The middle MacTaggert shook it. “Ye’ve stoppered Coll’s mouth,” he said in a low, amused brogue. “He’s nae accustomed to being interrupted.”
She blushed. Oh, dear. She’d been so annoyed with him, but he did outrank all of them here but his own mother. And Highlanders, she’d always known, were very proud and stubborn. Had she been rude? She hadn’t meant to be. It was only only that she disliked bullying, and the three brothers more than outnumbered poor Matthew Harris. “I’m very sorry if I’ve offended you, my lord,” she said, frowning.
“Och, nonsense,” Niall broke in. “It’s good for him. A mountain still has to listen to the snow.”
“A mountain abides despite the snow,” Coll retorted, keeping his attention on Matthew Harris. “Have ye gabbed with this sapling, Aden?”
“Aye. He’s got all his fingers ’n’ toes, knows how to read and write, and can damned well speak for himself. Shake his bloody hand.”
“Language,” Eloise said. “For heaven’s sake.”
“Ye’ve dragged us to a place with nae a gaming table, nae liquor, and a flock of females that look more like vultures than swans,” Aden returned. “I reckon if ever a damned curse was warranted, it’s now.”
Hiding a smile, Amelia-Rose followed his gaze toward the sweets table. Evidently she’d missed the letter that most of the young ladies present had received, because she wasn’t wearing pastel colors. She’d heard a rumor that there was a secret signal to alert men as to which young lady was available and which was spoken for—perhaps pastel meant unattached. Whatever it had been last year she must have dressed appropriately, because she’d garnered her one proposal that night. Inwardly she sighed. Perhaps she should have accepted it.
Fingers brushed against hers. “Did Coll fool yer parents?” Niall murmured, his attention ostensibly on the half dozen additional guests currently entering the ballroom.
“Yes,” she returned in the same tone. “I wish you’d told me he had a black eye. I could have invented a chivalrous story for it.”
“One of us has a black eye so often it didnae occur to me. Ye look lovely, by the way. Yer eyes are the color of cornflowers tonight.”
She’d always liked cornflowers. “Thank you.”
“Aye. Ye and Coll make a fine pair.”
That stopped her smile. Yes, she and Coll were supposed to be a pair. “I thought you’d suggested otherwise,” she breathed.
“I reckon it’s nae my affair. If he wants ye, and ye’re willing to be what he wants, that’s between the two of ye.”
Amelia-Rose blinked. She’d expected support or at least commiseration from him, because he’d offered it previously. But of course he would have his own family’s needs as his primary concern. For her to expect otherwise was just stupid.
Even if there might have been some … affection between them, she wasn’t meant for him, or he for her. He was a Highlander and a barbarian just like his brother. The only difference, really, was that he didn’t have a title. That title was the only reason her parents tolerated the barbarian Lord Glendarril. They had no reason at all to tolerate Niall.
“I’ve seen more color in snow than ye have in yer face right now,” Niall said, glancing at her. “Did ye see a spirit?”
“That’s your first assumption?” she retorted, giving up the ruse that they weren’t actually speaking. They’d done nothing wrong, after all. “That I must have seen a ghost?”
He shrugged. “Seemed as reasonable as my second guess, which was that someaught’s overset ye. Since I’m the only one talking to ye and I only said ye had blue eyes and that I meant to mind my own business, I reckon that made nae a bit of sense.”
Her mouth curved before she could stop it. Even when, if she’d truly cared for him, his words might have very nearly broken her heart. “Neither of your guesses makes the least bit of sense. I’m only a little chilled. In a few minutes I imagine it will be sweltering in here, so I’ve decided to enjoy the cold.”
Eloise broke in between them. “The swarm’s beginning,” she whispered, laughing.
Two groups were indeed forming in the center of the dance floor—one of unmarried men, and the other of all the ladies who wished to dance and who hadn’t yet seen their dance cards filled. The Spenfields had outdone themselves this year; two dozen ladies, compared with twice that number of young men. It did leave a problem of sorts, if one didn’t wish to be left to choose among the slower, older, less marriageable men. With a giggle Amelia-Rose seized Eloise’s hand and they pranced forward together into the maelstrom. And she refused to wonder for a moment what it would have been like to dance with Niall MacTaggert. That was only one of many regrets she would likely have tonight.
Chapter Eight
“I feel like a worm on a hook,” Aden commented, taking yet another dance card from a young lady’s hand and putting his name beside one of the dances.
“Stop signing yer name and they’ll stop chasing ye down. Ye can only have one lass per dance anyway,” Niall advised, shaking his head as a red-cheeked lass approached him. “I’m all spoken for,” he explained.
“Drat,” she grumbled, and pranced off again.
“Where do I put in my name for the horse drawing?” Coll ignored the ladies milling around him, looking more like a lion ready to swat at midges than a man meant to be impressing the lass he needed to marry.
“The what?” Aden asked.
“There’s a drawing at the end of the evening,” Matthew Harris put in from somewhere on the far side of Lady Aldriss. Wise fellow, to keep some distance between himself and Coll, at least until they’d had time for a conversation. “This year it’s a two-year-old bay gelding named Westminster. They say he’s a half brother to Wellington’s Copenhagen.”
“If I get him, his name’s nae going to be Westminster,” Coll returned. “Wulver, mayhap.”
“Shouldn’t you be seeing what Miss Baxter is up to?” Lady Aldriss prompted, looking up at Coll’s flat expression.
“Before ye chose a woman for me, ye might have thought to ask what sort I’d like,” he grumbled. “Where do I put my damned name?”
“For heaven’s … There. Write your name down on one of those pieces of paper, and put it in the bowl.” She gestured at a small table close by the door. The bowl was already half full of wee papers, and Coll immediately headed in that direction, Aden on his heels. “Only put your name in once,” she called after them, then looked over at Niall and Matthew. “Oh, get going, then, you two.”
With a grin Matthew loped off to join his almost-brothers-in-law. Niall, though, stayed where he was. Eloise and Amelia-Rose stood in the center of a swirl of gowns and coattails, and he didn’t trust that they wouldn’t be swept off their feet in the turmoil.
“You don’t want a horse?” the countess asked.
“I have a horse.” He kept his gaze on his sister and the other lass. “Do the Spenfield lasses know that their partners are here to win an animal?”
“It’s been this way for the past four years, since Polymnia turned twenty-four and the youngest, Melpomeni, turned eighteen. So yes, I assume they’re aware.”
“Hm.”
“What does that mean?”
Niall could feel her gaze on him. “I’m just trying to decide how the ladies might feel when a lad leaves with a horse but nae a wife.”
“I’m not their mother,” Francesca returned, keeping her voice below the level of the conversation around them. “It wouldn’t have been my plan, but there it is.”
“Nae, we’ve seen what yer plan is, m’lady.” Halfway across the room Eloise and Amelia-Rose hugged a third young lady, the three of them bending over their full dance cards and comparing partners. He’d wanted to write down his name—not for the horse, but just for a dance. One dance with that lass before he had to begin calling her sister and watch his angry, cynical oldest brother put his hands and his mouth on her and then leave her behind. Or worse, decide he liked her and take her with him to the Highlands where Niall would have to see her every day.