Rogue with a Brogue Read Online Free PDF

in a smile before he even realized it. “But the question I have fer ye, Lady Mary Campbell, is why?”
    She actually looked startled. “Why would I wish to keep a brawl from beginning?”
    â€œAye. I’ve spent my entire life spoiling fer a good fight with a Campbell or a Gerdens or a Daily. I’ve thrown my share of punches. And I know fer a fact that most of yer kin would dance a jig on my grave.”
    â€œThere’s a truce,” she said, though she didn’t disagree with his statement. “Your own brother arranged it with George Gerdens-Daily, and my grandfather agreed to it.”
    Arran wished he were facing her so he could see her expression more clearly. “So if I’d stumbled across ye a fortnight ago ye would have stomped on my toe and told me to go to the devil?”
    Mary Campbell stopped again, putting her hands on her slender hips and glaring at him with her moss-colored eyes. “I’m tempted to do that at this very moment,” she snapped. “Not because you’re a MacLawry, either. Simply because you’re being rude and provoking.”
    He narrowed his eyes. “I—”
    â€œHow should I know what I would have done a fortnight ago?” she continued over his protest. “Everything’s different now. What would you have done if you’d danced with me a fortnight ago and realized I was the Campbell’s granddaughter?”
    For a long moment he gazed at her. The answer should have been clear and simple. Whatever truce Ranulf had managed, the Campbells had burned out their own cotters, bullied their allies to do the same, and used the profits they’d made by turning the vacated land over to sheep to build new alliances in England. Their sway in the Highlands might have waned, but elsewhere they were as strong as ever. And they were the enemy.
    But was she the enemy? He looked at all five feet and a few inches of her. Aye, she was a Campbell, and one with a temper, too. At the same time, she was also a very pretty young lady with an air of confidence about her that most ladies seemed to lose when confronted by an actual Highlands male. Deirdre had barely looked him in the eye during their brief conversation last night. He couldn’t even recall what color her eyes were, and he had a reason to remember that.
    â€œI’d have danced with ye, I ken,” he answered, then grinned. “And then tossed a few of yer cousins over my shoulder later fer fun.”
    Her shoulders beneath her pretty blue walking dress lowered. “Well. I suppose hat shopping to be a poor substitute for Campbell-thrashing, but if you’d care to join me, I shan’t object.” She gestured at the door of the small shop behind him.
    Mary half expected Arran MacLawry to announce that he’d had his fill of bantering with a Campbell for one day, and that he’d truly only tracked her down to inform her that he knew who she was. She half hoped he would, because she had other things to consider, and he was … distracting. Instead, he turned around and pulled open the door, holding it for her and a clearly concerned Crawford. Her maid wasn’t Scottish, but she certainly knew to whom Mary should or should not be speaking. This tall, lean, black-haired devil was clearly in the “should not” category. In fact, he was at the very top of that particular list.
    Moving past him into the shop and hoping that it was indeed a milliner’s, for a moment Mary wished he would close the door on Crawford so she could ask him some questions without worrying over whether every word of the conversation would be reported to her father. But for heaven’s sake, she’d never met a member of a rival clan before. She’d been raised in southern England for that very reason. And now she found herself excessively curious, even when she’d been expressly ordered not to be.
    â€œI thought all the MacLawry men had cloven