***

“Pretend you don’t see me.”

The Balfour estate was home to many children. Matthew had observed them weeding the vegetable plots, herding sheep, spreading chicken manure on the pastures, mucking stalls, and otherwise taking on the tasks appropriate to youth. This was the first child he’d seen in Balfour House itself, and he knew in an instant the girl dismounting nimbly from the banister was the dear and dread Fiona.

“Are you asking me to lie, child?”

She studied him with the trademark MacGregor green eyes, twirling the end of a coppery braid between her fingers. “Not lie, pretend. This is the ladies’ wing, so I will pretend I didn’t see you here either.”

“I’m fetching my aunt, my sisters, and my cousin, to escort them to dinner. My name is Matthew Daniels.”

“Fiona Ursula MacGregor Flynn.” She gave a sprightly curtsy that looked more like a Highland dance maneuver. “I know who you are. You are Miss Augusta’s cousin, Miss Daniels’s brother, and Miss Hester’s brother too. The baron is your father, and Miss Julia is your auntie by marriage, which is why she’s so young.”

“I’m impressed.” He was also charmed by this miniature version of Mary Fran. “Lady Mary Frances is your mother, and the earl and his brothers are your uncles.”

“Yes.” She twirled around, smiling gleefully. “And you are our guests. I had an adventure today.”

Matthew took up a seat on the bottom stair. “I expect you have adventures most days. Lots of them.”

“Not like this. A gentleman should ask a lady’s permission before he takes a seat, you know.” In her thick, piping burr, she was reminding him of his manners as a kindness.

“A lady stays off the banisters. What was your adventure?” Because, of course, she was dying to be asked, and Matthew did not like disappointing even so young a lady.

She plopped down on the stair beside him and tucked her pinny over her knees. “Romeo came after us.”

“Romeos generally do give chase where pretty ladies are concerned.” And this one was going to be gorgeous, right down to the freckles she shared with her mother.

“Romeo is our bull, our breeding bull, though the uncles won’t let him step out with Highland heifers, only with the Angus. Miss Augusta and I went for a picnic, and Romeo came calling. Uncle Ian saved us, and I was very brave.”

“You’ve had a busy morning. How is Miss Augusta?” Visions of Augusta Merrick scrambling over a stone wall brought back childhood memories of similar escapades with her and his sisters.

“She said she’ll tell Ma for me, tonight, after the ladies have had their tea. Ma won’t skelp m’ bum if the ladies are present. I think I should get a medal from the Queen for being so brave.”

This last was bravado, the kind of bravado a child produces when she knows her opinion will not be shared by her parent.

“She won’t skelp your backside. She might weep all over you, though.”

Fiona grimaced and resumed twirling her braid. “That would be awful. Ma hardly ever cries. I hate it when she cries, and so do the uncs. Uncle Con makes her mad so she won’t cry, and Uncle Gil makes her laugh.”

“What does Uncle Ian do?”

“Uncle Ian neg-o-ti-ates. He explained it to me. It’s a bit like playing pretend.”

Before Matthew could fashion a reply to this revelation—Ian would be negotiating the marriage settlements before too much longer—he caught an acrid whiff of cigar smoke.

Fiona sprang to her feet. “G’day, sir. I’ll just be going now.” She shot off up the stairs as Altsax sauntered into the corridor.

“Taken to lurking in the ladies’ wing, Matthew?”

Matthew rose and resisted the urge to dust off his backside. “I’ve come to fetch the women for dinner.”

“You won’t find that Valkyrie sister of Balfour’s here in the women’s wing. She bides in the family wing, where her brothers can do a better job of protecting her virtue than they did in the past. Sound strategy cozying up to the brat, though.”

“Her name is Fiona.” Fiona Ursula MacGregor Flynn, which did not explain why the mother was still using her maiden name.

Altsax fiddled with an ornate gold sleeve button so it winked in the evening sun slanting through the nearby window. “Getting protective already? You can take the boy out of the army, but not the army out of the boy? How very quaint, given the manner in which you and the military parted company. If you’re going to bed the Valkyrie, I suggest you be about it—though that is not a woman in whose presence I’d let my guard down one bit. She’ll likely steal the rings from your fingers while you lie sated and spent in her arms.”

“Your opinion regarding our hostess is ill-bred in the extreme.”

Matthew had managed to speak quietly—Hester or Genie could come tripping along any moment—and he had not balled up his fists or clenched his teeth. Even so, the comment was a tactical error, one that would inspire Altsax to further crudeness if nothing else.

“My, my, my!” Altsax smiled broadly, revealing tobacco-stained teeth. “Ill-bred, am I? It pains me to point out to you that I sit in the Lords and have more wealth than these kilted heathen will see in ten lifetimes. I can be ill-bred when I please, where I please, in any manner I please.”

“Which freedom you feel compelled to demonstrate on far too many occasions,” Matthew responded as pleasantly as he could.

The humor died from Altsax’s rheumy eyes. “Mark me on this, young man: you are a good part of the reason I had to drag your sister into the wilds of Scotland in search of a title for her. Had you not left a trail of scandal clear back to the Crimea, she could have had her pick of the London bachelors. Instead, I’m put to the expense and ignominy of treating with a damned Scot for her hand, and a reluctant damned Scot at that. Cross me at your peril, Colonel. I can leave my wealth to your sisters and wish you the joy of a lowly barony.”

A door opened a few yards down the corridor. Julia Redmond stood there, attired for dinner, a forced smile on her pretty features. “We’ll be ready in just a moment, gentlemen.”

“Matthew will escort you to dinner,” Altsax said. “Though once the earl and I start parlaying family secrets between us, I doubt even a liberal-minded Scot would want the likes of my son at his table.”

The baron stalked off as Julia slipped her fingers around Matthew’s arm. “He’s full of nonsense, you know. Genie has had three Seasons to pick out a swain, and she’s waiting for some lightning bolt from on high to smite her and her one and only simultaneously. As an approach to matrimony, it hasn’t much to recommend it.”

Julia was a petite, pretty woman only two years Matthew’s junior. Her marriage to Altsax’s younger brother hadn’t been a love match, and widowhood had left Julia comfortably well-off.

“You are kind, Julia. Altsax was speaking nothing more than truth. Association with me will not aid either of my sisters in their marital aspirations.”

Julia kissed his cheek, bringing him a hint of roses and solace. “I’ve heard very little talk, Matthew, at least among the ladies of Polite Society. Whispers and hints at the edges of the ballrooms, but nobody seems to know exactly what went on. By this time next year, everybody will have forgotten. Let’s fetch your sisters and Augusta, and go to dinner.”

Amid a gaggle of pretty, merry women, Matthew traveled the earl’s house to the formal parlor, where they’d enjoy whisky and conversation in anticipation of another fine meal. He’d enjoy feasting his eyes on Lady Mary Frances in her finery, too, and he’d tell himself that old army scandals would not matter here in the Highlands.

Except they likely would. Perhaps not to Balfour, or to his brothers, but if Altsax was the one relaying the tale, then at least to Lady Mary Frances, an army scandal that had Matthew Daniels compromising the honor of a young lady would matter a great deal.

***

“I was hoping I might find you out here.” Matthew Daniels sauntered up from the direction of the gardens, and the guilt roiling in Mary Fran’s gut threatened to choke her.

“I’m in need of a little solitude, Mr. Daniels.” She pulled her shawl more tightly around her shoulders, though it was a beautiful, soft night.

“No, you’re not.” He picked up her hand and tucked it over his arm. “Something has you overset. Are you feeling guilty for having spent the morning with me? All we did was talk, my lady, and admire your family’s holdings.”

Without her consent, he escorted her off the terrace and down into the gardens. And damn him and all his people unto the nineteenth generation, he was right.

“I talked. You talked, though you said precious little.”

“I said enough. I don’t usually burden anyone with remembrances of military life.” He sounded a touch put out with himself, or maybe perplexed, but Mary Fran had been fascinated to hear his recounting of a colonel’s responsibilities in the political cauldron that was the Crimea. She gathered he’d been mustered out through his father’s machinations, which had left the baronial heir guilty and frustrated as war loomed ever closer.

Imagine that. An Englishman feeling guilty the same as a negligent mother might feel guilty.

“I won’t be riding out with you again, Mr. Daniels.”

“I was Matthew earlier today. I rather liked being Matthew to you, and I liked spending my morning with Mary Fran.”

His voice held no accusation, more a sort of wistfulness she could understand all too well.

“Matthew, then.” And she couldn’t leave it at that. She prattled on with no more poise than Fee might show on market day, saying things a grown woman ought not to burden a guest with. “Fiona was nearly trampled by a bull today while I was out larking around with you. She might have been k-killed.”

She paused in their progress to take a steadying breath. Thank God for the darkness. Thank God for the distance from the house.

He was a man blessed with fluid movement, like a big cat. He didn’t spook her. He just eased around to stand directly before her, put both hands on her shoulders, and pulled her gently into his embrace. “Tell me, Mary Fran. I assume she came to no harm, or you wouldn’t be out here in the darkness, flagellating yourself over a simple childhood misadventure.”

She went into his arms, more grateful for the refuge he provided than she could say. Her brothers treated her to their offhand version of affection, and from time to time Mary Fran allowed herself a discreet flirtation with a passing fellow.

But to be held…

“Talk to me, Mary Fran. You don’t need solitude. You have too damned much solitude even as you thunder around amid your family. Talk to me…” He went on, a low, soothing patter accompanied by equally soothing strokes of his hands over her back, her shoulders, her hair. She would not mistake him for a gentle man, not ever. His ability to be gentle had the tears spilling from her eyes.

“I love her,” she got out. “I love her so much, but I’m no good at being a mother. I’m no good at it at all… I never know where she is. I never know what to say to her. I never know what she needs except that I provide it too little and too late. My brothers help, but they’re only men…”

She just damn cried for long, wearying minutes. Cried until she realized Matthew had settled her on a bench and kept an arm around her shoulders. He let her wet the front of his shirt and his neckcloth, while she kept his handkerchief balled up in her hand.

When Mary Fran at last fell silent, his thumb traced her damp cheek—a small gesture, but so intimate. She turned her face into his palm, feeling foolish, helpless, and completely at sea.

“I have imposed,” she said, trying to sit up.

“You have been imposed upon,” he countered, keeping her against him. “You’re supposed to un a very fancy guesthouse, take care of three grown men to save them the cost of a housekeeper, play lady of the manor with the Queen of half the known world for your neighbor, and raise a rambunctious child without benefit of a father’s aid, guidance, or coin.”

Put that way, it was hard to decide which hurt worse: the comment about saving her brothers the cost of a housekeeper or the bald fact that Gordie’s family had no interest in Fiona.

“One gets weary,” he said, suggesting he was capable of divining her thoughts. His hand—big, warm, and slightly rough—came to rest on the side of her neck. “Not just tired, but weary. Physically, emotionally, morally. At such times, one needs friends.”