“This year I am attempting—and failing, according to you—to be more … ladylike. I have three proposals, not counting the one your mother gave on behalf of your brother, and no one has shed a tear. Not in public, anyway.”
He smiled, though what he truly wanted to ask was whether she was happier this Season. “I reckon Coll and I are more damaging to yer calm than most men would be. We being barbarians and all.”
When she looked at him again, a trace of humor had returned to her expression, thank Saint Andrew. “Lord Glendarril did make an impression.”
“Aye, like a great boot in the mud.” Niall turned them back in the direction of the canopy and the growing group of picnickers. “Between ye and me, adae,” he went on, lowering his voice, “I’ve told ye what Coll says he wants, and ye could be that lass if ye tried, I imagine. I’m nae certain, though, that’s what’s best for ye. I reckon I’ll get clubbed for telling ye this, but at this moment I’m nae convinced ye and Coll are compatible. And ye willnae be compatible unless ye decide to cast aside the keen-eyed lass I spy before me. The…” He trailed off, deciding he’d potentially caused enough trouble.
Blue eyes held his attention, drew him to her. “Please go on,” she whispered.
He wanted to. Badly. “I like ye as ye are, lass,” he settled for saying. “The sweet and the sour. I cannae be the only one.”
For a second he thought he’d made her cry, but she whisked a hand across her face and nodded. “You’ve given me some things to consider, Niall. I very much appreciate your honesty.”
Not at all certain whether he’d made things better or worse, he seated himself on the ground between Eloise and Amelia-Rose and locked a smile on his face as he memorized more names—even though half of them were Mary or Elizabeth—and pretended to enjoy the conversation about who’d danced the most divinely at the last soiree.
“I’ll wager you have magnificent soirees in Aberdeen,” one of the young ladies, Tulip or Petunia, he thought, said enthusiastically. “All those kilts and red-haired ladies.”
“Aye,” he said, wishing the footmen would get on with handing out the edibles.
“Oh, you must say more than that,” the flower demanded, to the encouragement of the other lasses. The men didn’t seem to care about Scottish soirees any more than he did.
“Aye, I imagine they do,” he drew out. “But I dunnae ken for certain because Aberdeen is in the Lowlands, and I’ve nae been there. I’ve attended a grand soiree or two in Inverness, and aye the lads wear the tartans of their clans, and there are a handful of ginger-haired lasses. Most of them have Irish in their blood, which I cannae hold against them as they’d nae say in it.”
“I … Oh.” The flower cleared her throat. “Which clan are you, Mr. MacTaggert?”
“Clan Ross.” Finally the trio of servants began setting out small bowls of orange wedges and whortleberries and cherries. Of all the things that had troubled him about this trek to London, starving hadn’t been one of them. Until now. He scooped up a pile of whortleberries and began devouring them.
“A clan is like a gentlemen’s club, isn’t it?” one of the lads, a Turner, he thought, asked. “You belong to clan Ross the same way I belong to White’s?”
“Could be. When ye swear an oath, is it to God, White’s, and England?”
“What? No. Of course not.”
“Then it’s nae the same. My oaths are to God, Ross, and Scotland.” They also on occasion swore to Robert the Bruce, Saint Andrew, or the Wallace, but he was apparently making a point about something or other.
Eloise nudged him in the elbow. “Be nice,” she whispered.
“I am being nice,” he returned in the same tone. “I cannae ignore the questions and still be polite, ye ken.”
“You don’t have to answer so pointedly,” she insisted.
Niall sent her a glance. “Ye dunnae know me very well, do ye, piuthar? This is as round as my points get.”
“What are the colors of clan Ross?” Amelia-Rose asked, breaking what was becoming a nervous silence.
She knew that, as she’d seen Coll and him in their plaid at the theater … Saint Andrew, had it only been last night? But he had reason to be more circumspect with her, both because of her importance to Aldriss Park, and because her sharp edges and softer ones near to mesmerized him. Her sharp edges, in particular. “Deep red, with a plaid of black crossed with green. Our chief for the past two years is Lieutenant General Sir Charles Lockhart-Ross of Balnagown.”
“But you’re not a Ross, yourself,” someone else, another of the men, put in.
“I am, on my grandmother’s side. Ross and MacTaggert blood’s been mingled for the past three or four centuries, I reckon.”
“So you’re not a member of White’s, then,” the Turner fellow put in again.
“Nae.” Finishing off the whortleberries, Niall leaned forward a little. This man meant him ill; of that he was certain. He could practically scent it on the wind. No, it wouldn’t be a ball to the skull or a blade in the back, but Turner had brought the conversation back to White’s membership twice, as something he had and Niall did not.
“I’ve a clan,” he went on. “I’ve nae need for a gentlemen’s club. Out in the Highlands if I fall from my horse while hunting deer, or I slide down a cliffside because I’ve misjudged my footing, my clan will come to find me. Nae just my brothers. My clan. Hundreds of ’em. Just as I’ve gone to their aid. I dunnae prize a chair because I’m the only one allowed to sit in it. I prize those who’ll watch my back, who’ll bleed for me if necessary, as I’ve bled for them.” He selected half an orange and straightened again. “Did ye have a question I missed, then?”
Turner surveyed the line of carriages for a moment. “No. No question. Just a statement of interest.”
“So it’s your brother Lord Glendarril who’s to marry Amelia-Rose?” another of the lasses, a pretty, petite brunette with green eyes, asked.
“If we’re compatible,” Amelia-Rose put in swiftly, with a smile that to his eyes looked forced, especially since he’d been sporting one of those for the past thirty minutes, himself. “He’s been so busy; I’m looking forward to spending more time with him.”
He remembered the brunette lass’s name. “Aye. As Miss Baxter says, Miss LeMere.”
“And you have another brother?” Patricia LeMere went on.
“Aye. Aden.”
“Also unmarried?”
Ah, so that was it. “Aye. Nae a one of us is wed, yet.” He put on a thoughtful look. “And I do hear ye have some lovely soirees in London.”
“That, we do.”
By the time he’d heard about every ball, dinner, and dance held so far this Season in London, the pheasant came around. Niall wasted no time in polishing off his plate, despite the raised eyebrows around him. They could be dainty if they wished; he was hungry.
“Would the gentleman like more?” one of the servants asked, and Niall handed up his plate.
“Aye, the gentleman would.”
“You weren’t jesting about being hungry, were you?” Amelia-Rose asked from beside him.
“Since I arrived in London I’ve had one sandwich, some biscuits, a handful of fruit, one scrawny chicken leg, and this pheasant.”
“And you really do hunt your own deer and go hiking about on cliffs?”
He liberated a slice of roasted potato off her plate and popped it into his mouth while he waited for his second helping. “We all hunt; there’s a butcher’s shop at the village a mile down the loch, and a bakery, but we try to supply our own table. It’s a large household, Aldriss. What’s left over goes to the cotter widows and bairns.”
“Deer don’t generally graze on cliffs, though.”
Niall chuckled. “Nae. Birds nest there, though. A man tires of chicken eggs from time to time. And chicken.”
“What else do you do?”
“Do ye truly want a list of my chores? Most of them involve mud.”