When a Scot Loves a Lady fc-1

by Katharine Ashe

  “Whin A’m finished here.”

  “Oh, I daresay you are finished already.” Her tone was curt, but strain played about her generous lips, and her glorious eyes were dull.

  “Lass, A’m gang tae carry ye tae the inn. A’ll thank ye nae tae protest.”

  “Would it matter if I did?”

  He nodded. “Aye.”

  She allowed him to lift her again, tucking her against his chest, and she curved her good arm about his neck. But she averted her face. Still he could smell her and feel her and want her, and he cursed himself for a whelp now. Bella came into sight and Yale went swiftly across the yard while the dogs scouted the surrounding buildings. Leam waited in the doorway until the Welshman knocked, hand in his pocket on his firearm. The door opened. Leam headed across.

  The others hovered about the foyer.

  “Glory be!”

  “Kitty, good gracious! Is she all right?”

  “Aye, miss. Juist a wee scratch.” Leam laid her on the sofa.

  “Someone shot me, Marie,” Kitty said quietly. “Do take care when strolling in the yard today.”

  “Shot! Mrs. Milch said it but I did not believe it. Oh, Kitty. Whyever would someone wish to shoot you? And who?”

  “I do not know. But it is possible I was not the intended target.”

  The innkeeper’s wife brought a blanket and Lady Emily tucked it about her.

  “Milch,” Yale said, “His Lordship requires boiled water, sharp shears, bandages, and salve if you’ve any.”

  “A’ve some in ma kit.” Leam gestured.

  Yale headed toward the stairs.

  “Lord Blackwood has wound salve in his traveling kit? Whatever for?”

  “His nefarious life leads him into frequent scrapes, I daresay.” Kitty’s cheeks looked gray now.

  Milch had presumably gone for supplies. Leam bent to the hearth and piled logs on the grate.

  “Milord, the Quality’s better not doing such a thing,” Mrs. Milch said, but her voice sounded thin.

  Not many gunshots in this tiny Shropshire village, apparently.

  “Ma’am, a pot o tea an a biscuit woud be walcome nou for the leddy.”

  “Of course, milord.”

  “Kitty.” Lady Emily shook her head. “I don’t know anything at all about seeing to injuries, I’m afraid. But I don’t know that Mrs. Milch will prove very useful either. She swooned when she saw you in the snow. I was obliged to revive her with smelling salts.”

  “Very nice sensibilities for the laboring class, hm?” Yale said with a grin, handing over the salve.

  “But no need for concern. Blackwood is a dab hand at dressing wounds.”

  “Sir,” Cox said stiffly. “I don’t believe that would be at all proper. Lady Katherine ought to be moved to her bedchamber and attended by the women.”

  Yale’s grin widened.

  “I’m sure I don’t know why, Mr. Cox,” Lady Emily said. “If Lord Blackwood is the best among us to do the job, petty niceties ought not to allow Lady Katherine to remain in any sort of danger.”

  Leam crouched down beside Kitty. “She’s nae in ony danger, miss.” Not with him sitting beside her, she wouldn’t be.

  “Merely excessive discomfort,” the beauty reclining before him said softly. “Will this hurt?”

  “Nae mair than a wee pinch.”

  “Now, why don’t I believe you?” Her gaze slipped across his shoulders and down his chest.

  “I still say it’s not the thing at all,” Cox said more stridently now. “Neither for a gentleman to be playing nursemaid, nor for a gently bred female to be subjected to public prodding.”

  “Sir, have a spot of tea, why don’t you?” Mr. Milch gestured toward the dining area.

  “Yes, Cox,” Yale murmured. “Absent yourself and the prodding will be considerably less public.

  Lady Marie Antoine, tea?”

  “The big dog got into the biscuits and ate them all.”

  “Then you shall have to turn your talents to baking sweets now, ma’am.”

  “Sir, you cannot improve my opinion of you with false flattery.”

  “I am crushed. Truly.”

  “But it’s true, the bread was quite good.” They moved toward the table, Lady Emily glancing back with concern.

  “A’ll hae tae cut aff the sleeve,” Leam said quietly.

  Kitty’s eyes glimmered. “Will you keep the part, then, in lieu of the whole?”

  He smiled and set the shears to fabric. “Shuirly.”

  “You planned this, I daresay.” She watched as he cut. “You could not bear relinquishing this gown in the end. But now you will only have a piece. A torn one at that.”

  Smiling, Leam lifted her arm gently and drew the ruined sleeve off. He tucked the blanket around her hand. She had beautiful skin, pale and soft like a Lothians winter dawn. He wanted to touch every inch of it, to kiss every silken dip and curve.

  “Aye, but this scrap o fabric bears the treasure o a lady’s blue bluid.”

  “If you recite poetry to me now, my lord, I shall scream again.”

  “Ye inspire me tae it, Kitty Savege.” And she did. To his very marrow.

  “That, I suppose, must be your ill fortune. It seems a rather shallow wound to be so painful.” Her lips were taut as she studied the scratch.

  “Dinna watch.”

  “I will not swoon. I am not a Shropshire innkeeper, you know.”

  He glanced up, his dark eyes catching her, and as usual Kitty could not look away.

  “Nae. Yer a lady.” With the gentlest touch he applied several drops of salve to the raw flesh. She should not be surprised. He astounded her at every turn.

  “Where did you learn to dress wounds, Lord Blackwood?”

  “In the East Indies, Lady Kath’rine.”

  “Remarkable,” she said to cover her pleasure at such a small exchange, one that seemed now as natural as breathing. And as unwise as breathing fire. “Hadn’t you a valet to do such tasks at the time?”

  “The year wis ’eleven, lass. A hadn’t onybody.”

  His brother and wife had both perished in ’ten. But he’d had his son. Some men of course cared little for their children, like Kitty’s own father.

  He wrapped a clean strip of linen about her arm, his hand brushing her breast as though it were nothing. As though he did not even notice it, while Kitty’s entire being awoke.

  His hands stilled.

  “Are you finished, then?”

  “Aye. Ye’ll be all right nou.” He drew the blanket over her arm, stood, and moved away.

  But she would not be all right. Amid the pleasure and frustration, he frightened her.

  Kitty did not understand Leam Blackwood. A man had shot her, presumably intending to shoot him. The earl would not tell her the truth about the poetry, the shooter—any of it. On the surface he seemed the simplest of men, easy tempered and somewhat indolent, rather in the fashion of his big dogs. But she feared he hid a great deal behind those hooded dark eyes and rough speech.

  She was angry and hurt, and infatuated, and confused. The man who caused it all seemed entirely unrepentant. The remainder of her sojourn in a remote Shropshire inn did not appear in the least bit promising.

  Early the following morning, after a restless night during which her arm ached dreadfully and elsewhere inside her more so, the remainder of Kitty’s sojourn at the inn abruptly became much shorter.

  Madame Roche appeared upon the inn’s threshold, snow clinging to her cloak, her full cheeks patches of bright rose, and as stunningly French as ever. Her raven hair streaked with silver was swept up beneath a neat little cap of violet taffeta and dyed ostrich feathers, and her gown was gloriously inappropriate for both traveling and the season, short puffy sleeves and a crinkling mass of tulle all sparkling with tiny purple and black sequins.

  She lifted her lorgnette to study the parlor and dining area, and with a little sniff pronounced it

  “Bon.”

  “The mail coac
h came through at dawn this morning,” Mr. Yale explained, entering and removing her coat. “Blackwood posted to the farm Cox told us about and found them. And now we are beset by females.” He grinned and stepped out of the way to admit two other women.

  Kitty went forward and clasped hands with Madame Roche, smiling at her maid and Emily’s. “We are so glad you are well.”

  “Bon Dieu, you are peaked, Lady Katrine!” The Frenchwoman grasped Kitty’s hand and snapped with her other at the maids. “Vite, vite, you lazy filles! Brandy there must be for to prepare the water of rose tout de suite.” She dragged Kitty to the stairs. “And the gown. Hélas, the gowns! Ma petite, come!” She snapped again at Emily.

  “Lady Marie Antoine,” Mr. Yale drawled, “you have the most unusual servants.”

  “Yes. But they are very good to me.”

  Kitty glanced back. The earl had entered, carrying in a bandbox and another parcel from the second carriage. She turned and hurried up the stair to be un-peaked. It seemed she could not wait another moment to don a fresh gown.

  If mortal woman had been created to tempt mortal man, then Leam was the first in the queue to sin.

  Appearing at luncheon newly gowned in elegant rose and ivory that caressed her curves, her shimmering hair loosely arranged with sparkling combs he had once removed, Kitty glided like a goddess across the parlor. That he preferred seeing her with nothing on at all and her hair tumbling about her shoulders—and had spent the endless night thinking along those lines and with great effort holding himself back from knocking on her door despite the certainty that she would repel him—did not help matters any.

  He escaped, again flinging himself into the snowy cold but this time with thorough futility of purpose. He pretended he was looking for the shooter. He knew perfectly well the fellow was long gone. Men like that knew better than to linger, and the dogs had searched the place thoroughly the night before and brought up nothing.

  Cox had departed before dawn, even before the mail coach came through, claiming he had an appointment he mustn’t miss. Pen, standing sentry at the time, said he had departed in an easterly direction. Yale had gone pale hearing the news. He’d been out of the parlor when the shooter attacked, it seemed. Leam plowed through knee-high snow-banks along the river anyway, his feet blocks of ice, his nose and head frosted. At least the dogs were stretching their legs. Cox might well be the fellow trailing him and the one who had tried to shoot him. Or he might not. Leam might have only suspected him because he flirted with Kitty. Because he himself had wanted her entire attention.

  By God, it was a good thing he was no longer an agent of the crown. He wasn’t thinking straight.

  Since the moment Kitty Savege had kissed him two days earlier, he hadn’t been in his right mind. He did not bed respectable ladies, even those who’d had lovers already. Neither did he haul them up against barn walls and maul them. The mere notion of some scoundrel doing that to his sisters or his cousin Constance had his fingers itching for a pistol.

  He had put her in danger. Now he would leave her be, as he had last night with great difficulty.

  And as soon as he had a particular word with her.

  He rounded the smithy’s, tracking back to the inn along the rear yard. He found the others in the parlor. Wyn lounged by the hearth, dozing by all appearances. The attitude never fooled Leam. The Welshman was as alert as he with an assassin so close by. Likewise pretending—to read, on her part—

  Madame Roche flickered Yale quick, interested glances. Lady Emily sat with her nose in a book, oblivious.

  Kitty stirred a cup of tea. She lifted her dark lashes, her raincloud eyes as richly expressive as they had been in the intimacy of her bedchamber, then again in the stable when she told him good-bye. Just as she had done before with other men, she’d said.

  He cleared his throat. “Lady Kath’rine, might A hae a maument o yer company beneath the eave?”

  He gestured with her cloak laid over his arm. She stood and came toward him. He draped the cloak about her shoulders. The brush of her fingers as she grasped the collar went directly to his groin.

  “Just without?”

  He nodded.

  The Frenchwoman looked on with undisguised interest. Leam motioned Kitty before him, and outside. He pulled the heavy door shut and followed her into the angle of sunlight cutting across the porch beneath the overhanging roof where a million heartbeats ago he had first held her and discovered her thundercloud eyes. Icicles made a jagged curtain above his head and she raised her face to his.

  “Have you decided to tell me the truth after all?” she said without preamble, all soft curves yet sharp mind set on a single course. He scanned her face. Beauty. She was so beautiful the angels might have sculpted her from a fragment of the heavens.

  “Nae.”

  “I believe I made my position perfectly clear yesterday afternoon, my lord. I will have the truth from you about the shooting and poetry and what have you, or you will have nothing more from me.”

  He could not respond.

  “Well, then.” Her lips made a firm line. “I cannot imagine what you must say to me that merits this privacy.”

  Anger prickled in him. She had insisted she was no schoolroom miss. Her touch in the dark of midnight had proven it. But, by God, she must have given herself to some extraordinary cads before him. At least one, Leam already knew.

  “Lass.” He stepped closer. There was no easy way to say such a thing. “An ye find yerself wi’ child, A’ll dae the right thing by ye. Ye’ve anely tae tell me.”

  By the acute glimmer in her eyes it seemed he had chosen perhaps the wrong difficult way to say it.

  “That is gallant of you, my lord, and I daresay I should be comforted. But you have nothing to concern yourself upon that account.” She moved to brush past him toward the door. He took gentle hold of her uninjured arm. She halted. Her curvaceous mouth held aloof, yet her eyes could not hide her warmth. Candid need gazed up at him, though she mustn’t know it. She would not willingly reveal such a weakness, he now knew. Leam’s gut twisted. Perhaps she was no more than the girl he had imagined.

  “A didna intend tae insult ye, lass.”

  “I cannot fathom what gives you the idea that I think you have.”

  He swallowed thickly. She had no idea how a man could be caught by that glance, vulnerability cloaked in sophisticated lucidity. That he could wish to drop to his knees and do her bidding whatever it be. She believed herself jaded.

  He opened his mouth to reply. She spoke first.

  “I cannot conceive a child.” Her gaze shifted away from his to the white blanket of snow. “I have not, although I have been foolishly careless. Quite foolish, really.” She seemed thoughtful on the matter. Leam hadn’t felt so ill in five years, lost in Bengal, a lead ball lodged in his shoulder and a fever to match the jungle heat.

  “A see,” he managed.

  “Yes. Now you do. So clearly you have nothing to worry over.” She took a step to move away, but he held her firm.

  “A wisna worried.” Petrified. Sick to his stomach. But now, much more so, because he needn’t worry and he found quite abruptly that he rather wished to.

  She only looked at him oddly, as though he had spoken out of turn although not grievously so.

  This time she pulled her arm free with purpose, with control and poise and supreme nonchalance.

  Leam’s brother, James, had perfected such firm insouciance, and he’d been no older than this woman.

  He watched her go inside. He could not follow. He had won a reprieve he did not deserve.

  He scowled. This was the way of callow fools.

  But he wanted his hands all over her. He wanted her body, her mouth, and his tongue deep in her making her moan. He hadn’t had enough of her. Not nearly enough. He wanted to recite goddamned poetry to her in six languages. He wanted her so badly he could taste the words, taste her replies, taste the rain in her gaze.

  She had cast off Poole without a backward gl
ance, it seemed. Perhaps other men as well. She had been careless, she’d said. Careless.

  A pattering on his shoulder wrested Leam from bemusement. Droplets of water made a puddle on his greatcoat cape with ever increasing speed. The thaw had come. He found his hands curled into fists.

  Where was a Welshman’s willing jaw when a man needed it?

  “I have devised un plan d’attaque!” Madame Roche announced in grand tones with a flourish of scented lace kerchief. It suited her dramatic pose on the sofa, all white and black with red lips and cheeks. Not above fifty, she was a handsome woman, already a widow to four husbands.

  Lord Blackwood came into the chamber from the rear foyer. Kitty spoke so that she would not be tempted to look at him.

  “A plan of attack to have us on the road shortly, Madame?” She did not take up her teacup. She did not trust in the steadiness of her hands, and in any event the tea had turned cold while he offered to marry her if necessary and she spoke aloud her secret for the first time to anyone. The secret only Lambert Poole knew. When she had discovered her barrenness, still so angry and vengeful, she welcomed it; no inconvenient pregnancy would send her into exile from society. She could continue to pursue her course of collecting information from him without anxiety.

  At the time it had seemed ideal, because at the time she had ignored the ache inside her telling her it was all horribly wrong. Now she was sick with the woman she had been.

  “Oh, no, no, Lady Katrine! The gentlemen will see to those arrangements tomorrow morning, will you not, sirs?”

  The earl bowed.

  “It will be our greatest pleasure,” Mr. Yale concurred.

  “So kind, these gentlemen. And so very handsome! Which is how I have invented mon plan.”

  “Clarice”—Emily raised her attention from her book—“what on earth are you talking about?”

  “Only this: together we will all go to the Willows Hall where His Lordship and Monsieur Yale will court you assiduously, making love to you openly with the pretty words and gestures until your parents cast off the unconscionable program to wed you to le gros canard , Warts More.” She crossed her arms over her bosom and appeared all satisfaction.