“Ha, nae rules, ye daft bastard!”
Fiona’s brother charged forward, catching him around the midsection and driving him back into the sideboard.The solid piece withstood the impact, though the crystal decanters laid upon it did not fare so well.
They fell to the ground, shattering one after another in a bellowing whoosh that matched his breath expelled, stunning him momentarily, but Aylesbury, while preferably a lover in life, was not without his own experience as a fighter.Driving his elbow down between the earl’s shoulder blades, the marquis forced the earl briefly to his knees.
“You must have gone to Oxford,eh, my lord?I’m a Cambridge man myself.”
“My brothers”—Glenrothes caught him in the midsection with a hard left as he stood—“went to Cambridge.”Another right to the midsection almost doubled Aylesbury over.“I was too busy learning to be a man at Edinburgh.Ye fight just like them.”
Aylesbury got lucky on an uppercut to the jaw, snapping Glenrothes’ head back, and the earl retreated.If a single step back could be labeled a retreat, that is.He followed it with another.
“Like what?Honorable men?”
The earl stepped forward with another swing, but the marquis blocked it, sending a right jab into Glenrothes’s ribs.The earl released a hiss of pain but followed it, inconceivably, with a low chuckle.
“Nay, like women.All ye Cambridge bastards fight like wee lasses.”
Aylesbury laughed.It was hard to fight a man one liked.Harder still when it was the brother of the woman he loved.
“Having taken a mere open palm from Fiona, I’ll take that as a compliment.Pax, my lord?”He held out his right hand for the earl to shake.
“Aw, Aylesbury,” Glenrothes said, pity lacing his voice.“I’m afraid I cannae let ye off that easily.No’ just yet.”
Another right hit Aylesbury’s jaw, inconceivably in the precise spot the earl had struck before, and he saw stars dancing before his eyes.
“What on earth is going on here?Francis MacKintosh!”
Aylesbury looked toward the drawing room door to find Lady Glenrothes—two of her, actually—hovering in orbital circles around each other.He shook his head and watched the two become one.Yes, one divine, avenging angel glaring at her husband with her hands planted firmly on her hips.
“You’re in real trouble now, old chap,” he said with some satisfaction, throwing a grin at his would-be opponent and bending over, hands on his knees, to catch his breath during this reprieve.“I’m telling you, women are terrifying fighters.”
Glenrothes did look a little apprehensive as he turned to his wife.Eve faced him unwaveringly, and she wasn’t alone.Everyone was gathering behind her.Abby especially looked particularly disgusted.
“What is it with you lads?”Abby said to no one in particular.“For almost a decade, I’ve been wading through one fight after another.Do I need to come over there and pull you apart by your ears as well?”
Not one man among them didn’t wince at her words.Several of the younger lads unconsciously rubbed their ears, some recently subjected to Abby’s finely tuned method of breaking up a fight between them.Though it had been many years for him, Glenrothes, too, had been subject to her methods and was quick to shake his head.
“Francis?”Eve repeatedly impatiently.
Good God, her foot was tapping.Glenrothes looked terrified.
“Eden, my love, I was just welcoming Aylesbury to the family.”He draped an arm around Aylesbury’s shoulders and rocked him non-to-gently back and forth before the earl pushed him off and sent him stumbling to the side.“Aylesbury and Blossom are getting married.”
“Is that so?”
The mass of MacKintoshs parted, leaving Aylesbury with a clear view of Fiona, who stood behind them.A bundle of amazement and irritation, all wrapped in a modest kimono-like dressing gown that oddly left little to his vivid imagination.God, but she was lovely.
“I asked hispermission,” he clarified with emphasis, once again aware that all the male MacKintoshs now had him in their sights.He wanted to go to her, hold her.Explain.But was uncomfortably aware that any move on his part might set her brothers into action.Like a deer setting a pack of wolves into motion the moment it bolted.“That is all.”
“That is not all,” Glenrothes reminded.“And yewillbe marrying her.”
Fiona looked from her brother and back to him, her eyes wide with disbelief.“Youtoldhim?”
“Give over, Fiona,” Aylesbury stepped forward, his hand extended before him, but like the pack of wolves he had compared them to, the men between them began to growl.He retreated a step instead.“You know very well he guessed it.”
Her cheeks reddened, then flushed with embarrassment before she turned on her heel and fled, leaving him to his own devices in a less-than-enviable situation.
Aylesbury straightened his tie and tugged on the bottom of his jacket as he squared his shoulders.He looked not at any of the men eyeing him murderously but at Eve, then Moira and Abby.
