“Then you’ll leave Lismore Hall to me?”
She did not face him, but instead focusing on the branches from a Scotch broom whipped against the window. The snapping against the glass echoed between them.
“No.”
“Ack! Bloody English!” he shouted, pivoting on his heel as a roll of thunder sounded from overhead. “You’re all a bunch of backstabbing, unloyal bastards!”
“You Scottish are nothing but a roaming bunch of hotheads, unwilling to compromise.”
“Aye, I’ll not compromise my soul for you or any other damned English.”
Lady Belle tapped her walking stick three times on the floor. Within seconds, Andrews appeared.
“Yes, my lady?”
“Andrews, could you see Mr. MacKinnon out? He’s taken ill.”
“Ack, I don’t need to be tossed out of my own damn home,” he said, furious. “This is treacherous, and you know it, Lady Belle.”
“The girls arrive tomorrow around midday, I believe. If you wish to meet them—”
“What girls?”
She rolled her jade bracelets around her wrist and pursed her lips, visibly perturbed at his interruption.
“My nieces. The Sharpe sisters. Hope, Faith, and Grace.”
Graham just stared at her.
“You are joking,” he said. “Since when do you have nieces?”
“Well, Hope is twenty-six, so for about twenty-six years now,” she said sarcastically before continuing. “They suffered a tragic loss several years back, and they have been under the protection of my sister, their grandmother, ever since.Unfortunately, my sister took ill a fortnight ago and has passed away. They are now under my care and are on their way to Lismore at this very moment.”
Graham glared at her, unwilling to believe it. She had never said a word about family for as long as he knew her.
“Have you ever met them before?”
“Of course I have,” she said, sticking her chin up in the air, offended. “I spend every winter with them in Cornwall.”
“I thought you went to Italy in the winter.”
“Whatever gave you that idea?”
He glared at her.
“You did,” he said.
“Oh, well, it’s no matter,” she said hastily. “The girls arrive tomorrow, and I hope you will at least meet them—after your temper subsides, of course—before you make any rash decisions.”
“You’re out of your bloody mind if you think I’m going to marry one of your conniving kin. Curse James MacKinnon forever playing whist with the devil herself.”
“Scots,” she breathed, bring her index and middle finger up to rub at her temple as if she were fighting off a headache. “All of you are so dramatic.” She stood slowly, driving her cane into the stone to steady herself. “I’m simply offering you a chance to reclaim your ancestorial home—a home, I might add, that you’ve claimed repeatedly you were willing to do anything and everything to get back into your possession.”
“Aye, but—”
“And here I have a perfectly suitable offer, and you refuse it without even meeting the girl.”
“Now, wait just one minute—”
