Page 34

He could be charming when it served him too, but Allie would not mention that. He already knew.

“What shall we do now?” she asked.

His slow smile told her he’d deliberately misunderstood.

“If you’re willing to ignore our curious friend, I can initiate you to a world of pleasure.”

“I meant”—and he knew this—“about us.”

Reid turned serious then, and she hated being responsible for that. But there were many obstacles for them still, including her own sister.

“Gillian forbade me to speak to you,” she added. “I hardly think she will agree to give her blessing to our marriage.”

Saying it aloud dampened her mood at once, but it did not shake her certainty. Allie hardly knew Reid, and a few days before she would have gladly tossed him into the moat . . . if Highgate had one. And yet, no one had ever before seemed to fit her the way he did. No, she had no doubts about her hasty decision. The idea of seeing him leave Highgate, never to return, made her feel as if the bottom of her stomach had dropped out.

“You do not need her blessing.”

“She is my sister. And in the absence of my father—”

“Allie.” Reid took her hand. “You need no one. We could handfast now. Or be married any time by simply saying the words.”

Though his words were, indeed, true, she could not do something like that behind Gillian’s back, knowing she did not approve. She tried to make him understand in a different way. “What if your brothers did not like me?”

He shrugged. “That would not matter, lass.”

“You would marry me even if Toren asked you to do otherwise?”

“He is married to an Englishwoman, as is my brother Alex.”

“Nay,” she said, squeezing his hand, willing him to understand. “I meant to say, if Toren asked you not to marry me—”

“I would ignore him.”

“And if he asked as your chief?”

Reid’s eyes narrowed. “He’d never do such a thing.”

“Forget your brothers.” She frowned, pushing away from him with a prickling of doubt. “I want Gillian to like you.”

He was clearly not convinced, his arms shutting her out, folded in front of him.

“I want her to see you as I do. And for our families to have the kind of relationship you have with the Waryns. If not with Lyndwood, then with my sister at least. And Clan Scott.”

Reid scowled, his brows furrowing together. “You mean the kind of relationship you have with Aidan?”

What was his problem?

“Precisely!” she said, putting more emphasis on the word than was necessary.

And then she understood the source of his distress. He was not the only one who’d misjudged her relationship with Aidan. Others had made similar comments. She should not like that he was jealous of her brother-in-law, but a small part of her smiled inside.

“Reid, he is like a brother to me. He’s called me sister from the start. Aidan showed both Gillian and me kindness when we knew no one here.”

“I do not leave Highgate End without you.”

When he pulled her toward him once again, Allie breathed in his scent, still so unfamiliar to her, as was the man himself. Everything about this made no sense. She’d never been this rash before, nor had she intended to marry so soon. Indeed, she’d hidden here in Highgate End to avoid her father’s matchmaking. She’d wanted simple happiness here in Scotland, a reprieve from her staid life in Lyndwood.

There was nothing simple about the man whose arms were wrapped around her, the one she’d unbelievably agreed to marry. Yet she would not let him go. He needed her, and somehow she knew they would be right together. “Then you will just have to charm her as you did me.”