Page 28 of A Dash of Scot
“And how do you expect to do that?” Now Poppy’s foot did tap, and she looked over his shoulder at the group, her cheeks flushing a light shade of pink.
Dougal dared not look behind him but judging by the overly chipper and volume of Anise’s voice, she was trying to get everyone’s attention back on her. And then, thankfully, the tinny notes of the piano sounded, drowning their words into the music and away from prying ears.
“I will speak with Mary,” he said. “Tell her to see sense.”
“That will never happen.” Poppy’s voice was full of venom, and she rolled her eyes. “Mary and sense are complete opposites. And to be frank, I don’t want to spend another minute in this house with her. She is cruel and unkind. We deserve to be treated better. And my brother…” She shook her head, her voice trailing off as it cracked with emotion.
Everything she said was true. They didn’t deserve Mary’s treatment. None of it. Mary had not changed since she was a child. Back then, if another child wanted to play with her dolls, she didn’t only snatch them back and not share—she also destroyed the dolls so even she could not play with them.
The Featherstones were her dolls. And she was tearing them up right now. Gouging them with pins and cutting them with metaphorical scissors.
Dougal had done a lot throughout their lives to hide Mary’s true nature from the world. And when she’d found a partner in Edward, Dougal had been relieved to see that the man was truly infatuated with her. That her cruelness did not extend to the man she loved, and somehow, maybe she’d changed. A miracle, really.
But, as it turned out, she must have found the only other person in this world who destroyed their treasures too. Two peas in a pod they were, and Lord help their son to make it through unscathed.
The cross of her arms shifted, and she held her arms beneath the shoulders, hugging herself rather than shutting him out. Dougal swallowed against the ache in his chest.
“Why are you so…” Poppy shook her head, not finishing her sentence, but Dougal could guess what she was asking.
Why was he so invested? He didn’t have an answer to that. Perhaps it was inappropriate for him to extend the interest, the concern. But he was human, and what human didn’t empathize with another in pain? Especially when he knew his sister was the reason for their hurt.
But there was more to it than that.
When Dougal looked into Poppy’s fiery eyes, something inside him that he had long thought dead lit up. It was why he’d pursued her in London and why he’d run from her.
It was why he’d come to Edinburgh to begin with. Why he was here now.
And he knew his actions confused her; they confounded even himself. But he couldn’t walk away from her. Not for his inheritance, Lucia, Mary or society itself. At this moment, looking at her usually straight spine curving in on itself, Dougal would have given up everything if only to help her stand up tall again.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and he meant it from the deepest part of himself. The urge to pull her into his arms was strong. He started to lift his hands, then let them drop. With an audience present, he dared not touch her, even if his entire body urged him forward.
Without the impending arrival of Lucia, of her calling in on a promise made a decade before, could there have been something more between Poppy and him? A war between sense—Poppy—and sensibility—Lucia—waged inside him. He knew which side he was on; he just didn’t know how to get there.
“I am, too,” she said, with a small shake of her head, no longer meeting his gaze.
And then she did the thing he’d feared most. She turned around and walked away. She didn’t return to her seat at tea but continued through the door of the drawing room out into the grand foyer. The door closed behind her with a gentle snick.
Dougal wasn’t certain he’d ever see her again. And the very idea of that snapped his heart in two.
9
Poppy held herself together until she entered her bedchamber and went through to the dressing room. Then she shut the door, sank to the floor behind a few dresses that had yet to be gathered, and the dam of tears burst.
Long, rushing floods of salty water dripped down her face. She pressed her hands to her mouth, trying to muffle the sobs escaping her throat as her shoulders racked, rattling the wall behind her.
For so long, she’d believed that a life with Dougal was just a flirtation away. That she just needed to prove herself worthy of him somehow. That he’d been called away from London on some important business and if she were just patient enough, he would come back, all apologies.
But a year had gone by with hardly a word about him.
And when he’d arrived in Edinburgh, she’d had even begun to hope once more that they could rekindle the romance they’d started the year before. He was attentive, concerned and flirtatious. They’d seemed to pick up right where they left off. And her heart, which she’d tried to harden against him, had opened up and allowed him to infiltrate her defenses once more.
And now, all of that was dashed. There was another woman, a lady who had already staked her claim. Whom he’d asked to marry him. More fool her.
Mary was cruel, and yet somehow, Dougal’s cruelty hurt worse. A fiancée all this time? Every flirtation, the kiss, all of it was a game. Perhaps even a joke he’d laughed about with friends at the club. Though, to be fair to Colonel Austen, she didn’t see him behaving in that way.
At least Mary wore her meanness on her sleeve. Dougal kept his locked up tight, a shadow that slithered up behind you and stabbed you in the back.
A soft knock sounded at the dressing room door.
