Page 66 of Hit Me With Your Best Scot
Coll cleared his throat. “Ye had a quiet night, I hope. I didnae have any word from my lads about any trouble.”
She nodded. “Yes. I’m afraid I didn’t sleep well, but no one attempted to murder me.”
He hadn’t slept well either, and for him that was highly unusual. But then it had been the first night in four that he’d spent in his own bed. “I nearly rode over here twice to check on ye. And I nearly went to find yer cousin and flatten him out of principle.”
“We have no proof. We actually have no proof that anything intentional is afoot.” Someone on the street shouted her name, and, immediately putting on a smile, she turned and waved. “And Robert? He has no sense of humor, and we were never close, but that doesn’t make him a murderer. Or someone who would hire a murderer.”
He didn’t like that people recognized her. Even her guise of being Persephone Jones wasn’t safe any longer. Keeping her safely locked up in her house, though, would kill her just as surely as bullet. Temperance never seemed to be still; physically and mentally she could run circles around most everyone he knew. She might even be able to give Aden a thrashing.
“Until we know who it is, I’ll be suspicious of everyone, if ye dunnae mind. It doesnae take any great courage to offer someone else a few quid to drop a sandbag at the right moment.” That bothered him even more than the idea of a villain out there—how many people had he paid to make certain Temperance suffered a fatal accident?
She gazed at him for a long moment, which he pretended not to notice as he guided the phaeton toward Hanover Square and St. George’s Church. Finally, she cleared her throat, clasping her hands in her lap. “Tell me the names of three women you’re considering for marriage.”
For a moment, he couldn’t conjure another woman’s name to save his life. He’d found the one he wanted, for God’s sake, and the entire world thought him too good for her. If anything, the truth was just the opposite. “Elizabeth Munroe,” he said, not because she would suffice,but because Temperance had asked for names. “Lady Agnes Mays. Polymnia Spenfield.”
“Isn’t Miss Spenfield one of the Spenfield girls? There are five of them, yes? Their parents auction off a horse every year to try to get men to attend their ball.”
“Aye. And I didnae even win the horse, so it must be true love.”
Because he looked for it, he saw her jaw clench and her hands tighten their grip on each other.Good. She did want him, at least a little—even if she wouldn’t admit to it. He didn’t know how they’d manage it, either, but he knew who he wanted.
“Good, then,” she said a bit quietly. “When will you propose?”
“I was being sarcastic, and ye know it,” he snapped, pulling the phaeton to a halt and ignoring the drivers who began protesting behind them.
“Coll, we’ll be late.”
“Nae, we willnae. I have someaught to say to ye, Temperance Hartwood. I love ye. I ken that that doesnae change a thing, that to the world ye’re an actress and I’m the oldest son of an earl, no matter how unfit these Sassenachs think I am to be a lord. I have a duty, and ye have a life ye’ve made for yerself. But I’ve looked for nine weeks—and longer than that in the Highlands—to find a woman with whom I’d care to spend my life, and I damned well know when I’ve found one. It’s someaught I’m willing to fight for. But nae if ye dunnae feel the same about me. So, do ye? Either lie or tell me the truth, but ye’d best make certain I believe ye.”
Flicking the reins, he sent them off again, his gaze on the bay’s ears. If this was something he could solve with brute force, it would have been well settled days ago. But as strong as he was, he couldn’t overthrow an entire way of life. Figuring out a way they could remain togetherwould be another kind of battle altogether—and it was one he had no real idea how to fight. If he didn’t have her heart, he couldn’t win, regardless. And he would be an even greater fool than the Sassenachs currently thought him.
“I’m still—I’m still an actress, Coll. As far as the world knows, and as far as I want anyone else to know, I’m just some common-born girl who prances about onstage in front of strangers. You’re Viscount Glendarril. One day, you’ll be Earl Aldriss.”
“I didnae ask ye who we are, my lass. I asked ye if ye loved me.”
She opened her mouth, then shut it again. “Do you have any idea of the scandal that would ensue?”
Shrugging, he slowed the bay as they turned up Regent Street. “I didnae say I had a solution. Nae yet, anyway. I only want to know if ye feel at all for me what I feel for ye.”
She sat silently beside him for so long that he began to fear hehadmisjudged every bloody thing between them. If she’d only wanted a protector to keep the other wolves away, if every man at whom she smiled fell in love with her, then he supposed he would go and find himself a wife tomorrow and spend the remainder of his life wondering why the devil he hadn’t managed to be more charming, or wield a sharper wit, or simply be more civilized, and how he’d misjudged her so horribly.
“How I feel doesn’t matter,” she finally muttered. “It doesn’t change anything.”
“If how ye felt didnae matter, ye’d have married His Grace Dunhurst eight years ago. How ye felt, lass, changed yer entire life. So aye, it matters. And it bloody well matters to me.”
Abruptly, she shifted closer, laying her head against his shoulder and wrapping a hand about his arm. “OfcourseI’m in love with you, Coll MacTaggert,” she blurted out,her voice shaking a wee bit at the end. “How could I not be? You are mountains and craigs and rocky streams and winter winds and the first breath of springtime. My first taste of springtime.”
Well. He believed that. She’d put it much more poetically than he had, of course, but it rang true. His heart stopped beating for a breath, and then resumed again, hard and strong. “Ye do have a way with words, lass.”
And if he didn’t kiss her right then, he might well catch fire from the heat of wanting her. Reaching for her free hand, he pulled up the bay with the other.
“People will see us.”
“Let ’em.” While the drivers of the milk and hay wagons behind them began shouting and cursing again, he bent his head and took her mouth. Her soft lips molded against his, warm and wanting. “Is mise mo chridhe,” he murmured.
She leaned her forehead against his, her bonnet shading them both from the onlooking passersby. “What does that mean?”
“Ye’re my heart,” Coll translated. He needed to apologize to Niall and Aden for scoffing at their descriptions of being in love. Hehadsimply… known.
