Page 6 of A Dash of Scot
“My sister is the eldest.” He shrugged. “She has always had a heap of responsibility placed on her, and I suppose she takes it verra seriously.”
“Very.” Anise nodded seriously. “Very, very.”
“For example, her tea parties,” Dougal said. “No male would ever be invited.”
“Why’s that?” Anise asked.
“It’s a henpecking, I’m certain.”
Poppy frowned. She wasn’t certain she was going to enjoy sitting around with a dozen Marys while they complained about the men in their lives.
“Perhaps we’ll be late for tea,” Poppy teased, the first time she’d done so in ages.
“I could direct our driver to take us over to Skye. Ye’d be certain to miss it then.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” Poppy teased.
“We’d be gone for days.” Anise clapped and abruptly stopped. “But Mama would go mad.”
“Alas, I’d likely be set upon by the gatekeepers of society for having absconded with two beautiful ladies.”
Poppy’s face heated in a blush. The majority of abscondings ended in marriage, and she was irritated with herself for that being her first thought: she wouldn’t mind being absconded with by him.
She stared hard at her fingers folded neatly in her lap as if they were the most interesting thing in this curricle and not the man opposite her, but then she chanced a glance up at Dougal. He was watching her, his expression thoughtful.
If Anise weren’t here, she might have been bold enough to ask what he was thinking. But alas, she wasn’t willing to risk her sister tattling to their mother later about her obvious interest in the man. Not if she wanted Dougal Mackay to come back.
A year without seeing him—hearing him—had been painful enough as it was.
He was the first bright spot in an endless sea of literal and figurative gray days. She wasn’t going to do anything to ruin that.
“We wouldn’t want to be the reason you were banished,” Poppy offered instead. “Not when you’ve tossed us a lifeline.”
Dougal smiled at her, his expression soft and endearing and confusing. He bent in a mock bow. “I’m at your service, my lady.”
2
Dougal Mackay was very aware of the two inches of space between his massive knee and the knee of the lady who sat opposite him in a dark gray wool coat with blue-and-white plaid cuffs and collar. A jeweled feather was pinned to the lapel, muted in the dull afternoon sky but likely sparkling in the sunlight. And really, did it matter? The blue in the stones matched the blue in her eyes, a detail he shouldn’t have noticed but couldn’t help focusing on.
And then he realized he was staring at her lapel, his gaze lingering in the general area of her ample bosom. If he were caught, it would result in a slap he well deserved.
Miss Poppy Featherstone.
She was as beautiful today as she was when he’d first met her a few years ago and as stunning as she’d been in London—when he’d been compelled to press his mouth to hers in a kiss that haunted him to this day.
A kiss that should never have happened. A step over lines he shouldn’t have crossed. He’d known it before he’d done it and been incapable of stopping himself. The sweetest, most exquisite feeling. And he’d waited for the stinging slap after, but it hadn’t been there. She’d stared at him in a way he’d never thought to see in a woman’s gaze, never thought he’d deserve. Desire. Acceptance. Possessiveness. And it scared the hell out of him.
Scared him so much that he’d jumped at the news that he was needed back in Scotland. Not that he was pleased with the reason for his attendance either.
And now, here she was, sitting across from him. Every bone in his body wanted to lean forward and pull her into his embrace.
But there was something different about her now. A marked change he couldn’t describe except to say the brilliant light he’d seen in her eyes when they’d danced in London last year was dimmed. Poppy had been witty, jovial, and charming. She was still charming, the wittiness still evidently there, but her jovial nature, the carefreeness of her disposition seemed…fragmented. The wind had been knocked out of her lively sails, and he wished more than anything to bring it back. There were fissures in the melancholy she’d wrapped herself in, and he continued to needle the cracks in hopes of opening her up while mending the merriness of her countenance.
Why he was so invested in her happiness was a mystery he didn’t care to solve.
But he did think his sister’s treatment of the three Featherstone women to be unkind. When he’d learned of Lord Cullen’s passing and the entail not being passed to his daughters, Dougal had been surprised and then dismayed to learn they were having to rely on his sister’s charity. Their half-brother Edward was a crack at billiards and a good man to hunt with, but when it came to his family, he bowed to Mary as if all the backbone he held at the club turned to ash as soon as he crossed his own threshold.
Dougal had always held hope that a good man would soften his sister. Edward was a good man—but he did nothing to soothe Mary’s natural ire. Hell, even becoming a mother hadn’t mollified her. If anything, it had only made her more annoyed at life. Dougal had come to the conclusion recently that there was literally nothing that could make Mary smile. She didn’t even appear pleased when she hurt other people’s feelings as most bullies did, having a sense of power and pleasure. Mary was just sour.
