Lord Blackwood nodded, his gaze hooded.

“Well now, sir,” Mr. Milch said cheerfully, “I’ve got all my chambers spoken for upstairs. But that pub is no place for a fine gentleman such as yourself. If you don’t mind it, there’s the garret. It’s got a grate, so you’ll find it suitable warm, and my Gert has made up the mattress with a good woolen quilt.

Can I tempt you to remain?”

Mr. Cox’s smile flashed once more. “You could not tempt me away from such company.” His appreciative gaze returned to Kitty.

She curtsied. “Mr. Cox, did you by chance encounter a carriage and four on the road yesterday or today?”

“Fact, I did, ma’am.” He moved to her. “Last night near Atcham I spotted a very fine carriage, pulled up before a farmhouse not far from the road. It seemed out of place, but any port in a storm will do. Quite literally.” He chuckled, deep enough to be pleasingly masculine. “Are you lacking members of your party?”

“Our servants, sir.”

Lord Blackwood came to her side. He extended his hand to the newcomer. Mr. Cox passed his gloves into his other palm and shook hands.

“It is excellent to finally meet you, my lord. It must be six years since I had the pleasure of your brother’s companionship in arms.”

“Seiven.” The earl released him. “Take a dram of whiskey afore denner, Cox?”

“Thank you. Don’t mind if I do.”

“Whiskey?” Emily furrowed her brow. “May I have a dram as well, Lord Blackwood?”

The Scot’s mouth curved upward. “Aye, miss. If ye wish.”

If you wish.

He was too close now. Memory of the sensation of his hand on her face, his caress on her lips, weakened Kitty, and it felt at once thrilling and horrid. He welcomed this tradesman as though he were an equal. He acted like a ruffian and occasionally spoke words that rendered her perfectly breathless.

He was the most peculiar nobleman she had ever been acquainted with, and he made her heart race merely standing beside her.

“Lady Katherine, will you take a glass as well? Join us in celebrating Christmas early?” Mr. Yale handed Emily and Mr. Cox glasses. Kitty welcomed the opportunity to cross the chamber, away from the earl’s unnerving presence.

“Capital idea.” Mr. Cox lifted his glass in salute. “We shall be in this village until the snow melts, I suspect. In Shropshire for the holiday!”

“Some of us were intended in Shropshire for the holiday already,” Mr. Yale said, offering a half-

filled glass to Kitty. She sipped. It burned, then invaded the place behind her breasts with heat. She drank again, deeper.

“Then you are not of a single party?” Mr. Cox glanced with interest about the group. “I had imagined these elegant ladies in your company, my lord.”

“’Tis a sorry disappointment.” Lord Blackwood raised the glass to his mouth and looked directly at Kitty.

“Lord Blackwood and Mr. Yale are on their way to no admitted destination, Mr. Cox,” she said in impressively measured tones given her quivering insides. His hand around the glass was beautiful, strong, and long-fingered. She could still feel it upon her. “Lady Marie Antoine and I are intended at her parents’ home not many miles distant.”

“Ah, then I am sorry you have not reached your family, Lady Marie Antoine.” He looked truly contrite. “But, I say, we shall make a party of it here instead.”

“What do you have in mind, sir?” Mr. Yale lounged on the sofa, his glass full to the brim.

“Lady Katherine and I were to bake bread tomorrow,” Emily said. “Perhaps we could find the ingredients for a pudding and make one of those instead.”

“Have you any idea how?” the Welshman drawled.

“Have you?”

He offered her that slight smile Kitty now recognized, and took a long quaff of whiskey.

“No doubt Mrs. Milch will know a recipe,” Emily said.

“Then pudding it shall be.” Mr. Cox appeared all contentment. He turned to Kitty with a glimmer in his very blue eyes. “What else shall we have, my lady?”

“Ned plays the fiddle. We’ll have music.” Mr. Milch set plates atop the lace covering. “Gert!

Where’s the boy? He must play for these good folk before dinner.”

“The boy?” Mr. Cox lifted a brow. “Why, he is seeing to my horse, of course. I gave him a penny for it.”

Lord Blackwood met Kitty’s gaze. His mouth curved into the barest hint of a smile. A private smile, meant for her it seemed. Her breath faltered.

“We canna lack a bonfire.” He spoke as though to her directly.

“A bonfire?” she said. His gaze seemed to caress her lips as his thumb had in her bedchamber.

“Whatever for, my lord?”

“Scots believe evil elves hasten down the chimney on Christmas to spirit away little children,” Mr.

Yale supplied, staring into the flames now. “We must build the hearth fires high lest we be invaded by sprites.”

The earl’s grin tilted up at one side, and his gaze upon her mouth did not falter. Kitty swallowed.

She felt dizzy and feverish again. From the whiskey, certainly. Or from the heated regard of the rough-

hewn, superstitious Scot across the chamber.

“I have read that Scots like to drink quite a bit at Christmastime.” Emily spoke in a singsong voice. She looked into her empty glass, then handed it to Mr. Yale. He stood and refilled it. “Is that true, Lord Blackwood?”

“Scots drink all the time,” Mr. Yale threw over his shoulder.

“We’re nae alone in that.”

“Scholars and great drinkers,” Kitty murmured, and before she could school her tongue, “Which are you, Lord Blackwood?”

The larger dog pressed to his master’s side. The earl’s long fingers stroked the beast’s shaggy brow. “A’ll be letting ye guess that on yer own, lass.”

“Lord Blackwood.” Emily’s voice slurred slightly now. “I am ever so grateful for the volume of poetry you lent me this morning. It is difficult to be without one’s books, is it not?” She sighed uncharacteristically. Mr. Yale laughed. Kitty blinked.

Poetry.

“Why, how long have you been waylaid here already, my lady?” Mr. Cox inquired in surprise.

“A day,” Kitty said in the hazy grip of the effects of very little drink and a great deal of perplexing, enthralling man. “A single day.”

Leam smiled. Lady Katherine Savege was apparently unaccustomed to whiskey. So too her young friend. Yale was already disguised, although hiding it well as always. On the other side of the chamber, the inn’s proprietor whistled a jig, several fingers of the Welshman’s brew under his belt as well.

That left Cox, the man with gloves lined in brown cashmere who had shown up to join their little party in the midst of a snowstorm. Cox was drinking too; his eyes were bright. Far too often they rested on Kitty Savege.

He dressed like an agent in shipping insurance might, in a nattily tailored coat and waistcoat, expensive and flattering to his athletic build. He enjoyed the advantages of charming address and winning good looks, the sort of pleasing fellow an untried girl like Leam’s young sister Fiona would admire.

Cox turned to Lady Emily and offered her light flattery as though she gave a damn for that sort of thing, a smile of sheer earnestness on his face. Yale mumbled a comment and Cox chuckled, no doubt gratified to imagine himself privy to the joke. But every few moments he cast Lady Katherine another admiring glance. She returned his smiles, but her attention was scattered, occasionally on the others, occasionally on the glass in her hand, but most often on Leam.

He was having the devil of a time looking away.

Curse Yale. Drink had not been wise tonight, at least not for him.

He set his glass on a table.

“My lord, it is a great man who shares poetry with others,” Cox said with unexceptionable deference. “Tell me, who do you admire more greatly, Byron or Burns?”

And there it was again, the slightest hint of ey, the barely discernable ow. As a man who had struggled his entire youth to banish the rough borderlands from his speech, Leam could recognize a countryman within a phrase. Cox was a lowland Scot.

“Aeschylus.”

The fellow’s clear brow beetled. “That name is unknown to me. But I’ve been traveling in the Americas until quite recently. Those colonials never learn of the latest great writers until they are far out of date.” He chuckled.

Lady Emily blinked like a fish. “Aeschylus, the ancient Greek tragedian?”

Yale glanced up, a glimmer in his silver eyes.

Leam felt like a fool, showing off his erudition. A jealous fool who had absolutely no reason to feel jealous.

He didn’t like the fellow. And he didn’t like the way he was casting calf’s eyes at a lady far above his station. But now Leam was both feeling like a fool and thinking like a jackass. If he did not take care, the evening would proceed apace.

Dinner was served and enjoyed in good cheer and a measure of general hilarity. Leam participated when required. He took a glass of wine, leaving the whiskey untouched, and watched the tradesman.

Cox made himself agreeable to all, showing no sign of discomfort among his new acquaintances yet a suitable modesty. When Yale searched for a taper to light a cheroot, Cox produced a flame. When Lady Emily begged to be excused on account of the tobacco smoke making her ill, Cox opened a window and held a steady arm beneath hers while she inhaled fresh air and Yale doused his cigar.

When Lady Katherine applauded young Ned for his fine fiddling, Cox requested an encore.

After some time, Leam had seen enough. No man was that pleasing to everyone and all without good reason. He knew this from personal experience.

Throwing on his greatcoat, he announced that he would go outside for a smoke. Yale followed, leaving the ladies to Ned, Mr. Milch, and the coxcomb.

“Had enough of Tommy Tradesman, have you?” Yale brandished his cheroot and cupped his hand to encourage the spark. He took a long pull and puffed contentedly, staring out at the snow and the narrow river lit with indigo moonlight. The street was empty, a murmur of voices emanating from within the pub several doors away, echoing between the double row of modest buildings as sound always did upon snow.

As so often after such a storm, the sky had finally cleared. Ten thousand diamonds sparkled in the midnight canopy, an eternity of unfulfilled wishes. At one time, an infinitely foolish university student reading poetry had wished upon them all.

Leam moved along the path flanking the inn that he had shoveled earlier that afternoon while endeavoring to avoid the company of a female with wide, storm-tossed eyes.

“To where dost thou hasten, oh noble lord?” Yale called after him. “To thine balcony from which thou might cast forth petals of rose and lily for thy elusive lady’s dainty toes to tread upon?” Yale was fully in his cups now. Only then did he ever make such foolish mistakes.

Leam retraced his steps, pulled his arm back, and planted his fist on his friend’s jaw.

The lad hit the packed snow with a thud.

“Damn it, Blackwood, you villain,” he snuffled, cupping his cheek with one hand and casting about with the other in the snow. “You’ve made me lose my cigar.”

“I have discovered a stair at the rear of the house.” Leam glowered down at him. “If you weren’t so soaked in drink I would tell you to go up and investigate his belongings. As is, I suggest you step back inside and do your best to keep him entertained for as long as you are able.” He pivoted about and nearly lost his footing on the ice. “By God, would that I were in Scotland already.”

“Ah, but then you would not have made the acquaintance of the lovely Lady Katherine.” Yale had found his cigar and was wiping it free of snow on the lapel of his coat.

But Leam hadn’t made her acquaintance here. Three years ago he’d met her in a ballroom, and even then he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her. But she had been with another man. A man who did not deserve her.

“I would hit you again, Wyn, but you’re still on the ground.”

“More than welcome to come down here and further impress me with your pugilistic talents, old man.” He smirked and bit the cheroot, his jaw red with the pattern of Leam’s knuckles. Yale wanted the beating, and much more. He wanted oblivion, and Leam didn’t blame him.

He turned on his heel and stormed away.

From within the kitchen door that let onto the alley not far from the rear foyer entrance, another staircase ascended. The inn’s proprietress had long since gone to bed; the kitchen was piled with clean dishes, occupied only by a pair of mice content with a minuscule floor scrap.