“I suddenly have the urge to punch Donnach,” she returned, forcing a smile that hopefully didn’t look as ghastly as it felt.
“If he kens ye hate him, he’ll stay clear of ye until they can figure out another way to get what ye own.”
“I know that. I won’t put Mags in danger.”
A muscle in his forearm jumped beneath her fingers. “Nae,” he said, his voice a low growl. “Neither of them would live long enough to set eyes on her.”
Of course he’d already followed all the trails Dunncraigh could take. And the flat, hard tone of his voice made it clear that he absolutely meant what he said. As bloodthirsty as it sounded, the statement actually left her a little more steady. While Callum had breath in his body, no harm would come to Margaret. This was not a pride-pricked, blustery boy making boasts. He’d become a man—and a very dangerous one.
“I will hold you to that,” she returned.
“That, ye may do.” She felt him shake off his anger. “Now. Introduce me about. I’ve been gone a time. And ye must take invitations to dance.” He pulled her a breath closer. “After ye give me two of them. I’ll let ye choose which ones.”
“Do they waltz in Kentucky?” she asked, glad to be thinking about something else for a moment.
“Nae. But there are two of those, aye? I’ll watch the first and take the second one.”
She nearly pointed out that the waltz was far too complicated to be mastered after watching it once, but she kept her thoughts to herself. If he didn’t want to risk embarrassment, she would be more than willing to sit out the dance with him, after all. Pulling the dance card she’d been given from her reticule, she marked his name next to a country dance and the evening’s second waltz. And whether this was to stir Donnach to action or not, she liked the idea of dancing with Callum, nearly as much as she liked what he’d said about stripping her out of her sapphire-colored gown later.
Rebecca held on to that thought. It didn’t worry or frighten her like the prospect of all the “what ifs”; it made her feel strong and desired and safe—something that for a time she’d never expected to feel again. This was for her and for Margaret and for their future. And even if she didn’t put much… hope into hope these days, to herself she could admit that perhaps her future had a spot for one more person. And his wolf, of course.
“Rebecca, my dear,” an older woman with the honeyed, sophisticated tones of London in her voice called, gesturing them closer to the fire. “I was hoping you would attend tonight.”
“Emma,” she returned, guiding Callum through a flock of young debutantes who began chattering like excited geese as he passed. “Lady Caldwell, my brother-in-law, Lord Geiry. Callum, the Countess of Caldwell.”
He inclined his head. “My lady.”
The countess looked him up and down with a thoroughness that made Rebecca clench her jaw. “My lord. You’re the one from America, are you not? They do grow them large, there. You’re a very striking young man. If I were ten years younger, I’d be after you, myself.”
“I grew up here,” he returned, his brogue deepening a little. She wondered if that was deliberate. “They added some grit and muscle in Kentucky, I reckon. And I might have let ye catch me.”
It went like that for the next twenty minutes, introducing Callum to the current Inverness aristocracy. Even the ones who remembered him from before were polite and complimentary, though she didn’t think the pleasantries fooled him for a moment. He was an unknown quantity, a curiosity, a half-familiar foreigner with the physique they were more accustomed to seeing on ablacksmith than an earl. Many of them mentioned the wolf, and while he admitted to having one, he declined to explain her.
“They’re afraid of you,” she whispered, as they finished their circuit of the room.
“If they have any sense they are, aye.”
“You want them to be.”
He glanced sideways at her. “They all ken how and why I left here ten years ago. Even the ones I’ve nae met before today. Half of them came here ready to laugh behind their hands at the sad, lucky drunk who managed to stay alive long enough to claim his brother’s fortune and title. I reckon nae a one of them’s laughing now.”
“No, but you do seem to have several ladies ready to swoon at your feet,” she countered, attempting to sound amused and fairly certain she’d failed.
“They can swoon wherever they like. Dunnae expect me to go about catching them. I’m where I want to be, and with whom I want to be.”
That sent warmth from her toes to her fingers, and everywhere in between. How was it that with Ian and the preparation for marriage she’d been more concerned that everything looked perfect, that all the correct guests received invitations, than with how she’d felt about it all? Certainly she’d been excited, but now she wondered if that had been in part because her father was excited that the Sandersons, self-made merchants, were poised to join the aristocracy. The things she felt now—naughty, improper, and certainly unwise—felt foreign, reserved for daydreams that she’d ceased having the moment she walked into the church to say her vows.
“Be ready, lass,” Callum breathed abruptly, his arm jumping beneath hers. “The weasel and the rat are headed this way.”
She didn’t know which of the Maxwells was the weasel and which the rat, but then that didn’t particularly matter. Instead she concentrated on the advice Callum had given her—make them concerned that he’d snared her interest, and make them worried enough to make mistakes to get her back.
“Ye’re nae going to punch anyone are ye, Geiry?” Lord Stapp commented, as he stopped before them and inclined his head in her direction. His father beside him settled his gaze on Callum and left it there.
An uneasy shiver went through her. “I’m glad to see you recovered, Donnach,” she said, making herself smile.
He touched a long scratch on one cheek. “More or less,” he returned. “The cut on my arm took a few stitches.”
“A shame it wasn’t on yer neck, then,” Callum put in easily.
