Chapter Fourteen
The Season beganin earnest after that, and Connall found his time filled with nonsense. He was a man used to working his lands, managing the disputes between his clansmen, and negotiating trades with his neighbors. Now he was strolling through Hyde Park, attending musical evenings, and dancing at Almack’s.
That would have been pleasant enough if it weren’t for the scores of women constantly begging for his attention. It was his title they were after. Every female gushed over him before he’d done anything but acknowledge them with a nod. He found himself becoming more reserved by the second. Hard to say anything when the smallest statement was greeted with, “What a clever thing to say! I’m astounded by your perception!” Even the gentlemen acted this way, and he began to long for an insult or cutting word.
Thankfully, Mairi was always nearby to burst the bubble of overdone fawning. When one woman went on about the gloriousness of his hair, Mairi casually mentioned that he used a setting potion made from the blood of lambs. “It’s the best for getting curls to lay just right,” she said. And she didn’t stop there. She made up a recipe for the concoction on the spot and the woman wrote it down, swearing she would try it as soon as possible.
That same day, a gentleman complimented him on the breadth of his shoulders, the narrowness of his waist, and the strength in his calves. Mairi sauntered over to explain that it was because of Scottish hay. She claimed that the Aberbeag laird insisted that all his children eat hay every morning with whisky and that was why Connall was so handsome a specimen.
Her comments grew more outlandish every day. It became a game of hers to see what the Sassenach would believe. And it was his game to see if he could make her laugh as he agreed with every wild thing she said. It was the baby bathing in beet juice that finally broke her reserve. She said it created a reddish character (whatever that meant) and he agreed it was important to counter the MacAdaidh yellow tendency caused by witch hazel. A yellow character, he explained, held too much sunshine in it and needs must be softened to the color of a dawn by beet-bathing the babies soon after birth.
The tongue twister was what finally broke through her facade. They were walking in a group in Hyde Park and Mairi gurgled as she tried to stifle her laughter. It didn’t work. She had to hide behind her fan as she guffawed in a most unladylike manner. It was the first genuine expression he’d seen on her face in a week, and he couldn’t be more pleased.
The gentleman she was with was horribly offended, and he sniffed at the insult before turning away to talk to another lady who had joined their party. Connall didn’t mind. The man was a puffed-up prig. Connall also didn’t care that they’d insulted the seventeen-year-old girl who’d been attached to his side like a leech the moment they’d arrived in Hyde Park.
He hoped she and the prig would have a lovely conversation together. Or whoever was around them. Goodness, they’d grown to a group of a dozen as they strolled through the park at the fashionable hour. But by a stroke of luck, he had a chance for semi-private conversation with Mairi.
“Is something amiss?” he asked, sotto voce.
She glanced up, the mirth dying to her customary grimness. “You can ask me that when you just made me laugh like a braying goat?”
“Not that. I’ve never seen you so determined before. Not even when you are shaping glass. At Almack’s you looked downright fierce.”
“At Almack’s I was admonished for being Scottish, told to smile brighter, step lighter, darken my expression, and to stop walking on my toes. And that was all in the first fifteen minutes.”
Yes, he had heard some of the criticisms. Every adult woman at Almack’s felt like it was appropriate to give advice to the debutantes, and much of it contradicted itself. “But what about the gentlemen?”
She snorted. “They were dim and smelled bad, but I preferred them to the ones who thought I would allow liberties just because I am—”
“Scottish.” He said the word with her. Truthfully, he hadn’t realized how much his own people despised the Sassenach until he began to hear it from the other side. What the English thought of the Scots was downright hideous, and no wonder their two people had trouble getting along. Bitter history aside—and many could not set it aside—but when a girl believed Scotsmen bathed their babies in beet juice, then there was a breakdown in communication somewhere.
“Has anyone hurt you?” he asked quietly.
She shot him a wry look. “Ask instead if I hurt any of them.”
“I don’t care if you did. If you give me their names—”
“No,” she said firmly. “It’s no more than any woman receives here or in Scotland. I learned how to twist a man’s finger until it popped long before I grew old enough to understand why.”
“I would that they treat you with respect,” he snapped. “Everywhere in the world.”
She smiled in genuine pleasure. “I’ve never felt threatened around the Aberbeag.”
“If a man steps out of line, you tell me. Here or there, you tell me.” He frowned. “You must signal me somehow.”
She chuckled. “Am I to wave a flag at you? Would you see it over the heads of all your admirers?”
Probably not. He’d thought the feather in her hair that first night was odd. He’d never realized how tasteful it was until he saw the myriad types of feathers, ribbons, and extreme creations that adorned everyone else’s head. “Mairi,” he sighed, “I fear I cannot breathe sometimes for all the females around me.”
“It’s marriage season. Didn’t you expect it?”
“I did. But the experience of it…” He tried not to shudder.
“I was unprepared as well.”
“Is that why you scowl at everyone?” He took her arm and slowed her steps. “Mairi, tell me true. What is the matter? We have been a week at this nonsense and today was the first time I saw you smile.”
Her shoulder stiffened, and he released her. “Don’t be silly,” she said, her voice high and clearly false. “I smile all the time.” Then to prove it, she flashed a brilliant look at a gentleman walking down a contrary path from them.
