Page 31 of The Devil Wears Kilts
Ranulf tilted his head. “What advice was that? Oh, the bit where ye told me t’fit in.” He held his arms out from his sides. “I decided against it.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
He took a half step closer. “Will ye give me that wee dance card of yers, then, or do ye reckon I’m too Scottish fer yer taste?”
She’d expected him to ask whether she was too cowardly to dance with him or not, and she had an answer for that—she preferred not to make a public stir. But he hadn’t worded it that way, and now she couldn’t refuse him without looking like the aristocratic English snob he so obviously disdained. And she wasn’t prepared to be disdained. Not by him. And aside from that, part of her did want to dance with him.
Silently she pulled the small dance card and pencil from her reticule and handed it over. Their fingers brushed, and even through her emerald-colored gloves she felt the heat of him. Out of the corner of her eye she noted that the rest of her family was chatting with several other late arrivals and introducing Winnie around. Or they were pretending to, anyway.Wonderful.Did they think that a man had indeed caught her eye, and that Ranulf MacLawry was that man?
“So this is you simply being you, is it?” she ventured in a low voice. “You’re not making a statement or showing your contempt for my fellows?”
His grin deepened. “It’s just clothes, lass.” He patted himself on the chest, his silver buttons glittering. “All proper up top, and fun down below.”
“Oh, good heavens.” Because of that, now she couldn’t help recalling every bawdy song and poem she’d ever heard about a Scotsman and what he wore beneath his kilt. Which, if the stories were true, was precisely nothing. “Write your name down, and return my dance card.”
“Call me Ranulf again.”
She took a deep breath, feigning annoyance. What was it about him that roiled up her insides? Everything logical said she should want nothing to do with him, or his kilt, or his beastly manners. “Write your name down, Ranulf, and return my card. Better?”
His lifted his eyes, shadowed beneath dark lashes. “Most people dunnae speak t’me the way ye do, Charlotte,” he said softly, scrawling something on the card and handing it back to her.
She didn’t quite know how to take that. “Our sisters have become dear friends. There should be a certain honesty between us, don’t you think?”
“Is that what we’re calling it?” He studied her face, the scrutiny making her not uneasy, but unsettled. “Honestly then, Charlotte, I dunnae know what to make of ye. But I’m inclined to stay close by until I figure ye out.”
“I’m not that complicated.”
“I beg to differ.”
Because she didn’t want to meet his gaze any longer, and because people were beginning to notice her as well as him, Charlotte looked down at her dance card. And frowned. “You can’t take both waltzes.”
“I just did.”
“It’s not done, Glen—Ranulf.”
“Then if any other man cares to claim ye fer one or the other of them, he can come and try to take ye.” His smile dove into something devilish and delicious. “Though that would likely mean a brawl.”
So now he meant to use her own antipathy to violence to make her give in to something scandalous. Well. He could have the first waltz, then, but she would claim an aching head before the second one. That would eliminate both the scandal of waltzing with him twice, and the need for anyone to brawl to prevent it. Not that anyone was likely to fight for her favor; ladies without beaux seldom had champions. Especially when they’d reached her age.
“You should go claim a dance from Winnie while she still has one,” Charlotte suggested when he seemed inclined to remain standing there in front of her.
He lifted his head to glance over toward where his sister and Jane both stood surrounded by young men. Briefly his expression became alarmed, then settled back into one of slightly amused arrogance. Ranulf took a step past her, then paused to lean down. “I think ye may be a witch, Charlotte Hanover,” he murmured in her ear, “because only if I were bewitched would I forget my own duties.”
Before she could conjure a response to that, he strode over to take his sister’s card right out of Lord William Duberry’s hand. And Lord William, not known for his patience or his even temper, simply allowed it. Likewise, now that he’d left her side, other men came crowding in to claim dances from her. Most of them she refused, of course, with a smile and a verbal nudge toward the other, younger ladies, but it was… pleasant to be asked.
“You glitter like emeralds tonight, Lady Charlotte.”
The cool, careful tone caught her attention at once. Inwardly cursing, Charlotte turned around to face the man who’d spoken. “Lord Berling. What a pleasant surprise.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “A surprise that I would attend an event that everyone else in Mayfair wouldn’t miss?” The earl sent a glance over his shoulder. “Ah. A surprise that I would appear after being growled at by the barbarian Highlander. Between you and me, my lady, he growls at everyone.” He shook his head, clucking his tongue at the same time. “It must be wearying, to be so defiant about everything. I almost feel sorry for him. Idofeel sorry for his sister, trying to have a pleasant time while he strides about flinging men away from her.”
“Did you grow up in the Highlands, my lord?”
“Heavens, no,” Berling responded, his brow dropping again as he scowled. “Why do you ask?”
Charlotte shrugged, surprised to realize on whose side she stood—and that it wasn’t that of the reasonable-sounding earl. “You seem to be very well acquainted with Lord Glengask.”
“The Gerdens side of the family has land up there,” he explained with a smile. He wasn’t at all ill-looking, even if there was something she didn’t quite like about his eyes. “We spent the autumn there on occasion,” he continued, “and I do like to look in on my holdings from time to time.” He lifted her dance card from her hand. “I hadn’t realized thatyourfamily was acquainted with the MacLawrys.”
