by Julia Quinn
"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.
"Touche."
"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?"
She nodded.
"Well, if that's the case…" He reached over, took her plate, and slid the entire contents onto his own. "Can't let a good haggis go to waste."
Margaret starting glancing around the room. "I wonder if he has any bread."
"Hungry?"
"Famished."
"If you think you can manage for ten more minutes without perishing, old George will most likely bring out some cheese and pudding."
The sigh Margaret let out was heartfelt in the extreme.
"You'll like our Scots desserts," Angus said. "Not an organ meat to be found."
But Margaret's eyes were strangely fixed on the window across the room.
Assuming she was merely glazing over from hunger, he said, "If we're lucky, they'll have cranachan. You'll never taste a finer pudding."
She made no reply, so he just shrugged and shoveled the rest of the haggis into his mouth. Jesus, whiskey, and Robert the Bruce, it tasted good. He hadn't realized how hungry he'd been, and there was truly nothing like a good haggis. Margaret had no idea what she was missing.
Speaking of Margaret… He looked back at her. She was now squinting at the window. Angus wondered if she needed spectacles.
"My mum made the sweetest cranachan this side of Loch Lomond," he said, figuring that one of them had to keep up the conversation. "Cream, oatmeal, sugar, rum. Makes my mouth water just-"
Margaret gasped. Angus dropped his fork. Something about the sound of her breath rushing through her lips made his blood run cold.
"Edward," she whispered. Then her countenance turned from surprise to something considerably blacker, and with a scowl that would have vanquished the dragon of Loch Ness, she shot to her feet and stormed out of the room.
Angus set down his fork and groaned. The sweet aroma of cranachan wafted in from the kitchen. Angus wanted to bang his head against the table in frustration.
Margaret? (He looked at the door through which she had just exited.)
Or cranachan? (He looked longingly at the door to the kitchen.)
Margaret?
Or cranachan?
"Damn," he muttered, rising to his feet. It was going to have to be Margaret.
And as he walked away from the cranachan, he had the sinking feeling that his choice had somehow sealed his fate.
Four
The rain had subsided, but the damp night air was a slap in the face as Margaret dashed through the front door of The Canny Man. She looked wildly about, twisting her neck to the left and the right. She'd seen Edward through the window. She was sure of it.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a couple moving quickly across the street. Edward. The man's golden blond hair was a dead giveaway.
"Edward!" she called, scurrying in his direction. "Edward Pennypacker!"
He made no indication of having heard her, so she picked up her skirts and ran into the street, yelling his name as she closed the distance between them.
"Edward!"
He turned around.
And she did not know him.
"I-I-I'm so sorry," she stuttered, stumbling back a step. "I mistook you for my brother."
The handsome blond man inclined his head graciously. "It's quite all right."
"It's a foggy night," Margaret explained, "and I was looking out the window…"
"There is no harm done, I assure you. But if you will excuse me"-the young man put his arm around the shoulder of the woman at his side and drew her near-"my wife and I must be on our way."
Margaret nodded and watched them disappear around the corner. They were newlyweds. From the way his voice had warmed over the word "wife," she knew it had to be so.
They were newlyweds, and like everyone else here at Gretna Green, they'd probably eloped, and their families were probably furious with them. But they looked so very happy, and Margaret suddenly felt unbearably tired, and forlorn, and old, and all those sad, lonely things she'd never thought she'd be.
"Did you have to leave right before the pudding?"
She blinked and turned around. Angus-how the devil did such a large man move so quietly?-was looming over her, arms akimbo, eyes glowering. Margaret didn't say anything. She didn't have the energy to say anything.
"I assume that wasn't your brother you saw."
She shook her head.
"Then for the love of God, woman, can we finish our meal?"
An unwilling smile danced across her lips. No recriminations, no "You stupid woman, why did you go running off into the night?" Just "Can we finish our meal?"
What a man.
"That would be a fine idea," she replied, taking his arm when he offered it. "And I might even taste the haggis. Just a taste, mind you. I'm sure I won't like it, but as you said, it's only polite to try."
He raised a brow, and something about his face, with those big, bushy eyebrows, dark eyes, and slightly crooked nose, made Margaret's heart skip two beats.
"Och," he granted, stepping toward the inn. "Will wonders never cease? Are you telling me that you were actually listening to me?"
"I listen to almost everything you say!"
"You're only offering to try the haggis because you know I ate your portion."
Margaret's blush gave her away.
"A-ha." His smile was positively wolfish. "Just for that, I'm going to make you eat hugga-muggie tomorrow."
"Can't I just try that cranopoly that you were talking about? The one with the cream and the sugar?"
"It's called cranachan, and if you endeavor not to nag me the entire way back to the inn, I might be inclined to ask Mr. McCallum to serve you some."
"Och, you're ever gracious," she said sarcastically.
Angus stopped in his tracks. "Did you just say 'och?'"
Margaret blinked in surprise. "I don't know. I might have done."
"Jesus, whiskey, and Robert the Bruce, you're beginning to sound like a Scotswoman."
"Why do you keep saying that?"
It was his turn to blink in surprise. "I'm quite certain I've never mistaken you for a Scot until this very moment."
"Don't be obtuse. I meant the bit about the son of God, heathen spirits, and your Scottish hero."
He shrugged and pushed open the door to The Canny Man. "It's my own little prayer."
"Somehow, I doubt your vicar would find that particularly sacro
sanct."
"We call them ministers up here, and who the devil do you think taught it to me?"
Margaret nearly tripped over his foot as they reentered the small dining room. "You're joking."
"If you plan to spend any time in Scotland, you're going to have to learn that we're a more pragmatic people than ye of warmer climes."
"I've never heard 'warmer climes' used as an insult," Margaret muttered, "but I believe you've just managed it."
Angus pulled her chair out for her, seated himself, and then continued with his pontification. "Any man worth his salt quickly learns that in times of great need, he must turn to the things he can trust best, things he can depend upon."
Margaret stared at him with a mix of incredulity and disgust. "What on earth are you talking about?"
"When I feel the need to summon a higher power, I say, 'Jesus, whiskey, and Robert the Bruce.' It makes perfect sense."
"You're a stark, raving lunatic."
"If I were a less easygoing man," he said, signaling to the innkeeper to bring them some cheese, "I might take offense at that."
"You can't pray to Robert the Bruce," she persisted.
"Och, and why not? I'm sure he's more time to watch over me than Jesus. After all, Jesus has the whole bleeding world to look after, even Sassenachs like you."
"It's wrong," Margaret said firmly, her head shaking with her words. "It's just wrong."
Angus looked at her, scratched his temple, and said, "Have some cheese."
Margaret's eyes widened in surprise, but she took the cheese and put some in her mouth. "Tasty."
"I'd comment on the superiority of Scottish cheese, but I'm sure you'll already be feeling a wee bit insecure about your nation's cuisine."
"After the haggis?"
"There's a reason we Scots are bigger and stronger than the English."
She let out a ladylike snort. "You're insufferable."
Angus sat back, resting his head in his hands, with his arms bent out at the elbows. He looked like a well-sated man, a well-confident man, one who knew who he was and what he meant to do with his life.
Margaret couldn't take her eyes off of him.
"Perhaps," he allowed, "but everyone loves me so well."
She threw a piece of cheese at him.
