With another sigh, he admitted the truth to himself.
He was getting badly distracted by a certain someone he wasnae going to name, not even in the secrecy of his own mind, and he needed a distraction.
Adistractionfrom the distraction.
He needed to focus on this case.
In one easy fix, he’d solved the problem of Allie’s possible ruination, and settled—quite happily, it seemed—Rupert’s future.
But his new future sister-in-law was being threatened with blackmail, and it wouldn’t stop until Bull could determinewho exactly wanted that portrait, and why. And capture them. All without ruining the reputation of said future sister-in-law
Aye, Rupert and Allie’s future might be settled, but Bull’s headache was just beginning.
CHAPTER 1
When the knock came on Rosie’s door, she was hovering by the handle expectantly and yanked the door open.
“Did you get them?” she hissed to Merida, who was standing in the hall with her hands clasped behind her back, looking innocent.
Her cousin slowly grinned, looking to the left and the right down the empty hall. “I did, and everyone else is at Aunt Felicity’s camera demonstration. We have at least an hour.”
Rosie felt a pang of guilt that they were blowing off Flick’s presentation, but she opened the door wider to usher her cousin inside. Aunt Felicity was married to Uncle Griffin, the Duke of Peasgoode, their current host, and she was one of the world’s foremost experts on moving picture technology. It would have been amazing to see her latest inventions…
But she was Bull’s mother, so he would be there to supporther. Frankly, Rosie was doing her best to avoid him this Hogmanay.
Do not think about it.
Merida had glided into the small guest room Rosie was lucky enough to have to herself here at Peasgoode and spun about in the center. “Are you ready?”
Right. Focus on why they were sneaking about in the first place.
Rosie’s excited smile slowly bloomed. “I ambeyondready. I have been waiting for this formonths.”
With a grin, her cousin pulled out a large pair of shears from behind her back andsnick-snickedthem twice. “Then let us welcome the twentieth century instyle.”
With a deep breath, Rosie lifted her chin, straightened her shoulders, and nodded firmly. “As strong, independent women.”
Snick-snick. Merida smiled. “Strong independent women with shorter hair.”
Grinning, Rosie reached up and began plucking pins from the coiffure her mother’s maid had enforced this morning. At school and when she was studying Rosie preferred a simple bun, something she could manage herself. But Mother had suggested sharing the maid’s services while on this trip and Rosie, in a misguided attempt to impress a certain someone with her maturity, had agreed.
You are not to think of him, remember?
Oh, yes.
Bull had made it quite clear from his scowls that hewasn’timpressed by her, so mendacious golden turdbiscuits—as her father would say—to him. On the very day of her arrival here at Peasgoode he’d been waiting with his mother and stepfather in the foyer to welcome the Hayle family, taken one look at Rosie, and abruptly turned away.
He’d been doing his best to avoid her since then, and she was obliging.
Furiously, but obliging.
“You do me first,” Merida commanded, settling herself on a stool near the cozy hearth and holding out the stolen item. “Just a few inches off the bottom, please.”
Rosie took the shears and stepped up behind her cousin, smoothing down her lovely red hair. “Are you certain? You have such magnificent hair.”
“It is a magnificent headache, is what it is.” Merida sent her a smirk over her shoulder. “Do you know how difficult it is to paint with this struggling octopus on my head? Mother despairs of ever knowing what to do with it. I want it gone—most of it.”
With a shrug, Rosie lined the shears up against her cousin’s back and got to work, snipping andchecking the evenness of her lines.
