Page 75 of Hit Me With Your Best Scot
With a glance at the rest of his formidable family, she nodded and turned to follow Eloise into the house.
One thing was becoming evident. If she meant to be alive for long enough to see how all this turned out, she was going to have to take a stand and begin saving herself. Being the damsel in distress was one thing, but now Coll had nearly been killed. That could not happen, no matter what. If she lost him, it would be because they simply couldn’t work out their differences. Not because he’d been killed trying to keep her safe.
“That lad’s in love,” Angus said in what passed for his quiet voice. Despite not having heard his smooth brogue for seventeen years, Francesca would have known it anywhere, just as she recognized the man despite the mahogany hair turned steely gray and the lines about his deep gray eyes. And his hands—good heavens, she remembered his big hands.
“But is the woman?” she retorted, setting aside all those roiling thoughts and moving past her husband to inform Smythe that in addition to the actress he would have to find room for an earl and two servants, and that the table this evening would be set for ten, rather than the eight she’d expected.
“Ye’re the one who spoke with her. What do ye think?” he pursued, keeping up with her.
“I think that you should be speaking with your daughters-in-law and your own daughter, none of whom have set eyes on you before today.”
“Nae a kind word for me, then?”
She stopped in her tracks. “I’ll have several words for you in five minutes, after I settle the rest of my family.”
When she’d written him, she’d expected some sort of help, some order from him that would stop her oldest son’s madness before it could hurt the family. But seeinghim standing there at the back of the church, an older but unmistakable version of the man who’d stolen her heart and swept her off her feet in a matter of days, all those years ago—it had stopped her breath.
That wasn’t supposed to happen. He was stubborn and short-sighted and arrogant and argumentative, and she’d cursed him enough in seventeen years that he should have dropped dead at least a dozen times by now. Why, then, did she have the damnedest desire to find a mirror and check her hair?
Deliberately slowing her steps, she found Smythe and then headed into the house for her study. Oswell House was hers, thankfully; her father had seen to it that not only did the family’s wealth remain in her name, but so did the Oswell property. He and her mother hadn’t trusted Angus, especially after a courtship that had lasted but a week, and the result was that Angus had never quite caught the wealth he pursued, which had been difficult for a man of his pride to swallow. Looking back, consulting her before every expenditure or improvement had likely been more difficult than she’d ever realized. She took a seat behind her desk, opened the bottom drawer, and produced a bottle of whisky. After pouring herself a glass, she downed it and returned everything to the drawer.
“Ye’ve done as ye said ye would, then,” Angus said, stopping just past the doorway of the room. “Ye civilized my lads, found them wives, and now ye’ll have yer claws in them for the rest of yer days.”
“They found their own wives,” she retorted. “And I’m still one short.”
“Aye. I reckoned Coll would give ye the most trouble. Good lad. Stubborn lad.”
“Why did you never give them the letters I wrote? Or send me the letterstheywrote?”
One gray eye twitched. “Ye took our wee daughter andleft me. Left all yer boys. Did ye leave me a reason to be kind to ye? Because if ye did, I didnae find it.”
“It would have been a kindness to them to know that I still cared for them and thought of them.”
He made a dismissive gesture. “Ye wrecked ’em all when ye left. All three of ’em, pining after ye. I helped ’em heal, showed ’em how to be strong and to nae rely on anything but each other. It would’ve softened ’em again, to give ’em yer flowery letters about kisses and hugs and lullabies.”
“I’m amazed they turned out so well. I do know it was despite your influence. And at least they understand that love means compromise. Iwillsee them all in London again, because they care that their wives have lives and families here. I know damned well that you had nothing to do with teaching them that.”
To her surprise, he gave her a short grin before he dropped into the chair opposite her. “Aye. Just as I had naught to do with them learning to dance or read Sassenach poetry or learn French and Latin.” He patted the arms of the chair. “I smell whisky. I could use a glass.”
With a sigh, she pulled the bottle and glass back out of the drawer and slid them across the desk to him. “Are you trying to tell me, in your usual maddening way, that you raised three refined gentlemen who care about the opinions and feelings of others?”
“Ye tell me,bean na bainnse moàlainn.”
She remembered that phrase.My beautiful bride. He could be charming, but she’d thought herself long past falling for his brogue and confident manner. And yet… her heart still beat faster when he spoke in Scots Gaelic, when he called her by any of the silly pet names he’d had for her.
Francesca squared her shoulders. “Are you here to talk some sense into Coll, or not?” she finally asked.
“Did ye nae see the same thing I did, lass?”
“Do younotsee that everything in a marriage would benefit her, and not him?”
“It would secure Aldriss Park’s funding. That’s someaught. And ye’re the one who settled that on his shoulders.”
Yes, she had done that to all three of them. And ithadbrought them back into her life, and two of them had no regrets about the results. Aden and Niall had found love, and both were happy—amazingly so. And in that love, they’d found some space for her as well, whether they considered her to have earned it or not.
She couldn’t make the same claim where Coll was concerned. At least half of it was his fault; from the beginning, he’d seemed determined not to be ruled by an agreement he hadn’t even known about until a week before they’d arrived in London. And equally determined not to allow her to dictate the terms of his life.
Was it enough that she had three of her four children? If she released Coll from the agreement, he wouldn’t be obligated to marry. He wouldn’t feel obligated to marry Persephone Jones, in other words, and while she might never see him again, hewouldhave the opportunity to find a woman he truly loved, rather than one he thought would most offend his mother.
