Page 37 of Hit Me With Your Best Scot
“I’m not certain how I feel about you using me as a jest.” Actually, she did know how she felt; she didn’t like it. How she felt about him, though… That was becoming much more complicated. He’d rubbed a fish on his boots to ingratiate himself to her cat, for heaven’s sake. Who did that? No one else she could imagine. Notafterthey’d been together.
“I dunnae mean to slight ye, Persephone. It’s her who needs to be taught a lesson.” He shifted again, facing her more squarely, and reached out to take her fingers in his. “Do ye give me leave to use yer name in vain in an attempt to aggravate my mother?”
His fingers were warm and large and calloused, no doubt from flinging sheep about. Well-bred men didn’thave callouses on their hands, or anywhere else. It was possible he didn’t know how to be a proper gentleman, but it seemed more likely that he simply didn’t care what other aristocrats did or didn’t do.
As for her name being bandied about in connection with his, Persephone Jones had been linked with other powerful men, and it had only served to bring more people to the Saint Genesius. “My name has no objection to being used in vain, or any other way.” She closed her fingers around his. “But please do not ruin your own chances at finding someone to love because you’re too occupied with driving me about and annoying your family.”
“Och, lass, we’ve a mutual agreement. Ye show me how to be a gentleman, and I’ll keep sandbags from falling on ye.”
“And keep the hounds at bay.” After all, she didn’t want him to think she’d simply made up a potential peril to keep him near, whether she might have unintentionally done so or not. But Claremont had given up far more easily than she’d expected, and that did bother her a little.
“Does that make me a wolf?”
“More a lion, I think.”
This time his smile had her thinking about picnics and abandoned wagons—not that thoughts of being with him again had left her for more than a minute since yesterday’s luncheon. If she had any thoughts of marrying these days, all of his offhand proposals would have had her heart flitting about like a butterfly in a stiff breeze. As it was, she had to wonder if every other unmarried woman in London was mad. She didn’t know how to otherwise explain why a dozen ladies hadn’t fallen for him the first night they’d set eyes on him.
“You might consider,” she said aloud, “escorting your sister about the park. Her friends would then have an excuse to approach, and you—”
“Nae,” he cut her off. “Eloise is but eighteen. I dunnae want a bairn eleven years younger than me for a wife. I couldnae love a lass who’d nae give me a good argument now and again.”
“Not everything is a fight, you know.”
“Says ye, woman. I beg to differ.”
They rolled to a stop at the rear of the Saint Genesius Theatre, and Coll unlatched the low door and stepped down, offering her his hand. Persephone stifled a sigh. She’d expected yet another protector who wanted her to pretend to be Juliet or shrewish Kate needing to be tamed, or any of the other dozens of females she’d portrayed. This man seemed to likeher, and she found that both disquieting and amazingly arousing all at the same time.
“Please see me inside, then, my lord, and then go off and find yourself a bride.”
“What time are ye finished here?”
“Parliament has a long session today, so there won’t be a performance tonight. We’ll probably finish around eight o’clock. I’ll make my own way home. I’m sure you have plans for the evening.”
“I’ll be here at eight o’clock. Dunnae ye venture outside. I’ll come in and fetch ye.”
“Coll, I seem to be getting far more from this agreement than you are. That doesn’t—”
“Wait for me here, Gavin,” he broke in, offering Persephone his muscular forearm again. “I’ll be but a few minutes.”
“Aye, m’laird.”
When she put her hand around his arm, he drew her a breath closer. “If ye havenae realized by now, Persephone Jones, I keep my word. And I honor my agreements. So, if ye dunnae want me about, ye’d best lie to me well enough that I believe ye dunnae want me or need me any longer.”
Eventually, probably sooner than she liked, she woulddo that. She would tell him that she’d grown tired of him, and that she wanted someone who had better manners or who would create less of a spectacle by virtue of his mere existence. And because she was good at what she did, he would believe her. That, though, wasn’t today.
Chapter Eight
“By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
Open, locks,
Whoever knocks!”
SECOND WITCH,MACBETHACT IV, SCENE I
Stagehands rolling a good portion of Birnham Wood outside for painting exited through the door as they entered, greeting the two of them with a chorus of “Persies” and “my lords.” Coll nodded, holding the door open for the conundrum of a woman walking by his side.
