One Hot Scot (9 page)
“Thank you, my lady.”
By the time she’d made her way the short distance from the sitting room to the foyer, the rapping had turned to pounding. “For heaven’s sake,” she muttered, and pulled open the door. “What is so ur…” Charlotte began, then nearly swallowed her tongue.
A wall stood on the front portico. Well, perhaps he wasn’t as wide as a wall, though his shoulders were certainly broad. But he towered over her by a good ten inches, and most of her fellows considered her tall. As all of that rattled nonsensically through her brain, though, what she most noticed were the blue, blue eyes currently glaring icily down his straight, perfectly carved nose at her.
“I’m here for Rowena MacLawry,” he said without preamble, rich Highland Scot in his voice.
Charlotte blinked. Winnie, as Rowena had asked them to call her, had arrived less than an hour ago, taking a hack from the coaching inn. As far as she knew, no one else was aware of their visitor’s presence in London. No one but Rowena’s family, that was. They, however, remained in Scotland—so far as she knew.
“I didnae come all this way to be gaped at,” the mountain stated into the short silence. “Rowena MacLawry. Now.”
“I was not gaping at you, sir,” Charlotte retorted, though she was quite aware that she didn’t seem to be able to look away from that fierce, stunning countenance. It was if a black-haired god of war had simply … appeared on her doorstep. “Most visitors come to the door with a calling card, or at least with a word or two of polite greeting and introduction before they expect to be allowed past the foyer.”
His eyes narrowed. It wasn’t ice she saw in that deep blue, Charlotte realized, but something much more heated and angry. “I’m nae a visitor,” he said, steel beneath the soft lilt. “And if the English think a wee lass barring the door is enough to keep me from what’s mine, they’re madder than I recall.”
His?
This was becoming very strange, indeed. And there was no blasted need to be insulting. “I am not a wee anyth—”
He stepped forward. Putting his large hands around her waist, he lifted her off her feet only to set her down behind him on the portico—all before she could do anything more than take a gasping breath. By then he was well inside Hanover House.
“Rowena!” he bellowed, striding down the hallway.
Charlotte settled her skirts and charged after him. “Stop that yelling at once!” she ordered.
For all the attention he paid her stalking behind him, she might as well have been an insect. “Rowena! I’ll see yer arse here before me, or I’ll knock this house down around yer blasted ears!”
Longfellow and a trio of footmen dashed out of the sitting room. The big Scot pushed them aside as if they were no more than bowling pins. He shoved into the room they’d exited, Charlotte on his booted heels. Given the physical … presence he radiated, she expected to see Lady Rowena cowering behind a chair. Instead, however, the petite young lady stood in the middle of the room, her color high and her hands on her hips.
“What the devil are ye doing here, Ranulf?” she demanded.
“The coach is outside. Ye have one minute to be inside it.”
“Ran, y—”
“Fifty-five seconds.”
Rowena seemed to deflate. As she lowered her head, a tear ran down one cheek. “My things?” she quavered.
“What … what is the meaning of this, and who the devil are you, sir?” Lord Hest demanded.
The dark-haired head swiveled to pin the earl with a glare. The devil, indeed. “Glengask.” He returned his attention to Rowena. “Go get Mitchell and yer things. If ye run in the meantime, we’ll return to Glengask by way of St. Mary’s, where I’ll leave ye off. A decade or so with nuns should cool yer heels.”
Another tear joined the first. “Ye’re a beast, Ranulf MacLawry,” Winnie whispered, and fled past him and Charlotte out of the room.
“Glengask. Lady Rowena’s brother?” her sister, Jane, said in a thready voice. “The marquis?”
“Aye,” he returned, his tone still clipped and angry.
“It was our understanding that you sent Lady Rowena to us for her Season,” Charlotte’s father stated. From his tight expression he was furious, and that didn’t surprise her at all. People—much less bellowing blue-eyed devil Scotsmen—did not barge into proper households such as theirs unannounced. Ever.
“Because ye wouldnae think twice over sending a young lass into a foreign land with no advance word. Or is it only a Scotsman ye’d believe would do such a mad thing?”
“She told us you’d sent her here,” Charlotte put in.
The Marquis of Glengask turned around to face her. “She told an idiot lie and ye believed it. Now get out of m’way, lass, and we’ll be away from this damned place.”
Rowena had called her brother a beast, and Charlotte saw nothing to contradict that assessment. And she did not like men who thought with their fists and large muscles. Not any more than she liked being called a lass and dismissed—twice now—as something no more significant than a flea. She squared her shoulders. “I am Lady Charlotte Hanover, and you will address me properly, sir. Furthermore, until we are assured that your sister is safe in your company, she isn’t going anywhere.”
“Charlotte!” her mother hissed.
Yes, her family would more than likely simply be relieved to have this disruption gone from the house. But this was not the way anyone remotely civilized conducted business, or anything else. She refused to look away from his gaze, though he was clearly expecting her to do so.
“Well then, Lady Charlotte,” he said succinctly, exaggerating the roll of the
R
in her name, “I don’t suppose MacLawry family business is any of yers. I ordered my sister to remain at home, and she didnae. I am therefore here to bring her back where she belongs. As I’ve clearly offended ye, I’ll be waiting outside. Happily.”
He took a step closer, lifting an artfully curved eyebrow as he did so. Obviously he was giving her the choice between stepping aside or being bodily lifted out of the way yet again. She elevated her chin to keep her gaze squarely on his. “Your sister traveled a very great distance on her own and against your wishes, then, Lord Glengask. It seems to me that she wants very badly either to be in London, or to be away from you. I do not take you for someone who is crossed lightly.”
The eyebrow dove with its twin into a scowl. “It seems to me that this is still none of yer affair.” He sent a glance at her father, who still stood in front of his chair and looked as though he’d rather be in the House of Lords discussing taxes. “Do ye allow yer women to speak for ye, then?”
Lord Hest cleared his throat. “My daughter is correct, Glengask. You’ve stormed, clearly enraged, into a proper household and continue to behave like a bedlamite and a devil. It would be irresponsible of me to release Lady Rowena into your care without knowing her feelings and without some assurance of her well-being.”
“‘Her well-being’?” Glengask repeated darkly. “How would ye respond, then, if Lady Charlotte here fled without a word and then when ye ran her down some foreign stranger refused to return her to ye?”
“Firstly, I would hope I never gave my daughter—either of my daughters—cause to flee their own home. And secondly, we are hardly foreign here. Nor are we precisely strangers, as your mother and my wife were the dearest of friends.”
“You somehow knew to come here to find Winnie,” Charlotte added, before the marquis could begin an argument over the degree of their acquaintance. The man seemed to have an argument for everything, after all. “Clearly we are not unknown to you. Nor you to us.”
“Ye’ll have to keep me locked away forever and ever.” Rowena’s unsteady voice came from directly behind Charlotte. A moment later shaking fingers gripped hers. “I only want to see London.”
“And so now ye’ve seen it.” Glengask looked from his sister to Charlotte to where their hands clutched together. “Let my sister go,” he said after a moment.
Charlotte tightened her grip. “No. You are already in London. What possible harm could there be in allowing her to remain for a time?”
“‘What possible…’” He trailed off. “I will not stand here and argue with a female over what’s best for my own family,” he finally growled.
She refused to flinch at his tone, though beside her, his sister did. “Then as I am not giving in, I assume you mean to let Winnie remain here,” she countered. Just when this young lady’s cause had become hers, she had no idea. But this mountain of a man was not going to call her a wee lass and discount her. Not even if he’d lifted her as if she weighed no more than a feather, and not even if he looked to be made of solid sinew and iron.
He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again. Charlotte allowed herself a moment of satisfaction. So the English kitten had spat at the great Scottish bear, and he didn’t know how to react. Good. And good for her.
“So this is what ye aspire to,
piuthar
?” he asked his sister a moment later, though his gaze remained disconcertingly steady on Charlotte. “To surround yerself with Sasannach who keep ye from yer own family? To hide behind mouthy lasses who decide yer battles and fight them fer ye?”
“You’re the one who’s making this a battle, Lord Glengask,” Charlotte retorted, straightening her shoulders. “And I am only ‘mouthy,’ as you call it, in the face of an overbearing bully.”
“Oh, my,” Winnie whispered almost soundlessly, her fingers tightening.
A muscle in his lean, hard jaw jumped. “A bully, am I?”
“That is certainly the impression you give. Your own sister is hiding behind a stranger rather than approach you.”
The intense blue gaze shifted immediately to his sister. “Rowena, ye know I…” He trailed off, then said a single word in Gaelic that didn’t sound at all pleasant and that made his sister draw in a stiff breath through her nose. Finally he gave a slight nod, as if to himself. “I’m nae a bully,” he finally said. “One fortnight, Rowena. Ye want to see London, then see it. I’ll take a house here, and ye’ll have yer damned debut.” He held out one hand. “Let’s go from here, then.”
“I don’t believe ye, Ranulf.”
“I give ye my word. Two weeks.”
Charlotte bit the inside of her cheek. He’d just given far more ground than she expected, and she’d likely pushed him far past where she should have, already. In addition, her parents wouldn’t thank her for what she meant to say next—but Rowena likely would. And this was for her new friend’s sake rather than for her own. “If you truly mean for your sister to have a proper Season—or a fortnight’s worth of one—then she should remain here. You’d be a bachelor household with no one to sponsor Lady Rowena or provide her with introductions. Unless you have a female relation here who’s acquainted with London Society, that is.”
“I have no female relations,” Winnie said, her fingers tightening around Charlotte’s hand again. “And everything you do will be to show me how it’s no good here. I only want to see it with my own eyes, Ran. Please.”
He blew out his breath. “By all rights I should take ye over my knee and have ye back on the road north within the hour.”
“But ye won’t.”
“But I won’t,” he repeated after a moment, his glance finding Charlotte again. “Stay here, then, if they’ll have ye. But ye’ll inform me where ye mean t’be at all times, and I’ll go about with ye when I choose.”
With a squeak Rowena released Charlotte’s hand and flung herself at her brother. He enveloped her in his muscular arms. “I agree, Ran,” she said fiercely. “Thank ye. Thank you.”
For a moment he closed his eyes, something close to relief—or sadness—briefly crossing his expression. “I’ll call on ye here in the morning. At eleven.” Setting her down, he bent to kiss her on one cheek. “Ye had me worried,
piuthar
,” he murmured, then straightened again. “Is there some nonsense ceremony aboot exiting, or may I take my leave?” he asked, pinning Charlotte again with his gaze.
She stepped aside. “Good evening, Lord Glengask.”
“Lady Charlotte.”
Only when Longfellow had shut the front door rather firmly behind him did Charlotte let out the breath she’d been holding. From the way her family swept up to her and the fast beating of her own heart, anyone would think she had just faced down the devil himself. But then she just had, really.
And he would be back in the morning.
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