Bridegroom Wore Plaid (21 page)

By the time they got there, Augusta had stored up an encouragingly fulsome vocabulary of Ian’s muttered Gaelic curses. It might take her days to puzzle out translations for them all, and the rest of her life to come to terms with what she and Ian were never going to have a chance to share again.

***

“I will not ruin ye. We’ve had this discussion, and ye’ll not sway me to yer schemes!”

Gil kept his voice down with effort, but the urge to scream, punch something, break small objects of great value, or run like hell made it difficult.

“And I will not marry your titled brother,” Genie hissed. She glanced around, and Gil honestly didn’t know if she wanted someone to come upon them in the library or if she had a shred of sense left to dread that possibility.

“I locked the door, Genie. If we’re to have a proper argument, we can’t be disturbed.”

She looked startled, then a calculating gleam came into her eyes.

Gil took a step back while she advanced on him. “You have to talk to Ian, lass. Whatever bee you’ve got under your bonnet, he’s to be your husband, and he’s the man to take on your troubles.”

“No titled
man
hand-selected by my
father
will take on my
troubles
.” She advanced another two steps; he retreated two and a half.

“You say that like men are worse than offal.” And yet, Genie Daniels wanted to be intimate with a man, one man in particular—
him
, may God have mercy on his soul. Though maybe she didn’t want him in her bed. Maybe she just wanted him to compromise her with some silly kiss, but the girl needed to understand even kisses could be risky.

“Some men are worse than offal,” she said, her voice low and taut with anger. “Maybe just a few men. A few is enough.” Her expression became determined. “But not you.”

“And not Ian!”

She pounced, fusing her mouth to his in an inept mashing of teeth, lips, and will. Gil was too shocked to bodily shove her aside, and then her arms were around him, clinging desperately while she murmured, “Oh, please… Please…” against his mouth.

“For the love of…” His hand came up to cradle the back of her head; his fingers plunged into silky blond hair without his willing it. He drew back his head a half inch.

“Not like that, lass. Ye’ve got it all wrong.” Holding her still, he brushed his lips across hers, once, twice. “Ease into it, steal into it. Like moonrise and summer breezes.”

He settled his mouth on hers gently, introducing her to the taste of him, the soft, teasing feel of a kiss meant to convey respect and tenderness along with a generous helping of desire. His mouth pled with her to understand, to consider the possibility that kissing could be lovely beyond description.

She held still for him. That alone was enough to tell him she was
considering
. Her lips parted on a sigh, and he offered her his tongue, seaming her lips as further evidence that kissing was the farthest thing from the plundering she’d initiated.

For long, sweet moments he coaxed her into relaxing, into pondering what a kiss could be, and then he touched his tongue to hers. She startled at the contact. She clung to him so tightly he could feel surprise go through her then drain away into a languor that made him want to…

Good
God.

He was gentleman enough—and aroused enough—not to tear his mouth away and stomp off. Maybe he was besotted enough.

No. Not besotted.
This was Ian’s intended. An innocent young lady who knew a great deal less about getting herself ruined than she thought she did. Gil laid his cheek against her temple and let his embrace loosen.

She didn’t step back. She merely shifted to rest her forehead against his chest. “Do all Scotsmen kiss that well?”

“Yes.” National pride demanded he be honest, but now in addition to wanting to scream and throw things, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Ian’s had more practice than any of us, so his kisses will be even better. You need to take your concerns to him, Genie. I won’t tell you again.”

And still, she made no move to leave his embrace. Maybe she was so innocent—so ignorant—she couldn’t feel the nascent erection rising against her belly. Maybe she was as aroused as he—

He stepped back. “You can’t go around kissing fellows willy-nilly, lass. You’ll get more than you bargain for, and a great deal less.”

The look she shot him was brokenhearted, angry, and hopeless. “I know what I’ll get, Gilgallon, and I know it would be substantially better than the marital bargain my parents are determined to strike for me.”

She thought she knew, anyway. Scottish girls grew up early. Gil wasn’t sure spoiled English girls grew up at all, and lingering with this one behind a locked door was the stupidest thing he’d done since…

It was the stupidest thing he had done,
ever
.

“Talk to Ian. If you’re truly averse to marriage, he won’t force it.”

“Yes, he will. Papa investigated your finances thoroughly. I’m a fatted calf, and I’m going to be slaughtered on the altar of your brother’s ambitions.”

He’d never heard such bitterness in a woman’s voice, but her myopic view of the situation was the outside of too much.

“Has it ever occurred to you, Eugenia Daniels, that my poor brother is the one being slaughtered on the altar of
your
family’s ambitions?”

Her chin jutted. “A man can’t be forced to the altar.”

“A man who holds himself responsible for the well-being of his clan—what remains of it—can. A man loyal to his family, a man who sees no other options.”

“The clan chiefs no longer have any authority.”

This was a schoolgirl’s recitation of history according to the English, and arguing with her over it would keep Gil from kissing the pout off her pretty face.

“The English are the ones with no authority. Oh, they make laws, they make pronouncements, they send their regiments all over the world to pillage and destroy, but an army is nothing compared to the love and loyalty of a Scotsman for his family. I bid you good day, and I advise you once again to speak honestly with my brother.”

She gave him a measuring, purely female look. A look that made Gil think of things far beyond kissing.

“That was not the kiss of a loyal, loving brother, Gilgallon MacGregor.”

He cursed long and fluently in Gaelic, then departed, making very sure he did not slam the library door.

***

Honor was a burdensome thing. It invariably shouted at a man to march off this-a-way when the man’s common sense, instincts, and heartfelt preferences were begging him to trot out smartly that-a-way.

Ian struggled with this paradox for the hundredth time as he sat at his desk, knowing he’d been a negligent host for dodging the evening’s postprandial gathering around the decanters.

He did not want to face Daniels the Younger, not when the poor sod was likely reeling from having been caught in Mary Fran’s feminine gun sights at close range. Mary Fran was hard on her followers, showed them no mercy in either the pursuit phase or the rejection phase of the goings-on. What came between was something a conscientious and well-intended brother did not dwell on.

Fortunately Daniels was a soldier, a man inured to suffering in silence. By the time he boarded the train for southern climes, he might have regained his dignity if not his masculine self-confidence.

Daniels the Elder was no more attractive company. Ian had a strong suspicion one of the scullery maids was allowing the baron to trifle with her, which created an uneasy ambivalence in Ian’s gut. A laird of old would have either given the girl to the baron for his amusement outright or forbidden the girl to share her favors. In either case, the baron as a guest, the girl as a menial in the laird’s household, and the entire household as a family and clan would have known where authority and responsibility for the decision lay.

But now… Who was Ian to deny a lowly maid the dubious pleasure or paltry coin resulting from the baron’s attentions? Yesterday, Ian might have taken the girl to task—Ian would be the one left paying for the resulting child’s every need, after all—but after the morning’s outing with Augusta, certainty in any moral realm eluded him.

He let his thoughts circle back to her with a sense of inevitability.

He was going to court Augusta’s cousin—if the blighted woman ever allowed him a start in that direction—and exhibiting interest in another woman while he did was not… honorable—or smart.

It wasn’t quite dishonorable, either, though not in these enlightened, bedamned times. Many a man considered the only obligation owed his womenfolk was to keep the decent ones ignorant of and distant from the other variety.

The more interesting variety. The fascinating variety.

The
available
variety, among whom Augusta Merrick did not and could not number.

Ian stared at the documents before him, so many writs of execution for his remaining chances of happiness. He knew that now in ways he hadn’t even twenty-four hours earlier.

And that would have been tolerable, except he was certain marriage to him would make Genie Daniels utterly miserable, and Augusta Merrick… Violet-blue eyes soft with sated passion flashed into Ian’s mind along with the scents of heather, lilacs, and impending rain.

“Bloody, bleeding damn…”

The library door clicked softly shut in exact synchrony with Ian’s curse.

“Damn who or what?” Gil stood there, his smile sardonic.

“Life in general. Apologies for leaving you to play host.”

Gil sauntered over to the desk and propped a hip on one corner. “How was your outing with Miss Augusta?”

Fraternal concern, this was
not
. Ian pulled his spectacles off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Why do you ask?”

“When you got back to the house, you had dirt in your hair, Ian. I do not profess to be a student of the more arcane erotic arts, but dirt in your hair? One doesn’t get good Scottish soil in one’s hair striding about the tor and admiring the views.”

No, one did not, and damn all little brothers who’d notice such a thing.

“There was a little rockslide, a few boulders bouncing down the hill. We were unharmed, though a few feet in either direction, and the outcome might have been different.”

Gil’s brows drew down. “A rockslide? This time of year?”

“I haven’t gone up there in so long I hardly know how frequent they are. In any event, we did admire the countryside, and we did stride about the tor. The lady has decided opinions.” On many topics, and not the opinions Ian might have ascribed to her before he’d taken that hike with her.

“Miss Augusta? The one who lets Fee drag her around by the hand all day?”

“I believe she might be fond of children.”

“The maiden ladies often are.” Gil’s gaze fell on the documents spread around on the desk. “You’re burning midnight oil on the settlements?”

“Unless I’m to line the coffers of the bloodsucking toadies in Aberdeen, it falls to me to draft the documents.” An exercise that combined penance with futility. “I’d appreciate it if you and Con would have a look as well.”

“What’s this?” Gil squinted at the page in his hand and moved closer to the branch of candles at Ian’s elbow. “‘By signature below, it is warranted that Eugenia Daniels will be marrying a son of the house of MacGregor who is in expectation of a title.’ Why not just say she’s marrying you, and you’re Balfour?”

Ian settled back in his chair, prepared to use Gil for a legal sounding board. Gil wasn’t one for documents and heavy tomes, but he was a shrewd tactician able to see a situation from many perspectives at once.

“I have two reasons for the more vague language: First, I am not quite Balfour yet, am I? Asher hasn’t been declared legally dead as far as Altsax knows, so the only title I hold beyond dispute is Viscount Deesely.”

“Which is a title.” Gil set the page down. “The baron didn’t specify that you’re to be holding
the
title? He’ll settle for the courtesy title?”

“I honestly don’t think the man smart enough to consider the difference. His darling Genie will be called Lady regardless, and she’ll be able to swan around Balfour House when Her Majesty and His Highness are in residence across the glen. Then too, Asher might reappear, and I don’t want him obligated to marry the woman.”

“Asher’s dead, Ian, and even if he weren’t, having to wed into the Daniels family would be no less than he deserves for leaving us to wonder all these years.”

Gil moved off to stand by the windows, his back to Ian.

“You’d do that to Genie?” Ian asked, rising and going to stand beside his brother. “Bad enough she’ll have to marry me, whom she can at least look over and start to fashion into some semblance of a husband she can tolerate. To betroth her to a ghost or a stranger hardly seems like a kindness.”