“Well, Amelia-Rose,” he said, deepening his brogue as he caressed her name, “I dunnae mind convincing ye.”
“You shouldn’t be sitting so close together,” Jane pointed out from the opposite seat.
They were sitting rather close, his shoulder touching hers as they bumped over the road. Amelia-Rose glanced up at his profile as he eyed her companion. Part of her wanted to be convinced, very badly. Part of her wanted him in her life for the rest of her life. It was the logical half that kept crying foul, but even that half wanted kisses—and more.
“We’ve arrived, Mr. MacTaggert,” the driver said, sending them beneath the old portcullis and onto the grounds of the Tower.
Half a dozen other carriages were there already, but hopefully those guests would be viewing the jewels or the menagerie. She wanted this to be just them—and Jane, of course. Yes, Jane must always be present to keep her from scandal.
“Do you have three shillings?” she asked belatedly as he stood and stepped down from the barouche. She’d brought several coins just in case, but it would be much more proper if he paid their way.
Niall held out his hand, and she took it, feeling the calluses on his palm and his fingertips as she descended to the cobblestones. He hadn’t been joking when he said he helped shear sheep and all those other things.
“Aye.” He curled his fingers around hers. “Ye’ve brought me to the center of Sassenach power, lass. What do ye wish to show me?”
“Just some history. I’m not trying to convince you that we English never harmed you Scots. I thought you’d enjoy seeing armor and weapons, you being a warrior of clan Ross and all.”
To her relief, he grinned as he released her fingers, instead offering his forearm. “That I am. Ye should see my massive claymore.”
“Oh, good heavens,” Jane muttered from behind them.
“What now?” he asked. “A claymore’s a fine weapon, long and heavy, and a wonder when ye ken how to use it correctly.”
Abruptly Amelia-Rose didn’t think they were talking about swords. “And you know how to use yours correctly?”
“Aye. I’m something of an artist, ye might say. I’d like to show it to ye, lass.”
She felt her cheeks heat, and behind them Jane sounded like she might be suffering a seizure. “Stop it,” she murmured.
“Aye. I dunnae wish to embarrass ye. But I am thinking about ye in a rather carnal way.”
No one—no one—had ever said that to her before. In a way, it made her feel … powerful. And rather decadent. Because she wanted him, as well. Wanted to feel his rough hands on her skin, his breath warm against her, his—
“Three of you?” the yeoman in the doorway stated. “That’ll be three shillings. No touching the armor or the carvings or especially the weapons, as we’ve just gotten them polished up again. No pretending to battle to scare the ladies, and do not attempt to mount the horses. They are wood, you will get splinters, and I will not help you remove them.”
Wordlessly Niall retrieved three shillings from his coat pocket and handed them into the yeoman’s palm. The man stood aside, and they entered the stone tower. Immediately the temperature lowered, and with her free hand Amelia-Rose pulled her shawl more closely around her shoulders.
Their footsteps echoed against the stone floor, hers and Jane’s a soft tap, and Niall’s a harder and heavier drumbeat. In the center of the room, large stands held spears and pikes and halberds, jutting up toward the ceiling, a sea of deadly sharp points. On the right wall, more halberds, together with maces and one-and two-handed swords, axes, and glinting knives, were arranged in circles with the pointy ends facing the center.
“Which one most resembles your claymore?” she asked, daring him to begin speaking in double entendres again.
He stepped closer, moving from the huge, double-bladed weapons of the era of William the Conqueror, toward the narrower, longer swords of Henry VIII. “This one, I reckon,” he said, indicating a long, two-edged blade with a cross-shaped hilt, the arms angled slightly forward and a single red gem in the pommel. “Though the gem is an emerald.”
“You use that?” Jane asked, sounding both skeptical and slightly impressed.
“In the Highland games, aye. I’ve nae slain a man with it, if that’s yer meaning. Mine came from my great-great-granddad, and last tasted English blood during the Battle of Killiecrankie. Though Aden did nick my arm with it back when we were bairns.” Shoving up a sleeve of his coat and the shirt beneath, he revealed a long, straight scar going from his wrist up halfway to his elbow.
Amelia-Rose put her finger on it, feeling the slight rise of white scar tissue. “That must have been a deep cut,” she mused, running down the length of it, feeling the play of long, sinewy muscles beneath.
“It did bleed a bit,” he admitted, his voice low and rumbling. “The village seamstress sewed it up for me, after Aden and Coll gave me two fingers of whisky.”
“How old were you?”
“Eight or nine, I reckon. I cast the whisky up again all over Aden, so we reckoned we were even. Didnae tell Da for a fortnight, and when he did find out he took a look at it, declared that we’d done as we should, then cuffed Aden and told us nae to go about stabbing each other again.”
“It sounds like you had a very dangerous childhood, Niall.” She looked up, to find him gazing down at her while she still stupidly stroked his bare arm.
“We were wild, aye. Nae a lass about to tell us to mind our manners or nae pummel each other. I reckon our da wanted us to be like the MacTaggerts of old, the ones who defied a king and helped rebel against him, who stood bloody and proud on the battlefield and bellowed their defiance to the sky.” He put his hand over hers. “I’m nae quite that uncivilized, but I’m nae some dandy with high shirt points and a snuff box, either.”
Would he compromise? Is that what he was trying to tell her? That he might be amenable to spending part of the year in London? Of course she could merely be trying to interpret everything he said as a way they could manage this. Generally she recognized her flights of fancy for exactly what they were—wishes too lofty to be called daydreams. She required a bit of proof before she tossed her heart completely into this battle. But just hearing him say that, vague or not, gave her something she hadn’t felt in a while: hope.
Chapter Eleven
“I thought Henry the Eighth was rounder than this,” Niall commented as they strolled down the line of wooden horses mounted by figures who sat adorned in the armor of the various the kings of England. Most of them were wee lads barely the height of Amelia-Rose. The armor was pretty, improving from the chain mail of William the Conqueror to the steel plate mail of Henry to the obviously ceremonial armor of George III. Henry’s was the most lavish, the edges done in gold and with a hell of a generous codpiece jutting out over the saddle of his faux horse.
“Henry was a fine king, and very well respected,” she said, her tone absent.
Niall sent her a sideways look. “Ask half his wives about that, lass. Do ye reckon everyone deserves a compliment?”
Her gaze sharpened, as if she’d returned from wherever her mind had been. “No. He got fatter as he got older, I believe,” Amelia-Rose returned.
“I can see why he needed all those women, at least,” he noted.
Her gaze flicked from the codpiece to the front of Niall’s kilt and back to the horse again. “Fanciful thinking, I imagine.”
He stifled a grin. She followed the rules of propriety as best as she could, but his lass did have a wicked streak. He looked forward to exploring that. Very thoroughly.
Jane Bansil had seated herself on a bench by the door, and from the tilt of her head and the soft snoring sound emanating from her, she was fast asleep. “We seem to be the only people here,” he said, keeping his voice pitched low to minimize the echo.