Page 59 of Hit Me With Your Best Scot
She’d brought trouble to his doorstep, and yet he’d invited her to stay, anyway. If she’d known she would meet and befriend people who valued her for herself and her contributions without caring about the importance of her birth or how much money she stood to inherit, running away from Bayton Hall wouldn’t have been nearly as terrifying as it had been eight years ago.
“Your Highlander doesn’t seem the type to wait about for someone else to try to hurt you,” Charlie commented. “Does he have a plan?”
Her Highlander. Was he? Or was he simply the next man, the one who would keep her bed warm until they grew tired of each other? When he looked at her, when he touched her, it didn’t feel that way. But he needed to marry, and clearly, she needed to remain hidden. Better hidden, even. Those two things simply didn’t go together.
“I gave him a few names to look into,” she said when Charlie lifted an eyebrow at her. “I’m frankly hoping, however, that it’s some rabid Rosalind admirer who disliked my portrayal.”
“We could do something with that,” he mused. “‘Performances so fantastical, they drive men mad.’ Hmm.” Swiftly pulling out a piece of paper, he wrote a note to himself.
And there was Charlie Huddle, trying to turn every mishap into an opportunity. “If you do that, you’ll have every ladies’ group carrying signs to protect their husbands.”
“Eh. You do make a point.” Scowling, he crossed the line of writing out again. “As for you, Persie, I want to know when you’re to be here every morning, and when you’re leaving every evening. I’ll escort you home myself, if need be.”
“It won’t be,” she returned. “Coll has declared that I’m not to venture anywhere without at least two of his men accompanying me.” That had actually been a compromise, after she’d refused to allow him to be the one at her side. He had a stupid wife to find, and three weeks in which to do it. If that venture failed, she did not want to be the one responsible for it even if she preferred that he remain just as he was.
Charlie glanced toward the open doorway. “This Lord Glendarril. You’re generally more cautious, Persie. Are you certain he’s not the one making you look vulnerable, so he can… do as he’s done?”
“I’m not worth that much trouble,” she countered. If there was one thing about which she could be certain, it was that Coll MacTaggert wouldn’t spend his time trying to frighten or harm a woman. Or anyone else, for that matter. If someone angered him, he told them so. If he wanted someone, he told them so. “Even if I was, he’s very likely the most honorable man I’ve ever met.”
“Well. That’s a statement I’ve never heard you make before.”
“It is, isn’t it?” She sighed. “Someone is going to end up with a broken heart, and I have more than a sneaking suspicion that it’s going to be me.” With that, she roseagain. “I’m off to see Beth for my fitting. I’ll leave it to you to tell the rest of the troupe whatever you choose. Gordon will likely blame it all on the Scottish play, regardless.”
“I can hear it now. ‘The ghosts of Banquo’s descendants come to curse him for daring to play King the Scottish Play.’”
Temperance snorted. “You’ve known us for too long.”
“Definitely.”
When she left the office, the first person she spied was Coll, head bent over her list with his youngest brother, Niall. The gossip pages had spent weeks drooling over the MacTaggert brothers’ handsome appearance, and for once those chin-wags hadn’t been exaggerating. If the third brother, Aden, measured up to the other two, then the MacTaggert parents had managed to produce the three most attractive males she’d ever seen.
The two men spoke quietly, the words a mix of English and Scots Gaelic, Coll’s lower-pitched voice mesmerizing in its ebb and flow. She could tell herself she found the sound so attractive because voice and speech in general always caught her attention, but she could admit that it had more to do with the fact that she found the man himself fascinating. Unexpected. Delectable. Addictive.
So addictive that for the next two days he managed to keep her completely distracted from everything but the play and his hard, lean body. Whatever plans of his own he’d had to cancel to stay with her overnight, she had no idea, because he refused to tell her. He missed at least one additional soiree, she knew, but she didn’t argue against it, because she wanted him there with her.
Whether that made her selfish or simply frightened of the outside world, she didn’t know, but then lately she’d almost felt as if she’d begun to split into two separate people: the daring Persephone Jones, who enjoyed herskilled lover every night, and the terrified Temperance Hartwood, who jumped at every shadow and couldn’t sleep without Coll’s strong arms around her.
With him as an added distraction, the usual speed with which the Saint Genesius racketed between plays seemed even more ridiculously swift this time. The sets were nearly finished, lines had been memorized almost to perfection, and all but one of her costumes waited for her already in her dressing room. She sighed, setting aside her folio to see Gordon Humphreys strutting by in his Macbeth finery, gesticulating wildly to be certain the seams would hold.
In truth she’d always been both women, Temperance and Persephone. The only difference now was that someone else knew it. Oh, from the moment she’d seen Coll standing in the wings she’d known that he would be trouble to her equilibrium, and now to her heart. No, not… troublesome, precisely. Disruptive, perhaps. He had definitely upended her thoughts. She couldn’t blame him for the attempts on her life, though they’d begun shortly after she met him.
Or had they? Now that she thought about it, there had been a few other odd things recently—a horse pulling a carriage, spooked by a bottle thrown as she left the theater late one night. That horrible garlic-smelling brandy someone had left on her dressing table ten or so days ago.
Those things might have been coincidences. One of the stagehands might have drunk the brandy and replaced it with a cheaper liquor. Drunks did fling bottles from time to time, especially in the small hours of the morning. Oh, it was enough to drive her mad.
“That’s quite a frown ye’re wearing, lass,” Coll said, and she looked up to find him just a few feet away, gazing at her.
“It just occurred to me that the sandbags might not havebeen my first near miss,” she said. “Unless… How am I to know if something was an accident, a coincidence, or something malevolent?”
“Ye cannae. What did ye recall?”
She told him about the brandy and spooked horse, watching his generally level expression darken as she spoke. That told her what he thought about them, whether she was convinced or not. “What did ye do with the brandy?” he asked when she’d finished.
“I threw it away. The moment I opened the bottle, it smelled so pungent I nearly cast up my accounts.”
“Would ye recognize the smell again?”
“I think so. But—”
