“You know, Taran,” Catriona said, shaking out her hand, “while I appreciate your concern for my good name, has it even once occurred to you that the other ladies deserve the same consideration?”
“It’s different,” Taran grunted.
Whatever patience she’d had with the man snapped entirely. “
Taran jerked his head at the duke, who was still regarding him icily. “He’s not going to marry you.”
“I realize that,” Catriona shot back, “but your nephew is hardly going to marry all three of the other young ladies.”
“I have two nephews,” Taran muttered.
“
But Taran Ferguson had never been one for logic or consistency. He crossed his beefy arms, jutted out his chin, and stared down at her like a hawk.
An infantile hawk.
“Fine,” Catriona said with a sigh. “I’ll come with you, there’s no need to be so dramatic.”
“No!” the duke said suddenly.
Catriona turned. So did Taran.
The duke pointed his index finger at her. “You promised.”
Taran’s head whipped back and forth between the two of them. “What is he talking about?”
“I have to go with him,” Catriona said, tipping her head toward Taran. She had told Bretton that she could not spend the day alone with him. Finovair might be remote, and the circumstances of their gathering might be unusual (to say the least), but the rules of propriety could not be abandoned completely. When all was said and done, the Duke of Bretton was not going to marry Miss Catriona Burns of Kilkarnity. And Marilla Chisholm would still be the biggest gossip north of Dunbar.
Catriona might be headstrong, but she was no rebel, and she did not think she could face a life as a social pariah. More to the point, she did not think her parents could face it.
She would not shame them that way. She could not.
With a weary sigh, she looked at the duke, willing herself not to drown in his blue eyes, and said, “Taran is right.”
Taran uncrossed his arms and let out a sound that would have put a crow to shame.
“Much as it pains me to admit it,” Catriona ground out.
“Then I’m coming with you,” the duke said.
Catriona tried to ignore the warm bubble of pleasure his words brought forth. She liked the Duke of Bretton. It didn’t matter if he sought her company as protection from Marilla. Because somewhere, deep down where she was afraid to acknowledge it, she knew that Marilla wasn’t the only reason he was insisting upon remaining by her side.
He liked her, too.
And even though nothing could ever come of it, Catriona decided that for once she was going to be utterly impractical and seize the day. Well, perhaps not
“Taran,” she said, turning back to the older man with a devilish smile, “do you have a caber?”
“I’m cold,” Marilla whined.
“Stuff it,” Catriona said, without sparing her a glance. The men—Bretton, Oakley, and Rocheforte—were gathered around Taran, who was clearly relishing his role as man-in-charge. Catriona couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he was waving his arms with great vigor.
“Oh, look,” Marilla said, with a decided lack of interest. “Here comes my sister.”
Catriona pulled her attention away from the men to see Fiona Chisholm dashing across the snow-covered lawn, hugging an ancient cloak around her. Catriona could see that she, too, had chosen to wear the same long-sleeved gown she’d had on the night before.
“Have they started yet?” Fiona asked breathlessly.
“I thought you were planning on remaining in your room all day,” Marilla said in a sulky voice.
“I was, but then Mrs. McVittie told me that they were bringing out a caber.” Fiona’s eyes danced merrily behind her spectacles. “There is no way I would miss this.”
“Taran won’t let us get too close,” Marilla complained. “He said the caber field is no place for the sexes to mingle.”
“When did he become such a stickler for propriety?” Fiona asked.
