Page 4 of I’ve Grown Accustomed to My Scot

She shook her head at him. “You say that, but he can make your stay in London very unpleasant. And if you are hoping to find yourself a suitable wife then this is not the best of starts, is it?”

“I wasna planning on finding a wife, suitable or otherwise,” he said mildly. “Callum has satisfied that requirement of my father’s, so I am free to be a bachelor for as long as I like.”

His brother had brought home a bonny lassie from his own stay in London, and Rory did not envy him, not a bit! Well, maybe a little bit—she was very bonny—but admitting that would not fit in with his role as the careless, fancy-free MacKenzie brother.

“I will visit this Ormsby and tell him I am no’ in the market for a wife, and that will be the end of it.”

His aunt didn’t seem to be appeased and eyed him with concern. “I do hope you’re right, Rory, but that man did not gain his reputation without a reason. Do take care!”

“Duly noted.”

Rory was still feeling tired and under the weather from the night before. Why had he drunk so much? He’d told himself he had been celebrating being in London and able to do as he pleased without censure. Not that he didn’t do what he pleased anyway at home, but here there was no one to shake their head at him and scold him for being irresponsible. It was a freeing experience but also somewhat unnerving. As if the brake he had always had upon his more extreme behaviors was no longer working and he needed to regulate it himself.

He wondered if Ramsgate had died. He hadn’t mentioned that to his aunt because he didn’t want to worry her any more than necessary, but was that why Ormsby wanted to see him? Despite the duel not being of his making, he did not want the man’s death on his conscience, or the legal implications that may go with it. Death in a duel was considered murder and could be prosecuted if someone took it into their mind to do so. He’d hate to be forced to flee the country.

Perhaps he should return to Bonnyrigg after all? And yet it smacked of running away with his tail between his legs, and his siblings would never let him hear the end of it. Not to mention his father’s disappointment and his mother’s worried eyes. He could already see them in his mind’s eye, and the knot in his stomach grew. They would be expecting him to mess things up and this would prove they were right. He had been the subject of family disapproval so many times during his twenty-four years, and mostly he had shrugged as if he didn’t care, or at least that was what he always told himself. But lately that was beginning to feel more and more like a lie.

Callum, the eldest MacKenzie son, was the responsible one, who had dutifully brought home a wife and settled down. The younger son, Donal, was the soft hearted one, who had loved the same lassie forever and would probably marry her and never leave Bonnyrigg. Catriona, or Cat as she was known, was the only daughter, and she was funny and feisty, and never afraid to say what she thought. Woe betide any man who broke Cat’s heart because the entire MacKenzie clan would come down upon him like a sack of potatoes.

And then there was Rory.

He was the MacKenzie who drifted through life, selfish and feckless, always thinking of his own pleasure. And he was so used to being thought of in that way, he had never tried to escape the box they had put him in. Truthfully he had never wanted to. It was only lately that he had begun to think more deeply about his life and what he wanted in the future, and even then he hadn’t let himself think too hard.

And now here he was in London, doing exactly what everyone had expected him to do. No wonder Aunt Jennie looked at him with that worried and disappointed expression.

Even Bothwell, her large tabby cat, was giving him a censorious look from his spot on a comfortable cushion on the sofa. Rory resisted the childish urge to poke out his tongue.

“I’ll go and see this Ormsby then,” he said, and heaved a sigh. “Dinna fash yerself, Aunt Jennie. I’m as likely to find myself a married man as your cat here is to refuse his next meal.”

*

The Earl of Ormsby lived in one of the older squares, as did many of the nobility whose families had been resident in London for generations. Rory knocked on the door and was shown into a rather shabby sitting room, which made him wonder if the earl was in straitened circumstances. Or perhaps he was just disinclined to spend money on refurbishing his house—Rory knew that not everyone wanted to slavishly follow the latest fashions in wallpaper and upholstery.

A clock ticked laboriously on the mantel so he knew exactly how long he had been waiting—half an hour. For someone who had wanted to see him urgently, it seemed that Ormsby was in no hurry after all.

Just as Rory was considering leaving, the door opened.

He stood up, expecting to see the earl, but instead a young woman stood in the doorway, staring back at him. Her dark hair hung in untidy swathes about her shoulders and looked as if it hadn’t seen a comb since she left her bed, and her dark eyes were wide and frightened. She was looking at Rory as if he were the devil himself, and when her gaze dropped to his tartan kilt and his bare legs, they widened even more.

He grinned. He was glad he had decided to wear his “barbarian” dress. He swept her a bow and that made her laugh with a slightly hysterical edge.

“And this is my future husband!” she declared in a well-bred English voice.

Was she speaking to him? Rory was about to inform her that he had not asked her to marry him and had no intention of doing so, when a second voice cut him off.

“He most certainly is, and I will have no more argument about it.”

An older man stood behind her, and now he stepped forward, nudging the woman before him when she refused to budge. Tall and thin, he wore an old-fashioned wig, and his eyes were icy enough to make Rory want to shiver.

“Father, please—” the woman began, but she was cut off too.

“You will marry him and be glad of it! This man may look like a Scots savage, but he is in fact the second son of the Duke of Bonnyrigg.”

“What about Ramsgate?” the woman wailed. Rory decided she was at least twenty years old, and although she sounded like any other wealthy young woman in London, she wasn’t dressed like one. The gown she was wearing was too small for her, and the hem was frayed.

“This fellow is a far better prospect for you than Ramsgate was.” And the Earl of Ormsby, because that must be who this was, had the audacity to give a satisfied smile.

Rory felt his hackles rise.