Hit Me With Your Best Scot (Wild Wicked Highlanders #3) - Suzanne Enoch Page 0,73

exceptions, perhaps—Eloise had a level head on her shoulders.

The first exception had warned him not to be late, and he pulled out his battered old pocket watch to check the time. Unless someone had overturned a cart ahead they would be early; he’d have to have Robert stop the carriage around the corner. He meant to be exactly on time, because she’d been worn out yesterday, looking for an excuse to surrender to her parents’ demands, and he wasn’t about to give her one.

No overturned carts lay in wait, but a pair of coach drivers were blocking the road to argue over which of them had the right-of-way. Niall watched the nonsense, but as it dragged on he put away his pocket watch. Just as he stood to go see to ending the argument himself, one of the coaches trundled off, and the heavy horse traffic began moving again. Such a crush of people; it was something of a miracle that they weren’t all at one another’s throats all the time.

Robert pulled the bay team to a halt outside Baxter House, and Niall hopped to the ground. “Keep ’em standing,” he ordered, and made his way to the front door.

It pulled open as he reached it. “Mr. MacTaggert,” the Baxters’ butler intoned, moving sideways so Niall could step forward.

“Hughes. I’m here for Amelia-Rose.”

“I shall inquire if she is available.”

The butler vanished toward the back of the house. They’d allowed him inside, at least, and they hadn’t set a guard to watch him, Niall reflected, gazing about the foyer. Some cards on the hall table caught his attention, and with a quick glance around him, he picked them up.

Six of them, all from men, prettily embossed, most with little notes handwritten on the back. One was planning on calling again in the afternoon and hoped to find Amelia-Rose amenable to a conversation. Another inquired as to whether she cared to go riding in Hyde Park in the morning. A third one presented himself as available to help mend a tender heart broken by a heartless rogue.

The rogue would be Coll, he supposed, and these were the vultures swooping in to claim their prize while it was still fresh. Suitors, the Bloody mongrels. With another glance over his shoulder, he pocketed the lot of them. If the lads should think her uninterested because she didn’t respond, well, he had no problem in the world with that.

“You’re prompt,” Amelia-Rose said from a doorway halfway down the hall.

“I said I’d be.”

She’d worn a pretty green-and-violet sprigged muslin walking dress, partly covered by a pelisse of darker green. With her hair swept up into a plump, overflowing clip at the back of her head and her blue eyes sparkling, she looked both fresh and supremely desirable.

“Well?” she asked, stopping a few feet from him.

He finished his perusal and met her eyes again. “Ye’re made for fresh air and a warm breeze,” he said, smiling. “Or should I sweep a bow and just tell ye that ye look lovely?”

Her fair cheeks colored a little. “I still half thought you’d arrive with an excuse for your brother’s behavior on your lips.”

Niall cocked his head. “I’m nae here on anyone else’s behalf. Do ye want to play that game?”

“I just want to be certain of your motives.”

“I told ye my motives, adae. I didnae lie to ye. Nae intentionally, anyway. I reckoned I was doing my duty. I’m glad being a friend to ye on Coll’s behalf isnae my duty any longer, and I can simply declare that I like and admire ye.”

She sighed. “You look rather magnificent,” she commented, coming forward and setting a green straw bonnet over her honey-colored hair.

He glanced down at himself. Scuffed Hessian boots, his work kilt, a plain white shirt, plainer cravat, and a gray waistcoat and jacket. “I’m being myself. In honor of propriety I’m wearing the jacket and waistcoat, but otherwise this is how ye’d find me on any given day.”

“Boots and not ghillie brogues?” she asked, gesturing at his boots.

“Ghillie brogues arenae very practical in the mud. I prefer walking in these.” Stepping backward, he made room for her and the butler to move past him to the door. “Have ye decided where we’re going?”

“Yes.”

He pursed his lips. “I reckon ye can keep it to yerself for a time, but eventually ye’ll have to tell Robert our driver.”

Hughes handed over an off-white shawl to her, then pulled open the front door. “Will you be home for luncheon, Miss Baxter?