“Tonight? I could not possib—” Clare found his sister’s hand covering her mouth and preventing her from speaking.
“You can. You will. I have already checked your schedule with your secretary, your other secretary and Poogan. I confess Poogan was the most difficult to get an answer from on the matter, but he did acquiesce to my demands.” Caro dropped her hands from Clare’s mouth only to take hold of her hands. “I expect you to arrive promptly at eight of the clock.”
“Samantha returns this evening, I believe. I would like to greet—”
“Clare. Mrs. Hunter is quite able to return from visiting her relatives in Inverness without you waiting at the door for her arrival.”
Jonathan’s distant cousin had moved in with them when her own husband had died and had remained a part of Clare’s household, and friend, after Jonathan passed. So, when her argument was rebutted like that, Clare knew it was a weak excuse at best. She crossed her arms over her chest and met her sister’s steely gaze. If one of them was to surrender, it must be Caro.
“Caro. I cannot,” she said without elaborating more.
“A few friends, Clare. Some of Nairn’s and a few associates. The focus will not be on balls and assemblies and the latest who said what where and when that you detest so. Perfect for you.”
The last thing Clare wanted to do was disappoint the only family she still had. Nay, that wasn’t true. The last thing she wanted to do was attend some society gathering where she would be the pariah. All of Edinburgh society knew of her father’s declaration and her situation—disgraced, married against her father’s wishes, married to a commoner, a man in trade no less, and then widowed. She detested walking into rooms and meeting with groups of people who gaped and stared and then turned their backs as her parents had.
But Caro had not.
“You must accept, Clare. I need you there.” Clare let out a sigh.
“Very well.”
Caro was on her feet and almost to the door before Clare could say anything else. Her sister turned back to her and waved one judgmental finger in the space between them, directed at Clare’s attire.
“And not... this.” A shake of her head made her command clear.
“Very well,” Clare said. Caro turned the knob and Poogan completed the task of opening the door. He truly was a model butler, no matter that she teased her sister over his manner.
“Poogan?” Caro barely paused. “Your lady has agreed to attend my small dinner this evening, promptly at eight.”
“I will see to it, my lady,” Poogan said. He bowed as Caro walked by him, but he never took his gaze from Clare’s.
“Traitor,” she whispered.
“My lady,” he replied, with another bow, to her this time. As she passed him, he continued. “What is a servant to do in the face of a marchioness’s demands?”
He’d been with her through it all—from the time when she and Jonathan set up their first household until this day—and he’d seen it all. He understood that this had nothing to do with a marchioness’s position and all to do with it being Caro making the demands. She did not need to comment after his rhetorical question.
“Archer has a bath ready for you, my lady.”
So, it was a conspiracy then.
No matter that she preferred to remain home, she had agreed to go and would do so in good cheer. She could not diminish her sister’s efforts or be so rude to her to give less than her best. With a bit of prodding and help from her maid, her butler and her coachman, Clare stepped out of her carriage in front of her sister’s, or rather the Marquess of Nairn’s luxurious townhouse on St. Andrew’s Square at precisely four minutes before eight.
And found that Sir Iain Buchanan had as well.
Even dressed in full evening attire, he moved with an uncanny grace. She had seen a lion in the Tower of London’s famed Menagerie on a trip there with her family and she recognized the same feral movement of that predator in this man. His eyes shifted across the area, strategically surveying everything around him as he closed the gap between them. Though he walked at a leisurely pace, his body seemed tense to her, at the ready, expecting something unexpected to approach at any moment. Waiting for an attack, even while in one of the safest areas of the city.
As he stopped between her and the door to her sister’s house, Clare’s instincts screamed to jump back in her coach, slam the door and ride for the safety of her own home. Why did this man affect her so? They were strangers. He was a gentleman, existing within society and its expectations of behavior. But she knew he was more and different from any man she’d ever met. Dangerous to her in so many ways she already knew, and others could not yet fathom or identify. Attractive, too, and charming when he wished to be. Confident. Aggressive.
All of that made her body prepare to flee. And she may have except that the front door opened now, awaiting her, clearly their, entrance.
“My lady, what a pleasure to see you here,” he said, holding out his hand to her.
His glove was spotless and his manners impeccable, but her skin tightened and her heart pounded as she placed her hand in his. He lifted hers to his mouth and touched it ever so slightly, but his heated breath permeated the fabric of her glove, warming her hand. When his gaze met hers, she could not draw in air.
Though it was growing dark as the sun set behind the castle rock, she could see his eyes and a flow of emotions in them. He wanted... he wanted so much. She’d never witnessed so much desire and need and pure feral hunger in a man’s gaze before. Clare lost her balance as she tried to lift her hand from his.
“Here, my lady,” he said as he stepped back, not relinquishing his hold on her hand. Instead he slid his other hand under her elbow to steady her wobbly stance. The glint in his eyes and the way one of his dark eyebrows lifted told her he knew she wanted to pull away. “Allow me to escort you.”
