Geddes had never intentionally lied, especially if the lie could harm someone. He also knew he was not very good at deception. And now, as he walked from the harbor master’s office, the letter tucked carefully away in his breast pocket, he rationalized that if he kept the good news to himself for just a short while, it wouldn’t be a lie and it would hurt no one.
It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the duke to keep his promise—he did. But with the wedding mere days away, Geddes wanted everything to go as planned. News of the children would be icing on the cake, so to speak.
In the distance, the faded sign of the Potted Haugh, Angus MacNab’s pub, creaked in the wind. Some found it amusing that the pub was named for a spiced, jellied meat. Geddes just found the place disgusting.
As he approached, he heard MacNab’s voice raised in anger, but Geddes wasn’t surprised, nor was he alarmed. MacNab was a surly, unpleasant man. Geddes could think of no logical reason why he continued to defend the bastard to Rosalyn, except that each time they argued about him, her friend Fenella Begley was in the mix. He supposed that was what got his ire up, for the mention of the woman’s saintly attributes set him off and he didn’t know why.
The pub door opened, slamming against the outside wall, and MacNab stepped onto the cobbled walk, snarling slurs at a customer.
Nay, not a customer. Speak of the devil. Geddes slowed his steps.
Fenella Begley stood nose to nose with the pub owner, hands on trouser-clad hips and breathing fire.
“You can’t make her do that,” she spat. “Her arm isn’t healed from the last accident.”
“That weren’t my fault,” MacNab roared. “She’s a clumsy bitch, is all.”
“And you are a mean son of a whore,” she volleyed, appearing to egg him on.
MacNab reared back. “I’ll teach you to call me names.” He raised his beefy paw to strike.
Geddes stepped in. “MacNab!”
The surly good-for-nothing turned toward Geddes, his arm still raised. “This ain’t your affair.”
Geddes ambled toward the two of them. “Is this what makes you a man, MacNab? Striking women?”
“I said it ain’t your affair.” He glared at Geddes, his ham-hock hands clenched into fists so tight his knuckles were white.
Geddes realized that the man could beat him to within an inch of his life. “Go back inside and see to your other guests.”
“I ain’t finished with this one,” he said.
“Leave her alone.”
“You gonna make me?”
Geddes sighed and shook his head. Arguing with a bull like Angus MacNab would only lead to disastrous results, and although Geddes wasn’t necessarily a vain man, he did value the current placement of his facial features. “You could snap me like a twig, MacNab, we both know that.”
The pub owner’s massive chest expanded, as if he’d taken Geddes’s words as a compliment.
Geddes glanced around. A few shoppers slowed their steps but gave the two a wide berth. “Do what you wish to me, but even you wouldn’t sink so low as to strike a woman, would you? That wouldn’t be a fair fight.”
MacNab glared at him and then lunged toward Fenella. She stepped back and expelled a surprised squeak. He guffawed, apparently getting pleasure out of scaring her, then disappeared inside the pub.
Fenella Begley quickly gathered her wits and strutted toward him, her green eyes filled with fire. “I didn’t need your help.”
Geddes raised a cynical eyebrow and gave her a little bow. “You’re welcome, madam.” He turned and started to walk away.
“Geddes Gordon,” she called after him.
He paused, curious to know what she wanted.
“If you really want to help, you can open your eyes to what’s happening to some of the women in this village.”
He turned slightly and gazed at her. It irked him that Rosalyn found no fault with her. Nay, she praised her to the bonnie braes and beyond.
Geddes had always taken notice of her unfeminine attire. He had once thought her manly; he was wrong. As he studied her, he realized she was really quite magnificent, especially when she was fired up. Although her shirt was mannish, it was open at the throat, exposing skin that was like porcelain, white and smooth. He thought that perhaps he even saw the shadow of her breast. Her short-cropped curls were also unconventional, yet he found they softened her features, even when she frowned quite mutinously, as she did now.
“I beg your pardon, madam?”
Her gaze narrowed. “Men. Do you truly believe that you have a right to physically abuse those who are weaker and smaller than you?”
“I certainly don’t—”
“Do you know that bastard, Angus MacNab, pushed his wife down the stairs and broke her arm? Do you realize that he forced her to return to work before it healed, and now she has broken it again?”
Geddes was intrigued by her passionate nature. “It’s not—”
“And,” she interrupted, coming closer and poking a finger at his chest, “she isn’t the only wife to come to me, broken and bruised, because that old sot of a physician is too drunk to treat them, or to care, for that matter. I’m bloody sick of the way women are treated, not just here, but everywhere. But by damn, here is where I am, and I intend to continue to do what I do until some bloody indignant bastard of a husband puts a bullet through my brain.”
Fire continued to flame in her eyes and her cheeks were flushed, as if fevered. Her lips were a natural dusky shade of pale plum and she had a dimple in her chin. Why, she was a splendid creature! Why had he not seen it before? He’d been so busy listing the qualities that annoyed him, he hadn’t actually seen who she really was. Hoping to mollify her, he said, “Madam, what do you expect me to do about it?”
She stood back, hands on hips once again, and studied him, her gaze roaming over him. He hoped the flush at his neck didn’t rise into his face, for her scrutiny was almost sexual.
“You’re not without influence, Geddes Gordon. You have the duke’s ear. Surely between the two of you something will spring to mind.” With an almost coquettish smile, she turned and strode away.
Geddes watched her fine behind move beneath her trousers and for the first time in years, he felt a fire in his own.
• • •
Fen strolled toward the mercantile just as Reggie came out with a fifty-pound bag of flour over his shoulder. “Is that all of it?”
Reggie nodded and frowned, gesturing toward the pub.
“It was nothing.” She stepped up into the conveyance and sat on the padded bench.
He dumped the sack of flour into the back of the wagon and then pointed at Geddes, who continued to watch her from a distance. He hadn’t moved. She bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from smiling. “Yes, he intervened.”
Reggie nodded and then hauled his enormous bulk into the wagon next to her.
As the cart rattled over the cobbled street, Geddes tipped his hat at her. She gave him a gentle nod, but forced herself not to smile.
But as they rode home, she thought about him. Although they had sparred often, she hadn’t thought much about him as a man. In fact, she’d always thought he was rather bland. But now that she had a chance to study him, she found his physique quite impressive. She liked a man who was tall and lean, yet wide through the shoulders and narrow in the hips. And now she tried to imagine him without clothes, wondering if his strategic body hair was as fair as that on his head.
He interested her—she had seen him redden as she looked at him. Perhaps he was shy; he was certainly proper. It was whispered around the island that he was a man who didn’t like women. That was nonsense. He simply hadn’t found one who interested him. Yet.
She settled against the seat and allowed herself a small smile.