Rogue with a Brogue by Suzanne Enoch Page A

entered the house again. From the look—and smell—of the morning room just off the foyer, the badger had visited there, as well. Several footmen and maids were in there already, removing torn couch cushions and sweeping up broken vases and candy dishes. The whole room was so … English that Arran tended to avoid it. The smell of badger piss might even make for an improvement.
    â€œYe’ll be able to tell Rowena aboot it tonight,” Ranulf continued. “She and the Hanovers are meeting us at the theater.”
    Damnation . “ All the Hanovers?”
    As he turned toward his office, Ranulf paused. “Jane thinks ye handsome and charming.”
    Arran narrowed his eyes. “Ye cursed me, didnae? All I said was fer ye to be certain ye wanted to bring an English lady to live in the Highlands.” He’d thought it a valid question, given the way their own lives had gone.
    â€œAnd all I said was that I hoped ye found a lass who agreed with yer every word and nae gave ye a moment of trouble. Mayhap ye should be grateful I found ye someone else.”
    It wasn’t an improvement. At the time it had sounded deathly dull. Now, after having firstly become the focus of eighteen-year-old Jane Hanover’s infatuation, and then having an equally bland Scottish lass thrown at him, the idea of being married to just such a creature gave him nightmares. Nightmares that would soon become real.
    â€œYe’re nae a nice man, Ranulf,” he said aloud, as his brother would be expecting some kind of response.
    â€œA word of advice, bràthair : never advise a man nae to marry the woman he cannae live without.”
    â€œIs this Deirdre shite revenge, then?”
    â€œNae. It’s survival.”
    As Arran went upstairs to assess the damage done to his bedchamber and wall, he had to admit to himself that what Ran had said truly surprised him. Not the last bit, but the part about Charlotte. Yes, he’d heard his older brother say he loved Charlotte Hanover, and heard her profess the same to him. But Ranulf was one-and-thirty, four years his senior. He’d become marquis and chief of the clan when Arran had been eleven.
    All the younger siblings knew their brother to be iron-willed, independent, and unwavering. To hear him say he couldn’t live without Charlotte—it spoke of a need, a vulnerability, that Arran hadn’t expected. In a sense, it was even unsettling. They’d all become so accustomed to relying on Ranulf, who relied on no one but himself. And yet after only a few weeks in England Ran had found an outsider, a Sasannach lass, and declared that he needed her.
    Shrugging off his disquiet, if not his frustration, Arran shed his jacket. He pulled a few coins from his pockets, and then a piece of pretty yellow and white muslin. Mary’s walking dress. For a moment he looked at it, turning the fabric over in his hands. He could discard it if he still had a wastebasket, but considering what had already happened with that, keeping it someplace safe would likely be wiser. With a glance at his half-open door he went to his wardrobe and tucked it beneath a pile of cravats. He wasn’t being sentimental. Not over a Campbell. He was merely being cautious.
    That done, he sat down to write Munro. Bear, as he’d been known since their father had prophesied that he would grow to be the size of one, had remained at Glengask to oversee the estate and the clan. He hadn’t wanted to do so, but being the youngest brother—and the youngest sibling excepting Rowena—had to have some sort of penalty attached to it. Considering that Ranulf had thrown Deirdre at the nearest brother, Bear should count himself lucky that he’d stayed behind.
    As he reported about the progress of Ranulf’s engagement, his own soon-expected betrothal, and their luck thus far in keeping Rowena from falling for the charms of some weak-chinned Sasannach lordling, he left out any