Page 35 of The Scot's Perfect Match
“Though really,” Freya added, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial hum, “it’s a pity Lord Darkwood is no’ here. The way he watched ye yesterday, why, Ava, I think ye could’ve made him fetch your brushes with a single look.”
Poppy gasped in mock outrage. “Oh, imagine! Lord Darkwood as a handmaiden. What a delightful reversal of fortunes.”
“He’d hate every moment of it,” Freya said with relish. “But I daresay he’d do it for ye.”
Moira giggled, settling her skirts carefully on the stool Ava had prepared for her. “I’ll be happy if mine resembles anything at all.”
“Ye’ll do wonderfully,” Ava assured her, handing over a palette. “Besides, I suspect ye’ve been too busy swooning over suitors to worry about painting.”
Moira’s blush deepened, though her grin remained unrepentant. “Perhaps a little,” Moira admitted, her grin widening. She leaned forward, lowering her voice like they were schoolgirls sharing a secret. “But ye dinna understand, Mr. Ferguson does no’ just say pretty things. He listens. When I told him about missing the gardens back home, he said he’d bring me cuttings from his uncle’s greenhouse. And when I mentioned my favorite waltz, he promised to ask the musicians to play it at the next assembly.”
Ava blinked. That was fast. Calculated. Exactly what she’d expect from a man like Ferguson, charming, aye, but knowing just how to make himself indispensable. Especially if he suspected his interests were being usurped by a confident Mr. McRae.
“That’s… thoughtful of him,” Ava said carefully, starting to believe that what Gavan said was true. Of course, she had set her sights on Ferguson for Moira, but it was evident she’d be happier with McRae, and really, that was the whole point: Moira’s happiness.
Moira’s blush deepened. “It’s more than thoughtful. I feel like he truly sees me.”
“Ah, aye,” Freya said slyly, mixing a shade of deep green on her palette. “The suitors. We’ve all heard about Ferguson. But I saw Boyd positively mooning over ye yesterday. And McRae lurking in your shadow like a verra handsome ghost.”
Moira laughed, ducking her head. “It’s all verra flattering.”
“Flattering?” Poppy scoffed, leaning in conspiratorially. “Dearest, it’s a veritable campaign. I half expect them to start sending ye sonnets.”
Ava sipped her champagne, listening as Moira recounted who’d sent flowers, who’d hinted at calling, and how her cousin had only grumbled about it all over breakfast. Ava felt a pang of guilt knowing how deliberately she’d orchestrated some of those encounters.
Still, she smiled brightly. “Ye deserve every bit of it, Moira. Though I’m curious, which of them has made the biggest impression?”
Moira hesitated just long enough for the other women to lean in. “I canna possibly say,” she demurred, though her rosy cheeks gave her away.
“Ferguson,” Freya mouthed knowingly, and Ava had to bite back a laugh.
They painted and gossiped in equal measure, champagne softening edges and brightening cheeks. The afternoon sunlight pooled golden across the wooden floor, making the whole scene feel suspended, an idyllic pocket of feminine freedom.
It wasn’t until Freya set down her brush with a mischievous little clatter that Ava sensed the shift. “Speaking of impressions,” she said casually, “I noticed ye and Lord Darkwood having quite the… cozy conversation in the rose path.”
Ava didn’t miss a beat, swirling a thick streak of white onto her painting. “Cozy is no’ the word I’d use,” she said coolly.
Ava dabbed a streak of pale blue onto her canvas, too forcefully, leaving a jagged slash across what was supposed to be sky. Cozy. Was that what they’d looked like? To her friends, to the other guests?
She wanted to scoff, to dismiss it. But the memory of his eyes on hers beneath the climbing roses refused to quiet. That steady, maddening gaze, so full of censure, aye, but something else too. Something that had set her pulse thrumming and made her feel, for one treacherous heartbeat, sixteen again.
She’d buried that lass years ago. The one who’d once leaned too close on a summer night and felt the sharp sting of rejection when he pulled away. But in his presence, on that shaded path, was as if no time had passed. And worse, she didn’t know if his concern for Moira was truly about Moira… or about her.
“Oh?” Poppy’s brows lifted. “Because from where I stood, it looked like the two of ye were about to?—”
“Discuss Moira’s welfare,” Ava interrupted, more sharply than intended. “Which we did. Briefly.”
Freya’s grin only widened. “If that’s all it was, ye’re awfully pink for such a dull topic.”
“I am no’ pink.”
“Ye are,” Poppy chirped.
Ava set down her brush, composing herself with a hostess’s poise. “Lord Darkwood and I disagree often. It’s hardly newsworthy.”
But even as the conversation drifted on, Ava couldn’t quite push aside the memory of his nearness yesterday, the tension humming between them, the way his gaze had pinned her in place. The conversation on the moors earlier, too.
Gavan unsettled her.
