Page 7 of The Scottish Duke Tames the Bluestocking
“An incredibly foolish one,” Harriet countered hotly, all traces of levity evaporating from her demeanor. She drew herself up to her full height, mustering as much hauteur as she could manage while still craning her neck to hold Hugh's insolent gaze. “You know nothing about me or my intentions, Your Grace. I'll thank you not to make ignorant assumptions about my circumstances or my desires.”
To her surprise, he did not respond. He merely looked at her with an all-knowing smirk and Harriet bristled at the sight of him - utterly unruffled by her indignant rebuke. In fact, the insufferable man had the audacity to look even more amused, if the deepening crinkles around his eyes were any indication.
“Aye, I'll admit I daenae know the finer details of yer... circumstances,” he allowed with maddening nonchalance. Taking a deep pull from his cheroot, he exhaled a thick plume of aromatic smoke that wafted towards Harriet in a teasing tendril. “But one thing's clear - ye’ve nay qualms about livin' a wee bit...dangerously, shall we say?”
She sputtered, outraged by both his flippant tone and the hazy veil of smoke that threatened to choke her. “Living dangerously?” she echoed incredulously. “By simply refusing to adhere to society's ridiculous expectations, you mean?”
A deep chuckle rumbled from the Scotsman's broad chest. “Well, I'd certainly classify talkin' about hay for nostril stuffin' as risky behavior. Likely to have the lads committin' ye to Bedlam.”
This struck a nerve and Harriet's hackles rose. “Really now, is sarcasm the only trick you know?” she snapped, frustration fraying her patience. “Because if so, I've found it distinctly lacking in entertainment value, I'm afraid.”
Rather than looking affronted, as she'd hoped, Hugh's lips curved into an insolent smirk that made her want to stamp her foot like a petulant child. “Oh aye? Me mistake for borin' ye, me Lady. Though I must admit, the alternative entertainment ye put on tonight has been anythin' but dull.”
He punctuated the infuriating statement with another unconcerned puff of his cheroot. Harriet's eyes narrowed to slits as the acrid smoke wafted into her face once more.
“You are absolutely infuriating!" she seethed, waving a hand to dispel the offending haze. "Between your irksome presence and that foul smoke clouding my senses, I can scarcely breathe.”
Hugh arched one dark brow in a picture of condescending amusement. “Well now, I daenae mean to suffocate ye, lass. Perhaps ye'd do better to run along and find a wee bit of fresh air elsewhere?” His tone was an odd blend of solicitousness and thinly veiled goading.
Harriet's eyes flashed with mutinous rebellion. Like she would ever allow this arrogant Scot to dismiss her so casually! Squaring her shoulders, she took a pointed step forward until she could feel the heat of his body like a brand against her skin.
To her immense vexation, rather than looking discomfited by her brash incursion of his personal space, Hugh merely quirked one infuriatingly sardonic brow higher in silent challenge.
“If the smoke bothers ye so, I'd be happy to put it out,” he offered, his tone a low, intimate rumble that shot an unwelcome shiver down her spine.
Harriet opened her mouth to deliver a scathing rejoinder, but the words never emerged. Instead, a violent fit of coughing racked her slender frame as she finally inhaled a noseful of smoke from Hugh's cheroot. Doubled over, she hacked and sputtered, her eyes streaming as she struggled for breath.
Suddenly, she was aware of a large, warm hand splaying across her back in a steady, soothing rhythm. The acrid smoke cleared as Hugh cast his cheroot aside, the other hand grasping her elbow in a firm but curiously gentle grip.
“Steady now, lass,” that deep, rolling brogue murmured in her ear as the coughing slowly subsided. “Cannae have ye chokin' to death on me account. That wouldnae reflect well on me at all, now would it?”
Harriet inhaled a ragged breath, her senses overwhelmed by the rugged, pine-and-smoke scent of him and the solid warmth of his body pressed against her. It was altogether too much stimuli and not nearly enough all at once.
Then, her addled mind picked up on a sharp intake of scandalized breath from the direction of the ballroom. Through her watering eyes, she registered a trio of matrons hovering in the veranda doorway, their faces twisted into identical masks of pious horror.
CHAPTER4
The carriage ride home from the ball was conducted in utter silence, a thick miasma of shock and dread enveloping the Lourne family like a suffocating shroud. Harriet sat frozen, her hands clenched in her lap as she replayed the mortifying scene from the veranda over and over in her mind's eye. Strangely, she could not recall how she had gotten out of there - but she could relive the disastrous moment over and over in her mind.
How could things have spiraled so catastrophically? One moment she was trading barbed quips with the infuriatingly imperturbable Duke, the next she found herself quite literally in his arms, staring agog as the worst possible witnesses bore witness. The scandalized expressions of those harpies would be seared into her memory forever.
A fine tremor coursed through Harriet as the full gravity of her compromised position settled over her like a leaden weight. She could scarcely fathom the breadth of ruination that awaited if word of this tawdry incident spread unchecked.
By the time their carriage rumbled to a halt outside their Mayfair residence, Harriet felt ill, her stomach roiling with a noxious blend of shame and disbelief. She allowed her mother and brother to usher her inside in a daze, her limbs leaden and uncooperative.
It wasn't until she was ensconced in the familiarity of their drawing-room that the numbness receded enough for her to fully grasp the precariousness of her situation. William was pacing in front of the fireplace like a caged lion, his expression positively thunderous. When he finally halted to face her, Harriet instinctively shrank back.
“Do you have any idea what you've done?” he hissed through clenched teeth. “Any inkling of the calamity you've brought upon this family with your idiocy?”
Jennifer shot her son a reproachful look. “Now William, there's no need for such strong language...”
“No need?” William rounded on her, his voice rising in strangled outrage. “Mother, her actions tonight could very well lead to our utter ruination! Her insipid flirtations with scandal have finally caught up with disastrous consequences!”
Harriet bristled at his scathing assessment, the first flickers of defensive anger rekindling in her breast. “I did no such thing!” she retorted hotly. “I was simply... caught in an innocent situation that was misconstrued by those spiteful, bored women!”
William's derisive scoff sliced through the air like a whip-crack. “Innocent? You were discovered in a very public embrace with a man, alone and unchaperoned! Do you take me for a fool, Harriet? I saw the way he had his hands upon you, the way you allowed it!”
“That's not how it was at all!” Harriet's face flushed a furious crimson at the implied depravity. “The Duke and I were merely speaking when his...his blasted cheroot caused me to choke! He was only attempting to assist me...”
