She was blushing again, profusely, aware that she was wasting his time as well. “I’m sorry. I should have realized, with you needing to be in constant attendance here just now, that this wouldn’t be a good time to bother you about this. I’ll be going. G’day, Duncan MacTavish. It really was nice, seeing you again.”
“Wait.”
She had taken a good fifteen brisk steps, trying to escape her own embarrassment, which put her almost beyond shouting distance. She turned, not even positive that it wasn’t just her hopeful imagination that had him calling her back. But indeed, he was walking toward her, and reaching her, he looked like a man about to eat sour grapes.
“I’ll meet her on one condition,” he said.
She was surprised enough to say, “Certainly. What condition would that be?”
“That you pack your bags and get back here afore dinner is served t’night.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re inviting me to dinner?”
“I’m inviting you tae the blasted party, for the duration, however bluidy long that is.”
She smiled then. She couldn’t help it, he sounded so aggrieved that he was compromising just to get his way.
“I, ah, don’t need to pack any bags. I do live just down the road.”
“You’ll come then?”
“My aunts would have to come with me. I can’t go to affairs like this without their chaperonage.”
“Bring whomever you like—excepther.”
She nodded. “But youwillmeet her?” At his own curt nod, she added, “When?”
“In one hour. But if she’s no’ there on time, I’m no’ waiting on her. And you’ll be telling me later why you were bringing me this request o’ hers.”
He turned abruptly and went back into the house. Sabrina, utterly amazed at the outcome of her visit, turned to hurry home to give Ophelia the good news. Her debt was paid. She felt such relief that it was over, that she wouldn’t feel obliged to do again something she’d found so abhorrent.
She was nearly halfway to the hill where she’d met Duncan when Lord Neville’s butler, running after her, was finally within distance for her to hear him.
Out of breath, he more or less panted what he had to say when he reached her. “Lord Neville’s coach will pick you up this evening.”
“That isn’t necessary,” she told him. “You know we have our own coach.”
“Yes, miss, but I believe the young lord wants to makesureyou come.”
She blushed. Jacobs’s assumption, surely, but it still sounded rather nice.
Eighteen
Duncan couldn’t believe he hadn’t asked the lass for her name yet again, nor did he even realize that he hadn’t until Neville asked him who she was. He was rather embarrassed at that point. He’d sought out Neville this third time, fully expecting to have an argument when he told the old man he’d invited someone to Summers Glade who wasn’t gentry. But that was the conclusion he’d come to when the lass had given her reasons for why Neville wouldn’t consider her for his guest list, that and that she and her aunts lived in a cottage.
It made no difference to him, her social status. He still liked her, and especially her knack for the absurd, which could so easily disperse any anger he was fretting with. And it wasn’t as if he were looking to marry her, so what, really, could Neville object to? But he was deceiving himself.
He knew very well that the class of people who had been invited by Neville, lords and ladies all, might be offended by someone not of their own class being at the same gathering as they were, not in a serving capacity, but as another guest. He knew also that that would be Neville’s objection, which was why he’d come expecting an argument.
But he wasn’t going to get the argument he’d come for, when he couldn’t even tell Neville who the lass was. He supposed he could have mentioned that she wasn’t gentry, but decided to wait and let Neville discover that on his own. It was an excellent opportunity, after all, to see just how the old Englishman would react in such a situation. Duncan would find out whether he was an aristocrat of the old school who were mostly snobbish beyond belief, or if he was of the more enlightened school and realized that a title did not represent a man’s worth.
But he probably should have opted for the argument, which he had hoped might relieve some of the tension he was feeling. That tension just got worse as he approached the inn in Oxbow. He’d been distracted from it only briefly, when he’d tried to figure out just where the lass’s “cottage off the road” might be, when he hadn’t seen a single small dwelling, only one manor house and a few farms, on his ride there.
Perhaps she’d meant on the way to Oxbow coming from the other direction, or right on the edge of the small town—there were plenty of cottages along the narrow lanes off the main street, after all. But as a distraction, it didn’t last long, not when it didn’t take all that long to ride to town.
He still couldn’t believe he’d agreed to speak with Ophelia Reid, when he had hoped to never lay eyes on her again. What purpose would it serve, other than to relieve the guilty conscience thatshemight be having? Any apologies from her would have little meaning to him. She had shown her true colors. There was nothing she could say to excuse the extent of her insults to him. And now he even knew, if he could believe that Rafe fellow, that she had herself started the ridiculous “barbarian” rumors about him.
She wasn’t there yet. He allowed he was five minutes early himself, but for someone eager to make amends, he had expected her to be there early, to make sure she didn’t miss him. Now he had to wait, and even five minutes was too long to give her, in his opinion.
