She mustered a smile. Affable, yes, he was. And he was also fierce. And for the moment, hers. “Oh, yes, let’s wallop my parents and lock them in a wardrobe so they can’t frown at me any longer.”
He climbed to his feet. “Aye. Ye wait here, th—”
Alarmed, Amelia-Rose grabbed his arm. “Niall! You know I was only jesting.”
Niall pulled her upright. “That’s better.”
“You’re not supposed to aggravate me just to stop me from crying,” she pointed out.
With a slow grin that quite stopped her heart he brushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. “Ye’re assuming I was jesting.”
“Do not lock my parents in a wardrobe.”
He tucked her hand around his arm, heading them back to the loud morning room. “Tomorrow I mean to fetch some posies and a box of cigars and try to convince yer ma and da that I’m a reasonable lad. Then we’ll see who’s more stubborn, because I reckon it’s me.”
“It sounds promising,” she hedged, “but they may throw you out.”
His grin deepened. “I’m persistent as the devil.” If he was as worried as she was, he did a better job of hiding it. If he wasn’t worried, then he would be after tomorrow.
By the time they returned to the carriage she felt so full of hugs and handshakes and laughter, she worried she might burst. Even Jane had color in her cheeks, but Amelia-Rose figured that had more to do with her reading selection than the MacTaggerts, themselves.
The rain had stopped, so she was surprised when the coach continued past Wigmore Street and up to Baxter House. “You can’t stop here,” she said, ducking behind the curtain. “I’ll end up locked in a wardrobe.”
“I told Robert to walk us by, and I’ll let ye out just past here. But while ye are in here…” He leaned in with a soft, yearning kiss that quite heated her insides.
Jane sat bolt-upright. “Stop that at once, you … you chaw bacon!”
He lifted both eyebrows. “I’m a what, now?”
“You heard me.”
“I’ll have to go look that one up in Aden’s book.”
The coach stopped, and he pushed open the door as the driver flipped down the steps. “Where can I see ye tomorrow, Amelia-Rose?” he asked, lowering his gaze to her mouth again.
“No, you don’t,” Jane countered, putting her shoulder between them and pushing Amelia-Rose toward the door. “Out you go, cousin.”
“I’ll be shopping on Bond Street at two o’clock,” she returned, stepping down to the ground. “In case the morning doesn’t go as you hope.”
“I could use a new hat, I reckon,” he returned. “And it’s nae hope. It’s destiny.”
That word lingered with her as the coach trundled off again, and she and Jane turned back up the street. This connection between them felt too delicate, too fragile and too new, for such a strong word. If he was that certain, though, perhaps she needed to see it the same way. Destiny. That meant they would find a way to persuade her parents. She would be able to marry him, to share a life with him. “Destiny” was a very good word.
It wasn’t Hughes who pulled open the Baxter House front door as they arrived back home. “There you are,” her mother exclaimed, a bright smile on her face. “Where in the world have you been?”
“We went for a wal—”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” Victoria interrupted. “You’re here now, and darling, I have the most wonderful news.”
Something in Amelia-Rose’s chest clenched, and she put a hand against the foyer wall to steady herself. Wonderful news to her mother could only be a very limited number of things. She shut her eyes for a moment and straightened. Destiny, she told herself. Perhaps her mother had finally relented and allowed her father to acquire a dog. He’d wanted one for years.
“Take off that bonnet and come along,” her mother was still chattering, unknotting the ribbons herself and casting the hat into the corner. “At least your cheeks are pink. This way.”
She half shoved Amelia-Rose into the downstairs sitting room. Twenty minutes ago she’d been in a similar room, one filled with smiles and warmth. This one was also filled with smiles, but it felt … cold. As she recognized faces, the chill climbed up her spine, rendering her insides frozen and numb.
“Curtsy,” her mother hissed from directly behind her.
Amelia-Rose curtsied. “Lord Durst, my lady, Lord Phillip,” she creaked out, hearing Jane’s very faint gasp behind her. She wondered if her companion had learned any appropriate words for this in that vulgar dictionary.
Lionel West, the beautiful, soulful Marquis of Durst, stepped forward to take both her hands in his. “Miss Baxter. It seems my mother and your mother have been plotting.” He smiled, his deep-brown eyes shifting to the dowager marchioness on the couch and then back to her again. “And they have come to an agreement I feel compelled to accept both for my honor and for my heart. It seems we are to be married.”
Chapter Fourteen
Niall didn’t know much about flower language, which according to Eloise wasn’t a jest, but he figured that white and yellow roses would suffice for Mrs. Baxter, while the expensive box of American cigars he’d purchased for Charles Baxter had nearly cost him an arm in getting them away from Coll.
They knew what he was up to this morning, and despite the words of encouragement and the comments on his eagerness to let go of bachelorhood, he heard the concern in their voices. He had his own worries. The lass—his lass—wanted to please her parents, if only because she didn’t think she’d ever managed it before. Pleasing them, though, meant marrying a title. And he didn’t have one.
What he did have was a wealthy and influential family on the Oswell side, and a powerful one on the MacTaggert side. He’d never relied much on the Sassenach blood he carried, but it mattered here. His grandfather and the fathers before him had been viscounts for more than two centuries until the last one died with only a daughter—his mother—for an heir. On his father’s side, the earldom went back three hundred years, made aristocracy by the decree of fat Henry VIII, himself. That had to matter for something, because it was all he had.
He swung down from Kelpie as one of the Baxter House grooms appeared. Fluffing up the roses a bit with his fingers, Niall approached the door. The butler opened it as he topped the single step. “Good morning, Hughes,” he said, nodding. “I’d like a word with Mr. and Mrs. Baxter this morning, if ye please.”
The butler lifted an eyebrow. “You would?”
“Aye. I’ve someaught to discuss with ’em. Now do I wait on the step, or in the house?”
“May I ask what this is regarding? Unless you have a card now and can describe it there.”
“I dunnae have a card, and I’d prefer to discuss it with the Baxters.”
As he spoke, a lad trotted up to the house, a large bouquet of red roses in his hands. “These are for Miss Baxter,” he said, handing them up to the butler before he bounded away again.
Niall looked from the roses to his own posies. “Who’s sending Amelia-Rose flowers this morning?” he asked, keeping his tone level.
“I would imagine they are from Lord Hurst,” Hughes returned. “Her fiancé.”
Some unseen force punched Niall in the chest. He abruptly couldn’t breathe. The words the butler spoke seem to fly right past him, gibberish, but at the same time he knew exactly—exactly—what it all meant. Moments flitted through his mind, reminding him that she’d never told him that she loved him. That he’d wondered initially if he might simply have been the most convenient escape from a household she detested.
His first instinct was to charge into the house, find Amelia-Rose, and drag her away from there. His second was to find her parents and make certain they stopped whatever this new hell was and leave their daughter be. First, though, first he needed information. Words. Facts. They would be important, so he could fix this. And he would fix it. He had to.
“When did this happen?” he asked aloud.