Page 53 of Hit Me With Your Best Scot
“Nae,” he interrupted. “Tell me.”
She lay there with her cheek on his chest, one arm across his shoulder and the other tucked into his side, for so long that he began to worry he’d finally found someone more stubborn than he was. Finally, though, she sighed. “I’m not certain. I don’t have any reason to think my parents would want me harmed; as far as I know, they haven’t even disowned me.” Temperance snorted. “Disowning me would ruin any value I would have to the family, and they made quite the investment in my education. I’m very nearly a prodigy at the pianoforte, don’t you know.”
“I believe that,” he said, admiring the fact that she could jest even with all the weight on her shoulders. “Who are they, though? If ye’ll recall, I’m nae from England.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t read about my disappearance up in Scotland, even. My parents are Michael and Georgiana Hartwood, the Marquis and Marchioness of Bayton. Bayton Hall is in the middle of Cumbria.”
“Cumbria. That’s the Lake District, aye? Wild country.” He frowned. “Wild for England, that is.”
“Yes, it is. Bayton Hall overlooks Lake Windermere. It’s quite lovely. Or it was, the last time I saw it.”
“Yer da’s a marquis, and that’s still nae enough for them? Who’d they want ye to wed, Prince George himself?”
“If they thought they could manage that, I’m certain they would have. Prinny was no doubt on their list, at least. No, the man they found for me was Martin Vance, the Duke of Dunhurst.”
Coll propped up his head on one arm to look at her. “Tall man, bald but for two white tufts of hair over his ears? Looks like a walking scarecrow with nae enough skin pulled over his skull?”
He felt her shiver against him. “Yes, that’s him. You’ve met, I take it?”
“I dunnae recall that we’ve been introduced, but I’ve seen him about with his two granddaughters.”
“One granddaughter. Maria Vance-Hayden. She came out this year. The other one is his wife, Penelope Vance, the Duchess of Dunhurst. She came out two years after I did.”
Dunhurst had to be seventy years old, at the least. The idea of that severe, harsh man wed to the lively, bold lass presently in his arms—and that her parents had welcomed the match—left Coll feeling pinched and ill. It had been bad enough when Amelia-Rose Baxter’s mother and Francesca had conspired to have her engaged to him before they’d ever met, but they’d at least been born in the same decade.
“As I recall,” he said aloud, grasping for memories for which he hadn’t had much use over the years, “my mother kept her maiden name when she married my da because it was her family who had the money. Da wouldnae wear Oswell at all and went to hurling things at thewalls if Francesca ever referred to his bairns as Oswell-MacTaggerts, but letting her keep it was part of the agreement for allowing the marriage.”
She nodded. “Yes. Maria Vance-Hayden has a wealthy mother, who married Dunhurst’s hideous son Donald forhistitle. That’s why Dunhurst wanted me; the Hartwoods—my parents—are quite well-to-do.”
It was quite a round of names to sort out, but most of them wouldn’t have a reason to want any harm to come to Temperance Hartwood. Perhaps some scandal and ruination, but not a broken neck. “I’ll be making Dunhurst’s acquaintance, then,” he said, “and we’ll see what sort of man he is.”
“Other than the cruel, cold sort,” she returned. “In my experience, vengeance takes effort and patience. He wasn’t proficient at either one.”
“Were ye engaged, or was it an understanding?”
“I fled a week before the wedding,” she said, scowling. “I shouldn’t have waited that long, but I kept hoping… I don’t know, that something would happen to intervene.”
“Then if he came to the Saint Genesius and saw ye onstage, he might reckon killing ye would be better than ye being discovered. A lass who became an actress to avoid marrying him—that would be damned embarrassing.”
“I was wearing trousers and a black wig. Aside from that, Dunhurst spent all of his time in my company scrutinizing my bosom. I doubt he knows what color my eyes are.”
“Blue, lass,” Coll said, lowering his head onto his crooked arm again. “Blue as Loch an Daimh at noon beneath a cloudless sky.”
Silence. “For a man who claims to prefer speaking with his fists,” she said very quietly, “you do have a way with words.”
“Ye should see me fling a tree trunk about.”
He felt her body shake with a silent laugh, and he grinned at the ceiling. In the short time he’d known her, he’d probably said more words to her than he had to every other female in London combined. She’d taxed his wits but not his patience, because she was harder to keep up with than a fox on marshy ground.
“Have yer parents been to London since ye’ve been at the Saint Genesius?”
“I’m certain they have been. Neither of them ever particularly enjoyed the theater, though. There are fewer people to impress with their wealth in the dark.” She hesitated. “I never saw them, if they did make an appearance.”
“Are they in London now?”
Her spine stiffened beneath his palm. “You are not going to call on my parents, Coll MacTaggert.”
“I didnae say I was. I asked if they were here. Ye seem fairly aware of all of Society’s to-dos, so I expect ye know one way or the other. If ye dunnae, I can find out easily enough. Mymàthairpractically keeps a list.”
