Page 50 of Hit Me With Your Best Scot
“I’ve two brothers and a sister. Any of them, or their bairns, would do for the next Lord Aldriss after me.”
“And what about Aldriss Park? It’s very far from here, and here is where the Saint Genesius is.”
“Ye dunnae put on plays while the aristocracy’s nae in Town, do ye? Then ye dunnae need to be in London all year ’round. But that’s a different conversation, one we can have after I know nae a soul’s after ye.”
“I’m not your responsibility, damn it all.” She clapped her hands together. “Is it that we were… together? That you’ve been celibate since you got here and finally found a woman who’ll sleep with you?” Striding over, she patted the bed. “Then come along, Coll. Let’s be together again, and then you can go find your bride.”
“I’d nae found a woman here I cared to be with, until I met ye. I’ll admit that. And I’ve damned well nae met another lass here who’ll stand toe-to-toe with me and argue. I need an argument now and then, or I tend to stomp all over people.”
Persephone put her hands over her ears. “I am not listening to this any longer. Stop saying nice things.”
“I will, if ye’ll tell me what’s truly afoot here. Because I have noticed a few things about ye, lass. Ye’ve an education, for one thing. A good one. Even better than mine, I’d guess. And ye ken what’s proper for a lady, even if ye choose nae to follow the rules yerself. Ye know how to run a household, and how to manage servants. Ye’re kinder to them than most blue-blooded folk would be, but ye know that, too.” He narrowed his eyes a little, giving her an assessing look. “In fact, I’m going so far as to say that ye’re a lady. A true lady.”
She opened and closed her mouth again as the walls came closing in around her, the sensation making her feel light-headed. Swiftly, she forced a laugh. “Or it couldbe that I’m anactress, you clod. A good one. Good enough to fool you into thinking I’m something more than I am.”
“A clod, am I?” he said softly, rising to his feet with a surprising grace. “And ye’re fooling me, are ye?”
“That is what I said. How in the world do you think I get men to pay for my pretty things? By saying what they want to hear. I had you figured out the moment I set eyes on you.”
Her door opened and Gregory started in with a tray of sandwiches. His gaze never leaving hers, Coll stepped aside, took the tray out of her footman’s hands, shoved the man gently backward, and shut the door again. This time, he locked it. “Did ye now?” he returned, as if they’d never been interrupted.
“Is that your strategy? To ask if I said what I just said and did what I clearly did?” Good God, he was stubborn. If she’d spoken that way to Claremont or any of her three previous so-called protectors, they would have walked out in tears by now. Or one of them would have hit her, though she had no worry at all that Coll would do any such thing. He was far more a gentleman than anyone else she’d ever met carrying that title.
Coll took a sandwich off the platter and held the silver tray out to her. “Nae,” he said, taking a huge bite. “My strategy is to wait until ye’ve finished yelling at me and then ask ye again what I might do to help ye. I’m here, and I’m willing. Ye just need to trust me a little.”
“Well, that’s a stupid strategy.” Harrumphing, she grabbed a sandwich and plunked herself down on the bed to eat it.
“So is thinking ye can pack a bag and run.”
“Ha. It worked before.”
“Until now, I reckon.” Finishing off one sandwich, he picked up a second one. “Ye did run, then. From what,Persephone? What would send ye away from one life to start another one?”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him. The names would likely mean nothing to a man who’d never set foot in London until this Season. To have someone else who knew, someone who might actually help her—but then she’d done just fine on her own for the past eight years. Until now, of course.
She took a deep breath. “It was a man, if you must know. One I didn’t wish to marry.”
Setting aside the tray, he and his third sandwich sat down on the bed beside her. “If there was ever a tale with which I could sympathize, it’s that one.”
“No doubt. He was far older than I was, but exceedingly well-connected. He was also… cruel. Not directly, but all of his little suggestions for my behavior gave me a very good idea that married life with him would be far worse than the engagement.” She shuddered. “‘My dear, surely you can make a cup of tea as well as did my first wife. Do try again,’” she imitated. “Or ‘you do know that I prefer you not wear green,’ or ‘that sound you make when you’re eating, is that meant to be charming?’”
“Sounds like a man I’d like to meet,” Coll said darkly.
“No, you wouldn’t. When my family wouldn’t listen to me, even after I begged them not to make me marry him and told them he only wanted the family fortune because he’d said as much to my face, I… left.”
“Is it him trying to harm ye, then?”
She shook her head. “I doubt it. He married some other heiress six months later. Someone even younger than I was.”
The fingers of his free hand closed over hers—not tightly, but enough to make her feel safe. Protected. And wanted. “Ye nae went home after that, though. Why?”
“Because I wasn’t going to give my family anotherchance to auction me off,” she said, the anger and disgust of it all still choking her a little. “And because I’d found something I enjoyed, that I could never do as—as I was.”
His third sandwich finished, he reached over to brush hair off her cheek. “Ye made yer way in the world alone, and now ye’re the toast of London. That’s damned admirable.”
She’d never thought to have that description attached to her. “Thank you for saying so,” she returned, leaning into his hand. The warm presence of him was simply intoxicating. And it wasn’t just because he made her feel safe.
It had never been that, she realized.
