How the Scot Was Won by Caroline Linden

3

He was going to hell.

What’s more, he deserved to go to hell, and burn there for eternity, tormented by every devil in the place.

Felix Duncan lay perfectly still, desperately hoping the images bursting like lightning flashes against the insides of his eyelids were remnants of dreams and fantasies other than proof of the sin he’d committed the night before.

Agnes St. James, head thrown back to bare her beautiful throat all the way down to her glorious breasts.

The pink of her nipple, glistening wet from his tongue.

The feel of her stockinged legs around his waist.

The taste of her mouth, hot and yielding and whisky-flavored.

The sound of her voice, giggling and flirting, breathless and tipsy, urgent and lustful.

The soft, slippery, tight grip of her body around his fingers.

Sweat broke out on his brow—all over his body. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Had he really? Had he really been so incredibly, breathtakingly, criminally stupid? Had he seduced a young woman, the sister of one of his oldest friends? He said a fervent prayer of thanks that he’d stopped short of actual consummation.

Not that it would pardon what he had done.

Which he could not fully remember.

A tap at the door interrupted his despair. “Good morning, sir,” called Callum, his manservant. “Are you wanting to rise yet?”

No, he rather thought he would prefer to stay in bed forever. Then he wondered what Agnes must be thinking this morning, and flung himself out of bed with a violence that made his head spin like a top and his stomach revolt. It was only thanks to Callum’s quick reflexes that he retched into the chamberpot and not all over the carpet.

“Thank you,” he panted several minutes later, sprawled on the floor, one arm around the pot. Callum handed him a steaming cloth, which Felix slapped over his face.

“A hard night, sir?” Callum sounded sympathetic as he moved about the room. There was the splash of water being poured into the basin, then the scrape of the razor against the strop.

“Aye,” croaked Felix.

“I feared as much. You looked in a bad way when you came home.”

Felix lay still, feeling somewhat better with his face covered by the hot towel. “How so?” He had no memory of reaching his lodgings last night, yet here he was.

“Soused,” said his man. “Raving about a marvelous night and pleasures unimaginable one minute, then lapsing into dire melancholy the next. You said you’d been wicked, deserved to be shot, then smiled and said it was all worth it. I didn’t know what to make of it.”

Perhaps Callum would just draw the razor across his throat. That would solve the matter, thought Felix bleakly.

He propped himself up against the bedpost and tried to think. His brain felt fogged, but he managed to reach one firm conclusion: he had to do something. He’d had his hands between her legs, her breast in his mouth.

For a moment his mind lingered on that, the most glorious moment of his life. By God she was beautiful, even before he saw her breasts in moonlight. And playful; his mouth curved at the thought of their haphazard dance. He remembered laughing as he swung her in his arms, feeling positively buoyant with joy.

But after that sort of intimacy, she would expect something from him. She deserved something from him.

He hauled himself to his feet with the aid of the bedpost and staggered to the basin. “I have to go out,” he said, and plunged his face into the water.

An hour later, shaved, washed, and dressed, though only marginally steadier on his feet, he reached Parliament Square. The clerk, Mr. Mathison, bowed. “Good morning, Mr. Duncan.”

“Good morning, Mathison.” He cocked his head questioningly toward the office door.

Thankfully, the clerk nodded. “He is free at present, sir.”

With a sigh of relief, Felix let himself in.

Lachlan Duncan barely glanced up from the thick tome spread open in front of him. “A bit early to see the likes of you,” he said by way of greeting.

Felix lowered himself gingerly into a chair. “And a good morning to you, Da.”

His father eyed him. “It appears to be treating you harshly.”

He swallowed. “I’ve…done something.”

His father’s brow quirked. “Are the sheriff’s officers at your heels?”

“Not that sort of something.” He was sweating again, but he resisted the urge to blot his face.

“Don’t say you’re fighting a duel.”

“Not that I know of.” Although he might be, if Andrew St. James found out what he had done.

“Ah.” His father pushed aside the book. “Then what is it?”

“It involves,” he began carefully, “a lady.”

Lachlan’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Is it Miss Hill?”

This was the part Felix was dreading. Catriona Hill was the daughter of Lord Lindow, one of his father’s closest friends and colleagues, and Lachlan had been hinting for a few months now that she would make a very suitable wife.

He was probably correct. Catriona was attractive and amiable, with sense and humor. Felix had known her most of his life, and they got on well together. She had a large dowry and impressive connections—unlike Agnes St. James.

But he’d never had the urge to bring Catriona fresh currant buns, or kiss her senseless, or lose his mind and make love to her on a sofa—

“No.” A bead of perspiration ran down his temple and he swiped it away.

“And why not? She’s a very sensible choice.”

“This has naught to do with Miss Hill.”

His father leaned back in his chair. “A shame, that,” he said grimly. “How bad is it?”

“I… I don’t… precisely know.” His hands curled into fists on the chair arms. “But what I remember is bad enough.”

“Bloody hell, lad,” his father growled, running one hand over his close-cropped head. His peruke stood on the stand behind him, the only hair Lachlan wore these days. “You’ve got to pull yourself about. Getting pickled at the Assembly Rooms is unbecoming.”

“How do you know?” He started upright in astonishment. “How do you know where I was last night?”

“People tell me things,” retorted his father. “I only listen, aye?” He leaned forward. “How bad?”

Felix rubbed his forehead, abandoning the fight. He must have drunk far more than he remembered. He’d never felt this dreadful after a night out. “I need to make a… a proposal of marriage.”

“Christ!” Lachlan erupted out of his seat. “What were you thinking?”

Obviously I was not, Felix replied, but only inside his aching head. “As you say, I was…a trifle tipsy.” Drunk as a wheelbarrow. “In my every memory, she was willing, but she’s a respectable lady.”

His father grunted. “Please say she’s a widow.”

Felix scowled at the peruke on the faceless head and said nothing.

“What the bloody hell were you thinking?” snapped his father again.

“We were drinking whisky—both of us—and things… happened.”

“Well, perhaps not enough!” Lachlan exclaimed. “Did she demand any promises?”

Felix knew better than to think that mattered.

Lachlan sighed at his silence. “Before you do anything irrevocable, make certain that you must. It’s a bad way to start a marriage. You’ll have to see this lass every day at your breakfast table.” He paused, eyeing Felix with a frown. “Better yet, wait a day. Go home and sleep it off, and see how things stand tomorrow. You look pitiable.”

I feel pitiable. “If I must, I should do it at once,” he argued, imagining once again what Agnes must be thinking and feeling.

His father shook his head, looking furious, then paused. “Perhaps she’ll say no.”

His head felt stuffed with wool. “If it pleases you to hope so,” he mumbled.

Lachlan grunted and resumed his seat. He pulled the law book toward him again and bent over it in dismissal. “Nothing about this pleases me. Notify me of her answer.”

“I will.”

He left his father’s chambers and headed for the coffeehouse, hoping to settle his stomach and steady his brain. William Hunter was in disgustingly good spirits when Felix collapsed into the chair across from him. “Looking haggard today,” he said, watching over the wire rims of his spectacles.

Felix raised one hand and Helen came over. “Coffee,” he begged. “Scalding hot and as strong as the devil.”

Hunter’s shoulders shook with laughter as he made a note on the brief before him. “Feeling haggard as well, I see.”

Felix propped his elbows on the table and put his face in his palms. “Wheest, man.”

His partner laughed harder.

He lifted his head. “Do you recall the young woman last night, toasting Gillespie with us?”

Hunter’s brows went up and he glanced toward the table by the window where Agnes and Mrs. Ramsay usually sat. “I do indeed. The pretty girl you flirt with here.”

Oh God. He’d forgotten about that, his very public attentions to Agnes. “Have you heard anything about her today?”

Hunter snorted, turning back to the brief. “No, why?”

Right. Hunter had no wife, no sister, just an older lady who kept his rooms and read her Bible when she wasn’t cleaning. “I shouldn’t have let her join us,” he murmured to himself. Even if it had been a thrill to see Agnes toss back her whisky.

Good lord, was that why she’d kissed him? Surely not; the drams had been small, and she’d only had two. Maybe three. That wasn’t enough to make a lady drunk, was it?

“No, likely not,” said Hunter. “More to the point, how did your lovemaking succeed?”

Felix stared blankly.

“When you left us,” prompted his friend. “No one saw you for an age.”

His heart froze. “What?” he croaked.

Hunter peered over his spectacles again. “Did you summon the nerve to kiss the lass?”

God save him. It felt like there was an anvil atop his chest.

“Will her brother thrash you?” Hunter changed tacks when Felix just stared at him, speechless with horror.

He was sweating profusely now, and his eyes burned. Andrew St. James would indeed thrash him—if not for the whisky, certainly for what came after it. He had to make things right with Agnes before her brother returned to Edinburgh.

A smirking Helen brought his coffee, fiercely hot and strong. Felix burned his tongue on the first sip but drained the cup anyway.

“Have you spoken to MacDonald about this?” Hunter pushed the brief in front of him and tapped one paragraph. “It’s a reach, in my opinion.”

The words were mere wavy lines on the paper. People had noticed him leaving with Agnes. Who gave a bloody damn what the brief said? “No,” he managed to say, lurching to his feet. “I’ve got an appointment—your pardon—”

He barely made it to the alley before throwing up against a brick wall.