Page 33 of The Trouble With Dukes
“Pick the lock,” Murdoch replied, putting a few candied violets on Megan’s plate. “Don’t tell me you’re scandalized. You have a platoon of sisters, and you grew up with older boy cousins, and they have another platoon of sisters. You’re probably a better lock picker than I am.”
Megan was quite proficient with a hairpin. “Why do you say that?”
“Because you don’t see as well as I do. You likely listen more closely, and your sense of touch would be more acute. Many of the best harpers in the Highlands have been blind. We have blind fiddlers, blind pipers. Seems only fair, if the Almighty withholds the boon of sight, that other gifts are given fuller expression.”
A queer pang assailed Megan at that bit of philosophy. She popped a sweet, crunchy violet into her mouth.
“I like to sing Mama’s songs from Wales or the occasional drawing room piece with my sisters, but I’m not the musical prodigy Lord Valentine is.”
Another pat, to her shoulder this time. Murdoch really was an affectionate man. Megan could still feel the pleasure of his embrace, warm, sheltering, fragrant, and … masculine. So very masculine.
“The harper’s gift isn’t only the music, Meggie. I love music, my sisters have beautiful voices, Colin plays a wicked fiddle. My blind uncle Leith excelled us all in skill because he was determined. His strength wasn’t only the music, but also the sheer, unrelenting stubbornness to learn despite a lack of sight.”
The queer feeling spread, a chill followed by warmth. Megan suspected she’d just been complimented, not as an Englishman would render a compliment—to the pale blue shade of her dress, to the sprigs of violets woven into her coiffure, to something easilyseen—but as a Scotsman gifts a lady with a compliment.
“Sir Fletcher is stubborn,” she said. “Also mean.” He was no sort of kisser either, all rough, fumbling hands, thrusting tongue, and haste.
“Does the food not agree with you?”
She pushed aside the memory and took a sip of punch. “The food and the company are very agreeable. I can’t say when I’ve enjoyed a supper break more. Tell me about your home, Your Grace.”
“You must visit someday. The landscape is wilder, the light sharper, the air more invigorating. You’d like it.”
Megan would love it, for Murdoch clearly did. The longer he spoke of Scotland, and Perthshire in particular, the more heavily accented his English became, until Megan slipped into Gaelic, and he did too, and the orchestra resumed its graceful, measured dances without Megan even noticing.
Their plates were empty and their glasses as well by the time Murdoch assisted her to her feet.
“You have ruined me for socializing, Meggie Windham. My expectations for a society ball have been raised to include excellent conversation, a dash of intrigue, and the company of a lady whose well-reasoned opinions aren’t in the common way. My thanks for taking pity on a homesick Scotsman.”
He’d taken her hand and enfolded it in both of his, though neither he nor Megan had put their gloves back on, for they yet lingered amid the ferns.
She did not want to let Murdoch go. Didn’t want to let her hand slip from his, did not want to lose him among the throng below, did not want to fill her ears with violin melodies and gossip when she could instead be arguing economics and poetry with him.
Alas, Megan was without spectacles, and thus when she went to kiss Murdoch, she had to cup his cheek against her palm, the better to perfect her aim. An hour ago, she might have contented herself with his cheek—a friendly kiss.
But somewhere between a pat on the arm, and a compliment to her stubbornness, friendly had become inadequate. Murdoch was championing her cause, routing a scoundrel, and putting himself at risk on her behalf simply because he was a gentleman.
Megan put her mouth to his, lingering for a moment, so he’d know she’d hit the target she couldn’t quite see clearly but could enjoy wonderfully even with her eyes closed. He was warmth and wonder, a hint of lemons, a whiff of heather.
And she was in love.
Longing sharper and more desperate than homesickness shot through Hamish as he cradled Megan’s hand against his cheek.
“You must not, Meggie.”
Such was her determination that a man might easily mistake it for a lack of comprehension. Megan Windham’s gestures, her speech, her responses were all characterized by hesitation, a moment in which she appeared to be choosing words, deciding how to reply, or casting about for answers.
Hamish knew better. As a Scotsman among English officers, as the head of his family, as a former soldier outcast among his fellow veterans, he knew what her lowered lashes truly signaled.
She was marshaling her self-restraint, being prudent. Being relentlessly self-controlled and at a cost only another passionate soul behind enemy lines might suspect.
A frisson of the battle lust pierced the warmth Megan’s kiss brought, an irrational conviction that Hamish alone could free her from that moment of hesitation she brought to even a stolen kiss. She’d cupped Hamish’s cheek first, a tender gesture that cut him to the marrow of his lonely soul.
And then she fixed bayonets and charged his lines.
Megan pressed her mouth to Hamish’s more firmly, and he swung her about, so his sheer bulk would block from view the identity of the woman who had dared kiss the Terror of Toulouse.
Megan Windham was a terror in her own right, sending Hamish’s common sense teetering on the brink of oblivion. She went at him with everything—wrapped her arms about him, leaned into the kiss, and into a man contemplating the complete surrender of his wits.
