Page 69 of What a Scot Wants
Ronan gave him a foul look, eyeing the fallen bell and Calder’s swelling jaw. Anger bubbled in his veins, leaked down to his closed fists, and whispered in his ears. But he also knew this wasn’t the time or the place…and that was only because of the beseeching look on Imogen’s face for him not to make a scene.
He forced a taunting grin to his face. “That looks like it hurt.”
“What do you want?” Calder growled.
“Now, now, is that any way to address yer betters?”
Calder snarled. “You think you’re more worthy than I, simply because of your title?” He barked a laugh. “You truly have bought into the illusion, haven’t you?”
Illusion?Ronan flattened his lips and stared the man down.
“What do ye mean by that?”
“Nothing,” he spat, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Your Grace.”
Ronan smiled. “That’s more like it.”
The man’s mouth opened and closed, his eyes flashing with suffocated ire at Ronan’s tone, but he wisely kept quiet. Calder’s eyes darted to Imogen, and Ronan tensed, flooded by an instinctive urge to defend what was his. And Imogenwashis. If in name only, for the moment—but he planned to change that.
He crossed the room to stand in between them.
“Do ye want to tell me what’s really going on here, Calder?” he asked, his voice sounding unnaturally calm. He sounded like a stranger even to his own ears. A calm, rational, non-murderous stranger, when in truth he was the opposite, holding on to his wits by a thread. If Imogen wouldn’t tell him what this man was to her, maybe the cur himself would elucidate.
“You were interrupting a private moment, Dunrannoch,” Calder said. “Between me and an old friend. Ask her and she’ll tell you that we were catching up on the past few years. Weren’t we, Gennie?” He shot her a fulminating look.
Ronan heard Imogen’s intake of breath and then her slow exhale. “Yes, he’s right. We were catching up. And now I’d like to return to the ball.”
What in everlasting hell?
Ronan’s gaze swung to her in astonishment, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. He wanted to throttle her. For lying, for not trusting him, even now when the sordid tableau made it more than clear that Calder had taken inexcusable liberties. What did the bastard have over her? Where was Ronan’s fearless, dauntless bride-to-be, who hadn’t let him step one toe out of line and who’d held him over the fire at every turn?
His anger sharpened, both at the man for continuing to threaten her and at Imogen for permitting him to.
“Is that what ye call it,” he drawled mildly, addressing Calder, “when yer old friend doesnae want yer attentions and chooses to fight ye off with an ornamental bell? That doesnae seem right, does it?”
“She got a little worked up,” Calder replied smoothly, almost as if he had somehow regained the upper hand, though Ronan couldn’t fathom how. “You know how she can be. Difficult to control. She has always been a handful, our Lady Imogen.”
The way the man spoke made the hairs on Ronan’s nape rise. He didn’t know what existed between them, but whatever it was wasn’t any good. Not with the pinched look of horror on his betrothed’s face and the grasping, concupiscent look on Calder’s. He started forward, but fingers at his sleeve stopped him.
“Ronan, please.”
The whisper was faint, but he heard it.
“Get the fuck out of here before I break yer jaw,” he said softly and clearly. “Be warned, Calder. If ye ever come near her again, if ye ever so much as look at her again, ye’ll regret it.”
The man goggled at him. “Are you threatening me?”
“Aye.”
“You do not want to make an enemy of me, Dunrannoch,” Calder said, walking toward the door. “I have friends in high places in both Scotland and England.”
Ronan laughed. “Is that why ye’ve been hiding out in Italy for so long? I’d say yer friends have deserted ye.”
“Lord Kincaid would disagree,” he said with a smug look directed at Imogen that made Ronan’s gut clench with sudden premonition.
“Then perhaps Lord Kincaid doesnae ken ye as well as he should.”
Imogen’s tiny gasp at the sound of her father’s name had sealed Ronan’s suspicion. Had she done something that she didn’t want her father to know about? Did it have to do with Haven? Was Calder an investor who had given her money and was possibly holding it over her?
