Page 9 of What a Highlander’s Got to Do

The combination of his title and Lady Swofford’s stentorian tones pulled him from his moldy thoughts.

“Excuse me, Lady Swofford?”

William laughed. “I daresay he was not listening, Mother.”

For this William earned a glower. He seemed decidedly unperturbed.

“Of course he was listening,” Celia insisted, flittering her eyelashes at him as though to say, See. I have defended you.

Egads. He did not wish to be in her debt.

“Do sit,” the Grande Dame commanded, and then, when he did, she waved her hand before her nose and made a moue. “Is that dust?” This, she asked as though it were shite, there on her divan.

“I’ve been riding,” he said. The easiest answer by far. Though he would have loved to see her expression had he said it was shite. William had promised him a nice, quiet hunting trip. His mother and sister would be in York, he said. We’ll be alone, he said. It had been untrue. All of it.

They’d had less than a day of peace before Lady Swofford and Lady Celia had descended. And then, what had William done? Flown the coop for a feathered nest. As often as he could manage it. He shot a frown at William for that, but his friend merely grinned.

“I don’t see why you have to dress like that,” Lady Swofford said, curling her nose as though he had indeed said shite.

“It’s more comfortable, Mother,” William said.

“He’s a viscount. He should dress like one.”

“Can a viscount not be comfortable?”

Honestly. Nick wasn’t sure why he was in this room, if the conversation could be had without him.

“It’s unseemly.”

“Mother, we are on holiday.”

“One is never on holiday from one’s station.”

“I think he looks handsome like that.” This from Celia, in something of a gush with more fluttering lashes. She completely ignored her mother’s horrified expression.

“What would the duchess say?” Lady Swofford peered at him like a bird, blinking in rapid succession.

Clearly the good woman had never met Nick’s mother. Duchess or not, she’d been known to garden barefoot, simply because she liked the feel of the dew on her toes. In fact, his riding attire would have been the last complaint on her list.

And she did have a list.

The topmost item was the fact that he was past twenty and showing no visible signs of settling down.

In short, she wanted grandchildren.

He flicked a glance at Celia and then looked away quickly. It wouldn’t do to encourage her. The Season was coming, and Celia had made no secret of the fact that she intended to pursue him through the hallowed halls of Almack’s.

A fate he vowed to avoid like the plague.

“Ah. Cleary,” Her Ladyship crowed at the butler as he trundled into the room with the tea tray.

Nick blew out a sigh of relief. Not that he’d been craving tea, not in the least, but this promised to shift the topic from him to something else. Something he could, perchance, ignore.

“Mother,” William said on a chuckle. “I thought you had tea at the Willoubys’.”

She sniffed and waved her handkerchief before her patrician nose. “I most certainly did, but I could hardly enjoy it, with that hanging over my head.”

“That?” Celia asked, taking a cup from her mother and passing it to William who, in turn, passed it to Nick.