Page 88 of The Devil Wears Kilts
“Get dressed,” he ordered over his shoulder, dread freezing his heart, and went pounding down the stairs. Fergus and Una were yowling at the front door, and with a curse he flung it open. He didn’t need to ask where his brother and sister were; the dogs would find them. This was what happened when he relaxed, when he took a moment to fall in love—even when he knew nothing could come of it.
Charlotte dove for her gown and yanked it on, taking only a moment to knot the ribbons at the back closed. Stepping into her shoes, she ran for the door, her heart beating so fast she thought it might explode from her chest. If anything happened to his siblings, Ranulf would never forgive himself. But if something happened to him, she wouldn’t survive.
She reached the front door as Owen came hurrying out from the servants’ hall, a huge gun in his hands. “Where were they?” she asked, falling in with him.
“Ye should stay inside the house, m’lady,” he wheezed, turning up the street. The groom, Debny, was several yards ahead of them. Ranulf and the dogs had evidently outstripped all of them.
Charlotte ignored the warning; this wasn’t about her. And her presence could possibly prevent whatever might be about to happen. Or she hoped it would. If the situation called for it, at this moment she found herself more than willing to punch someone. The MacLawrys were her clan, after all.
Just inside the borders of a small park tucked behind a square of lovely old houses, she saw them. No one was on the ground and no one was bleeding, though she had no idea why—or whether that bit of good fortune would continue. Seven men stood around the two MacLawrys, clearly keeping them from either advancing or retreating.
Ranulf ahead of her slowed to a walk, the dogs keeping pace on either side of him. Their hackles were raised, and she could hear the low, snarling growls even from thirty feet away. “Was there someaught ye wanted, Berling?” the marquis called out in a booming voice that held more danger in it than either of the dogs’ growls.
The earl was there, she noticed, and so were George Gerdens-Dailey and that awful Charles Calder.Oh, no.Were they armed? She knew that Ranulf was not, because he’d been half naked just a few minutes ago.
“We thought we might get a few things settled,” Berling returned, glancing from the marquis to the donkey-sized dogs and back again.
“At least three of ’em have pistols, Ran,” his brother called. Arran had one arm around Winnie, putting himself between her and Gerdens-Dailey. The black-haired beauty looked truly frightened, and given how carefully her three brothers had protected her for her entire life, Charlotte wasn’t surprised.
Stopping a few feet away from the group, Ranulf stood with his hands at his sides, his stance looking as relaxed as if he were chatting at a soiree—or even more relaxed than that. She knew him well enough to see the tension in his straight shoulders, but she doubted any but his own would know it.
“What is it ye want to settle, then?” he asked smoothly.
“I owe you a broken nose, at the least,” Berling returned, a slight, nasty smile on his face. “That’s a start.”
“I’m right here, Berling. My sister and brother have naught to do with yer ugly face.”
“You expect me to do something with those beasts standing there? I wouldn’t call that a fair fight, Glengask.”
Ranulf actually laughed. The sound raised the hairs on the back of Charlotte’s neck. “So ye want afairfight now, do ye? Ye’re a damnedcladhaire,Donald Gerdens.”
The earl slid a look at the man standing beside him. “Cousin?”
“He called ye a coward,” Gerdens-Dailey translated. “And I’d have to agree with that.”
“What?”
“When ye bring six men with ye and go after a man’s sister, that makes ye a coward.”
Berling’s face reddened. “Then why are you here, George?” he snapped.
The earl’s cousin pulled a pistol from his pocket and aimed it at Arran. “Because I’m inclined to make an innocent man disappear. Unless Glengask would care to explain some things to me and take the ball himself.”
Charlotte gasped, putting a hand to her chest. Ranulf flinched a heartbeat later, and she realized he hadn’t known she was there behind him. Beside her Owen lifted the blunderbuss. Terrible things were about to happen. Terrible, irreversible things. Taking a shaking breath, she held out her hands. “Rowena, come over here,” she called in her most soothing voice.
“Nae,” Winnie sobbed, clinging to her brother.
“Rowena, do as Charlotte says,” Ranulf echoed. “I’ll nae have one of theseamadanshooting ye by accident.”
Crying, the girl fled the corner of the park. Charlotte wrapped her arms around Winnie, angling them so that while she could see what transpired, Rowena wouldn’t be able to do so.
“Now,” Ranulf said, taking a slow step closer to the armed Gerdens-Dailey. “What do ye want explained, George?”
The earl’s cousin kept his weapon and gaze aimed at Arran. “I’ve a suspicion ye know what happened to my father, Glengask. And I’d like to know what possessed ye to take him from me two days after ye lost yer own.”
“I didnaelosemy father,” Ranulf retorted, emotion touching his voice for the first time. “Yerathairand yerathair”—and he pointed at Berling—“and yer uncle Wallace murdered him.”
“The way I heard it,” Gerdens-Dailey returned, “’twas the Campbells’ doing.”
