Hit Me With Your Best Scot (Wild Wicked Highlanders #3) - Suzanne Enoch Page 0,93
showing of uncertainty. “Scotland is cold in the winter. Rainy in the summer. Filled with sheep and not very many people. It can be exceedingly lonely and isolated—especially when your husband considers himself too busy to socialize with his peers.”
“Are you warning me away from Niall?” Amelia-Rose asked. “Because he suggested that we spend the Season here in London.”
The countess blinked. “He did?”
“Yes. Either here, or in a small house nearby.” It felt odd to speak about such a future, but here, in this home, she could almost touch it.
“Well.” Lady Aldriss brushed at her eyes. “That is unexpected.”
“I mean, he hasn’t offered for me or anything. We were just chatting. And I know my parents—my mother, especially—won’t be easily convinced.”
“No, I daresay she won’t be.” The countess favored her with a rather unsettling look. “Will you be honest about something, my dear?”
That didn’t bode well. Perhaps she was as unacceptable to Niall’s family as he presently was to hers. Or Lady Aldriss had guessed that her virtue was no longer intact. “Of course I will.”
“You are not entirely … content beneath your parents’ roof. I won’t ask you to confirm that, but I do have eyes and ears. My point, I suppose, is that if Coll had been more pleasant, you might have agreed to marry him, however imperfectly you viewed him.” She smoothed the front of her burgundy skirt with one hand. “To that, you may respond.”
Amelia-Rose grimaced. “I wish I had a braver answer, but yes, I might have.”
“And now in place of Coll you have Niall, who is more pleasant, and more concerned with the happiness of others.”
“I have had four other proposals, my lady.”
“Yes, which your mother rejected because of their status.” The countess sat forward. “My son seems to adore you. I have no objection to a match—as long as you are not encouraging him because you fear being pushed into marrying some old stick with a title. So tell me it is not his convenience and affability and availability you prize, rather than the man himself.”
Amelia-Rose considered all that for a moment. After all the emotion of last night and then today, it felt like a great wave, getting ready to drag her to the bottom of the sea and drown her. “Niall is not convenient,” she stated. “Not in the least. He is good-humored, and witty, and warmhearted, and makes me feel … safe. He is a dream—my dream, Lady Aldriss—and I’m afraid if I fall for him he will simply vanish. And then if I consider it too closely I realize that I have fallen—quite hard—and I know something will go wrong now, and—”
“Hush,” Lady Aldriss said, and hugged her.
Amelia-Rose gulped a sob, and then another one. “I’m sorry,” she managed, hiccuping. “I’m not a watering pot. I’m just so worried. I think he is, too, even though he won’t say it.”
The countess produced a handkerchief from somewhere and gave it to her. “Dry your eyes, my dear. I was raised by indulgent parents, as was my daughter and, I daresay, my sons. A parent … Well, you don’t need to hear my lecture, but I do believe it to be a parent’s duty to help their offspring find the best path and then step aside. Within reason, of course.”
Amelia-Rose blotted at her face. “I have no argument with reason, my lady.”
Lady Aldriss smiled. “Then know that I will help, however I may.”
Someone rapped at the door. “I need to return the lass home,” Niall’s voice came.
“Enter.”
He turned and knob and stepped inside. “I hope ye didnae … Why are ye crying?” Immediately he strode forward and knelt beside her, his kilt settling carelessly around his knees. Niall sent his mother a glare.
“Yes, I made her cry,” Lady Aldriss said, walking over to ring for a servant, “but it was an accident.”
Far from looking appeased, Niall pulled a handkerchief from one of his coat pockets and wiped at Amelia-Rose’s cheek. “Give me someone to fight, lass. Anyone.”
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.