Page 60 of Too Scot to Handle
“Oh, of course. I can hardly contain my enthusiasm for hours of polite society pretending it gives a damn about the poor children it ignores starving in the streets.”
No wonder Rosecroft longed for his Yorkshire acres, if he was always plagued by such honesty.
“I can’t do anything for the whole of London’s poor,” Colin said, “but these children matter to Anwen. I’ll be at the damned card party.”
“You’re in love,” Rosecroft said, whacking him on the back. “If it’s a matter of first impression, sometimes a fellow isn’t sure. The proof is in the suffering. Wait until you’re reading Gulliver’s Travels to your children yet again, or forgoing the pleasures of the marriage bed because a thunderstorm descends in the same hour you find yourself private with your wife for the first time in a fortnight. Then there’s teething, and—”
“Rosecroft, are you daft?” Though if the earl was daft, he was cheerful with it.
“I am in love,” he said, rising. “Meet me at Tatts tomorrow at nine.”
Thank the winged cherubs. “It’s not a sale day.”
“Only dandiprats and nincompoops buy from Tatts exclusively on sale days. Those are the horses they want to get rid of. The very best stock never goes on the block. What have you heard from your brother the duke?”
Colin rose and dusted the cat hairs off his breeches. “Not much. He’s honeymooning with your cousin.”
“Marital bliss takes a toll on a fellow’s correspondence. You’ll never get that cat hair off your breeches.”
Colin flicked his lordship’s cravat. “You’re giving me fashion advice?”
Rosecroft peered at the green stain adorning his linen. “Malcolm’s still learning his manners. Join me for an ale, and I’ll tell you what I know about surviving a courtship. Takes strategy and stamina, but a man fixes his eye on the prize and endures. I suspect a woman does too.”
Colin could believe that. The other evening, he’d sent Anwen back to her sisters and locked the library door behind her, lest he go blind with thwarted desire. Five minutes later, he’d buttoned up, drained his flask, and rejoined the ladies in the parlor, though he’d taken care not to sit within six feet of Anwen.
Rosecroft was deep into an analysis of the benefits of a special license—and halfway through a tankard of very fine summer ale—when Colin realized that Rosecroft had been right.
Winthrop Montague was not Colin’s friend. Around Win, Colin had always felt subtly judged and wary of making a wrong move. Around Rosecroft, who shrugged at a stained cravat and admitted easily to being in love, Colin could relax.
His instincts had been trying to warn him that Win’s crowd wasn’t where he belonged. Why had he ignored his own instincts, and should he heed them when they prompted him to find some way to even the score?
* * *
Megan, Duchess of Murdoch, passed the whisky glass back to her husband without taking a drink.
“The scent is fruity,” she said, “in a good way. Oranges and limes, rather than lemons. An odd note of cedar too.” Her condition had made her palate and her nose extraordinarily sensitive, and her husband extraordinarily attentive.
She’d also become extraordinarily eager to reciprocate his attentiveness, even for a newlywed Windham.
“By God, you’re right,” Hamish muttered, taking a sip of the whisky. “I would have missed the cedar. Colin would have too.”
As the days since the wedding had turned into weeks, Hamish mentioned Colin more and more. The three youngest MacHugh brothers were off enjoying Edinburgh’s social season, but they’d never served in battle beside Hamish, hadn’t stood with him at the front of St. George’s, hadn’t been his second on the field of honor.
“Write to him,” Megan said. “Tell Colin you miss him, and that his business needs him.”
“Bloody correspondence,” Hamish muttered, setting the glass down. “I don’t suppose a wee note could hurt.” He took a seat at Megan’s escritoire, a delicate Louis Quinze item of fanciful inlays, tiny drawers, and shiny brass fittings.
Hamish should have made an incongruous picture seated there. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and far from handsome by London standards.
They weren’t in London, though. Megan and her spouse were lazing away a morning in her private parlor, which she’d chosen because it had both south- and east-facing windows. While London townhouses favored fleur-de-lis and gilt, Hamish’s Perthshire estate tended more to exposed beams, plaid wool, and comfort. This parlor, however, was Megan’s domain, and thus the wallpaper was flocked, the desk French, and the carpet a vivid red, gold, and blue Axminster.
The chair creaked as Hamish settled to his task. Megan took off her slippers, tucked her feet under her, and fought off a wave of drowsiness.
“Are you having a wee nap, Meggie mine?” Hamish asked sometime later.
She stretched and yawned, for indeed, she’d curled up on the sofa, and some considerate husband had draped his coat over her.
“Is this my second or third nap today?” Megan asked.
