“I am too bewitched to look away.”
She shrugged. “I’m not.”
She left. She walked straight out of the room and into her beloved London where she looked into shop windows before wandering through Hyde Park. What need did she have for a handsome Scotsman when she had all of this?
She did not.
And yet, she couldn’t stop thinking of him.
Which meant she would have to go to more extensive efforts to cut him from her life. Fortunately, she had a plan.
She decided to spy on him and find out whatever appalling thing she could discover. Every man had something to be ashamed of, didn’t they?
He did not. Or she was such a lousy spy she discovered nothing more than that his friends liked him, and his landlord thought him a fine man for a lady such as herself.
She decided to frighten him off with a fake séance. She knew that to the uninitiated they could be quite terrifying. She paid a fake psychic to put on a show of channeling his dead grandmother and warning him away from her. She even paid a man to throw knives at him “from the great beyond.”
Lord Loughton was laughing so hard, he had to hold his sides. He declared the evening the best time he’d had since arriving in London. And in case he missed the part about his dead grandmother warning him off, he said that she’d never been right about anything while she was alive, so he didn’t think he should listen to her once she was dead.
It was thoroughly disappointing, especially since her brother returned from the country and declared Lord Loughton to be a perfectly acceptable suitor. He encouraged her to go walking with him in Hyde Park at the fashionable hour.
And her mother wrote to say she had never met the man, and who would want to marry a Scotsman anyway?
In the end, Clara agreed to walk with Lord Loughton in Hyde Park because she had another plan. No man wanted to be thought a fool for the woman he courted. She dressed in her most outlandish outfit. It was clothing of her own design, specifically created for those days when she never wanted to see anyone. No stays. No tight fabric. Her attire resembled something she had seen in the Arabic countries for men: white linen that flowed about her body with ease. It covered her from neck to toe and yet felt extraordinarily freeing.
She loved wearing it…in the privacy of her own home.
But today she was going to be bold. While the servants gaped at her, she swung the front door open and dared his lordship to say one word.
“Good afternoon, Lady Clara. You are looking especially fine this afternoon. What innovative attire. I love it.” And if she doubted him, his eyes lingered on her chest where her breasts bounced completely unrestrained beneath the shift.
He was completely unfazed. And even worse, he outdid her in outrageous attire. The man had come in his kilt. Nothing else except for his boots. He wore a full tartan over his bare chest and equally naked legs. Presumably there was open air beneath the kilt, but she blushed whenever she thought of it, so she set her mind on other things. Or rather she tried to.
She was so shocked that when he offered her his arm, she took it without objection. And she promenaded beside him—in Hyde Park, no less—as if it were the most normal thing in the world. She walked without a shift. He walked without any underclothes at all! She spent the entire promenade in high color in part because of his nakedness. And in part because she realized she’d been entirely wrong in her supposition about Lord Loughton.
She’d assumed she would embarrass him because she was odd. It was important for him to understand that their marriage would subject him to constant pity from his compatriots. What she discovered was that he loved being the object of attention whether he was thought a fool or not.
And damn it, she was not used to being completely ignored when she had specifically set out to be outrageous. The women didn’t bother with her at all! They were so intent on speaking with Lord Loughton. And the gentlemen thought nothing of a Scotsman appearing in London in his clan attire.
“They don’t even notice what I’m wearing,” she murmured, completely shocked.
“On the contrary, they think it a new Scottish custom and are probably envious of how sweetly you move in it.” He flashed her a lascivious grin. “I am certainly thinking about it.”
He paused then in the shadow of a tree. He pulled her hand to his lips, grinning because her outfit did not include gloves, and pressed his lips to the back of her hand. His lips were rough where he pressed it to her flesh, a twin to his calloused finger that stroked her palm. The sensation when he touched her wasn’t unpleasant, and his gaze as he looked at her was winning.
Not winning.Charming.And damnation, she hated charming!
She steeled her heart against him.
“You cannot win me like this,” she rasped.
“Of course not,” he said. “We have merely been playing the games of society. I haven’t yet proved to you that you can be my equal at home.”
She scoffed, but he cut her off as he straightened to his full height before her.
“Let us be done with this nonsense. Let us meet as people and let me tell you what it would be like as my wife.”
“I already know—”
