Scottish Brides (26 page)

“But then what will you wear?”

“I'll be fine in a shirt.”

Impulsively, she reached out and touched his forearm, which was exposed by a rolled-up sleeve. “You're freezing. Is your other shirt made of linen? It won't be heavy enough.” When he didn't reply, she added firmly, “You cannot give me your coat. I won't accept it.”

Angus took one look down at her tiny hand on his arm and started imagining it traveling up to his shoulder, then across his chest . . .

He didn't feel cold.

“Sir Greene?” she asked softly. “Are you quite all right?”

He tore his eyes off her hand and then made the colossal mistake of looking at her eyes. Those grassy green orbs, which had, in the course of the evening, gazed upon him with fright, irritation, embarrassment, and, most recently, innocent desire, were now brimming with concern and compassion.

And it quite unmanned him.

Angus felt himself fill with an age-old male terror—as if somehow his body knew what his mind refused to consider—that she might be The One, that somehow, no matter how hard he fought, she'd be pestering him for all eternity.

And worse, that if she ever took it upon herself to stop pestering him, he might have to track her down and chain her to his side until she started up again.

Jesus, whiskey, and Robert the Bruce, it was a terrifying fate.

He tore off his shirt, furious with his reaction to her. It had started with just a hand on his arm, and the next thing he knew, he'd seen his entire life stretched out before him.

He finished dressing and stomped to the door. “I'll wait in the hall until you're ready,” he said.

She was staring at him, her body trembling with tiny shivers.

“And take off all of those damned wet clothes,” he ordered.

“I can't just wear your coat with nothing under it,” she protested.

“You can and you will. I won't be responsible for your catching a lung fever.”

He saw her shoulders straighten and her eyes fill with steel. “You can't order me about,” she retorted.

He raised a brow. “You can take off your wet shirt, or I'll do it for you. It's your choice.”

She grumbled something under her breath. Angus didn't quite hear all of the words, but the ones he
did
catch weren't terribly ladylike.

He smiled. “Someone ought to scold you for your language.”

“Someone ought to scold you for your arrogance.”

“You've been trying all night,” he pointed out.

She made an unintelligible sound, and Angus just barely managed to duck out the door before she threw another shoe at him.

 

When Margaret stuck her head out the bedroom door, Angus was nowhere to be seen. This surprised her. She hadn't known the huge Scotsman for more than a few hours, but she was fairly certain he wasn't the sort to leave a gently bred lady to fend for herself in a public inn.

She shut the door behind her quietly, not wanting to draw attention to herself, and tiptoed down the hall. She was probably safe from unwanted attention here at The Canny Man—Angus had loudly proclaimed her his wife, after all, and only a fool would provoke a man of his size. But the trials of the day had left her cautious.

In retrospect, it had probably been a foolish endeavor to trek all the way to Gretna Green by herself, but what other choice did she have? She couldn't let Edward marry one of those awful girls he'd been courting.

She reached the stairwell and peered down.

“Hungry?”

Margaret jumped about a foot and let out a short, yet quite remarkably loud, scream.

Angus grinned. ”Didn't mean to startle you.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Very well,” he admitted. “I did. But you certainly had your revenge on my ears.”

“It serves you right,” she muttered. “Hiding in the stairwell.”

“Actually,” he said, offering her his arm, “I hadn't intended to hide. I would never have left the hall, except that I thought I heard my sister's voice.”

“You did? Did you find her? Was it she?”

Angus raised a bushy black brow. “You sound rather excited about the prospect of finding someone you don't even know.”

“I know you,” she pointed out, dodging a lamp as they moved through The Canny Man's main room, “and much as you vex me, I would like to see you locate your sister.”

His lips spread into an easy grin. “Why, Miss Pennypacker, I think you might have just admitted that you like me.”

“I
said,”
she said pointedly, “that you vex me.”

“Well, of course. I do it on purpose.”

That earned him a glare.

He leaned forward and chucked her chin. “Vexing you is the most fun I've had in ages.”

“It isn't fun for me,” she muttered.

“Of course it is,” he said jovially, leading her into the small dining room. “I'll wager I'm the only person you know who dares to contradict you.”

“You make me sound like a termagant.”

He pulled out a chair for her. “Am I correct?”

“Yes,” she mumbled, “but I'm not a termagant.”

“Of course not.” He sat down across from her. “But you
are
used to having your own way.”

“So are
you,
”she retorted.

“Touché.
”

“In fact,” she said, leaning forward with a knowing gleam in her green eyes, “that's why your sister's disobedience is so galling. You cannot bear that she's gone against your wishes.”

Angus squirmed in his chair. It was all fun and well when he was analyzing Margaret's personality, but this was unacceptable. “Anne has been going against my wishes since the day she was born.”

“I didn't say she was meek and mild and did everything you say—”

“Jesus, whiskey, and Robert the Bruce,” he said under his breath, “I would that were true . . .”

She ignored his odd expletive. “But Angus,” she said animatedly, using her hands to punctuate her words, “has she ever before disobeyed you on such a grand scale? Done something that so completely disrupted your life?”

For a second, he didn't move; then he shook his head.

“See?” Margaret smiled, looking terribly pleased with herself. “That's why you're in such a dither.”

His expression moved to the comical side of haughty. “Men do not dither.”

Her
expression moved to the ridiculous side of arch. “I beg your pardon, but I am looking at a dithering male as we speak.”

They stared at each other across the table for several seconds, until Angus finally said, “If you raise your eyebrows any farther, I'm going to have to physically retrieve them from your hairline.”

Margaret tried to respond in kind—he could see it in her eyes—but her humor got the best of her, and she burst out laughing.

Margaret Pennypacker consumed with laughter was a sight to behold, and Angus had never been so perfectly content to sit back and watch another person. Her mouth formed an enchanting, open-mouthed smile, and her eyes glowed with pure mirth. Her entire body shook, and she gasped for air, finally letting her brow drop down into one supporting hand.

“Oh, my goodness,” she said, pushing aside a lock of gently curving brown hair. “Oh, my hair.”

Angus smiled. “Does your coiffure always come undone when you laugh? Because I must say, it's a rather endearing quirk.”

She reached up and self-consciously patted her hair. “It's mussed from the day, I'm sure. I didn't have time to re-pin it before we came down to supper and—”

“You don't need to reassure me. I have every confidence that on a normal day, every hair on your head is in place.”

Margaret frowned. She had always prided herself on a neat and tidy appearance, but Angus's words—which were surely meant as a compliment—somehow made her feel like the veriest stodge.

She was saved from further contemplation on this issue, however, by the arrival of George, the innkeeper.

“Och, there you are!” he boomed, slapping down a large earthenware dish on their table. “All dried off, are you?”

“As best as can be expected,” Angus replied, with one of those nods that men shared when they thought
they were commiserating over something.

Margaret rolled her eyes.

“Weel, you're in for a treat,” George said, “because my wife, she had some haggis made and ready to go for tomorrow. Had to boil it up, of course. Can't have a cold haggis.”

Margaret didn't particularly think the hot haggis looked terribly appetizing, but she forbore to offer an opinion on the matter.

Angus wafted the aroma—or fumes, as Margaret was wont to call them—in his direction and took a ceremonial sniff. “Och, McCallum,” he said, sounding more Scottish than he had all day, “if this tastes anything like it smells, your wife is a blooming genius.”

“Of course she is,” George replied, grabbing two plates off a side table and setting them in front of his guests. “She married me, didn't she?”

Angus laughed heartily and gave the innkeeper a convivial slap on the back. Margaret felt a retort welling up in her throat and coughed to keep it down.

“Just a moment,” George said. “I need to get a proper knife.”

Margaret watched him leave, then leaned across the table and hissed, “What is
in
this thing?”

“You don't know?” Angus asked, obviously enjoying her distress.

“I
know
it smells hideous.”

“Tsk, tsk. Were you so gravely insulting my nation's cuisine earlier this evening without even knowing of what you speak?”

“Just tell me the ingredients,” she ground out.

“Heart, minced with liver and lights,” he replied, drawing the words out in all their gory detail. “Then add some good suet, onions, and oatmeal—stuffed into the stomach of a sheep.”

“What,” Margaret asked to the air around her, “have I done to deserve this?”

“Och,” Angus said dismissively. “You'll love it. You English always love your organ meats.”

“I don't. I never have.”

He choked back a laugh. “Then you might be in a wee bit of trouble.”

Margaret's eyes grew panicked. “I can't eat this.”

“You don't want to insult George, do you?”

“No, but—”

“You told me you placed great stock in good manners, didn't you?”

“Yes, but—”

“Are you ready?” George asked, sweeping back into the room with blazing eyes. “Because I'll be giving you God's own haggis.” With that, he whipped out a knife with such flair that Margaret was compelled to lurch back a good half a foot or risk having her nose permanently shortened.

George belted out a few bars from a rather pompous and overblown hymn—foreshadowing the actual meal, Margaret was sure—then, with a wide, proud swipe of his arm, sliced into the haggis, opening it for all the world to see.

And smell.

“Oh, God,” Margaret gasped, and never before had she uttered such a heartfelt prayer.

“Have you ever seen a thing so lovely?” George rhapsodized.

“I'll take half on my plate right now,” Angus said.

Margaret smiled weakly, trying not to breathe.

“She'll take a small portion,” Angus said for her. “Her appetite's not what it once was.”

“Och, yes,” George replied, “the babe. You'll be in your early months, then, eh?”

Margaret supposed that “early” could be construed to mean pre-pregnancy, so she nodded.

Angus lifted a brow in approval. Margaret scowled at him, irritated that he was so impressed that she had finally participated in this ridiculous lie.

“The smell might make you a bit queasy,” George said, “but there's nothing for a babe like a good haggis, so you should at least try, as my great-aunt Millie calls it, a no-thank-you-portion.”

“That would be lovely,” Margaret managed to choke out.

“Here you are,” George said, scooping her a healthy amount.

Margaret stared at the mass of food on her plate, trying not to retch. If this was no-thank-you, she shuddered to imagine yes-please. “Tell me,” she said, as demurely as possible, “what did your Aunt Millie look like?”

“Och, a lovely woman. Strong as an ox. And as large as one, too.”

Margaret's eyes fell back to her dinner. “Yes,” she murmured, “I thought as much.”

‘Try it,” George urged. “If you like it, I'll have my wife make hugga-muggie tomorrow.”

“Hugga-muggie?”

“Same thing as haggis,” Angus said helpfully, “but made with a fish stomach instead of sheep.”

“How . . . lovely.”

“Och, I'll tell her to stuff one up, then,” George assured her.

Margaret watched in horror as the innkeeper pranced back to the kitchen. “We
cannot
eat here tomorrow,” she hissed across the table. “I don't care if we have to change inns.”

“So don't eat the hugga-muggie.” Angus forked a huge bite into his mouth and chewed.

“And how am I supposed to avoid that, when you've been prattling on about what good manners it is to praise the innkeeper's food?”

Angus was still chewing, so he managed to avoid answering. Then he took a long swig of the ale that one of George's servants had slipped onto the table. “Aren't you even going to try it?” he asked, motioning to the untouched haggis on her plate.

She shook her head, her huge green eyes looking somewhat panicked.

“Try a bite,” he urged, attacking his own portion with great relish.

“I can't. Angus, I tell you, it's the oddest thing, and I don't know how I know this, but if I eat one bite of this haggis, I
will
die.”

He washed down the haggis with another sip of ale, looked up at her with all the seriousness he could muster, and asked, “You're sure of this?”