When a Scot Loves a Lady fc-1

by Katharine Ashe

  The heavy wooden panel, bloated with damp, stuck. He nudged it with his boot and it jerked open.

  Lady Katherine Savege, standing on the tiny covered porch, swung about, slipped, and tumbled forward.

  Leam grabbed her up. Her hands clutched his coat sleeves. Her breath hiccupped, sending a cloud of frosty air between them. He scanned her face, a swift perusal of fine features—pert nose, wide mouth, eyes shrouded with thick lashes. She wore neither bonnet nor cap. Her satiny hair, dark like crushed walnut shells and carefully plaited with bejeweled combs, enhanced the perfect cream of her skin.

  “Weel, nou, maleddy,” he said slowly. “Mind the ice.”

  “I beg your pardon, my lord.” She did not lift her gaze. To his surprise.

  Leam did not care for surprises.

  Her breaths came rapidly against his chest. Her grip on him slackened and her arms dropped.

  “I lost my balance when the door opened. The step is slick, yet I came out only in slippers. I wished to see the depth of the snow.”

  “Did ye?”

  “I shall be quite careful not be so careless again.” Her voice grew cooler with each utterance. Here was the sort of female with whom Leam had little commerce. Ladies like Katherine Savege held their own counsel and had done him little good in his former labors. But he was no longer an agent of the crown constantly seeking information. He could now do as he pleased, and he held a beautiful woman in his arms.

  And despite her unwed state, Lady Katherine was no innocent. Of this he was certain.

  “But yer a pretty bundle, lass.”

  She stiffened, the effect of which was to flatten her thighs quite nicely to his.

  “I am not a bundle. You should have already released me. You do know that, don’t you? Or is what they generally say of you actually true?”

  “Aye, yer a bundle, an than some, wi’ that tongue.”

  “My tongue is none of your concern. And I am not a lass. I am six-and-twenty. Rather, nearly so, on February twelfth.”

  “Nearly? Who woud hae thought it?”

  Her lips were a stony line Leam might soften; laughter would sit well upon them. Her remarkably large gray eyes, the color of wistful fall thunderclouds, slowly drew upward beneath a veil of sooty lashes.

  “Will I truly be obliged to order you to unhand me, or were you planning on doing so shortly?”

  By God, she felt good in his arms, her full breasts pressed against his chest, hips nestled comfortably along his thigh. Remarkably good. Would that the rumors spread about him were true.

  Alas, it was largely smoke and mirrors to start the ladies talking. Informing. After that first job in the East Indies, three quarters of the work had been encouraging gossip.

  “Eventually,” he said.

  “Ah. Finally a word I recognize. Unfortunately, the wrong word.”

  Leam couldn’t help chuckling. Her lashes flickered.

  “My lord, you are a renowned flirt. But perhaps you are not aware that I am not likewise. Unhand me now.”

  He should. He had no desire to. Warm feminine beauty pressing to his body, a cool clever tongue soothing his ear, and a lovely face shaped with intelligence could not be abandoned so abruptly.

  “Whit threats will ye level if I dinna, I wonder?”

  She tilted up her nose, releasing upon him the full force of her glorious eyes.

  “I would not demean myself by leveling threats at a gentleman. But are you one?” Her voice was frosty. But those eyes … they questioned, far beyond her words. And within the thunderclouds, Leam fancied, a song wept.

  His chest hollowed.

  He released her.

  She smoothed her palms over her skirt. Without again looking at him, and without a word, she went into the building.

  Leam stood on the porch, boots sunk in snow, heartbeat quick and uneven. His stomach sickened at that sensation in his chest, for so long so alien to him. Clearly, that bit of flirtation had been a mistake.

  He would not repeat it.

  Kitty willed her racing pulse to slow. She’d never imagined that the removal of facial hair could transform a merely handsome man into…

  She pressed cold palms to hot cheeks as she hurried from the rear corridor. He was not following.

  She had insulted him. She’d had to. At the moment she would have said anything to encourage him to unwrap those strong arms from around her waist. Inside, she had been melting. It lingered now, liquid heat mingled with twining nerves.

  She had not been so close to a man in years. Three years. She had, in point of fact, largely convinced herself that that state had come about because of this very man.

  Could such coincidences occur? She must be mad to think it.

  She hurried into the taproom. Emily perched on a bench at a table, wrestling butter onto a slice of bread.

  “The bread is not fresh,” she announced. “Mrs. Milch says the village baker has taken to her bed today due to the snow, and her serving girl will not come to help in the kitchen as she lives in Shrewsbury three miles distant. I told her we might assist in baking if we are to be here long, which it seems we shall. Have you seen the snow? It is extraordinarily deep.”

  “Yes. Deep,” Kitty finally managed, dragging herself from reverie. “For how long is Mr.

  Worthmore to remain at your parents’ home?”

  “At least until Twelfth Night. You do not think it will hold off melting until after then, do you? I might avoid meeting him altogether.” The glimmer in Emily’s eyes suggested she was banking on wishes.

  Kitty shook her head. “I haven’t the foggiest idea how to bake bread.”

  “Neither do I. But I shall learn.” Emily bared her teeth and bit into the stale slice.

  Heavy steps sounded on the floorboards behind Kitty. She was to have no reprieve of even minutes in which to compose herself. But the man must want breakfast too, the man with a jaw carved of stone that a woman could wish to run her fingertips over, then her lips and tongue, as though he were a salt lick and she a deer.

  She was very foolish.

  He halted behind her and the lapping heat deep inside her resumed with astounding vigor. She pressed it away even as something heedless inside her enjoyed it.

  “There is bacon, my lord,” Emily said. “The stable boy, Ned, found some in the shed. One would imagine salted fish could be had as well, but apparently not.”

  Lord Blackwood moved around Kitty and took up the coffeepot.

  “’Twas a lean season for the herring.”

  Emily studied him curiously. “How do you come to know that?”

  “’Twas in the papers, lass.” He smiled.

  Kitty could not prevent it: a breath of pleasure stole from her lips. He glanced at her, but briefly.

  “Will ye be regretting the lack o fish too, maleddy?” He passed her a cup of coffee as though he were a footman, this man of great wealth who stood to inherit a dukedom. He dressed with careless ease, not slovenly although without the slightest hint of fashion. He had large hands, strong and ridiculously underused by the delicate cup he proffered. Hands more suited to chopping wood. Or shearing sheep. Or holding a woman indecently close upon an icy stoop.

  Her cheeks warmed.

  She accepted the cup. “Not at all, my lord.” She tempered her tone with great care. “I prefer caviar.”

  His gaze met hers, lazily hooded on the surface yet perfectly aware, as though he of all persons knew she donned her hauteur like a cloak.

  Kitty held her breath.

  His mouth lifted at the edge.

  A breeze of cold air came with the sound of a door opening and the thunking patter of large paws in the front foyer. Then the dogs themselves appeared, a gentleman of about Kitty’s age following.

  Drawing off his greatcoat and hat, he surveyed the chamber with a quick, light glance. He bowed to Kitty with youthful elegance, all correctness, and entirely unlike the large man standing on the other side of the chamber whose enormous dogs jostled his legs.<
br />
  “Good day, ma’am.”

  Kitty curtsied.

  “Maister Yale,” Lord Blackwood supplied apparently by way of introduction as he leaned back against the sideboard. “Leddy Kath’rine and Leddy Marie Antoine.”

  “How do you do, Lady Katherine?” Mr. Yale bowed, then turned to Emily. “Ma’am.”

  “Sir, I see you have been outside already,” Emily said without looking up from carving a sausage into bits. “How did you find the snow?”

  “Cold and wet.” He returned his attention to Kitty. “I regret that your journey has been stymied, my lady.”

  “Thank you, sir. In fact we are mere miles from Willows Hall, Lady Marie’s home.”

  “And do you travel alone, ma’am?” He looked about curiously.

  “My governess was lost on the road behind,” Emily said.

  “I am crushed to hear it. I daresay she is quite cold and wet now as well.”

  Emily peered at him over the rim of her spectacles. “What an odd thing to say.”

  “And yet an odder state for her to be in.” He quirked a brow. “At first opportunity Blackwood and I shall take our horses out in search of her carriage.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Kitty said. “Are you also close to your destination? Lord Blackwood would have us believe you are on a fishing trip, but I fear he esteems teasing more than truth.”

  Mr. Yale smiled. “Your fears are well founded, my lady. My friend enjoys laughing.”

  “I hope not at the expense of others.” She felt the earl’s gaze upon her.

  “Never. But he is an odd fellow, s’truth. It is often difficult to understand him.” Mr. Yale glanced at the coffee and bread. “Will you break your fast?”

  In knots, her stomach protested at the mere idea. “I shall await the promised eggs.” She gestured for him to sit.

  He did so, across from Emily. “Lady Marie Antoine, what text has so engrossed you that you bring it to the table?”

  “Shakespeare. Richard III.”

  “Ah.”

  Finally she looked up. “Are you an admirer of the Bard’s history plays, sir?”

  “Only the comedies.”

  Emily’s brow creased. He grinned, and it sat very well on his face. A scruffy gray head bumped beneath his arm. He fed the dog his bread. “Your hounds, Blackwood, will eat us out of the house before the snow is melted. On the stoop just now I watched this one tear through two pound of sausage as though it were a thimbleful.”

  “He’s a pup,” came the quiet response. “He haesna yet learnt his manners.”

  Mr. Yale twisted his shoulders to regard the earl, a sliver of a smile on his lips. Lord Blackwood tilted his head, but he did not grin. Something shimmered through Kitty’s insides—not the delicious liquid heat now, but more insistent and uncomfortable. She moved to the window and pressed the draperies open. Without, all was blinding white and the heavens still heavy with clouds.

  “Mr. Yale, have you studied the road? Is it passable?” She had gone out to glimpse the rear yard, directed to that view by Mr. Milch. The stable boy, Ned, had shoveled that stoop before tackling the front, to make a path to the chicken coop. Thus, because of laying fowl, Kitty now knew that the Earl of Blackwood’s eyes were of the darkest brown, like coffee, and that the flicker of steel behind those rich depths was not in fact a product of her imagination.

  Something cold resided within him. It made her shiver, even as his gaze on her now turned her warm. She did not have to look at him to know he watched her.

  But perhaps she imagined it.

  She glanced at him. He met her gaze, then his slipped away, and with it her breath.

  “We shan’t have use of even a saddle horse for two or three days, I suspect.” Mr. Yale skewered a sausage and fed it to the dog drooling at his knee.

  “Days?” Emily looked hopeful. “Past Christmas, do you imagine?”

  “Unless a vast melt comes of a sudden.” He drawled this.

  “The sky is still quite gray,” Kitty murmured. “We shall miss church.”

  “I don’t know about that, Lady Katherine. It is but Monday. In six days the road should again be passable. The mail coach will come through and dredge a path.”

  “Wednesday is Christmas Day.” She had not ever passed a Christmas without attending church with her mother at the cathedral in town or the chapel at Savege Park. But perhaps this year Mama would attend on the arm of Lord Chamberlayne. “Will you miss not going to church for Christmas, Marie Antoine?”

  Emily shook her head. “Not really.”

  Lord Blackwood reached to the table, took up a piece of bread, and moved toward the rear foyer.

  He returned in a moment with his greatcoat and, chewing, slung the coat around his broad shoulders.

  “Come.” The dogs followed him out the front door.

  The innkeeper entered the room. “Eggs for my lords and ladies!” He had an affable air and a platter of steaming food.

  “Only one lord, and he has gone out.” Emily accepted a dish with a sidelong glance at her table companion. Mr. Yale tucked into his meal.

  “If you’re needing aught else, don’t hesitate to ask it of Mrs. Milch or myself.”

  “Mr. Milch,” Kitty said, “is there a church near the village?”

  “In it, my lady.” He departed.

  Kitty sat down gingerly on a bench, her spine erect, hands not entirely steady. She stared at the doorway to the front entrance. She was being a fool. In mere minutes a Scottish lord who barely spoke a word she understood and did not bother to excuse himself from the presence of ladies had made her blush, tremble, and lose her tongue. Renowned in society for a cool façade that masked a heart filled with vengeance, she was now behaving like a thorough ninnyhammer.

  “Kitty, have you brought any books?”

  She swallowed her distraction. “Yes.”

  “With our journey so slow, I have nearly gone through all of mine already, and Mr. Milch says he keeps none here but Scripture. I shan’t have a thing to read when I am finished with Richard.”

  “I have only a few novels, and that tract on trade to the East Indies that Lady March suggested, but you told me yesterday that does not interest you.”

  “Blackwood will have something a lady would like.” Mr. Yale pulled the slender volume of Shakespeare toward him and took another forkful of eggs. Scanning the open page, he swallowed. “He always does. Poetry and such.”

  Poetry?

  Emily tugged her book from his grip and returned it beneath her elbow. “I enjoy most books, Mr.

  Yale. Not only those ladies prefer.”

  He gave her a slight, provoking smile, much like Kitty’s elder twin brothers used to cast her when they taunted. Emily’s brow creased anew, her lips uncustomarily tight.

  Kitty looked from one to the other. “Oh, dear.”

  Mr. Yale’s grin broadened. “I daresay.”

  “The two of you have previously made each other’s acquaintance.”

  “Once,” Emily said without looking up from her book. “I trod upon his toes and he does not like me above half for it. He is very shallow. Just look at his waistcoat.” She gestured.

  Mr. Yale placed a palm on his chest. “My lady dances with the grace of a swan.”

  Kitty frowned. “His waistcoat is black, Emily— Marie.”

  “Do you know how many pounds he spent on that scrap of brocaded silk, Kitty?”

  “Twelve,” the gentleman promptly supplied.

  “Thank you, sir, that is very helpful.” Kitty glanced at the offending garment. “Twelve pounds?”

  He quirked a jaunty smile. The cost of the waistcoat meant nothing to him, the rancor in Emily’s stare all, apparently.

  “Good heavens.” Kitty stood. “This is not propitious given our circumstances.”

  “Coincidences so often are not,” he offered.

  Coincidences.

  The tension in her middle twisted. “Is civilization lost to us here, then?”

  �
��There is no such thing as civilization,” Emily stated, “only vanity and greed cloaked in imperial arrogance.”

  Kitty deposited her napkin upon the table and made her way up the stairs to her bedchamber, to lock herself in and not come out until the thaw. It seemed the safest course of action.

  Chapter 4

  Far from the comforts of Mayfair, a diminutive brown creature scurried across the boards of Kitty’s bedchamber in the full light of midday. She closed her book, stepped gingerly, and shut the door behind her, the inch-high crack beneath it notwithstanding.

  Lord Blackwood and Mr. Yale lounged in worn chairs before the hearth. The earl’s long legs stretched out before him, coat scrunched up around his shoulders, hands clasped atop his waist. His eyes were closed as though he dozed. Mr. Yale dandled a pack of cards on his knee. The stable boy sat bowlegged on the floor, a dog’s head filling his lap.

  She descended the steps. “You appear a contented lot.”

  Lord Blackwood opened his eyes, and touched by that lazy regard, Kitty simply foundered.

  She must find occupation as soon as possible, away from him. But the inn was odiously small. The kitchen must do. He would not enter there and she would not find her insides turning to jelly. She would learn to bake, perhaps a Christmas pudding into which she might sink her head and not come out until Easter, or at the very least when he departed.

  Mr. Yale stood and bowed. “Care for a game, Lady Katherine?” He gestured with the deck.

  “Thank you, no. I have had my surfeit of cards.” For three years now since she had given up her dogged pursuit of Lambert’s ruination, games of deceit had not interested her. She played only when her mother wished.

  “Ah, then, the rustic amusements of the country must suffice, whatever they may be. But I understand you have an excellent hand.”

  “How is that, sir?”

  “Blackwood told me.”

  He did? “And do you trust him on this?”

  “On anything. With my life,” the young man said lightly, swiftly.