Hit Me With Your Best Scot (Wild Wicked Highlanders #3) - Suzanne Enoch Page 0,19
to which not even Michelangelo could do justice, wild brown hair that practically begged her fingers to brush it from his temple—if he hadn’t been Scottish, he would very nearly have been perfect. Or rather, he would be perfect for some other young lady. The name on the agreement her parents had signed was Coll MacTaggert.
While John saw to Jane Bansil, Niall approached her and Mirabel. She held out a hand for assistance in reaching the mounting block, but before she could do more than grip his shoulder he put his hands around her waist and lifted her out of the saddle without any apparent effort. The sensation of being lighter than air, of flying, quite took her breath away.
A gentleman should ask for permission before grabbing hold of her so intimately. Everyone knew that. But then he was a barbarian Highlander and barely a gentleman even if he seemed to know how to dress like one. “That was improper,” she said a little breathlessly, reaching up a hand to straighten her bonnet as he set her feet on the ground.
He kept his hands around her waist. “Should I put ye back up, then?”
“No, it’s done now. Do release me.” That wasn’t what she wanted to say, but it seemed like the proper response. “We wouldn’t want your brother to see you putting your hands on me.”
His eyes narrowed a fraction. “Nae. We wouldnae want that. So being helpful is a sin?”
“Of course it isn’t. But … Oh, never mind.” As if she was qualified to give lessons in propriety. “Just ask a female before you lift her into the air.”
That brought another devastating grin to his lean face. “Aye. I checked the wind first, though, and I reckoned it wasnae strong enough to carry ye aloft, even with that great hat on ye.”
She opened her mouth to retort that by some standards her bonnet was quite modest, but that would trip over her mother’s advice never to apologize for being well dressed. Aside from that, Amelia-Rose saw the twinkle in his eye. “Troublemaker,” she muttered, taking a step backward.
When Jane took her arm, Amelia-Rose actually jumped. “You said he was handsome,” her companion whispered, “but goodness’ sake. I look forward to comparing him to the one with the title.” She chuckled. “Perhaps you could send this one toward one of your less discriminating friends. Rebecca Sharpe doesn’t require a titled gentleman, does she?”
No, Rebecca’s father was already a viscount, and a wealthy one at that. All Rebecca required was a pretty face. And perhaps someone to balance her rather … self-absorbed character. Somehow, however, Amelia-Rose couldn’t imagine Niall MacTaggert blithely fetching sweets and glasses of Madeira every time Rebecca snapped her well-manicured fingers.
“I think he would eat Rebecca for breakfast,” she whispered back, ignoring Jane’s surprised look as they reached the coffeehouse door.
That was neither here nor there, anyway. She was here to give Lord Glendarril another opportunity and, according to her mother, to give herself another chance to charm their best hope for a title since Baron Oglivy, who was nearly sixty years old. That, of course, had made her wonder if her intentionally acting like a complete shrew would cause this horridly unfair agreement to fall apart. It would likely ruin her, but she still wasn’t ready to discard the idea entirely.
At the same time, she couldn’t help reaching for hope. The little Niall had mentioned about his father’s antipathy toward the English certainly hadn’t encouraged her at all, but if his brother the viscount simply felt forced into something he didn’t want, she could muster a large degree of sympathy. A Highlander who would remain in London might do, though his rudeness and lack of propriety certainly wouldn’t either curb her own tendencies or encourage her to improve. But she couldn’t know anything for certain until she spoke with him again. Over a cup of coffee, as it were.
John waited outside with the horses, and she followed Niall’s broad back around the crowd of tables and morass of conversations to a spot close by the front windows. He held a chair for her, and she took a seat, impressed that he did have some manners.
When he’d seated Jane as well, he vanished back into the crowd. Coffeehouses, she knew, weren’t quite as popular as they’d once been, but The Constantinople buzzed with conversation. Mostly male conversation, but her mother had always pointed out that she wouldn’t find a husband in a dress shop.