The Devil Wears Kilts by Suzanne Enoch Page B

apt description. “I’m attempting to be diplomatic.”
    “Ah.” To her surprise, he chuckled. “The clansmen called my father Seann Monadh—Old Mountain. That man was tough as winter and strong as a draft horse.” Obvious affection in his voice, he smiled a little, then briefly lowered his head. “They say he drooned.”
    It took her a moment to decipher what he’d said, partly because it was so unexpected. “He drowned?” she repeated, to be certain. “I’m so sorry.”
    “Aye. Drowned,” he said, this time exaggerating the vowel sounds. “Though I imagine having his hands bound and his head held under the water makes it closer to murder.”
    Good heavens. Charlotte put a hand over her chest, though she wasn’t certain why. His words, the ill-hidden pain and anger in them, had already dug into her heart. “I take it not everyone agreed with your assessment?” she asked after a moment.
    Blue eyes met hers. “Nae, they didnae. I was fifteen when it happened, but I think that’s old enough to ken what rope burns around a man’s wrists look like whether or not they were bound when we found him, and to realize what torn sleeves and scratched arms mean.” He took a slow breath. “None o’ that signifies, I suppose, except to answer ye when ye ask why I’m so cautious.”
    She couldn’t even imagine what he must have felt, to know something even more foul had been done on top of what was already a tragedy. Just the image in her mind of someone binding and drowning her own mild, jovial father made her fight back tears. “I have no words,” she whispered.
    Ranulf shrugged. “’Twas sixteen years ago.”
    “Do you know who did it?”
    This time his grim smile chilled her to her bones. “That’s a tale for another time—when ye and I are better acquainted.”
    “You mean, when you’ve decided you can trust me.”
    The expression on his face eased a little. “Ye’ve a way of cutting to the heart of a matter, lass.”
    That made her smile, though she wasn’t entirely certain it was a compliment. “I’ve found there are fewer misunderstandings that way.”
    Ahead of her, Janie turned in the saddle. “Char, the Lester twins are over there,” she said, half mouthing the words behind her hand. “Please don’t come over.”
    With a sigh, Charlotte nodded and reined in her gray mare, Sixpence. Ranulf drew up beside her. “What was that all aboot?”
    “Jane’s in love with either Phillip or Gregory Lester, and she has some silly notion that I find them … ridiculous.”
    “‘Either’?” he repeated, lifting an eyebrow. “I take that to mean she doesnae know which one?”
    “They’re entirely interchangeable.”
    He continued to look at her, bafflement in his expression. “Then why doesnae yer father tell Jane to keep her distance from them? Or tell them to keep themselves well away from her?”
    As he likely wouldn’t appreciate it, Charlotte stifled her laugh. “That would only convince her that she was Juliet and one or other of the Lesters was Romeo. Being a star-crossed lover doomed to pain and longing seems terribly romantic to a young lady, you know.”
    “Hm. Doom and pain does explain some of the looks I’ve been getting from various lasses, anyway,” he returned with another glance around them. “I suppose there is something … intriguing about wanting someone ye cannae—and shouldnae—have.”
    His gaze when it returned to her sent something unsettled and shivering through her. Were his words a message meant for her? Or was he merely speaking hypothetically and attempting to ruffle her feathers? He did seem quite proficient at that, after all. “Anyway,” she resumed, “the more time Janie spends conversing with the Lesters, the more likely she is to realize all on her own that they’re both complete nodcocks.”
    With that she turned Sixpence toward the bridge leading across the Serpentine and to the less crowded half of the park. It took more willpower than