Page 32 of To Dance with a Devil

He was magnificent. His face appeared to have been chiselled from rock, and he was so big. His eyes were beautiful, and his skin tanned and weather-beaten, and he was so big. His shoulders were massive and those powerful arms and surely the thighs beneath his kilt would match and he was so, so… big.

Her heart gave an erratic thump in her chest as the man’s furious gaze swept the room and landed on the pale young woman in the chair.

“Aye, Bonnie Campbell, ye wee hellion. I’ve tracked ye down at last. Pack yer things, ye infernal female, for I’ve better things to do that waste another moment in this misbegotten city.”

Ruth gasped. As Bonnie had clearly lied through her teeth about all of Gordon Anderson’s physical attributes, in the moments before he’d spoken, Ruth had harboured a flickering flame of hope that she’d treated his character just as cavalierly. Apparently not.

“She’s going nowhere,” Mr Cadogan growled, surging to his feet. He was vibrating with tension, his face white and his fists clenched. “And I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head when addressing my fiancée.”

“Oh, Jerome, no,” Bonnie pleaded, grabbing hold of his hand.

“Hush, love,” Mr Cadogan said, smiling at her. His expression had changed at once, the look in his eyes so tender Ruth felt for certain that everything would be all right if Bonnie only did the sensible thing.

“And who the devil may you be?” Anderson demanded, his deep voice reverberating around the room as the burr of his Scottish accent made Ruth ignore his appalling manners in favour of staring at him as if he was the last cream cake and she was the only one in reach.

Catching herself a little too late, she snapped her mouth shut and tried to rearrange her face into something less revoltingly smitten. He was only a man, she chided herself. A huge, virile, beautiful, glorious specimen of a man, yes, but … oh, what was the use? She gave up trying not to come unglued and gazed at him in wonderment, watching the scene unfold before her.

“I am Jerome Cadogan, and Miss Campbell has done me the very great honour of agreeing to marry me.”

“Oh, aye?” said Anderson, his strangely golden brown eyes settling on Bonnie. “And why would ye do such a thing, Bonnie lass, without writing to tell me of it? Eh? I could have saved myself a God awful journey, could I nae?”

“We’re not engaged,” Bonnie said tightly as Jerome blanched at her words. “But I’d rather die than marry you, and you know it, so you’ve wasted your time all the same.”

“I dinnae reckon so,” Anderson said, his expression uncompromising. “Morven wants us wed. If ye dinnae mean to honour the arrangement ye can tell himself.”

“No. I won’t go back,” Bonnie said, getting to her feet, and now the colour was back in her cheeks, her eyes flashing with fury. “Certainly not with you. You can find yourself another dowry to wed, for you’ll not have mine.”

Mr Anderson’s expression darkened and there was something like desperation edging the harsh growl of his words. “I need that money, Bonnie. For the love of God, woman, ye know I do. I’ve waited this long. I gave ye the time ye begged for to find another, and ye’ve not done so.”

“Yes, she bloody well has!” Jerome shouted, stepping in front of her. “She’s to be my wife, and I’ll see you in hell before I give her up.”

“Oh, aye, and why does she not say so, then?” Anderson demanded, taking one pace closer to Jerome and covering damn near half the room in the process. Ruth tried not to stare at his knees, visible between the thick socks and the edge of the kilt. She failed.

“Because I didn’t have time to get the proposal out of my damned mouth before some lumbering great caveman barged in and started shouting the odds!” Jerome retorted furiously.

Ruth could only admire his pluck. She’d always thought both the Cadogans large men, though the earl was certainly more refined and elegant than his brother. Yet even the room seemed to shrink before this hulking Highlander. Nonetheless, Mr Jerome Cadogan’s reputation was one that told tales of brawling and troublemaking—among other things—and the fact that the man opposite him was built like a mountain range didn’t seem to faze him one little bit.

The thought came into her head as she stared at the huge, unruly Scot who seemed to vibrate with tension, that this Mr Anderson needed managing. Someone with as much pig-headed determination as he had needed to take him in hand and teach him not to act like a bull in a china shop.

“Well, ask her, then,” Anderson said, his eyes narrowing as Ruth returned her attention to the scene before her.

Jerome shook his head. “No,” he said. “There’s no asking now. She must marry me. She’s carrying my child.”

Ruth gasped as Bonnie groaned and put her head in her hands.

“I’m sorry, love,” Jerome said, gently, turning back to her and taking her by the shoulders. “But you need looking after, and I’m tired of your determination not to trap me. I trapped myself and there’s no one else to blame, certainly not you. We’ll marry as soon as I can arrange it. I won’t have any son or daughter of mine growing up with no name, and that’s an end to it.”

Bonnie burst into tears and Jerome pulled her into his arms, clasping her to him as though he feared she’d still try and run away.

“The devil take ye both!” Anderson exclaimed, clearly furious, or perhaps it was more than that, as he raked a massive hand through the disorder of his thick dark hair. “What’s to be done now?” he said, though so low he must have been speaking to himself. There was a definite air of desperation to the words now, like a man who’d reached the end of a long, hard road only to find it carried on into infinity.

Ruth felt a swell of compassion stirring in her heart as she stared at him, and something very much like longing tugging at the pit of her belly. She wanted to go to him, to sit in his lap and make him lay his head on her shoulder while she smoothed the furrow from his forehead. The image made her breath catch. He looked up then, as if noticing her for the first time and, the moment his eyes met hers, Ruth felt any last hold on her sanity disappear in a puff of smoke.

“You n-need to m-marry a woman with money, Mr Anderson?” she asked, trying hard not to stammer but knowing it was an appalling thing to say aloud. It was exactly the kind of vulgar thing the ton expected a woman born into trade to say, of course, but she didn’t care. The words of her dare were ringing in her ears and the urge to act on it was making her heart skitter about in her chest like a day old foal. She’d lost her mind. If it hadn’t gone in that puff of smoke it must have been when she’d seen his bare knees.

He looked incredulous for a moment and then he gave a bitter laugh.

“Aye, what of it?” he asked, suspicion glinting in his eyes. “I suppose a fine English lady like yerself will despise me for it?”