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what those other two wee ninnies are about. Come wi’ me, Sir Bertram, and we’ll see if an Englishman can haul down a Scottish lassie’s trunk without damaging either himself or the baggage.”
    The old woman levered her bulk out of the chair and moved ponderously across the room. Clarindon, the traitor, followed in her wake, as eager to please as a blasted lapdog.
    Once they were gone, silence descended on the parlor like a shroud. Alexander had always prided himself on being able to negotiate the rounds of small talk that passed for brilliance with members of the ton, but for the life of him, he could think of nothing appropriate for this occasion.
    What did one say to an unwanted bride?
    Fortunately, she didn’t seem upset by the silence, though she was looking distractedly beyond his left ear instead of meeting his gaze. Then her eyes flared in alarm and she jumped to her feet. He glanced over his shoulder, sure from the sudden panic in her face that someone was stalking his unprotected back with a drawn blade, but there was no one there.
    “Will ye be pleased to take a turn in the garden with me, my lord?” she said, nearly tripping on the words in her haste to spill them over her tongue.
    “Of course, but what about the rain?”
    “’Tis likely ended, or about to start again. If we stayed indoors for every wee mist, we’d never have a breath of fresh air.”
    “Very well. Why not?” One place was as good as another for the soon-to-be-leg-shackled-for-life. Even if he dispatched a letter to London immediately, it wouldn’t reach his solicitor in a timely fashion. He’d have to figure a way out of this betrothal on his own. Preferably one that didn’t involve beggaring himself.
    He offered Miss MacOwen his arm and she led him out of the room and down a corridor so narrow, his shoulder rubbed against the faded wallpaper on one side. Still, he was relieved to quit the stifling parlor and hopeful something suitably botanical would spring to his lips once they stepped outside.
    “Are ye always this quiet then?” she asked as they pushed through the back door and into a small walled garden.
    The rain had ceased and eased the sense of perpetual dampness. As befitted the home of a thrifty Scottish matron, most of the garden space was given over to herbaceous borders gone brown with the cold of December. A trio of rosebushes climbed a trellis in the far corner, the vines dry-leaved and prickly with forbidding-looking thorns.
    “No’ that I’m complainin’, mind ye,” she went on. “A quiet man is a restful man.”
    “I confess I’ve been rendered speechless by this turn of events,” he said. “You must admit it isn’t every day a man finds himself unexpectedly betrothed. Please don’t take that as a slight, Miss MacOwen.”
    “And how should I take it?”
    She was right. His behavior had been abominable, but he couldn’t seem to stop saying the wrong things. Silence was the safest course.
    She released his arm and strolled ahead of him a few paces on the meandering path. A rare ray of sunshine broke through the clouds and backlit her in its shining glory. The brisk breeze whipped her skirt against the curves of her calves and shapely thighs. At least his betrothed was a fetching bit of muslin. Part of him thought things could have been decidedly worse.
    Then suddenly they were.
    A man wearing a cutaway jacket was unable to disguise what might be occurring beneath his trousers. Alexander’s tented rather obviously, making room for his growing bulge.
    Damn. She’ll think me a complete cur. Resisting an engagement was one thing. Doing it while sporting a raging cockstand was quite another.
    There was a stone bench in the center of the garden and he made for it quickly, taking position behind the granite back that rose high enough to hide him from the waist down.
    “Would you care to sit for a bit?” he asked.
    She shrugged and came over to plop down on the bench. Her slippered feet didn’t quite