Page 2 of The Highlander Who Protected Me

She paused for a moment before answering. “Mr. Kendrick, are you flirting with me?”

Of course he was. Rather badly, if she needed clarification.

“If I say yes, will it get you to sit down on that confounded bench?” His legwaskilling him, blast it.

Ainsley floated onto the seat in a graceful flutter of skirts. “You only had to ask.”

“I thought I did.”

“You most certainly did not.”

He shook his head. “Never mind. I was somewhat confused.”

“You are overcome by my presence, no doubt. Men always are, so there’s no call to feel embarrassed about it.”

Ainsley shifted to make room for him as he carefully sat. The bench was small, crowding them close.

“No, it’s because I can’t follow your convoluted mental processes,” he said.

She whacked him on the arm with her fan. “Can you not even pretend to be charming? My other suitors at least have a go at it.”

He managed not to grin at the notion that she considered him one of her suitors. “We both know I never pretend to be charming.”

“It’s rather a nice change,” she said with a rueful smile. “Being surrounded by men desperate to flatter does get a bit cloying, especially since I can never tell whether it’s me or my fortune they’re principally after.”

Her damn, great fortune stood between them like Hadrian’s Wall.

Don’t think about it.

“Poor Lady Ainsley,” he said, returning her smile. “I shall make a point of being rude to you at least once a day, just to lighten your cruel burden.”

“I don’t think you need to make a point of it. You come to it quite naturally.”

“And I consider it one of my best assets.”

“The hostesses of London might not agree. Just ask Lady Bassett. You managed to insult her before we even sat down to dinner.”

Royal hadn’t meant to offend their hostess, who seemed like a perfectly decent woman. He’d been looking around for Ainsley, and hadn’t noticed that her ladyship was speaking to him.

“I did apologize,” he said. “That has to count for something.”

When she shrugged, a few tendrils of hair drifted down from her coiffure in silky wisps. Royal had to repress the impulse to brush them aside and set his lips to her smooth, graceful neck.

“It doesn’t really matter how rude you are,” she said. “Your brother is a wealthy, unmarried earl, even if heisa Scotsman. So if the ladies of thetonwish Lord Arnprior to put in an appearance, they have to put up with you, too. His lordship never goes anywhere without you, it seems.”

That was true. Nick was an absolute tyrant when it came to forcing him back into society. Royal would have been happy to spend his nights at their rented town house in Mayfair, alone with a good book, but big brother had decided it was time for him to start living again. Royal had vociferously disagreed, since attending dreary parties and fending off impertinent questions about the war hardly counted asliving. He didn’t even have the consolation of being able to twirl a pretty girl around the dance floor.

It felt like he’d escaped the killing fields of Waterloo only to die of utter boredom at the hands of thebeau monde.

Ainsley poked him again with her dratted fan. “You’ve gone back to scowling, and since we know you couldn’tpossiblybe scowling about me, there’s something else bothering you.”

Her imperious attitude made him smile. “You can be incredibly annoying sometimes, my lady.”

“You’re describing yourself. Everything aboutmeis perfect. If you weren’t such a thickhead, you’d realize that.”

Oh, how he realized it. If there was a more beautiful, self-assured girl in London, he had yet to meet her. Ainsley’s family pampered her like a princess, and her suitors slavered over her like witless fools. Thankfully, she rarely took herself seriously, and took her legion of beaus even less so. Her odd combination of arrogance and wry self-awareness gave her a confidence he found enormously appealing.

“I have no doubt you could wave your hand and split the Thames, like Moses parted the Red Sea,” he said.

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