Regency Proposal. Ann Lethbridge

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      She turned to Ian, her face full of worry. ‘There is Alice. Lady Hawkhurst as she is now. Hawkhurst is a formidable man. He might be able to convince them I left before all this occurred. Father would listen to him.’

      ‘You’ll have to be careful,’ McIver warned. ‘They’ll be searching the glens for you both by morning.’

      Ian stared at McIver. ‘Are you proposing I escort her there?’

      ‘Aye. Unless you have a better idea.’

      A curse sprang to his lips; he swallowed it. ‘Perhaps if you bat your beautiful eyes at them, Lady Selina, and tell them you were out for a walk, they’ll believe you.’

      ‘I’m willing to give it a try,’ she said with a defiant little toss of her head.

      ‘Laird, if I might have a word with you in private?’ Angus said. He looked up at Lady Selina. ‘Clan business, you ken, my lady.’

      ‘I suppose you are afraid I will tell them your secrets,’ she said. ‘Well, I’m not so poor spirited. However, speak privately if you must.’ She walked a few steps away.

      Ian drew closer to Angus. ‘What is it, man? More bad news?’

      ‘It depends on your point of view.’ Angus gripped his arm hard. ‘I ought to beat you to within an inch of your life for involving her in your doings.’

      Anger rising in his craw, Ian stepped toe to toe with the man. McIver was big, but Ian was taller and fitter. He clenched his fists and pitched his voice low. ‘Speak your piece, man.’

      ‘Marry the lass.’

      The words hit him like a punch to the jaw. Words would not form for a moment or two. More shocking yet was the deep sense of longing filling his chest, as if some hitherto-unrecognised hope had been forced to the surface. No doubt the wrong part of his anatomy doing the thinking. ‘Are you mad? She’s Albright’s daughter.’

      The child of his family’s enemy. That was why he’d driven her off all those years ago, when he realised he was in danger of losing himself in her velvet-brown eyes. When he’d felt the stirrings in his blood and in his heart—and seen his brothers’ horror.

      Albright would never have countenanced their friendship, let alone anything closer.

      And Andrew. Andrew would haunt his every moment if he did such a thing. If not for Selina’s request, and his lingering guilt at the way he had treated her, Drew would still be alive. Instead, he’d forced his brother to leave London and his pursuit of the heiress, his answer to the clan’s financial troubles, who just happened to be Selina’s good friend. Not only that, Ian had shipped the furious Andrew off to America, where he’d been killed. How could he marry a woman who had twisted him around her little finger to the detriment of his brother? He certainly didn’t deserve the surge of happiness the thought of it brought him. ‘You are out of your mind.’

      ‘I’m being practical, laddie. Marry her and even if they badger her until kingdom come, her word is no good in a court of law.’

      ‘I don’t believe Lady Selina would give evidence against me.’

      ‘She might do her best to hold out, but she’s made a complete fool of that young Sassenach. Let her go in there now and you might as well go in, too, with a noose draped around your neck. It’ll be the end for the folks around here. With you gone there will be nothing to stop them from clearing the land. As I said, Dunstan is threatening retribution against her and against her father. Who do you think she will choose, once you are hiding out in the hills?’ His grey brows drew together. ‘Think about it, Gilvry. No matter what happens, she is ruined. I just can’t see her letting her father be implicated, too.’

      Damn it to hell. It was too hard a choice for any daughter to make. She owed Ian nothing and her father everything. But marriage? ‘There must be another way.’

      Angus looked grim. ‘Your brother Andrew cut a swathe through the lasses in every glen from here to Edinburgh, but you are the Laird and she is a lady. Have you no honour?’

      Resentment at the distaste in the other man’s tone fired his temper. ‘I haven’t touched the lass.’ He flushed red as he recalled their kiss and was glad of the poor light. But it was only a kiss. ‘I didn’t ask her to follow me tonight.’

      McIver sighed. ‘But she did. Will you let her suffer for trying to help? You are not the man I thought, if you do not do the right thing.’

      He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to focus, to see his way clear. He needed time to think. Time to plan. ‘I will take her to her friend, but that is all I will do.’

      McIver shook his head as if disappointed. ‘Think on what I have said, lad. In the meantime, travel as far as you can from here before it is light. You’ll find a welcome in the glens until you get far enough south. Do not dally. There will be a price on your head by morning.’

      Reeling with the conflicting thoughts in his head, Ian returned to Selina with McIver on his heels.

      ‘Well?’ she said.

      Ian gave her a rueful grin. ‘I will take you to your friend.’

      She turned to McIver. ‘Are you sure this is the only way?’

      Angus nodded. ‘Go with Gilvry or your help will have been for nothing.’ He plucked a saddlebag off the rocks where they’d first seen him. ‘There’s water in here, oats and supplies, some coin. Enough to see you on your way. Get a message to your brother, Laird, when you have things in hand.’ He emphasised the last word with a hard look.

      Ian didn’t like McIver’s glibness. He seemed to have thought everything out, as if he had some purpose of his own. But he couldn’t see any alternative.

      Certainly not marriage.

      He looked up. Dawn was reaching into the sky and he could see Selina’s features more clearly and the anxiety in her eyes.

      ‘We need to go. Now,’ he said.

      Wearily, she nodded her agreement and let him throw her up on Beau. She clung there looking down at him with worry and trust.

      If anything, it made him feel worse. Somehow he had to find a way out of this mess. For them both. He mounted before her and looked down at Angus. ‘Tell Niall I will send word.’

      He turned Beau around and dug in his heels.

Chapter Eight

      Selina had no choice but to cling to the firm waist of the man before her as he turned across country. A dull ache filled her chest. In trying to help Ian, she’d ruined her own future. If only she’d stayed in London, none of this would have happened.

      And Ian would have been caught.

      It was all the fault of that stupid man Ranald. If he would have just taken her warning to Ian, she could have gone home and no one would have been the wiser.

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