A Lord for the Lass (Tartans and Titans)

by Amalie Howard; Angie Morgan

  Lady Haverille looked unashamed and shrugged one delicate shoulder. “I am only thinking ahead, my darling. Lady Makenna is quite stunning, and you did suggest she might have come to your estate because she felt some sort of tendre for you.”

  “I was only teasing her. She is a friend, nothing more,” Julien replied, though he smiled at the memory of Makenna’s expression of indignation when he’d suggested she was there out of some misguided fondness for him. “And I would greatly prefer if you didn’t take my future on as if it were some project that concludes with me at the altar. I am not getting married, as we’ve already discussed.”

  His first and only attempt at nuptials had failed, miserably, the year before, when his best friend, Aisla, had agreed to marry him—on two conditions. One, it would be a marriage of convenience and friendship. And two, she needed to divorce her husband, a Scottish laird she had failed to mention even existed for the six years Julien had known her. She’d been so adamant that she wanted the divorce that he’d traveled with her all the way to the godforsaken Highlands to see it done. However, as fate would have it, she and Niall Maclaren, Laird of Tarbendale, had fallen in love—again.

  “You mustn’t let what happened with Aisla hold you back from finding someone else,” his mother stated.

  “It isn’t holding me back,” he said, wishing to God he’d never told his mother the story. He’d kept the betrothal a secret at the time, not wanting to give his mother false hope, particularly when Aisla’s divorce had not yet been procured. He hadn’t had it in him to be upset at the way things had worked out. His best friend was deliriously happy. He’d only asked Aisla to marry him to please his mother, who, at the time, had been much more ill and hoped to see her son wed.

  Shortly after Aisla’s renewed vows with Niall, Lady Haverille had slowly began to improve. It had all fallen into place, and Julien had felt the exhilarating sensation of having been saved at the eleventh hour from a swing at the gallows. Not that he equated marriage with the gallows, but it was damned close.

  “You’ve been in Paris all year,” his mother went on, oblivious or tenacious, Julien wasn’t sure which, “with a number of women on your arm who could make you happy.”

  “And which society functions have you attended where you could witness such a fact?”

  She waved her hand. “You think I don’t have eyes and ears in ballrooms all over Paris, especially when it concerns my son and eligible ladies? I have an interest in your happiness, is that so difficult to believe?”

  Julien nearly choked on a mouthful of wine that soured as it went down the wrong way. Eyes stinging, he pressed a napkin delicately to his lips. At least two of those women had been an opera singer and a ballerina. Hardly eligible, according to society standards. Another even might have been an actress. A dull flush crept up his neck. He’d flaunted them scandalously, and all the while, his mother had had eyes on him.

  Hell.

  Fighting embarrassment suited to a boy, he sat back in his chair and gestured widely to the room around them. “Maman, I am the new master of this Scottish estate, a castle, and thousands of acres of land. I have estate holdings the world over, a fleet of ships, and more capital than either of us ever imagined possible. I am happy, thank you.”

  She raised one thin brow, clearly unimpressed. “There is more to a happy life than money and property.”

  “I imagine you are referring to love,” he replied, sipping his refreshed glass of wine and letting it burn the bitterness of that word—love—off his tongue. “May I remind you that love is what got you disowned by your father?”

  “I need no reminder,” she said, eyes clouding slightly. “However, given the chance to do everything over—”

  “You would not change a thing, yes, I know,” he interrupted, having heard this claim more than once over the last twenty-odd years. Ever since Julien was old enough to question why she would have given up a pampered life to marry an impoverished third son. To her, marrying for love had been worth it. Even when they’d subsisted on thin soup five days out of the week, or had to shuffle their paltry belongings from let room to let room when rent was past due. Even when both she and Julien’s father had fallen ill with fever…and only one of them had survived.

  Julien’s fingers clenched around his fork at the memories.

  Love. A useless sentiment that served no actual purpose. It didn’t feed empty bellies or keep frozen bodies warm at night. It didn’t provide medicine or stop people from dying. It didn’t keep anyone safe from thieves, pickpockets, and flash men. It was about as useful as a fart in the wind, and as far as he was concerned, the poets and dreamers could keep it.

  Lady Eleanor Haverille, gentle, romantic fool that she was, had never stopped believing in it. Years after his father died, she’d remarried, this time to a viscount, Lord Haverille, who had doted on her for the seven weeks of their marriage before he was conscripted. Haverille had been killed at Waterloo, leaving his mother widowed, though not penniless. She’d used every cent to fund her son’s education.

  Julien blew out a breath. Perhaps he believed in love, just not romantic love.

  His mother was quiet a moment, and as she placed her napkin on the table, Julien realized he might have injured her feelings. She still held a strong love for both her long-departed husbands, and he imagined it was difficult for her to know her son didn’t understand why she’d chosen the paths she had. A stubborn look sat on her face. “How can you understand when you’ve never known it yourself?”

  “It’s not that I don’t believe in the existence of love between couples,” he said quickly, needing to explain. Yet again. Always, it seemed. “I do. Plenty of people like Aisla seem to be converts. I simply have no desire to be caught in its web.”

  After his father had passed, his mother had penned a handful of letters to her stringent and miserly father, the Marquess of Riverley. They had gone unanswered, his grandfather’s disappointment so deeply seated that not even the distress of his destitute and widowed daughter could sway him. It had been up to Julien, then, to provide for his mother, who finally gave up trying to contact the unforgiving marquess. They had scraped by, but it had always felt to Julien as if they were being punished by the world. All because of love.

  He would never be in that position again, or subject anyone else to it.

  “You are like an old piano, chéri, playing out of tune,” she said. “All you need is the right woman to set you to rights.”

  “It would take the patience of a saint to try and change me.”

  “No, just a headstrong woman,” she replied.

  “It is not worth my time to argue with you, is it?” he asked with a fond smile.

  She rose from her seat, looking rather smug. “Not in the least. Bonsoir, mon coeur.”

  Julien rose from his chair as well and went to her, giving her a peck on the cheek before she left the dining room. As exasperating as his mother could be, he would rather her be no other place than right here, with him. That way he could keep an eye on her health, which truly was making a miraculous rebound.

  An old piano, playing out of tune. Leave it to his mother to liken a woman to a piano tuner, someone to come in, open him up, and tinker away at him. All it would take is a headstrong woman? Unlikely. He had one of those right here, in his castle. Though “headstrong” was a rather mild word to describe Makenna. She was more like a firestorm, rare but unpredictable and destructive. Never knowing when her flames would ignite or which way they would turn. And whether such latent passions translated to the bedchamber.

  It would be a lie to say his mind had not delved into all sorts of erotic imaginings involving Lady Makenna over the last year. He would have never acted on them, not with a married woman, but it didn’t stop him from giving in to his fantasies. And give in, he had. The pull to her was physical—it had been then, and it still was. Though now, Julien was more concerned about her state of mind than whether the attraction was mutual.

  In the past, tho
ugh she’d been secretive and unhappy at times, she had managed to open up, under duress, about her husband. Today, however, she had announced his death and had turned stony. Resistant. Not at all mournful, and yet also not relieved to be free of him. She’d seemed rattled, as if there was far more to the story than she was sharing.

  After dinner, Julien told himself he only wished for honest answers as he made his way to her chamber. It had nothing at all to do with the desire to lay eyes on her again, or to perhaps catch one of the small, annoyed quirks of her lips whenever he said something vexing. He’d lived for those little idiosyncrasies during his stay at Maclaren—those provocative glimpses of a hidden spirit. He used to delight in goading her temper, since seduction had never been on the table, though a beat of sexual tension had always been there, drumming between them.

  A beat that had now become an indelicate throb.

  That morning, in the foyer, he had seen the flare of her pupils as her mind had wandered somewhere beyond their conversation. Her eyes had slipped to his throat, his chest…lower. Her cheeks had gone pink, betraying what he was certain had been arousal, and the sight of it had intrigued him. Makenna was not immune to flirtation, but she also was not like the women he’d known in Paris, willing, coy, and playful. No, there was something that weighed her down, like a braced broken limb that had not yet healed. Her passions were tempered by caution.

  Julien stopped outside her bedchamber door, and though he knew it was improper, knocked twice. Light footsteps approached, and a moment later he was looking down into the narrowed, dark eyes of Makenna’s dour maid.

  “My lord,” the girl said, dipping into a hasty curtsy as she held firm to the door, opened a scant few inches. She’d seemed girlish at first, but upon a closer look, Julien realized that she wasn’t as young as she appeared. And she was clearly protective of her mistress.

  “I don’t wish to disturb your lady—” Julien began, but then a low voice from within sounded.

  “Tildy? Who is it?”

  The maid’s face disappeared behind the door and Julien began to wish he’d waited until much later to knock upon Makenna’s door, when the maid would have been in her own room. Then again, if he were any kind of true gentleman, he wouldn’t have come knocking at all.

  Thankfully, he wasn’t encumbered by that notion.

  The door opened and Makenna filled the frame. Her scent reached him first—that of a highland meadow after a crisp spring rain—and Julien fought the urge to breathe it in. Her glossy hair had been plaited and swept over one shoulder in a thick braid, the firelight from her chamber shimmering off the strands. Her emerald silk wrapper obscured most of her body, but the creamy column of her neck was still visible, and he couldn’t help noticing the sprinkling of freckles along the hollow of her collarbone. They were often considered unseemly among women, he knew, and a number of his female acquaintances used powder to conceal them. But the tawny flecks along Makenna’s skin did nothing to detract from her allure. If anything, they drew his eyes all the more. It took almost all his effort to drag them away.

  He kept his gaze above her shoulders, though the temptation to peruse the rest of her mouthwatering figure was like a lead weight in each eye. Tall in stature, she’d always leaned toward a voluptuousness that had made him senseless, and seeing her now nearly en déshabillé, made his every thought fizzle. He swallowed hard, his speech dying in his throat.

  “Lord Leclerc, is something the matter?”

  He cleared his thickened throat. Beyond an emergency, there could be no other acceptable reason for him to come to her bedchamber.

  “I’m afraid there is a problem, yes,” he replied. “Might I have a private moment of your time?”

  She continued to frown, her auburn brows, a few shades darker than her fiery locks, pulled together with worry. “Tildy, that will be all for tonight,” she said, stepping aside to both invite Julien inside and the maid, out.

  Tildy bobbed her head, and with a last suspicious glare thrown his way, closed the door behind her.

  “She’s intense,” he remarked.

  “She’s protective.” Makenna had taken a few long strides away from the door, toward the hearth. She checked the ties on her wrapper, giving them a brisk tug. She was nervous then. Unsettled. Julien wanted to revel in the knowledge, but he couldn’t ignore the unsteady trip of his own pulse. God in heaven, but she was beautiful. “It’s no’ appropriate for ye to be in here, my lord.”

  Her husky brogue lit the rest of his flailing senses on fire, and he grasped for his fast-fading control. He wanted to fill his palms with warmed silk, breathe in her scent, hold her close. He wanted to…talk. Talk, that was what he had come for.

  “Are you afraid the maids will gossip?” he drawled. “I wonder who they will tell of this indiscretion—the cattle? The sheep? What will they think?”

  He reached for flippancy for two reasons. One, he was flustered, an uncommon occurrence. And two, she had a temper beneath that guarded and stony exterior, and if he could provoke her to let it loose, she might give him the answers he sought. Then again, she might very well crack him in the jaw instead. It was a risk he was willing to take.

  “There is nae indiscretion taking place,” she said, again checking the wrapper’s ribbons. As if she didn’t trust them to hold it closed. A throb of heat struck him in the groin at the idea of that possibility and the image of what she wore underneath. If anything at all. A nude Makenna was suddenly impossible to get out of his mind.

  You came to get answers, not gawk, he reminded himself.

  “I disagree,” he said. “I’ve hired you as my steward—”

  “And I’d like to get an early start in the morning, if ye dunnae mind stating yer business so I can get to bed.”

  It was a mistake, mentioning the bed. He saw it in the flare of her pupils. They widened just seconds before a blush kissed the fair skin of her cheeks. She immediately averted her gaze, but it seemed to snag on the front of his waistcoat and down farther, over his too-tight trousers. She pinned her lips together with a pained sound and dragged her gaze away. Julien tried to bite back his grin, but still felt the edge of it on his lips. He was smirking, as he was so often accused of doing. But hell, how could he resist? He was aroused, and so was she.

  “To bed you shall go, indeed,” he murmured. He heard an audible intake of breath, and her eyes shot back to his again. He let the innuendo hang between them, watching with some satisfaction as those long fingers fluttered to her wrapper. Makenna opened her mouth, presumably to give him a setdown, and closed it. Her control was laudable. It might even rival his own. Though at the moment, he would be lying if he didn’t admit he was holding on by a thread. “However, first, I would like some answers from my new hire.”

  Makenna managed to break his stare, and strode toward the lit hearth, where she stood, her profile angled toward him. “I thought we’d settled things earlier.”

  Admirable. Her voice did not even hitch.

  “Hardly. I don’t need you to pour out your soul to me, Lady Makenna, but I would not mind knowing whether or not some raving mad Scotsmen will be descending upon my newly acquired lands in search of you.”

  Her jaw hardened, and Julien thought he saw a fast flare of her slim nostril. He’d startled her. Makenna loosed a breath. “Havenae I told ye already? The Brodies never accepted me—why would they come after me?”

  “And the Maclarens?” he said, circling back to the question she had so deftly avoided earlier that morning. “I imagine they will be curious, even a bit peeved, as to why you are here, instead of at home. And I do not want them here, either.”

  Her four burly, intimidating warrior brothers would no doubt assume the basest of reasons why she was with him. First Aisla, and now Makenna. As much as Aisla cared for Julien, and as much as she tried to convince her husband and brothers-in-law to like him as well, he was still the libidinous rake who had tried to steal her away. And he was French. Arguably worse in the eyes of a Highlander
. Julien plucked at an imaginary thread on his pristine waistcoat. He had no care for the arrogance of the Scots, himself.

  Well, with one exception—the extraordinarily tempting Scotswoman a stride away.

  Makenna’s eyes traced the leaping fire in the grate, her attention riveted to the flames. The dancing light showed the many fluctuations of her expression in the following moments. From surprise, to contemplative, to anxious. What was going through that lockbox of a mind of hers? Julien knew how to play a hand close to his chest, and clearly that was her method here as well. She was hiding something, and he had every reason to believe it had to do with her dead husband.

  Was he truly dead? Or had that been a lie?

  No. She’d blurted it out upon seeing him, her vulnerability unfeigned.

  Makenna’s tongue darted out to lick her lips, and then said, “I cannae burden them. I’m a grown woman and can make my own way.”

  “Where were you planning to go from here?”

  She had not expected him to be in residence, that much was evident.

  “I dunnae see why that should concern ye. I am here, and I am yer new steward, at least in the short term, am I no’?”

  “You are. I’m only concerned about your reasons for appearing so precipitously on my doorstep. Why have you come, Makenna?”

  Her mouth firmed into a pale line. “I told ye. I dunnae belong with the Brodie.”

  “And you came to me?”

  “I came to Duncraigh. I didnae ken ye would be here.”

  He believed that, at least. She’d been stunned to see him rather than just the castle’s caretakers. A small part of him wished he hadn’t been in residence at Duncraigh. As much as he’d thought of Makenna over the last year, and as satisfying it was to rest his eyes on her again, she brought with her complications. Julien did not like, nor did he need, complications.

  “You’re hiding something.”

  “If ye think I’ll bring trouble, I’ll happily be on my way,” she replied, teeth gritted. “I dunnae wish to cause ye or yer mother any grief.”