Page 61 of The Highlander's Auctioned Hellion
Who is this jovial host? Usually, he is so bad-tempered!
They walked out into the gardens, the girls and Tommy running ahead with shrieks of laughter.
Callum made his way around Lydia and her mother, walking ahead of them and keeping an eye on the children.
“So how has it been with your soon-to-be husband?” her mother asked, keeping her voice low.
Lydia’s skin heated at the question, remembering only half an hour before where she had screamed her pleasure beneath him.
“Things have been a little… complicated. But it is not as bad as I had thought it could be.”
Her eyes were drawn to Callum’s muscular legs as he walked ahead of them. There was not an inch of softness on his frame, tight and brawny in every respect.
Lydia swallowed, squeezing her mother’s arm and smiling at Tommy as he held up the kitten for her to see.
“If it is not bad, then it isgood,” her mother said, sounding pleased. “Are you looking forward to the wedding?”
Lydia hesitated. The prospect of a loveless marriage like her parents had endured was not what she had hoped for, but it would be difficult to voice such fears to her mother.
“Yes,” she said finally when the silence had stretched for too long. “Of course.”
“Is there anything you’d like to do for it? Men will organize these things as very cold affairs. Do not be afraid to demand what you want, darling. Don’t make the same mistake I did and let him control everything.”
Lydia looked at Callum walking ahead of them.
Ever since she had first met him, her mind had fixated on an idea. It was a half-formed thought—an image of him in a traditional ballroom, towering over everyone, moving with grace and poise among the dancers.
She had thought it would remain a fantasy, but perhaps all she needed to do was ask.
CHAPTER 17
“Wouldye like me to play slowly so ye can keep up?” Alexander asked, and Callum snarled at his friend as his man-at-arms chuckled to himself gleefully.
After her mother’s arrival that morning, Lydia had announced some foolish idea that Callum should learn an English dance for her wedding.
Why did I agree to her maither comin’ here? It’s two against one.
The Duchess had confirmed what Lydia had discussed, which was that many at the wedding would expect an English dance.
The Scottish jigs and reels could come later, but apparently, to appease his English guests, he would need to begin slowly.
Callum did not give two pins for such things and was far happier on the battlefield than on the dance floor.
Alexander—the swine—could play the lute like an extension of himself and had offered to give them some music to practice.
Callum wanted to throw a chair at his head.
“Now, everyone must stand together in a line to start with. Ladies are paired with gentlemen, and we must be parallel.”
Lydia stood in the center of the room, explaining the steps as the rain battered against the windows above.
Somehow, Callum and Tommy were acting as the only available gentlemen, and Lydia and her mother were the ladies.
The size difference between Callum and Tommy was ridiculous, and the wee boy was looking up at him as if Callum were about to eat him alive.
“Now, Laird Murray, you stand with me,” the Duchess said bossily, coming to his right and pulling him to the edge of the floor.
Callum felt an irrational spike of irritation that Lydia was partnered with her brother and not with him.
