Chapter Two #2
“After all, I was never the one who held on to Fife as the only place on Earth worth a damn,” Romola said, unable to restrain herself. So much for keeping her composure.
“Excellent,” McGregor said. “In that case, you will have no reluctance to part with your aunt and uncle’s estate. There can be no sentiment there. I hear you are the one I must apply to. In fact, I have sought you out to discuss the matter.”
“I beg your pardon? I thought you were surprised…” Of all the ways and in all the manners she had hoped or imagined seeing McGregor again, his petitioning for her one means of independence beggared belief.
A spark of anger lit within Romola—she might have carrot hair, she might be freckled, she might be a bastard, but she was also the half-sister of a duke, and she had means of her own.
She was done being treated like this by a mere laird.
“I spoke to your steward about acquiring the land and was given to understand it was now within your control,” McGregor said. “I would be prepared to offer you the most generous terms for it.”
“What makes you think I wish to part with my land?”
“I assumed you would make a match down here and cut all ties to Scotland.”
“My brother and sisters live in Scotland. I am Scottish.”
“Despite your dislike of its literature?”
The remark made Romola look up, disturbed by how casually he was referring to their past conversations. He remembered it and yet could dismiss it without the pain of the past rearing its head.
“If you wish to discuss business, then I will receive your letters detailing what you are offering,” Romola said coldly as she made to move past him.
“This should all go to my man of business, who ism at present, the duke’s secretary.
But I should warn you, I am not inclined to sell. And certainly not to you.”
“Why not to me?” For the first time there was a hint of the man he had been, watching and studying her, seeing, it seemed, into her soul.
Unbidden, a blush rose to Romola’s cheeks, and she hated that her love for him had not faded over the years. “Why would I wish pleasure on a man I was told to hate, and one that hates me?”
McGregor finally stopped walking, and Romola made her move, cutting out behind and turning back toward the townhouse.
“I never hated you, Romola,” he called after her.
“You have no right—”
“I know, I know.” Hastily he held up his hands as if to surrender. “We were both very young and… I thought you would wish to be free of the connection.”
“Perhaps, then, you never knew me at all.”
“In that case, I will call on you.”
“You wish to sit down with a Campbell?” Romola glanced back over her shoulder at him, and that was when McGregor smiled, and a familiar tightening in her stomach returned from just watching that grin grow wider.
It appeared as if he had gained some insight into her mind’s workings merely by being in her presence, and for that, Romola felt both afraid and scared he knew her so well.
“I will do whatever it takes to get what I want,” McGregor said as he walked away, and there was little comfort Romola could draw from such an ominous threat.
*
“Do you know who this—this Laird McGregor is?” Her brother was eating his coddled eggs a week later.
The duke looked up and turned his hazel eyes on Romola inquiringly.
Hugo had a mixture of the day’s newspapers and his missives spread before him at the breakfast table.
Nearby, Beatrice was drinking her tea and yawning heavily.
Olivia was arguing with her cousin, Emillia, her mouth full, whilst Millie was trying to smuggle pieces of ham to the cook’s cat.
There was a general level of familial chaos that Romola was enjoying.
Only for that blasted man to interrupt things again. She shifted in her high-backed chair. Had her brother seen something at the Havershams’ ball? She’d thought, as the days crept by, that she had managed to emerge from the incident unscathed.
Carefully she sipped her chocolate, trying her best to muster a reply.
“Oh, I know him,” Beatrice said, her brown curls still tied with ribbons. “He’s terribly tall. He danced two sets with Lady Solomon at Almack’s. And then with Miss Mary Lindow and then—”
“Quite,” Hugo cut her off, as Beatrice was liable to recite an evening’s entertainment if given the opportunity. “I meant specifically you, Romola.”
“He has an estate near where I lived in Fife.”
“Yes, he makes reference to it.” Hugo’s frown darkened his brow. He sipped his coffee, only to immediately spit out. “Stop putting sugar in there, Livie.”
“It’s too bitter.”
“That’s how I like it.” Hugo sighed heavily.
“What did he want from us?” Romola asked, before the matter would be lost to the daily argument between the two siblings.
“He tells me that he means to call on you.” Hugo turned the letter over in his hands. “It seems you have a suitor, Romola.”
Millie and Livie both let out excited noises—a blend of girlish glee and true pleasure at Romola’s supposed good fortune.
Beatrice came over and squeezed Romola’s hand. “I think he’s very handsome.” Her blue eyes gleamed.
Romola did too, but that hardly helped matters.
“Can you refuse to permit him in the house?” Dare she tell her brother all the heartbreaking things that had occurred between McGregor and her?
Hugo might be among the most understanding of men, but the idea of admitting how foolish she’d been as a girl…
Whatever reputation she’d tried to build since then, the distance she had tried to put between her mother’s bad name and her own, would, at least in brother’s eyes, be destroyed.
All four of them looked at her as if she’d gone mad.
Lowering her cup back to its saucer, Romola tried to squash down all the warnings her dead aunt had made and the beatings her uncle had given her. She felt tears burn behind her eyes.
Hugo sighed. “I would never force your hand, or indeed any of yours,” he said, indicating all the women who were sat around the table.
“But Romola, this would be an exemplary suitor, and one who you already seem to know. There would be a distinct advantage in blending the estates,” he added, as he was a practical man, and such a consideration was worthy of note.
Tapping the letter, he said, “McGregor goes on at great lengths about how Fife could be improved when the two estates are united.”
Livie made a chuffing noise. “That’s not romantic.”
“But you’re always saying that you aren’t,” Beatrice said, and then quoted Romola: “‘Give me sense over sensibility any day.’ Perhaps he is precisely who you should marry.”
“I…” Romola tried to think of something to say, but whatever jumble of feelings that were beating through her chest were halted when Millie looked up from the cat on her lap and grinned wickedly.
“You will have to wear my green silk—it will look so beautiful with your hair.”
And that decided that.