Page 15 of What a Scot Wants
“I ken who ye are,” the woman replied in a husky brogue.
Imogen bristled. “That makes one of us, then, as I am certain we’ve never met.”
“Nae,” she drawled. “I was overseas and only just returned. I’m Lady Reid.” Imogen nodded noncommittally, wishing the woman would move on, but she did not, instead sweeping her with a mocking ice-green gaze. “I must have been gone too long if that is what fashion has come to in Scotland.”
“It’s meant as a jest,” Imogen explained uncomfortably, plucking at the sticky feathers glued to her nape.
“It’s hideous.”
“That’s the point.”
Imogen drew a breath to make her excuses, but the woman beat her to it. “I do look forward to learning more about ye.”
“You do?”
Lady Reid’s smile was malicious when she nodded with a slanted gaze. “After all, a lady should ken her competition, shouldnae she?” When Imogen didn’t respond to her baited words, she arched an eyebrow. “Ronan Maclaren. We used to be…neighbors.”
Her snide tone insinuated it was much more than that, but Imogen was too tired and much too hot to play games. She canted her head.
“You’re welcome to him,” she said and leaned in as if imparting a great secret. “In fact, if you could get him to cry off from this engagement, you’d be doing me the greatest of favors.”
Lady Reid’s mouth opened to say something, but then her green eyes narrowed at someone approaching. She took her leave without another word. Imogen was grateful until she saw who had chased her away.
The Duchess of Glenross took the woman’s vacated seat, a scowl on her brow, making her facial scars stand out in livid stripes. “I do not know how that woman got an invitation to my ball. I didn’t even know she was back in Scotland.”
Imogen inclined her head. “Who is she?”
Lady Glenross actually growled. “No one of consequence, I assure you.”
A bead of sweat trickled down Imogen’s back, but it would be rude to attempt to escape so soon after the duchess had arrived. “Your Grace, you’ve outdone yourself tonight.”
“Thank you. We didn’t get a chance to converse earlier. And please, call me Sorcha. We are to be family, after all.”
Imogen couldn’t quite hide her grimace. “As you wish, but only if you call me Imogen.”
“He’s not all that bad, you know,” Sorcha said, cutting to the heart of the matter. “Ronan, I mean. He’s all bluster half the time.”
“Oh, he has bite,” Imogen muttered, thinking of how he’d nipped at her hand with his teeth.
Sorcha shot her a sharp, interested look. “Does he?”
“I only meant that he has made it clear that he wants to be saddled with this engagement almost as much as I do.”
“You don’t wish to marry?”
It was a risk, admitting the truth to the duke’s sister. She might go to him after with a warning. However, something about Sorcha’s demeanor told Imogen that she would not.
Imogen sighed. “I am nine and twenty, Your Grace. I have given up any desire to be wedded. In fact, if I’m being honest, I’ve never wanted it. I haven’t had a Season in a decade for good reason.”
“Sorcha,” the duchess corrected gently. “Then what is it that youdowant?”
“To be free,” Imogen replied after a beat. “To run my shelter. Look after the girls who need help. It’s quite simple, though Society has other views of what women need. That to be happy and to be worthy of respect, we must be betrothed, married, and heavy with child within the year.”
“It’s not such a bad lot,” Sorcha said with a smile.
“I didn’t mean you, of course,” Imogen said, but the duchess only laughed. “What I mean is that marrying and having children would make many women happy. I’m just not one of them.”
“I was once in a similar situation, you know,” the duchess said.
