Page 24 of Taming the Scot
He raised his brows in surprise at her reaction. “No’ on purpose.”
She couldn’t help being nervous or irritated. Everything was so…och, but she wanted to scream sometimes.
But the knock came again, sounding almost insistent, frantic, and her mind went back to the men in Edinburgh who’d banged on the door to her flat the same way. The kind of knock that rattled the walls and shook things from their places. The knock that said she was about to be stolen away, tortured. The knock that scared the wits out of her.
“Who is at the door?” she asked, feeling the blood drain from her face. She glanced about the hall, trying to find a place to hide.
“Probably the postman.” Euan sounded so unconcerned with who could be calling, but he frowned at her all the same, clearly wondering why she was acting like a lunatic.
“The postman,” she repeated, wondering if that could be true. “He is verra…aggressive.”
Euan shrugged and led her quickly across the way and down another corridor toward his study—she suspected to ease her worry.
“Are ye no’ going to answer the door?”
“Martin will have my head if I keep doing that. I was no’ supposed to answer when ye arrived, but I happened to see ye traipsing up the path and had to know right away who ye were.”
“Oh, I see.” But she didn’t see. She kept looking over her shoulder, hoping to catch a glimpse of whoever was behind the door. Begging all the heavens that Prince’s henchmen hadn’t come all the way here to find her.
They entered Euan’s study, and she let go of his arm, making a beeline for the window while he went to his desk and nearly tripping over Owen, who’d made a nice comfortable spot for himself in the center of the study.
“Pardon me,” she said, crouching to give his back a stroke before continuing to her destination.
The view was of the drive, as Euan had said, but she couldn’t get a clear sight of the front door or the steps to decipher who’d come calling.
“Miss Holmes.”
She leaned in further, attempting desperately to see until her forehead pressed against the cool glass. She could barely make out the hind end of a single horse. Well, the men wouldn’t ride on one horse alone. Possibly there was another out of view.
Euan was beside her then, leaning too, their faces close together as he tried to glimpse what she was seeing, and suddenly she felt very foolish.
“Is the postman so verra interesting?” he asked. “I’ve never seen anyone quite so fascinated by one. Have ye no postmen where ye live? Where did ye say that was again?”
Oh, goodness, she couldn’t tell him that. If she revealed where she lived, who she really was, and the deadly trouble her parents had been mired in with The Trojan gambling hell, she might as well march herself back to Edinburgh and kneel before Prince’s feet. In other words, she’d be signing her own death warrant.
At last, her body cooperated, and the blood which had previously drained from her face returned with a vengeance, only this time she could use the blush to get out of the situation.
Bronwen faked a laugh. “Oh, I’m being silly. I’m from Edinburgh. Of course, we have postmen. I wondered if they were the same.” Lord, that was a stupid excuse that made no sense.
He looked at her as if she were daft—which she expected—but that was better than looking at her as if he’d seen right through her and knew all of her secrets.
“If ye say so.” Euan shrugged. Owen joined them at the window, lifting onto his hind legs, paws on the windowsill to look out. “What do ye think, old boy?” He patted his dog’s head.
Well, perhaps he did not believe her so much after all. Best she distracted him with another botched attempt at a lesson in decorum or some other such society nonsense.
“About that letter writing session?” She kept looking out the window until the postman ran toward the horse he’d left waiting and leapt onto its back, taking off at a near gallop down the road. A cloud of dust billowed up in his wake, obscuring rider and horse alike.
“Are ye certain ye’re ready?” he asked, hooking his thumb toward the window. “Ye seem enamored.”
“I am no’.” She scowled at him, then sniffed her nose and purposefully moved away from the window. “I couldn’t care less.”
“Your attention says otherwise.” There was a note of jealousy in his tone, and she whipped around to face him.
“Are ye envious of my attention to the postman?” Bronwen’s hands went to her hips as she flashed him a challenging gaze.
Euan shrugged, looking a little sheepish. “A little, I’ll be honest.”
Bronwen laughed. She had not expected him to admit that at all. “Well then, I assure ye, your postman is nothing more than a curiosity for me, while ye are a student. I possess much interest in seeing to your education. So, let us proceed. Take out a piece of foolscap and progress with letter writing.”
