How to Marry a Highlander by Katharine Ashe Page A

turning to see if Lily’s eyes were likewise hazy.
    “I spoke with Yale,” he said. “He admitted that Eads has an unsavory past, but before that there was a tragedy in the family.” He looked grave. “It seems his full sister perished under peculiar circumstances while he was in the East Indies. It drove his father into the grave. Soon after that, when Yale met Eads in the Indies, the earl was in mourning over the death of his wife—a French girl.” Tobias shook his head. “Poor fellow, losing both his sister and wife in so short a time.”
    “I should say so,” she uttered, the butterflies hardening into a lump in her midsection.
    “But Yale did make one thing clear, T. The earl is a man of honor. He said he hadn’t always liked Eads, but he’d trust him with the welfare of a woman any day.”
    Teresa’s heart thudded very fast. “Does that mean that you will allow the wager?”
    Tobias nodded reluctantly. “I’ll allow it.”
    “And you won’t tell Papa or Mama?”
    “I’d be as insane as you to tell them.”
    A bigail was all private smiles and soft blushes on the carriage ride back to the hotel. Lily teased her and Teresa looked for some telltale sign of similar infatuation in the twin’s bright eyes. She found none. For his part, Tobias displayed no more symptoms of love-struck distraction.
    As though he had been watching for their carriage, Lord Eads met them before the hotel. A boy holding a saddled horse waited nearby.
    Lily and Effie told their brother of their activities while still standing on the street like the veriest hoydens, but Teresa couldn’t bring herself to hurry them inside. She liked simply watching him. His whiskers were gone, leaving his jaw smooth and hard. A new coat stretched across his wide shoulders, his buckskins were fine, his boots shone, and his cravat was beautifully starched. He looked like a gentleman. But even without his rough Highland patina he made her pulse quicken.
    “Are you coming or going, my lord?” she said as the others finally climbed the stairs to go inside.
    He was staring at the hotel door through which his sisters had disappeared. “What did ye do to Abby?”
    “I don’t mind it that you have just ignored my question. I know you are discourteous to me because you don’t like me. As for Abigail, I did nothing. The bookseller did. We stopped at the bookshop, which apparently she has already visited several times. I think they’ve developed a tendre for each other.”
    He turned his beautiful gaze upon her. “I niver said I didna like ye.”
    Her heart stumbled. “Then why do you speak to me as you do? And why didn’t you come to the park with us yesterday or to Lady B’s today?”
    He shook his head. “Yer a meddlesome woman.”
    “You’ve just insulted me again.”
    “I’ve no tact, Miss Finch-Freeworth.”
    “That isn’t true. At least, not when you speak to your sisters. You are gracious and solicitous with them. It’s only with me that you are rude. You are trying to frighten me off.”
    “Mebbe.”
    “Well you cannot. Not yet, at least. Now you owe me on our wager, my lord.”
    His cheek creased. “Aye?”
    “Abigail and the bookseller.” She lifted a forefinger. “That is one. I demand payment.”
    “They’re no betrothed yet.” His eyes twinkled.
    “Not yet .” She couldn’t help smiling. “But clearly they like each other. I thought . . .”
    “Ye thought to collect in advance?”
    She was a little breathless. He stood close and she could not now hear the carriages passing or the shouts of an apple vendor on the corner over the pounding of her heart. “I hoped you might consider it.”
    “What? Here in the street?” he said in a low voice.
    Yes . “In private, if you will.”
    “I will.”
    “You will ?”
    “I’m a man o’ my word, miss.” His mouth tilted up at one side.
    “Would you say my name again?” she breathed.
    “Miss Finch-Freeworth.”
    “Teresa, that is.”
    The twinkle in his eyes