“Nae, I’m admiring your great blue eyes.”
He was.
She did have remarkable eyes. They were long-lashed and a deep sapphire shade that did terrible things to the inside of his chest. His heart raced and he felt all his resistance to anything English being ripped away. He also strove to ignore what looking into her eyes did to him a bit lower down.
Beneath his kilt, the gods help him.
“Now you flatter me.”
“Far from it,” he denied, more glad than ever for the ‘shield’ of his sporran. “I speak the truth.”
“But you do not believe me about the old woman and her red plaid shoelaces?”
“Would you believe me if I told you I saw her, too?”
“Did you?”
“Perhaps.” He shrugged. “But forget the crone. We are alone now.”
He drew a deep breath, wondering why he didn’t admit his encounter with the strange old woman. Why he didn’t also tell her about the cloakroom’s transformation. How he’d strode in here only to find himself in a fantastical world of tartan and all the wonder of a Scottish gloaming, complete with a haze of fragrant peat smoke.
He didn’t doubt what he’d seen. He’d remember all his days.
He also knew why he kept silent.
Something uncanny had drawn him and the Frost Maiden together and he didn’t want to shatter the magic.
He did want her.
More than he could explain, so he pretended to brush a speck of lint off his sleeve and flashed a smile he hoped would charm her as thoroughly.
That, it seemed, was what he must do – the real reason he’d felt so compelled to visit London.
He was here to woo Lady Melissa Tandy.
