When a Scot Loves a Lady

She felt ill, betrayed by the spinsterish longings suddenly burst upon her. For over five years, since Lambert took her innocence and she began to hate him, she knew she would never marry. She was ruined to be a bride to a respectable gentleman, and as she could not provide children even if a man were to offer for her, she could not in good conscience accept. She’d told herself she did not want a husband. Men were not to be trusted. She would be perfectly happy living out her days with her mother as her closest companion, Lord Chamberlayne or no.

But Kitty could pretend no longer. In truth she had known that the night she determined to follow Emily into Shropshire. She’d left her mother and Lord Chamberlayne to settle matters between themselves because she did not wish to live with her mother her entire life. She wanted something else of life.

Her hands stilled, then slipped from the dough. She had not been honest with herself. Her infatuation with a man of the Earl of Blackwood’s cut proved it.

She was tired of justifying her childhood mistake through sophistication and pretending to the world that she was glad to be spurned by so many among polite society. She was tired of the lonesome future she had envisioned for herself. Her heart ached for something else, something sweeter and finer. She longed to fall. Image shattered. Innocence regained in simple, unpremeditated happiness.

But a woman like her was not allowed to fall. A woman who had given away her most precious possession without benefit of marriage was, rather, propositioned and groped. She was kissed in dark stairwells, and the gentlemen who did the propositioning, groping, and kissing did not feel obligated to offer anything more. Anything respectable. Anything permanent. Anything that might fill the loneliness.

“Milady, you mustn’t muss your skirts.” Mrs. Milch lifted Kitty’s hands and wiped them with a clean cloth with the delicacy of a lady’s maid. “I never mind a bit of flour on me, but don’t you be getting it on your fine silks and what have you’s when there’s Quality gentlemen about.”

Kitty looked into the woman’s droopy eyes and saw understanding. But that was impossible.

Everything about this dreamlike sojourn in snowy Shropshire was impossible.

She cast her gaze to the kitchen doorway as though it were a portal for escape, like the open door of Emily’s traveling carriage had seemed to her in London.

The earl appeared there.

Her entire body flushed with heat. She had always before admired the unmarred visages of gentlemen who spent most of their time in town. Lord Blackwood’s cheeks glowed with cold and exertion, and she revised her position. He was wonderfully tall and as thoroughly gorgeous as the night before by firelight during dinner and in the dark stairwell during her own private dessert. She felt like the girl he had called her, idiotically infatuated and wanting him to kiss her again more than she could bear.

“Guid day, leddies.” He took them all in with a glance, then looked to the inn mistress. “Ma’am, yer husband begs ye set a kettle o tar on the fire for sealing the boards.”

“Now the man’s sending the Quality on his errands instead of Ned. Where’s that boy got to?” Mrs.

Milch released Kitty’s hands.

“Gane tae the smithy tae retour the saw.”

Emily looked up. “Have you finished the stable roof already?”

“Aye, miss. Moony haunds, as ye be at weeman’s work here.” He glanced at the dough-covered table and smiled.

Kitty had to look away. Women’s work . He approved of ladies baking bread, she understood possibly three out of four words he spoke, yet his smile took her breath.

Oh, God, what was going on inside her? How could she swing from one extreme to the other?

“I am astounded at the difficulty of this task,” Emily commented. “But Mrs. Milch is a very competent teacher after so many years laboring at it.”

Kitty swallowed over her lumpy throat. “My lord, is y—” His gaze shifted to her.

“—y-your—” Her tongue failed.

An exceedingly uncomfortable silence filled the kitchen.

His mouth quirked slightly to the side. Kitty could not spare a thought to care that Emily stared at her now, or that she had never stuttered before in her life. If only he would talk more and look less she might make it through this without embarrassing herself completely.

“Is your horse all right?” she managed beneath his dark regard.

“Aye, lass. Ma thanks.” His expression remained pleasant as he broadened his attention again to include them all. He was a casual flirt. One might believe he had not in fact kissed her thoroughly on a stair the night before. But she knew his reputation, and he had no doubt kissed her because he imagined he knew hers. “Leddies, ye dae us all a fine service far the holidays.”

“There’ll be no goose,” Mrs. Milch muttered.

“Who needs goose when fine ladies are about such noble work?” Mr. Cox announced at the earl’s shoulder, casting a pleased glance about the chamber.

“There is nothing noble in baking bread, Mr. Cox,” Emily stated. “The poor labor at such work and they are barely compensated for it.”

“I have labored my whole life, Lady Marie Antoine,” he said brightly, moving to Emily’s side.

“Yet I have never had the pleasure of baking bread with a lady. I beg to assist.”

“Have you baked bread at all, sir?” She seemed truly curious.

“Why, no.” He laughed.

“Then you’d best put on an apron as well.” Mrs. Milch shook her head sorrowfully.

“You must remove your coat first,” Emily instructed.

“Certainly not in the presence of ladies.” Mr. Cox cast Kitty a playful grin and tied the cloth around his elegant coattails. “My lord, will you join me with our fair companions in this charming domestic task?”

Lord Blackwood shifted his booted feet at the threshold.

“A’ll best be leaving that tae those mair fitted.” He bowed, cast Kitty the swiftest and most enigmatic glance, and disappeared.

Kitty pulled in steadying breaths, every iota of her tingling nerves drawn to follow him.

“Mr. Cox,” she spoke to fix her feet in place, “is Mr. Yale still in the stable?” She couldn’t care less. She only wanted to know where the earl was going now. It was impossible. Grown women did not feel this way. But perhaps this was her punishment for the dishonest program she had pursued for so many years, no matter that the man she had helped bring to justice was in fact very bad.

“He has gone to the pub with the carpenter who helped us patch up that roof. Nasty business.

Nearly caught Blackwood on the shoulder.”

“He only said his horse was in the way of it,” Emily said.

“He was grooming it.” Mr. Cox set his fingertips to the dough. “Odd for a gentleman of his distinction to care for his own cattle, I say. But the nobility will have its eccentrics,” he added with a confiding smile.

Emily pointed at the round of dough. “You must put the heels of your hands into it, Mr. Cox. Like that.”

Kitty’s heart pattered. She wiped her palms on a cloth.

“Will you excuse me?” she muttered. Mrs. Milch was sufficient chaperone for Emily, a chaperone like the one Kitty ought to have had in the stairwell the night before. Emily dug into the dough anew and Mr. Cox studied her actions. Mrs. Milch did not look away from the pot of sealant. Kitty fled.

She must escape the inn, if only for a few moments. She needed cold air in her lungs to clear her clouded head. It was vastly unwise to fixate on the Earl of Blackwood, his breathtaking jaw, his skillful caress.

In the parlor Ned stood with one of the dogs. The boy’s head came up and something gold glimmered in his palm.

He grinned. “Sky’s fair clear today, milady.”

She could barely think to put together words. “It seems so.” She went toward him. Distraction of this sort was exactly what she required.

The dog snuffled his hand.

“Are you feeding treats to the animals, Ned?” She tried to smile, but her lips felt wobbly like the rest of her.

“No, ma’am. It’s only a trinket I found a fortnight since on the road down a’ways at Shrewsbury.”