When a Scot Loves a Lady fc-1

by Katharine Ashe

  “Of course they are different, Kitty,” Emily said soberly. “Liking has everything to do with character and disposition. Respect has to do with a gentleman’s mode of life. But I shall get along well enough until we leave. Lord Blackwood has lent me another book,” she finished as though that was all in the world a woman needed to be happy.

  “More poetry?”

  “A play in verse. Racine’s Phaedra.” Emily made quick work of fastening Kitty’s gown and then Kitty went to the pitcher of water on the stand. She broke the thin crust of ice and washed her face.

  The handsome barbarian with big shaggy dogs liked to read French theater. Her insides felt somewhat trembly too now.

  “Has Mrs. Milch prepared breakfast yet?”

  “Eggs again. We must make the bread for dinner tonight.”

  “You are determined to do so?”

  “Of course.”

  “How is the road this morning? Has anyone seen the mail coach?”

  “Mr. Yale reports that no one has passed yet.”

  No escape then from her foolish nerves and this unwise preoccupation, made considerably worse since she now knew far too much about him—his scent, the caress of his tongue, the hard contoured man-shape beneath coat sleeves and waistcoat. She could not think, could not organize her thoughts at all, it seemed, a thoroughly unprecedented state.

  Being infatuated with a man at five-and-twenty felt absolutely idiotic. But perhaps it was not so singular. Her mother occasionally showed moderate giddiness over Lord Chamberlayne. Of course, Lord Chamberlayne was intelligent, a consummate gentleman, and a successful politician. While Lord Blackwood … had very large dogs.

  She must be mad.

  And so bread baking it would be.

  Kitty stood before a wooden block in Mrs. Milch’s kitchen, bent over a lump of dough as the inn mistress offered instruction on kneading. In a matter of days she would be sweeping floors and plucking chicken carcasses. Possibly feeding slop to the pigs if there were any pigs to be fed.

  “One must press it like this, Mrs. Milch?” Emily queried, brow creased.

  “No, miss. Like this. But the Quality shouldn’t be making bread, I still say,” she added damply.

  “As like, milady agrees with me.”

  “Oh, I haven’t any feeling about it one way or the other.” Kitty didn’t care how she busied herself.

  At this point she would do anything to escape her confusion. The snowbound inn was closing in on her with merciless vigor, much as Emily’s knuckles now dug into the dough.

  She felt ill, betrayed by the spinsterish longings suddenly burst upon her. For over five years, since Lambert took her innocence and she began to hate him, she knew she would never marry. She was ruined to be a bride to a respectable gentleman, and as she could not provide children even if a man were to offer for her, she could not in good conscience accept. She’d told herself she did not want a husband. Men were not to be trusted. She would be perfectly happy living out her days with her mother as her closest companion, Lord Chamberlayne or no.

  But Kitty could pretend no longer. In truth she had known that the night she determined to follow Emily into Shropshire. She’d left her mother and Lord Chamberlayne to settle matters between themselves because she did not wish to live with her mother her entire life. She wanted something else of life.

  Her hands stilled, then slipped from the dough. She had not been honest with herself. Her infatuation with a man of the Earl of Blackwood’s cut proved it.

  She was tired of justifying her childhood mistake through sophistication and pretending to the world that she was glad to be spurned by so many among polite society. She was tired of the lonesome future she had envisioned for herself. Her heart ached for something else, something sweeter and finer. She longed to fall. Image shattered. Innocence regained in simple, unpremeditated happiness.

  But a woman like her was not allowed to fall. A woman who had given away her most precious possession without benefit of marriage was, rather, propositioned and groped. She was kissed in dark stairwells, and the gentlemen who did the propositioning, groping, and kissing did not feel obligated to offer anything more. Anything respectable. Anything permanent. Anything that might fill the loneliness.

  “Milady, you mustn’t muss your skirts.” Mrs. Milch lifted Kitty’s hands and wiped them with a clean cloth with the delicacy of a lady’s maid. “I never mind a bit of flour on me, but don’t you be getting it on your fine silks and what have you’s when there’s Quality gentlemen about.”

  Kitty looked into the woman’s droopy eyes and saw understanding. But that was impossible.

  Everything about this dreamlike sojourn in snowy Shropshire was impossible.

  She cast her gaze to the kitchen doorway as though it were a portal for escape, like the open door of Emily’s traveling carriage had seemed to her in London.

  The earl appeared there.

  Her entire body flushed with heat. She had always before admired the unmarred visages of gentlemen who spent most of their time in town. Lord Blackwood’s cheeks glowed with cold and exertion, and she revised her position. He was wonderfully tall and as thoroughly gorgeous as the night before by firelight during dinner and in the dark stairwell during her own private dessert. She felt like the girl he had called her, idiotically infatuated and wanting him to kiss her again more than she could bear.

  “Guid day, leddies.” He took them all in with a glance, then looked to the inn mistress. “Ma’am, yer husband begs ye set a kettle o tar on the fire for sealing the boards.”

  “Now the man’s sending the Quality on his errands instead of Ned. Where’s that boy got to?” Mrs.

  Milch released Kitty’s hands.

  “Gane tae the smithy tae retour the saw.”

  Emily looked up. “Have you finished the stable roof already?”

  “Aye, miss. Moony haunds, as ye be at weeman’s work here.” He glanced at the dough-covered table and smiled.

  Kitty had to look away. Women’s work . He approved of ladies baking bread, she understood possibly three out of four words he spoke, yet his smile took her breath.

  Oh, God, what was going on inside her? How could she swing from one extreme to the other?

  “I am astounded at the difficulty of this task,” Emily commented. “But Mrs. Milch is a very competent teacher after so many years laboring at it.”

  Kitty swallowed over her lumpy throat. “My lord, is y—” His gaze shifted to her.

  “—y-your—” Her tongue failed.

  An exceedingly uncomfortable silence filled the kitchen.

  His mouth quirked slightly to the side. Kitty could not spare a thought to care that Emily stared at her now, or that she had never stuttered before in her life. If only he would talk more and look less she might make it through this without embarrassing herself completely.

  “Is your horse all right?” she managed beneath his dark regard.

  “Aye, lass. Ma thanks.” His expression remained pleasant as he broadened his attention again to include them all. He was a casual flirt. One might believe he had not in fact kissed her thoroughly on a stair the night before. But she knew his reputation, and he had no doubt kissed her because he imagined he knew hers. “Leddies, ye dae us all a fine service far the holidays.”

  “There’ll be no goose,” Mrs. Milch muttered.

  “Who needs goose when fine ladies are about such noble work?” Mr. Cox announced at the earl’s shoulder, casting a pleased glance about the chamber.

  “There is nothing noble in baking bread, Mr. Cox,” Emily stated. “The poor labor at such work and they are barely compensated for it.”

  “I have labored my whole life, Lady Marie Antoine,” he said brightly, moving to Emily’s side.

  “Yet I have never had the pleasure of baking bread with a lady. I beg to assist.”

  “Have you baked bread at all, sir?” She seemed truly curious.

  “Why, no.” He laughed.

  “Then you’d best put o
n an apron as well.” Mrs. Milch shook her head sorrowfully.

  “You must remove your coat first,” Emily instructed.

  “Certainly not in the presence of ladies.” Mr. Cox cast Kitty a playful grin and tied the cloth around his elegant coattails. “My lord, will you join me with our fair companions in this charming domestic task?”

  Lord Blackwood shifted his booted feet at the threshold.

  “A’ll best be leaving that tae those mair fitted.” He bowed, cast Kitty the swiftest and most enigmatic glance, and disappeared.

  Kitty pulled in steadying breaths, every iota of her tingling nerves drawn to follow him.

  “Mr. Cox,” she spoke to fix her feet in place, “is Mr. Yale still in the stable?” She couldn’t care less. She only wanted to know where the earl was going now. It was impossible. Grown women did not feel this way. But perhaps this was her punishment for the dishonest program she had pursued for so many years, no matter that the man she had helped bring to justice was in fact very bad.

  “He has gone to the pub with the carpenter who helped us patch up that roof. Nasty business.

  Nearly caught Blackwood on the shoulder.”

  “He only said his horse was in the way of it,” Emily said.

  “He was grooming it.” Mr. Cox set his fingertips to the dough. “Odd for a gentleman of his distinction to care for his own cattle, I say. But the nobility will have its eccentrics,” he added with a confiding smile.

  Emily pointed at the round of dough. “You must put the heels of your hands into it, Mr. Cox. Like that.”

  Kitty’s heart pattered. She wiped her palms on a cloth.

  “Will you excuse me?” she muttered. Mrs. Milch was sufficient chaperone for Emily, a chaperone like the one Kitty ought to have had in the stairwell the night before. Emily dug into the dough anew and Mr. Cox studied her actions. Mrs. Milch did not look away from the pot of sealant. Kitty fled.

  She must escape the inn, if only for a few moments. She needed cold air in her lungs to clear her clouded head. It was vastly unwise to fixate on the Earl of Blackwood, his breathtaking jaw, his skillful caress.

  In the parlor Ned stood with one of the dogs. The boy’s head came up and something gold glimmered in his palm.

  He grinned. “Sky’s fair clear today, milady.”

  She could barely think to put together words. “It seems so.” She went toward him. Distraction of this sort was exactly what she required.

  The dog snuffled his hand.

  “Are you feeding treats to the animals, Ned?” She tried to smile, but her lips felt wobbly like the rest of her.

  “No, ma’am. It’s only a trinket I found a fortnight since on the road down a’ways at Shrewsbury.”

  His brows perched high under jutting hair. He turned his hand upward. A painted cameo covered his palm, a portrait set in a gold frame of a young woman with gold ringlets and a pleasingly dimpled cheek.

  “How pretty she is, and how sad her beau must be to have lost it.” Kitty smiled, nerves jittering recklessly. Distraction, it seemed, was not helping matters.

  “Reckon.” Ned tucked the cameo in his pocket, tugged his cap, and went with the dog out into the yard, where the earl had presumably gone returning to the stable. She could go out there and… No.

  She would brave the icy rear stoop where she might press her fiery cheeks into a handful of snow to calm her heated nerves. Then perhaps she could throw herself into the snow entirely to cool the rest of her. She hurried toward the rear foyer for her pattens and cloak.

  Lord Blackwood stood in the nook behind the stair, shoulders against the wall, one large hand covering his face. He dropped his arm, met her gaze, and a hard breath left him.

  “My lord, what are you doing here?” An atrociously inelegant greeting. Now she had lost all propriety and civility. Falling, it seemed, would not be pretty.

  “Catching ma breath, A think.”

  Low light slanted into the foyer; she could not clearly make out his expression. But she could sense him well enough. His entire person seemed to breathe of the outdoors, of rugged, untamed northern wilderness, which was profoundly silly since his estate was quite close to Edinburgh and anyway he mostly lived in London.

  She stepped toward him; indeed, she could not prevent herself from doing so. He seemed to flatten his shoulders to the wall.

  “It must have been dreadfully unpleasant work.” She had nothing to say to him really. “Terribly cold. Did you go up on that roof?”

  “Aye.” His jaw looked tight. Kitty imagined tasting it. She should have done so last night. Foolish oversight. Her breaths shortened.

  “I understand that you were in the stable when the accident occurred.”

  “Aye.”

  “You were tending to your horse?” How could she get closer without appearing ridiculously obvious? Her very skin tingled to touch his.

  He nodded. “The lot of ’em.”

  “You were feeding the carriage horses as well? And the gentlemen’s mounts too, I daresay.” She could not do it subtly. But subtlety was often overrated. “Mightn’t you have left that to Ned, rather?”

  She took another step forward, tilting her head back to look into his face, perfection of masculine form and shape.

  “Aye.” He was not smiling.

  “But you did not.”

  “Nae.” Beneath hooded lids, he was staring at her mouth again. Kitty could not halt herself; her hand moved seemingly of its own accord to his chest, as though she were allowed to do such a thing, as though ladies touched gentlemen in rear foyers beneath staircases every other day.

  It felt right to do so. Frighteningly right.

  As the night before when she had been about to kiss him, he remained perfectly still. She spread her fingers and sank her palm against his ribs. His heartbeat thumped quick and hard. A coil of anticipation shimmied up from her core to her very fingertips. She released a little breath.

  “You are a man of few words, aren’t you?” Her voice was crackly.

  “Aye.” His was deeper than she had heard it yet. His breaths were uneven beneath her hand.

  “I—” She whispered over the lump of constricted anticipation in her throat. “I—I—”

  “Ye whit, lass?” He barely spoke aloud.

  She shifted her hand, sliding her fingertips beneath his waistcoat. With a sharp exhalation he grasped her shoulders and pulled her to him.

  Kitty sighed. She’d wondered whether her drunken imagination invented the sensations she’d felt pressed to the firm wall of his body. Now she was sober and heady with them. She could barely form the words she’d been thinking since he had released her on the stair ten hours earlier.

  “I—I wish to ask you a question.”

  She was slender and delicate in his hands, all curved lusciousness against his chest. Leam hadn’t held a woman in too long, except the night before, when he’d held this woman far too long for his own good. Her eyes were feverishly bright now, spots of crimson high on her cheeks, so far from the pristinely elegant Londonite she was to society. In this inn, over the course of mere hours, she was coming apart, piece by piece, before his eyes. In his hands. The exquisite shell was breaking into tiny shards.

  By God, he wanted no part of it.

  Release her.

  He bent his head. Her fragrance tangled in his senses. “Whit’s that, lass?”

  Release her, fool.

  “Will you kiss me again?” She hadn’t even the presence of mind to look into his eyes. “I want you

  … to.” Her hot gaze upon his mouth nearly unmanned him. Nearly.

  Nearly…

  Entirely.

  His hand slid over her shoulder, up the silken curve of her throat to cup her head.

  “Dae ye nou?” His voice was husky. No surprise there. After that kiss last night he’d stood outside in the snow for an hour to relieve the tension in his body. It had not sufficed. Now she pressed herself up against him and as a woman of experience she must know perfe
ctly well how he wanted considerably more than her kiss.

  She nodded, her breasts rising heavily against his chest. “Quite dreadfully a lot.”

  There was still time to release her.

  She did not look like a woman of experience. She looked like a girl, trembling and wide-eyed and not truly knowing what she asked. For years now Leam believed such a face of innocent desire could not be real. He had discovered at great cost to himself and a man he loved dearly that it was not real.

  It seemed real upon this woman. She lifted her storm-cloud gaze to his and he got caught in its brilliant candor. He lowered his head, her mouth beckoning, full and shapely and all feminine beauty.

  The scents of wood smoke and cherries breathed through her parted lips, straight to his foolish poet’s head and rigid man’s groin. God, but she was perfection—as perfect as in the stairwell when it had taken every ounce of his considerable self-control to put her off—as perfect as that night three years ago when he first heard her speak, silken-smooth and quick-witted, and saw the cur’s possessive hand at her elbow, Poole’s proprietary eye.

  “Just do it.” Her voice was a mere utterance. “Just kiss me again. Please. Once.”

  A beautiful woman, begging for his kiss.

  He brushed her soft lips. She sighed into him. He slipped his thumb along the delicate curve of her jaw.

  Her hand shot up, gripped his neck, and pulled him against her.

  He wrapped his arms around her and dragged her to him, as she wanted, as he had wanted since she’d walked into this damned inn. She kissed like a courtesan and a virgin at once, openmouthed and seeking, hungry yet oddly hesitant, and with little finesse. He had done this to her—robbed the exquisite of decorum. He was staggered by it, and by her lovely hands moving all over him, first his neck and shoulders, then his arms, chest, and beneath his coat. He sought the inside of her hot mouth with his tongue, tasting, sampling the softness he wanted to dive into. So soft, so hot. Dear God, she couldn’t know what this did to a man.

  He slipped the tip of his tongue into her, aroused beyond endurance, struggling to hold back. He could make her want what he wanted. But she was not for him, not this beauty whose rain-cool surface masked heated thundercloud eyes. Not that cyclone of confusion and mixed messages. Not for Leam ever again.