Page 71 of Hit Me With Your Best Scot
“Yes, I can fling Shakespearean quotes about with great abandon.”
His mouth quirked. “And ye wield sarcasm like a sword. Dunnae forget that. Ye’ve nearly decapitated me more than once.”
“Never. The world would be a poorer place without your handsome face in it.”
For God’s sake, he adored her. “Aden used to say the only difference between me and me without a head would be my height.”
She laughed. “That’s horrible,” she said, covering her mouth with one hand before she gave up, still chortling.
“Aye, the two of ye would get along, nae doubt about that,” Coll snorted.
“It would be lovely to have the opportunity to try,” she said, her smile softening. “But please don’t ruin what you have with them. With your family. You clearly all adore each other. Don’t lose that for my sake. I would never forgive myself.”
“What happens between my family and me is up to them. They know where I stand.” He didn’t want to see that relationship hurt, either; every lesson he’d learned over the years had been about the importance of family, and every brawl he’d ever fought had been done with the knowledge that at least two other people in the world would stand with him.
If today and from now on he stood alone, it wouldchange some things—drastically. But he wasn’t standing up to be left alone. He was standing up to be with Temperance. Even if they would only know her as Persephone.
“Coll, that’s not a way to begin an argument.”
“It’s only an argument if they decide they dunnae agree with me.” He bit into his third sandwich. “Look at ’em over there, trying to decide if I can be pushed somewhere I dunnae choose to go.”
As he spoke, Wallace, one of the pipers they’d brought with them down from the Highlands—and more importantly, one of the lads he’d left to watch Temperance’s house—ran into the garden, found him, and skidded to a halt beside the table.
“M’laird, it’s on fire.”
Coll shoved to his feet. “What’s on fire?”
“The house. We were watching the front and back, but then Charles saw smoke and yelled for me, and by the time I got back around the front, the whole first floor was catching. I—”
“My house?” Temperance gasped. “Flora? And Gregory?”
“I dunnae, m’lady. I came here as soon as—”
“Ye stay here,” Coll ordered Temperance. “Smythe! She doesnae leave yer sight!”
At the butler’s curt nod, and ignoring the demand for information coming from his family, Coll tore through the house and onto the front drive, where he swung into the saddle of the gelding Wallace had ridden. Kicking it in the ribs, he took off at a gallop up Grosvenor and east toward St. John’s Wood.
If someone had been watching her house, they would know she wasn’t there. Was this an attempt to draw her out? To have her return in a panic for a waiting gunman? Or had the arsonist missed her departure, and this had been yet another attempt on her life?
Cursing, he cut between a phaeton and a furniture wagon and continued north and east. The gray gelding didn’t have Nuckelavee’s speed or stamina, but despite the noise and traffic, it kept its ears back and kept running. Coll could see the smoke rising as he turned up Charlbert Street and onto Charles Lane. Lines of residents stretched between local wells and the house, buckets passing back and forth.
The upper floor of the house had begun to burn, while the ground floor looked ready to disintegrate into ash at any moment. Still swearing, he jumped down from the horse. “Flora!” he bellowed. “Gregory!”
“Here, my lord!” Gregory, coatless and with his white shirt turned nearly black with soot, limped forward. “It just started burning,” he lamented, tears flowing from his eyes, either from the smoke or from the loss.
“Where’s Flora?”
“She’s in the shade over there,” the footman said, pointing to where a cluster of women had gathered, one of them fanning the air with an apron. “We couldn’t find Hades. That damned cat—oh, heavens. Persie will be heartbroken.”
Coll looked up toward the master bedchamber’s front windows. Pulling off his coat, he handed it to the footman. “Stay back from this,” he ordered, and jumped to grab the lower eave in his hands.
From there, he levered himself onto the roof and scrambled around the open, smoldering bits to the windows. They were closed. He pulled off his cravat, wrapped it around one hand, made a fist, turned his face away, and punched.
Glass shattered around him. Clearing it away with his elbow, he hopped into the room. “Hades,” he called, noting that the bedchamber door stood open. Smoke wafted through the room, pouring out of the opening he’d just made.
“Hades. Come here, boy.” Lowering himself onto his stomach, he peered beneath the bed. A pair of reflective green eyes looked back at him. “There ye are. I thought so.”
The floor beneath him felt hot. Another minute or two, and the entire house would be on fire. Edging forward, he extended his wrapped hand. The cat swatted at it, hissing, and backed against the wall until it couldn’t retreat any further.
