When a Scot Loves a Lady fc-1

by Katharine Ashe

  When a Scot Loves a Lady

  ( Falcon Club - 1 )

  Katharine Ashe

  London gossips are asking: What use has society of an exclusive gentleman’s club if no gentlemen are ever seen to pass through its door?

  After years as an agent of the secret Falcon Club, Lord Leam Blackwood knows it’s time to return home to Scotland. One temptation threatens his plans—Kitty Savege. The scandal-plagued lady warms his blood like a dram of fine whiskey. But a dangerous enemy stands in the way of desire, and to beat this foe Leam needs Kitty’s help…

  Kitty never wanted to spend her holidays in a wretched country village! With snow up to the windows, escape is nowhere in sight. A roguish Scottish lord, however, is. His rough brogue sends tingles of heat from Kitty’s frigid toes to her chilled nose, but she’s confident she can withstand that. What she cannot control is the reaction of her carefully guarded heart when she discovers this beast is, in fact, no beast at all…

  When a Scot Loves a Lady

  Falcon Club - 1

  by

  Katharine Ashe

  Dedication

  To Lucia Macro and Kimberly Whalen.

  In the words of Scotland’s favorite son, May still your life from day to day Nae “lente largo” in the play, But “allegretto forte” gay Harmonious flow, A sweeping, kindling, bauld strathspey—

  Encore! Bravo!

  With my utmost gratitude.

  Glossary

  A Brief Scots Glossary Compiled by Lady Kitty Savege, in the event that the gentle reader encounters a barbaric Scottish lord and requires assistance understanding him.

  An—If, or And Baudrons—Cat ( Not to be mistaken for robbers) Daunder—Stroll ( Typically embarked upon with roguish intent) Dinna—Do not Full fair—Elegant, beautiful ( A lady may expect knavish flattery, and occasionally poetry.)

  Glaik—Fool Hippin—Nappy Ken/Kent—Know/Knew Luve—Love ( In direct address, employed less blithely than a lady might imagine) Skellum—Rogue Wheen o’ blethers—Utter nonsense, foolishness Winna—Will not

  Prologue

  London, 1813 A lady endowed with grace of person and elevation of mind ought not to stare. At two-and-twenty and already an exquisite in taste and refinement, she ought not to feel the pressing need to crane her neck so that she might see past a corpulent Louis XIV flirting with a buxom Cleopatra.

  But a lady like Katherine Savege—with a tarnished reputation and a noble family inured to society’s barbed censure—might on occasion indulge in such minor indiscretions.

  The Queen of the Nile shifted, and Kitty caught another glimpse of the masculine figure at the ballroom’s threshold.

  “Mama, who is that gentleman?” Her smooth voice, only a whisper, held no crude note of puerile curiosity. Like satin she spoke, like waves upon a gentle shore she moved, and like a nightingale she sang. Or so her suitors flattered.

  Actually, no longer did she sing like a nightingale. Or any other bird, for that matter. Not since she had lost her virtue to a Bad Man and subsequently set her course upon revenge. Vengeance and sweet song did not mesh well within the soul.

  As for the suitors, now she was obliged to endure more gropes and propositions than declarations of sincere devotion. And for that she had none to blame but herself—and her ruiner, of course.

  “The tall gentleman,” she specified. “With the dog.”

  “Dog? At a ball?” The Dowager Countess of Savege tilted her head, her silver-shot hair and coronet of gem-encrusted gold glimmering in the light of a hundred chandelier candles. An Elizabethan ruff hugged her severe cheeks, inhibiting movement. But her soft, shrewd brown eyes followed her daughter’s gaze across the crowd. “Who would dare?”

  “Precisely.” Kitty suppressed the urge to peer once again toward the door. Of necessity. If she leaned too far to the side she might lose her gown, an immodest slip of a confection resembling a Grecian goddess’s garb that her mother ought never have permitted her to don, let alone go out in. But after thirty years of marriage to a man who publicly flaunted his mistress, and with an eldest son who’d long been an unrepentant libertine, the dowager countess was no slave to propriety. Thus Kitty’s attendance at a masquerade ball teetering perilously upon the edge of scandalous. Truly she should not be here; it only confirmed gossip.

  Still, she had begged to come, though she spared her mother the reason: the guest list included Lambert Poole.

  “Aha.” The dowager’s penciled brows lifted in surprise. “It is Blackwood.”

  To Kitty’s left a nymph whispered to a musketeer, their attention likewise directed toward the tall gentleman in the doorway. Behind her Maid Marian tittered to a swarthy Blackbeard. Snippets of whispers came to Kitty’s sharp ears.

  “—returned from the East Indies—”

  “—two years abroad—”

  “—could not bear to remain in England after his bride’s tragic drowning—”

  “—infant son left motherless—”

  “—a veritable beauty—”

  “—those Scots are tremendously loyal—”

  “—vowed to never again marry—” Louis XIV kissed Cleopatra’s hand and sauntered off, leaving Kitty with an unimpeded view of the gentleman. Garbed in homespun, a limp kerchief tied about his neck, a crooked staff in hand, and a beard that looked as though it were actually growing from his cheeks rather than pasted on, he clearly meant to pass himself off as a shepherd. At his side stood an enormous dog, shaggy quite like its master, and gray.

  The ladies that surrounded him, however, paid no heed to the beast. Hanging upon his arm, Queen Isabella of Spain batted her eyelids and Little Miss Muffet appeared right at home dimpling up at the man who, beneath his whiskers, was not unattractive.

  Quite the opposite.

  Kitty dragged her attention away. “Are you acquainted with him, then?”

  “He and your brother Alexander hunted together at Beaufort years ago. Why, my dear? Would you like an introduction?” The dowager purloined a glass of champagne from a passing footman with all elegance, but her eyes narrowed.

  “And risk covering my gown in dog hair? Good heavens, no.”

  “Kitty, I am your mother. I have seen you sing at the top of your lungs while dancing through puddles. This hauteur you have lately adopted does not impress me.”

  “Forgive me, Mama.” Kitty lowered her lashes. The hauteur had, however, saved Kitty from a great deal of pain. Pretending hauteur, she allowed herself to nearly believe she did not care about the ever-decreasing invitations and calls, the cuts direct, the occasional slip on the shoulder. “Naturally I meant to say, ‘Please do make me an introduction, for I am hanging out for an unkempt gentleman with whiskers the length of Piccadilly to sit at my feet and recite poetry about his sheep.’”

  “Don’t be vulgar, dear. The poor man is in costume, as we all are.”

  As they all were. Kitty most especially. A costume that had nothing to do with her Athenian dress.

  Music cavorted about the overheated chamber, twining into Kitty’s senses like the two glasses of wine she had already taken—foolishly. She was not here to imbibe, or even to enjoy, and certainly not to indecorously ogle a barbaric Scottish lord.

  She had a project to see to.

  As at every society event, she sought out Lambert in the crowd. He lounged against a pilaster, an open box of snuff on his palm, his wrist draped with frothy lace suitable to his Shakespearean persona.

  “Mama, will you go to the card room tonight?” She could never bear fawning over Lambert with her mother nearby.

  “No introduction to Lord Blackwood, then?”

  “Mama.”

  “Katherine, you are an unrepentant snob.”
She touched Kitty’s chin with two fingertips and smiled gently. “But you are still my dear girl.”

  Her dear girl. At moments like this, Kitty could almost believe her mother did not know the truth of her lost virtue. At moments like this, she longed quite desperately to throw herself into her mother’s arms and wish that it all go back to the way it was before, when her heart was still hopeful and not already weary from the wicked game she now played.

  The dowager released her. “Now I shall be off. Chance and Drake each took a hundred guineas from me last week and I intend to win it back. Kiss my cheek for luck.”

  “I will join you shortly.” Kitty watched her mother go in a cascade of skirts, then turned to her quarry.

  Lambert met her gaze. His high, aristocratic brow and burnished bronze hair caught the candlelight dramatically. But two years had passed since the sight of him afforded her any emotion except determination—since he had taken her innocence and not offered his name in return—since he had broken her heart and roused her eternal ire.

  She went toward him.

  “Quite a lot of skin showing tonight, my dear.” His voice was a thin drawl. “You must be chilled.

  Come to have a bit of warming up, have you?” He sniffed tobacco dust from the back of his hand.

  “You are ever so droll, my lord.” Her unfaltering smile masked bile behind it. She had once admired this display of aristocratic ignobility, a naïve girl seeking love from the first gentleman who paid attention to her. Now she only sought information, the sort that a vain, proud man in his cups occasionally let slip when she cajoled him sufficiently, pretending continued adoration in the face of his teasing.

  That pretense, however, had excellent effect. Through months of careful observation, Kitty had discovered that Lord Lambert Poole practiced politics quite outside the bounds of legal government.

  Once she’d found papers in his waistcoat with names of ministry officials and figures, numbers with pound markings. She required little more information to make his life in society quite uncomfortable were she to reveal him.

  But heat gathered between her exposed shoulders, and a prickly discomfort. Where plotting revenge had once seemed so sweet, now it chafed. And within her, the spirit of the girl who had sung at the top of her lungs while dashing through puddles wished to sing again instead of weep. Tonight she did not care for hanging on his sleeve and playing her secret game, not even to further her goal.

  “Come on, Kit.” His gaze slipped along her bodice. “There’s bound to be a dark corner somewhere no one’s using yet.”

  She suppressed a shudder. “Of course I deserve that.”

  “Precedent, my dear.”

  She forced herself to step closer. “I have told you before, I—” Something swished against her hip, a mass of gray fur, and she jolted aside. A steadying hand came around her bare arm.

  “Thare nou, lass. ’Tis anely a dug.” A warm voice, and deep. Wonderfully warm and deep like his skin against hers, which made her insides tickle.

  But tickling insides notwithstanding, Kitty’s tastes tended decidedly toward men who combed their hair. A thin white streak ran through Lord Blackwood’s, from his temple tangled amid the overly long, dark auburn locks. And beneath the careless thatch across his brow, he had very beautiful eyes.

  “Lady Katherine.” Lambert’s drawl interrupted her bemusement. “I present to you the Earl of Blackwood, lately returned from the East Indies. Blackwood, this is Savege’s sister.”

  “Ma’am.” He nodded by way of bowing, she supposed.

  Drawing her arm from his hold, she curtsied. “I do not mind the dog, my lord. But”—she gestured toward his costume—“isn’t it rather large for chasing sheep about? I daresay wolves would suit it better.”

  “Aye, maleddy. But things be no always whit thay seem.”

  Now she could not help but stare. Behind the beautifully dark, hooded eyes, something glinted. A hint of steel.

  Then, like a thorough barbarian, without another word he moved away.

  But she must be a little drunk after all; she followed him with her gaze.

  In the shadows at the edge of the ballroom, a satyr with a matted chest of hair and a hand wrapped around a half-filled goblet leered over a maid—not a costumed guest but an actual maid. A tray of glasses weighed down her narrow shoulders. The satyr pawed. The girl backed into the wall, using her dish as a shield.

  Lord Blackwood stepped casually between the two.

  “Weel nou, sir,” he said in a rough voice that carried above the music and conversation. “Did yer mither nae teach ye better as tae bother a lass when she’s haurd at wirk?” His brow furrowed. “Be aff wi’ ye, man, or A’ll be giving ye a lesson in manners nou.”

  The satyr seemed to size him up, but the earl’s measure was clear. Shepherd’s garb could not disguise a man in the prime of his life.

  “She’s going to waste working on her feet,” the satyr snarled, but he stumbled away.

  “Ah,” Lambert murmured at Kitty’s shoulder. “A champion of the laboring class. How affecting.”

  The touch of his breath upon her cheek made her skin crawl.

  Lord Blackwood spoke quietly to the maid now, and Kitty could not hear him. The girl’s eyes widened and she nodded, her face filled with trust. As though she expected it, she allowed him to relieve her of the tray of glasses. Then she dipped her head and disappeared into the crowd.

  Lambert’s hand came around Kitty’s elbow.

  “Don’t bother, Kit.” His blue eyes glittered. “Since his wife died, Blackwood’s not the marrying type either.” His grin was cruel.

  He enjoyed imagining she was unhappy because he would not marry her. Years ago, ruining her had been entirely about insulting her brothers, whom he despised. But now Kitty knew he simply liked to think she pined for him. Indeed she had pretended gorgeously, allowing him liberties to keep him close, because she believed she needed to see him suffer as she had—first when he refused her marriage, then when he proved to her that she was barren.

  She looked back toward the man who had lost his young wife years earlier yet who still remained faithful to her, a rough-hewn man who in the middle of a society crush rescued a serving girl from abuse.

  From the shadows the Earl of Blackwood met her regard. A flicker of hardness once more lit the dark warmth of his eyes.

  Things were not always what they seemed.

  But Kitty already knew that better than anybody.

  Chapter 1

  London, 1816 Fellow Subjects of Britain, How delinquent is Government if it distributes the sorely depleted Treasury of our Noble Kingdom hither and yon without recourse to prudence, justice, or reason?

  Gravely so.

  Irresponsibly so.

  Villainously so!

  As you know, I have made it my crusade to make public all such spendthrift waste. This month I offer yet another example: 14½ Dover Street.

  What use has Society of an exclusive gentlemen’s club if no gentlemen are ever seen to pass through its door?—that white-painted panel graced with an intimidating knocker, a Bird of Prey. But the door never opens. Do the exalted members of this club ever use their fashionable clubhouse?

  It appears not.

  Information has recently come to me through perilous channels I swim for your benefit, Fellow Subjects. It appears that without proper debate Lords has approved by Secret Ballot an allotment to the Home Office designated for this so-called club. And yet for what purpose does the club exist but to pamper the indolent rich for whom such establishments are already Legion? There can be no good in this Rash Expenditure.

  I vow to uncover this concealed squandering of our kingdom’s Wealth. I will discover the names of each member of this club, and what business or play passes behind its imposing knocker. Then, dear readers, I will reveal it to you.

  —Lady Justice Sir, I regretfully notify you that agents Eagle, Sea Hawk, Raven, and Sparrow have withdrawn from service, termination effective immedi
ately. The Falcon Club, it appears, is disbanded. I of course shall remain until all outstanding cases are settled.

  Additionally, I draw your attention to the pamphlet of 10 December 1816, produced by Brittle & Sons, Printers, enclosed. Poor old girl is doomed to disappointment.

  Yours, &c., Peregrine

  “Thank you, sir.” The lady pressed her trembling fingertips into Leam Blackwood’s palm. “ Thank you.”

  In the iron mist of the moonless December night, he lifted her hand and placed the softest kiss upon her knuckles.

  “God be wi’ ye, lass.”

  Twin fountains of gratitude sparkled on her cheeks.

  “You are too good.” She pressed his kerchief to her quivering lips. “ Too good, my lord.” Her lashes fluttered. “If only…”

  With a gentle shake of his head and a regretful smile, he handed her into the carriage and closed the door. The vehicle started off, clattering wheels and hooves shrouded by the hush of fog enveloping London’s wee hours.

  For a moment, Leam stared after. He released a long breath.

  ’Twas a night like every other night.

  ’Twas a night like no other night.

  ’Twas a bushel of bad poetry, quite like the bad poetry of his life for the past five years. But tonight it would come to an end.

  Straightening his shoulders, he buttoned his coat and raked his fingers through the itchy beard. By God, even his dogs didn’t go about so scruffy. It was a sorry day when a man wanted a razor more than a brandy.

  “Well, that’s that.” His voice held no trace of Scots, the thick burr of his homeland he’d trained his tongue to suppress as a youth. And yet five years earlier, in service to the crown, he had reclaimed that Scots. Five numb years ago. Quite willingly.

  But no more.

  “Bella. Hermes.” He snapped his fingers. Two giant shadows emerged from the park opposite.