One Hot Scot by Suzanne Enoch Page A

had turned to pounding. “For heaven’s sake,” she muttered, and pulled open the door. “What is so ur…” Charlotte began, then nearly swallowed her tongue.
    A wall stood on the front portico. Well, perhaps he wasn’t as wide as a wall, though his shoulders were certainly broad. But he towered over her by a good ten inches, and most of her fellows considered her tall. As all of that rattled nonsensically through her brain, though, what she most noticed were the blue, blue eyes currently glaring icily down his straight, perfectly carved nose at her.
    “I’m here for Rowena MacLawry,” he said without preamble, rich Highland Scot in his voice.
    Charlotte blinked. Winnie, as Rowena had asked them to call her, had arrived less than an hour ago, taking a hack from the coaching inn. As far as she knew, no one else was aware of their visitor’s presence in London. No one but Rowena’s family, that was. They, however, remained in Scotland—so far as she knew.
    “I didnae come all this way to be gaped at,” the mountain stated into the short silence. “Rowena MacLawry. Now.”
    “I was not gaping at you, sir,” Charlotte retorted, though she was quite aware that she didn’t seem to be able to look away from that fierce, stunning countenance. It was if a black-haired god of war had simply … appeared on her doorstep. “Most visitors come to the door with a calling card, or at least with a word or two of polite greeting and introduction before they expect to be allowed past the foyer.”
    His eyes narrowed. It wasn’t ice she saw in that deep blue, Charlotte realized, but something much more heated and angry. “I’m nae a visitor,” he said, steel beneath the soft lilt. “And if the English think a wee lass barring the door is enough to keep me from what’s mine, they’re madder than I recall.”
    His? This was becoming very strange, indeed. And there was no blasted need to be insulting. “I am not a wee anyth—”
    He stepped forward. Putting his large hands around her waist, he lifted her off her feet only to set her down behind him on the portico—all before she could do anything more than take a gasping breath. By then he was well inside Hanover House.
    “Rowena!” he bellowed, striding down the hallway.
    Charlotte settled her skirts and charged after him. “Stop that yelling at once!” she ordered.
    For all the attention he paid her stalking behind him, she might as well have been an insect. “Rowena! I’ll see yer arse here before me, or I’ll knock this house down around yer blasted ears!”
    Longfellow and a trio of footmen dashed out of the sitting room. The big Scot pushed them aside as if they were no more than bowling pins. He shoved into the room they’d exited, Charlotte on his booted heels. Given the physical … presence he radiated, she expected to see Lady Rowena cowering behind a chair. Instead, however, the petite young lady stood in the middle of the room, her color high and her hands on her hips.
    “What the devil are ye doing here, Ranulf?” she demanded.
    “The coach is outside. Ye have one minute to be inside it.”
    “Ran, y—”
    “Fifty-five seconds.”
    Rowena seemed to deflate. As she lowered her head, a tear ran down one cheek. “My things?” she quavered.
    “What … what is the meaning of this, and who the devil are you, sir?” Lord Hest demanded.
    The dark-haired head swiveled to pin the earl with a glare. The devil, indeed. “Glengask.” He returned his attention to Rowena. “Go get Mitchell and yer things. If ye run in the meantime, we’ll return to Glengask by way of St. Mary’s, where I’ll leave ye off. A decade or so with nuns should cool yer heels.”
    Another tear joined the first. “Ye’re a beast, Ranulf MacLawry,” Winnie whispered, and fled past him and Charlotte out of the room.
    “Glengask. Lady Rowena’s brother?” her sister, Jane, said in a thready voice. “The marquis?”
    “Aye,” he returned, his tone still clipped