Her Highland Fling (12 page)

She tilted her head. “Why d-do you think, you thick-witted Highlander? I’ve missed you. And you
did
tell me I could return, whenever I wanted.”

H
e looked confused, poor thing. Absolutely brained by it all.

This time, though, she couldn’t blame him for his confusion.

It had been two months since he had seen her, two months where he’d been largely oblivious to the degree of misery that had consumed her. All he knew was that she’d left, returned to London alone. He had no way of knowing she’d done so not only because of the commitment she’d made to the paper, but because the moments she’d spent in his arms hadn’t seemed quite real.

But most of all, she had left because as tempted as she’d been by his offer, she couldn’t see herself being so selfish as to take MacKenzie away from the townspeople who needed him.

But it
had
been real. Perhaps the most real thing she’d ever had.

Far more real than London, fairy creatures included. The city’s streets had seemed sour after the wholesomeness of Moraig’s dusty thoroughfares, and the smog-choked skies smothered the life out of every star that dared to shine. Nor could she bear to write to him and explain these things, when her words—the only thing she might conceivably count as a talent—seemed to dry up on the paper.

She’d felt hollow inside. Trapped. Lost.

Until Caroline—bless her sisterly heart—had written of MacKenzie’s own misery, suggesting that perhaps she had left a piece of her heart behind in Moraig.

It may have taken her two months to understand the emotion, but there was no hesitancy now. He’d given her the time and space she had asked for—things she now knew had come at his own personal cost. A generous man was William MacKenzie. So concerned with the welfare of others he would sacrifice himself.

How could she not have seen it from the start?

She traced the hollows beneath his eyes, vowing to make them disappear.

“I love you, MacKenzie.” She smiled, knowing she would never again falter over those words because they came from her heart, not her throat.

“You dinna ken how much I have wanted to hear you say that.” A slow, spreading smile claimed his face. “Well.
Most
of that.” His voice lowered. “If you are going to be here awhile, do you think you might at least call me
William
, lass?”

She choked on her laugh. “P-probably not. A man would have to marry a woman to earn that privilege I think.”

He stepped toward her. “Are you proposing to me, Miss Tolbertson?”

Anticipation bunched in her chest. She lifted her chin to look up the impossible length of him. “Are you accepting my p-proposal, MacKenzie?”

Brown eyes glittered down at her. “You don’t do anything the traditional way, do you?”

She only smiled. Serenely, she hoped.

He dropped to his bare knees in the dust of Main Street, and suddenly she found herself in the astonishing position of looking down on him. McRory and Jeffers began to slap each other on the back, as though their happiness belonged to everyone. From across the street, she could hear excited whoops and whistles, sounds that echoed the cacophony in her own heart.

“Careful of those bare knees, MacKenzie!” came a disembodied voice.

“Have a care, you dinna want to show her your arse!”

He ignored the taunts of the townspeople and looked up at her, his eyes warm on her skin. “Will you marry me, Pen?”

“Yes,” she said and then giggled at how simple the word was to say, after all this time.
“William.”

And then she was in his arms, knocking them both off balance. They tumbled into the dirt and grit, not even caring about their audience. Because the cheer that erupted behind her told her they approved of whatever it was they were seeing beneath MacKenzie’s plaid.

And then her mouth found his, and she was sliding into a kiss that felt like coming home. “I missed you,” she murmured against his lips. “More than I’d thought p-possible.”

“You don’t have to miss me anymore. It doesn’t matter where we live, as long as we are together, aye?”

“Aye,” she sighed in pleasure and kissed him again.

Keep reading for a special sneak peek at

DIARY OF AN ACCIDENTAL WALLFLOWER
,

the first book in Jennifer McQuiston’s anticipated new series!

Pretty and popular, Miss Clare Westmore knows exactly what (or rather, who) she wants: the next Duke of Harrington. But when she twists her ankle on the eve of the Season’s most touted event, Clare is left standing in the wallflower line watching her best friend dance away with her duke.

Dr. Daniel Merial is tempted to deliver more than a diagnosis to London’s most unlikely wallflower, but he doesn’t have time for distractions, even one so delectable. Besides, she’s clearly got her sights on more promising prey. So why can’t he stop thinking about her?

All Clare wants to do is return to the dance floor. But as her former friends try to knock her permanently out of place, she realizes with horror she is falling for her doctor instead of her duke. When her ankle finally heals and she faces her old life again, will she throw herself back into the game?

Or will her time in the wallflower line have given her a glimpse of who she was really meant to be?

COMING FEBRUARY 2015

A Sneak Peek at

DIARY OF AN ACCIDENTAL WALLFLOWER

C
HAPTER
O
NE

M
iss Clare Westmore wasn’t the only young woman to fall head over heels for Mr. Charles Alban, the newly named heir to the Duke of Harrington.

Though, she was probably the only one to fall quite so literally.

He appeared out of nowhere, broad shouldered and perfect, trotting his horse down one of the winding paths near the Serpentine. His timing was dreadful. For one, it was three o’clock on a Friday afternoon, hardly a fashionable hour for anyone to be in Hyde Park. For another, she’d come down to the water with her siblings in tow, and the ducks and geese they’d come to feed were already rushing toward them like a great, screeching mob.

Her sister, Lucy, poked an elbow into her ribs. “Isn’t that your duke?”

Clare’s heart galloped well into her throat as the sound of hoofbeats grew closer. What was Mr. Alban
doing
here? Riders tended to contain themselves to Rotten Row, not this inauspicious path near the water. If he saw her now, it would be an unmitigated disaster. She was wearing last Season’s walking habit—fashionable enough for the ducks, but scarcely the modish image she wished to project to the man who could well be her future husband. Worst of all, she was with Lucy, who brushed her hair approximately once a week, and Geoffrey, who ought to have been finishing his first year at Eton but who had been expelled just last week for something more than the usual youthful hijinks.

Clare froze in the center of the milling mass of birds, trying to decide if it would be wiser to lift her skirts and run or step behind the cover of a nearby rhododendron bush. One of the geese took advantage of her indecision, and its beak jabbed at her calf through layers of silk and cotton. Before she knew what was happening—or could even gather her wits into something resembling a plan—her thin-soled slipper twisted out from under her, and she pitched over onto the ground with an unladylike
oomph
. She lay there, momentarily stunned.

Well then
. The rhododendron it was.

She tucked her head and rolled into the shadow of the bush, ignoring low-hanging branches that reached out for her. The ducks, being intelligent fowl, followed along. They seized the crumpled bag of bread still clutched in her hand and began gulping down its contents. The geese—being, of course, quite the opposite of ducks—shrieked in protest and flapped their wings, stirring up eddies of down and dust.

Clare tucked deeper into the protection of the bush, straining to hear over the avian onslaught. Had she been seen? She didn’t think so. Then again, her instincts had also told her no one of importance would be on this path in Hyde Park at three o’clock on a Friday afternoon, and look how well those thoughts had served.

“Oh, what fun!” Lucy laughed, every bit as loud as the geese. “Are you playing the damsel in distress?”

“Perhaps she is studying the mating habits of waterfowl,” quipped Geoffrey, whose mind always seemed to be on the mating habits of
something
these days. He tossed a forelock full of blond hair out of his eyes as he offered her a hand, but Clare shook her head. She didn’t trust her brother a wit. At thirteen years old and five and a half feet, he was as tall as some grown men, but he retained an adolescent streak of mischief as wide as the Serpentine itself.

He was as likely to toss her into Alban’s path as help her escape.

Lucy cocked her head. Wisps of tangled blond hair rimmed her face like dandelion fluff and made her appear far younger than her seventeen years, though her tall frame and evident curves left no doubt that she was old enough to show more care with her appearance. “Shall I call Mr. Alban over to request his assistance then?” she asked, none too innocently.

“Shhhh,” Clare hissed. Because the only thing worse than meeting the future Duke of Harrington while dressed in last year’s walking habit was meeting him while wallowing in the dirt. Oh, but she should never have worn such inappropriate shoes to go walking in Hyde Park. Then again, such hindsight came close to philosophical brilliance when offered up from the unforgiving ground.

She held her breath until the sound of hoofbeats began to recede into the distance. Dimly, she realized something hurt. In fact, something hurt dreadfully. But she couldn’t quite put her finger on the source when her mind was spinning in the more pertinent directions.

“Why are you hiding from Mr. Alban?” Lucy asked pointedly.

“I am not hiding.” Clare struggled to a sitting position and blew a wayward brown curl from her eyes. “I am . . . er . . . feeding the ducks.”

Geoffrey laughed. “Unless I am mistaken, the ducks have just fed themselves, and that pair over there had a jolly good tup while the rest of them were tussling over the scraps. You should have invited your duke to join us.”

“He’s not yet a duke,” Clare corrected crossly. Much less
her
duke.

But oh, how she wanted him to be.

“Pity to let him go by without saying anything. You could have shown him your overhanded throw, the one you use for Cook’s oldest biscuits.” Geoffrey pantomimed a great, arching throw out into the lake. “
That
would impress him, I’m sure.”

The horror of such a scene—and such a brother—made Clare’s heart thump in her chest. To be fair, feeding the ducks was something of a family tradition, a ritual born during a time when she hadn’t cared whether she was wearing last year’s frock. These days, with their house locked in a cold, stilted silence and their parents nearly estranged, they retreated here almost every day. And she
could
throw Cook’s biscuits farther than either Lucy or Geoffrey, who took after their father in both coloring and clumsiness. It was almost as if they had been cut from a different bolt of cloth, coarse wool to Clare’s smooth velvet.

But these were not facts one ought to share with a future duke—particularly when that future duke was the gentleman you hoped would offer a proposal tonight. No, better to wait and greet Mr. Alban properly this evening at Lady Austerley’s annual ball, when Lucy and Geoffrey were stashed safely at home and she would be dressed in tulle and diamonds.

“I don’t understand.” Lucy stretched out her hand, and this time Clare took it. “Why wouldn’t you wish to greet him? He came to call yesterday, after all, and I was given the impression you liked him very much.”

Clare pulled herself to standing and winced as a fresh bolt of pain snatched the breath from her lungs. “How do you know about that?” she panted. “I didn’t tell anyone.” In fact, she’d cajoled their butler, Wilson, to silence. It was imperative word of the visit be kept from their mother, who—if last Season’s experience with potential suitors was any indication—would have immediately launched a campaign to put Waterloo to shame.

“I know because I spied on you from the tree outside the picture window.” Lucy shrugged. “And didn’t you say that he asked you to dance last week?”

“Yes,” Clare agreed between gritted teeth. Mr. Alban
had
asked her to dance last week, a breathless waltz that had sent the room spinning and held all eyes upon them. It was the third waltz they had shared since the start of the Season—though not all on the same night, more’s the pity. But the glory of that dance paled in comparison to the dread exacted by Lucy’s confession.

Had her sister really hung apelike from a limb and leered at the man through the window? Except . . . hadn’t Alban sat with his back to the window?

She breathed a sigh of relief. Yes, she was almost sure of it.

He’d spent the entire quarter hour with his gaze firmly anchored on her face, their conversation easy. But despite the levity of their exchange, he’d seemed cautious, as though he were hovering on the edge of some question that never materialized but that she fervently wished he’d just
hurry up and ask
.

Given his unswerving focus, there was no way he would have seen her clumsy heathen of a sister swinging through the branches, though she shuddered to think that Lucy could have easily lost her balance and come crashing through the window in a shower of broken glass and curse words. But thankfully, nothing of the sort had happened. No awkward siblings had intruded on the flushed pleasure of the moment. Her mother had remained oblivious, distracted by her increasing irritation with their father and her shopping on Bond Street.

And to Clare’s mind, Mr. Alban had all but declared his intentions out loud.

Tonight
, she thought fiercely. Tonight would be the night when he asked for more than just a dance. And that was why it was very important for her to tread carefully, until he was so irrevocably smitten she could risk the introduction of her family.