Katharine Ashe - When a Scot Loves a Lady

Emily peered at him over the rim of her spectacles. “What an odd thing to say.”

“And yet an odder state for her to be in.” He quirked a brow. “At first opportunity Blackwood and I shall take our horses out in search of her carriage.”

“Thank you, sir,” Kitty said. “Are you also close to your destination? Lord Blackwood would have us believe you are on a fishing trip, but I fear he esteems teasing more than truth.”

Mr. Yale smiled. “Your fears are well founded, my lady. My friend enjoys laughing.”

“I hope not at the expense of others.” She felt the earl’s gaze upon her.

“Never. But he is an odd fellow, s’truth. It is often difficult to understand him.” Mr. Yale glanced at the coffee and bread. “Will you break your fast?”

In knots, her stomach protested at the mere idea. “I shall await the promised eggs.” She gestured for him to sit.

He did so, across from Emily. “Lady Marie Antoine, what text has so engrossed you that you bring it to the table?”

“Shakespeare. Richard III.”

“Ah.”

Finally she looked up. “Are you an admirer of the Bard’s history plays, sir?”

“Only the comedies.”

Emily’s brow creased. He grinned, and it sat very well on his face. A scruffy gray head bumped beneath his arm. He fed the dog his bread. “Your hounds, Blackwood, will eat us out of the house before the snow is melted. On the stoop just now I watched this one tear through two pound of sausage as though it were a thimbleful.”

“He’s a pup,” came the quiet response. “He haesna yet learnt his manners.”

Mr. Yale twisted his shoulders to regard the earl, a sliver of a smile on his lips. Lord Blackwood tilted his head, but he did not grin. Something shimmered through Kitty’s insides—not the delicious liquid heat now, but more insistent and uncomfortable. She moved to the window and pressed the draperies open. Without, all was blinding white and the heavens still heavy with clouds.

“Mr. Yale, have you studied the road? Is it passable?” She had gone out to glimpse the rear yard, directed to that view by Mr. Milch. The stable boy, Ned, had shoveled that stoop before tackling the front, to make a path to the chicken coop. Thus, because of laying fowl, Kitty now knew that the Earl of Blackwood’s eyes were of the darkest brown, like coffee, and that the flicker of steel behind those rich depths was not in fact a product of her imagination.

Something cold resided within him. It made her shiver, even as his gaze on her now turned her warm. She did not have to look at him to know he watched her.

But perhaps she imagined it.

She glanced at him. He met her gaze, then his slipped away, and with it her breath.

“We shan’t have use of even a saddle horse for two or three days, I suspect.” Mr. Yale skewered a sausage and fed it to the dog drooling at his knee.

“Days?” Emily looked hopeful. “Past Christmas, do you imagine?”

“Unless a vast melt comes of a sudden.” He drawled this.

“The sky is still quite gray,” Kitty murmured. “We shall miss church.”

“I don’t know about that, Lady Katherine. It is but Monday. In six days the road should again be passable. The mail coach will come through and dredge a path.”

“Wednesday is Christmas Day.” She had not ever passed a Christmas without attending church with her mother at the cathedral in town or the chapel at Savege Park. But perhaps this year Mama would attend on the arm of Lord Chamberlayne. “Will you miss not going to church for Christmas, Marie Antoine?”

Emily shook her head. “Not really.”

Lord Blackwood reached to the table, took up a piece of bread, and moved toward the rear foyer.

He returned in a moment with his greatcoat and, chewing, slung the coat around his broad shoulders.

“Come.” The dogs followed him out the front door.

The innkeeper entered the room. “Eggs for my lords and ladies!” He had an affable air and a platter of steaming food.

“Only one lord, and he has gone out.” Emily accepted a dish with a sidelong glance at her table companion. Mr. Yale tucked into his meal.

“If you’re needing aught else, don’t hesitate to ask it of Mrs. Milch or myself.”

“Mr. Milch,” Kitty said, “is there a church near the village?”

“In it, my lady.” He departed.

Kitty sat down gingerly on a bench, her spine erect, hands not entirely steady. She stared at the doorway to the front entrance. She was being a fool. In mere minutes a Scottish lord who barely spoke a word she understood and did not bother to excuse himself from the presence of ladies had made her blush, tremble, and lose her tongue. Renowned in society for a cool façade that masked a heart filled with vengeance, she was now behaving like a thorough ninnyhammer.

“Kitty, have you brought any books?”

She swallowed her distraction. “Yes.”

“With our journey so slow, I have nearly gone through all of mine already, and Mr. Milch says he keeps none here but Scripture. I shan’t have a thing to read when I am finished with Richard.”

“I have only a few novels, and that tract on trade to the East Indies that Lady March suggested, but you told me yesterday that does not interest you.”

“Blackwood will have something a lady would like.” Mr. Yale pulled the slender volume of Shakespeare toward him and took another forkful of eggs. Scanning the open page, he swallowed. “He always does. Poetry and such.”

Poetry?

Emily tugged her book from his grip and returned it beneath her elbow. “I enjoy most books, Mr.

Yale. Not only those ladies prefer.”

He gave her a slight, provoking smile, much like Kitty’s elder twin brothers used to cast her when they taunted. Emily’s brow creased anew, her lips uncustomarily tight.

Kitty looked from one to the other. “Oh, dear.”

Mr. Yale’s grin broadened. “I daresay.”

“The two of you have previously made each other’s acquaintance.”

“Once,” Emily said without looking up from her book. “I trod upon his toes and he does not like me above half for it. He is very shallow. Just look at his waistcoat.” She gestured.

Mr. Yale placed a palm on his chest. “My lady dances with the grace of a swan.”

Kitty frowned. “His waistcoat is black, Emily— Marie.”

“Do you know how many pounds he spent on that scrap of brocaded silk, Kitty?”

“Twelve,” the gentleman promptly supplied.

“Thank you, sir, that is very helpful.” Kitty glanced at the offending garment. “Twelve pounds?”

He quirked a jaunty smile. The cost of the waistcoat meant nothing to him, the rancor in Emily’s stare all, apparently.

“Good heavens.” Kitty stood. “This is not propitious given our circumstances.”

“Coincidences so often are not,” he offered.

Coincidences.

The tension in her middle twisted. “Is civilization lost to us here, then?”

“There is no such thing as civilization,” Emily stated, “only vanity and greed cloaked in imperial arrogance.”

Kitty deposited her napkin upon the table and made her way up the stairs to her bedchamber, to lock herself in and not come out until the thaw. It seemed the safest course of action.

Far from the comforts of Mayfair, a diminutive brown creature scurried across the boards of Kitty’s bedchamber in the full light of midday. She closed her book, stepped gingerly, and shut the door behind her, the inch-high crack beneath it notwithstanding.

Lord Blackwood and Mr. Yale lounged in worn chairs before the hearth. The earl’s long legs stretched out before him, coat scrunched up around his shoulders, hands clasped atop his waist. His eyes were closed as though he dozed. Mr. Yale dandled a pack of cards on his knee. The stable boy sat bowlegged on the floor, a dog’s head filling his lap.

She descended the steps. “You appear a contented lot.”

Lord Blackwood opened his eyes, and touched by that lazy regard, Kitty simply foundered.

She must find occupation as soon as possible, away from him. But the inn was odiously small. The kitchen must do. He would not enter there and she would not find her insides turning to jelly. She would learn to bake, perhaps a Christmas pudding into which she might sink her head and not come out until Easter, or at the very least when he departed.

Mr. Yale stood and bowed. “Care for a game, Lady Katherine?” He gestured with the deck.

“Thank you, no. I have had my surfeit of cards.” For three years now since she had given up her dogged pursuit of Lambert’s ruination, games of deceit had not interested her. She played only when her mother wished.

“Ah, then, the rustic amusements of the country must suffice, whatever they may be. But I understand you have an excellent hand.”

“How is that, sir?”

“Blackwood told me.”

He did? “And do you trust him on this?”

“On anything. With my life,” the young man said lightly, swiftly.

“That is quite a tribute.” She chanced a glance at the Scot. “Have you earned it, my lord?”

“Cubs weel speak sic nonsense whan aff their feed.” Now he did not look at her, and Kitty could not ignore her fluttering pulse. Lord Blackwood played cards almost as often as her mother, but Kitty had never played against him. She socialized with politicians and literary people, men and women more interested in conversation of substance than gossip—a rather different set than the Scottish earl enjoyed. She’d never seen him since that night at the masquerade three years ago. But when she arrived yesterday, he remembered her.

“The gov’nor let me run his bitch, mum.” The boy flashed a jaw full of prominent square teeth.

Kitty welcomed the intervention. “How far did she run in such weather, I wonder?”

“To the river and back. Capital race. She’s a right quick goer.”

“I have no doubt. Ned, where is your mistress?”

“I’ll fetch her for you, mum.” He leaped up and went into the kitchen. The dog sighed and laid its muzzle on the floor. Kitty moved to the window. From her bedchamber, she had watched the snow begin falling again and met the sight with both hope and unease. The longer she remained away from London, the more opportunities Lord Chamberlayne would have to press his suit. And Emily’s absence from home might serve to frustrate her suitor. But Kitty could not like the situation entirely.

“We shall be trapped here for days, and our servants stranded on the road who-knows-where,” she murmured.

“They’ll hae found a farmer’s cot, lass. Nae tae worry.”

How could her skin feel him looking at her?

She glanced over her shoulder, purposefully arching a brow. “Perhaps I am merely concerned for my luggage. I have but this one gown.”

His gaze slipped along her body, from the high neckline of her modest carriage dress to its hem.

Mr. Yale bowed gracefully. “It is all charm on you, my lady.”

“Thank you. Are your servants likewise separated from you?”

“We haven’t any. We travel light this journey, on horseback.”

Kitty could not help it. She must look at the earl again. She was drawn like a cat to milk.

Not milk.

No cat.

Moth to flame.

This could not continue. At five-and-twenty she had danced and dined and driven with men of rank and power. In society since her nineteenth year, unmarried all that time, she had rarely flirted, maintaining instead a cool, distant mode. A few persisted with sincere attentions, despite all, but she put them off smoothly. In the intimacy of familiarity lay danger, a lesson Kitty had learned at a tender age. She’d now had her moments of giddy curiosity, but they must cease. She would nip this in the bud.

Dark eyes partially lowered, he was staring at her without any attempt at concealment.

“Lord Blackwood, can you not manage to keep your eyes to yourself?”

Like a big dog, he shook his head slowly, his gaze scanning her from brow to toe once more, this time lingering about her waist. Kitty’s breaths shortened. His brow creased, as though he were perplexed.

She knew she oughtn’t to ask. “What is it? Have I a smudge on my gown? Why do you look at me in that manner?”

His eyes shifted upward and a hint of a grin played about his lips.

“Be there ony manner in which A might look at ye that ye woud approve, lass?”

Mr. Yale chuckled.

The earl’s gaze slipped downward again. “’Tis the dress.”