He sighed when he saw her face. “I was protecting the women,” he said. “I’d have bested them all if I weren’t already weak.”
“Are you daft? You travelled with a fever?”
“The ladies need polish, Liam needs his whisky sold, and I wanted to see if the Scot had been beaten out of you yet.”
“Never.”
“Your words sound more English.”
“I’m practicing.”
“I don’t like it.”
She snorted. “And what’s it to me what you like and don’t like?”
His one eye stared at her. He looked like he wanted to say something. Flattery would be his usual words or some kind of tease. Not this time. There was a sadness about him that tugged at her and made her hand tremble.
“I’m done chasing ye, Mairi. I’ve shown you my heart and you’ve kicked it aside, so it’s done now. I set you free to your Sassenach husband hunting.” He sneered the words to make sure she understood his opinion of the men in England. “And I’ll be looking for an English bride.”
“What?”
“It’s high time for me, don’t you think?”
Well, yes it was. He was a future duke. It was long since time he found a wife. But somehow the realization that he meant to find a wife this Season shook her. “An’ what’s wrong with the Scotswomen? No Englishwoman can compete with—”
“You, Mairi. None can compete with you. And since we’re done—”
“We never were!”
“Then I’ll be finding a London rose.”
It was what she wanted, right? For him to go on with his life just as she was moving on with hers. Except for his bruised and fevered body, this was what she wanted. Or so she told herself.
“Verra well,” she said, her voice thick with her brogue. “But ye’ll have to be able to stand if you mean to say yer vows.” She pressed the cloth to the side of his neck. His flesh was hot with swelling and fever, and she watched his eyes flicker in thanks. “Rest now,” she said. “There’ll be plenty to discuss when ye wake.”
His eyes drifted closed. He must have been fighting to stay awake for him to drop so fast. She kept washing him. That was a woman’s duty when the man was ill, and she didn’t trust his care to anyone else. She was just folding down the sheet to see to his chest when he spoke in a low rumble.
“I’ll bet I find one afore you.”
“What?”
“A bride before yer groom. A bet.”
The man was half dead from fever and fighting, and he wanted to add to his pain? Fine. “A bet, then,” she confirmed. “And what is yer forfeit?”
“A hundred guineas fer your dowry.”
“What!”
He opened his good eye. “And if I wed first?”
She was still shocked, her mouth working without sound.
“I’ll tell you what I want,” he said, his breath coming fast. “Glass, Mairi. I want ye to make me a full set of drinking glasses with yer own hand.”
She couldn’t promise that her new husband would let her back to Scotland to make his request, but she couldn’t deny him either. “Done,” she said. Especially since his coin was the only dowry she had.
