When a Scot Loves a Lady fc-1

by Katharine Ashe

  Outside, the sun shone at long angles on the snow as the innkeepers cleared away the remains of dinner. Mr. Yale settled into a chair by the fire, glass in hand and a week-old journal atop his knee.

  Emily and Mr. Cox set about mapping out Shropshire topography with raisins and nuts on the table. It all had the happy, peaceful aura of home and holiday about it, and Kitty wished she could enjoy it. But she must content herself that her friend seemed distracted from worries of that which awaited her at her real home as soon as the road was passable.

  Lord Blackwood came to Kitty’s side, bearing her cloak.

  “Maleddy, care for a daunder?”

  She could not look at him, but she allowed him to place her cloak around her shoulders. She drew her hood up. “Daunder?” It must be unremarkable; about him now hung no air of roguery.

  “A stroll,” Mr. Yale explained. “Bit cold out, isn’t it, Blackwood?”

  “Care tae come alang, Yale?”

  “Thank you, but do go on without me.” He lifted his glass in salute. Kitty felt as transparent as crystal. She could refuse the earl. She could once again embrace propriety. Emily and Mr. Cox did not raise their heads from their game.

  Kitty went.

  “Where to, my lord?” She glanced about at the snow-laden street, pale in the late afternoon sun.

  “Back to the church?”

  He shut the inn door behind them.

  “The stable.” His voice was husky.

  So, perhaps roguish intent after all. She did not take his proffered arm, heading straight for the outbuilding and her continued ruination without anyone assisting her to it.

  Inside, he pulled the door shut, came to her, surrounded her face with his hands, and covered her mouth with his. Her hood tumbled off and she sank into him, reaching for him beneath layers of wool.

  He kissed her slowly at first, as though he were savoring her, then with increasing intensity like he was starving, pushing her back against the wall and bringing their bodies together as he used her mouth to excellent purpose. She wanted every second of it.

  She wanted it too much, given the circumstances.

  She tore her lips free. “Wait!

  Wait.” She pushed him to arm’s length, but her fingers betrayed her, clutching at his waistcoat to prevent him from going farther away. “What do you think you are doing?”

  “Whit A been wishing tae dae all day. An it wis an awfu lang day, lass.”

  “You recited poetry to me last night. In French.” Then he’d left. And it took her hours to fall asleep. And now, exhausted and strung tight from the day endeavoring not to stare at him, she was excessively peevish. But mostly because he now stood arm’s-length away, only his big warm hands wrapped about her waist, and she wanted instead every bit of him pressing up against her again.

  “C ontre vous, contre moi , v ainement je m’éprouve,” she whispered, “I struggle vainly to be free, from you and from myself. It is from Racine’s play, Phaedra. You lent it to Lady Emily.”

  Beneath his waistcoat she felt his heartbeat and taut breaths. He did not speak.

  “But it is a tragic story,” she added.

  He smiled. “An it’s bonnie varse ye be wishing, rather, A’ll be fain tae oblige.” He grasped her hands and moved close again. Warily, she let him. Bending his head, he nuzzled the wonderfully sensitive spot beneath her ear. Kitty sighed. He murmured with only the gentlest lilt of Scots, “‘Around me scowls a wintry sky, that blasts each bud of hope and joy; and shelter, shade, nor home have I, save in these arms of thine.’”

  “Your countryman, Burns, I think.” A new sort of trembling overtook her, deep as where he had been inside her the night before. “What happened to the French?”

  “A’m warming up tae it. Blanditias molles auremque iuvantia verba adfer, ut adventu laeta sit illa tuo.” He kissed her neck, her throat at her speeding pulse, and she tucked her hands beneath the capes of his greatcoat, holding on to his shoulders.

  “I don’t know Latin,” she quavered. “I shall require a translation.”

  “‘Bring soft blandishments and words that soothe the ear, that your coming may make her glad.’” Kitty’s breaths thinned, her knees weak. He must simply be mimicking, and a master at it. What man would disguise such a voice of rich, masculine power if it were natural to him?

  “And who wrote that bit of advice, my lord?”

  “Ovid.”

  “Ovid?” Ovid.

  “Dae ye prefer the modern poets tae the ancients, than?”

  He knew no respect for her sensibilities. “I waver between. Perhaps medieval would do.” Laughter welled inside her alongside desire, even as the slice of disquiet expanded.

  “Y así mi suerte ignoro en la contienda, y no querer decirlo y que lo diga: vagando voy en amorosa erranza.”

  She circled her palm around his collar into his hair, feeling him as she had not given herself allowance to do the night before. “And that?”

  “Dante.”

  “That explains why I did not perfectly understand it.”

  “‘And thus’”—his hands shifted down her back, his mouth teasing hers with light nibbles

  —“‘being all unsure which path to take, wishing to speak I know not what to say, and lose myself in amorous wanderings.’” This was nearly too much to bear. “Wandering speech,” she breathed, “or hands?”

  “Baith.”

  “I s-see.” He pulled her tight to him, his palm spread across her behind nesting her snug against his hips. Kitty’s blood turned to warm syrup, but even as her breaths shortened from his words and caresses, unease overruled her pleasure. What game was he playing with her? And why, given the liberties she allowed him, wasn’t she privy to it yet?

  With the backs of his fingers he stroked tenderly along her cheek.

  “‘So beautiful with her delicate limbs, fair waist, and long eyes,’” he murmured, “‘that she put the splendor of the moon to shame with her radiance.’” Kitty could not draw air. “Wh-what was that?”

  “Hindustani. Verra auld.”

  “I daresay.” She steeled her voice and said at her most proper, “I am still waiting for the French.”

  A marvelous smile split across his lips, a glimmer of sheer admiration in his eyes. Then something changed. The glimmer grew warm, warmer.

  “Je reconnus Vénus et ses feux redoutables ,” he said, his voice beautiful and deep and not in the least bit teasing, “d’un sang qu’elle poursuit tourments inévitables.”

  Kitty trembled. “Venus’s torment,” she whispered. She felt that fire in her blood too. For two days it had sought to consume her and now she wanted nothing more than to submit to it fully again.

  Everywhere they touched he heated her, his thighs and hips pressed to hers, his hands on her back. But she would be a fool to think that was all of Venus’s torment.

  And finally she understood perhaps too well how her pretense with Lambert had been wrong. He had done very badly by her, but she should never have pretended anything with him, no matter her reason, as this man was clearly pretending. If she allowed herself to be with the earl now when he was denying her the truth so obviously, she would suffer. When she had been young and impressionable, a man claimed to care for her but had only been using her. More than even her ruined reputation, her heart still bore the scars of that falsity. She could not allow herself to be with a man who would not tell her the entire truth now.

  “You are wonderfully well versed in verse, my lord,” she said, gathering her courage. “Do they teach all of that at Edinburgh University?”

  “The Athens o the North, they call it.”

  “I thought Scotland produced mostly engineers and doctors. Poets too?”

  “Aye, poets. Philosophers an churchmen. Cads an thieves.” A grin slipped across his lips. Kitty could not manage to look away.

  “You must have studied prodigiously hard.”

  “Must hae.”

  “Now tell me the truth.”

&nbs
p; He stilled.

  “About why you spoke the way you did last night,” she added, more certain now.

  A single brow rose beneath a tangled strand of dark and white hair. She wanted to run her fingers through the streak and to ask him how he had come by it or if he had always had it, to know something of him real and tangible. But another lazy grin slipped across his lips.

  “A man’s bund tae say any nummer o things at sic a maument, lass.”

  “It was not what you said.” Your body is art. I must have you now. “It was the manner in which you said it that caught my attention.” And the devastating play of his fingers.

  He held her gaze, and the place where those fingers had dallied hours earlier ached.

  “I heard you speak to Mr. Yale in that manner too.”

  “In whit manner’s that, maleddy?” His gaze revealed nothing now.

  “What game are you playing, my lord? Why the deception? Or is the deception the poetry-reciting London beau? A fine tool of seduction, I suspect, for the unwary.”

  “Nou, ma girl, why woud A hae been needing tae seduce ye at precisely that maument?”

  But she would not be sidestepped.

  “My lord, are you a rogue, a gentleman, or a barbarian? I must know.”

  “A wee bit o ilk, lass.”

  “A bit of each? Which is sincere?” With enormous effort of will, she pushed him off and ducked out of the reach of his arms. “Perhaps—perhaps you should hold to tragedy after all. Allow me to play your game now as well, won’t you? You mentioned Aeschylus the other night, so I suppose you know Greek.”

  “Some.” His brow was drawn.

  Kitty crossed her arms. “Well?”

  He did not reply immediately. Finally, “In the Greek?”

  “English translation, if you please.”

  He regarded her steadily. “‘He burneth to enjoy a mortal maid, and then torments her. A sorry suitor for thy love, poor girl, a bitter wooing.’” Kitty squeezed her eyes shut. This could not be happening to her again. She had left torment behind years ago.

  His voice, so beautiful, so deep and smooth, came again through the cold. “‘I have but now ceased mourning for my griefs.’” Her eye snapped open.

  He looked … uncertain.

  “Another play by Aeschylus, my lord?”

  “Prometheus Bound.”

  “Ah, no wonder it seemed familiar. I have seen it performed. It is the scene in which Prometheus, chained to a cliff face for eternity, speaks those words before the eagle sets upon him to devour his liver. Daily. Am I correct?”

  He shrugged. “’Tis tragedy, lass.”

  She pivoted about, putting her back to him and a hand across her mouth, and Leam’s heart beat so hard he could hear it. He had brought her to this state, again rendering the exquisite undone.

  He was a complete ass revealing himself in this manner. He knew it and he couldn’t care. This clever woman—this beautiful woman—this woman whose rare and precious laughter stole beneath his ribs—she had given herself to him and he wanted more. Fool that he was, he wanted much more. He wanted to let himself feel what he knew he could feel with her if he allowed it.

  He simply could not.

  So he spoke now without disguise, disguising himself in the language of his youth’s passion, the poetry that his once reckless heart had adored. For the first time in his life, his tongue would not behave.

  “I have played the fool before, my lord.” Her voice held steady, unlike her body that trembled when he held her, that had trembled the night before as he lost himself so completely in her. “But that was some time ago and I do not intend to repeat the experience now.” She moved toward the door.

  “A dinna wish ye tae play the fool, lass.” The Scots clung. Leam willed it away, but it would not go. He suspected why. He knew their names. Their son awaited him at Alvamoor for the holiday. Their son who called him Father.

  He must maintain this charade with her until he could leave. It was his only protection against the danger he wanted to dive into with her. He could not allow his heart to become engaged. He could not trust in his self-control, the self-control that had deserted him entirely when he had met his wife and became blind to all else. When he discovered her infidelity and his jealousy knew no limits.

  A man who had sought his own brother’s death because of his jealousy over a faithless woman must not allow himself to love again.

  Kitty turned partially toward him, her hand on the latch.

  “Oh, you needn’t worry.” She did not meet his gaze. “I have done this before, you know, and it is quite easy. One simply says good-bye, and, voilà! , no more fool to be had here.” She tugged on the door. It stuck. She put her shoulder into it. It did not budge. Leam went forward, reached over her, and bent to her tightly bound hair. He inhaled her fragrance, the dangerous beauty in his senses like nothing he had known in an eon. Very likely, he’d never known it.

  He stroked the backs of his fingers along her cheek and neck, and she gasped in air and her body quivered. She ducked her head.

  “Please open it.” Her voice was tight.

  “Kitty—” She grabbed the edge of the door and pulled hard. Leam shoved it open, his stomach hollow. She marched through.

  A crack sounded across the space. She screamed, pivoted about, and tumbled into a snowbank.

  Chapter 12

  Leam leaped forward, darting his gaze to the surrounding buildings.

  “Yale!” he bellowed. “ Yale! ” He dropped to his knees beside her. Snow enveloped her, red speckling the white.

  Frantically he searched. Dear God, please no. He unfolded the cloak tangled about her. A small circle of blood settled on the wool of her sleeve, spread through the torn fabric of her gown. He yanked his cravat loose, swallowing around the panic.

  Where was the shooter?

  A flash of dark moved about the edge of the building opposite.

  Goddamn it. “Yale!”

  The inn door burst open.

  “Pistol shot! From the north. Get the dogs.”

  Yale whistled into the inn, then took off across the street, Hermes and Bella streaking out the door and leaping ahead of him.

  Kitty opened her eyes. Her lips and cheeks were pale. It looked a minor wound, but it would pain her greatly when he made her move, which he must do without delay.

  “Good heavens.” She sounded more surprised than distressed.

  “Good God.” He had done this to her. The shot must have been meant for him. The man following him must have a nervous trigger finger to have mistaken it. “Kitty, ma girl.”

  “I believe I have been shot.”

  “That ye hae. Lie still, lass.”

  Gently, he lifted her arm. She screamed. He slid the cravat beneath it, looped it quickly again, then pulled it tight.

  “Oh, God,” she groaned weakly. “Will you never cease torturing me?”

  Leam tied off the cravat and gathered her in his arms. He carried her through the stable door and into the tack room. Carefully he set her down, propping her elbow upon a bench as she breathed fast and shallow, her eyes and lips clenched. He reached for a blanket, smelling of horse but it would have to do, and wrapped it about her shoulders, then slid an empty bucket to her side.

  “An ye need tae be ill, gae at it.”

  “I am to suppose, then, that you know of what you speak?” she gritted out.

  “Aye.” He stood. “Stey here.”

  At the door he scanned the yard. The shooter had run, but he might have a partner, although it seemed unlikely. He hadn’t even shot twice.

  Lady Emily and Mrs. Milch appeared in the inn’s doorway.

  “Gae inside,” he called over. They retreated and the door closed.

  Yale appeared around the building across the way, moving fast, Hermes loping alongside.

  “Someone’s gone in a boat beyond the beaver dam, but I don’t know if it’s the shooter,” he shouted as he neared. “Bella’s tracking the bank. I’ll ride.”


  “Nae.” He moved aside for the Welshman and wolfhound to enter and pulled the door closed to a crack. “We dinna ken the land.”

  “Or if he’s alone.” He dropped the pistol into his coat pocket. “Blast and damn, Leam.”

  “Yale.” He moved toward Kitty. She sat with her legs curled beneath her as he’d left her. “Pardon ma friend. He’s a whelp a’times.”

  “I have already heard you curse, my lord. He may as well do so too.” She regarded him steadily as he crouched down beside her and moved the blanket aside. The cravat had absorbed some of the blood on her gown, but only a tiny fresh dot of red had come through it. The wound was merely a nick. The shooter had not intended to hit her, perhaps had balked at the last moment. But the knot in Leam’s belly would not unwind.

  “We’ll be needing tae properly see tae the scratch, lass. An ye canna stand, A’ll—”

  “My lord, it has not escaped my notice that you and Mr. Yale seem remarkably unsurprised at the fact that someone shot me just now.” Her voice quivered.

  “Nae at all.”

  “Sir, we have already discussed fools. Pay me the compliment of recalling that.”

  “You two have some interesting conversations.”

  Leam shot a glare over his shoulder. He looked back at the beautiful noblewoman sitting in a pile of straw because of him.

  “Maleddy—”

  “You will tell me this moment what is going on here or—”

  “Or whit?” His temper flared. “Ye’ll go haring aff after the shooter an ask him instead?”

  “Some ladies have more hair than brains,” Yale murmured.

  “A’ll thank ye tae keep out o this, ye boor. Miscaw the leddy again an A’ll belt ye.”

  “Twice in one week? You flatter me with your attentions, old chap.”