Page 57 of Too Scot to Handle
“I’m still bothered, in a sense,” she said. “I could not bear for you to touch me like that again just now, but I’m still stirred up too.” In a complete, golden muddle, in fact.
“Now comes a wee cuddle, while you get your bearings.”
“What about your bearings?”
“I didna lose them, this time. We will speak of comfortable things and ease away from the fire. When we leave this library, you will be a woman with a devoted suitor, assuming your uncle doesna object.”
She loved the feel of his speech when his burr became pronounced. Words rumbled out of him, like water down a burn after a rain, rather than some placid little trickle meandering through a pasture.
“Uncle will approve,” Anwen said. “He accepted your brother, whose reputation was tarnished by gossip. Why do I want to close my eyes?”
“Because you’ve earned a rest.”
He kissed her eyelids again, as if putting a parenthesis of caresses around this extraordinary interlude. For a few luscious moments, Anwen drowsed. As a child, she’d watched butterflies emerging from their cocoons. The process was gradual, and the new butterfly was hardly recognizable until it had taken time to rest, unfold its wings, and bask in the sun.
Anwen basked in new sensations, in revelations, and in Colin MacHugh’s secure embrace.
Her last thought before nodding off was that she’d acquired a devoted swain, and their courtship was off to a glorious start.
Chapter Eleven
“Miss Anwen suggested I might prevail upon you for some assistance.” Colin liked how that had come out. Not a question, not a demand. A statement. He liked the look of Lord Rosecroft’s stable too, tidy and utilitarian. Horses contentedly munched hay in their loose boxes, a cat napped in a heap of straw at the end of the aisle.
No piles of horse droppings left about to draw flies, but no engraved brass name plates on the stall doors either.
The rhythm of Rosecroft’s currycomb on the gelding’s quarters was the steady, unhurried touch of a man who knew his way around the equine.
“You are granted permission to court a woman one day, and you’re importuning her cousins for favors the next? Fast work, MacHugh.”
After the encounter with Anwen the day before yesterday, Colin had wasted no time scheduling an interview with Moreland. The discussion had been brief, jovial on Moreland’s part, and terrifying as hell for Colin. Moreland had cheerfully promised to call him out if he broke Anwen’s heart.
The duke had not been jesting.
“I had a private interview with His Grace yesterday, and Anwen’s personal business is being discussed by her cousin in the mews today?”
Rosecroft paused in his currying and banged the brush against the sole of his boot. Horse hair, dander, and dust cascaded to the raked floor of the stable.
“What sort of assistance do you seek, MacHugh? I refuse to come within fifty yards of that orphanage. By June, my womenfolk and I are for Yorkshire.”
Tactical retreat, both in the conversation and the travel. Rosecroft’s reputation in the army had been effective prosecution of any task he’d been given. He’d delivered orders against long odds, fought ferociously and often, and had been well liked by his subordinates.
He’d also been more than fair to Hamish when Colin’s brother had been courting Miss Megan.
“I need ponies,” Colin said. “Four healthy, sane, well-trained ponies who will mind their manners in traffic and for outings in the park.”
Rosecroft kept a hand on the horse’s quarters and walked around to the beast’s other side. “You’ll look damned silly on a pony, MacHugh.”
“As would you. The ponies aren’t for me, they’re for the orphanage.”
Rosecroft leaned over the horse, one arm draped across the animal’s croup, the other across the withers.
“You love her, don’t you?” The question was rendered with sympathy rather than menace.
“Hamish warned me that the Windhams are very much in each other’s pockets.” Colin prevaricated not only because his sentiments toward Anwen were private, but also because they were hard to describe.
Complicated, which was unnerving.
“If you don’t love Anwen, you’re an idiot,” Rosecroft said as the horse cocked a hip and sighed. “Because if she wants you for a husband, you’re as good as married, MacHugh. I don’t care if your brother is a duke and your mother plays whist with the archangel Gabriel. Anwen deserves to be happy.”
