“I am nae even going to ask if that is a compliment,” Annie replied. “Ye have made your point that ye think I bristle too much.”
“Ye misunderstand..” Niall’s gaze intensified and he leaned forward in his chair. “A thistle has a lovely bloom the same color as your eyes. Has anyone told ye that?”
Annie stared at him. She knew better than to believe such nonsense, although she had to admit it was original. Worse, Niall sounded so sincere. But then, so had the man who’d taken her virginity. Annie blinked. She hadn’t thought aboutthatin a long, long time.
“My eyes are dark blue, nae purple.”
Niall smiled easily. “I will have to study the color, then.”
She wondered if it was possible for a body to spontaneously combust. Her face felt on fire and that heat was rapidly spreading throughout the rest of her. Blast it. Annie pushed back from the table to stand. “I am going to call on the Sisters of Mercy this morning. They have several elderly patients who need someone just to talk to. There really isn’t any reason for ye to come along.”
Niall laid down his napkin and stood as well, a thoughtful expression replacing his smile. “Ye can be as easily assaulted on your way to the home as anywhere else. I will accompany ye.”
“I’m sure ye doona want to sit around for two hours or more waiting on me.”
Niall shrugged. “I will escort ye there and then go to the shipping office to check on some things Alasdair mentioned before he left. Then I’ll return for ye.”
Annie sighed. If Niall thought she was a thistle, he was as difficult to avoid as a briar patch on a narrow, rocky trail. “If ye wish.”
He gave her a suspicious look and she almost smiled. If he could unsettle her with a silly compliment, maybe she could unsettle him as well.
It was worth a try.
****
Niall definitely did not trust the demure answer Annie had given him as he escorted her to the Sisters of Mercy Home for the Infirm and Aged. In the few weeks he’d been staying at the boardinghouse, he had not seen—or heard—one demure thing come from Annie. She had a fiery temperament and never hesitated to speak her mind, a trait most men wouldn’t like, but one Niall found refreshing. His younger sister, Margaret, had the same qualities, but then, she’d had to hold her own with ten brothers, none of whom were known to be even-tempered either. Heaven forbid that Annie and Margaret should ever meet.
If ye wish, Annie had said. She’d even said it again when he left her at the door to the Sisters’ communal home. Somehow, that docile tone made him wary. However, he did have other matters to attend to. He just hoped she’d stay put while he was at the marine office.
“Good morn,” Gustav Fredrickson, the harbormaster, greeted him as he entered the office a short time later.
“Good morn to ye,” Niall answered. The harbormaster was a large, middle-aged man with the permanently bronzed skin of one who’d spent years at sea but now coordinated the dockingsalong the quay of the River Clyde. Niall’s half-brother, Robert Henderson, said even a skiff didn’t pass by unnoticed by Gustav.
“Any ships due in for the Henderson line?”
Gustav reached for a sheaf of neatly stacked papers and thumbed through them. “Ja. TheSea Ladyshould be in day after tomorrow.” He handed a sheet to Niall. “Looks like she’ll be carrying a load of kelp.”
Niall nodded as he took the paper and went to the small office that Robert rented at one end of the building. He left the door open as he rounded the desk and sat down behind it to study the paper. This end of the shipping business was new to him. At his home in Arisaig, his part in farming for kelp—the seaweed that would be burned for its soda ash and used in glassmaking—was limited to visiting the Hebrides in search of new underwater fields. But Robert’s house in Arisaig had been struck by lightning, and while he was rebuilding it, he wanted someone in Glasgow to supervise the shipments. Alasdair had done it before, but he was in London pursuing a seat in Parliament.
Niall put the paper down and reached for the ledger lying on the desk. Opening it, he flipped through several pages of transactions. Earlier entries contained small, precise numbers that were easy to read. In the last few pages, the entries were larger, some of the numbers overlapped, as if made by a hand not used to accounting. That probably wasn’t surprising since Alasdair had told him the original bookkeeper, Mr. Graham, was recovering from a bad bout of consumption and his nephew, Gordon Monroe, had taken over the books. Niall looked over to the smaller desk in the corner where the accountant normally sat. It was empty now because the nephew had claimed a sudden family emergency that needed attending.
Looking back at the ledger, Niall sighed and shut it. Accounting was not his strong suit either, but surely he couldmanage for a few weeks until Robert could return. Besides, it was a perfect excuse to stay in Glasgow…or more precisely, at Annie’s mother’s boardinghouse.
He grinned suddenly. Exactly why Annie intrigued him was something of a mystery, but intrigue him she did. Perhaps it was her independence. Or perhaps it was because she appeared to be immune to his ability to captivate. The idea was somewhat offsetting since he had a well-deserved reputation for wooing lasses. Even the other ladies of the Liberty and Progress Club weren’t oblivious to him. They might not be as openly flirtatious as debutantes, but he’d caught their furtive looks and smug, little smiles when he paid them compliments. Annie was the only one unfazed. In fact, she actually didn’t seem to like compliments at all.
His grin faded. He’d been sincere about the color of her eyes this morning. They were such a deep, dark blue that they did look violet. He hadn’t been overly solicitous either, yet she had all but rebuked him. As far back as he could remember, that had never happened before. Ever. Not even when he was a green lad getting to know what girls liked. Only two of his brothers, Gavin and Braden, had as many women surround them at a feast or ball. Good thing they were both up north. They’d never let him hear the end of their taunts if they heard Annie’s responses to his efforts. Niall shook his head as he stood to leave. Annie was a challenge.
But then, he did like challenges.
****
“Dearie?” Mrs. O’Connor, the elderly lady Annie had been reading to, inquired as she leaned forward in her chair. “Is there something in there that ye don’t think I should be hearin’?”
Annie blinked, suddenly realizing that she had been wool-gathering and lost track of what she should be doing. She’d been reading Walter Scott’s epic poem,Marmion, when her thoughtshad drifted to the conversation with Niall MacDonald. Drat it. She glanced at the book now and smiled at Mrs. O’Connor. “Unless a man lusting after a lady who is already betrothed to another shocks ye, no.”
The old lady shook her head. “I’m thinkin’ no much can shock me at my age,” she said and then smiled, a hint of a dimple in her right cheek. “Besides, I know how the tale ends.”
“Why didn’t ye say so?” Annie asked, closing the book. “I can find something else.”
