Page 17 of The Scot Who Loved Me

Recasting gold. Not quite counterfeiting.

Anne reached into a cracked vase on the mantel and retrieved foolscap folded at the bottom. The crown would hold a different opinion, but the dye was cast. No sense in worrying over the past, youthful love included. She had a duty to fulfill. She was on a mission and God spare the man or woman who got in her way.

“Ladies, these doubts are nothing more than our collective nerves talking.” The foolscap in hand, her gaze traveled to each woman perched in her salon. “We are ready.”

“But can ye say the same of Will?” Aunt Maude. Iron haired and iron willed. She’d been the first to question Will’s residence in London. Many of his kin had left for the colony of Virginia.

Why did he stay?

The room groaned a peculiar silence. Will was the unknown. By the apprehensive eyes peering at her, one might think the ceiling would fall. Once or twice, she’d checked the plaster medallion overhead for fear it would fall on her head.She’d checked doors and windows too—for English soldiers.

She dusted off the seditious piece in hand. “He doesn’t know everything.”

“Then this would be a good time to tell me.” Will’s voice shot across the salon.

Shock bolted through her.

“If you want my help,” he added.

Will lingered in the unlit hall, a beast transformed into a Greek god. A sculptor had chiseled his square, clean-shaven jaw to perfection. Ditto, his lips. With his hair clubbed and imposing height, Will would turn heads. Burgundy velvet stretched across wide shoulders. Threadbare and well traveled, the wrinkled coat might be an effort to blend in with mere mortals. The same could be said of his shirt opened carelessly at his neck.

Both ploys would never work. The women stirred like harried hens.

“Mrs. Neville.” His nod was spare.

“Mr. MacDonald.”

She was equally cool, though the pulse in her ears beat louder. Hands clasped behind him, Will was baptized in shadows.A dark blondHades,deity of the Underworld, come to pay a call.Tan and virile. Thoroughly in command.

The exposed flesh at his neck irritated her.

Truly, Will? No neckcloth?For a meeting this important?

His lack of neckwear was pure defiance. Neither a woman nor proper decorum could contain him. He stared into the room, a man with all the time in the world, while in hers a clock was ticking. Cecelia coughed delicately. One glance andshe was smacked by Cecelia’s smug smile. Introductions were expected.

“You remember Aunt Maude and Aunt Flora.” She waved vaguely at the pair seated at a mahogany table with Cecelia. “I believe you are already acquainted with your cousin, Miss Cecelia MacDonald of Kinlochmoidart.”

Clanranald MacDonald land sprawled from the west coast of Scotland to the Hebrides. Some kin never met.

She pivoted to a yellow brocade settee. “And these are my cousins, Miss Mary Fletcher and her sister, Miss Margaret Fletcher, both formerly of Edinburgh.”

Will sketched a bow. “Ladies.”

“That’s not how you referred to me years ago at a summer fair.” Cecelia was coy. “I believesaucy articlewas your preferred sobriquet.”

He winced. “Words of a misguided lad. Please forgive my bad manners.”

“There is nothing to forgive.” She saluted him with her dish of tea. “You were quite right about me.”

The salon was a hothouse of ruffled femininity, the balance of nature having subtly shifted with Hades stalwart as a ship’s captain navigating stormy seas.

“Won’t you join us, Mr. MacDonald?” Mary motioned to an empty chair. “There is plenty of room.”

“I’m no’ joining anything. No’ yet.”

Anne slid the foolscap behind her back. Hades had come to bargain. There was nothing to do but corral him, one step at a time.

“It’s true. Last night Will agreed to meet with us and hear what we have to say,” she said to the room. “He hasn’t agreed to join us.”