One Little Sin (33 page)

He flashed his most charming grin. “Oh, it won’t take much,” he answered. “Especially if you mean to do it wantonly.” Suddenly, the grin fell. “I just…well, I just hope Quin will not hate me.”

“Oh, I think Quin has other fish to fry,” she murmured. “Indeed, he barely noticed my leaving.”

“The devil!” said Alasdair. “I don’t believe you.”

Esmée gave him a sly smile. “Oh, you may well believe it,” she said, snapping open the paper. “But that, I daresay, is another tale for another time. Now, as to this paper—what really got my attention was
this.”

“Ho!” he said, following her finger down the page. “Well, I’ll be damned! I never got that far before dashing off to your aunt’s house. I’m glad to see Wheeler did the right thing by Julia. That will save me a dawn appointment.”

Impatiently, Esmée tapped on the announcement. “Alasdair, why did you not tell me Henrietta Wheeler was Mr. Wheeler’s
sister?”

He looked at her blankly. “Why should I?” he answered. “I scarcely know the woman. What difference does it make?”

Esmée lifted one shoulder. “Oh, never mind!” she said. “So Mr. Wheeler is the father of Mrs. Crosby’s child?”

“So Julia says,” answered Alasdair. “What, are you still trying to pack that off on me?”

Esmée shook her head. “I guess I did not believe you.”

Alasdair scowled at her darkly, then just as suddenly, his face fell again. “Well, the truth is…oh, Esmée, the ugly truth is, it just as easily could have been mine,” he said. “I take no pride in saying it, either. But it
isn’t
, and I told you so. Now Julia is Mrs. Edward Wheeler, and I wish them both very happy.”

Esmée felt a little nonplussed. “Well, that was simple enough,” she said. “So tell me this, Alasdair—what’s in that box?”

Alasdair dropped his gaze, his dark lashes fanning across his cheeks. “Something I bought for you long ago,” he said. “Before your aunt came and turned my life upside down.”

“Before
my aunt came?” she echoed. “How intriguing! Am I to have it now?”

“No,” he said, picking up the box and giving her just a peek of what was inside—the flawless sapphire-and-diamond ring which had set him back a bloody fortune so many weeks ago.

Her eyes widened at the sight.
“No—?”

“No.” He snapped the box shut. “First you must agree to marry me and help me raise Sorcha and the other nine children we are going to have.”

“Must I?” she asked, reaching for the box. “But why nine?”

Alasdair slid the box behind his back. “To fill up all those empty chairs in the schoolroom,” he confessed. “A good Scot would never let them go to waste, now, would he?”

Esmée drew back and frowned. “That’s just what I thought when you bought them,” she said. “But surely you…you did not plan…? ”

“Oh, I’ve never planned a thing in my life!” he returned. “But Granny MacGregor says the mind works in mysterious ways.”

Esmée reached behind him and snatched the ring. “Oh, Alasdair, I am not marrying you for your mind,” she said, distracted by opening the box. “And certainly not for your granny’s old adages. But this ring—! Oh, my love! Now,
that
is another thing altogether! For this, why, I would almost—
almost
—marry your uncle Angus.”

With a muttered oath, Alasdair pushed her back onto the sofa and dragged his body half over hers. “Oh, no, my little Highland lass,” he said in a mocking burr. “’Tis MacLachlan or no one for you. I’ll not take a chance on losing you to another man ever again.”

Esmée looked up from beneath her half-lowered lashes. “Will you not, then?” she asked, rubbing her thigh suggestively against his—and to quite good effect.

“No, not in a thousand years,” he vowed. “Or a thousand years after that.”

A slow, satisfied grin spread over Esmée’s face. “Then get up and bolt that door, MacLachlan,” she whispered, lowering her lashes fully. “You’ve got nine empty chairs left—and you’ve wasted far too much time already.”