The Devil Wears Kilts (37 page)

Charlotte slapped him. It stung her hand, but she didn’t care. “All Lord Glengask did was step forward when you misbehaved. Shame on you!”

Stephen Hammond glared at her, but didn’t say anything further. Hopefully he’d realized that arguing with her would only make him look more like the bully he was. Squaring her shoulders, she turned her back on him, delivering the most direct cut and show of her contempt that she could.

Janie stared at her, wide-eyed, then turned her back on Lord Stephen, as well. Their mother followed suit a moment later, then Winnie and another half-dozen women—most of whom were either near her supposedly advanced age of spinsterhood or were not considered the Season’s beauties and had undoubtedly been told precisely that by Stephen—gave him their stiff, disapproving spines.
Ha.
She hoped it stung him.

The rest of the men had climbed to their feet. Now she finally took a good look at Ranulf, and couldn’t help her gasp. One coat sleeve was torn off, the other ripped, while his shirt was half untucked and spattered with bright red blood. Even one knee was cut, though his kilt looked intact. Thank goodness for that.

In addition to the ruin of his clothes, his lip was cut, his nose bloody, and one eye squinted. As she watched, he took the loose tail of his shirt and wiped it across his face. His brother didn’t look much better, but Simon Beasley and his awful friends all looked to have fared even worse.

She walked forward, lifting a hand to his face and then at the last minute remembering herself and lowering it again. “Are you hurt?” she asked, though it seemed an utterly ridiculous question.

He shook his head, his expression grim. “Nae. I’m so sorry, lass. I couldnae … I couldnae just stand and listen to that
amadan’
s drivel.”

“I know. It’s—”

“Gentlemen,” Lord Ferth announced, wiping his hands together as if he’d touched something distasteful, “you are no longer welcome here. I will not have this barbarism in my house.” He glanced at Charlotte. “It does not matter who instigated this. I will not tolerate it.”

Grumbling something that sounded very unpleasant, Arran took his uncle by the shoulder and motioned at his brother. “Let’s be oot of this damned place, Ran.”

Ranulf nodded, his gaze still on Charlotte, as if he were trying to memorize her features. As if he never expected to see her again. Her heart stopped in her chest, leaving her hollow and cold.
No.

That stupid, stubborn man. He closed his eyes for a moment, then swung around to follow his brother and uncle off the dance floor. Of course he would do the noble thing and leave, because he thought he’d failed her. Because he thought he’d done the one thing she would never forgive—stepping into a fight for no other reason than pride.

He was wrong.

Charlotte took a breath, then strode forward. Her mother grabbed for her, but she easily evaded the countess’s fingers. Catching up to the lean, hard mountain of a man, she put her hand on his shoulder and pulled.

Ranulf stopped and turned around. “What are ye doing, lass?” he muttered, surprise crossing his features.

What
was
she doing? What could she say here, in front of everyone, that would convince him she didn’t blame him for what had just happened, that he’d stood as a gentleman and then acted as one? That it wasn’t the same thing James Appleton had done and that she’d condemned for so long?

The answer, clearly, was nothing. There was nothing she could say that he would think was anything but her being kind.

And so Charlotte wrapped both hands into the front of his torn shirt, lifted up on her toes, and kissed him full on the mouth.

He held absolutely still, clearly astonished. Then his mouth molded against hers, and his strong arms swept around her waist, crushing her to him. She didn’t know if anyone gasped or fainted or anything else. All she knew was that he kissed her back.

After a brief, forever moment he lifted his head a little, gazing down at her. His dark blue eyes blazed. “Ye’ve ruined yerself.”

“I know.”

His mouth curved in a slow smile. “I do love ye, Charlotte,” he murmured. “Ye are so dear to me I dunnae think I could bear to be without ye.”

“And I do love you, Ranulf,” she whispered back.
“Leannan.”

“Then for God’s sake say ye’ll marry me, lass,” he returned, his voice carrying and unsteady at the edges.

She nodded, tears running down her cheeks once more. But this time they were tears of joy. “I will marry you. I want to marry you. I want to live with you at Glengask. I’m not afraid. I never was.”

With a roar he firmed his grip on her waist and lifted her into the air, circling with her in his arms. “I love ye, Charlotte!” he yelled, laughing.

Charlotte grinned down at him. “I love you!” Her wild Scot. Her Highlander. Her Ranulf.

Read on for an excerpt from Suzanne Enoch’s next book

The Rogue with a Brogue

Coming soon from St. Martin’s Paperbacks

Clan MacLawry had an old saying that through the years had become, “If ye want to see the face of the devil, look at a Campbell.”

There was another saying about London and the weak-chinned Sasannach who lived there, Arran MacLawry recalled, but as he currently stood in the center of a Mayfair ballroom, he would keep it to himself. A gaggle of young lasses, all of whom had donned elegantly-arching swan masks, strolled by in a flock. He grinned at them, disrupting the formation and sending them, honking in feminine tones, toward the refreshment table.

“Stop that, ye devil.”

Arran glanced over at his brother, seated a few feet away and in deep conversation—or so he’d thought—with an elegant owl mask. “I didnae do a thing but smile. Ye said to be friendly, Ranulf.”

Ranulf, the Marquis of Glengask, shook his head. Even with his face partly obscured by a black panther half-mask, there wasn’t likely a single guest at the Garreton soiree tonight who didn’t know precisely who he was. “I said to be polite. Nae brawls, nae insults, and nae sending the wee Sasannach lasses into a frenzy.”

“Then mayhap I should’ve worn a cow or a pigeon mask, instead of a fox.” Or perhaps he shouldn’t have attended at all tonight—but then who would keep a watch for Campbells and other unsavory sorts?

The owl beside his brother chuckled. “I don’t think the disguise would matter, Arran,” she said in her cultured English accent. “You’d still make all the young ladies sit up and take notice.”

“I suppose that to be a compliment, Charlotte,” he returned, inclining his head at his oldest brother’s Sasannach fiancée, “so I’ll say thank ye.” At that same moment he spied a splendid peacock mask above a deep violet gown, but his smile froze as the green and gold swan beside her came into view.
Damnation
. The two young lasses joined arms and turned in his direction, but he didn’t think they’d spotted him yet. “Yer bonny sister wouldnae be a swan tonight, would she?” he asked Charlotte, slowly straightening from his lean against the wall.

“Yes,” Charlotte returned. “Poor thing. I don’t think she realized so many others would be wearing swan masks tonight, as well.”

“Well, when ye see her and Winnie, tell the lasses I said hello,” he said, turning for the door to the main ballroom. “I see Uncle Myles, and I ken he wanted a word with me.”

“Liar,” Ranulf said.

As Arran was already halfway into the next room, he pretended not to hear. He didn’t need to be wearing a fox mask to sense trouble, and eighteen-year-old Jane Hanover was nothing but. His sister’s dearest friend or not, she was a debutante, a Sasannach, and a romantic. Arran shuddered, glancing over his shoulder. Devil take him before he let himself be caught up with that.

Off to his left, the music for the evening’s first waltz began. Damnation. Jane Hanover would track him down, inform him that she had no partner for the dance, and he would have to be polite because they were about to become in-laws. Before the music finished he would find himself betrothed.

A peacock and swan hurried through the doorway behind him. Whatever Ranulf said, he had no intention of being polite to the point that he ended up leg-shackled to a fresh-faced debutante who found him “ruggedly attractive.” Sidestepping between two groups of guests, he turned again—and nearly walked straight into a red and gold vixen half mask.

“Sir Fox,” she said, a smile curving her mouth below the mask.

“There he is, Jane!” he heard his sister, Winnie, exclaim.

“Lady Vixen,” he returned. “I dunnae suppose ye’d care to dance this waltz with one of yer own kind?”

Shadowed green eyes gazed at him for a half dozen heartbeats, while his doom moved in behind him. “I’d be delighted, Sir Fox,” the vixen said, saving him with not even a moment to spare.

He held out his hand, and gold-gloved fingers gripped his. Moving as swiftly as he could without dragging her—or giving the appearance that he’d fled someone else—he escorted her out to the dance floor, slid his hand around her trim waist, and stepped with a vixen into the waltz.

His partner was petite, he noted belatedly, the top of her head just brushing his chin. And she had a welcoming smile. Other than that, she might have been Queen Caroline, for all he knew. Or cared. She wasn’t Jane Hanover, and at the moment, that was all that mattered.

“Are we to waltz in silence, then?” she asked, London aristocrat in her voice. “Two foxes among herds of swans and bears and lions?”

Arran grinned. “When I looked at the dessert table, I was surprised not to see baskets of corn for all the birds.”

She nodded, her face lifted to meet his gaze. “Poor dears. Evidently Lady Jersey wore a particularly lovely swan mask to this same soiree last year, and it prompted something of a frenzy.”

As she glanced about the crowded ballroom, he took her in again. Petite, slender, light green eyes, and hair … He wasn’t certain what color to call it. A long and curling mass straying from a knot, it looked like what would result if a painter ran a brown-tipped brush through gold and red in succession—a deep, rich mix of colors that together didn’t have a name.

He blinked. While he’d been known to wax poetical, he generally didn’t do so over a lass’s hair. “Why is it that Lady Vixen didnae already have a partner fer a waltz?” he asked.

“I only just arrived,” she returned in her silky voice. “Why was Sir Fox fleeing a peacock?”

So she’d noticed that. “I wasnae fleeing the peacock. That bird’s my sister. It’s the swan that terrifies me.”

The green gaze held his, and he found himself wishing he could see more of her expression. As a Highlander and a MacLawry, the ability to assess the threat of a scowl or a twitching eye swiftly and accurately had saved his life on several occasions.

“All swans, or just that one? Do they not have swans in the Highlands?”

Of course she knew where he was from; even if all of Mayfair hadn’t been buzzing about the MacLawrys brawling their way through drawing rooms, his brogue would have made it fairly obvious. Unlike his sister, Rowena, he made no attempt to disguise or stifle his accent. Being a MacLawry was a matter of pride, as far as he was concerned. “Aye, they do have swans there, though not many. It’s easier to avoid them in the Highlands, where a lad knows the lay of the land and there’s more space to maneuver.”

“I had no idea swans were so deadly.”

“Aye. They’ll catch hold of ye when ye’re nae looking, and they mate fer life.”

She laughed. “Unlike foxes?”

Did foxes mate for life? He couldn’t even recall at the moment. After a fortnight spent hunting for more human dangers, both male and female, a discussion of wildlife—even an allegorical one—seemed … refreshing. “This fox is nae looking for a thing but a partner for the waltz,” he returned, smiling back at her. “And the vixen?”

“I was looking for a friend of mine. An interlude with a fellow fox is an unexpected … distraction. And if you say something flattering, I won’t even be insulted that you only asked me to dance in order to avoid a bird.”

Was that a cut? Or a jest? The fact that he couldn’t be certain of which it was intrigued him. Sassanach lasses in his experience and with very few exceptions knew all about the weather and could discuss it for hours, but he couldn’t give them credit for much else. “Someaught flattering,” he mused aloud, trying to decide how much effort to go to. “Ye dance gracefully,” he settled on.

She laughed again, though it didn’t sound as inviting, this time. “Well. Believe it or not, you aren’t the first Scotsman to say so. You measure quite equally with the lot of them.”

Arran was fairly certain he’d just been insulted. He hid a scowl, not that she’d be able to see it behind the fox mask. “I’ve known ye fer two minutes, lass,” he commented, pulling her a breath closer. “I weighed saying ye had a lovely pelt and pointed ears, but I didnae ken ye’d appreciate that.”

“And why wouldn’t a vixen like to hear that a fox admires her pelt?”

“Because ye’re nae a vixen, any more than I’m a fox. Ye chose nae to wear a swan mask, which at least sets ye apart from a dozen other lasses here tonight, but I’m wearing a fox because my sister handed it to me. I reckon I’d rather be a wolf, truth be told.” Yes, the family generally called him the clever one, and Rowena had seemed pleased enough at the choice that he’d gone along with it, but it was a well-painted piece of papier-mâché—and nothing more.

“I wanted to be a vixen,” she said after a moment. “My father wanted me to be a swan.”

Now
this
was interesting. “And yet here ye are, nae a swan.” She also was a young woman—perhaps three or four years older than Rowena—with an attractive mouth, lips that seemed naturally to want to smile, and the shadowed green eyes that he imagined crinkled at the corners. If Arran hadn’t had both hands occupied with the waltz, he would have been fighting the urge to remove her mask, so he could see the whole of her face, to know if the parts were equal to the sum.

Her lips curved again. “And
that
is a compliment, Sir Fox.” She tilted her head, the gold lights in her hair catching the chandelier light. “Or do you wish me to call you Sir Wolf?”