for any marriage settlement or contract his brother might have made … “I have no idea. Nor do I care.”
She frowned. “You should. If he dies before you and there are no children, the inheritance—”
“I won’t get a penny and the title will probably go to my cousin Freddy. I was disinherited, remember?”
Finally something dulled those shining eyes.
“I should mention that my brother prefers his women pliant and ignorant, so his wife is likely as uninformed and stupid a young woman as you’re ever likely to meet.”
“Oh?” Esme replied as if about to write a treatise on the MacLachlanns. “Is that a family trait?”
Once more feeling the need to be on the offensive, MacLachlann inched forward so that their knees were nearly touching. “I prefer intelligent women who know what they want and aren’t afraid to ask for it. In fact, intelligent women who are interested in the law fascinate me.”
Especially if the woman regarding him had shining hazel eyes in a pretty, heart-shaped face, with full lips and soft cheeks, and her head proudly poised above a slender, yet shapely body, the proximity of which was proving more of a temptation than he ever would have expected.
An expression flashed in Esme’s bright eyes, but it was gone before he could tell what it was, and the rest of her expression didn’t alter. “I don’t believe you.”
He sat back and laughed as if she were right.
Esme gave a long-suffering sigh. “If we are to work together, you should cease attempting meaningless, flirtatious banter or trying to elicit a reaction from me. Simply convey the information I require if people are to believe you are Augustus and I am your wife.”
Despite his increasing frustration and his own resolve to remember that she hated him, suspicion was not what was being aroused.
“For instance,” she briskly continued, clearly and blessedly ignorant of her effect upon him, “what did your family call you? Quinn? Quintus?”
“Several epithets I don’t care to remember. Since we’re going to be husband and wife, you’d better start referring to me as ‘my lord’ or some form of Dubhagen.”
“Pretending to be husband and wife,” she immediately corrected.
Of course she would want to be precise.
A different sort of expression came to those hazel orbs. Almost … mischievous.
“Dooey,” she declared. “After Doo-agen,” she unnecessarily clarified.
He knew how the name of his family’s title and estate was pronounced.
But Dooey sounded like some sort of dim-witted beast. “You can call me Dubhagen, or my lord. If you call me anything else, I’ll ignore you—or refer to you as my little haggis.”
As he expected, she didn’t like that. “Very well, my lord,” she grudgingly conceded. “What is your sister-in-law’s name?”
This was going to be interesting. “Hortense.”
Esme reared back against the squabs, then her eyes narrowed. “Is it really, or are you just saying that to upset me?”
“It really is,” he honestly admitted. “However, I think it would be best if we avoided the use of first names, even in private. That way, should our ruse be discovered prematurely, nobody can say we were using their names.
“I could call you Horsey,” he proposed as if seriously considering it, although her features were not at all horse-like. “Or my little plum cake.”
He had called her that last Christmas to tease her, but now, when he considered how delectable she looked, it seemed rather fitting.
Good God, had he just thought of Esme McCallan as delectable?
She glared at him as if she could kill him where he slouched. “If you do, I shall call you my dearest ducky.”
Eager to get his feelings back to normal, he not only took up the challenge, but he also upped the ante. “I could call you my sweet encumbrance.”
“My darling incarceration.”
He frowned and sat up straighter. “My beloved shackles.”
She shifted forward, as if being nearer to him spurred her imaginative efforts. “My handsome millstone.”
He told himself not to notice how pretty she looked, or think about her rosy lips, or how it would be to have her looking up at him with desire instead of annoyance.
Or how his traitorous body was responding to her excitement, her appearance and her proximity. “My adorable … punishment.”
“My wonderful pestilence.”
“My dearest—”
“I’ve used that already!” she cried, eyes aglow and full of triumph.
There seemed only one way to snatch victory from defeat—a way that was simply too tempting to resist.
He took hold of her face with his gloved hands and kissed her right on the mouth.
Never had Quintus MacLachlann felt such an immediate, powerful jolt of desire as the one that hit him the moment his lips touched hers. It was like being struck by liquid passion, hot and all-encompassing, enveloping him and filling the air around them.
He would never have guessed how soft and kissable Esme McCallan’s mouth might be. He’d had no idea how much he’d want to keep kissing her, for as long as he could.
Or that he wanted to be the only man who ever kissed her.
But so it was, as he moved his mouth over hers in a hired coach lumbering northward toward Scotland.
Chapter Three
Esme had never been so confused and disconcerted in her life.
Quintus MacLachlann was kissing her and it wasn’t terrible. His mouth was on hers intimately, his lips gently gliding over hers, and she didn’t find the sensation repellent.
Indeed, it was completely intoxicating, as if she’d imbibed the entire contents of Jamie’s brandy bottle in one gulp.
She’d never been kissed before. Never once, in all her life. No man had ever wanted to, or dared. Only MacLachlann—the rogue who’d probably kissed a thousand women in his time, and with no more genuine affection than he’d bestow on a horse or dog he found of use.
Shame and disgust at her own weakness drove Esme backward. Indignation at his bold, disgraceful act followed just as swiftly.
“How dare you?” she demanded as she retreated to the farthest corner of the coach. “You … you … cur! Don’t you ever do that again! If you do, I shall write to my brother immediately and you’ll never work for him again!”
Instead
