In her usual fashion, Livie darted ahead, zig-zagging across the crunchy snow in high spirits from all that had transpired that day. That left Blair and Amelia to walk side by side. He caught up her arm and tucked it under his, savoring her closeness in silence for a moment.
“I’ll need to go to Edinburgh straightaway to get all this sorted,” he said eventually. “It may take a week or two.”
She glanced up at him with velvet-soft eyes. “You won’t stay for Christmas? Or Hogmanay?”
“As magical as I know they’ll be, I wouldn’t enjoy them with even a shadow of uncertainty that we can see this new scheme through. I hope ye’ll forgive me.” He drew a bracing breath of crisp Highland air. “I also hope that ye might…that is, ye could spend that time considering…”
She blinked up at him, then a pink blush rose to her cheeks. “Do you have something particular to ask me, my lord?” Despite the two flags of color on her cheekbones, her voice was carefully neutral.
“Aye, I do.”
Like the opening of the first blooms of spring, a smile broke over her face. Staring down at her, Blair felt as though he could breathe again for the first time in ten years.
“Well, then. As I told you before, we don’t stand on formality here at Glenrose. You are welcome to ask me whatever you like.”
Blair’s pulse leapt wildly. He drew them both to a halt. “Now? Are ye sure?”
Her clear, warm gaze drifted from him to their surroundings.
Livie was happily making a snow angel a stone’s throw ahead. The sky was a muted gray so familiar in the Highlands, yet the late afternoon sun cut a sliver of yellow through the gloom along the western horizon. Snow softened and brightened the usually harsh lines of the landscape, making the world feel both vast and quiet all around.
“I can think of no better place,” she whispered, her eyes glistening when she looked back up at him.
As if in a trance, Blair slowly lowered to one knee in the snow. He took her hands, delicate as two sparrows, in his. “My life changed the moment I met ye, Amelia. Ye challenged me, pushed me to be better, and showed me who I am, even when I’d forgotten. I am humbled in the strength of my love for ye.”
Her breath caught at that, but Blair wasn’t through.
“I’m certain I don’t deserve this, but it would be the greatest honor of my life to spend every remaining day with ye. Would ye do me that honor? Will ye marry me, Amelia Harlow?”
Tears now streamed freely down her cheeks. A noise that was half-sob, half-laugh burst from her. She sank down beside him, her arms looping around his neck.
“Yes. Nothing would make me happier, Blair. I love you, too.”
From the joyful sobs that shook her when he pulled her into his arms, he knew she spoke the truth.
A quiet determination took root in his heart then. He had a new duty, one more important than guardian of Glenrose or Earl of Brenmore. This incredible, smart, determined, beautiful woman was entrusting herself—mind and body, heart and soul—to his keeping.
He would do everything in his power for the rest of his days to deserve such a gift.
Epilogue
January 1, 1840
One week later
“It’s the most clever, beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Amelia barely suppressed a smile at the excitement in Blair’s voice as he spread several papers across the study’s desk. Leave it to him to turn effusive over a piece of whisky-distilling equipment.
Though he’d arrived in the dead of night only a handful of hours ago—not long after the clock struck midnight so that he could perform the first-footing ritual and guarantee Glenrose a full year of good luck ahead—he had risen early to go over all the plans he’d made in his short trip to Edinburgh.
Amelia glanced down at one of the papers, which contained a sketch of what appeared to be two large columns with tubes connecting them.
“It’s a design for a new type of still,” Blair explained. “An Irishman named Aeneas Coffey came up with it a few years ago. Apparently, it makes the whisky stronger, but in less time than the pot stills most people use. This will be a vast improvement on George’s setup—though I must admit his arrangement was rather ingenious.”
At the crack of dawn that morning, Blair had paid a visit to George so that he could be the first to see the new plans. Like so many other bootleggers working hard to avoid detection in the Highlands, George had come up with a clever solution that had allowed him to remain hidden all these years.
He’d kept his pot still tucked away in a shed more than a hundred feet from his croft. But smoke rising from the smaller structure might have given him away, so he’d dug a tunnel that connected the distilling shack to his croft, forcing the smoke from the fires under the pot still out the croft’s chimney.
Though it had worked thus far, it would no doubt be a relief to the old crofter to no longer have to hide his activity.
Shooing away a curious Scone, who’d jumped onto the desk and was circling for a spot to spread out, Blair held up another sheet of paper. He gave it an amazed shake. “They say these new stills can produce up to two hundred gallons of spirits a week!”
“Gracious! And will Glenrose—and poor Mr. MacMunn—be able to keep up with it?”
Blair flashed her a radiant smile. “Aye. With the other crofters on
