Chapter 5
She’d gone and stepped into it now.
Lucy was in trouble.
Or danger.
She should’ve corrected their error immediately. The minute they called her Mr. Smith’s sweetheart, she’d had an obligation to set them straight.
For reasons she could not now explain, she’d allowed them to continue with the assumption.
Every last one of Mr. Smith’s family had embraced her as if she had long been among their numbers.
With one exception being…him.
The cold-eyed, suspicious stranger who watched her.
No, not watching her. Sizing her up.
He had a flinty pair of dark blue eyes and a hard, angular jaw. Between that and a pair of broad, heavily muscled shoulders, a narrow waist, and tree trunk-like thighs, the man was all Scot.
Lucy scowled.
Aye, and he had a temper of one too.
A man as surly as this one didn’t have a right to be so, so bleeding handsome.
The faint but cold smile on his unforgivably hard lips indicated he’d caught her notice.
Bloody bugger the fellow.
He was suspicious of her, and had every reason to be, but he didn’t need to be so smug.
Mr. Smith isn’t smug.
For a heartbeat, something startled and wicked lit Mr. McQuoid’s eyes, a flash of amusement cracking through the hard, cynical mask he wore—then it was gone.
Oh, God! Lucy curled her toes tight into the soles of her borrowed slippers. She’d said that aloud. The problem in talking to oneself, as a habit, was it caught a lass up at the worst of times.
“Uh…” The bemused nobleman nodded slowly. “Yes. Campbell is not the humble sort. That…is one of our favorite things about the lad.” He looked to his amused son. “Isn’t that right?”
The right corner of Arran’s mouth tucked in the faintest grin. “Oh, among them. There truly are so many wonderful traits Campbell possesses. I would certainly say his lack of arrogance to be among his top three.”
It was a wonder what an honest, open smile could do to a gentleman with rugged, sun-bronzed features, chiseled from stone—and to the woman fortunate enough to be his recipient.
Heat washed over her face.
As if the handsome devil hadn’t already been appealing enough.
A frown formed on Lord Abington’s lips.
What had she done or said now? Lucy’s stomach dropped.
When the earl spoke, however, he did so in a kindly way. “Also, Lucy, you needn’t stand on formality referring to him as Mr. Smith. Campbell is your sweetheart. You have leave to use the lad’s name.”
“You refer to mother as Lady Catherine,” Mr. McQuoid pointed out.
Lucy tried in vain to keep up with their rapid volleys.
“I do not do it all the time.” The earl looped his fingers into the waistband of his sage green trousers. “And it is different, boy.”
The sun-bronzed gentleman reclined a big shoulder against the wall. “Because Mother is not your sweetheart?”
Wait. Was the somber fellow making light?
Catching Lucy’s eye, Mr. McQuoid gave a little wink. A single downward sweep of impossibly long, dark lashes. It was like he let her in on a special joke only they shared. Flustered, Lucy settled her hands over her belly to stop the strange fluttering there. They remained trapped in—
“I forgot!”
Lucy and Mr. McQuoid jumped.
Lord Abington’s bushy side whiskers moved up. “How could I be so absent-minded, failing to provide proper introductions. Lucy, this one here is my younger lad, Captain McQ—”
The gentleman gave a tight shake of his head. “Father.”
“Ah, that’s right! No formalities. This is my son, Arran.”
Captain McQuoid—Arran—offered Lucy a playful wave.
This side of him caused a little leap in her chest in a way it had never done, except when Mr. Smith came through the doors of The Spotted Elk.
Abruptly, the suddenly distracted earl withdrew his watch fob and consulted the time. “Uh, yes. Now that you’re properly introduced,” he said. “Why do I not leave you to become acquainted and exchange stories about Campbell?”
Before, she’d been unnerved around Mr. Smith’s surly seeming cousin. That disquiet was nothing compared to this new sense of unease around the charming gentleman.
Lucy sprang forward onto the balls of her feet. “Oh, I really mustn’t! I can’t.” Panic pounded in her chest.
Lord Abington smiled. “Of course you can,” he said jovially. “Arran can still find a way to be charming when the situation calls for it, isn’t that right?”
The brief light which transformed the man from sinister captain to approachable mortal went out. His chiseled features shuttered. There was absolutely no way this stranger, this commanding and enigmatic stranger, wanted to keep company with an unremarkable miss with messy hair like Lucy.
She suspected he would, on account of his being a gentleman.
Lucy cast a desperate glance Arran’s way.
“Given Campbell’s condition,” the gentleman said coolly, “Lucy is certainly too worried to sit and indulge in stories about her betrothed.”
She should be relieved. She should be relieved and not strangely—and profoundly—disappointed by his rejection.
After all, she was well accustomed to her averageness.
She’d been eager to leave before. She was desperate to do so now.
Avoiding the gentleman’s gaze, and strangely hurt at his rejection, Lucy slid her glance back to the earl. “As much as I am grateful to each of you for welcoming me into your fold,” she murmured. “My family is waiting for me, my lord.”
That much was true.
“Nonsense, lass! Lady Abington already sent your kindly servants word that you are staying the night.”
The pair he took for kindly servants were in fact her only remaining family left. And she was as much a kindly servant, though even that was in question now, given the fact The Spotted Elk had gotten Campbell Smith injured right good.
Hell. She was in a hell of her own making. Sent by the good Lord himself, to punish her for her lie of omission.
Keenly aware of the pair of McQuoid gentlemen watching her—one bemused, one the taller, cryptic gentleman—Lucy considered her options.
She arrived at one. The only thing to do.
Hide.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she said softly. “I find myself…” Needing to hide. “Tired from the day’s events.”
At long last, the Earl of Abington took the not so subtly dropped clue. “Go rest, lass.”
Saints be praised! She didn’t have to face them.
Her reprieve and relief proved short-lived. “We will see you for dinner, Lucy.”
Lucy closed her eyes. There was no escape anywhere. This is what she got for not correcting their confusion.
The older gentleman’s warm eyes filled with compassion.
Taking Lucy’s callous, work-rough hand in his soft, unblemished nobleman’s one, he gave her fingers a gentle pat.
“I more than understand your worry, lass. We have a surgeon. A very good one. In fact, we have three here. On account one of my lasses is expecting and her husband insists on no fewer than three doctors being present—”
Lucy struggled to keep up. At some point, she lost hold of whatever it was he was saying.
“…insisted on six at first, but a compromise was reached that the other three would be mid—”
“Father,” Arran interjected in firm tones, his gaze stuck on Lucy. “Lucy has been through a great deal this day. It would be best if we allowed her to rest.”
Lucy barely heard his words. Just enough to know he sought to end their meeting.
Good. She wanted it over even more. His bright blue eyes pierced. They were the kind that could pry a young woman’s secrets from her lips. They were eyes that saw too much.
“Yes, yes, of course!” The earl consulted his time piece. “I had the same thought myself, I did. It will do the lass good to have herself a proper rest.”
When Lord Abington took a breath and prepared to launch into more words, Arran held out his elbow.
“Good evening, Father. I will escort Lucy back to her rooms.”
“Good evening, my lord,” she said, sinking into another curtsy. No matter how much he or any of his gracious family might insist, curtsying to her betters was as much part of the fabric of her identity as her name.
Lucy took that lifeline from the most unlikely of places. The instant her fingertips touched his sleeve, there came a spark, like the moment she stepped out of bed and her bare feet got a little shock from the fading, painted floorcloth.
By the time they made the short walk to her guest chambers, the earl had gone.
And Lucy found herself alone with Arran.
Nay, Mr. McQuoid.
He only referred to her by her given name at his father’s ordering.
“Thank you for your assistance, Mr. McQuoid,” she murmured.
“In disentangling you from my garrulous father?” he drawled.
Oh, good Sunday sermons. She was always stepping into it. “I didn’t mean—”
Arran waved his right hand. “When the earl said we do not stand on ceremony, it wasn’t just him being polite. We don’t, Lucy.”
He commanded her name as though it belonged to him. He wrapped it in satin and steel all at the same time. This gentleman wasn’t the safe sort like Mr. Smith. Nay, Captain McQuoid was the manner of man lasses were warned to steer clear of: to protect her heart...and virtue.
Arran dipped a hooded gaze to her mouth.
Lucy’s heart jumped.
But his focus? His focus continued lower—slowly lower—to the neckline of her gown.
Still lower, where it lingered…
Lucy gasped.
Face flaming, she snatched her fingers back from where she still fully gripped Arran’s arm.
“Good night,” she blurted. She reached blindly out, searching her fingers about for the door handle.
Arran inclined his head. “Lucy.”
His baritone, like the warmed chocolate her father used to make, had the same warming effect.
Lucy yanked the door open and shut it with too much enthusiasm; the rattle of the panel echoed damningly.
Heart pounding, she lay her hands behind her back and rested against the door.
Lucy focused on drawing smooth, even breaths—unsuccessfully. “My head’s mince.”
It was very possible that in accepting the McQuoid’s grace and staying in their home, she had broken some law. One that could even potentially see her hanged.
Such a worry was only secondary.
Lucy had contended with any number of men over the course of her years living and working at The Spotted Elk.
When drink became involved, men became unpredictable.
Some were given to boisterous laughter and song.
Others became sullen and angry drunkards with foul mouths. The raucous ones spoiled for a fight.
Her father hadn’t tolerated handsy ones beyond anything more than a single finger laid upon her before he’d thrown them out.
She’d faced them all.
Not a single one of those countless patrons roused the unease that Mr. Arran McQuoid did.
Nor was it fear.
She didn’t know what name to put to it.
She only knew that the only way to escape the McQuoid family unscathed, after this particular misunderstanding, was to stay far, far away from Arran McQuoid.