Immediately he put a heel into Kelpie’s ribs. “Thank Saint Andrew. For a people that scurry everywhere, ye Sassenach make getting anywhere nearly impossible.”
“That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard,” she retorted. “Simply because we don’t—”
A pair of ladies and a man with very high shirt points turned a phaeton beside them, and Amelia-Rose clamped her mouth shut. “Good morning, Amelia-Rose,” the younger of the lasses said, nodding.
“Lady Caroline. It was lovely to see you at the theater the other night.”
“Ah, yes, Romeo and Juliet. I recall.”
That’s why the lass looked familiar. She’d been the one seated on the far side of the stage, a pair of opera glasses aimed at him for most of the night. He started to comment on that, but changed his mind after he took a glance at Amelia-Rose and the forced, placid smile on her face.
“Do introduce me to your friend, Amelia-Rose,” Lady Caroline urged.
“Oh, this is—”
“I reckon ye saw me at the theater,” he interrupted. “Niall MacTaggert. The last time a lass stared at me like that, she chased me into a loch and tried to take all my clothes off.”
Lady Caroline blushed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mr. MacTaggert. And I certainly don’t stare.”
“Then those glasses must’ve been stuck to yer fa—”
“I apologize, Lady Caroline,” Amelia-Rose cut in, her own cheeks paling. “Mr. MacTaggert is not from here.”
“Yes, he’s one of those Highlanders, isn’t he? Lady Aldriss’s sons? This isn’t the one you’re after, is he?”
“‘He,’” Niall said, more amused by the nonsense than anything else, “has a pair of ears and speaks on his own.”
“Niall,” Amelia-Rose hissed, “stop it.”
“I do like his accent,” the other lass said. She looked enough like the first one that they had to be sisters.
Niall lifted both eyebrows. Leaning over toward Amelia-Rose, he turned his back on the carriage. “I’ll behave if ye wish me to, lass, but I will point out that being talked about like a dog isnae someaught I generally tolerate.”
“They are my friends,” she whispered back.
“Why?”
A brief grimace crossed her face, then vanished again. “Mr. MacTaggert is from the Highlands,” she said. “He is Lady Aldriss’s youngest son.”
“Well, we know he’s from the Highlands,” Lady Caroline returned. “No English gentleman would wear that, especially on horseback.” She giggled. “How does he manage that anyway, do you think, Agnes?”
The man driving the phaeton snorted. “I’ve heard Highlanders referred to as ‘blue skins.’ Perhaps that wasn’t in reference to the paint on their faces.”
“Lewis Jones, you are too much!” Lady Caroline declared, giggling again.
This was about the time Niall would generally begin punching people, but he’d been insulted before, and for more reason. He was more curious about what Amelia-Rose would say, if anything. It would mean something, whether she ventured a comment or not.
“We’ll take our leave,” she said, and stopped Mirabel.
He halted beside her, but the phaeton went forward a few feet, then turned around and walked back up to them. “You should join us for luncheon,” Lady Caroline said. “I’m certain there’s an inn somewhere where his attire wouldn’t cause anyone to faint.”
Amelia-Rose made a sound deep in her chest. “I should be more concerned with Mr. Jones’s reception,” she said crisply, “as evidently he is unable to resist anything wearing a skirt, including his mother’s maid. Hopefully he recognizes the difference between a kilt and a skirt, or Mr. MacTaggert may have to flatten him.”
“Amelia-Rose!”
“As for you, Caroline, you did stare at Niall all night at the theater, to the point that I’m surprised you remember which play we were there to see. The difference between being rude from a distance and rude up close is that up close your target is able to respond.” She clucked at Mirabel. “Good day, Caroline, Agnes, Lewis.”
She trotted off. Niall took a moment to grin at the stunned trio before he kneed Kelpie and caught up to her. “Lass, you are magnificent,” he drawled.
Amelia-Rose wiped a hand across her face. “I am horrid. Why did I do that? Why do I always do that? It’s a stupid conversation. I don’t need to win it.”
Damn it all, she was crying. “I reckon ye said someaught because they were insulting me for no good reason,” he returned. “It would’ve been easier to say naught, or to laugh along with ’em. Ye took the harder course, adae.”
“I am not comforted. You just say whatever you wish.”
“They dunnae matter to me. Most I meet here dunnae matter a whisker to me. I ken who I am and what I do in my life. I’m proud of that.”
She took a breath, slowing to a walk again. “If my mother hears about this, which she will because she always does, I’ll have to sit through another week of lectures on proper decorum and how to keep my useless opinions to myself.”
“Dunnae keep them from me,” he protested, reaching over to catch Mirabel’s reins and bring horse and rider to a stop. “Ye didnae say a thing that wasnae true, and frankly I’d rather listen to ye read a grocery list than hear anyone else recite Shakespeare.”
For a long moment her blue eyes searched his face. “Your brother isn’t here, is he?” she finally said.
That hadn’t been what he’d thought she would say. She surprised him almost constantly, actually, which she would likely say was a bad thing—but which he looked forward to every time he set eyes on her. “Nae. Do ye want me to take ye home?”
A slight smile touched her mouth. Christ’s sake, her lips looked soft. Kissable. “We still have two hours, I believe. Let’s not waste them.”
Two hours wasn’t nearly enough. Aye, he should be far away from Saint James’s Park and from her. But sooner rather than later he would have no time with her at all—or at least none that he could justify. Until then, he’d steal every damned moment he could.
“No handsome Scotsman to accompany you today?”
Amelia-Rose looked over her shoulder at the trio who took the seats directly behind her. Wonderful. Playing the pianoforte in front of an audience gave her the shivers all in itself. To have friends here—ones who wouldn’t be performing—made it so much worse. “There are a plentitude of more interesting things for a first-time visitor to London to do than attend a recital,” she whispered, and faced forward again.
“Yes, but you’re here,” Elizabeth Sampson returned, speaking well below the sound of Polymnia Spenfield playing the harp. “And I don’t so much want to meet your fiancé as I do his younger brother. I hear he’s a true Adonis.”
“He’s not my fiancé,” Amelia-Rose retorted, earning her a stern look from Mrs. Spenfield down the row. Be civil, she reminded herself. “Not officially. Please don’t ruin my mother’s wish to make a grand announcement of our engagement simply because we’re friends and I told you what was afoot.”
There. That had sounded logical, anyway. The last thing she wanted, other than people gossiping about her, was for the gossip to be negative. It weighed on her enough that she had no idea if Coll MacTaggert would actually appear tomorrow night to escort her to the Spenfield ball. If he didn’t … She shuddered. No, she didn’t wish under any circumstances to wed a stupid man who couldn’t even be bothered to speak with her for more than three minutes.
But at the same time she already had a reputation for being too blunt. Anyone who already knew about the near-betrothal—which was far too many people for her peace of mind—would assume that he’d broken it off because she wasn’t acceptable. Yes, she’d handed him a set-down, but only after he’d insulted her first. And then he’d stomped off like an angry bull. At the least she deserved to be the one to cry foul and walk away now.
“No one will hear it from me,” Lord Phillip West said quietly, sitting straighter to applaud politely as Polymnia finished her piece.