Loving a Lady (Brotherhood of the Black Tartan Book 3)

by Nichole Van

  Violet felt the tension in her shoulders relax.

  See?! This was why she hadn’t dismissed the man entirely.

  He had moments of charm and self-awareness.

  “I am sure I do not need to recount all the advantages to us marrying,” he continued. “Our lands are adjacent, so neither of us will have to move far. I am . . . familiar . . . with the current financial crisis you are facing and wish you to have the full power of my coffers to address it. My mother wishes to assist you in launching your sisters into Society next year.” He came to stand beside her, staring out over the garden, as well. “I care for you and consider you the finest woman of my acquaintance. Is the very thought of marriage to me so repugnant?”

  “No. It is not.” Not repugnant, at least.

  But not exciting either.

  She declined to add that last bit.

  “But . . .” he prompted, perhaps having heard what she did not say.

  Violet took in a deep breath.

  How to reply?

  Well . . . if she was considering marrying this man, perhaps she should start with honesty.

  “I agree with all your arguments, my lord. I simply cannot decide.” She gave him her truth. “I cannot decide if a life with you is what I want.”

  She did not, however, turn to look at him.

  He stared out the window with her and then cleared his throat.

  “At the risk of sounding pompous, may I offer my thoughts?”

  Violet shot him a side-eye. And then nodded.

  “I think that you are overwhelmed, my dearest lady. You have a woman’s tender sensibilities. I admire your large heart and your wish to perform well in your responsibilities. But your position as countess must be a crushing burden. Imagine! You have been called upon to do the work of an earl! ’Tis no wonder you are overwhelmed. So it is only natural that you would struggle to understand what you want.”

  Violet frowned. She was quite sure that her ‘tender sensibilities’ were not the issue here, but she held her tongue. For the now.

  “You need someone to rescue you,” Lord Graham continued. “Someone who will take up his sword and battle your dragons. A valiant gentleman who will treasure you and keep you safe behind the walls of his golden castle.”

  Mmmm.

  Lord Graham probably meant his words to be romantic and consoling.

  Violet wasn’t so sure.

  Did she want to be kept as a treasure? The thought felt dull and constricting.

  Besides . . . golden castle?!

  It sounded like a euphemism her mother would have used to describe something unpleasant.

  The maid has yet to empty the golden castle in your bed chamber.

  Maybe the reason Violet had always been the lord when playing with her sisters had less to do with Dahlia’s pushiness and more to do with Violet’s own sense of self.

  She liked being lord of manor.

  She paused, letting the idea settle into her skin.

  Hmmmm.

  It was true.

  She did like being lord of the manor.

  It was something her heart genuinely desired.

  Violet did not bemoan the weight of being the countess, per se—the long hours with her steward and solicitor, the endless tasks to discuss.

  It was simply the decisions that did her in.

  No . . . that wasn’t right either.

  It wasn’t the decision-making itself.

  It was the knowing.

  Which direction did she wish to go? And until she knew that, how could she determine where to place her feet?

  Of course, she said none of this to Lord Graham.

  The silence lingered and stretched.

  Finally, Lord Graham exhaled beside her. “Should I be heartened that you have not rejected me outright?”

  She smiled wanly. “Perhaps.”

  “I am for London tomorrow and will not return until mid-July. I would kindly ask you to please ponder my proposal. Perhaps this time apart will clear your mind and allow you to understand the path you wish to take.”

  Lord Graham took his leave not long after.

  Violet agreed with his suggestion. She would take these next months to ponder his proposal. Too much was riding on her decision to reject Lord Graham outright.

  Her father appeared as soon as Lord Graham stepped out of the drawing room. Mr. Kerr’s smiles indicated that he expected ‘joyous’ news.

  One look at Lord Graham’s tight expression told him that a marriage was not imminent.

  “Why have you not accepted Lord Graham’s suit?!” her father demanded, following Violet into her study after his lordship had departed. “How could you be so blind as to what is required of your station in life?”

  “I am not blind to my duty, Father.” Violet swept a hand to indicate her desk, piled with ledgers and those dratted agriculture books she was supposed to be reading. “I simply asked Lord Graham for some time to ponder the matter. Marriage is a large step, and I do not wish to enter matrimony without thoroughly pondering the ramifications—”

  “Ramifications?! What is there to ponder further?” Her father pressed three fingertips to his forehead. “You have known Lord Graham in some capacity or another for nigh upon five years!”

  “Be that as it may, Father, I have only recently begun to consider Lord Graham in a matrimonial light.” Violet sat behind her desk, hands reaching for a ledger or something to mask the roil of emotions in her chest.

  “You know that to be false, Daughter.” Her father began pacing before her desk, his tall body filling the room. Despite his age, her father still had an out-sized physical presence. “This was your mother’s dying wish, Violet. That you would marry Lord Graham. How can you be so insensible to what is owed your family?”

  “I am hardly insensible—”

  “I am severely disappointed in you.” He paused his pacing, his blue eyes snapping with anger. “Do you think to receive a better offer than Lord Graham? Or perhaps, like Dahlia, you seek to lower the status of our family by pursuing those far beneath you—”

  “Father!” Violet interjected, slamming her ledger shut. “I am simply trying to find a solution that will render me happy—”

  “Happy?! What does happiness have to do with any of it? Marriage is less about happiness and more about compatibility. It starts with a man like Lord Graham. A kind gentleman. From there, love can grow and, God willing, will eventually result in a sense of contentment.” He spread his hands wide. Violet knew that he was describing his own marriage, and he was not wrong. She supposed her parents’ marriage had been a contented one. “You begin to sound like Dahlia. She supposedly married for immediate love and happiness, did she not? Much to all our horror and disgrace—”

  “Yes, but at least she was happy!” Violet pressed her shaking hands together, willing herself to believe her own words. That Dahlia had been happy.

  “How can you truly believe that? Dahlia traded a life of security for lust!” her father roared. “How could such a thing have a positive outcome? Dahlia was miserable once she had exhausted her pent-up carnal desires, bitterly regretting all her choices—”

  “Enough!” Violet longed to clamp her hands over her ears and storm from the room, much as she had as a child.

  “Violet, you must cease this romantic nonsense!” Her father slapped a hand atop her desk. A lock of his pepper-gray hair tumbled across his brow. “If nothing else, spare a thought for your younger sisters. They require someone to sponsor them in London. They need to marry and marry well. Even if you are willing to treat your own future so cavalierly, do not cast aside theirs, as well. Though you have ascended to the title, I am still guardian for Aster and Rose. Their care is my priority. Do not make me rethink their residence here with you!”

  Violet swallowed back the angry words that crowded her tongue and allowed her father to storm from the room.

  But the walls of her study felt too oppressive, too vivid a reminder of the war waging in her bre
ast.

  Snatching her bonnet and cloak, Violet left the house, stomping down the hill toward Old Kilmeny Castle.

  Clouds gathered on the horizon, promising rain before evening. But the buffeting before the storm felt wild and free and utterly glorious, tugging at her bonnet and whipping her cloak into a frenzy.

  Her father’s words would not let her be.

  Dahlia was miserable once she had exhausted her carnal desires, bitterly regretting all her choices.

  Was that true? And if so, how did her father know? He had severed all contact with Dahlia. He had to simply be projecting his own moral assumptions onto Dahlia’s situation.

  And yet . . .

  What if he were correct? Then what?

  Guilt swamped Violet.

  Guilt for encouraging Dahlia.

  Guilt for considering her own happiness over the well-being of her family.

  The enormity of the North Sea stretched before her, the white-capped waves and battering wind tasting of freedom. Of a wild existence waiting beyond the confines of her ‘golden castle.’

  A world where anything was possible.

  As she stomped through the heather and gorse, she even felt a little like a warrior of old, beginning a quest.

  Mmmm, perhaps that was how she should frame her indecisiveness—a desire to search out her duty.

  She was as Ewan had said . . . lost in a wood, struggling to find the path. She simply needed to look harder, to explore further.

  Regardless of her father’s opinion, taking a bit more time was wise. It was prudent.

  Of course, such thoughts did not stop her from roundly castigating her father, Lord Graham, and all other vexing men in her mind as she tromped down the path. Perhaps talking this over with Sir Joshua—a non-vexing male—would help her see matters more clearly.

  Upon reaching the castle, she opted to take the long way around to the front, a path that conveniently circled Ewan’s greenhouse studio.

  Not that she expected to find him there. He hadn’t said when he would arrive back from Aberdeen precisely, but she reasoned that it was unlikely to happen before the evening.

  Regardless, when she rounded the corner and did not see his large body standing before a canvas, she experienced a sinking sensation. An emotion that felt suspiciously like disappointment.

  Frowning at the waywardness of her own thoughts, she continued onward to the main door of the castle. Uncle Joshua had never been one for formalities, so Violet let herself into the small entrance foyer before climbing the stairs to the great hall.

  The smell of turpentine hit her first, as it always did. The great hall had a wooden partition between the door and the hall itself, a partial wall of carved wood that, in times past, had hidden servants from view while lords and ladies banqueted in the main hall beyond.

  She peeked her head through the doorway, her uncle’s name on her lips.

  The sound died.

  Violet froze, mouth in a pursed ‘O’ of surprise.

  Ewan had returned.

  The scene sprawled before her like something from Scheherazade’s tales . . . a fraught moment of peril in a faraway romantic place.

  Ewan lay half-reclining on the floor, a stack of pillows behind his back, another underneath one knee, likely representing rocks in the landscape. Scattered bits of armor rested around him, as if some attacker had just rent it from his body.

  He clutched a flag in one hand and a sword in the other, head turned in profile, gaze fixed on the large window above Sir Joshua’s head.

  The image was . . . astonishing.

  Her uncle was sketching like a madman.

  For her part, Violet could not stop staring at Ewan.

  Was he clothed? At all?!

  A length of red silk wound around one arm and draped from hips to mid-thigh.

  But every other inch of him was bare.

  Legs. Chest. Feet. Arms.

  So. Much. Skin.

  Like that prizefight so long ago, she knew she should look away and step back.

  But evidently Violet had not changed much over the intervening years. Not even her father’s recent admonishment could penetrate.

  She drank in the sight of Ewan with almost gleeful abandon.

  Her poor eyes didn’t know where to look first.

  Heavens, were the muscles in his thighs truly that large?

  And his chest?! It was a rippling expanse of skin, punctuated by dips and valleys.

  What about that tendon in his throat? Was it as taut as it appeared? How would it feel to drag her lips across it?

  Violet swayed, light-headed from sheer greedy delight.

  The diffused window light bathed him in sunshine, burnishing his ginger hair to red-gold.

  He rested like some defeated Greek god cast to earth, a hero fighting alongside mere mortals.

  Which given Uncle Joshua’s aims with this portrait, Violet supposed that the scene certainly communicated the correct message.

  But . . .

  Violet swallowed, dragged her eyes up and down Ewan’s body one more time, and then stepped back.

  A few small steps found her on the landing outside the door to the great hall. She rested her back against the wall, allowing the chill stone to cool her overheated blood.

  Ugh.

  This was the problem with quests.

  Were they exhilarating? Yes.

  But the peril?

  The peril was very real.

  She pressed her palms to her eyes, trying to quiet her mind.

  Unfortunately, the exercise only succeeded in searing the scene—Ewan decadently sprawled across pillows in utter dishabille—onto the backs of her eyelids.

  Thoughts tumbled through. Treacherous, dangerous wee thugs that aimed to assassinate all her good intentions.

  Why was she so set on considering Lord Graham when a man like Ewan Campbell was about?

  Yes, she found Ewan overwhelmingly alluring . . . but it was more than mere lust. Violet had met many a handsome man throughout the years—gentlemen concerned more with their looking-glass than any meaningful internal beauty.

  But Ewan’s attractiveness sprang from within. It was the beauty of his heart that rendered his exterior just that much more compelling.

  Was this how Dahlia had felt? That her connection with Mr. Martinelli had been both emotional and physical? That her affections for him led to the commitment of marriage and a life together, not just the release of pent-up lust, as their father claimed?

  And why was Violet denying her attraction to Ewan? Both physical and emotional? Why was she considering marriage to Lord Graham without equally recognizing the suitability of Ewan Campbell as a partner, no matter what society said?

  And that was the most treacherous thought of all.

  Because as much as Violet appreciated Ewan’s considerable physical charms—and she appreciated them So. Very. Much.—they paled when compared to the power of the man’s soul to utterly claim her own.

  Worse, given how the memory of his bare chest lingered, how was she to be unaffected when next she saw him?

  16

  After his return from Aberdeen, Ewan did not see Violet for three days.

  She had a megrim and did not join them the one evening Ewan and Sir Joshua ventured up to Kilmeny Hall for dinner.

  She did not accompany her father and sisters to pester Sir Joshua over his progress on the Battle of Gracchus. The older painter refused to let them see it until it was farther along. A matter of principle, he said.

  She certainly did not magically appear as Ewan worked hour upon hour in his studio.

  Granted, the weather was dreich—day after day of misting rain and dark clouds.

  Even so, Ewan feared she was avoiding him.

  Had their shared confidences that day in his studio chased her away? Had the realization of his decidedly lowly origins finally sent her packing? Or had he overstepped the bounds of propriety in encouraging her to seek out her own desires?

  Clearly,
something had occurred to cause her to avoid his company. Would she cancel their upcoming portrait session, as well?

  The thought depressed his spirits.

  But a pragmatic part of him whispered it was likely for the best, was it not? It wasn’t as if their acquaintance could ever be more than cordial friendship. Rafe and Andrew had all but told him to back away.

  Countesses did not marry lowly crofters. Just as princes did not marry scullery maids, no matter how many fairy tales one read.

  Along with his gloomy musings and the dreich weather, Ewan discovered that several of the skylights in his greenhouse were not water-tight. They dripped incessantly. And given the nonstop rain, the clerk of works for the estate wouldn’t be able to repair the leaks until the sun returned.

  And so Ewan had gathered up his canvases and moved his studio into the great hall alongside Sir Joshua. His employer was a talkative fellow, joking and discussing techniques as they painted side-by-side, both utilizing the pale light that filtered through the large south window.

  Additionally, Ewan received a brief note from Andrew, stating that he and Rafe had a tip that Massey had landed at the port in Fraserburgh, a town farther north up the coast. They were off to investigate.

  On the fourth day after his return, Ewan wrapped his supplies in oiled, waterproof canvas, tugged his great kilt into a cloak, and trekked through the rain to Kilmeny Hall. He set up his easel and directed footmen to arrange the drawing room for his second portrait sitting with Lady Kildrum. She had not canceled it. Not yet.

  His pulse hummed as he waited for her to arrive. How would she behave with him today? And what did it say about the true state of his heart that he was so nervous to see her?

  Violet arrived punctually. A maid followed on her heels, settling into a chair in the corner to act as chaperone. Her ladyship was dressed in that same blue gown of flowing gauze and silk, its stiffened lace collar standing upright, strands of pearls looped around her neck and dangling from her ears. Of course, her brown hair still stubbornly resisted the curls coaxed into it.

  She was a vision of loveliness, a welcome foil to the continued dreary weather outside.

  Ewan’s heart set up a steady drumbeat in his chest, a chanting rhythm he was helpless to stem.