When a Scot Loves a Lady

a barbaric Scottish lord.

She had a project to see to.

As at every society event, she sought out Lambert in the crowd. He lounged against a pilaster, an open box of snuff on his palm, his wrist draped with frothy lace suitable to his Shakespearean persona.

“Mama, will you go to the card room tonight?” She could never bear fawning over Lambert with her mother nearby.

“No introduction to Lord Blackwood, then?”

“Mama.”

“Katherine, you are an unrepentant snob.” She touched Kitty’s chin with two fingertips and smiled gently. “But you are still my dear girl.”

Her dear girl. At moments like this, Kitty could almost believe her mother did not know the truth of her lost virtue. At moments like this, she longed quite desperately to throw herself into her mother’s arms and wish that it all go back to the way it was before, when her heart was still hopeful and not already weary from the wicked game she now played.

The dowager released her. “Now I shall be off. Chance and Drake each took a hundred guineas from me last week and I intend to win it back. Kiss my cheek for luck.”

“I will join you shortly.” Kitty watched her mother go in a cascade of skirts, then turned to her quarry.

Lambert met her gaze. His high, aristocratic brow and burnished bronze hair caught the candlelight dramatically. But two years had passed since the sight of him afforded her any emotion except determination— since he had taken her innocence and not offered his name in return—since he had broken her heart and roused her eternal ire.

She went toward him.

“Quite a lot of skin showing tonight, my dear.” His voice was a thin drawl. “You must be chilled.

Come to have a bit of warming up, have you?” He sniffed tobacco dust from the back of his hand.

“You are ever so droll, my lord.” Her unfaltering smile masked bile behind it. She had once admired this display of aristocratic ignobility, a naive girl seeking love from the first gentleman who paid attention to her. Now she only sought information, the sort that a vain, proud man in his cups occasionally let slip when she cajoled him sufficiently, pretending continued adoration in the face of his teasing.

That pretense, however, had excellent effect. Through months of careful observation, Kitty had discovered that Lord Lambert Poole practiced politics quite outside the bounds of legal government.

Once she’d found papers in his waistcoat with names of ministry officials and figures, numbers with pound markings. She required little more information to make his life in society quite uncomfortable were she to reveal him.

But heat gathered between her exposed shoulders, and a prickly discomfort. Where plotting revenge had once seemed so sweet, now it chafed. And within her, the spirit of the girl who had sung at the top of her lungs while dashing through puddles wished to sing again instead of weep. Tonight she did not care for hanging on his sleeve and playing her secret game, not even to further her goal.

“Come on, Kit.” His gaze slipped along her bodice. “There’s bound to be a dark corner somewhere no one’s using yet.”

She suppressed a shudder. “Of course I deserve that.”

“Precedent, my dear.”

She forced herself to step closer. “I have told you before, I—” Something swished against her hip, a mass of gray fur, and she jolted aside. A steadying hand came around her bare arm.

“Thare nou, lass. ’Tis anely a dug.” A warm voice, and deep. Wonderfully warm and deep like his skin against hers, which made her insides tickle.

But tickling insides notwithstanding, Kitty’s tastes tended decidedly toward men who combed their hair. A thin white streak ran through Lord Blackwood’s, from his temple tangled amid the overly long, dark auburn locks. And beneath the careless thatch across his brow, he had very beautiful eyes.

“Lady Katherine.” Lambert’s drawl interrupted her bemusement. “I present to you the Earl of Blackwood, lately returned from the East Indies. Blackwood, this is Savege’s sister.”

“Ma’am.” He nodded by way of bowing, she supposed.

Drawing her arm from his hold, she curtsied. “I do not mind the dog, my lord. But”—she gestured toward his costume—“isn’t it rather large for chasing sheep about? I daresay wolves would suit it better.”

“Aye, maleddy. But things be no always whit thay seem.”

Now she could not help but stare. Behind the beautifully dark, hooded eyes, something glinted. A hint of steel.

Then, like a thorough barbarian, without another word he moved away.

But she must be a little drunk after all; she followed him with her gaze.

In the shadows at the edge of the ballroom, a satyr with a matted chest of hair and a hand wrapped around a half-filled goblet leered over a maid—not a costumed guest but an actual maid. A tray of glasses weighed down her narrow shoulders. The satyr pawed. The girl backed into the wall, using her dish as a shield.

Lord Blackwood stepped casually between the two.

“Weel nou, sir,” he said in a rough voice that carried above the music and conversation. “Did yer mither nae teach ye better as tae bother a lass when she’s haurd at wirk?” His brow furrowed. “Be aff wi’ ye, man, or A’ll be giving ye a lesson in manners nou.”

The satyr seemed to size him up, but the earl’s measure was clear. Shepherd’s garb could not disguise a man in the prime of his life.

“She’s going to waste working on her feet,” the satyr snarled, but he stumbled away.

“Ah,” Lambert murmured at Kitty’s shoulder. “A champion of the laboring class. How affecting.”

The touch of his breath upon her cheek made her skin crawl.

Lord Blackwood spoke quietly to the maid now, and Kitty could not hear him. The girl’s eyes widened and she nodded, her face filled with trust. As though she expected it, she allowed him to relieve her of the tray of glasses. Then she dipped her head and disappeared into the crowd.

Lambert’s hand came around Kitty’s elbow.

“Don’t bother, Kit.” His blue eyes glittered. “Since his wife died, Blackwood’s not the marrying type either.” His grin was cruel.

He enjoyed imagining she was unhappy because he would not marry her. Years ago, ruining her had been entirely about insulting her brothers, whom he despised. But now Kitty knew he simply liked to think she pined for him. Indeed she had pretended gorgeously, allowing him liberties to keep him close, because she believed she needed to see him suffer as she had—first when he refused her marriage, then when he proved to her that she was barren.

She looked back toward the man who had lost his young wife years earlier yet who still remained faithful to her, a rough-hewn man who in the middle of a society crush rescued a serving girl from abuse.

From the shadows the Earl of Blackwood met her regard. A flicker of hardness once more lit the dark warmth of his eyes.

Things were not always what they seemed.

But Kitty already knew that better than anybody.

Chapter 1

London, 1816 Fellow Subjects of Britain, How delinquent is Government if it distributes the sorely depleted Treasury of our Noble Kingdom hither and yon without recourse to prudence, justice, or reason?

Gravely so.

Irresponsibly so.

Villainously so!

As you know, I have made it my crusade to make public all such spendthrift waste. This month I