A Scot to the Heart (Desperately Seeking Duke #2) - Caroline Linden Page 0,36

the moat,” added Bella. She draped a handkerchief over her head and advanced on Agnes, hands clutching at the air. “Save me, my dear! Let me steal your spirit so I can seek my revenge!”

“Never,” declared Agnes dramatically. “You are cursed to wander the earth forever, unavenged and restless, for the sin of consorting with the English!” She snatched the handkerchief from her sister’s head, causing a shriek from Bella and laughter from Winnie.

“It’s not haunted.” Drew ran his fingers through his hair, torn between laughing at their antics and wishing he had thought this through a little better. “It’s just an old house, closed up these many years, with some property that needs tending.”

All three sisters stared at him in disappointed silence.

“Well, that sound enticing,” murmured Winnie. “We’ll have to explore the town, I suppose.”

“I thought we might invite some friends to help make the party merrier,” Drew said desperately. God above, he ought to have kept to his plan to go alone.

Winnie perked up, her blue eyes big and bright. “Who?”

Drew glanced at Agnes. “I thought Agnes might like to have her friend Mrs. Ramsay.” She gave him a puzzled look. “And I mentioned it to Mr. Duncan, as well.”

His sister’s face grew pink. Drew wasn’t an idiot; it had taken him a few minutes, but he’d put together that Duncan hadn’t been speaking of Ilsa Ramsay or Winifred the other day. No, Duncan’s face had come alive at the thought of Agnes.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but he was very interested in his sister’s feelings. Duncan could be an ass, but he was also a reliable friend and solid mate.

“Who else?” Bella and Winnie were oblivious to the tension in Agnes’s figure. “That’s only one gentleman and four ladies.”

“Am I not a gentleman?” he parried.

Bella scoffed. “Brothers don’t count,” said Winnie, “unless they serve as a conduit to other, more interesting gentlemen.”

Drew clapped one hand to his heart as if she’d struck him. “No blade is sharper than a sister’s tongue!”

Bella laughed. “Invite more gentlemen! Witty, single ones.”

“Handsome, rich ones wouldn’t go astray, either,” added Winnie.

“Whom do you think I know, who is single, handsome, rich, and witty, yet still willing to spend a week with the three of you?”

They cried out in disgust and indignation, until he laughed and promised to ransack his acquaintance for anyone who promised to amuse them. Bella said she would begin packing, and Winnie wandered off with the Tour open in her hand, leaving him alone with Agnes.

“Agnes?” prodded Drew. “What say you to this plan?”

She stabbed her needle into the petticoat she had been mending. “Invite whomever you please. I’m going back to Ilsa’s.”

“What of Felix Duncan?”

Her mouth set and she leapt to her feet.

He followed her as she went downstairs and put on her hat. “Has Duncan done you a harm?”

Her face was stony. “No. You don’t need to walk with me.”

He did so anyway. “Do you know him?”

“Not really,” she bit out, striding along the street. “No. Not at all.”

Drew nodded. “If he did anything, I’d have to—”

“No.” She whirled on him, eyes flashing. “It’s not your problem, Drew!”

“If a friend of mine trifled with my sister, it would be.”

Her chest heaved. “He didn’t—didn’t trifle with me. He just . . .” She sighed. “He’s a scoundrel.”

“He can be,” agreed Drew. “But he’s not generally cruel.”

They had reached the Ramsay house. Agnes paused on the steps, biting her lip. “I don’t think he meant to be. It was . . . it was my mistake.”

“Agnes.” He touched her shoulder. “Can you tell me? I wish I knew more of your lives here—I hope to remedy that—but know always that I care for you and will protect you to the best of my ability. I’ve imagined a host of horrible things and all the ways I could beat him to a cinder if he did them.”

She flushed. “It’s not your problem, so there’s no need for you to do anything, let alone beat him.”

“I won’t invite him to Stormont,” he began, but she shook her head, a hint of stubborn St. James pride in her face.

“Don’t do that on my account. By all means, invite your friend.” She glanced archly at him. “Since you were kind enough to invite my friend. Has she accepted?”

Drew gave up badgering her about Duncan. He would interrogate his friend about it later. Odd, how any mention of Ilsa Ramsay always seemed to divert him from whatever he was doing. “Er