She shook her head at his teasing. “Your mother has been saying flattering things about you. You had best be well behaved, or I will be inclined not to believe any of it.”
“Will you trust that I am a wonderful person if I tell you that I have good news?” They walked along the garden path, their interwoven hands swinging between them.
“What is your news?”
“I will be late tomorrow,” he said.
She stopped and looked up at him. “That is not good news at all.”
His grin could not have contained another ounce of mischievousness. “You do not yet know the reason why I will be late.”
“It would need to be an exceptionally good one for me to feel at all happy about it.”
He raised her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her fingers. “Tomorrow I am resigning as stable master at Haddington House.”
Her first response was relief on his behalf, then excitement that he would be free of the misery of that place. But just as quickly, she realized another unsettling possibility. “Where will you work? Will you be farther away? Will you still come back and see m— see us?”
He brushed his fingers along her cheek. “I’m not leaving you, Sophia. After tomorrow, I’m coming home.”
Dermot didn’t pause long enough to hand his outercoat to Mrs. Green as he made his way to the sitting room the next night. His last day as stable master at Haddington House had been as chaotic as he’d expected it to be.
If not for his concern for the stable hands, he’d have left the Haddington family high and dry the moment he’d learned of Mr. Haddington’s treatment of Sophia. Instead, he’d spent the two weeks since planning a thorough mutiny.
“Why, Dermot. This is a surprise.” Mother rose from her armchair. “We were not expecting you until tomorrow at the earliest.”
“Where is Sophia?” He’d hoped she would be here when he arrived, knowing as she did that he was returning to stay.
Mother laughed. “I would be offended if I weren’t happy to know that you’ve missed our dear houseguest.”
“Missed her? That feels like a terribly inadequate word.” The room was empty other than him and his mother. “Where is she?”
She hugged him fiercely. “She is a lovely and good and kind young lady.”
“I know all that, Mother. What I don’t know is where she is.” Had his mother taken leave of her senses?
She patted his cheek. “I’m only happy that you are happy. Sophia is in the back garden, waxing silently poetic over the view of Ben Lomond.”
That sounded like his Sophia. He’d seen her love for this land in her eyes long before they’d first spoken. “I’ll be back shortly.”
She simply smiled. “Take your time, son.”
Sophia was, indeed, precisely where Mother had said he’d find her. And her gaze was, as predicted, fondly focused on the mountain Dermot had spent his childhood memorizing.
“’Tis a lovely sight, is it not?”
Her head jerked in his direction. Immediately, a smile curved her lips. “Dermot, you’re here at last. How did your day go?”
Dermot dropped onto the bench beside her. “Haddington House is in turmoil.” He wasn’t hiding his glee at their former employers’ distress. “There has been a coup.”
Her mouth dropped open a moment. “Good heavens.”
He could hardly sit still, he was so excited to tell her all that had happened. “Knowing Mr. Haddington for the snake he is, I couldn’t imagine that you were the first or only member of the staff he had imposed upon. A few subtle, vague questions in the right ears revealed the horrid enormity of his conduct.”
Her sudden pallor concerned him.
He took her hands. “I did not ever mention you, nor your situation. I swear to you.”
But she shook her head. “That was not my concern. I hate the idea that he has caused other people pain.”
“Mrs. Haddington has been rather horrible as well. It seems you are not the only one who has been forbidden from moving freely or attending certain activities. And the entire family are terrible to the animals, as well.”
Sophia’s mouth and brows turned down. Life inside the house was likely even more miserable than it had been in the stables.
“I have spent the last two weeks finding new positions for my stable staff,” Dermot said. “The housekeeper and butler heard whispers and began searches of their own, finding new positions for the household staff.”
“Did they?” Amazement lit her expression. “What did the family say as this all came about?”
“They didn’t have the opportunity to say much. Only I remained behind long enough for comment.”
A triumphant smile tugged at Sophia’s mouth. “What did you say?”
“A great many things I can’t repeat in a lady’s company. Suffice it to say, Haddington now knows that if he mistreats his staff, should he manage to hire any and I hear about it, he’ll find himself in dire straits— more dire than a mere loss of staff.” It had been an extremely satisfying exchange, actually.
Sophia stretched and placed a kiss on his cheek. “You are a good man, Dermot Buchanan.”
“Yes, I am.” He settled his arm around her and pulled her next to him. She laid her head against him, her gaze forward once more. “My mother tells me you’ve been enjoying my mountain.”
“Ben Lomond is yours, is it?” The song-like quality her voice took on when she was amused had quickly become one of his favorite sounds.
“Not the entire mountain, just this view of it,” he said. “But I might be willing to share.”
“Which is a good thing, because you will be here often now.” She shifted in his arms, looking up at him. “Won’t you?”
“Every day, love.”
She leaned into him once more, settling there as naturally as anything. There was really only one thing for a man to do when a woman held him that way. He wrapped his arms around her as well. Heavens, she felt good in his embrace.
“We have missed you so much,” she said.
“We?” he pressed.
“Nothing is the same without you here. I hadn’t realized it until I came to Greenborough, but your presence at Haddington House was what made life there bearable. Seeing you, if only from my bedchamber window, was a gift and a joy. I have missed that, and I have missed you.”
Hearing things like that from the woman who’d stolen away his heart did a man’s pride a world of good. “Spied on me from your window, did you?”
“Unrepentantly.”
He slid ever closer to her. “And if I promise to spend time beneath your bedchamber window here, will you spy on me some more?”
“Spend time with me, Dermot, and I’ll have no need to spy.”
That was an offer he would gladly accept. “But what’ll we find to do?”
“I imagine we can think of something,” she answered, her voice quiet and low.
He slipped his hand around the back of her neck, pulling her to him. “I’m thinking of something already, love.”
She sighed, her breath tickling his lips. “I love when you call me ‘love.’”
He brushed his mouth over hers, kissing her slowly. She slipped her arms around his neck once more. He settled his arms around her waist. The late evening sun shone warm on them as he held her and kissed her and thanked the heavens for bringing her to Scotland.
“I have something for you,” he said.
“You do?”
He held her hand in his and led her out of the garden. “I explained to Squire Reynolds that you were owed back wages— that Haddington wouldn’t pay what you are owed.”
“I was afraid he would refuse.”
They turned the corner of the house and took the path leading to the stables. “Squire Reynolds is a good man. He insisted that Haddington either send with me the money he owed you, or that he pay you in kind.”
“I’m to be paid?” She’d grown so accustomed to being mistreated that a good outcome fully su
rprised her.
Dermot slipped his arm around her waist and tugged her up next to him. “Haddington owed me wages as well, so we worked out an agreement.”
He led her into the stables, past Will and Johnny, past Aiden, and to a small, windowed stall at the back of the building. “I accepted this as payment of his debt.”
“The filly?” She looked up at him, eyes wide.
“She is yours, my dear. Yours to raise and train and make your own.”
“Where will— she live?”
There was far more in that question than the stabling of a horse. “She will live here, my dearest, sweetest Sophia. She will live here with us.”
A sudden redness rimmed Sophia’s eyes. “Us?”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Will you stay with me, love? Will you stay?”
She took a shaky breath. “Us?”
“We’ve a tradition in the Buchanan family, one only recently adopted. A cantankerous, stubborn Scotsman finds himself desperately in love with a warm, caring, beautiful Englishwoman, whom he somehow convinces to marry him.”
Her heart leapt to her throat.
“I’d like to continue the tradition, my dear,” he said. “Would you consider it?”
“Marrying you?”
He brushed his thumb along her jaw. “I’d be the happiest man in all the world if you would.”
Joy bubbled through her, filling the aching voids left by a lifetime of heartache. “And I’d be the happiest woman.”
He kissed her fully, truly, then pulled her into his arms. “I love you, my darling.”
She nestled more snuggly into his embrace. “Ours is to be a happy ending, it seems.”
“A happy beginning, love. A tremendously happy beginning.”
Chapter One
County Cavan, Ireland, 1864
The roads leading to Cavan Town boasted a fine collection of young bachelors hying themselves to that gem in the midst of the lake county. They made the journey, not to conduct business, not to shop at market, not to worship. The men came to pay court to the belle of the county, each hoping to have a single word, a single glance from the object of their universal affection. Unfortunately for Alice Wheatley, she was not that belle.
Alice hadn’t a particular taste for the attentions of hordes of men at one time. Her heart belonged to but one man, a certain Isaac Dancy, whom she’d met on the road to Cavan. He walked the dozen miles around the lakes from his home near Killeshandra every weekend to join the throng of besotted men. Alice walked nearly as many miles herself, returning home to Cavan from her weekday job as a maid-of-all work for a farm family of very comfortable means.
They’d struck up a conversation and a friendship quicker than a change of weather in autumn. He’d shown himself intelligent and thoughtful and kind. They laughed together and smiled together, yet their conversations were known to take serious turns as well. She knew his worries, and he knew hers. She felt closer to him than any other person on earth.
Yet he was making the weekly walk into Cavan to court another woman. Even knowing the reasons for his weekly journeys, Alice had fallen quite deeply in love with him. If her parents had given her a middle name, it likely would have been “Terribly Unlucky.”
Still, as she followed the turn in the road that she walked each weekend and approached the spot where Isaac waited for her every Saturday morning, she didn’t regret her lack of luck. He stood there as usual. Her heart smiled to see him. Unlucky she might have been, but she had his company twice each week and felt grateful for that.
“Good day to ya, Isaac Dancy.”
“And to you.” He rose from the rock he’d been sitting on.
Alice sometimes wondered if she’d ever grow accustomed to the sight of him. His hair could not have been a darker shade of black. Deep brown were his eyes, and full of intelligence and a love of living. And a life of working the land had left him broad of shoulder. What woman could help admiring the very sight of him?
“Have ya noted our fine view this morning?” he asked. “The last bits of autumn color are on the leaves.”
She had noticed it. A fine prospect the lakes offered all the year ‘round. Snow hung on bare branches in the winter. Buds of green brightened the landscape in spring. Foliage was lush and plentiful during the summer. She’d developed a fondness for the road in the two years she’d walked it. But the past four months, walking with Isaac, she’d hardly noticed the beauty around her.
“How went yer week, Isaac?”
Thus began their usual stroll. He spoke of having finished his harvest and preparing his home and land and animals for the coming winter. She spoke of her own work and the growing coldness at night, how her tiny closet of a room at the farmhouse hardly kept any of the night air out. He suggested she might want to begin bringing blankets with her as the seasons changed. She wondered aloud if the market would yet have apples or if the picking season had entirely ended.
’Twas always that way between them. Conversation came easily. They could speak on anything or nothing and thoroughly enjoy themselves.
In time, she told herself, he would recognize that for the wonderful thing it was. In time, he would give up his courtship of Miss Sophia Kilchrest and move on to higher pastures, as it were.
Sure, he’d been lured, like so many others, by Miss Kilchrest’s lovely face and fine figure. He’d been pulled in by her flawless manners and twinkling eyes. He’d even found a bit of motivation in the dowry she’d bring with her, though, to his credit, he’d not mentioned that but once, and even then, as an off-hand observation. And, Alice had noted, having set his mind on the pursuit of such a highly prized treasure, Isaac had taken on a certain single-mindedness where Miss Kilchrest was concerned. Alice doubted he gave his pursuit much thought of late. He simply continued because it was a goal he’d worked on so long.
“Do ya plan to keep making this walk after the snows come?” Alice asked, praying and hoping and feeling generally quite desperate that he would.
“I don’t plan to give over the progress I’ve made with Miss Kilchrest, if that’s what ya mean.”
’Twas not in the smallest bit what she meant. But life had taught her that men could be terribly thickheaded, and a woman had no real choice but to be patient with them.
“Are ya making progress, then?”
Isaac nodded. “She spoke to me quite particularly the last few weekends, though the other men vying for her attention were ready to rip me apart over it.”
“And men enjoy that, do they, the look of violent loathing in the eyes of another man?”
Isaac grinned. “Indeed.”
I will never understand men. Was it the loathing and the sense of victory Isaac liked, or was it the attentions from Miss Kilchrest? Surely he was intelligent enough not to court a woman simply out of pride. “And what did ya talk about during this jealousy-inducing conversation with Miss Kilchrest?”
He buttoned his coat against the growing wind as they continued down the road. “She spoke of her friends and fashion and the weather.”
“Fascinating.” Alice only just kept her tone less dry than she felt the comment deserved.
He laughed a little. “She and I aren’t the friends that you and I are. We’ve not endless topics to discuss yet.”
So stop trying to converse with her and start spending more time with me. She’d convince him one day; she swore she would. He’d realize Sophia Kilchrest was not for him. More important still, he’d realize she absolutely was.
“Can I let ya in on a secret?” he asked.
Alice couldn’t help a smile. He’d shared “secrets” with her before. Sometimes ’twas nothing more than a teasing story, though on a few occasions, he’d told her of plans he had for his home and land. He told her personal things, important things, things she felt certain he hadn’t told Miss Kilchrest.
He’d piece it together. He’d realize in time she was his match and not the Belle of Cavan.
“What’s this secret?”
she asked.
“This weekend in Cavan,” he said, earnest excitement in his voice, “I mean to ask Miss Kilchrest if she’ll consider me her exclusive suitor. I mean to see to it we’re on the firm path toward making her my bride.”
With that declaration, Alice Wheatley’s world ended.
Chapter Two
Isaac would never, as long as he lived, understand the female mind. He’d told Alice of his plans to move quite seriously forward with Miss Kilchrest. Rather than offer immediate congratulations or encouragement, she’d looked shocked. Shocked.
How could she have been even a little surprised? They’d spoken of his pursuit of Miss Kilchrest nearly every weekend since he’d first crossed Alice’s path some four months earlier. She knew as much about his plans and thoughts as anyone on earth, more even. And yet she clearly hadn’t expected his declaration.
Women will never make the least sense.
They reached Market Square, where the weekly crowd of men gathered to jostle for position alongside Miss Kilchrest as she wandered about the vendors’ tables. Over the months Isaac had been at the task of courting her, he’d planned out his efforts quite meticulously. Those plans seldom needed review or second thoughts.
Alice, on the other hand, was near constantly throwing his understanding of her entirely out the window.
“Have we made good time?” Alice asked that question every Saturday as they came in to Cavan Town. She needed a timepiece of her own, she did.
He checked his pocket watch. “’Tis only just noon. Ye’ve time to reach yer grandparent’s house for luncheon.”
Her nod was one of relief.
“Have they taken a turn for the worse?” She’d spoken often of her grandparents and their failing health. They were the reason she returned to Cavan every weekend— to take over from a cousin the task of caring for them.
“No more than expected. They’re growing old fast, is all.” She gave him a sad smile, but with more than a hint of her usual optimism. He didn’t like how it dulled her usually sparkling brown eyes. “I’d best not keep ya from yer efforts. There’s a market full of men needing tripping up and pushing aside.”
A Timeless Romance Anthology: Sarah M. Eden British Isles Collection Page 10
