Page 37 of What a Scot Wants
Like Lady Beatrice.Imogen felt a slap of instant guilt. The Marquess of Paxton’s daughter and what had happened to her was yet another buried nightmare, and she couldn’t allow herself to think of that right then.
“You’ll change your mind,” Silas said as he moved away.
“Never,” she replied, but he’d already disappeared like a wraith.
Weak-kneed, Imogen tried to go back to the retiring room, but her legs folded, and in the next second, she curled on the carpet of the corridor, her fingers digging into the fibers. She shook all over, the shivering impossible to subdue. It was everything she’d feared. That he’d snake his way back into her life and hold her own stupidity over her head. She never should have gone to that room, never drunk the sherry, never trusted him. If only she’d been wise enough to see him for what he was…before.
Stop blaming yourself!Imogen’s mind whirled and shouted all the instruction, all the advice she’d given the women at Haven.This isn’t your fault. You are not to blame. He’s the one who harmed you. Hurt Belinda.He’sthe monster.
She knew what words to say. She’d said them often enough to others.
Believing them was an entirely different challenge.
“My goodness,” a concerned female voice gasped. “She’s collapsed. Come help me. Get someone, Lydia.”
A rustle of slippered feet and skirts approached her, and moments later, gentle hands lifted her from the floor, urged her the handful of steps into the retiring room, and settled her onto a sofa.
The duchess entered the room, her eyes wide and searching. “Imogen?” Briannon rushed to the sofa and took her hands. “You’re like ice. Ronan said you were feeling ill. I’ll call for a doctor.”
“No, please don’t. I’m better now. Ronan…the duke, I mean, he was fetching my cloak…”
Briannon frowned but nodded. “I’ll take you to him.”
And announce Imogen had been found crumpled on the carpet in the hallway? It wouldn’t do. She would already have enough questions from him to field about Silas Calder without explaining why she’d fainted.
“Don’t be silly, Your Grace.” Imogen stood, forcing her knees to lock. “Don’t let me tear you away from your guests. Really, Lord Dunrannoch is just outside, waiting for me.”
The other women had dispersed, but Briannon was more reluctant. Perhaps she could see through Imogen’s placating words.
As she extracted herself from the retiring room and Lady Briannon’s keen gaze, she considered Ronan. If he knew of her history with Silas, he might cry off. An earl’s daughter found in a compromising situation in a gentleman’s club with a man. It would be a scandal no peer would endure. In this, Silas was right. Ronan would have to break the contract.
But her parents’ reputation, and her own, would be irreversibly tarnished.
No, what she needed to do was redirect her strategy. And her target. She would deter Silas on her own, the same way she’d turned off every other suit, with the exception of the current one.Ronan. For a millisecond, Imogen remembered the way he’d interrupted Silas on the ballroom floor. How possessive he’d seemed. A bit of warmth trickled back into her body as she walked toward the foyer. Ronan had known something was wrong.
Silas had taken her by surprise, but she wouldn’t allow that to happen again. Now that she knew he was here and what he intended, she could plan accordingly.
Imogen spotted Ronan in the foyer, waiting with her cloak, his impatience and concern etched on his forehead as he scowled. Her tension released at the sight of him, a feeling of inexplicable safety descending over her nerves. The problem with Ronan Maclaren wasn’t over, but he was certainly the lesser evil.
And to get rid of Silas, she might just have to consider Ronan an unwitting ally.
Chapter Ten
Ronan tried to focus on the handful of cards in his palms, but the shapes and symbols blurred into indistinct lines. He couldn’t help that his mind was distracted. Mostly with the enigma that was his fiancée. The memory of her ashen face and completely frozen body a few evenings ago had yet to leave his mind. He’d seen terror like that on a battlefield, but never in a ballroom. The rawness of it had unnerved him.
If he hadn’t gleaned Imogen’s skill early on and that her vapid Lady Rosebud persona—as the newssheets in Edinburgh had named her—wasn’t just a brilliant act, he wouldn’t have been the wiser. But after weeks of provocation on his part, Imogen had been too committed to relinquish the role she’d been playing to perfection, and yet the appearance ofthatman had shocked her senseless…had made her forget everything, down to the core of who she was.
Ronan realized why he recognized the name only after they’d left the ball. It had been in Stevenson’s report on Imogen. Silas Calder was the name of her former fiancé. The solicitor’s notes had indicated the engagement had been broken, but no reason had been given. Clearly, after seeing Imogen’s reaction to the man, whatever it was had been grievous.
Placing his cards facedown, Ronan folded, yet again, and took a sip of the mediocre whisky that couldn’t hold a candle to Maclaren’s latest batch. “I’m out.”
“You’re like a bloody sieve tonight, my friend,” Archer crowed, eyeing the pile of his gains.
“Ye ken I dunnae like to gamble.”
The duke grinned. “Why do you think I asked you to join us?”
Unlike Ronan, Archer had been on a winning streak all evening. Even his friends were grumbling about the man’s luck.
