Page 6 of Hit Me With Your Best Scot
“Claremont. James Pierce, the Earl of, to be precise.”
Narrowing his eyes a little, Coll took in the gray coat, mauve waistcoat, and black trousers. Well-cut and expensive, he’d wager. The man had even brought a bouquet of red roses. And he was the one about whose absence the other two had been thrilled. “I’ve nae seen ye about.” That had to mean something, because he’d been dragged to nearly every proper event held in London this Season.
“I’ve been in the south, seeing to my properties. Well, overseeing the construction of a new wing at Claremont Hall, actually.” The pretty fellow tilted his head. “From the way you’re eyeing a certain attractive lady, I see Waldring isn’t the only one to have attempted to move in during my absence.”
A stone tumbled into the pit of Coll’s stomach. An unnamed disappointment over something he’d scented, but not gotten close enough to taste. “If she’s yers, ye’ve naught to fear from me. If ye’re another of the herd of Sassenach roosters preening in hopes that the hen’ll look in yer direction, then I reckon ye’ve a fight on yer hands.”
The earl smiled. “Ask her yourself.”
As if on cue, Penelope Jones emerged from the gloom, wearing yet another pair of trousers and a green coat. “MacTaggert,” she said, with a grin and a nod.
“There you are, my dear,” Claremont said, sketching an elegant bow and holding out the posies.
“Claremont!” she exclaimed, dabbing a quick curtsy. “I hadn’t expected you back yet.” She took the flowers, gave them a quick sniff, and handed them off to a woman walking at her heels. “I’ve no time to converse, I’m afraid.”
“That is what later is for,” the earl returned, sending Coll a very pointed look over her head—a look that said he’d proven his claim.
Her mouth had smiled, but her eyes hadn’t. Whether that signified anything or not, Coll didn’t know. But as hehad a wife to find, and as Mrs. Jones had been a momentary, unexpected diversion, he shrugged. “I’m here for the play,” he muttered, folding his arms and leaning against a sturdy-looking upright as the lass strolled onto the stage and became a young lad once more.
If the lass was spoken for, that was that. A damned shame or not, in all honesty, he hadn’t come down here looking for her. Hell, he’d left Lady Aldriss’s box before she’d ever appeared onstage.
That had been a short hunt; more than anything else, it had served to remind him that he’d been reluctantly celibate for the past eight weeks, plus the week before that, as he, Aden, and Niall had meandered south with every bit of luggage they could pile atop their two wagons.
He’d been full of defiance then, ready for the three of them to challenge Francesca Oswell-MacTaggert head-on, tell her that she and her conditions for continuing to fund Aldriss Park could go to hell, and march back to the Highlands. But damn it all, they needed the blunt she provided. That money allowed the MacTaggerts to look after more cotters than any of the other chieftains in the area could manage. It allowed them to supplement a poor harvest, to purchase sheep and cattle when the fall weather made for fewer young ones in spring, and in short, to keep those dependent on them from starving.
And his idea of a united front against their mother—who hadn’t bothered to write a letter, much less visit in the seventeen years since she’d left her three sons behind—began to crumble the moment Niall had fallen for Amy. Coll gave a shudder. He liked the lass well enough now, but for God’s sake, his mother had meant Amelia-Rose Hyacinth Baxter forhim. Thank God Amy and Niall had turned out to be perfect for each other and he’d been left out of the equation.
Once the first had fallen, Aden had no doubt seen whatlay ahead, and so when he’d stumbled across Matthew Harris’s sister, he’d staked his own claim. Coll sighed. Which left him. As the oldest, he no doubt should have been the first to wed. It was his duty to lead the way into such perils. But every time he thought to make an effort toward wooing a lass, he recalled how badly his father had mangled a marriage with his own Englishwoman. Angus MacTaggert and Francesca Oswell had managed to remain beneath the same roof for twelve years, but none of them had been peaceful. None that he could recall, anyway.
But that was neither here nor there, because tonight all he’d accomplished was an escape from two more prospective brides and a few minutes of imagining that he and Mrs. Persephone Jones might have spent a sweaty, naked night together. So now he could return to Oswell House and make a list of which lasses might serve, or he could stay where he was and watch a rather inspired performance inAs You Like It.
In the end, the play won out, and while he felt a wee bit cheated that all the lads had found their loves while he stood in the wings without so much as a bridal prospect, he could say one positive thing about English tastes—they were all correct when they raved about Persephone Jones.
All the actors gathered onstage for a standing ovation before they flooded past him to the dressing rooms and the rear door. He waited where he was; no sense making an appearance outside until Lady Aldriss and her weeping maidens were well away.
“We’ll be putting out the lights in ten minutes,” one of the behind-the-stage men eventually informed him, “and there’s nothing darker than a theater.”
“Except a lady’s heart, mayhap,” Coll rejoined, hiding his shudder at the idea of being in this cramped space in complete darkness, and the lad laughed.
Back to Oswell House it was, then, where he’d haveto listen to his mother bellowing about how she was attempting to save the MacTaggert properties by helping him find him a bride, and all he could bellow back was what he’d been saying for eight weeks: he would find his own damned wife. He made his way through the clutter in the direction the rest of the occupants had headed.
“—don’t think that’s necessary,” Persephone Jones’s sweet voice came from a cracked-open door, and he slowed.
“WhatIthink is necessary is that you stop dancing about and give me what I want,” Claremont’s voice retorted. “You flutter as if you have some virtue to protect. Do I need to remind you that you are an actress? A pretty one, but that’s not enough to see you invited to a soiree. I have purchased gifts for you—severalexpensivegifts, if you’ll recall. In recompense, you will give me what I want. And that is what is between your legs, Persephone.”
“No.” There was just the faintest tremble at the end of the word. “You have forced gifts on me in an attempt to buy what is between my legs. Take them all back. They’re here in this box. I never wanted them to begin with. You—”
“You damned whore. I—”
Glass shattered. Before he’d quite settled on what he was doing, Coll slammed open the door and stepped into the room. It was smaller than he’d expected, with bare walls, a table and a chair, and a single full-length mirror, but he only noted that peripherally as he grabbed Claremont by the collar and yanked him backward from where he loomed over the lass, his hands on her shoulders.
He caught a quick glance of Persephone’s wide blue eyes and the neck of a broken bottle in her hand before he returned his attention to the sputtering earl. “The lass said nae,” he growled, flinging the other man into the near wall.
Claremont went down onto his knees and immediatelystruggled to his feet. “This is none of your affair, Highlander. Leave this room before I have you thrown out.”
“Well, while ye’re searching about for someone who can toss me, I’ll go ahead and see ye out myself.” Moving quickly, Coll wrapped one arm under the earl’s shoulder and cupped the back of his head in the same hand, bending the tall fellow nearly double as Claremont tried to avoid having his arm broken.
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” Claremont sputtered, staggering out of the room as Coll half-dragged him toward the rear of the building. Charlie Huddle and a few of the remaining actors and stagehands stood by the back door, and with a quick intake of air, Huddle pulled it open and stepped aside.
