Devil in Disguise (The Ravenels #7) by Lisa Kleypas

“I do—” Keir began, and paused as someone emerged from the distillery. Following his gaze, Merritt saw Ethan Ransom approaching.

Ethan smiled at her. “I told MacRae I thought you’d show up here, no matter what he or anyone else said.”

“Why?” she asked sheepishly. “I suppose I must strike you as remarkably obstinate?”

He shrugged and shook his head. “It’s only that my wife would have done the same thing.”

Keir kept his arm around Merritt as he turned more fully toward Ethan. “Ransom … I’d be obliged if you’d send one of your men to fetch the sheriff. Before we’re beset by assassins, it seems we have the small matter of a wedding to take care of.”





Chapter 36


AFTER KEIR COLLECTED MERRITT’S leather valises, she went into the cottage with him. Wallace followed, panting happily. The home’s interior was brighter and airier than Merritt had expected, with white plastered walls and windows with diamond-shaped panes to let in the light. A broad brick fireplace with a polished copper hood warmed the main room. Although the floor was paved with hard gray slate, it was neatly swept and softened by colorful handmade rugs. The far end of the room opened to a small kitchen with a stove and a plumbed sink.

Keir carried the valises into a small, sparsely furnished bedroom with a fine four-poster bed with fluted columns.

Merritt unpinned her traveling hat and set it on the bed. She ran her fingertips lightly over a beautifully quilted coverlet. “Did your mother make this?” she asked, feeling oddly bashful.

“Aye, she was great on sewing.” He turned her to face him and unfastened her traveling cloak. “If there was anyone I trusted to take you back home,” he said, “I’d put you on the next steamer back to Glasgow. I dinna want you traveling alone again, Merry. You shouldn’t have come.”

“I know,” she said contritely. “I’m sorry.”

His mouth twisted. “You’re no’ sorry,” he said.

“I’m sorry you’re not happy about it.”

His brooding gaze swept over her. “What’s this about being ill on the ship?”

“It was just a moment of queasiness. I’m quite well now.”

After removing her cloak and laying it on the bed, Keir took her shoulders in his hands. “Are you willing to wed me?”

“It’s what I want more than anything,” she said.

He continued to frown. “Dinna complain to me if you change your mind later.”

She smiled up at him. “I won’t change my mind.”

Hearing muffled conversation from the main room, and the sounds of someone bustling in the kitchen, Keir reluctantly released her. “’Tis best to say as little as possible about Ransom,” he told her. “I told Slorach he’s representing a well-heeled whisky merchant who’s after buying land on Islay and laying out a links course. Ransom is to go around the island and look over the ground.”

“Is Ethan staying here?” she asked. “With us?”

His lips twitched. “No. That would be a bit crowdit. He and his two men are staying down the road at a wee auld change-house.”

“Change-house?”

“Ale-house, you could say, where a man can stay for a penny-fee if his wife has denied him her bed.”

“Why did Ethan bring only two men?”

“’Tis all that’s needed, he says.”

“That’s not enough,” Merritt said, frowning. “Not nearly. What could he be thinking? It’s a good thing I’m here to protect you.”

With a long-suffering expression, Keir took her back to the main room, where the Slorachs were busy in the kitchen. Fia had put a kettle on the stove, and was carrying items from the kitchen worktable to a cupboard.

Slorach was peeking into a group of baskets and crocks that remained on the table.

“Ranald,” Fia warned her husband, “dinna touch one morsel of that. ’Tis food the neighbors brang for Keir, now that he’s returned from his travels.”

“So have I returned from my travels,” Slorach protested, “and I’m hungert.”

“Keir’s travels were to England,” Fia said tartly. “You went only as far as Tarbert.”

Keir intervened with a grin. “Let him have a bite, Fia.”

While the other three talked, Merritt went to a tea table and chair, positioned in front of a window that revealed a view of the sea and a distant lighthouse. She sat in the cushioned chair, and Wallace came to rest his chin on her knee, his round dark eyes twinkling at her. Her hand moved gently over his head. It was darkening outside, and she shivered pleasurably at the comfort of being in a warm house.

Keir came from the kitchen with a mug of tea and set it before Merritt. She glanced up at him in mild surprise, and smiled. “Thank you.” As she took a sip, she realized he’d made it exactly how she liked it, lightened with milk and just the right amount of sugar.

Staring down at the terrier, Keir asked softly, “What do you think, Wallace? She’s one to be keepit, aye?”

The long, silky tail fanned vigorously from side to side.

Soon Ethan arrived with the sheriff, a ruddy-faced giant of a man with abundant red hair and a handsome thick mustache.

“Lady Merritt,” Keir said. “’Tis our sheriff, Errol MacTaggart.”