Page 9 of A Scottish Bride for the Duke
She pushed her chair back abruptly, shoving away from him and the table.
“I’m returning to my room,” she said, her voice chilly again. “I won’t stand being treated like this.”
He rose, too, blocking the doorway to the room. “This is hardly the behavior of a lady.”
“Ye are hardly behaving like a host,” she retorted, stepping closer into his space. “And given yer status, is that not more of a crime?”
“I don’t know. You are the one who barged into my home under who knows what pretense.”
Her chest brushed his as he towered over her, but still, she did not break or move away.
Distantly, he knew he was behaving like a brute, but she didn’t present like a lady, and he had the thrill of knowing that she also enjoyed this. Shewantedhis proximity, or she wouldn’t have stepped so close to him.
A lady, shrinking and nervous, would never have allowed herself to be so close. She would have tittered and stuttered and found excuses to leave.
Instead, she jabbed a finger against his chest. “Is it not the policy of the law to believe someone innocent before proven guilty?”
“You have a desire for me to find you guilty?”
She tilted her head, a smile ghosting across her lips. “I challenge ye too—ye will not succeed.”
“What unbecoming confidence, Lady Isobel. Or is that truly your name?”
“Och!” The exclamation, heavy with her accent, surprised him.
She never gave him leave to forget she was a Scot—every word that came out of her mouth confirmed it—but the sheer guttural nature of that sound briefly quieted him.
“Och?” he inquired.
“Have ye no sense of decorum? As though I would lie to ye about the only thing that confirms my story. Ye will understand when ye speak to me maither instead of confronting me with lies that aren’t mine.”
More color leaped into her cheeks, and her eyes were bright with anger. Her finger still pressed against his chest, so he wrapped his hand around it, holding her gently despite his irritation.
Gods, but she had gotten under his skin so quickly. He did not know how he could have allowed such a thing to happen, and yet he didn’t want to stop this argument. It was a bright spot across a dark canvas, a moment of color and vitality amongst dead weeds.
He looked down to where her pale hand was almost encompassed by his large one, the callouses on his fingers from fencing rough against her soft skin. Whatever else she claimed, she was a lady; her hands would have given her away if she wasn’t.
Her breath hitched as she also looked down. The tension between them snapped.
His sense of reason catapulted back into place, and he dropped her hand.
A bright spot indeed—he had gone too far. She was nothing to him, and he ought to remember that.
“Tell me how your mother knows mine,” he demanded. “And what occurred to have her send you all the way down to London from the back of beyond, without her accompanying you.”
“Perhaps if ye were to direct me to yer maither, we would not need to have this conversation.”
“Enough! I will not be dismissed. You will answer me, and you will tell the truth.”
“I will not cow to yer demands,” she snapped back. “I have dealt with English lords before.”
He raised a brow. “Oh?”
Her mouth snapped shut, and not for the first time, he wondered what was in the insufferable note to his mother. If she was who she said she was, something serious must have happened, but he could not think of anything.
Surely, if she was disgraced and with child, her mother would not send her to a duchess to sponsor.
He stepped back. Space—if he had some space between them, he would be able to think clearly. She had a talent for getting under his skin, that much was evident, but he was not a man ruled by his desires, and he would not start now.
