Page 51 of The Texan Duke
“You’re supposed to beg my pardon when you swear in my company,” she said.
“Who came up with that stupid rule?”
“It’s just being proper.”
He bent down until he was just a few inches away from her face.
“Are you always so proper, Elsbeth Carew?”
She looked up at him, her gray eyes making him want to just watch her for an hour or two.
He discovered he liked teasing her. He didn’t move away, but deliberately got closer. It would be so easy to kiss her right now. That wouldn’t be at all proper, would it?
He stepped back, thinking that he should apologize. But he’d only thought it. He hadn’t actually kissed her. Should he apologize for thinking it?
“Can we warm up somewhere first?” he asked. “Before we go and see this castle?”
Her smile was enough to heat him from the inside out. And damn near made him kiss her.
Chapter 17
At the side of her mare, Connor cupped his hands and bent slightly. She hesitated for a moment, then placed her left boot in his palms, thanking him as he helped her mount. Below the red cloak she wasn’t wearing a riding habit, but something that reminded him of the garment his sisters wore when they rode astride. The skirt was divided, making it look like extra-wide pantaloons. She didn’t, he was happy to see, use a sidesaddle. In this weather and on the snowy roads, it couldn’t be safe. Instead, her saddle was what he’d come to think of as the English style.
He wondered how she would’ve mounted without his assistance. He didn’t doubt that Elsbeth would’ve found a way. Perhaps she was expert enough to simply put her foot in the stirrup and bound over the mare’s back.
She was one of the most interesting women he’d ever met. Even more important, he wanted to know more about her, and that curiosity was a surprising twist for him.
He’d been around women all his life. He was accustomed to their conversations, to his sister Alison’s somewhat hysterical rantings, to Constance’s hyperbole. He liked the way Dorothy’s mind worked and had asked her a few questions about the way women thought.
“We don’t think all that differently from men,” she’d said.
He’d disagreed. “You think about things I would never consider.”
“Like what?”
“Whether something looks good with something else. If something is comfortable. Habitable. You’re wallpaper and furniture. Men are mostly brick and mortar.”
Dorothy had only looked at him, but she hadn’t countered his argument.
If she were here, what would she say about Elsbeth? What would her opinion be of this fascinating Scottish woman?
Instead of leading him back toward Bealadair, Elsbeth continued on the road, traveling upward and around the side of the hill to a tidy little cottage tucked between an outcropping of shale and the beginning of a valley. A glen, that’s what the Scots called it.
When she stopped, she swung her leg over the mare’s back, was off her horse and tying the reins to a post beside the cottage steps before he could offer to help her.
He dismounted as well, mimicking her actions in tying the reins, grinning as Samson edged closer to the mare. She ignored him, which only made his horse more determined to capture her attention.
He was probably acting a little like the stallion.
As Elsbeth knocked on the door, she glanced at him and said, “Mr. Stuyvesant lives here. He’s from Germany, but he’s been living in Scotland for so long that he has the most curious accent.”
She didn’t get a chance to say more before the door opened.
Mr. Stuyvesant was a gnome of a man, at least a foot shorter than Elsbeth, bent over from age, and fiercely gripping a cane that looked as if it had been carved from a tree root.
His hair was white, as were his eyebrows. The blue eyes beneath them were alight with humor. His mouth, surprisingly prim, broke into a smile that immediately removed twenty years from his weathered face.
“Elsbeth, my little one!” he said, opening the door wide and stepping back. “I didn’t think to see you until next week. Come, come inside.”
