“Ye’re Harris, are ye?” Coll boomed from beside her.
“Good evening to ye, Coll,” Niall drawled, stepping into the middle of the loose circle they’d formed. “I dunnae believe Aden’s met Miss Baxter, and this here is Matthew Harris, Eloise’s betrothed. Say hello.”
The viscount narrowed his deep-green eyes. “Ye dunnae get to tell me how t—”
“Aden?” Amelia-Rose interrupted, slipping her hand from Coll’s taut forearm. “Amelia-Rose Baxter. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.” She held out her right hand.
The middle MacTaggert shook it. “Ye’ve stoppered Coll’s mouth,” he said in a low, amused brogue. “He’s nae accustomed to being interrupted.”
She blushed. Oh, dear. She’d been so annoyed with him, but he did outrank all of them here but his own mother. And Highlanders, she’d always known, were very proud and stubborn. Had she been rude? She hadn’t meant to be. It was only only that she disliked bullying, and the three brothers more than outnumbered poor Matthew Harris. “I’m very sorry if I’ve offended you, my lord,” she said, frowning.
“Och, nonsense,” Niall broke in. “It’s good for him. A mountain still has to listen to the snow.”
“A mountain abides despite the snow,” Coll retorted, keeping his attention on Matthew Harris. “Have ye gabbed with this sapling, Aden?”
“Aye. He’s got all his fingers ’n’ toes, knows how to read and write, and can damned well speak for himself. Shake his bloody hand.”
“Language,” Eloise said. “For heaven’s sake.”
“Ye’ve dragged us to a place with nae a gaming table, nae liquor, and a flock of females that look more like vultures than swans,” Aden returned. “I reckon if ever a damned curse was warranted, it’s now.”
Hiding a smile, Amelia-Rose followed his gaze toward the sweets table. Evidently she’d missed the letter that most of the young ladies present had received, because she wasn’t wearing pastel colors. She’d heard a rumor that there was a secret signal to alert men as to which young lady was available and which was spoken for—perhaps pastel meant unattached. Whatever it had been last year she must have dressed appropriately, because she’d garnered her one proposal that night. Inwardly she sighed. Perhaps she should have accepted it.
Fingers brushed against hers. “Did Coll fool yer parents?” Niall murmured, his attention ostensibly on the half dozen additional guests currently entering the ballroom.
“Yes,” she returned in the same tone. “I wish you’d told me he had a black eye. I could have invented a chivalrous story for it.”
“One of us has a black eye so often it didnae occur to me. Ye look lovely, by the way. Yer eyes are the color of cornflowers tonight.”
She’d always liked cornflowers. “Thank you.”
“Aye. Ye and Coll make a fine pair.”
That stopped her smile. Yes, she and Coll were supposed to be a pair. “I thought you’d suggested otherwise,” she breathed.
“I reckon it’s nae my affair. If he wants ye, and ye’re willing to be what he wants, that’s between the two of ye.”
Amelia-Rose blinked. She’d expected support or at least commiseration from him, because he’d offered it previously. But of course he would have his own family’s needs as his primary concern. For her to expect otherwise was just stupid.
Even if there might have been some … affection between them, she wasn’t meant for him, or he for her. He was a Highlander and a barbarian just like his brother. The only difference, really, was that he didn’t have a title. That title was the only reason her parents tolerated the barbarian Lord Glendarril. They had no reason at all to tolerate Niall.
“I’ve seen more color in snow than ye have in yer face right now,” Niall said, glancing at her. “Did ye see a spirit?”
“That’s your first assumption?” she retorted, giving up the ruse that they weren’t actually speaking. They’d done nothing wrong, after all. “That I must have seen a ghost?”
He shrugged. “Seemed as reasonable as my second guess, which was that someaught’s overset ye. Since I’m the only one talking to ye and I only said ye had blue eyes and that I meant to mind my own business, I reckon that made nae a bit of sense.”
Her mouth curved before she could stop it. Even when, if she’d truly cared for him, his words might have very nearly broken her heart. “Neither of your guesses makes the least bit of sense. I’m only a little chilled. In a few minutes I imagine it will be sweltering in here, so I’ve decided to enjoy the cold.”
Eloise broke in between them. “The swarm’s beginning,” she whispered, laughing.
Two groups were indeed forming in the center of the dance floor—one of unmarried men, and the other of all the ladies who wished to dance and who hadn’t yet seen their dance cards filled. The Spenfields had outdone themselves this year; two dozen ladies, compared with twice that number of young men. It did leave a problem of sorts, if one didn’t wish to be left to choose among the slower, older, less marriageable men. With a giggle Amelia-Rose seized Eloise’s hand and they pranced forward together into the maelstrom. And she refused to wonder for a moment what it would have been like to dance with Niall MacTaggert. That was only one of many regrets she would likely have tonight.
Chapter Eight
“I feel like a worm on a hook,” Aden commented, taking yet another dance card from a young lady’s hand and putting his name beside one of the dances.
“Stop signing yer name and they’ll stop chasing ye down. Ye can only have one lass per dance anyway,” Niall advised, shaking his head as a red-cheeked lass approached him. “I’m all spoken for,” he explained.
“Drat,” she grumbled, and pranced off again.
“Where do I put in my name for the horse drawing?” Coll ignored the ladies milling around him, looking more like a lion ready to swat at midges than a man meant to be impressing the lass he needed to marry.
“The what?” Aden asked.
“There’s a drawing at the end of the evening,” Matthew Harris put in from somewhere on the far side of Lady Aldriss. Wise fellow, to keep some distance between himself and Coll, at least until they’d had time for a conversation. “This year it’s a two-year-old bay gelding named Westminster. They say he’s a half brother to Wellington’s Copenhagen.”
“If I get him, his name’s nae going to be Westminster,” Coll returned. “Wulver, mayhap.”
“Shouldn’t you be seeing what Miss Baxter is up to?” Lady Aldriss prompted, looking up at Coll’s flat expression.
“Before ye chose a woman for me, ye might have thought to ask what sort I’d like,” he grumbled. “Where do I put my damned name?”
“For heaven’s … There. Write your name down on one of those pieces of paper, and put it in the bowl.” She gestured at a small table close by the door. The bowl was already half full of wee papers, and Coll immediately headed in that direction, Aden on his heels. “Only put your name in once,” she called after them, then looked over at Niall and Matthew. “Oh, get going, then, you two.”
With a grin Matthew loped off to join his almost-brothers-in-law. Niall, though, stayed where he was. Eloise and Amelia-Rose stood in the center of a swirl of gowns and coattails, and he didn’t trust that they wouldn’t be swept off their feet in the turmoil.
“You don’t want a horse?” the countess asked.
“I have a horse.” He kept his gaze on his sister and the other lass. “Do the Spenfield lasses know that their partners are here to win an animal?”
“It’s been this way for the past four years, since Polymnia turned twenty-four and the youngest, Melpomeni, turned eighteen. So yes, I assume they’re aware.”
“Hm.”
“What does that mean?”
Niall could feel her gaze on him. “I’m just trying to decide how the ladies might feel when a lad leaves with a horse but nae a wife.”
“I’m not their mother,” Francesca returned, keeping her voice below the level of the conversation
around them. “It wouldn’t have been my plan, but there it is.”
“Nae, we’ve seen what yer plan is, m’lady.” Halfway across the room Eloise and Amelia-Rose hugged a third young lady, the three of them bending over their full dance cards and comparing partners. He’d wanted to write down his name—not for the horse, but just for a dance. One dance with that lass before he had to begin calling her sister and watch his angry, cynical oldest brother put his hands and his mouth on her and then leave her behind. Or worse, decide he liked her and take her with him to the Highlands where Niall would have to see her every day.
“Niall, I’m not trying to be rid of you and your brothers. I want you back in my life. You’re here now. Isn’t that some sort of evidence in my favor?”
“Aye, that ye have a fine solicitor.”
The orchestra up on the balcony that overlooked the ballroom played a trio of notes that were evidently meant to warn any dancers to get their arses onto the dance floor. He assumed that because everyone scattered, pairing up, the lasses forming three circles with their partners on the outside. The extra men and those not there to dance—mostly mamas and a few papas—piled onto the chairs set around the edges of the room or returned to the restocked sweets table.
Eloise had paired with Aden, while Amelia-Rose held fingertips with a stocky, pleasant-faced lad who seemed to be admiring the beading in her gown, the bastard. Niall glanced about for Coll, to find him devouring half a plate of strawberries and sugared orange slices. For Saint Andrew’s sake.
As the country dance began, he wound around the edge of the room to his oldest brother’s side. “Who’s yer lass dancing with?” he asked.
Coll lowered an eyebrow. “Some Sassenach,” he returned, glancing about the dance floor and then going back to browsing through the fruits and pastries. “If they mean to hold us captive, they should at least serve some meat to keep us happy.”
“How did ye find her?”
“I found her at home, with her mouthy mama and pinch-faced, frowning da. Here, try one of these.”
Niall took the sweet from his brother and set it aside again. “Those are to be yer in-laws, ye ken.”
“We kept apart from Francesca for seventeen years. I reckon I can do at least that well with the lot of them.”
“Ye found her more interesting than ye thought at first, though?” Niall prompted. Coll wasn’t a chatterbox by any means, but generally the viscount could carry his side of a conversation without Niall wanting to pound him on the head.
“She kept ‘my lairding’ me, and apologizing for being sharp at the theater. If the lass wants to marry that badly, I reckon she’ll nae object to the rest of it. She figured out that this isnae to be much more than a marriage in name, and didnae even blink. Unless ye told her already.”
“I didnae.” He should have, though, damn it all. If she’d figured all that out and decided she still wanted to be a countess, then he’d been wrong about several things. That disappointed him. No, not disappointed. Saddened.
“Why do ye care if I found her interesting? What does that have to do with the price of wool?”
“Because I’ve spent my entire time in London split between her and Lady Aldriss and ye, trying to keep that damned agreement and all of Aldriss Park from falling into the loch, amadan.” For the devil’s sake, she’d been far more patient and understanding than Coll deserved, not to mention witty and good-humored, and his brother didn’t even appreciate it. His brother didn’t even want that from her.
“Then I wish ye’d been the one to draw that card,” the viscount said, leaving the table in favor of a section of wall where he could lean back and glower.
“So do I,” Niall muttered beneath his breath, well below his brother’s hearing, as he followed.
“She may be our savior,” Coll went on, “but all I see is a yellow-haired lass who doesnae like me and cannae decide if she wants to tell me so, or if she’ll put up with the shite I’m feeding her because she wants a title.”
“Did ye bother to apologize for walking out on her at the theater and then vanishing until tonight, by chance? Maybe if she trusted ye, the two of ye could have an honest talk about what ye each want.”
Coll narrowed his eyes. “What hornet’s gotten into yer ear? She’s nae the woman I would choose for myself, and if I do marry her, I see nae reason she couldnae remain here while I go home to Aldriss and attend to my life there.” He straightened, taking a half-step closer. “Francesca might be able to force me to wed whomever she pleases, but she cannae turn me into a damned Sassenach. And neither can any damned woman I might marry.”
For the first time it occurred to Niall that perhaps the MacTaggert brothers had spent too long out in the wilds. They saw every meeting as a battle, every negotiation as a surrender, and every new thing as a threat to the old ones. Coll saw Amelia-Rose as the enemy. Only time and repeated interaction could sway his opinion, and his oldest brother wasn’t interested in either. All that so he could force himself to marry a lass he didn’t want, and who didn’t want him. Unless she’d changed her mind about Coll—or at least his title.
Niall knew he and Aden would be facing the same dilemma, even if they would have a little more choice where the lass was concerned. Marriage had begun to cross his mind even before they left Aldriss, but as the third son he wasn’t needed to produce an heir and ensure the line of inheritance, so he’d figured on waiting until he found a lass with whom he cared to spend the rest of his life.
Ignoring whatever Coll was talking about now, he looked out over the dance floor. There were a handful of pretty girls here, though Eloise had warned him that most of the single female guests would be either as desperate as the Spenfields, or already spoken for. Even from this distance he could fairly well tell which was which, and he could hear the edge of extreme anxiety in the scattered conversations.
Everyone lost in their own wee landscape, with their own fears and worries and threats and wishes. He’d never had a thought about any of that back in the Highlands. The things that had most worried him were the question of whether he could escape Lord Marmont’s hayloft and Lord Marmont’s daughter without being shot in the arse, and wondering if spring would come late again and the Lowlanders would snag the best wool prices for the year.
His shoulder jolted, and he whipped back around to face Coll. “What?”
“I said ye seem to be mending fences with Francesca,” his oldest brother repeated, glancing toward the group of parents where their mother stood, no doubt trying to sell off Aden and him to the best family.
“I barely remember Francesca,” he retorted. “I’ve nae loyalty to her. I dunnae want us to lose Aldriss. And we’ve a sister who has friends here and a life she’s trying to build. Ye behaving like a wild bear reflects on her, too, ye ken.”
Coll grimaced. “Aye. Though if she parted from the pretty Englishman, I’d nae have any cause to wed. Neither would ye or Aden.”
Yes, he’d previously jested about putting Matthew Harris on a ship bound for America himself, but he didn’t mention that tonight. Coll might consider it a fine idea. And little as Niall liked being forced into anything, it seemed innately unfair that Eloise and Matthew should have to be punished for falling in love. “I’m nae about to cause harm to Eloise, and if ye’d stop thinking like a trapped badger ye might have half a chance of being happy.”
“Ye—”
The dance crashed to a close, and amid the applause Amelia-Rose returned to her mother’s side. She continued smiling, but Niall reckoned this evening wasn’t any more pleasant for her than it was for Coll. Why no one had considered sitting the two of them down across a table and just letting them chat, he’d never understand. She could certainly hold her own in a conversation, and without other voices butting in, without her trying to be the lass she imagined she was supposed to be, perhaps Coll would realize what a delight she was.
“It’s a quadrille next,” Eloise said, prancing up to them on Aden’s arm. “Are you dancing a
t all, Niall?”
“He’s studying the herd,” Coll put in. “Try these lemon wafers, Aden.”
“Coll, this is your first dance with Amy,” their sister reminded him. “Go get her.”
With what might have been a growl, the viscount stalked off toward his nearly betrothed. “I’m ready to wager that Coll’s going to make a run for it back to Scotland.” Aden pulled out a coin, spun it in his fingers, and pocketed it again.
“I don’t want any of you to go, now that I finally have you here with me.” Eloise took Niall’s arm, standing between him and Aden. “Coll is aware that I didn’t know about the agreement either, isn’t he?”
“Aye, he is,” Niall said, kissing her on the cheek. “And Amelia-Rose is a finer lass than he gives her credit for. He’s just decided they’ll nae get along because he doesnae want to like anything English.”
“Coll likes a challenge,” Aden put in. “Someaught he can see and fight through and declare victory over. This is all about him surrendering to someone else’s will, and that’s nae in his character.”
No, it wasn’t. Aden, though, was the one who’d apparently stacked the deck to make certain Coll lost the card turn. And this agreement between the Baxters and Francesca wouldn’t work with either of the younger brothers, anyway; Mrs. Baxter wanted her daughter to be addressed as Lady something or other, and a simple mister would never do. Even if he’d drawn the low card, Amelia-Rose Baxter wouldn’t have been meant for him.
Niall shook himself. The doldrums didn’t suit him. And he had no idea why he should be feeling them after making the acquaintance of an English lass only five days ago. There was no destiny they’d been denied, no fairy tale written. He liked her, aye. More than he would ever take the time to decipher, now. Because she would marry his brother. He wouldn’t spend endless nights wondering how things might have been different. He wouldn’t imagine she tasted like strawberries and tea, or that her hair smelled like lemons. Or that her skin would be soft beneath his rough hands, and that she would shiver in delight when he touched her.
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