Page 20 of To Defy a Highland Duke
Nonetheless, Keane had all he could manage with his two lovely, headstrong, and—he feared—on the verge of rebellion wards. There wasn’t room or time in his ordered life, or his restructuring of the dukedom, for a wife.
At once his thoughts sobered, and his gaze instinctively roamed the milling crowd for Lady Constance. He found her near a refreshment table, a moue on her mouth as she frowned her displeasure at him.
God’s balls.
Was she the jealous type?
He’d be bound she was.
Should he warn Marjorie?
About what?
By-the-by, Marjorie, there’s a woman here with designs on the duchy. She mightn’t like the regard I’m showin’ ye. Ye best watch yerself. I have nae intention of marryin’ either of ye, however.
By the by, do ye ken how to use a dirk?
Marjorie might well laugh in his face. Odd that marriage to her didn’t seem quite as horrific as he’d always viewed the institution.
What am I thinkin’? She has two daughters.
He’d practically raised two lasses already. Branwen and Bethea were nigh onto driving him to the brink of madness with their not-so-subtle attempts to manipulate him into expanding their social calendars and hinting that they wanted to wed.
Why did women wish to marry so badly?
His wards had everything they could possibly want here at Trentwick.
Truly? his conscience mocked.
Friends? Beaus? Entertainment? Outin’s? Balls?
Yes, tonight was essentially a ball, wasn’t it?
Not to Society’s standards, but since when did he give a donkey’s neigh about any of that pretentious rot? Mayhap since he’d decided to restore the duchy’s honor.
Aye, now that he pondered it, perchance a broader social circle for his wards mightn’t be such a bad thing.
Och, aye, it would be bad—godawful, in point of fact—but he could utilize their introduction to Society as a means to reestablish the dukedom’s good name and status with influential peers.
“Why, you’re not a cold-hearted brute at all.”
Marjorie’s exclamation from earlier filtered back to him.
She’d thought him a brute?
He supposed he deserved that assessment. He had behaved rather brutishly.
What to do about the delectable woman on his arm?
He glanced down, taking in the lustrous copper head that just reached his shoulder. Marjorie neither wore a wig nor powdered her hair. Two absurd fashions he eschewed as well. In that, they were alike. In a very short time, he’d discovered much to admire and appreciate about Marjorie Kennedy.
And not fifteen minutes ago, he’d heard Lady Kilpatrick remarking to a pair of her cronies as the tower of feathers topping her wig jiggled with her animation that, apparently, he’d staked a claim on the Kennedy widow. Ballocks. He’d done no such thing. He’d merely warned opportunistic Scots away from her.
That was all.
Why did men always assume a widow was eager for their sexual attention?
His blood boiled again, and a crease appeared between Marjorie’s luminous brown eyes as they took their places for the set. “Keane? Is something amiss?”
