Page 1 of The Scot's Perfect Match
PROLOGUE
The Ladies’ Marriage Prospects Bulletin
Above all, a lady must remember: a gentleman is the hunter, she is the quarry.
The deer does not chase the stag.
How fortuitous for Lady Ava Woodmoor that her eighteenth birthday also happened to be the very day she was making her debut in society. What better way to mark such a monumental year than stepping out into the world where she might claim the love of her life and live happily ever after?
She had been giddy all morning, and now here she was at Strathcael’s assembly rooms, her father, the Earl of Heatherfield, at her side as he presented her to the matronly ladies of this little village in the Scotland she so dearly loved.
Ava curtsied to the old dragons, ignoring their assessing gazes, while her eyes swept the room for the one gentleman she most longed to see.
There he was, Gavan Douglas, son of Baron Darkwood, and the love of her life. She had adored him since the age of seven, when he chased away every bee from her fistful of flowers, and when one still managed to sting her, he squashed it and took her hand as she wailed all the way back to Heatherfield Castle.
Gavan had hinted that tonight was important, and the only conclusion Ava could draw was that a proposal was imminent. After all, he had kissed her for the first time just yesterday beneath the willow on her father’s estate, where they played cards every Sunday after mass.
Oh, the kiss had been a dream. Even now the warm press of his lips was seared into her soul. After tonight, she told herself, she would be able to kiss him whenever she pleased.
But when Gavan entered the assembly room, he didn’t even glance at her. Instead, he strode past her toward the dance floor and promptly asked Lady Emma Trentham for a dance. At first, Ava thought he was teasing her, prolonging the suspense of his proposal. Yet then he asked Lady Gabriella McGregor, and Lady Rebecca Mars, and Lady Wilhelmina Paisley, even the Dowager Cochrane. Every woman within reach of the dance floor was asked—except her.
Her father remained oblivious to the slight, but her friends, Miss Poppy Featherstone and Miss Freya Grysham, noticed at once. Just as Ava was about to burst into tears, they guided her into the garden, where the cool air soothed her torrent of emotions.
“I hate him,” she muttered. No doubt there would be some cruel snippet in this week’s Ladies’ Marriage Prospects Bulletin about her humiliation, and when she saw it, she would toss it into the hearth and watch it burn, like her dreams.
“What game is he playing?” Freya asked, eyeing the well-lit windows of the assembly room where laughter and music spilled out into the night.
“A terrible one,” Poppy replied indignantly.
“He promised tonight would change my life,” Ava said with a trembling breath. “And he was right.”
Her two friends exchanged skeptical looks as Ava vowed, with all the earnestness of a broken heart, never to love again.
1
The Ladies’ Marriage Prospects Bulletin
It is not the duty of a young lady to arrange marriages for others; she should be wholly occupied with arranging herself into one.
The only other time in Lady Ava Woodmoor’s life that she could remember being this satisfied with herself was the day she’d convinced her governess to jump into the pond to catch a toad.
Today was entirely different with her friends Lord and Lady Myrton married off in a match created by herself. The ceremony had been held in the rose garden, just as she'd envisioned, with pale pink peonies overflowing from every urn and garlands of wisteria dripping from the archway. Even the lace runners along the aisle had matched the bride’s gloves—Ava had seen to that personally. It was, as she liked to think of it, perfectly orchestrated bliss.
The wedding nuptials had been splendid, and right now Ava was reliving the work of her design.
The ceremony had unfolded beneath a canopy of white and pink roses, stitched with ivory ribbons that fluttered like sighs in the breeze. Ava had insisted on a string quartet, and the soft strains of their music had given the vows a picturesque glow—just as she’d planned.
No detail had escaped her notice. After all, she’d been planning her own wedding since she was a wee lass, until she’d decided she wasn’t ready to marry and had made it her mission to give her well-planned dreams to everyone else. The hand-tied bouquets of pale blush roses and lavender had filled the air with a most beautiful scent. The flower girls wore wreaths Ava had woven herself. Artistry. Order. A vision executed to perfection. Even the doves had cooperated—released at the precise moment the couple kissed, their white wings sweeping into the sky like the ending note on a love story she had written.
The bride had wiped discreetly at her damp, bliss-filled eyes, while the groom had looked stunned by joy, and the audience had practically swooned. Ava took it all in with the quiet satisfaction of a master at work.
The wedding had been everything she could have dreamed for the happy couple. Elegant, emotional, and, most importantly, entirely of Ava’s enterprise.
Her feet deliciously ached from having danced the afternoon away, even if her father had warned her to contain herself. Ava had been entirely too jubilant for his peace of mind. But when was her father ever calm?
Oh, it had been glorious. And heaven help her if she wasn’t already planning the next. She’d made the decision last season after having played a part in the connection—and subsequent wedding—of her friends Poppy and Dougal, the Earl and Countess of Reay. She’d spotted the way Poppy’s eyes lingered just a touch too long across the ballroom and noticed how Dougal’s usually stern expression had softened, almost imperceptibly, whenever she passed.
Ava had orchestrated not one but two dances without either of them realizing she’d put them directly in each other’s paths. There’d been exhilaration in the wondering—would it work? A jolt of panic when they’d nearly bypassed each other without speaking. But then, oh, the thrill. The brush of fingers, the shy glances, the spark caught between them like sunlight on crystal.
