afoot, one by one they were introduced to the ladies who’d now arranged themselves along the far wall like bead-sprinkled, glittering gargoyles.
“Ranulf.”
Only because of long practice did he avoid jumping at the low rumble of his name coming from behind him. “Uncle Myles,” he returned in the same tone, not moving from his vantage point.
“How’s our Winnie doing?”
“I dunnae know yet.” Belatedly he noted that his right hand had curled into a fist, and slowly he straightened out his fingers.Not here. Not now. “I ken why ye’re here, Myles, but I dunnae think it requires us t’have a conversation.”
From the way Lady Charlotte’s shoulders stiffened, she didn’t approve of his brusque retort. What she didn’t realize was that she should be grateful for it, and that the only reason no one’s nose had been immediately bloodied was because he was apparently being judged along with Rowena.
The line of debutantes moved forward slowly, until Lady Hest stood with Jane to her left, and Rowena to her right. The two lasses looked nothing alike; one was tall and yellow haired, the other petite with hair black as pitch. Even more tellingly, one was English aristocrat through and through, and the other a well-born lass fresh from the Highlands. Could they approve one and deny the other? Would they dare?
