Hit Me With Your Best Scot (Wild Wicked Highlanders #3) - Suzanne Enoch Page 0,22
I will pack you a basket luncheon myself.”
“I’ll hold ye to that.”
“Very well. For your information, a coach or a phaeton would be an acceptable conveyance, but I do prefer a barouche.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “A barouche. Aye. Anything else, Miss Baxter?”
“No, that should suffice. But as you are standing in for my nearly betrothed, you may call me Amelia-Rose,” she decided, despite the sharp look that earned her from Jane. Her shy second cousin had become exceedingly proper as she aged, and while Jane did serve to remind Amelia-Rose to behave, she also represented what happened when one was too reserved. Amelia-Rose was nineteen, and she had no intention of becoming a thirty-three-year-old spinster.
Niall downed another biscuit. “Nae,” he said, his tone amused. “Amelia-Rose is a damned mouthful for a barbarian Highlander. I reckon I’ll call ye adae.”
“Why? What does that mean?” she countered, deeply suspicious even though it sounded quite pretty in his deep brogue. “I won’t agree until you promise me you aren’t calling me a turnip or something embarrassing.”
When he grinned, her heart gave a stutter. No man should be that handsome. Especially not the brother of the man supposedly courting her. “I’d nae call ye a turnip, lass. It means ‘rose,’ like yer name. Only less twisty on my tongue.”
Rose. Well, it was half her name, which people generally tried to shorten anyway, but in Scots Gaelic it felt … prettier than the “Amy” her mother disliked so much. Adae. It was very nearly poetical. “Very well,” she said, with an exaggerated sigh. “But if I find out it does mean something else, I shall wallop you.”
He laughed, the sound deep and musical and enticing. The pair of women seated behind him both turned their heads to look. One of them fanned herself, and they leaned together, whispered something, and both blushed. Amelia-Rose took another sip of her sweet coffee and pretended not to notice, but of course she did. She knew both of them. And even if Niall was just her beau’s brother, the reaction of other ladies to his presence was mollifying. She’d spent the last two years trying to be just like everyone else and falling short. Let someone envy her for once.
Especially considering last night, when the viscount had vanished five minutes into Romeo and Juliet, a bit of envy was nice. If she didn’t wish to become a laughingstock, though, she would have to encourage the displays of manliness and charm from whichever MacTaggert appeared to escort her, and she would have to discourage the barbarian Highlander behavior.
What a tangle this was becoming, and only after one day. Jane looked like she’d been forced to swallow an insect, Niall sat eating biscuits as if he’d been starved for a month, and she had an absent almost-fiancé. She should have been embarrassed and even more troubled, she supposed, as a proper lady would be when the man she was supposed to pretend was falling for her didn’t bother to make an appearance. But at this moment she wasn’t troubled. She was having a blasted good time.
At the table directly beneath the side window a trio of men argued over whether a pheasant was a more noble creature than a swan. One of them had even brought drawings to support his claim for the swan, and loudly recounted the law that allowed only the aristocracy to eat them—a sure sign of their high standing.
“Do we request more coffee?” Niall asked, setting his cup aside. “Or do I get ye home so I can fetch Coll and a carriage before two o’clock?”
“We should go,” Amelia-Rose replied. She still had to write Lady Margaret and ask to be re-included in the luncheon even though she’d canceled just yesterday. And she had to make certain there would be enough food to satisfy the tall, lean man seated opposite her. She had no doubt that Coll MacTaggert wouldn’t be her escort, and that was fine with her. More than fine.
“Aye.” He stood and moved around to hold her chair out for her.
“You cannot be serious, Francis,” one of the bird men exclaimed. “The entire world acknowledges the nobility of the swan. A pheasant must be hung for three days before it’s even edible.”
“You, sir!” one of the men said, putting a hand on Niall’s shoulder. “Which bird do you prefer?”
Niall looked straight at his newfound friend, all trace of easy amusement gone from his face. The man abruptly lifted his hand away and took a half-step