Page 27 of What a Scot Wants
“He was jilted and humiliated,” Sorcha went on. “He’d made it clear to everyone that they were going to wed, and when she brushed him aside, it devastated him.”
“So he hasn’t married because he’s never gotten over her?” Imogen asked.
Could hurt feelings truly linger so long? The next instant, she felt a fool. Of course they did. She knew from experience. Hers had scarred her beyond belief. Ruined her for any other man.
“Perhaps, though I do not think that’s the whole reason. After Grace, he closed himself off. Protected his heart, or what was left of it, and swore off women,” Sorcha said.
Imogen squashed the rise of compassion in her chest. She shouldnotfeel sorry for him. He didn’t deserve it, not after what he’d done in her office.
“There’s something else.” The worried edge of Sorcha’s words reeled Imogen back from the heated memories. “You know who she is, Imogen. Grace was in the retiring room at my ball, if you recall.”
Imogen sat forward, the cold stone of the bench seeping into her. “The redhead?”
Sorcha nodded. “She came on the arm of an earl I invited, and the rumors are she’s widowed and residing in Edinburgh for the time being.”
The woman who’d sat beside Imogen…the gorgeous, venomous woman who’d so overtly mocked her gown?
“Lady Reid,” she recalled. “Yes, she said she’d just returned from overseas.” She’d also made an odd comment that Imogen had promptly forgotten, until now. How a lady should know her competition. “I think she might be here for your brother.”
Aisla and Sorcha exchanged a look while Imogen’s mind raced. She bit her lip as another twist of jealousy turned her stomach. What did she care? This was what she needed.
“Grace is an opportunist,” Aisla said.
“Hopefully one that stays here, in Edinburgh,” Sorcha added.
They would see soon enough. And if Lady Reid shifted cities in the coming weeks, Imogen would decide then what moves to play. As much as her body insisted she hated it, the revelations about Lady Reid could be the very thing that won her freedom.
“You’ll need someone in London, I think,” Sorcha said. “Lady Bradburne is a dear friend of mine, and I know the two of you will get along. She supports a number of hospices and charities with her husband, the duke.”
Imogen brightened a little. “She sounds wonderful. I only wish I didn’t have to leave, especially right now with what’s happening with Rory.”
“I’ll keep an eye on her, if you like. And I can have Brandt look into this Stormie fellow you spoke of.”
Imogen wasn’t certain what the duke could do, at least not single-handedly, but she nodded her thanks. The duchess was so generous, and Aisla, too. Like Emma, they didn’t look at her sideways, attempting to puzzle out just what was wrong with her for having the interests she did.
She almost wished sheweremarrying into the Maclaren brood, if only to benefit by having Sorcha and Aisla as sisters. Of course, becoming their sister-in-law would require more sacrifices than Imogen was willing to make.
Including giving in to one very frustrating and infuriatingly kissable duke.
Chapter Eight
Ronan was bruised and sore and wanted nothing more than a long bath, a good meal, and a night in his own bed after the journey from Edinburgh to London. Though he and Imogen had stopped at several coaching inns, breaking the trip up into three days, they could have been strangers for all the time they’d spent in each other’s company. They’d taken separate rooms in the inns, and he’d preferred to ride Zeus while she remained in the privacy of his luxurious coach, though now his arse ached fiercely for it.
It was his own fault, refusing to share the coach like a coward. But after the incident in her office, Ronan could no longer trust himself. Touching her had been a mistake. Now that they’d crossed that line, every interaction between them was fraught with an undercurrent.
He was acutely aware of her—her scent, her mannerisms, her facial expressions—and he found himself drawn by the conundrum she presented. A beauty with a fortune, but a committed spinster. She was a paradox.
In the past few days, he’d heard more gossip from a few of Lady Imogen’s former suitors at the Golden Antler, and the information had fascinated him. One man, a marquess in line for a dukedom, had professed that she was the worst bluestocking he’d ever met, spouting scientific theories and mathematical equations at every turn. Since he was firmly in the camp that women should be seen and not heard, he’d cried off his suit.
Another gentleman, a viscount, had claimed that Lady Imogen was an irreverent, ungodly woman, and given that he was the son of a vicar, he couldn’t well marry a chit who refused to go to church on principle because she argued that even Lucifer could be considered the hero of his own story. The utter sacrilege of it! Ronan had had a hard time keeping a straight face. He knew for a fact that Imogen went to church with her parents.
A third man, untitled but wealthy, who owned a hothouse flower farm, had imparted she had a violent allergy to pollen. The lady had sneezed constantly whenever she’d been around him, and he’d cried off simply to preserve her health. Ronan distinctly recalled seeing several floral arrangements in her home and no sign of any illness on her part.
By then, he had started to sense a pattern. The disparity between each report, notwithstanding the many other rejections she was known for, had made him think.
Imogen Kinley was a swindler.
A very smart, very clever little swindler who played on men’s strengths, weaknesses, and prejudices. Not to land the man, as some female title and fortune hunters in the aristocracy were known for, but tochasehim away. Ronan had wanted to laugh at her intelligence…and the bloody brilliant gall of her.
