Chapter 1 #2
Was that a cut? Or a jest? The fact that he couldn’t be certain of which it was intrigued him.
Sassanach lasses in his experience and with very few exceptions knew all about the weather and could discuss it for hours, but he couldn’t give them credit for much else.
“Someaught flattering,” he mused aloud, trying to decide how much effort to go to.
He meant to approach a marriage agreement from a position of strength, after all.
True, perhaps he didn’t dread the notion as much as he had five minutes earlier, but he wasn’t ready to surrender.
Not by a long space. A MacLawry didn’t beg for an alliance. “Ye dance gracefully,” he settled on.
She laughed again, though it didn’t sound as inviting, this time. “Well. Believe it or not, you aren’t the first Scotsman to say so. You measure quite equally with the lot of them.”
Arran was fairly certain he’d just been insulted.
He hid a scowl, not that she’d be able to see it behind the fox mask.
If she was Deirdre, perhaps he needed to be more …
charming, or some such. Though she might have introduced herself before she began pecking at him.
“I’ve known ye fer two minutes, lass,” he commented, pulling her a breath closer.
“I weighed saying ye had a lovely pelt and gracefully pointed ears, but I didnae ken ye’d appreciate that. ”
“And why wouldn’t a vixen like to hear that a fox admires her pelt?”
“Because ye’re nae a vixen, any more than I’m a fox.
Ye chose nae to wear a swan mask, which at least sets ye apart from a dozen other lasses here tonight, but I’m wearing a fox mask because my sister handed it to me.
I reckon I’d rather be a wolf, truth be told.
” Yes, the family generally called him the clever one, and Rowena had seemed pleased enough at the choice that he’d gone along with it, but it was a well-painted piece of papier-maché—and nothing more.
“I wanted to be a vixen,” she said after a moment. “My father wanted me to be a swan.”
Now this was interesting. “And yet here ye are, nae a swan.” She also was a young woman, perhaps three or four years older than Rowena—the age he knew Deirdre Stewart to be—with an attractive mouth, lips that seemed naturally to want to smile, and shadowed green eyes that he imagined crinkled at the corners.
If Arran hadn’t had both hands occupied with the waltz, he would have been fighting the urge to remove her mask, so he could see the whole of her face, to know if the parts were equal to the sum.
Her lips curved again. “And that is a compliment, Sir Fox.” She tilted her head, the gold lights in her hair catching the chandelier light. “Or do you wish me to call you Sir Wolf?”
“I’d answer to Arran,” he returned, grinning back at her. She didn’t react to his name, but then she likely already knew who he was. London Society didn’t boast many lads fresh from the Highlands.
“Tell me why the swan—the one pretending not to gaze at you from over by the refreshment table—terrifies you, Arran,” the vixen said.
He shrugged. “She’s my sister’s closest friend, and my oldest brother is betrothed to her sister.”
“Ah,” the vixen returned, her lush gold and red gown swirling against his legs. “The moment she discovered her future brother-in-law had an unmarried brother, she began dreaming about a double wedding.”
“Aye. Someaught like that. I’ve nae wish to break her heart, but I’ll nae end up marrying her to avoid seeing her pout, either.”
“You must be quite the dancer, if your waltz causes ladies to become spontaneously engaged. Someone should have warned me.”
“Tease if ye like, lass, but I’m nae here to get tangled into a debutante’s fairy tale.
” God and Saint Bridget knew there were more than enough bonnie lasses awaiting his pleasure in the Highlands, and none of them with silly Sasannach sensibilities about romance and danger.
When Ranulf, the chief of clan MacLawry, married his English bride, the family would have more than enough gentle southern blood brought into the mix.
And evidently he was to be aimed at a Stewart, anyway.
“If you’re not here to marry, then what brings you to London? The mild weather?”
Arran snorted. “If it’s nae someaught that can knock ye to yer knees, it’s nae weather. I’m only here to keep an eye on my brother and sister. And to be polite.”
He sent a glance over where the big black panther waltzed with his owl.
With Ranulf distracted by a pair of pretty hazel eyes and Rowena enamored of everything English, one of the MacLawrys needed to keep a wary eye open for Campbells.
That was why he’d left their youngest brother, Bear, behind to see to Glengask while he rode down to London.
Because William Campbell declaring that clan Campbell would recognize a truce with the MacLawrys was just words.
Very fragile ones. Arran had seen enough bloody deeds to recognize the difference.
“‘To be polite’?” she repeated. “An … interesting goal. Are you generally not polite, then?”
It likely wasn’t a coincidence that she’d several times now decided to comment on the most barbed portion of his various statements. She was needling him—and on purpose. He liked it. “I’m a very polite lad,” he said aloud, “except to those who dunnae deserve a kind word.”
Amused green eyes looked up to meet his gaze again. “And where do I fall in this hierarchy?” she asked.
Whoever this lass was, she was no timid flower. “Ye’ve some Highlands blood in yer veins, do ye nae, lass?”
She lowered her head for a heartbeat. “I do, at that. But what makes you say so?”
With a crescendo the waltz ended. Arran stood there for a moment, briefly wishing he hadn’t named himself the designated watchdog of his family.
Then he would have been free to continue this conversation somewhere more intimate.
“Save me a quadrille or someaught, and I’ll tell ye,” he offered instead.
She belatedly untangled herself from his arms. “I would, but there are enough men here that that wouldn’t be … seemly. Another time, perhaps?”
“Aye. Another time. But at least tell me yer name, lass.”
A slow smile curved her attractive mouth once more, and this time the muscles across his abdomen tightened in response.
For God’s sake, he hoped she would say Deirdre Stewart.
Then he could put this odd heightened awareness to instinct.
Taking a step closer again, she put a hand on his shoulder and lifted up on her toes.
“I think, Sir Fox,” she murmured, her warm lips brushing his ear, “that you should call me … Lady Vixen.”
With that she moved back, then turned and walked away.
She sent him a single glance over her shoulder before she vanished into the sea of sparkling masks.
Hm. Whatever the devil that had been about, he felt in need of a cold swim in the nearest loch.
His nether MacLawry felt nearly at half-staff, just from having his ear nibbled on.
In public. Striding to one side of the room, he captured a glass of vodka from a footman and downed it.
“Who was that, Arran?” his sister asked, appearing beside him to grip his left arm.
He shook himself. If Winnie was here, then Jane Hanover would be directly on her heels.
“An old friend,” he improvised, inclining his head as the swan hurried up behind the peacock.
At least he’d avoided waltzing with her.
“Did anyone write his name on yer wee card fer this quadrille, Lady Jane? And do ye have a country dance left fer yer own brother, Winnie?”
Jane flushed beneath her ornate mask and yellow hair. “Well, I—yes, but—Actually, I … was hoping you—”
If he didn’t stop her floundering, she was likely to injure herself. “Hand over yer card, then, and I’ll scribble doon my name,” he offered, trying to decide to whom he would say he’d promised the damned second waltz when she asked about it—and she would ask.
With an audible sigh the younger Hanover sister handed him her card and pencil.
She’d been claimed for nearly every other dance, he noted, including the second waltz.
Thank Lucifer. No wonder she’d been in such determined pursuit of him earlier.
Evidently he owed Lady Vixen more of a debt than he’d even realized.
Stifling a sigh of his own, he wrote down his name and returned the card to her, then did the same with his own sister.
Rowena still wore the excited smile she’d donned almost from the moment she’d handed him his fox mask yesterday.
She had to know that he wasn’t interested in her young friend.
Why, then, did she seem to be encouraging Jane’s pursuit of him?
He was going to have to have a chat with her—and soon.
The last thing he needed was two of his siblings throwing women at him, especially when he felt obligated to favor Ranulf’s selection.
“I still don’t understand how she could be an old friend,” Jane said, her voice a touch shrill. “Winnie said the MacLawrys don’t like the Campbells.”
Arran jolted back to attention. What was this? “What are ye talking aboot, lass?” he demanded.
Jane took a half step backward. “The … your friend in the vixen mask. You said you were friends. You said it. Not me.”
“I—”
Winnie nudged him in the ribs with her sharp elbow. “Bràthair.”
He ignored that. There was a time for him to be polite, and then there was the Campbells. “Do ye know who she is, Jane?”
“Everyone knows that’s Mary Campbell. Her grandfather is the Duke of Alkirk.”
Rowena gasped, but Arran clenched his jaw against the roar that wanted to erupt from his chest. The charming, intriguing Lady Vixen wasn’t Deirdre Stewart. She was a Campbell. And not just any Campbell, either. She was the granddaughter of William Campbell, the chief of clan Campbell. The Campbell.
No wonder she hadn’t given her name.