Page 20 of Rogue with a Brogue
Instead of Ranulf, however, the familiar face waiting for him in the foyer belonged to his sister, Rowena. “There you are,” she said with a merry smile, still burying her lovely Highlands brogue beneath the passing fair southern England accent she’d picked up from the Hanover sisters.
“Didnae Owen tell ye I was oot at luncheon?” he returned, kissing her on the cheek and using every ounce of willpower he possessed not to look into the neighboring room for Jane Hanover. “What brings ye here, Winnie?”
“You do.” She hugged his arm, pulling him into the morning room.
Arran held his breath until he could verify that she hadn’t brought anyone else with her. When she seated herself primly on the couch, he settled down beside her. Before she’d fled Glengask for a London Season, the youngest MacLawry sibling had confided in him frequently. Even with the chaos of the past weeks, he’d missed that.
“Well, here I am,” he drawled. “What’s in yer heart,piuthar?”
Her shoulders rose and fell with the deep breath she took. “Firstly, why don’t you like Jane? She adores you, and if you married her, we would be sisters.”
“Ye’re supposed to ease yer way into a question like that, ye know,” he said with a short smile. “A bit of ‘how was yer day’ and ‘isnae the weather fine today’ first.”
She grimaced. “Not with you, I’m not. Answer the question.”
“As ye wish, then. Idolike Jane Hanover. She seems a fine, friendly lass, and she talked her family into taking ye in when ye ran from Glengask and appeared on their doorstep.”
“That was Charlotte, actually, but go on.”
Had it been? Ranulf’s betrothed? That was interesting. “I thought ye didnae know Charlotte before ye arrived.”
“I didn’t. I never corresponded with her. But she was so nice, and then when Ran burst in to drag me home she walked right up to him, put her hands on her hips, and told him no.”
“And they fell in love because she argued with him?”
“I think that’s part of it,” she returned, “but you’d have to ask Ranulf. I’m talking about you and Jane, though.”
“Lass, completely aside from clan politics ye ken I cannae marry yer friend just because it’d be fun fer ye to call her sister, I hope. Ye’ll have Charlotte fer that.”
Her face fell. “But she’s pretty!”
“Aye, she is. She’s also nae but eighteen.”
“I’m nae but eighteen. Ranulf wants me to marry stupid Lachlan, so eighteen is nae—not—too young.”
So Lachlan had in a few short weeks gone from being her knight in shining armor to being stupid. He was going to have to tell Ranulf about that—if they were still speaking. But perhaps Lachlan MacTier could be of some help, after all.
“Winnie, do ye recall how Lachlan reacted to ye tagging aboot after him everywhere? And sighing and making doe eyes?”
“I did not—”
“He ran the other way as fast as his wee legs would carry him.”
“Lachlan does not have wee legs. He’s as tall as you are, Arran.”
Arran grinned. “So ye do still like him.”
Sending him an annoyed look, she rose to pace from the couch to the fireplace and back again, while he wished someone could have this same chat with him about Mary and remind him why he needed to stop tempting fate as he was. That would entail telling someone about her, though, and he knew better than that.
“I don’t like Lachlan,” Rowena retorted belatedly. “He hasn’t even bothered to write me a letter since I left the Highlands. I was merely stating the fact that he was tall.”
She paused at the mantel to run her finger along the spine of a porcelain dog there. Arran didn’t know where it had come from—but then Ranulf had purchased the house fully furnished so he wouldn’t have to go to the trouble of searching out English knickknacks. Personally Arran would rather have looked at bare walls and empty shelves, but then he wasn’t trying to become a Sasannach.
“Ye see my point, though,” he continued. “Jane’s been chasing me like I’m the last rabbit in winter. She’s too young, too agreeable, and too naïve. And I think ye know we’d both be miserable together, even if Ranulf hadnae decided we need the Stewarts aboot to keep his Charlotte safe.”
She sighed. “Yes, I suppose so. It still would have been fun.”
“Nae fer me. Or fer her, after she realized I’m nae as nice as she thinks.” As he spoke, it was another young lady’s face who entered his thoughts, and it wasn’t that of his nearly betrothed. He barely knew Mary. And if a MacLawry ever married a Campbell, the earth would crack open and swallow the Highlands. That was the legend, anyway.
