Hunt was playing, but noting the sidelong glance Lydia’s father gave to the old man reading the document, he decided to play along. “Sorry I missed you while you visited my brother. I was there recently myself.”
“I’ve been informed that you met my eldest daughter once. Is that true?” he asked pointedly.
It then dawned on Brodie what was going on, at least in part.
“I . . . Yes. Briefly, at a ball held here in Bath. I was most taken with her. It is because of her that I have come to speak to you.”
The man behind them in the chair who was reviewing the document Hunt had handed him glanced up at them both, clearly a willing audience for the charade that Hunt had concocted to protect Lydia’s reputation from scandal. It was rather clever.
Mr. Hunt smiled at that and nodded in approval. “I see. Am I to understand that you would like to court my daughter?”
Brodie smiled back. “Aye. But of course, I wish to have your permission first.”
The old man, satisfied with what he had read, set the document down on the desk and got up. “I see no problems with your terms, Mr. Hunt. My client will be most pleased. Now, will I be seeing you at the assembly room tonight? My granddaughter is debuting.”
“I believe I will be there, yes. It will be a pleasure to see her again.”
The door opened, and the butler led the man away. Once the door shut, Hunt’s tone changed. “I understand why you did what you did at the castle, Mr. Kincade. Had our roles been reversed, I hope I would have made the same choice. But I need to understand why you’re here now. We’re alone—you can speak plainly.”
“I wish to marry your daughter. I didna think I could, not after what happened between us. I ken that I ruined your daughter, but I wish to make things right.”
“Make things right?” Hunt echoed the words with emphasis. “Haven’t you heard? We’ve only just returned to town, and my daughter was with us the whole time.”
“But surely word of what happened—”
“I think you underestimate my wife’s ability to turn gossiping tongues against themselves. Even before she left Bath, she had her daughter establishing a story as to Lydia’s whereabouts. One that only required slight clarification upon our return.”
Brodie shouldn’t have been surprised, but he’d secretly hoped that he would have had Lydia’s ruination to help his cause for marrying her.
“I’m pleased to hear about your marriage,” Brodie replied carefully, wondering what Hunt wanted him to say.
“I’ve been examining my role as Lydia’s father of late, and I have found that I have been a terrible disappointment. I will not, therefore, be allowing just any gentleman to court my daughter. Any man who wishes to have that honor must therefore have only the purest of intentions toward her.”
“I have the purest of intentions,” Brodie assured him. His voice then roughened a little from a sudden rush of emotion. “I love her more than my own life, more than anything else.”
“And if you love her enough to let her go, would you?” Hunt asked.
He kept his chin held high. “I already did. But now I realize that loving her the way she deserves means coming after her. I wanted to spare her the pain of seeing one of us hurt, or worse, but I didna give her the chance to tell me what she wants. Would you agree that she ought to make that choice?”
Lydia’s father stroked his chin. “And if she does choose you?”
“I will honor and cherish her. I willna ever hurt her again.”
“And how am I supposed to trust you?”
Brodie reached down to his boot and pulled out a small sgian-dubh blade and held it out hilt-first to Hunt.
“Then trust my word over this blade. It was a gift from my mother. This blade has been with me through the dark days and the days of splendor. I vow upon the steel of this blade that no harm shall ever come to Lydia at my hand, word or deed.”
Hunt gazed upon the blade for a time before he nodded and gestured for Brodie to put it away.
“Very well, you have my permission to court her. But you will say nothing of her trip to Scotland with you. I expect you to agree to whatever my wife says with regard to how you know my daughter and where she’s been of late. Is that understood?”