Page 20 of What a Scot Wants
A massive draft horse, about nine hundred years old, plodded along the street, slower than ice could freeze. A crowd followed. Of course it did, because his minx of a fiancée sat perched on the saddle, her fingers clinging to the reins in a death grip as if the half-dead horse was about to bolt. Bolt straight into a nap, it looked like.
Ronan blinked, dismay and disgust warring for space in his chest, as her seat wobbled, her backside sliding dangerously on the saddle. A small scream escaped her lips, but the groom behind her was quick to lend his assistance, slowing the ancient beast and allowing her to regain her balance.
“Good day, Your Grace,” Imogen said in a breathless voice when they finally came to a stop what seemed like a handful of hours later.
Her eyes slid over him, something like banked heat flashing for an indeterminable moment, though she allowed no other expression to show. He, for his part, couldn’t adjust his eyes to the garish, muck-brown color of her riding habit. It looked like what he’d found once in the cloth swaddling of one of his nephews.
“Can ye no’ ride?” he asked, the only question he could manage.
“Iamriding,” she said brightly. She patted the dull gray mare with a loving stroke. “This is Pudding.”
Zeus pawed the earth and snorted, as if he, too, was appalled to be near such a sad specimen of a horse, and Ronan reined him in.
“Oh, dear,” Imogen squeaked. “Your horse is so very fierce. And rather frightening. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“And why is that?” he couldn’t help asking.
“Because he’s like you, of course.” She smiled again. “While Pudding here is so much more suited to my speed and ability. I do hope they will get along. She’s quite gentle, though she does like to bite unprovoked.” Her giggle was shrill. “Gum you, really, since she has no teeth.”
Ronan narrowed his eyes. “Lord Kincaid’s stables are the only stables in Scotland to rival mine, Riverley’s, or Lord Glenross’s. I find it hard to imagine that his only daughter doesnae ken how to seat a mount that isnae a lump on legs. And why the devil is a horse that ancient part of yer father’s stock?”
“Oh, bite your tongue,sir, or you’ll hurt poor Pudding’s feelings!”
Ronan glanced at the attending groom, who seemed fixated on the nearby shrubbery. His mouth was white, as though he was trying to keep his lips sealed. Ronan’s gaze thinned and returned to the guileless woman sitting on the horse. Was this another of her games? It had to be. He’d never known a Scot who couldn’t seat a horse.
She stared up at him expectantly. “Shall we? Though I do not know how fast Pudding will go.”
“Aye, of course. After ye.”And the next decade.
As they crept forward, Ronan pasted a patient smile on his face, though his teeth felt like they were grinding down to his gum line. He had to retake control somehow.
“I’m glad I’m no’ late. I rode from Maclaren, ye see. I didnae have time to change. Sorry about the dirt and the blood.”
A choked sound emerged from the woman beside him. “Blood?”
“On my plaid,” he said helpfully.
He felt her gaze settle on the stains and caught the slight widening of her eyes before she could hide it. “Let me guess, you were in a brawl? Or were you playing with your claymore and cut yourself?”
“Sacrificing virgins,” he said. “Same thing, I suppose.”
“Is that a Highlander tradition?”
He slanted a glance at her. “More like a Maclaren tradition.”
“Well, I assure you, Lord Dunrannoch, there will be none of that in the future.” She broke off abruptly as if she’d said something she hadn’t meant to say.
“Sacrifice or virgins?”
“Either.” Her voice shook slightly. “This conversation is unseemly, my lord, but then I should expect as much from you, shouldn’t I?”
It was. But by God, did it make his blood heat. Her virtue didn’t matter to him. He wasn’t going to marry the chit, but something in her tone pricked at him. “Should I be worried?”
“That I might not be a doe-eyed innocent raised to be served on a platter for some undeserving male to enjoy?” Glacial green eyes met his, and for a moment the pain in them nearly sent him to his knees. He blinked. She was a socialite, one given to a life of indolence and ease, yet those eyes of hers spoke of hurt. Of betrayal. Of something fractured and not quite repaired. Ronan had an urgent need to peel back her layers, lay her secrets bare. And her eyes said she had many.
Instead, he pushed a grin to his lips, deliberately misunderstanding her. “That ye’re expecting things from me. It’s a dangerous road, ye ken. Expectations are the devil’s poetry.”
“My goodness, you are positively Byronic. Who would have thought?”
