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

fashion to spend her allowance on new clothing. Anything to keep them all from the truth—that she dressed not to impress, but to blend into the scenery. “It’s too true that Plum is all that stands between me and fashion ignominy. Without her, I wouldn’t know the difference between a polonaise and a round gown. Alas, if I only cared a whit about it. But I don’t. Wit and not wardrobe, is my motto.”
    Plum made a huffy sound of derision. “What you think passes for wit—“  
    “—is really just sarcasm. Yes, thank you, Plum.” If Plum thought that calling attention to Quince’s admittedly myriad faults would bring her Strathcairn’s attention, good luck and Godspeed to her. “I’ll leave you and Mama to the fashionable dressmaker of your choice, while I go on to the unfashionable one of mine, though you ken full well her needlework is exquisite.” She gestured meaningfully to Plum’s elegantly embroidered skirts. Quince might not care overmuch for fashion, but she cared about Jeannie. But she also had to be careful not to call too much attention to her friend, either.
    Quince decided more discretion was the better part of valor, nodded to both Plum and Mama, and made Strathcairn the shallowest of curtseys. “My lord.”
    “Look at her, going on her own without so much escort as a maid. Really, Mama, it’s too bad of her.”
    But her sister’s protestations had the opposite effect of her intentions. “With your permission, Lady Winthrop,” Strathcairn broke in, “I’ll leave you ladies to the accompaniment of your maid and footman, and give wee Lady Quince the safety of my escort to wherever it is she is going.”
    Poor Plum, hoisted on the petard of her own complaint. She’d never learn.
    “Thank you, my Lord Cairn,” Mama answered carefully. “That will be acceptable. Although I can easily see your progress up the High Street to Menleith’s Close.”
    “And so you have been warned,” Quince said under her breath as Strathcairn touched his hat to her mother, and they turned westward up the pavement, “that we are watched.”
    “Not for the first time, I’ll wager.” He fell into step beside her, far enough apart that not even the hem of his fine coat brushed her skirts, but not so far she could not smell the subtle hint of warm vanilla and citrus spice that wafted off him like an evening breeze.
    The scent slid under her skin like an opiate. It was a sort of exquisite torture to be this close to him, and not touch him. Not fist her hands in his lapel, and pull his lips to hers. Not knock his hat to the ground, and muss that perfectly powdered hair. “Nay, not for the first time. My mother has warned me away from you.”
    “Just as she has warned me away from you.”
    As there was nothing she could say to that, they walked on in silence, until they came to the narrowing of the street at Nether Bow. There, she stopped on the pavement. “I thank you for the courtesy, my lord, but I had much better go on alone. My dressmaker’s shop is just down the close.” She indicated the long alleyway reaching north off the High Street. “And her shop is so tiny, you’d be entirely in the way. So I’ll thank you”—she gave him a perfunctory curtsey—“and bid you good day.” She waved back to Mama, who gathered her full skirts in one hand, as if she were making ready to go.
    Strathcairn, smart fellow that he was, understood what Quince hoped had been polite caution in her voice, and without being obvious, positioned himself around the corner, where he could not be seen. And he did not dally, but came straight to his point. “I have thought much about our last conversation, wee Quince. And the bargain we struck.”
    She couldn’t decide if she liked or loathed his continual reference to her as “wee Quince.” It made her feel small in a way that had nothing to do with age, or height. Mostly. Because he also said it so nicely that it felt almost…intimate.  
    “Have you? Thinking