home here, near Mary Frances’s family, but she has longed to see some of the Continent, and I was available to stay with Fiona while they traveled, so here we are.”
She gave him a bright, false smile, and it occurred to him that he was in the presence of a Poor Relation. Miss Daniels was young, pretty, not sporting a ring on the fourth finger of her left hand, and by rights ought to be in London, trying to flirt herself up a decent match.
Instead she was here in Aberdeenshire, during the only months that location boasted pretensions to decent weather, idling away her youth with a child who sang to trees. A bleak prospect indeed, but a penniless female was at the mercy of the rest of her family.
“Have you written to your parents, Fiona?” He put the question to the child, though making polite conversation with the infantry was not a skill he’d ever aspired to.
“I write to them every other day, but that’s mostly so Aunt Hester can say I’ve practiced my penmanship.” She regarded her propped foot. “I miss them.”
Such a plaintive expression accompanied this declaration that Tye felt an unwelcome urge to comfort the child. Very unwelcome.
“We’ll stay busy,” Miss Daniels said. “The weeks will pass quickly, and then they’ll be home.”
“And then at Christmas, we’ll have a new baby!” As melancholy as the girl had been an instant ago, she was that gleeful with news of her coming half sibling. “I hope it’s a boy so I can teach him how to fish and make mud pies.”
“Fiona.” Miss Daniels put a wealth of repression in three syllables, and Tye was intrigued to see the lady was blushing hotly, right up her neck and both cheeks, which was almost as interesting as the news that Fiona’s mother was again on the nest.
Within one year of marriage, no less. The woman was nothing if not an easy breeder. The food arrived before Tye could dwell on that unhappy subject, and Miss Daniels launched into a recitation of all the books Fiona might read while allowing her foot to heal. A chambermaid appeared with a bowl of ice and a set of towels, and Miss Daniels interrupted her litany of books to make a fuss doctoring the child’s ailing foot. Tye used the time to fill the pit in his stomach with scrumptious ham-and-cheddar sandwiches and a delectable array of small tea cakes.
“You enjoy a hearty appetite, my lord.”
He pause midreach toward the last chocolate tea cake, wondering if that was censure or amusement in Miss Daniels’s voice. She was nibbling on a tea cake too, and while he watched, the pink tip of her tongue peeked out of the corner of her mouth to lick a dab of white frosting from her lip.
“The fresh country air and a tidy little gallop have left me peckish. Then too, I have been traveling for some time.” Though the fresh country air was also addling his brain if he’d taken to staring at a decent woman’s mouth.
“Were you in Florence?” That from the child, who was reaching for another sandwich. He met her gaze and realized she knew damned good and well she was exceeding her own stated limit of one sandwich.
“I have been in Florence, though not recently. A lovely city, if hot.” And somewhat unfragrant, like many of the European capitals, including—emphatically—dear old London towne.
“My uncle Asher is in Canada.” The girl took a bite of her second sandwich. “He went there when I wasn’t even a baby, but I love him. My uncles are the best.”
The child’s words were a providential opening. Before Miss Daniels could nibble more frosting, before the child could cadge a third sandwich, Tye decided it was the only opening he was likely to have, and it was past time he presented himself honestly.
“Your uncles are the best?”
Fee nodded emphatically. “The very, very best. Especially Uncle Ian, because he looks after all of us—he’s an earl—but all my uncles are capital fellows.”
“It’s fortunate you feel that way, because I myself am among their number.”
Hester had taken their guest for a Scot at first, in part because of his glorious size. He appeared to enjoy the breeding of many a Scot, a cross of dark Celtic good looks with Viking scale and muscle.
He inhabited his body like a Scot too, comfortable and rangy, at ease with both his proportions and his strength. Watching him ride across the pastures, she’d envied Fee, thinking at first that Ian had perhaps cantered over for a surprise visit and was treating his niece to a taste of adventure.
But then he’d spoken, and that voice… Spathfoy should be a mesmerist, with a voice like that. The English public school consonants were present, all crisply started, neatly executed, and cleanly finished off, but in the vowels there lurked something… more. Something suggestive of foreign antecedents and earthy inclinations. She could listen to that voice like a lullaby.
Except… he formed words, not just spoken music, and he’d said something extraordinary.
“I beg your pardon, my lord. Did you just pronounce yourself to be among Fiona’s uncles?”
“I did. I am the older brother of Fiona’s late father, and very pleased to make my niece’s acquaintance.”
The great beast of a man was lying—not about being Fee’s uncle, but about being pleased. He even sounded beautiful when he lied—beautiful and believable. Oh, he’d done the proper thing and made sure Fee got safely home when she’d hurt her ankle, but the proper thing and the convenient thing were sometimes separated merely by the intention motivating the same act.
“Fiona would make her curtsy to you, I’m sure, but for her indisposition. I don’t suppose you were merely in the area and calling upon a relation?”
Fiona shifted amid her pillows. “I don’t know you. I know my uncles.”
“I have been remiss in not calling before, but I reside primarily in London, which is some distance away.” He looked directly at Fee while he spoke, and this, Hester realized, was part of his… not charm. He wasn’t in any case charming, but part of his attraction. He had moss-green eyes, startlingly green, fringed with long, dark lashes. They imparted a sensual air to an otherwise austere countenance, and suggested the truth of the man was in that voice, in the caress and lilt of it, rather than in the stern features.
“You are here now,” Hester said, though she was wishing it were otherwise, and that probably showed in her voice.
Fiona peered up at his lordship. “
For an instant, something flickered through lordly green eyes, impatience, maybe, or resentment. Or—a remote possibility—surprise, that a little girl would not remain silent and passive in the presence of this titled uncle.
“I am addressing a previous oversight. I’d written to Altsax of my intent, but he has apparently gone traveling with his lady. I will call upon Lord Balfour at the earliest opportunity in Altsax’s absence.”
“Papa doesn’t use the title.” Fee was frowning a particularly worried frown, and Hester could only imagine what was going through the child’s mind.
She passed her niece the last tea cake and served up a reassuring smile with it. “After such a trying day, Fiona, you should probably rest for a bit. Would you like a book?”
“
Hester got down the book, noting that Spathfoy had gone quiet, probably the better to plan his next broadside.
“My lord, may I request a turn in the garden on your arm? The day is lovely, and Mary Frances takes great pride in her flowers.” The request was as polite as Hester could manage, but her temper—her blasted, perishing temper, which had never been a problem until this self-imposed banishment to Scotland—was threatening to gallop off with her manners.
“But of course.” He rose to his impressive height, looking handsome and proper. There wasn’t a single crumb on his breeches, and his hair looked artfully windblown, not as if he was given to pelting over fences willy-nilly.
Hester led him to the gardens, lecturing herself all the while about decorum, Highland hospitality, and making good first impressions. When Spathfoy inquired as to whether “the child” had a governess, tutors, or music instructors, she did not wallop him across his arrogant cheek.
She limited her wrath to a mere ladylike tongue lashing, but she made as thorough a job of it as momentary inspiration and vicarious maternal instinct could muster—which was very thorough indeed.
