When a Scot Loves a Lady

made it for you. It remained upright for nearly an hour, until Mary put it too close to the hearth and the sugar melted. The puffs were still quite tasty, though sticky of course.”

“Of course.”

“We are still waiting to hear what took you to Shropshire, brother.” Isobel’s skin was pale, her cheeks too hollow, her hair severely dressed. She had done this to herself, and he had not stopped her from it.

“Yale asked me to accompany him to the house party of some acquaintances he preferred not to meet alone.”

Fiona’s eyes sparkled. “I wish you had brought him here with you instead.”

“I have no doubt you wish that.” He shook his head. “What will I do with you when I must allow you to enter society this spring?”

“Will you, Leam?” Her eyes brightened for a moment, then her visage fell. “But I will have no one to take me about, for Isa cannot, being unmarried.”

“I shall.” He took a slow breath. “I intend to remain at Alvamoor permanently.”

Her grip on his arm tightened. “Truly?” Hope danced in her eyes.

“You will be eighteen.” For all he wished to remain holed up in his house, come the spring it would be his duty to escort her about the countryside around Edinburgh and make her known to the mothers with eligible sons. Their brother Gavin was too young to see to it, only five-and-twenty, the same age as Leam when he had met Miss Cornelia Cobb at the assembly rooms.

“ I will be eighteen, and you will take me to parties and perhaps even a ball.” She hugged him again.

“Not if you don’t learn a modicum of comportment by then,” Isobel muttered.

Fiona’s arms unwrapped from around him and she suppressed her giggles. “I will behave, Leam. I promise.” She was all smiles. “Have you seen Jamie yet?”

“I only now arrived.”

“He is with his tutor, but I will run and fetch him.”

“No. Enjoy your tea while the sunshine remains. I will go, but I fear you will take a chill if you remain here long.”

Fiona shook her head with a smile, but Isobel offered him an even stare. “You are so rarely in residence, we suppose you don’t care one way or another how we go along in your house.”

“It is your house too, Isobel. For as long as you wish.”

She narrowed her eyes. Fiona fidgeted. Leam cast his youngest sister a smile, then went inside.

He moved across the entrance hall, and the scent of lilies met him like a punch to his midsection.

A bundle of flowers decorated a table. He strode over and snatched the hot-house bouquet from the vase. He turned about and found a footman.

“Dispose of these.” He thrust them at a lad he did not recognize. “Who are you?”

“That’s the new boy.” Leam’s housekeeper strode swiftly into the hall, a bustle of efficiency.

“Come on this last muin.” She shoed away the footman and curtsied to Leam. “Welcome home, malord.”

“Hello, Mrs. Phillips. How are you?”

“Well, sir. A thought as ye might be wanting tae clean out milady’s personal effects so we can use that bedchamber for guests an the like. Nou that ye’ll be staying, that is.”

“News travels swiftly, it seems.” He nodded. “Yes. I shall see to Lady Blackwood’s chambers myself.”

He made his way toward the stair, the lingering scent of lilies sickening in his nostrils. The day of James’s funeral the church had hung thick with the fragrance. Two months later when Leam buried Cornelia, torn between grief and relief, he’d smelled them again. Within weeks of that second funeral he had joined Colin Gray in his new club, and shortly after that met young Mr. Wyn Yale in Calcutta.

He had run away, changing his life, but he had not changed.

Imagining Kitty with other men was enough to drive him mad. Imagining losing his heart entirely to her, only to have her reject it eventually, was even worse. He was the same passionate fool as always, unable to control the depth of his feelings when once he allowed them rein—emotions that would inevitably lead to violence against those he loved, as they had before. The burning within him would never truly be quelled, certainly not when inspired by a woman like Kitty Savege.

Five years of avoiding his own home had not changed him in the least. But at least he had learned how to escape. Recalling Kitty’s shocked face beneath the snowy trees, he knew he was a master at that.

He paused on the landing and looked up to meet his wife’s smiling gaze. The breath went out of him, as always. Even in oil on canvas her golden beauty dazzled. But that no longer affected him. For the past five years, each time he had come home and seen the portrait, only guilt shook him.

He’d had the likeness painted during their first month of marriage. She sat for Ramsay—the most expensive artist Leam could find—only the best for his perfect bride, the Incomparable nobody from nowhere remarkable whose parents nevertheless disapproved of her wedding a Scot, even a titled man.

Only minor gentry, they hadn’t even the where-withal to give their daughter a proper season, but instead had sent her off to visit a Scottish school friend during her first season in Edinburgh. Yet their English snobbery and mistrust of him, a Scot, had run deep.

But Cornelia insisted. She had cried, weeping desperate tears, begging them to allow her to marry him because she simply could not live without him. In the end they had relented.

He stared at the portrait. Posing for Ramsay, she had smiled at Leam just so, with her twinkling blue eyes and dimpled chin. He’d sat watching throughout the long days, glued to his chair every minute, a besotted fool, never knowing his brother’s child was growing in her womb. His brother James, who—before Leam even met her—had refused to wed her because of his own broken heart.

“Mother was very beautiful.”

The voice at his side was steady and young. He looked down and met his nephew’s sober eyes. At nearly six he still looked more like James than Cornelia. And so, Leam mused, he looked like him.

Like a Blackwood.

He returned his attention to the portrait.

“She was.” Beautiful and selfish and manipulative. But the old anger did not rise as it always had before. Guilt still for what he had done to them after he discovered their secret, but no fury for what they had done to him.

He breathed slowly, testing the sensation. It lasted. When had the anger gone?

“Welcome home, Father.” Jamie extended his hand. The boy’s bones were sturdy, his grip firm.

“It seems you have grown four inches since last Christmas.”

“No, Father. Only two and one quarter inches. Mrs. Phillips measured me last week.”

“Did she? Well, Mrs. Phillips must be right. I daresay she’s never wrong about anything.”

“She was wrong about you coming home for Christmas.” He spoke so earnestly, as though he had given it great thought yet accepted this erroneous fact.

Leam crouched down and met the boy’s gaze on level.

“I am sorry I did not arrive in time for Christmas. Can you forgive me?”

“Yes, Father.” His dark eyes were so steady for one so young. “Did business keep you? Aunt Fiona says you’re very occupied with business most of the time, and on account of it you cannot remain here long.”

“I intend to remain this time, Jamie. Would you like that?”

The lad’s eyes widened and his collar jerked up and down with a thick swallow.

“Yes, sir. I would like that above all things.”

Leam nodded, his chest tight with an aching that would not cease. Despite all, he loved this boy, the son of his brother. He had been away far too long. “Good. Then it is settled.” He stood. “You must have been on your way somewhere when you encountered me here.”

“Mr. Wadsmere says he will read to me about Hercules if I finish my letters before dinner.”

“Hercules, hm? Then you must not delay in completing your work.” He set his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “May I accompany you up and perhaps watch? I was once something of an expert at letters, but I’m afraid I’ve gotten a bit rusty with that sort of thing. Perhaps you could refresh my memory.”

The barest hint of a grin shaped the boy’s mouth.