He shook his head. “Something happened. I can tell.”
“You’re imagining things.”
He wasn’t, but she wasn’t going to talk with him growling at her. He softened his tone and his expression. He put away his need to punch someone for upsetting her. And he tried to be gentle with her though it was not at all how he was used to acting.
“You are pale and listless. You’re moving like a broken puppet and your smile—”
“What about my smile?” she snapped as she flashed him a hideous caricature of a smile. “Is it too bright? Too wide? Too toothy? Not enough purse to my lips? Or perhaps you’d like to criticize my dress? My hair? How I eat? How about my shoes?”
He reared back at her tart tone. Damn it, she was clearly in a temper and truthfully, he was glad of it. She’d shown more spirit in the last minute than she had during the whole last set.
“Mairi, what has happened?”
She threw up her hands in disgust. “What hasn’t happened?” She sighed. “I’m not popular. Gentlemen aren’t flocking to me. I’m mostly ignored or criticized at every turn. By everyone! My last partner told me my teeth were all wrong!”
“There’s nothing wrong with your teeth.” They were white, and she had all of them.
“And yet he felt compelled to tell me what was wrong with them.”
“Then he’s an idiot.”
“Really?” she gasped in mock surprise. “I didn’t realize that.”
He winced. “I don’t understand how that made you so upset.” She shot him a hard look, and he hastily amended his words. “Upset enough to look like a—”
“A broken puppet. I heard you.”
He sighed. “You are a beautiful woman with the grace of a stag.”
“A what?” she gaped at him. “I’m large with antlers on my head?”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“I don’t know what you mean by dragging me off to the side and yelling at me.”
If anyone was yelling, it was her. “There’s a power in a stag that is undeniable. It’s majestic, it holds its head high, it moves with power and speed.”
“And would terrify these lily-livered Sassenach.”
He tilted his head. Certainly, there were weak Englishmen, just as there were idiot Scotsmen. “You’ve met no man who can equal you?”
She sighed and leaned back against the wall. “None that want me. I thought they would see my worth. I thought someone would see me instead of my dress and my heritage.”
He touched her upper arm. It was the only part of her arm not covered by a glove. “You haven’t shown them who you are. You’ve been playing their game of prancing about and smiling too much—”
“Or too little. Or too wide—”
“Or with the wrong teeth. What do you care about any of that?”
She looked at him. “If I want a husband—”
“Then be yourself.”
She sighed. “I have been and—”
“Not the angry Mairi. The strong one. The beautiful one. The one who wants to be here.”
“At the ball?”
