Grace Burrowes - [MacGregor 02]

by Once Upon a Tartan

  “You’re cold,” Fiona said, shifting away from him. “Did you rub Rowan down before you put him up?”

  “I rubbed him down, picked out his feet, sang him a lullaby, and listened to his prayers.” As the horse had so often listened to Tye’s. “Are you adding these?”

  “I am. You can check them when I’m done.”

  “Lucky me.” He moved away from the child, and finding the kitchen undefended by the indefatigable Deal, tossed some kindling under a burner, lit it, and took the kettle from the hob.

  While the water heated, he went to the raised hearth and sat to remove his boots, which took some struggle. He didn’t have his boots made so tightly they cut off his circulation, but they were snug and wet, and had Fiona not been sitting several feet away, the occasion would have served nicely for a bout of swearing.

  Fiona picked up her paper and eyed it, as if admiring a piece of artwork. “I’m done. Will you read me another story?”

  “I am soaked to the bone, about to catch my death, and I have no doubt you can read every story in the library on your own. I will decline the proffered honor.” He put his boots in the back hallway, away from the damaging heat of the kitchen fire, then set about making a tea tray.

  “I can’t read the French ones. We have the fairy tales in French and German. I like the German.”

  “How is it you know the German?”

  She shrugged. “The neighbors. When I go to Balmoral Castle to play, we sometimes speak German, though I don’t know all the words.”

  The kettle started to whistle, and while Tye poured water into a teapot, he considered that perhaps his father knew of this too, and was having him kidnap—retrieve—Fiona because she counted princes and princesses among her playmates.

  “Would you like some tea, Fiona?”

  “If it’s after lunch, I have to have nursery tea, but yes, please. Are you going to check my sums?”

  “You can’t possibly have gotten them all correct if you did them this quickly.”

  She pulled the end of a braid from her mouth. “I can possibly too. There are scones with raisins in the bread box.”

  “You may have no more than one, or the aunties will be wroth with me.” He added a few scones and the tub of butter to the tray and took a seat across from the child. “Let me see your sums.”

  She passed over the paper and regarded him solemnly. “The subtraction is on the back. I like the subtraction better because it’s not as obvious.”

  “Give me your pencil.” She passed it over too, the brush of her little fingers making Tye realize how cold his hands were.

  “Are you going to make my tea, first?”

  “No, I am not. You can butter me a scone, since it’s a lady’s responsibility to preside over the tea tray.”

  Her eyes began to dance as she picked up the butter knife and a scone. Tye went back to checking her sums. When he looked up, Fiona was holding out a scone liberally slathered with butter.

  “Fiona, you took a bite from it.”

  “Because we’re family. Uncle Ian says food tastes better when you share it, and Aunt Augusta says Uncle is never wrong.” She winked at him and waved the scone for him to take.

  “Your sums are all correct, as is your subtraction.” He traded her the paper for the scone, when he should have lectured her on the inappropriateness of Uncle Ian’s poor manners when displayed before a guest.

  A guest who was family, and who would soon be taking her from everything and everybody she knew and loved. He took a bite of the scone.

  “That’s why I don’t like the math.” She set about buttering a second scone. “I never get anything wrong, and so the aunties hardly spend any time with me on it. Aunt Hester has started teaching me the piano though, so I can play for Mama and Papa when they come home.”

  “I’ll pour your tea.” He moved away from the table, lest he have to look at her innocent, happy countenance, knowing she wouldn’t be here when her parents came home. She wouldn’t play for them; she wouldn’t give them her sums to check.

  He poured hot water into a mug, added a tablespoon of his own tea, a generous splash of cream, and a few lumps of sugar from the tea tray, and set it down before his niece.

  “Did my papa drink nursery tea?”

  “I think every English child drinks nursery tea, at least in the colder months. Your grandmother is quite competent with arithmetic.”

  “My grandmamma?”

  “The Marchioness of Quinworth. Her given name is Deirdre. She has red hair just like you, and you might meet her one day.” Except Quinworth and his lady were estranged, leaving Tye to wonder how the hell Quinworth expected to manage his granddaughter’s upbringing. Seeing to a young lady’s happiness involved a great deal more than hiring a governess and paying the dressmaker’s bills. A great deal.

  “Do you know any stories about my grandmother?”

  The hope in her eyes slew him. This child subsisted on stories, on rambles to the burn, on the company of gentle women and doting uncles. She made friends with trees, and she was entirely, absolutely, and utterly too trusting for her own good.

  Like another lady in the house.

  “Fiona, dear, are you—Oh. You’re back.” Hester stood in the door to the kitchen, looking lovely and comfortable in a worn dress of light blue velvet. Inside Tye’s chest, emotions collided and drew apart, then collided again.

  “Miss Hester, good day. Fiona and I were sharing an early tea.”

  “Mine’s plain,” Fiona interjected from her place at the table. “I got all my sums right, and my subtractions too. Do you want to share a scone with me?”

  “That would be delightful.” Hester advanced toward the table, and it seemed to Tye as if she might have been blushing. “How do you know your maths were correct, Fee?”

  “Uncle Tye checked them. He said my grandmamma likes to do math too.”

  And rather than meet his gaze, Hester took a place across from the child and started buttering a damned scone. The bossy cows of Scotland could be assured long and happy lives at the rate butter was consumed in this household.

  “I might like another myself.” Tye came down beside Hester and reached for the teapot, making sure his hand bumped hers, exactly as he had the first night when they’d shared a meal.

  Yea, verily, a blush. For certain, seeing him and touching him provoked her to blushes. “Tea, Miss Hester?”

  “Please.”

  He fixed her a cup with cream and sugar, while she troweled butter onto a scone. Thank God the child was there to chaperone, or he might have begun asking the lady personal questions about what caused her blushes.

  Fiona kicked the rungs of her chair, the same way Joan still did when bored. “Uncle Tye said he sang Rowan a lullaby. Nobody sings me any lullabies.”

  Tye passed Hester her tea. “Shall you be going to bed before supper, Niece? I’ll be happy to sing you a lullaby right now if you are.”

  “No.” She smiled, generously conceding the point. “But I’ll be going to bed after supper. You could sing to me then.”

  “No such luck.” Tye peeled a raisin from the scone in Miss Hester’s hand. “I’m engaged to serenade my horse after supper. It helps settle his equine nerves, to say nothing of my own.” He popped the raisin in his mouth, but not before he caught a half smile from the woman trying to ignore his presence while they sat side by side on the same bench.

  She smelled good—clean, flowery, lemony, and feminine, and it made his male brain recall that fragrance of hers combined with lavender-scented sheets and the earthy aroma of spent lust.

  Spent lust being a degree short of sated lust.

  “Did Rowan’s nerves necessitate a hack in this rain, my lord?” Hester hid behind her teacup, reminding Tye he’d dodged the day’s first two meals. No wonder the lady was hesitant.

  “Rainy days
are hard on the beast when he’s confined to his stall, and a call on Balfour was in order. He sends his greetings.” Tye resisted the urge to appropriate a bite of Hester’s scone. She was eating slowly, tearing off a nibble or peeling off a single raisin and putting it into her mouth.

  Innocent behavior. He could observe her doing the same thing any morning in the breakfast parlor—if he wanted to start the day losing his sanity.

  “I’d best be changing into dry clothes. Fiona, if no one has explained multiplication to you, I will take on that challenge tomorrow.”

  “Like be fruitful and multiply?” Fiona’s innocent question hung in the air, while Miss Hester’s lips curved, and she abruptly appeared fascinated by her remaining bite of scone.

  “That is an archaic biblical reference, child. What I have in mind is done on paper with a pencil and a good deal of careful thought. Miss Hester, I will see you at supper.”

  He managed a dignified exit in damp socks, which was no small feat, even for the firstborn son and heir of an English marquess. He was standing before the fire in his bedroom, peeled down to his damp breeches and bare feet with a tumbler of whisky in his hand, when the first glimmer of a fascinating—if improbable—idea stole into his tired, frustrated, and not a little resentful mind.

  ***

  “I hope Uncle Tye stays with us until Mama and Papa come back.” Fiona reached for a scone, but must have seen the promise of retribution in Hester’s eyes. The child snitched a single orphaned raisin from the tray instead.

  “He’s a busy man, Fee. I doubt he can bide with us the entire summer.” She doubted her nerves could stand such a thing either: Tiberius Flynn, sleeping one unlocked door down from her, night after night.

  “Why is he busy? Does he have other nieces?”

  “Not that I know of, but he has estates, younger sisters, and parents. I’m sure there are many demands on his time.”

  Fiona frowned, but it wasn’t a frown of displeasure. Hester was coming to know the child well enough to see that this was an expression of thoughtfulness. “Why doesn’t Uncle want anybody to know he’s nice?”

  Why, indeed? Spathfoy wasn’t a friendly man, and he certainly made no effort to cultivate charm. She no longer viewed this as a shortcoming, having met a few too many friendly, charming scoundrels.

  “Maybe he’s shy.” Shy enough that he’d fix her a cup of tea, touch her hand, and steal a raisin from her scone, but never once smile at her.

  Fiona snitched another orphaned raisin. “Uncle is shy? I don’t think so, but he’s very careful. He guddles people the way he guddles a fish.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” An image of Spathfoy’s hand stroking slowly over Hester’s stomach had her pulse fluttering.

  “He is stealthy.” Fiona hunched down closer to the table and dropped her voice. “He is polite and quiet, and uses a great lot of big words, but he has very good manners. My other uncles don’t have such good manners.”

  “Your other uncles know you better, Fee. Spathfoy is more guest than uncle. When you know him better, he might be less formal.”

  “He made me a cup of tea, right here in this kitchen. Mrs. Deal will have kittens.”

  “He made me a cup of tea too”—exactly the way she preferred it—“so she’ll have to have two litters. Would you like to help me practice my Gaelic over a game of matches?”

  “You promise you won’t let me win?”

  Hester rose and carried the tray to the counter. “I shall pummel you flat, but we must practice my Gaelic while I defeat you.”

  “I bet Uncle could pummel you flat.”

  Hester took the child’s hand and remained silent. She feared in some of the ways that mattered, Spathfoy had already pummeled her flat. She very much looked forward to her next pummeling, when she hoped she might return the favor to him. Aunt Ariadne had been quite correct to recommend that Hester avail herself of Spathfoy’s subtle charms.

  And if he stayed the entire summer, Hester would avail herself of those charms as often as the gentleman’s shyness allowed her to.

  ***

  Tye tried writing to his father.

  He needed to convey to the old man how dim-witted—and unsporting—this plan to uproot an innocent child was. He wanted to intimate to his father how urgent Tye’s own exodus from Scotland had become—how close he found himself to committing irredeemable mischief with one Hester Daniels, who might not be best pleased to see Fiona taken south. He had to explain to his father how very decent Balfour had been to Fiona and to Tye both, and how deserving the Scottish earl was of decent treatment in return.

  All of which would be so much wasted ink. Quinworth had spoken, and the universe was to promptly order itself accordingly.

  Despite the impact on a little girl.

  Despite the strain on Tye’s self-discipline.

  Despite the stain on Tye’s honor.

  Tye stared at the empty glass in his hand, and once again the sly, outlandish idea called to him. He dipped the pen and tried to start his epistle to the marquess, except the plan taking shape in Tye’s brain was too fascinating, too strangely appealing, to permit the composition of a properly filial epistle. A list developed on the piece of paper before Tye, a list of reasons why this plan made perfect sense:

  As his father’s sole, direct male heir, Tye had to marry.

  His father was pestilentially determined that Tye should marry sooner rather than later.

  Tye’s mother would have to attend the wedding ceremony, and it would please Tye inordinately to see his parents behaving as a couple in public.

  The young lady was in need of a husband—all young ladies were in need of husbands, but this one needed a husband of sufficient social stature to scotch the remaining whiff of scandal clinging to her good name.

  The lady was of childbearing age, for all her attempts to retire to the shelf.

  The lady was impoverished and would be at pains to make a good match without a decent dowry.

  The lady was quietly pretty and sensible, also quite passionate.

  Tye scratched out the last line. A gentleman wouldn’t remark on a woman’s capacity for passion—a gentleman wouldn’t allow himself the opportunity to notice such a thing.

  He wrote the same line again and underlined the last word. Two minutes of staring at the list, and he added another line:

  The lady was aunt by marriage to the niece Tye must kidnap.

  Another lining through.

  The lady was aunt by marriage to the niece whom Tye would escort to the family seat, and the lady’s presence would aid the child in adjusting to her improved circumstances.

  Improved was a stretch. He scowled at his list, scratched out “improved,” and wrote “new.”

  Two minutes later he balled up his list and tossed it into the fire. Hester Daniels was a nobody—a younger daughter of a mere baron, and her brother was all but disdaining to use the title. As much as Tye might find the lady suitable, Quinworth would make her life hell.

  Whisky was putting odd notions in his head. He stared at where the fire was consuming the crumpled list, turning paper to ash.

  Hester wasn’t his mother, though. She wouldn’t run off if Quinworth turned up difficult. Hester could give the old man what for and never even raise her voice.

  And she was quite passionate.

  He started making another list.

  ***

  Ian watched his wife climb into bed, something a year of marriage ought to have made into a prosaic, end-of-day sight.

  Though it hadn’t. Each and every night, he feasted his eyes on the way firelight brought out red highlights in her dark hair. Each and every night, he waited for the moment she settled on the mattress, drew her nightgown over her head, and ranged her warm, female curves along his tired body.

  “Come to bed, Husband. You’ve bee
n brooding at that fire since we came down from the nursery.” She tossed off her nightgown, drew the covers up over herself, and lay back against the pillows.

  Ian crossed the room, laid his dressing gown over her nightgown at the foot of the bed, and climbed in beside her. “The rain has made your son sleepy, I’m thinking. He hears it like a lullaby.”

  “Growing has made him sleepy. He’ll likely be every bit as tall as you.” She cuddled up; he looped an arm around her shoulders and felt some of the day’s tensions ease out of him.

  “He’ll be taller, because his mama is a fine, strappin’ countess who brings her own height to the equation. Do you think the lad would be up to a social call later this week?”

  “To see Lady Ariadne? Of course.” She traced a single finger over Ian’s breastbone. “What has you in such a taking, Husband? I know Spathfoy came to visit this afternoon, but he didn’t stay long.”

  Ian trapped her fingers in his and brought her knuckles to his lips. “Damned man is intent on taking Fee south, Augusta. I’m not sure I can stop him.”

  She rose up on her side, peering at him by the dying firelight. “How can he just take Mary Fran’s daughter, Ian? Do you mean for a visit?”

  “No, my heart, I do not mean for a visit. Quinworth has taken some notion to retrieve his long-lost granddaughter, and Spathfoy is charged with seeing it done.”

  Augusta was silent for long moments after she resumed her position at Ian’s side. “This is not good, Ian. Quinworth is an old-fashioned aristocrat who probably thinks children should be seen and not heard.”

  Old-fashioned aristocrats were capable of worse notions where little girls were concerned—or not so little girls. “Spare the rod and all that rot. Fiona will not deal well with such treatment. Mary Fran grew more rebellious the more Grandfather tried to set limits for her. Fiona will be no different.”

  “Doesn’t he need to file some sort of lawsuit?”

  “Yes, he does, but I’m thinking he’d do so in English courts.” Ian stroked a hand over his wife’s hair, the very feel of it soothing his worries. “Gordie was English, so his children would arguably be English.”