Page 42 of A Dash of Scot
Poppy tried to smile but felt a true headache coming on now.
“I’ll stay with Anise, dear. You can go home,” Mama said, patting her hand. “A good rest will do you some good. Send the carriage back once you’ve been dropped off.”
Anise pouted but nodded, more concerned with herself than Poppy, which was fine. Poppy didn’t need any company on the ride home. What she needed was to leave. And what she really needed wasn’t even in this county.
Poppy left the dance hall and climbed into the carriage as a pair of riders passed. A tingle made the hairs on the back of her neck rise, and she turned around to get a better look at them, but they were gone, almost as if she’d conjured them up herself.
14
“Thanks for inviting me along,” Colonel Austen said as they sat at the breakfast table the following morning after arriving at Castle Varrich.
After traveling for days, subsisting on a few things he’d packed that wouldn’t spoil on the road and several tavern meals when they’d stopped to rest the horses, Dougal was ready for a nice home-cooked breakfast. His plate was piled high with eggs, bacon, sausage, mushrooms, beans and thick slices of toast covered in melting butter. Austen’s plate looked the same.
“I didna think I was the only one to have something at stake here,” Dougal said after swallowing a bite of eggs.
Austen smiled as he dumped three cubes of sugar into his tea. “Ye could tell?”
“Half of Edinburgh could tell,” Dougal snorted. “The only reason the other half didna notice is because they are children and were no’ in attendance.”
Colonel Austen chuckled as he stuffed bacon into his mouth. “All the same, I’m grateful for your hospitality and your cook. My god, I’ve no’ had a meal this good in forever.”
“There is nothing like a Highland breakfast. Shall we ride over to the cottage after breakfast?” The cottage, as they’d come to refer to it, housed both the ladies they were very interested in speaking with.
Colonel Austen had developed a soft spot for Anise, which was somewhat surprising given he’d hardened his heart after what had happened to his first fiancée. The poor woman died of what he’d thought had been scarlet fever, but as it turned out, was syphilis—given to her by a rogue of both their acquaintances. A handsome face had duped Austen’s fiancée after being plied with a copious amount of whisky. She claimed to have hardly remembered the event, and when she woke in the morning, he was there, and then he was gone. And shortly after, she was ill, but by the time she’d called for a doctor, the disease had weakened her immune system causing her to get another infection causing all sorts of other issues until she…expired.
There one minute, gone the next.
Austen had never recovered. And until Austen had met Anise, Dougal wasn’t certain he was going to ever come out of his understandable melancholy.
Colonel Austen shook his head, looking out the window. Dougal could sense he had some apprehension about their morning plans by the way Austen gripped his fork, knuckles turning white.
Austen cleared his throat. “The ladies may have been at the dance hall last night, and we should probably let them sleep a little longer.”
Dougal nodded, understanding that this could be the case and that Austen needed a little time to work himself up to the task and the fear that he might be rejected. Anise had seemed to favor the attention of Sir John, which Dougal found not just irritating but infuriating. If only they knew the depravity of that man. Yet, the colonel, his good friend, had begged him years ago not to say anything about Sir John, and so Dougal had thus far kept his mouth shut. However, he swore that if it looked as if Anise was succumbing to Sir John’s charms, he’d have no choice but to share what he knew for the young lass’s safety.
“Aye,” Dougal said. “Sweet Mary used to sleep all day after a dance.”
Austen stopped strangling his fork, letting it fall to the side of his plate. “Perhaps a calling card left with the servants before luncheon would be a good idea? Then they can let us know if they would appreciate our dropping by.”
My god, but the man was positively losing his edge. Dougal cocked a challenging brow. “Or we stop by mid-afternoon? Bring them biscuits to go with their tea?”
Austen blew out a heavy sigh that lifted the hair from his forehead. “Why is it so hard to figure out?”
“It really is no’, my friend.”
But the truth was Dougal was nervous too. He was afraid that if he left a calling card, Poppy would put it in the fire. He could picture her scrunching up her nose in distaste when she read his name and launching the card into the flames as if it were a plague coming to ravage.
But on the other hand, if he dropped by unannounced, Poppy might slam the door in his face or instruct her servants to do that. Or not come out of her room as she’d done to Mary during teatime. The woman was unpredictable. It was part of the reason he liked her, this unpredictable behavior and the very intelligent and independent streak she had. One could never guess what they would get with Poppy. Blast it all, this, everything, was all so confounding.
One perfectly clear thing was that Dougal had to convince Poppy that he’d not tried to deceive her on purpose. That he admired her. That Lucia was not in his life, and not because he was not honorable, but the opposite. That he’d never agreed to wed her, and she had come back to torment him. Although, that last part was a little dramatic. He’d leave that out.
But after he got done telling her how he felt and what he wanted, he needed to see if she’d be willing to marry him. And in his mind, that was yet another opportunity for her to slam the door in his face. Saints, but he was fecked.
The odds were not currently in his favor. And if he were in Poppy’s delicate silk slippers, he’d likely smash the door on any matrimonial ideas as well and then have him tossed out on his idiotic arse.
“How the hell has Campbell gotten involved in all this?” Colonel Austen asked, rather shockingly out of the blue.
“Campbell?”
