Page 18 of The Lyon and the Unicorn
“Very well—less reprehensible thanmostmen.”
“Am I like most men?”
“No,” she said, her eyes darkening. “I’d never describe you as being likemost men.” Then she smiled. “Before you ask, Mr. McTavish, that was not an insult.”
He took her hand, and her lips parted. Desire flared in her eyes, then she stiffened and withdrew. Once again, the skin on the back of Murdo’s neck tightened, and he glanced across the room to see the duchess staring at him, her brow furrowed into a frown.
“Your mother seems very protective of ye,” he said.
“I owe her my life.”
“Doesn’t every mother’s child?”
“I owe her more than most.”
“So, ye’re going to London for her sake?”
“Mama knows what’s best for me. She wants me to have a Season—and everything that was denied her, so I don’t have to—” She broke off and shook her head. “Why am I telling you this? I hardly know you.”
“I’m sure yer Season will be a success.”
“I fear I’ll be a disappointment.”
“I doubt that, lass.”
She let out a bitter laugh. “I told you I didn’t like to be flattered. Even you must acknowledge I don’t fit in here. In that, Miss Peacock’s right—and she’s also right when she says that the kind of man who’d want someone like me is never to be found among London Society.”
“I disagree,” he said, his heart aching at the resignation in her voice. “Ye’re everything that a sensible man would want—bright, quick-witted, and with a healthy ignorance of the ways of a lady.”
“Now you’re insulting me.”
“I’m being honest, lass,” he said, “even if it lands me in trouble up to my ballocks.”
She stifled a giggle, and his heart warmed at the spark in her eyes.
“I believe we share equal frankness, lass, that’s lacking among the company tonight—and perhaps we share a common interest.”
“Which is?”
“The wild outdoors,” he said. “If ye think Northumberland’s wild and untamed, then the Highlands are to Northumberland as a lion is to a mouse.”
Her eyes shone with eagerness. “Is that so?”
“Do ye not know of the Highlands? Didn’t yer governess teach you geography?”
She colored. “I’ve had no governess.”
“Yer schoolteacher?”
“I’ve not been to school. Mama has employed a tutor, though he says I’m terribly ignorant. But I can read and write.”
“I should hope so,” he said, laughing.
She blinked, and a sheen of moisture glistened in her eyes.
He took her hand. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to distress ye,” he said. “Though many people know of the Highlands, few have visited. Perhaps that’s why I love it—the land is untainted by people who wish to claim it for themselves. My countrymen treat the land with love—as ye say, we believe that we belong to the land. Everything I do is for my homeland.”
“And it’s wilder than Northumberland?”
