Mary Fran and Matthew

improvement.”

They let their horses amble down the hillside while Matthew told one tale after another of pranks and skirmishes, though gradually, his tone became more serious.

“You did not want to leave,” Mary Fran guessed. “You hated it, and you loved it.”

He stroked a gloved hand down his horse’s crest. “I think most career military have mixed feelings, but no, I didn’t love it. I felt useful, though, and it grates upon me daily that I must idle about, my father’s much-vaunted heir, when I could be of real service in a part of the world that’s quickly heading for war.”

Useful. She knew what a cold comfort that was. Useful became an acceptable way to go on only when the alternative was to be useless.

“Could you go back?”

Mary Fran might have missed the expression on his face, but she liked watching the way emotion would flicker through his blue eyes. The happy emotions—humor, joy, pleasure in the scenery—were fleeting, while the other emotions faded more gradually.

“I cannot go back. Not ever, and I do not want to.”

Despair—profound despair—but also resignation crossed his features.

“I wish we’d brought a picnic.” The observation was as close as she could come to admitting she did not want to go back either—to the housework, the squabbling maids, her swearing brothers, and sometimes even to her own confounding, exhausting, endlessly dear daughter.

“A picnic sounds like a lovely idea for another day, my lady. Tell me, how do you think your brother is faring with his courting of my sister?”

The change in topic was welcome, and it was a relief to think that if Ian married Eugenia, then Matthew Daniels might become a relation of some sort to Mary Fran—and to Fiona.

“Ian must be studying the terrain before advancing his troops,” Mary Fran replied. “I can’t say as I’d be very impressed with his efforts thus far, though you English do delight in your mincing about. He can hardly pounce on the lady and carry her off to his castle.”

“Mincing about. I take it mincing about would not meet with your approval were a man to court you?”

They were back to his version of flirting. It made the prospect of her duties at Balfour a little more bearable and suggested that Matthew had had enough of shadows and regrets for one morning. “Mincing about would not impress me one bit. Shall I race you back to the stables?”

He didn’t let her win, but Mary Fran’s mount was carrying considerably less weight, and Mary Fran knew the terrain. They called it a draw, and as Matthew escorted her up to the house, Mary Fran let herself wonder: If mincing about as a courting strategy would not impress her, then what would?

***

“Pretend you don’t see me.”

The Balfour estate was home to many children. Matthew had observed them weeding the vegetable plots, herding sheep, spreading chicken manure on the pastures, mucking stalls, and otherwise taking on the tasks appropriate to youth. This was the first child he’d seen in Balfour House itself, and he knew in an instant the girl dismounting nimbly from the banister was the dear and dread Fiona.

“Are you asking me to lie, child?”

She studied him with the trademark MacGregor green eyes, twirling the end of a coppery braid between her fingers. “Not lie, pretend. This is the ladies’ wing, so I will pretend I didn’t see you here either.”

“I’m fetching my aunt, my sisters, and my cousin, to escort them to dinner. My name is Matthew Daniels.”

“Fiona Ursula MacGregor Flynn.” She gave a sprightly curtsy that looked more like a Highland dance maneuver. “I know who you are. You are Miss Augusta’s cousin, Miss Daniels’s brother, and Miss Hester’s brother too. The baron is your father, and Miss Julia is your auntie by marriage, which is why she’s so young.”

“I’m impressed.” He was also charmed by this miniature version of Mary Fran. “Lady Mary Frances is your mother, and the earl and his brothers are your uncles.”

“Yes.” She twirled around, smiling gleefully. “And you are our guests. I had an adventure today.”

Matthew took up a seat on the bottom stair. “I expect you have adventures most days. Lots of them.”

“Not like this. A gentleman should ask a lady’s permission before he takes a seat, you know.” In her thick, piping burr, she was reminding him of his manners as a kindness.

“A lady stays off the banisters. What was your adventure?” Because, of course, she was dying to be asked, and Matthew did not like disappointing even so young a lady.

She plopped down on the stair beside him and tucked her pinny over her knees. “Romeo came after us.”

“Romeos generally do give chase where pretty ladies are concerned.” And this one was going to be gorgeous, right down to the freckles she shared with her mother.

“Romeo is our bull, our breeding bull, though the uncles won’t let him step out with Highland heifers, only with the Angus. Miss Augusta and I went for a picnic, and Romeo came calling. Uncle Ian saved us, and I was very brave.”

“You’ve had a busy morning. How is Miss Augusta?” Visions of Augusta Merrick scrambling over a stone wall brought back childhood memories of similar escapades with her and his sisters.

“She said she’ll tell Ma for me, tonight, after the ladies have had their tea. Ma won’t skelp m’ bum if the ladies are present. I think I should get a medal from the Queen for being so brave.”

This last was bravado, the kind of bravado a child produces when she knows her opinion will not be shared by her parent.

“She won’t skelp your backside. She might weep all over you, though.”

Fiona grimaced and resumed twirling her braid. “That would be awful. Ma hardly ever cries. I hate it when she cries, and so do the uncs. Uncle Con makes her mad so she won’t cry, and Uncle Gil makes her laugh.”

“What does Uncle Ian do?”

“Uncle Ian neg-o-ti-ates. He explained it to me. It’s a bit like playing pretend.”

Before Matthew could fashion a reply to this revelation—Ian would be negotiating the marriage settlements before too much longer—he caught an acrid whiff of cigar smoke.

Fiona sprang to her feet. “G’day, sir. I’ll just be going now.” She shot off up the stairs as Altsax sauntered into the corridor.

“Taken to lurking in the ladies’ wing, Matthew?”

Matthew rose and resisted the urge to dust off his backside. “I’ve come to fetch the women for dinner.”

“You won’t find that Valkyrie sister of Balfour’s here in the women’s wing. She bides in the family wing, where her brothers can do a better job of protecting her virtue than they did in the past. Sound strategy cozying up to the brat, though.”

“Her name is Fiona.” Fiona Ursula MacGregor Flynn, which did not explain why the mother was still using her maiden name.

Altsax fiddled with an ornate gold sleeve button so it winked in the evening sun slanting through the nearby window. “Getting protective already? You can take the boy out of the army, but not the army out of the boy? How very quaint, given the manner in which you and the military parted company. If you’re going to bed the Valkyrie, I suggest you be about it—though that is not a woman in whose presence I’d let my guard down one bit. She’ll likely steal the rings from your fingers while you lie sated and spent in her arms.”

“Your opinion regarding our hostess is ill-bred in the extreme.”

Matthew had managed to speak quietly—Hester or Genie could come tripping along any moment—and he had not balled up his fists or clenched his teeth. Even so, the comment was a tactical error, one that would inspire Altsax to further crudeness if nothing else.

“My, my, my!” Altsax smiled broadly, revealing tobacco-stained teeth. “Ill-bred, am I? It pains me to point out to you that I sit in the Lords and have more wealth than these kilted heathen will see in ten lifetimes. I can be ill- bred when I please, where I please, in any manner I please.”

“Which freedom you feel compelled to demonstrate on far too many occasions,” Matthew responded as pleasantly as he could.

The humor died from Altsax’s rheumy eyes. “Mark me on this, young man: you are a good part of the reason I had to drag your sister into the wilds of Scotland in search of a title for her. Had you not left a trail of scandal clear