“Shall I escort you to the kitchen, my lady?”
“Lord, no. Deal would have kittens to think of such a great man among the scullery maids and potboys. If you’d hand me my cane, my lord, I’ll toddle along under my own steam.”
Deal might also be tempted to take a carving knife to the great man’s self-importance, though Hester kept that thought to herself when Spathfoy resumed his seat.
“Our elders present us with a puzzle.” He poured himself more tea and gestured with the pot at Hester’s cup.
“Please.” When tea was one’s only source of fortitude, it would be silly to refuse another cup.
“I never know with my father whether he’s being irascible out of habit, or whether he’s provoking me into some display of dominance over him so he might retire from the duties of the marquessate, satisfied that I have sufficient pugnacity to step into his shoes.”
That sentence was long, even for him. Hester searched through it for plain meaning while she drank half her tea. “Your father is too proud to ask for your help.”
Spathfoy peered at his teacup, and it was a satisfying moment, both because she’d flummoxed him and because his father apparently flummoxed him. Spathfoy had mentioned sisters, too—in the plural—which boded well for Hester’s spirits.
“It is perhaps more the case my father and I don’t know how to ask for help from each other.” He sounded unhappy to draw this conclusion, the honesty of the sentiment ruining Hester’s gloat entirely.
“What help would you request of him, my lord?”
Spathfoy dabbed a bite of eggs onto a corner of toast the way an artist might add paint to a canvas. “Interesting question, though I don’t seek the help he proffers enthusiastically. The man is forever tossing prospective brides at me. He has a good eye for horses, though.”
“And the two don’t correlate? An eye for a bride and an eye for a horse?”
Too late, Hester realized she’d left him worlds of room for sly innuendo about mounts, rides, and other vulgar jokes. Jasper would have been smirking lasciviously at the very least. She took refuge in draining her teacup.
Spathfoy wasn’t smirking, though humor lurked in his green eyes. “My mother and my sisters would skin me alive did I intimate a connection between brides and horses, but if there is one, it likely has to do with tossing a man aside when his attention lapses and giving his pride a hard landing.”
A polite, even friendly rejoinder, damn him, and yet Hester wished she could leave him to his own company at breakfast, even though he was a guest newly arrived.
“What of your own father, Miss Daniels? Was he inclined to provide helpful advice?”
“He was not.” Even the thought of the late Baron Altsax had Hester’s tea and toast threatening to rebel. “He provided his opinions to all and sundry nonetheless.” She lifted her teacup to her mouth, only to find it empty, and when she set it down on the table, she realized Spathfoy could see quite well what she’d done.
“I never did offer my condolences on your loss.”
If he patted her hand again she’d be smashing her teacup against the wall. “My thanks, Lord Spathfoy. You also never told Aunt how long you can stay with us.”
The inquiry wasn’t rude, exactly, put like that, but he clearly wasn’t fooled.
“I am at leisure, Miss Daniels, and it has been far too long since I’ve enjoyed a Scottish holiday. When do we depart for this ramble Fiona seems so delighted to contemplate?”
Scotland was good for the body. Tye had forgotten this in the years since his boyhood visits.
The old house bore the slight tang of peat smoke rather than the pungent stench of coal. Out of doors, the air was crisp, the light clear, and under all the other scents—garden, stable, breakfast parlor, or freshly turned earth—heather wafted gently through the senses.
The hills ringing the shire bore purplish hems of heather; the inn where he’d stayed in Ballater had offered heather ale. He’d enjoyed a tankard and enjoyed the freedom to sit in the common and simply watch the passing scene. He was also enjoying this morning respite on a tartan blanket by a gurgling little stream, though the company left a great deal to be desired.
“Is my niece always so prone to climbing?”
“Your height spares you the indignities and inconveniences of shorter stature, my lord.” Miss Daniels did not even glance up from her book to deliver this insight. If she sat any farther away, she’d be on the grass. “Those of us built on a less grandiose scale enjoy what height we can appropriate from trees, horses, and the terrain itself.”
Grandiose, not grand. Miss Daniels bore the scent of lemon verbena. Tye was not intimately acquainted with the lexicon of flowers, but he suspected lemon verbena might stand for, “May the ruddy bastard get himself back to England, the sooner the better.”
If only he could.
“Miss Daniels?”
“Hmm?” She tucked an errant lock of blond hair over one ear and kept her gaze on her book.
“Have I somehow given offense? I realize you were not forewarned of my visit, but I did write to your brother twice.”
She put her book down with particular patience and glanced at him as if he smelled a good deal less appealing than heather, but she was too much a lady to show it.
“My lord, it is curious to me that you would travel such a distance without any guarantee of your welcome. What if Matthew and Mary Fran had closed up the house during their summer travels? It was one plan under consideration.”
“Then I should have paid my respects to Balfour, enjoyed the Highland scenery currently so much in vogue, and taken myself back south. Lady Ariadne seemed cheered at the thought of a house guest. If I am mistaken in this regard, I will be happy to remove to the inn in Ballater while I further my acquaintance with my only niece.”
She closed her book, and Tye had the satisfaction of seeing her neatly cornered by manners and good breeding. When she did not speak but bit her full, rosy lip and regarded her closed book, he gave her a little more to think about.
“I am enjoying my stay, short though it has been. I am not much in the company of my female family, and yet your household at present is exclusively female.”
“And you like staying with a child, a dowager, and a spinster?”
“A spinster, Miss Daniels?” She was damned pretty for a spinster. Also quite young.
She lifted her chin so his gaze collided with a pair of solemn blue eyes. “There are worse terms for me, your lordship. Spinster is accurate. I’m not ashamed of it.”
And abruptly, they were beyond the bounds of manners. Her gaze was steady, neither challenging nor defensive, though any fool could see her dignity was supported by some deep hurt.
“You have me at a loss, Miss Daniels.”
She regarded her book of verse the same way Fiona had regarded her injured ankle the day before. “I am a jilt, at least, and others called me a tease—”
“Aunt Hester! I see a fish!” Fiona stood on her tree limb and pointed to the shallows of the burn, making the entire limb as well as its shadows shake. “He’s a great big fellow and taking a nap in the reeds not two feet from the bank.”
Wanting nothing so much as to escape from the faint accusation in Miss Daniels’s somber gaze, Tye yanked off first one boot, then the other. “You mustn’t wake him up. Stay where you are, Fiona. My grandfather showed me how this is done.” He stripped off his socks and rolled up his breeches.
“Will you guddle him, Uncle? Can I watch?”
“You can watch quietly.” Tye rose off the blanket. “Point to him again, then climb down slowly and without making a sound.”
“There.” Fiona stage-whispered and gestured to the dappled shallows. “You can see his tail sticking out from the reeds.”