Page 7 of The Devil Wears Kilts
Lord Hest cleared his throat. “My daughter is correct, Glengask. You’ve stormed, clearly enraged, into a proper household and continue to behave like a bedlamite and a devil. It would be irresponsible of me to release Lady Rowena into your care without knowing her feelings and without some assurance of her well-being.”
“‘Her well-being’?” Glengask repeated darkly. “How would ye respond, then, if Lady Charlotte here fled without a word and then when ye ran her down some foreign stranger refused to return her to ye?”
“Firstly, I would hope I never gave my daughter—either of my daughters—cause to flee her own home. And secondly, we are hardly foreign here. Nor are we precisely strangers, as your mother and my wife were the dearest of friends.”
“You somehow knew to come here to find Winnie,” Charlotte added, before the marquis could begin an argument over the degree of their acquaintance. The man seemed to have an argument for everything, after all. “Clearly we are not unknown to you. Nor you to us.”
“Ye’ll have to keep me locked away forever and ever.” Rowena’s unsteady voice came from directly behind Charlotte. A moment later shaking fingers gripped hers. “I only want to see London.”
“And so now ye’ve seen it.” Glengask looked from his sister to Charlotte to where their hands clutched together. “Let my sister go,” he said after a moment.
Charlotte tightened her grip. “No. You are already in London. What possible harm could there be in allowing her to remain for a time?”
“‘What possible…’” He trailed off. “I will not stand here and argue with a female over what’s best for my own family,” he finally growled.
She refused to flinch at his tone, though beside her, his sister did. “Then as I am not giving in, I assume you mean to let Winnie remain here,” she countered. Just when this young lady’s cause had become hers, she had no idea. But this mountain of a man was not going to call her a wee lass and discount her. Not even if he’d lifted her as if she weighed no more than a feather, and not even if he looked to be made of solid sinew and iron.
He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again. Charlotte allowed herself a moment of satisfaction. So the English kitten had spat at the great Scottish bear, and he didn’t know how to react. Good. And good for her.
“So this is what ye aspire to,piuthar?” he asked his sister a moment later, though his gaze remained disconcertingly steady on Charlotte. “To surround yerself with Sasannach who keep ye from yer own family? To hide behind mouthy lasses who decide yer battles and fight them fer ye?”
“You’re the one who’s making this a battle, Lord Glengask,” Charlotte retorted, straightening her shoulders. “And I am only ‘mouthy,’ as you call it, in the face of an overbearing bully.”
“Oh, my,” Winnie whispered almost soundlessly, her fingers tightening.
A muscle in his lean, hard jaw jumped. “A bully, am I?”
“That is certainly the impression you give. Your own sister is hiding behind a stranger rather than approach you.”
The intense blue gaze shifted immediately to his sister. “Rowena, ye know I…” He trailed off, then said a single word in Gaelic that didn’t sound at all pleasant and that made his sister draw in a stiff breath through her nose. Finally he gave a slight nod, as if to himself. “I’m nae a bully,” he finally said. “One fortnight, Rowena. Ye want to see London, then see it. I’ll take a house here, and ye’ll have yer damned debut.” He held out one hand. “Let’s go from here, then.”
“I don’t believe ye, Ranulf.”
“I give ye my word. Two weeks.”
Charlotte bit the inside of her cheek. He’d just given far more ground than she expected, and she’d likely pushed him far past where she should have, already. In addition, her parents wouldn’t thank her for what she meant to say next—but Rowena likely would. And this was for her new friend’s sake rather than for her own. “If you truly mean for your sister to have a proper Season—or a fortnight’s worth of one—then she should remain here. You’d be a bachelor household with no one to sponsor Lady Rowena or provide her with introductions. Unless you have a female relation here who’s acquainted with London Society, that is.”
“I have no female relations,” Winnie said, her fingers tightening around Charlotte’s hand again. “And everything you do will be to show me how it’s no good here. I only want to see it with my own eyes, Ran. Please.”
He blew out his breath. “By all rights I should take ye over my knee and have ye back on the road north within the hour.”
“But ye won’t.”
“But I won’t,” he repeated after a moment, his glance finding Charlotte again. “Stay here, then, if they’ll have ye. But ye’ll inform me where ye mean t’be at all times, and I’ll go about with ye when I choose.”
With a squeak Rowena released Charlotte’s hand and flung herself at her brother. He enveloped her in his muscular arms. “I agree, Ran,” she said fiercely. “Thank ye. Thank you.”
For a moment he closed his eyes, something close to relief—or sadness—briefly crossing his expression. “I’ll call on ye here in the morning. At eleven.” Setting her down, he bent to kiss her on one cheek. “Ye had me worried,piuthar,” he murmured, then straightened again. “Is there some nonsense ceremony aboot exiting, or may I take my leave?” he asked, pinning Charlotte again with his gaze.
She stepped aside. “Good evening, Lord Glengask.”
“Lady Charlotte.”
Only when Longfellow had shut the front door rather firmly behind him did Charlotte let out the breath she’d been holding. From the way her family swept up to her and the fast beating of her own heart, anyone would think she had just faced down the devil himself. But then she just had, really.
And he would be back in the morning.
***
