Chapter Five

He wasn’t there.

Melissa slowed her steps as she wended her way through the congestion that was Hyde Park Corner. Although not quite eight o’clock, an hour considered obscenely early for the gentlefolk of London, everyone else seemed to feel otherwise. She stopped close enough to survey the throng without plunging into its madness. Then she tamped down her disappointment.

No magnificent Highlander stood holding the reins of two perfectly matched bays as he’d promised.

He wasn’t waiting for her.

She saw only a teeming mass of humanity. Plainly dressed folk and those who were clearly servants, plus a never-ending coming and going of carriages, farm carts, and street hawkers with their stalls-on-wheels. She also noted scores of running, laughing, dirt-faced children, and a good number of barking, equally excited dogs.

Compared to the quiet and serenity of the countryside around Cranleigh, the noisy chaos before her could be the gateway to hell.

Shuddering, she wished she hadn’t worn her best riding dress, a rich emerald design that flattered her – to her mind – too generous hips and breasts, and drew the eye to her flame-colored hair, said by many to be her best feature.

She wasn’t sure about that, for the moment only worrying that her gown would attract unwanted attention.

Already, she was aware of speculative glances.

To her surprise, she couldn’t deny the fast beat of her heart or the need to keep peering into the crowd. How could a brief meeting with a man she hardly knew affect her as powerfully as her encounter with the Black Lyon of Lyongate Hall?

Time spent in a cloakroom of all places.

She didn’t know.

But then, since meeting him, she almost felt reborn, a different person than she’d been on climbing into her stepmother’s carriage for the journey to London. Her world suddenly brimmed with hope, struck her as having shifted, becoming right. So much so that everything around her seemed brighter, crystalline, and more colorful than before. Was her mother’s out-with-the-faeries blood calling to her?

Making her even more fanciful?

More Scottish?

She gave herself a shake and brushed down her skirts, a brace of her English father’s practicality warning her to school her emotions and think of practicalities.

So she lifted a hand to her brow and turned in a circle, sure she’d spot the Highlander somewhere.

She didn’t.

Before she could decide if she should wait, or leave, a herring cart bumped into her.

“It be the cat,” the hawker excused herself, the old woman’s voice oddly familiar.

Undeniably Scottish.

Melissa knew her, too, for the black-garbed crone was forever emblazoned across her memory.

“You! Wait…” She reached for the crone’s arm as she shuffled by, pushing her fish cart.

Melissa’s hand closed on thin air.

“No, come back!” she cried, shock raising gooseflesh over her skin. “Please…”

“Eh?” The old woman was suddenly there again, right before her. “Are you wanting some herring?”

Peering at Melissa, the gray-haired hawker looked nothing like the crone she’d seen at the Merrivales’ townhouse.

This old woman was taller and gaunt, her clothes not black, but a serviceable brown with a hodge-podge of colorful patches that seemingly held her garments together. Her shawl, once cream-colored, was now yellowed.

She wheeled her cart closer, her smile revealing a missing front tooth. “You’ll not find tastier herring in all London-town,” she said, her accent not at all Scottish. But her blue eyes twinkled, reminiscent of the crone.

Melissa frowned, shivering anew.

“The best, I tell you,” the old woman boasted.

Plucking a smoked herring from the cart, she waved it beneath Melissa’s nose. Golden-brown and dried to perfection, the herring did smell delicious.

“Caught in the north, my herring is,” she said, leaning toward Melissa. “Off the coast of Highland Scotland, there where he comes from,” she added, chuckling.

No, she cackled.

Melissa froze, her heart racing.

“Who are you?” She stared at her. “Why are you following me?”

“Ask him about the cat,” the old woman said, ignoring her questions as she dropped the herring onto the pile of them on her cart. “He’ll be along shortly.”

Then she was gone.

Or so Melissa thought until she spotted the tall, colorfully-clad hawker near a parked carriage a bit ahead of her. And as the woman pushed her cart around the vehicle’s horses, she hitched her skirts to avoid a pile of ‘horse apples’ on the cobbles. Morning sun glinted off her black boots, the bright light also shining on a twin set of red plaid laces.

Melissa blinked, her jaw slipping even more when the hawker emerged on the other side of the horses – and this time she appeared smaller and garbed in black, her cackle carrying on the wind as she disappeared into the crowd.

~*~

Melissa clapped a hand to her breast. “Oh, my stars…”

“Nae, lass, that is you.”

“Oh!” Her heart soared, the crone forgotten. “You did come.”

Spinning about, excitement swept her to see the Black Lyon so near, and smiling at her. Still mounted, he was only a few feet away, but now he swung down from a gorgeous bay gelding, the reins of a second horse in his hands.

“I keep my word.” He did look glad to see her. “And I say what I mean. You are the brightest light in this dreary city.”

“And you are a rogue.”

“Nae, a Scot, though some might say we’re all rogues.”

“Men apart, my mother insisted.”

His smile deepened. “And she was right.”

Melissa wasn’t about to argue.

How could she, anyway?

Not kilted, he was impeccably dressed in the style of a wealthy, well-bred London gentleman. Melissa flicked her gaze over him, noting everything from the expert tailoring of his black coat to the exquisiteness of his soft gray waistcoat, the snowiness of his shirt, and the sheen of his tall, polished boots. She didn’t linger too long in her perusal of his well-fitting dove-gray breeches.

Danger lurked there, so she quickly returned her attention to his face.

But that, too, was perilous. He was almost too dashing, his smile – and what it did to his eyes, to her – could lead to trouble.

Not that she was complaining.

Far from it, she felt a weakening in her knees. Indeed, he fired the most heated, wildest corners of her soul.

Had a man ever been more appealing?

She didn’t think so.

Only his dark hair was ‘mussed’ as the wind was picking up, but that slightly unruly touch added to his charm.

“Seeing you, sir, it is clear I am not the star here,” she heard herself saying. “Every woman near us is swooning. You may have ruined them for life.”

“And you have damaged me.” He reached out and touched her hair. “No ‘may’ about it.”

“Change the subject all you will, the fact remains you are causing a sensation.”

It was true.

Women were staring at him, some provocatively, their profession easy to guess by their scandalous apparel. Others whispered behind their hands, blushing. She even spotted one who produced a fan to chase the high color from her face.

The Scot looked at none of them, only her.

“My apologies for my tardiness,” he said, making her a slight bow. “One of the maids said she saw our Lyongate cat and was so beside herself, I was delayed in leaving.”

“A cat?” Melissa stared at him, his admirers forgotten. “A strange old woman, a herring hawker, just bumped me with her cart. She told me to ask you about a cat,” she said. She glanced round, then lowered her voice. “It was her, the Scottish crone.”

“Say you?” He lifted a brow.

She nodded. “I am sure, yes. At least, I think so. Then again-”

She broke off when a small cluster of the demimonde beauties began strolling toward them.

Seeing them as well, the Scot stepped closer and, before she could blink, he seized her by the waist and lifted her up onto the saddle of his second bay.

“We’ll speak of this shortly.” He made sure she was settled, and then swung up onto his own horse’s back. “After we’re deeper into the park, away from this crowd.”

Before she could agree – which she was about to do – he urged his horse forward, leaving her to follow him.

She did so gladly and they rode along the park’s famed equestrian path, Rotten Row. Within moments, it seemed, they were surrounded by silence. The chaotic bustle of Hyde Park Corner could have been on the far side of the world, as nothing reached their ears but the clopping of their horses’ hooves and the ever-thickening stillness.

And despite the eeriness of the deserted path, she felt safer in Lucian MacRae’s company than she had in some time.