Page 47 of Hit Me With Your Best Scot
Grand. He was frightening her. “Fight to Live,” he translated. “Some in the family say it’s more properly ‘Fight to Stay,’ but ye cannae stay if ye arenae alive, so I prefer the first version.”
The lass, Elizabeth Munroe, finished off the fancy set of dance steps alongside him before they began hopping forward again. For Christ’s sake, he hated country dances. They lasted forever and a day, and he wasn’t a man who enjoyed hopping and preening like a rabbit.
As they reached the head of the line again, he stifled a sigh. He’d managed to find a partner for every damned dance tonight, because according to Persephone, that was how a man could judge whether a woman thought him marriageable or not. The present country dance supposedly meant that he wouldn’t ever be walking into a church with Miss Munroe, but Lady Runescroft seemed to adore the things and had far too many of them scheduled for anyone to avoid them all. And at least this lass was talkingto him, which was more than he could say of the previous two.
After what felt like an hour, the dance ended. Winded, he escorted Miss Munroe back to her mother, made a bow, and went to find an open window. Most of the side rooms around the ballroom were packed with guests, but he found some open space and an unlatched window in the library, and with a deep breath, Coll leaned both hands on the sill and looked out over the torchlit garden.
Behind him, a young couple seated on a couch murmured quietly to each other, the lady’s maid hovering nearby, but he paid them no further attention than to note their presence. This fete nonsense was the main reason he detested London, he was discovering. Unless a man was a member of the House of Lords—which, as the holder of an honorary title, he was not—days were to be spent in clubs or driving about the parks, hoping to be seen. Evenings were for endless parties or more clubs, and for drinking or gaming or whoring.
He didn’t drink; with the exception of his first night here in London, he hadn’t consumed any spirits since his twenty-third birthday. As Niall had put it, Coll joined up with liquor didn’t make for anything pleasant. That left whoring or gaming or dancing, and while he had no objection to spending his evenings in a lass’s bed, he preferred to leave the gaming to Aden and the dancing to Niall.
Of course, now that he was thinking about sex, the image of Persephone Jones floated into his thoughts again—not that she’d been far from them since the first moment he’d set eyes on her. He’d thought it had been Claremont after her, that the viscount had been angry she’d moved on to someone else. But that had been based on the assumption that Claremont had cared for her in the first place. Clearly, she’d been a prize to the earl, someone tobe flaunted as evidence of his own virility or some such thing.
Claremont didn’t care enough about her to go to the effort and expense of seeing her hurt or killed. And since she had nothing else to offer him in the way of suspects, he had to conclude that those two mishaps had been accidents. That didn’t feel right, and neither could he shake the feeling that she wasn’t quite who she said she was, but he had neither the time nor the information he needed to figure it all out.
As for the woman herself, she intrigued him and aggravated him in equal parts. Subterfuge, lies, complications—those were all things he avoided. He preferred straight answers, honesty, and troubles he could solve with his fists. She was none of those things. At the same time, he enjoyed the time he spent in her company, and he damned well enjoyed her enthusiasm during sex. He liked chatting with her, and he liked never knowing what she might say next. An exceedingly intelligent and opinionated woman was quite possibly the last person he ever expected to find so… compelling, but there it was. There she was.
And damn it all, he liked her. A great deal. A lass with whom he could converse and be his generally good-humored self without worrying that his hard reputation would be damaged or that he’d made a fool of himself. When it came down to it, he could imagine himself married to her, and that hadn’t been anything he could conjure in his wildest dreams with any other lass he’d met so far—in London or in Scotland.
“For a betrothed man, you’re doing a great deal of dancing tonight,” came the cultured voice of his mother from somewhere behind him.
Coll didn’t budge. The muttering couple on the couch was gone; Francesca had probably pointed a finger at themand they’d fled. “I’m at a grand ball. I reckon dancing is what I’m supposed to do.”
“So it is. I happen to know, however, that you dislike country dances, and yet there you were with Miss Elizabeth Munroe. A very eligible young lady of marked beauty.”
“What do ye want,màthair? Ye ordered me to wed a lass. I found a lass to wed. The only problem I see is yer pride.”
Her soft, measured footsteps moved closer. “Not justmypride, Coll. Do not letyourpride andyourstubbornness lead you into a mistake. Do not let your anger with me lead you into a life you won’t be able to tolerate.”
At that, he turned to face her. “Are ye speaking from experience, then? Ye and da used to have some spectacular arguments, as I recall. I suppose if Persephone and I dunnae match well, I could always do what ye did and walk away. Pretend I dunnae have three other bairns aside from the one I take with me. I could even write up an agreement with her when I go that says nae matter how long I ignore them, the bairns will have to do what I say when they’re grown.”
“Oh, that is enough of that,” she muttered, her hands clenched together in front of her hips, her gaze down at the floor. With a visible sigh, she looked up again. “Your father is an impossible man. I asked for six months in the Highlands and six months here. He refused. I asked for three months here and nine months in the Highlands. He refused. I asked for an English tutor for the three of you, so you would be able to live in both worlds. He refused.”
She stopped beside him, standing straight and stiff, her voice more animated than he’d heard since their arrival on her doorstep.
“So ye left,” he finished for her. “I dunnae doubt ye had yer reasons. I just dunnae understand why they were more important to ye than we were. Ye didnae even write.”
“Ididwrite,” she snapped. “Letter after letter after letter. None of you ever answered me, but I kept writing. For years. It was only after Eloise was old enough to compose a letter that we had any response at all. Nothing from me was ever replied to. So yes, I left. But I did not abandon you. You abandoned me.”
Coll frowned. “Ye say whatever ye wish, Lady Aldriss. I nae received a single letter from ye. I wrote a handful of themtoye, and nae heard back. I reckoned ye’d washed yer hands of us. And I was but twelve years old, if ye’ll recall.”
“I recall everything—every birthday I missed. You are my children. My sons. I would never… Damn that man. I thought he was keeping my letters from you, but I never thought he would be keeping your letters to me.” A tear ran down her ivory cheek. “You wrote to me,” she whispered.
“Aye, when I was a bairn. When I might have wanted ye about. But I’ll be thirty years old next month. And there ye stand after seventeen years away, demanding that I wed some English lass so ye’ll be able to tell yer proper friends that ye have three civilized sons, and so ye have a better chance of seeing us down here in England again. Dunnae expect me to smile and cooperate, woman.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Coll. I’m trying to make am—”
“Excuse us,” came Niall’s voice from the doorway.
Coll looked up to see not just Niall, but Gavin, standing there and looking exceedingly uncomfortable. Worry stabbed through him. “What the devil are ye doing here? Ye were to stay at the Saint Genesius and watch over Persephone.”
“Aye, m’laird.” The groom shot an uneasy glance at Francesca. “Excuse me, yer majesty.”
“Gavin!” Coll demanded.
“The lass left early and took her usual hack. I hoppedup with the driver, a pleasant lad named Gus. Then a wagon ran us off the road and overturned the coach into a ditch. Th—”
“What?” Coll rasped, striding toward the groom and the door beyond him. “Is she hurt?”
