Free Mad About the Marquess (Highland Brides Book 2) by Elizabeth Essex

her way already seemed to know the answer. “So you have renewed your acquaintance with the Marquess of Cairn, Quince. How did you find him?” Her tone was everything casual, conversational and disinterested, but Quince was not fooled.
    She settled immediately upon the truth as the surest way to deflect any further interest. “I found him opinionated.”
    Mama laughed, just as Quince had hoped she would. “And who do you not find opinionated, my dear?”  
    “Everyone and anyone who has an opinion contrary to hers,” Plum was quick to criticize. “How on earth did you meet Lord Cairn?”
    By not making mad cow eyes at him . But Quince was saved from actually uttering the remark by Mama’s quick censure.  
    “Plum.” Mama kept her third daughter in check with a word and a look, much as she had with the fourth, youngest and most wayward. To whom she now looked. “After I spoke with Lord Cairn at the Inverness Ball, I thought you and he had another, very long conversation.”
    Oh, no fool Mama.  
    What could Quince say that would hold as much as possible to the truth, without giving anything else away? Lying was much like stealing—the best defense was to take offense. Or evasive action. “We spoke of politics, as I said. Or rather, he spoke of politics, while I pretended to listen.”
    “How interesting.” Mama’s tone was as spotless as her lace kerchief and cuffs. “Such a long time for you to pretend to listen. I would not think your patience was up to such a task.”
    Oh, by jimble. Quince was all appreciation for her mother’s subtle wit—it kept her on her own toes. “I fear Strathcairn’s conversation did about wear my patience out. And we did not even speak of the new government’s proposed Poor Law.”
    “Ah. I begin to see how he might engage you in argument instead of conversation. But what, I wonder, persuaded Lord Cairn that he needed to closet you away to talk politics in the first place?”
    “So she couldn’t escape,” was Plum’s answer.
    Plum might have been happy to poke fun, but Mama was not—she was too clever by half. As was Quince. “He did closet me away, didn’t he? Oh, holy lemon tarts!” Quince pretended to gasp. “You don’t think he has”—she paused for dramatic, and hopefully horrified effect—“any designs upon me?”
    Mama raised an acute eyebrow, but did not stop walking, taking care to keep the full skirts of her robe à la française well above the dirty cobbles. “His lordship does not strike me as the type of man who has ‘designs.’ But other than that, I cannot yet tell where his interest in you lies,” her mother admitted.
    “No,” Quince and Plum said at the same time.  
    “He can’t be interested in her,” Plum carried on before Quince spoke over her.  
    “You cannot think that he means to court me?”
    “Again, I cannot tell what the marquess means to do,” Mama said. “It is a strange man who makes love by talking politics. But I would caution you now to be wary of him, Quince. He has…” Mama searched for the right word. “…History. You would be wise to be leery of him.”
    “Mama!” Plum and Quince chorused for entirely different reasons.
    But Mama had her own ideas about what Quince ought to do with Strathcairn. “The Marquess of Cairn is hugely influential. And handsome to boot. Not to mention quite attractively rich, and apparently attracted to you. As are you attracted to him, though you try to hide it—you never would have talked to him at all if you were not. But there is an old scandal still attached to his name.”
    “What scandal?”
    Mama pursed her lips closed, and didn’t answer the question. “I know you well enough to know that warning you off will only increase his attraction for you, so I will only caution—be very careful how you take anything the man has to offer.”
    And Mama didn’t even know what the man had actually offered.  
    “Yes, Mama.” She would be very careful how she conducted her