Katharine Ashe - How to Marry a Highlander

“Aye?”

“And I think . . . I know . . . That is . . .”

His whiskers were dark and scant and framed the most perfect lips she had ever seen.

“What have ye heard o’ me, lass?”

“Nothing.” Not true.

“Do ye ken I’ve no money? That the coffers be dry? Ye’d get nothing from me were I to take ye on, no even a solid roof over yer head.”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘taking me on.’”

“Ye’ve run away from home?”

“No. That is, not precisely. I came here to—” She stepped back from him.

“You think I have run away from home to become an actress or some other sort of low female and am throwing myself upon you in the hopes that you will become my protector. Like your sister, Effie, said. Don’t you?”

He lifted a single expressive brow.

“I am not,” she said. “I have the most respectable of intentions toward you.

And myself.”

“I dinna suppose yer father knows o’ this.”

“My parents do not know I am here. Naturally,” she added. “They would think this as preposterous as you clearly do.”

“Mebbe because it is.” Then he touched her again, but this time not on her face. He skimmed his knuckles across her shoulder and followed the action with his gaze. A perfectly delicious little shiver wiggled through her.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

“Lass, do ye ken what a man thinks when a leddy visits him at his home?”

That she was yearning for more touches like that one? “You mean the home he shares with his seven sisters?”

A glimmer lit his eyes. “Touché.”

“My lord, I have a proposal for you.”

“Anither?”

“Amended, since you rejected my first proposal.”

“That I did.”

“If I promised that I would not consider myself compromised and demand marriage, would you kiss me now?”

His brow grew dark. “No.”

No? What sort of man would not kiss a woman who offered kisses freely?

“Are you rejecting me because you find me unappealing?”

Slowly that single brow lifted again and he tilted his head slightly as though to suggest she was only now beginning to speak foolishly. And his gaze dipped to her mouth anew.

Her stomach did twirling tumbles.

“What if I find a husband for one of your sisters? Would you kiss me in return for that?”

“Ma family’s business is none o’ yours to meddle in, miss.”

“That is no doubt true. But what if in the course of regular social engagements I happened to introduce a suitable gentleman to one of your sisters and she subsequently became betrothed? Then I would not precisely be meddling, would I?”

He scanned her upturned face. “Yer mad as a hatter.”

“Not really.” Only desperate and somewhat infatuated. “Would you?”

A rumble of laughter sounded deep in his chest. “Aye.”

“You agree to it?”

“I’ve just said so.”

She should immediately dash away and begin planning. Diantha and her husband knew plenty of men in town, some of them noblemen. It could not be too difficult to find one who would take an interest in the sister of a Scottish earl, even a poor one. At least three of the Eads ladies were pretty, and one was stunning.

“All right then.” She turned toward the door then paused. “What if I find husbands for three of them?” An advantage not pressed was an advantage lost forever. “Would you marry me then?”

“No.”

“I could do it.” She could? She would.

“Ye willna.”

“How do you know that? I have an extensive acquaintance in town, among them any number of marriageable gentlemen your sisters could like.” A slight exaggeration, soon to be remedied.

But he knew she was speaking with bravado. Skepticism lit his eyes. He crossed his arms loosely. “Do ye, then?”

“I might very well find husbands for three of your sisters. They are lovely, after all.”

“They may be.” He nodded. “But I’ll no marry ye.”

“All right. I understand,” she said evenly, but her cheeks burned. Her hair must look ridiculous. “But what if I do find husbands for three of your sisters?

What would you do?”

“Anither kiss?” His mouth tilted up at one side. It almost seemed like he was enjoying himself.

“That would not be fair, of course.” The heat spread from her cheeks to her throat and beneath the lace edging of her bodice. “I should expect something else, something . . . more substantial as my prize.”

He waited.

“Would you touch me somewhere inappropriate for an unmarried lady to be touched by a man?” she said in a rush.

He simply stared at her.

“Without any promise of marriage,” she added quickly. She was mad. She would ruin herself with this. But she had already ruined herself. If anyone in society discovered that she had pursued an interview with a bachelor in his rooms she would be cut from every respectable house in town.

“This wee wager is getting interesting,” he murmured, and his voice sounded somehow deeper. It sent a delicious little thrill of sensation right up the center of her belly.

“I’m not planning to set myself up as anybody’s mistress,” she clarified.

“It’s only that . . .” She straightened her shoulders. “Well, it’s really none of your business, especially if you won’t marry me.”

“I’ll agree to it.”

Her breaths hitched. “You will?”

He nodded slowly. “Aye.”

Her throat got caught on several swift swallows. “All right.” Press the advantage. “What about five?”

“Five touches?” His eyes glimmered with something new, something hot and intentional.

“Five husbands,” she said thickly. “For your sisters. What if I find husbands for five of your sisters?”

“Ye willna.”

“I might.”

“Unlikely.”

“But not impossible.”

“Nearly.”

“Do you have such a poor opinion of your own siblings?”

“One or two.”

She shook her head. “Now you are telling untruths. You care for them all. I can see it in your eyes.”

“That daena mean I think they’ll find husbands easily.”

“They won’t have to. I will. So, what about five?”

“What terms be ye offering, lass?”

“If I find five husbands, you must make love to me.”

She’d said it! Just like that. And her pulse was careening and he was looking at her like a madwoman, which was a perfectly reasonable conclusion for him to come to. But the half smile still shaped his gorgeous mouth.

“Saucy lass.”

“If that is the worst you can say after I have offered such terms, then I begin to doubt your morals, my lord.”

“I have no morals, Miss Finch-Freeworth. Didna ye learn that in yer research o’ me?”

In the past three days of visiting acquaintances about London, when she had inquired of Lord Eads everybody always wanted to gossip about his unsavory past, his years in the East Indies and, more recently, years during which it was thought he’d been in London but no one in society ever saw him.

Only yesterday Diantha had said in no uncertain terms that Lord Eads was not a man to be pursued. She refused to explain, but Teresa had rarely seen her good-natured friend so alarmed. “I . . . Someone might have mentioned it.”

“An ye didna listen?” He shook his head. “No as clever as I’d been thinking ye, after all.”

Her heart did a little skip. “You think me clever?”

His eyes glimmered.

“Clever enough to find husbands for five of your sisters?”

He shook his head.

“So then if you don’t believe I will, why won’t you agree to my terms?”

He looked quite directly into her eyes. “I didna say I wouldna, did I?”

Her entire body flushed with agitated heat. “You will?”

“Ye drive a hard bargain.”

He was laughing at her now. But she was, after all, laughable at this point.

She smiled though she suspected she should not.

“Then it seems we have a deal,” she said. “But . . .”

“But?”

“What if I manage to find seven husbands?”

“Lass—”

“What if I do?”

His gaze hooded. “Name yer terms.”

“Will you marry me then?”

“Why would I marry a woman I dinna know from Eve who’s given away her virtue to a man in a wager?”

“Not to any man. To y—” She bit her lip. “Oh. You are teasing me, aren’t you?”

“I may be.”

“I like it.”

“Dinna become accustomed to it.”

“Why? Won’t you tease me again?”

“Aye. But ye havena asked ma terms.”

“Oh! I didn’t think. I’m not in the habit of making wagers, you see.”

“Ye dinna say?”

“What are your terms, my lord?”

“Ye’ve a month or the wager’s a forfeit.”

“A month? But I cannot possibly—”

“Those be ma terms, lass. Accept or withdraw.”

She pulled in a breath of courage. “I accept.” She thrust out her hand.

“Shall we shake on it?”

It was perhaps a mistake to seal the agreement in this manner. His hand was large and strong and encompassed hers entirely and made her feel tiny and entirely in his power. Perhaps the gossips weren’t spreading empty rumor. Perhaps he was a dangerous man and that longing gaze they had shared at the ball had been more dream than reality. A tremor of fear slithered through her.

She forced her gaze up and glimpsed in his eyes the oddest hesitation. It looked almost like the fear she was feeling.

“My lord,” she breathed. “I think perhaps—” The door snapped open. “Duncan!”

Their hands flew apart. They both stepped back.

Effie halted, eyes wide.

Her twin skipped in behind her. “Abigail finished her book. She wants to go to the shop and trade it in for anither.”

Sorcha came through the door removing her mended gloves. She stopped and they all stared at Teresa.

“I should be going now.” She curtseyed. “My lord. My ladies.” She went past them and through the door and down the steps, heart in her throat and —for the first time since that night at the ball—an unsettling sensation of utter confusion spreading through her.

Sorcha turned to him. “What did she really want, Duncan? Money? I suppose ye put her to right aboot that.”

Duncan stared out the open door through which his sisters were entering and through which she—the woman who had inspired his flight from London eighteen months earlier—had departed.

“Tell yer sisters to pack their bags,” he heard himself say. “We’re moving.”

How on earth would she secure even one husband for seven impoverished ladies when she could not secure one for herself?

Teresa rested her chin on her palm and stared out the window onto the street before Diantha’s townhouse. According to the footman, Mr. Yale would be home shortly. Diantha would tell her nothing of Lord Eads, but Teresa understood that her husband knew the earl quite well.

As she watched carriages clatter by on the street she catalogued the sisters. One of the two whose name she did not yet know was clearly the beauty of the family, followed by the vivacious twins, Effie and the other.

Abigail was pretty too, and sensible; she’d known Teresa was not a doxy. Una had a clever eye and ready smile. Sorcha was all business. Judgmental, prim, and self-possessed, Elspeth reminded her of Mr. Waldon.

She had plenty to work with, but it was probably best to begin with the quality that men noticed immediately in a woman: beauty. It stood to reason that if she found a husband for the beautiful sister first, the rest would soon become known to his friends and acquaintances.

A horseman dismounted before the house. He wasn’t Mr. Yale, but as the only man in the world that thought highly of her, her brother Tobias was always welcome company.

She met him at the door. “Have come to see Wyn? He mentioned that you were to call on him.”

“He knows a few fellows that might help me get a leg up at the War Office.” His handsome face glowed with pleasure. “But that’s not my purpose today. I’ve come to escort you shopping.”

“Shopping?”

His brow lifted beneath hair two shades darker than hers. “Is it me or shopping that inspires this listlessness?”

“Shopping, of course. I know. Unprecedented. Toby . . . I . . .”

“What is it, T? You look pretty as a picture today, but all the same, glum.

Not like you at all.”