The Devil Wears Kilts (32 page)

Was this a challenge to her philosophy, or the means by which Ranulf would fail to live up to it? He would kill Calder for saying that to her. At the least, the ensuing brawl would utterly ruin his reputation in London. And where her father was concerned.

“Ye look pale as a banshee,” he said, walking up and offering his arm.

She took it gratefully. “He’s quite an awful man.”

“Aye. That he is.” They walked a few feet in silence. “Are ye not going to tell me what he said, then?”

Charlotte shook her head. “No. It was just words.”

Ranulf stopped, bringing her up short beside him. “What was just words?” he asked crisply.

She would have to tell him something, if only for his own safety. And if she concealed the truth, it didn’t mean that Ranulf had kept his word to her about being civilized. It only made her a liar and a coward. “He said you and your family were trouble, and that I would be wise to keep my distance from you.”

“Ah. And that’s why ye look ready to faint,
leannan
?”

“I’m not ready to faint,” she retorted. “He called me some names. I believe I’ll survive.”

Ranulf pulled her closer. “What names?” he enunciated very clearly.

She met his fierce, burning gaze. “You gave me your word.”

He continued glaring at her. “Aye, that I did. So tell me what he said to ye, Charlotte.”

If she told him, she
knew
he would go straight for Calder’s throat. And if she didn’t, he might very well attack anyway. “He said I was a bitch and a shrew, old and so desperate for a man that I became your whore.” The words tasted strange and filthy on her tongue, and she hoped never to have cause to speak them again.

Ranulf closed his eyes for the space of half a dozen heartbeats. She kept her grip on his arm, even though she knew that if he went for Calder she would never be able to stop him. It felt like minutes, but could only have been a matter of seconds before vivid blue caught her gaze again.

“Just words,” he muttered, and moved forward again. “I think it’s time for us to leave.”

“We can’t, Ran,” his sister pleaded as they reached the rest of the group. “I’ve promised every dance to someone.”

“So have I,” Jane added. She’d danced the waltz with Arran MacLawry, Charlotte realized belatedly.

“Is something amiss, Glengask?” Lord Hest asked, his expression cautious. From what he’d said about Ranulf, he no doubt expected trouble.

A muscle in Ranulf’s lean jaw clenched. “Nae. Just a feeling.”

“Then you’re free to go, of course. I think we’ll stay.”

For a long moment Ranulf stood silent. “Come along then, Rowena, Arran.”

He reached for his sister’s hand, but she took a step backward. “I’m not going, Ranulf.”

“Then who do ye expect to keep an eye on ye, Rowena?” he returned flatly.

“No one. For heaven’s sake,
bràthair,
this is a grand ball. Nothing is going to happen to me here. And I’m eighteen. I’m not a little girl with pigtails.”

Ranulf hesitated. It was the first time in their acquaintance that Charlotte had ever seen him indecisive about anything. The effect was oddly heartbreaking. Finally he nodded. “Arran and I will go, then. Unless ye’ve other plans, Arran.”

“Nae. I’ll go with ye,” Arran replied, looking rather stunned to be asked.

“Good.” He sent a glance at his uncle, who nodded, evidently realizing his duty. Then he looked at her, a stiff smile touching his mouth and fleeing again. “I’ll call on ye tomorrow.”

With that he and his brother left the ballroom. Immediately the room seemed smaller, the light dimmer, the music cheap and amateurish. And as much as she tried to deny it, her heart felt dimmer, too.

Of course she was being silly; she’d spent weeks attempting to convince him to see her point of view. Insisting that it was wrong to answer words—especially words that only insulted a man’s or a woman’s pride—with bloodshed. So now that he’d listened, she had no right to feel like a fairy princess whose one true love had just walked away from the battlefield rather than staying to defend her honor.

After all, she knew why he’d left; he’d done it so no one else would have any reason to threaten or insult her or Rowena or Janie. It had been the wise, mature decision. Neither had he been weak in conceding to his sister’s demand to stay. He’d only been attempting to avoid causing a scene, as any proper gentleman would do.

And so she did not, absolutely did not, feel disappointed.

Chapter Fifteen

Ranulf had read somewhere about insects that devoured their victims from the inside, leaving perfect, empty shells in their wake. And he wondered whether fury could do the same thing to a man, eating his heart and organs alive, consuming them with heat and flame, leaving naught but a hollow wretch behind.

Part of him wished that, if emptiness was the end result, his anger would hurry up and get it over with. Because the raw hate he’d been fighting during a night of pacing and drinking and punching half a dozen holes in his bedchamber wall showed no sign of easing.

All he wanted to do was strike out—at Calder and at Gerdens-Dailey and at Berling—and permanently remove the threat those men represented to his loved ones. And that was the one thing he could not do. Not if he wanted to keep Charlotte Hanover in his life.

Arran leaned around the breakfast room door frame. “There ye are,” he said, but didn’t move into the room. Instead his light blue eyes found Owen and one of the new footmen they’d hired. “My brother and I need a moment,” he said.

“Aye, Lord Arran.”

Once Owen had dragged the other servant out of the room, Arran stepped inside and shut the door behind him. Silently he poured himself a cup of tea, chose a hard-boiled egg and some ham slices from the sideboard, and took the seat at the foot of the table opposite Ranulf.

“Ye’ve a note from Myles,” he said, sliding the folded paper down the table.

After he took another drink from the whisky at his elbow and emptied the accompanying bottle of the stuff to refill his glass, Ranulf picked the note up and unfolded it. “I’ll be going to luncheon at White’s,” he said, refolding the note and pocketing it. Evidently Myles had found an Englishman or two for him to befriend. Lovely. Now he would have to find a way to be polite, when all he wanted to do was smash things into wee pieces.

His brother nodded. “I thought I might see if Winnie and the Hanover lasses care to go for a picnic luncheon,” he said, his tone still low and flat and careful.

“Ye do that, then.” Ranulf took another drink.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, before Arran cleared his throat. “I thought ye might’ve still been to bed this morning,” he said, “so I knocked on yer door. I think ye might have some wood beetles in yer walls. Ye’ve a bit of damage.”

If he’d been in a better mood, the care with which Arran was speaking would have been amusing. “I noticed that,” he returned.

“If ye need any assistance getting rid of these insects, I hope ye keep in mind that I’m here, and I’m more than ready to help.”

That couldn’t be allowed. Not only could Arran be hurt—or worse—but any MacLawry doing violence could cost him Charlotte. “Nae. The world’s full of insects, and they’ll eat what they will.”

“So ye mean to let ’em pull down yer house, just because that’s what they do?”

It was a fairly apt metaphor, Ranulf decided. “What I mean to do,” he said, standing, “is go to White’s for luncheon. And ye’ll be having yer picnic. If ye don’t mind, tell Charlotte I won’t be able to come by today, after all.”

He wanted to. He could scarcely think of anything or anyone else. But he knew that seeing her before he’d found a way to wrestle his rage into something he could control would be exceedingly unwise. Because when he so much as imagined her golden hair and wise hazel eyes, all he wanted to do was go find the man who’d insulted her and force him to apologize. To make certain none of his so-called countrymen could ever hurt her or Rowena or anyone else in his family ever again.

“I’ll tell her that,” Arran said, clearly not reading his brother’s thoughts. “Are ye certain there’s not someaught ye’d care to tell me?”

Ranulf kept walking. “Aye. Stay oot of trouble.”

His brother couldn’t possibly be satisfied with that response. Ranulf wasn’t happy with it, either, but there wasn’t a thing to be done about it. Yes, he could pursue the burning of his stable legally, but all he and Arran had been able to determine was that Berling had quite possibly not done it. As for the insults to Rowena and Charlotte, ungentlemanly or not he didn’t think it illegal. And unless he had overwhelming evidence of a heinous crime, trying to bring legal action would only make him look weak. Weaker.

When he returned to his bedchamber, Ginger was attempting to hang a painting over one of the holes in the wall. Several of them were already covered, in fact, with an ill-fitting mismatch of paintings, a picture cut from a catalog, plates of delicate china, and what looked like a tea cozy.

“I think that’s more pointing them oot than covering them up, Ginger,” he commented, and the valet jumped.

“I’ll have Owen hire someone to make repairs,” the valet said, setting the painting on the floor. “Such poor craftsmanship. There’s no excuse, my lord.”

Ranulf thought there was an excellent excuse; it was either the wall or Charles Calder and George Gerdens-Dailey’s faces. “Thank ye,” he said aloud. “Now find me someaught to wear to White’s, will ye?”

“White’s? Yes, my lord. Of course. With pleasure.”

This was what he did, Ranulf supposed. He tried to put aside a handful of hurtful words and ignored the fact that they could signify the start of something much more dangerous. He went to stuffy luncheons and made stuffy, proper acquaintances and called them friends and pretended to like wee cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off.

As he dressed, Fergus rose from his place before the fire and butted Ranulf’s hand with his nose, demanding scratches. Absently Ranulf complied. The poor fellow was indispensable in the Highlands, both for protection and for chasing down rabbits and deer. Here, though, he was mostly a curiosity, unusual for his size and fearsome appearance, but of no use at soirees and Society’s proper gatherings.

He was rather the same, now that he thought about it. In the Highlands decisiveness and a firm hand kept those dependent on him fed and safe and thriving where most others brought uncaring greed and shortsightedness that forced their own people into the cities or the Lowlands or across the sea to America. In London, though, everything he knew was wrong, everything he was skilled at was inappropriate, and others played the game better than he did.

A logical, sane man would likely leave Town and return to where the world was right side up. But today he wasn’t a sane man. Today he was a man in love. Giving Fergus’s rough fur another ruffle, he finished dressing and went downstairs to collect Stirling.

Debny had saddled his own horse, as well. Rather than spending time arguing, Ranulf swung up on the big bay and headed toward Pall Mall. However tired and angry he happened to be, in a very few minutes he was going to have to be charming and personable. He meant to be the sort of man to whom Lord Hest would be happy to hand over his daughter, whether he could barely tolerate himself or not.

“Come back for me in an hour or so,” he told his groom once they’d reached the unassuming front door of the club.

“And if ye leave before that?” Debny asked, catching Stirling’s reins.

“I’ll hire a hack.”

“M’laird, I am nae going to see ye withoot an ally.”

Ranulf took a breath. “I’ll keep Myles with me,” he said.

The groom nodded. “That’ll do, then.”

“I damned well hope so,” he muttered, and walked up to the door. Now his own servants felt comfortable dictating to him.

The door opened as he reached it, and a liveried doorman stepped forward, blocking the entrance. “Are you expected, sir?” he asked politely.

So now he had to explain himself and his business to servants and strangers. “Lord Swansley’s expecting me,” he ground out, attempting a mild expression and fairly certain he wasn’t succeeding. “The Marquis of Glengask.”

The doorman stepped aside. “Welcome, my lord,” he said, gesturing to a passing footman. “Franklin will show you to your table.”

Well, that was more like it. Myles and two other men sat close to the middle of the room, and all three men stood as he approached. Inwardly swearing, Ranulf inclined his head as he recognized one of his lunch companions.

“Lord Stephen Hammond, aye?” he said, shaking his uncle’s hand and taking the one open chair at the table.

“Yes,” the Duke of Esmond’s second son replied, and indicated the stocky, brown-haired man seated opposite Ranulf. “And this is my good friend Simon Beasley. Simon, Lord Glengask.”

“Lord Swansley tells us you have a large holding in Scotland,” Beasley commented.

“Aye.” Ranulf had no desire to elaborate. “How do ye know my uncle, Mr. Beasley?”

“Our families are neighbors,” the stout man returned with an easy smile. “Our family patriarch is the Marquis of Dunford, but I’m several cousins away from him.”

“Simon and I attended Oxford together,” Lord Stephen put in. “Both of our families have pedigrees dating all the way back to the second Henry.”

“There’s a club of sorts at Oxford,” Simon added, his grin deepening. “A gathering for descendants of England’s original earls.”

That seemed singularly uninteresting, but Ranulf nodded. The Sasannach talked so much, they probably had knowledge of all sorts of useless, inane information.

“How far back does your title go?” Lord Stephen asked, as a waiter came by and took their luncheon orders.

“I dunnae track back to a Henry,” Ranulf drawled, catching his uncle’s warning look.

“Ah. How recent is it, then?” Simon signaled a footman for a bottle of wine.

Bah.
Wine might as well be water. “A mite older than that. My ancestors were Vikings and Celts. The first jarl of Glengask was, according to legend, a great bear of a man called Laurec. He took to wife a wild Celtic lass who painted her face blue and danced naked in the moonlight.”