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Catching herself humming and swaying to the music, Marjorie stopped and quickly looked around. No one seemed to have noticed, not even the woman who’d glared at her earlier. Laughing, the beauty now leaned close to the gentleman, batted her eyelashes, and coyly placed her hand upon his arm.
His focus trained on her ample cleavage, he smiled and, leaning down, whispered in her ear. Her smile turned sultry and inviting.
Feeling very much like a voyeur, Marjorie promptly returned her attention to the dancers. Other than her brothers-in-law, she hadn’t danced with anyone since Sion’s death. Not that there’d been many opportunities either. The Kennedys didn’t entertain, or at least they hadn’t regularly. Now that Berget had married Graeme, that would likely change.
Marjorie adored dancing.
She wasn’t particularly adept, but the music captivated and carried her away. Quite simply, dancing was fun. Sion had indulged her passion for dancing and never denied her the opportunity.
A nascent smile tipped her mouth as she recalled her gentle giant of a husband. He’d been a good man, kind and generous and affectionate. She’d been fortunate to have loved and been loved in return, even if it was for too brief a period.
A distinguished-looking matron with a plethora of bright feathers adorning her high wig dipped her chin toward Marjorie. She returned Lady Kilpatrick’s greeting with a warm smile. The woman moved with proud grace as if she knew her importance, and the crowd parted before her like the Red Sea before Moses.
Marjorie’s smile widened a trifle for a fleeting moment.
Smiles were astonishing things. An unspoken language all their own. A simple upward sweep of one’s lips might soothe hurt feelings, dissolve anger, offer sympathy, bring comfort, encourage, demonstrate approval, or show joy and happiness.
Or disguise heartbreak and sorrow.
And the recipient never knew what that bent mouth hid behind the false cheer.
“Ah, there ye are, my lovely,” a man’s gravely, slightly slurred voice breathed into her ear, his whisky-laden breath causing her to wrinkle her nose in distaste.
At once, she stepped away and whirled to face Lorne Buchannan. “You are presumptuous, sir.”
He grinned a lop-sided drunken smirk. “I like yer spirit, lass. I’ve waited all evenin’ to claim ye for a dance. I saw the way ye looked at me durin’ our introduction and throughout supper.”
“You are mistaken,” she replied frostily.
He licked his fleshy lips, his focus trained on her breasts rapidly rising and falling in her agitation. He gave her a sly, disgusting wink. “Nae need to be coy. I ken yer a widow with a widow’s needs.”
What?
She blinked several times, uncertain she’d heard correctly.
Widow’s needs?
He didn’t mean?
Oh, the insufferable bounder!
She snapped her fan closed.
How dare he, the blackguard?
Glancing around and assuring they weren’t observed, he sidled nearer and she swore her flesh recoiled in revulsion.
Her nose certainly did, for he stank, pure and simple. She’d not been close enough to smell his rank odor when Keane had introduced them this afternoon, but a sickening, musty sweet aroma wafted from his person. The stench gagged her, and she swallowed against the bile surging up the back of her throat.
“I ken a private place we can be alone, lass.” He fondled his groin beneath his coat while lifting his eyebrows suggestively.
My God. Did his vileness have no boundaries? Lorne Buchannan was a foul a person as Marjorie had ever met.
She opened and closed her mouth thrice, so utterly insulted she couldn’t form words. Surely she gawped like a flopping salmon upon an embankment. She itched to slap his ruddy face and clenched her fan so tightly that the poor accessory threatened to snap in two.
If Graeme or Camden learned of his insulting insinuation, they’d trounce Lorne Buchannan soundly.
Only—they mustn’t know.
