Chapter Two
He caught her, of course. He always would.
And, ach, she was a sweet weight in his arms. Like a kitten.
She swiped at him then—just like that kitten, making a man think she wants a stroke and then baring her claws. She swiped at him and snapped, “Unhand me.”
Ever the gentleman, he did precisely as she asked, and she fell on her arse on the Aubusson carpet. He tried not to laugh, but a smile escaped him. And maybe a snort.
Her outrage amused him even more.
She had always been the most delightful creature, and entertaining to boot. He knew her well, and certainly knew her well enough to keep his hands to himself rather than help her up.
For some odd reason, that seemed to annoy her too.
But then, so many things did.
At least when he was around.
Attempting a blasé visage, he watched as Catherine Ross struggled to her feet, brushed down her skirts and then leveled a furious frown at him.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she growled.
Ach. Still a passionate wench.
Thank the Gods she had grown up.
She had bemused and befuddled him as a young girl. It had taken every ounce of his flagging self-control to keep his hands to himself, to allow her to mature in her own time, to stay away when her father decided to move their household back to London.
Granted, Devin Ross had likely made that decision because of Duncan. Though he had tried hard to pretend indifference and treat Catherine as a younger sister, the baron had noticed his young groom’s interest in her.
Duncan had been nowhere near good enough for her.
Ross had told him so in no uncertain terms.
But things had changed. For one thing, Devin Ross was dead.
“Well?” Catherine arched an imperious brow.
Duncan snorted a laugh. That hadn’t changed. “Well, what?”
“What are you doing here?” Practically a screech, but she somehow made it melodious.
“Here in London, or here in your library?”
She stared daggers at him. “Both.”
His bow was mocking, and she took it as such. Her lovely lips tightened. “I am here in London to see your brother about a debt.”
“Oh, hell,” she muttered under her breath, revealing the fact that she knew about her brother’s reckless propensity for endangering the family fortune. Duncan doubted she understood the full truth of it, and for a moment, regret and doubt trickled through him.
He forced it away.
This situation was not of his making, but he would certainly take advantage where he could.
That was, after all, how he had risen from a lowly groom to a man of means and captain of several successful concerns that kept him in silks and featherbeds.
“And why are you here?” She threw out her arms to encompass the luxurious library. There was an element of mockery in her tone, one that reminded him of his humble beginnings, but he thrust that lingering doubt away as well. He was no longer that boy, and he would not respond as such.
“Ah.” He took a sip of his whisky and leaned against the large king’s chair before the fire. “That is the question of the evening, is it not? Perhaps Peter should be the one to answer.”
Her face took on a persimmony squint. It was adorable on her. “Why can you not simply tell me?”
He drew in a deep breath and infused the words with the weight they demanded. “I believe it would be easier coming from him.” Though the news would be difficult, no matter who delivered it.
Catherine, quick-witted as she was, caught on. She stilled. Paled. Her lashes fluttered. “Where is he?” Nearly a croak.
“I believe he’s passed out over there.” Duncan waved to the divan in the corner, wreathed in shadows.
“Blast.” She threw back her shoulders, marched over to her brother and tugged on his topcoat until he rolled onto the floor.
Unfortunately, Peter had been diligent in his search for oblivion this evening. He fell like a log.
Catherine snorted in disgust and then, before Duncan could stop her, took the whisky glass from his hand and tossed the contents into Peter’s face. The result was successful—rousing a sputtering Ross—but a true horror.
“Madam!” Duncan bleated. “That was a forty-year-old scotch!” A fabulous one to boot. One he’d brought with him from the distillery he’d purchased in Bower.
“I don’t give a fig about your blasted whisky!” she snarled. Then she nudged Peter with her toe, which was a polite way of saying she kicked him.
Peter, a bit bleary and still sputtering—though in truth, he might have been licking at the forty year old whisky on his face—sat up in a rush. “What is this?” he bellowed. And, when his sister toed him again, “Leave off!”
“I shall not. Not until you explain this.” She pointed to Duncan and it was not lost on him that she said this the way one might refer to a bastard babe brought home, or a snaggle-toothed rat carrying plague-ridden fleas. Or a Scot.
Peter propped himself against the divan and scrubbed his face. “You remember Duncan Mackay.” Practically an accusation.
“Of course I remember him. What is he doing here? In our home?” She crossed her arms over her sumptuous chest and glared at her brother, though he refused to meet her gaze. As well he should, the rotter. “Well?”
Peter scrubbed his face again and sighed. He hung his head and muttered his response. Of course Catherine didn’t hear it. He hadn’t meant her to.
“What?” she snapped. “Speak up.” There was a treble of panic in her tone. She was beginning to catch on to the fact that, this night, her life had changed irrevocably. “Why is he in our home?”
“Because . . .” Peter attempted a smile, but it was a poor attempt. “It’s . . . his home now.”
Catherine staggered back, providentially, into Duncan’s arms, but when she realized it was his body holding her up, she jerked away and glared at him in revulsion. “What . . . what do you mean?”
It was clear Peter was incapable of admitting his crimes, and Duncan thought at this point it would be a kindness to step in with an impersonal accounting. “Peter has lost the Ross estate.”
“Lost the estate?” She looked from her brother to Duncan several times as though a logical answer would magically appear between them. He could have assured her there was no logical answer to be had. “How does one lose an estate?”
“Faro,” Peter said on a thin laugh.
“You gambled it away?” Had Duncan thought her furious before? That was nothing compared to this Catherine. She looked angry enough to spit fire.
“Everything.”
“Everything?” The scope of it finally sank in and Catherine felt her way to the chair and dropped into it with a boneless thump. “Everything?” A wraith of a whisper. “Even The Wilds?”
“Everything.” Duncan’s tone was bleak.
Catherine’s expression was haunting. While Duncan wanted to comfort her, but knew better than to try.
“It’s hardly my fault,” Peter said, finally finding his feet and tugging down his vest. He scraped back his hair and the unruly curls flopped right back onto his forehead.
“How is this not your fault?” Catherine asked.
It was irritating that she shot an accusatory look at Duncan because hell, it wasn’t his fault either.
“I asked you to marry a proper lord.”
Catherine snorted.
“Tiverton. Nordhoff. Any of them would have done. But no. You had to be persnickety.”
“Persnickety? I refuse to marry a man who showers me with spittle when he speaks, and that is persnickety? Nordhoff is three years older than father would have been and creaks when he walks. Preeble has a weak chin and snorts when he laughs, and Mulberry has a mother who is far too smothering—”
“Fine. I understand. It’s not the best crop of suitors. But they all have money.”
“Is that what marriage is all about?”
“Of course it is. What is the point of having a sister if you cannot marry her off?”
Catherine shot to her feet. “I cannot believe you said that. Is that all I am to you? A pawn on your chessboard?”
“Don’t be irrational, Catherine.”
“Irrational? Irrational?” It occurred to Duncan that this discussion was heading downhill quickly. “You have single-handedly ruined our lives. You’ve bankrupted us. Made us homeless and debtors in one fell swoop.”
“To be fair, it did take considerably more than one swoop,” Duncan felt obliged to mention.
She whirled on him. “And you!”
“Aye?”
“How dare you stand there and smirk at our misfortunes.”
“Was I smirking?”
“You led him to penury.”
“I most certainly did not.”
“You encouraged him to gamble everything away!”
“I most certainly did not.”
“You bast—What do you mean you did not?”
“I did not encourage your brother to gamble.”
“Indeed, he advised me to stop,” Peter said. “But I was sure. I was so sure . . . My cards were excellent, Cat. Truly they were.”
“Don’t call me that.” She hated that nickname. Mostly because Duncan had given it to her. “And nothing changes the fact that this man holds your vowels.”
Well, enough of this. Duncan was damn tired of being accused and vilified because Peter was too weak to tell his sister the truth. “I hold his vowels because I bought them,” he said.
Her mouth dropped open. It was a fascinating sight he tried diligently to ignore. “You bought them?”
“He did,” Peter said. “From some very nasty men, I might add.”
“You shouldn’t have been playing with them,” Duncan said. How Peter had fallen in with that dastardly crowd was a mystery. Or, given their penchant for fleecing what they called Little Lords, maybe not.
The fact that one of Catherine’s suitors was rumored to have been involved made him suspect poor Peter had been set up.
“He shouldn’t have been playing at all,” Catherine snapped. “Not with the family fortune. Which leads to the next question . . . How did you have the means to buy his vowels?”
That bitter you once more. Ah, this was going to be more difficult than he imagined.
“How does a lowly groom amass a fortune in five years? Is that what you mean?”
The question took her aback. Her throat worked as she swallowed. “Yes. I suppose that is what I am asking.”
It wasn’t. She was asking him if he was a criminal. That was what she was asking. And he had no intention of answering. The very fact that she might entertain the thought wounded him to the depth of his soul.
He lifted a shoulder. “A man does what a man has to do. And I think that is all beside the point, don’t you?”
She swallowed again. “What do you mean?”
“I think the real issues is, where do we go from here?”
Her lovely face paled and Duncan felt another twinge of remorse. “Where-where do we go from here?”
“I suppose that’s up to you, Catherine,” he said as gently as he could.
“What do you mean?” she whispered through tight lips.
Duncan glanced at Peter, who had dropped back down on the divan and covered his face with one arm. He was no use to either of them at this point. Besides, this business was between himself . . . and Catherine. He gently pressed her into the king’s chair, took one next to hers and scooted it around until he faced her. “You and Peter have no home now.”
“Not even The Wilds?”
“Not even the stables.” He tried to be as sympathetic as he could. This was difficult for her. Shattering. And it would only get worse. “For you, things are not so bad. You’re a lovely girl. You can marry well.” He ignored her snort. “But for Peter . . .” He let it hang there like a razor sharp icicle clinging to a roofline as a melt approached.
“But Peter?”
“He has other debts.”
“Oh no.”
“Small ones, but substantial enough for his creditors to ask for retribution.”
They both knew what that meant. Debtors’ prison. A truly nasty end for a feckless lad. But Duncan had the inclination to allow Peter to languish there—at least for a while—to teach the boy a lesson.
“Newgate would kill him,” Catherine whispered.
“It’s not all that bad.”
Her gaze snapped to him. “And how do you know?”
He lifted a brow. He had no intention of telling her that he’d visited and reprieved more than one foolish friend.
“Poor Peter.”
“He did bring this on himself. He gambles like a fiend.” A fiend who thinks he can never lose.
“Can’t you help him?”
Duncan swallowed an outraged laugh. “I believe I already have.”
“I mean, help him more?”
“Buy out all his debts? Return his wealth and property to him? Pat him on his head and charge him to go forth and risk it all again? What kind of fool do you think I am?”
“A heartless one.” She stood and whirled away, which gave him cause to follow.
But honestly, he was not the heartless one here.
When she spun back, he was right behind her—and they were far too close. The tips of her breasts brushed against his chest and he nearly swallowed his tongue. She flinched as well, as though the touch had been like a bolt of lightning. She gazed up into his eyes, hers wide and damp. Her lips parted and her pink tongue dabbed out to wet them and his knees nearly failed him.
Damn, she was so beautiful. So glorious. He wanted to kiss her now, ravish her. Claim her. He wanted—
“I cannot bear the thought of marrying one of my suitors,” she said, and he was brought back to the moment, his intent, with a powerful lurch.
“There may be a solution.”
She tipped up her delicate chin bravely. “And what might that be?”
So simple. So perfect.
“Marry me.”
Her jaw dropped and he fixated on the sight of her open mouth. If that was not a demand for a kiss, he did not know what was.
He pulled her into his arms, reveling in the warmth, the curves of her slight form, and lowered his head.
She tasted like heaven. Sweet bliss. Just like he remembered from that day when he’d pulled her from the loch and forced her to breathe again. Her scent infused him, enamored him, enraged a long-banked fire within him.
She would be his.
He would have her.
Finally.
Catherine Ross would be his bride, just as he’d dreamed of for so many years. Just as he’d fought and scrabbled and worked for. His life’s ambition had come to him, and the moment was so sublime . . .
Until she pulled away and stared at him, with an odd mixture of shock and fear limning her eyes.
She hauled back her delicate fist.
And punched him in the jaw.
By the time he’d recovered from the shock of what he could only interpret as her refusal of his suit, she’d whirled away and flounced off to her chambers—God only knew where—in the upper reaches of the enormous mansion.
But this was only the first salvo in his campaign to win her.
And win her, he would.