Page 61 of The Scottish Duke's Deal

Then he turned and walked away.

She couldn’t move.

Her legs had no strength left. Her lungs ached. Her whole body pulsed like a plucked string. Every nerve attuned to where his mouth had been. Her pulse thudded so violently, she half-feared the walls would echo it. She pressed a palm to her chest. It didn’t help.

He hadn’t asked for permission. He hadn’t needed to. But he’d waited. He’d left her standing—shaking—with nothing but the memory of his mouth and the echo of a promise.

And God help her, she wasn’t sure how long she could hold out.

Sixteen

It had been precisely eighteen minutes and a half.

Ramsay knew this because he’d glanced at the clock—twice—and because Penelope, seated three feet away from him in a tiny chair that made his knees creak in protest, had yet to say a word.

She was painting. Or rather, she was dabbing a fine brush into a pot of purple, lifting it mid-air with great care, and letting the color drip back down again, over and over, without so much as touching the paper.

He remembered watching Eleanor and Penelope paint together the other day. He’d envied how easily the got along.

The lass looked like she was made for this life.

He felt a small sting that his own niece hadn’t warmed to him yet. Not that it mattered. Penelope had been nothing but difficult from the start. But then, seeing her smile at Eleanor instead ofthrowing things or tearing through the rooms, he had to admit, maybe the child wasn’t so bad after all.

Eleanor.

That lass would be the death of him. But now was not the time or place for these thoughts.

He cleared his throat.

Penelope’s hand stilled for half a breath then resumed its ritual.

“Did you know,” Ramsay began, tone conversational as he shifted in the too-small chair and tried not to knock over the basket of buttons beside him, “that in the Ottoman Empire, purple dye was so valuable it could only be worn by royalty?”

Silence. She blinked slowly. Not at him. At the paint.

Ramsay forged ahead. “They called it ‘tyrian purple.’ Sourced from sea snails. Smelled like rot, I hear, but terribly impressive once dried. Your… princess bird from yesterday might’ve liked it.”

Nothing. Not a twitch of interest, not even a sideways glance.

He pressed his palms to his knees and leaned forward. “I’ve wrestled goats in the mountains of Scotland, you know.”

Penelope blinked.

“That’s true,” he added with mild defensiveness. “Wild ones. Quite terrifying. Excellent balance, no manners at all.”

Still nothing.

He had known, of course, that bonding with children was not his strong suit. He had always assumed he would be the sort of uncle who tossed coins into hands and vanished behind newspapers.

And he was trying with Penelope, but God help him, it was difficult when she stared through him like a particularly persistent ghost.

He tried again. “Do you like horses?”

“No,” she said without missing a beat. Then she dipped her brush into the purple and slowly, agonizingly, touched it to the very edge of the page.

Ramsay sat back, exhaling through his nose. “Why?”

Penelope did not reply.