Page 82 of The Scot Who Loved Me
“Yes.”
“He’s... well, he’s...” The floundering countess searched the air.
Righteous ire squared Anne’s shoulders and sharpened her tone with an inexplicable need to defend the man.
“You mean to say that he’s a true gentleman, not the sickly version that permeates half of London. Will is a man of the land with a sense of honor that runs long and fierce. Brash at times, given to brooding when he can’t put his back into hard labor, yet he possesses a discerning mind, one that wants to make sense of what’s around him.” Her hand curled to a fist. “And he is good, my lady, more good than you will ever know.”
Her ladyship’s eyes had gone wide.
“You do have atendrefor him.” A tiny shrugand, “Let your love for independence take its place.” The countess back-stepped gracefully into a cloud of dust moats as she delivered her final blow. “You have until the night of the art salon to give me your answer, Mrs. Neville.”
The silk enigma that was the Countess of Denton departed. Anne stayed in place a good long while. She couldn’t move for the struggle to untangle an astonishing array of thoughts. The first, and safest, was her shock at what the grasping woman saw in her—that she was hungry for independence... over love?
The ageless river slapped the wharf, quiet and rhythmic, calling forth her past. A scramble of evidence spilled unkindly. Her first marriage had been an act of obedience. Her second, for a purposeful end. She’d pledged her troth to a lonely old man to gain a foothold in London for no other reason than to recover Jacobite gold and thesgian-dubh, Clanranald MacDonald’s ancient ceremonial dagger.
She was as mercenary as a woman could be.
Nothing got in the way of her mission for the clan. Nothing.
Her hold on the ledger turned awkward, its armor of numbers and custom less appealing. She wanted love and a future the same as other women, save the Countess of Denton apparently.
And God help her, she wanted Will.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Will’s boots were in her entry hall, square toes pointing out. Blessed relief that he was not dead in a ditch washed over her, however brief. Will needed a good push into said ditch for the worry he’d caused, and she’d be the woman to shove him.
A gust escaped her. This was exhausting.
Hat and ledger dumped on the entry table, she leaned over, pinched the boots together, and held them high with one hand for inspection. What sorry specimens. They could use a good cleaning. Bits of grass. Mud caked in cracked leather. Boots that had not tramped through Grosvenor Square to seize Jacobite gold driven by misguided heroism. Will had high regard for the league. She’d seen it in his eyes and heard it in his respectful tone.
She returned the boots to their rightful place on the floor.Where had they been?
“Aunt Maude? Aunt Flora?” Her voice reached into her home. No one answered.
She and Will were alone.
Her gaze wandered up the stairs. The quiet house meant Will was likely in his bedchamber. She sprinted up the stairs on agile feet, the soles of her low-heeled shoes slapping scuffed treads. Her skin tickled under her stays. A flush was spreading. She was going faster, breathing harder.
Anticipation was the crackle of a sparked fuse. She needed to hear his voice.
To see him and talk to him about... anything.
At the top floor, the hallway was quiet save her sawing breaths. Time and use had worn a bowed path in uncarpeted planks. Like a tree branch that path. It forked in the middle, leading to her door and the other, a finger’s width open. She strode to it and knocked twice.
“Will.”
A muffled, “Anne.”
He sounded sleepy. She frowned at the door. A nap? Really?
She swanned in, petticoats swinging, confidence flying until her gaze landed on his arse. Moon white, curved stone, shallow indentations at the sides. She halted while her confidence made an about-face and fled. She wasn’t sure if it was coming back. The day had been a trying one after all, and Will possessed the finest arse. Ever. Currently it nested in rumpled sheets which framed his caber-tossing thighs.
Another breathtaking part of him, those thighs. Long, solid. Crisp brown leg hairs, the sunlight striking them with gold. They defied the bigamist’s breeches. Aunt Flora had told her so. Only two pair fit him. Which was why his legs belonged in a wind-stirring kilt and he belonged in Scotland. With her.
She touched her bodice. Under cloth and corset, her heart fluttered like a butterfly at that notion.
While heart and soul gloried over Will with her, the sheets fluxed, soft as clouds. With the drapes open, daylight blessed long manly legs and feet. Her gaze built a road along those legs, over his arse, and up his back to welts dispersing like watercolor. Inch by inch she went over his heavenly form until she came to molten eyes.
