Page 33 of To Dance with a Devil

A fine English lady? Ruth blushed.

“N-No,” Ruth squeaked, shaking her head with vigour. “Not in the least. Am I right in believing you are heir to the Earl of Morven?”

The suspicious glint deepened, and he folded his arms. “Aye.”

Ruth stared back at him, stared at that cleft chin and clenched her fingers against the desire to reach up and touch it, to slide her palm over the coarse, rough stubble along that uncompromising jaw. Her heart was beating so hard and fast she felt dizzy with it, and she took a moment to wonder if there was any insanity in her family. If there was, it was about to make a spectacular reappearance.

“How… old is the earl?” Ruth asked, wondering how she dared. She was trembling now with the enormity of what she was doing, the dare clamouring in her ears, over and over.

Say something outrageous to a handsome man. Say something outrageous to a handsome man….

He folded his massive arms and Ruth’s knees threatened to buckle as she saw the heavy muscle of his biceps strain against the fabric of his coat and imagined those same arms closing around her. “Ye’re mighty inquisitive, Miss…?”

“Miss Stone,” she said, aware that she sounded breathless. “Yes, it’s awfully rude of me, I know, but I assure you, I do have a very good reason.”

“Morven’s sixty-nine, by my reckoning,” he said, watching her with interest now.

Ruth nodded, trying her damndest to be calm and clear-headed when the weight of this man’s full attention was making her hot and giddy. Sixty-nine. That seemed acceptable odds in favour of her father living to see her gain a title. She’d heard from Bonnie that the earl had been a hard living kind of fellow, so he’d unlikely go on forever. Ruth took a deep breath, knowing she was about to bypass vulgar and go straight to hell.

“How much is Miss Campbell’s dowry?”

“Oh, Ruth! No!” exclaimed Bonnie, suddenly paying attention to the conversation. She pulled away from Jerome and ran to her. “No. Whatever you are thinking, Ruth, no. Don’t do it. It’s not worth it for a title. He’s not got a brass farthing, the castle is practically in ruins and miles from any society and, what’s more, he’s a dumb brute with as much sensitivity as a rock, and not a civilised bone in his body.”

Not a civilised bone in his body. Ruth looked the man over and something hot and lewd turned her insides to liquid.

Anderson glowered a little as he looked between her and Bonnie, clearly bemused. “Five thousand pounds,” he said after a taut pause.

Bonnie groaned.

Ruth closed her eyes for a long moment and then opened them again. She took a deep breath and looked the man straight in the eye. “Mine is fifty thousand. Why don’t you marry me instead?”

Chapter 12

My dear Kitty,

I hardly know where to begin. I only went out for an hour, yet in that brief interval everyone seems to have run quite mad.

― Excerpt of a letter from Miss Matilda Hunt to Mrs Kitty Baxter.

29th October 1814. South Audley Street, London.

Ruth was vaguely aware of the door opening as she made her perfectly outrageous request. Somewhere in the dim recesses of her mind, she also registered Matilda’s sharp gasp of shock. None of it mattered, though. Her entire being was riveted on the man in front of her.

His eyes had gone wide with astonishment and he was staring at her as if she’d just sprouted horns and a tail.

“Did ye nae hear what she said, lass?” he asked, talking slowly as though she’d taken leave of her senses. It was a fair point. “I have nae money, and I live in the wilds of the Highlands. Ye’ll never change that, so don’t go thinking ye can reform me. I dinnae like society, and though that one’s a saucy wee hellcat,” he added, jerking his head at Bonnie. “I cannae pretend she’s said a word that’s nae true.”

Ruth swallowed and tried to find her voice. “I understand,” she said, wishing the words didn’t sound so faint and unlike her.

Mr Anderson let out a breath. “Aye, well, nae harm done. I’ll not speak of it—”

“No, Mr Anderson, you misunderstand me,” she said, rushing towards him in a panic as he made to leave the room. In her anxiety she reached out and took hold of his arm, and then gasped at the feel of the heavy muscle beneath her fingertips. She let him go at once as though he’d burned her, and then stared up at him to see a look of utter shock in his catlike eyes. “I meant that I perfectly understand that you have no money, that you dislike society, and that you will have no intention of changing in that regard and spending time in town. I accept all of this.”

“Ruth!” Matilda and Bonnie exclaimed unison, but Ruth’s attention never wavered. She wanted him. It was perhaps a form of temporary insanity, but she was in its grip and helpless to deny it. Her whole life she’d done her best to please her father, to be a good daughter, to catch him the kind of husband he wanted, i.e., one with a title attached. She’d never once stopped to complain or explain what she wanted; she had a duty to perform, to drag the family into society by marrying a title. Yet she didn’t really like society, and had never wanted to be a part of the ton. The only thing she’d ever hoped was that the title came with a country estate and that she could bury herself there once her duty was done. This, though… this was perfect. An heir to an earldom! She’d never dreamed of aiming so high. A baron or a viscount was the most she’d dared hope for and she’d never even gotten close. Her father was too vulgar, her looks too… challenging, she supposed, and her temperament… well, she was blunt and forthright and found it impossible not to have an opinion on… on just about anything.

“What say you, Mr Anderson? You need my money; I need a husband with a title.”

“I dinnae have a title yet, Miss Stone,” the man said, never taking his eyes from her.