And then, to her very great relief, everything around her went cold and black and senseless. She toppled forward through the doorway, out of conscious awareness and into Strathrannoch Castle.
Chapter 2
I have made many mistakes in my life born of fear or desperation or the desire for safety, but the greatest error I have ever made was letting you go. I should never have let you go.
—from the papers of Arthur Baird, written upon the back of an envelope, never posted
Arthur Baird, Fifth Earl of Strathrannoch, caught the madwoman in his arms when she fell.
Great bloody bollocking hell.
He did not have time for a mad English ginger on his doorstep. He had to go catch a bloodyzebra.
This, evidently, was to be his fate: no fortune, no prospects, but rich in exotic equines and insensible ladies.
The unconscious woman’s companion—blond, frowning, and half a head taller than her short, unhinged friend—leapt forward across the threshold. “She’s perfectly well, I assure you. Give her some air.”
“Oh aye,” he said drily. “I’ll just lay her down on the stone floor and leave her there. Very hospitable.”
Instead he turned on his heel, leaving the stern blonde and her small white dog in his wake, and made for the drawing room. He was at least fifty percent certain there was a chaise longue in the drawing room.
He hoped.
He hitched the madwoman higher in his arms as he strode forward. Christ, she was an armful, all softness and curves everywhere, the sunset-colored sweep of her hair spilling over his shoulder, and—
He coughed and nearly tripped over his own feet.
Surely to God he had not just entertained a brief stab of attraction toward anunconscious mad Englishwoman.
He shook himself, causing the woman’s head to jostle about alarmingly. Her eyelids fluttered. Her eyelashes were long and thick and—he had no name for the color of them. The darkest, warmest, rosiest copper.
He kicked a child’s puzzle-box out of his way, swept three leather-bound books off the faded chintz chaise, and plopped the woman on it in some relief.
Orange. The color of her eyelashes wasorange.
The other woman had gathered up the loose letters and trailed him into the room. When he deposited her companion onto the chaise, she knelt immediately before the still faintly fluttering redhead. The dog leapt up onto the chaise, and the woman picked up her friend’s wrists and chafed them briskly.
“Lydia,” she said, her tone crisp. “Wake up. This is no time for hysterics.”
The ginger on the chaise cracked open one blue eye. She flicked her gaze around the room, landed on Arthur, hesitated briefly, and then closed the eye once more.
“No,” she rasped. “I have chosen the abyss.”
Despite himself, Arthur laughed.
Her eyes flew open, both of them this time, and she pushed herself upright, disarranging the dog. A bit of color came back into her milk-pale cheeks. “No,” she said. “Never mind. I don’t want the abyss. I—I want an explanation. For all of this.”
The blond woman blinked at her companion, looking surprised and ever so slightly impressed.
“Aye,” said Arthur. “As do I. Who are you? And why did you—” He paused, quite unable to find the proper turn of phrase for this situation.
Why did you just offer me your person and your fortune?seemed a bit unseemly.
And oh by the by, do you truly have a fortune, because I might be persuaded to accept you after all?seemed even worse.
He settled for, “Why did you seem to think we are acquainted?”
The redhead took a deep, fortifying breath. She opened her mouth, then closed it again, and attempted several more breaths.
