“What scent are you wearing, my lady? It’s particularly appealing.”
“Just something I put together on an idle day.”
Matthew glanced over at her to find she was watching the dancers, her expression wistful. “You haven’t had an idle day since you put your hair up, and likely not many before then.”
“A rainy day, then. We have plenty of those. Your sisters are accomplished dancers.”
“As are your brothers.” For big men, they moved with a lithe grace made more apparent for their kilts. “You should take a turn, my lady.”
“No, I should not. I’ve things to see to, Mr. Daniels, but it is nice to watch my brothers enjoying themselves on the dance floor.”
“Page.”
She turned the page for him, and Matthew had to focus on the recapitulation of the first, delicate, sighing melody. The final ascending scale trickled nearly to the top of the keyboard, which meant Matthew was leaning into Lady Mary Frances at the conclusion of the piece.
And she was allowing it.
“Oh, well done, my boy, well done.” Altsax clapped in loud, slow movements. “I’d forgotten your fondness for music. Perhaps you’d oblige us with another waltz, that I might have the pleasure of dancing with Lady Mary Frances?”
“When did he slither into the room?” Lady Mary Frances muttered, resignation in her tone.
Matthew rose from the piano bench. “I’m afraid that won’t serve, your lordship. My compensation for providing music for the ladies is a waltz with my page turner. Perhaps Hester will oblige at the keyboard?”
Gilgallon turned a dazzling smile on Matthew’s younger sister. “And I’ll turn the pages for her.”
“My lady, may I have this dance?” Matthew extended his hand to Lady Mary Frances, who smiled up at him in a display of teeth and thinly banked forbearance.
“The honor would be mine, Mr. Daniels.”
He led her to the dance floor, arranged himself and his partner into waltz position, and felt a sigh of recognition as Hester turned her attention to Chopin’s Nocturne in E Minor. The piece was often overlooked, full of passion and sentiment, and it suited the woman in Matthew’s arms.
“I hate this piece.” Lady Mary Frances moved off with him, speaking through clenched teeth.
“You dance to it well enough.” Which fulsome compliment had her scowling in addition to clenching her teeth.
“It’s too—”
“Don’t think of the music then. Tell me what it was like growing up in the Highlands.”
She tilted her head as Matthew drew her through the first turn. “It was cold and hungry, like this music. Never enough to eat, never enough peat to burn, and always there was longing…”
Her expression confirmed that she hadn’t meant to say that, which pleased Matthew inordinately. That he could dance Mary Frances MacGregor out of a little of her self-containment was a victory of sorts. “What else?”
“What else, what?”
“What else was it like, growing up in these mountains?”
He pulled her a trifle closer on the second turn, close enough that he could hear her whisper. “It was lonely, like this blasted tune.”
“Your brothers weren’t good company?”
“They are my older brothers, Mr. Daniels. They were no company at all.”
She danced beautifully, effortlessly, a part of the music she professed to hate.
“And yet here I am, my lady, an older brother along on this curious venture for the express purpose of providing my sisters and their chaperones company.”
She huffed out a sigh. “I appreciate that you’re preserving me from your father’s attentions, Mr. Daniels, but I assure you such gallantry is not necessary.”
“Matthew, and perhaps I’m not being gallant, perhaps I’m being selfish.”
He turned her under his arm, surprised to find he’d spoken the truth. A man leaving the military in disgrace was not expected to show his face at London’s fashionable gatherings, and had he done so, few ladies would have stood up with him.
“What was it like growing up in the South?”
Her question was a welcome distraction. “I didn’t. I went to boarding school in Northumbria. I was cold and hungry for most of it.”
Her gaze sharpened. “Why the North?”
Another turn, another opportunity to pull her a bit closer and enjoy the way her height matched with his own. “The North is cheaper, and Altsax isn’t what anybody would call a doting father. I made some friends and spent holidays with them to the extent I could.”
Though those same friends would probably be careful not to recognize him now.
“So you weren’t lonely.”
He distracted her with a daring little spin, one she accommodated easily, and from there, conversation lapsed while Matthew tried to enjoy waltzing with a gorgeous, fragrant woman in his arms.
Her last comment bothered him though. In boarding school, he’d been lonely. The schoolmates who’d taken pity on him for a holiday here or there had not been the sort of companions to provide solace to a boy exiled from his home and family. The military had been a slight improvement, for a time, and then no improvement at all.
As Matthew bowed over the lady’s hand to the final strains of the nocturne, he admitted to himself that he’d been lonely for most of his boyhood as well as most of his military career.
And he was lonely still.
Acknowledgments
Not every publishing house would allow an author to shift focus just a couple of years into the happy task of building up a backlist. I delight in my Regency stories, but I have to say, these Scottish Victorians are proving a wonderful undertaking too. Thanks to my editor, Deb Werksman, and my publisher, Dominique Raccah, for allowing me to branch out, particularly in a direction that justifies the occasional tot of whisky in pursuit of literary accuracy.
I’d also like to acknowledge the other authors writing for the Sourcebooks Casablanca line. If you look at your keeper shelf, they are no doubt well represented. In addition to being enormously talented, these folks are also the nicest bunch of people you’d ever want to talk over your book with. They regularly do favors for me and my books above and beyond the call of duty, and make being a published author a lot less bewildering and challenging than it might be otherwise.
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About the Author
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Grace Burrowes hit the bestseller lists with her debut, The Heir, followed by The Soldier, Lady Maggie’s Secret Scandal, and Lady Eve’s Indiscretion.
The Heir was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2010, The Soldier was a Publishers Weekly Best Spring Romance of 2011, Lady Sophie’s Christmas Wish won Best Historical Romance of the Year in 2011 from RT Reviewers’ Choice Awards, and The Bridegroom Wore Plaid, the first in her trilogy of Scotland-set Victorian romances, was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2012. Her historical romances have received extensive praise, including starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist.
Grace is a practicing family law attorney and lives in rural Maryland. She loves to hear from her readers and can be reached through her website at graceburrowes.com.
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