The Devil Wears Kilts by Suzanne Enoch Page A

he silently agreed. Not only would it be nearly impossible to make an escape, but they’d likely never see any trouble coming until it was far too late.
    He cocked his head. Much as he hated to admit it, any attackers would have precisely the same difficulty. And a hundred witnesses on top of it. The Campbells might risk it anyway, but luckily they were more likely to call him out to his face than stab at his kin behind his back. Clan Gerdens concerned him more, but mainly because he had nothing more than suspicions and third-hand rumors about what they might have been up to.
    “It’s fairly well ordered once you join the throng,” Charlotte commented on the tail end of his thoughts. He seemed to have drawn even with her sometime during the ride to the park, though he couldn’t consciously remember doing so.
    “Dunnae any of ye have anything better to do?”
    Well, that seemed unfair, Charlotte thought, though she had to admit that Hyde Park was quite crowded for this early in the day. Unusually so. Generally, visiting didn’t begin in earnest until after luncheon. “There’s no Parliament today,” she said, remembering her father packing up his fishing gear this morning. “And I believe there are to be races on the Thames this afternoon.”
    They bypassed Rotten Row, as the morning was quite warm and none of the ladies—or she, at least—wanted to bother with the canter. Charlotte did point the riding trail out to Glengask, as he looked like a man who required exercise. In fact, as she sent another sideways glance at the marquis, she decided he was quite fit. He must have spent a great deal of his time in the Highlands out of doors.
    As they joined the line of riders and carriages along the path, she realized she wasn’t the only one noticing Lord Glengask, either. From the fluttering eyelashes and batting fans, half the female populace was either flirting, or fighting off a horde of midges.
    Ranulf kept up the slow pace, ostensibly more interested in seeking out likely shrubbery-shrouded hiding places than in all the pretty eyes cast in his direction. Was this single-minded enemy-hunting of his why he remained unmarried? By her calculations he was somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties, he had wealth, land, and a great deal of power—and yet there was no Lady Glengask. Not that she cared about that, of course; she was merely curious.
    Jane and Winnie had somehow managed to put a barouche and a phaeton between them. Ranulf gave a subtle wave of his fingers, and his two outriders pressed ahead to join them. The dogs evidently knew their duty as well, because they kept pace on either side of his big bay as if they’d all done it a hundred times before. An elderly woman, Lady Gavenly, she thought, passed by in a barouche, a small yapping dog struggling in her arms. The bigger deerhound, Fergus, swiveled his head around to look at the little thing, then returned to his walk. Evidently small yapping dogs were below notice in the Highlands. Either that, or the hounds had already eaten their daily meal, and weren’t hungry.
    “Speaking theoretically,” she said, wondering if she was about to begin another disagreement, “aren’t you, as the chief of your clan, the one who should be the most protected?” What she wanted to ask was whether all of this was truly necessary. Especially in the middle of Mayfair, in the middle of the morning, in the middle of the Season.
    “I know aboot trouble,” he returned in a thoughtful tone. “Rowena, for the most part, doesnae. At home it didnae so much matter, because she always had clan around her. Here, I’m beginning to wish I’d encouraged her to take it all a wee bit more seriously.”
    “How do you know about trouble? I’m not questioning that you do; just about what’s happened to make you so cautious.”
    He glanced sideways at her. “That’s very carefully worded, lass. Am I so fierce?”
    Charlotte couldn’t help her smile, though it was a fairly