He slipped an arm around her shoulders. “I know, Fiona. They miss you too.” How could they not?
She turned her face into his arm for one moment then sprang off the couch. “I’m going to draw them a picture for Uncle Ian to send them. I’ll put the lion in it, but it will be a girl who saves him. A brave girl from Scotland.”
She whirled off to the desk, leaving Tye without any other way to put off reading his father’s damned letter.
“Our guest certainly has a penchant for riding about the countryside in the rain.”
Hester glanced up from her needlepoint to regard Aunt Ariadne. “He’s English. They hardly notice the rain.”
“Now that’s odd.” Aunt put down her letters and sent Hester a puzzled look. “I could have sworn you yourself hail from England.”
Hester had the sense Lady Ariadne saw a great deal more than she let on, some of which was going to come inconveniently into evidence. “I was born in England, true, but the only family members I can rely upon are married to Scots. I have Scottish grandparents, and it appears I’m now dwelling in Scotland.”
“While Spathfoy would have us believe he’s English to the bone.”
Hester gave up. “I took liberties with his person, Aunt. Substantial liberties.”
“I suppose we must have you arrested then. Men can’t abide it when we take liberties with their delicate, frail persons. And Spathfoy is such a pale, sensitive creature too.”
“He’s not delicate or frail in the least.” Hester was being baited shamelessly, but she couldn’t resist. “He is the loveliest, most considerate man.” And perceptive, possibly even sensitive too.
“We are discussing our guest, the Earl of Spathfoy?”
Hester put down her embroidery hoop. “Tiberius Flynn. His sisters call him Tye.”
“I call him a damned clever fellow if he’s put that look in your eye on such short acquaintance.”
“You were the one who told me to get back on the horse.”
“So I did.” Aunt shuffled her letters in her lap. “And so I do. Merriman took a worse toll on you than he should have.”
She would bring up that name. “I am not pleased with myself, Aunt.”
“A few twinges of conscience are all well and good, my dear. The point of the exercise is for you to be pleased with Spathfoy. I trust you are?” Such an innocent question, but Aunt speared Hester with a look that brooked no prevarication.
“He has been everything that is gentlemanly, and I am not in the least disappointed.” Though she was puzzled. He’d denied himself pleasures with her she’d freely offered, and she was at a loss to understand his reasons.
“Then that is an end to it. He’ll go on his way, you’ll wish him well, and everybody’s spirits will be the better for his holiday here. Shall I ring for tea?”
Hester assented, not at all deceived. Aunt Ariadne was matchmaking, pretending any entanglement with Spathfoy was a casual frolic, easily put aside, when for Hester it might not be any such thing—as Lady Ariadne likely knew.
As she sipped her tea and listened to Aunt’s parlor Gaelic, Hester realized what was bothering her. Not propriety, not her reputation—Spathfoy would die before he’d gossip about a woman of his acquaintance—but rather an alarming mixture of doubt and hope.
Hope, because the man who’d shown her such consideration last night, not only in his attentions but also his reticence, was a man she could respect as greatly as she desired him. She might even—only in the privacy of her mind could she admit this—like him.
Like him a very great deal.
But the serpent in her garden, the doubt, was that initially, she’d thought she could like Jasper a very great deal as well.
“The Earl of Spathfoy to see you, Laird.”
Ian looked up from his ledgers in surprise. “In this bloody downpour?”
The footman’s lips quirked. “His lordship is dripping in the foyer, my lord. We’ve taken his greatcoat to the kitchen to hang before the fire.”
“Show him in, then. Her ladyship is not to be disturbed.”
Ian rose from his desk and peered out at the rain pelting the library’s mullioned windows. A peat fire burned in the hearth, which served only to reinforce a sense of premature autumnal gloom.
“His lordship, the Earl of Spathfoy, my lord.” The footman withdrew, closing the library door quietly.
“Spathfoy, welcome.” Ian extended a hand, finding Spathfoy’s grip cold but firm. “You’ll need a wee dram to ward off the chill.”
“My thanks, though you might want to save your whisky when you hear why I’m calling upon you.”
“Anybody going about in such a deluge needs at least a tot.” A tot of common sense, perhaps, though Spathfoy’s features were so utterly composed, Ian poured the man a drink with a sense of foreboding.
“To your health.” They drank in silence, Ian sizing up his guest and assuming Spathfoy was sizing up his host. “You’ve the look of a man with something serious on his mind. My royal neighbor frowns on dueling, and while I’ve the sense you could hold your own in a bare-knuckle round, my countess frowns on violence in the house. This leaves a man few options outside of unrelenting civility.”
While Ian watched a bead of moisture trickle from Spathfoy’s hair onto his collar, Spathfoy grimaced and stared at his drink. “Civility.”
“Shall we sit? The fire’s throwing out a little heat, thank God. And do I assume her ladyship’s presence will not be needed for this tête-à-tête?”
Ian moved to the sofa, while Spathfoy lowered himself to a wing chair. The man’s boots squeaked, which more than anything announced that Spathfoy’s errand was not a social call. No English gentleman would jeopardize the welfare of his favorite riding boots had he any alternative.
“No, we will not need to bother her ladyship.” Spathfoy fell silent then met Ian’s gaze with a glacial green stare. “Fiona is my niece.”
“She’s my niece too, and a lovely little girl if I do say so myself.”
“I’m to bring her back to England with me.”
A shaft of pain lanced Ian’s chest, pain for the child mostly, at being ripped from her home and family—if Spathfoy had his way. So many Scottish children had been uprooted at the behest of English convenience. The clearances had gone on since time out of mind, into Ian’s infancy, but his own niece…
And pain for Hester and Ariadne, who had cobbled together a household around the child’s routines and joie de vivre. Ian had done likewise almost since Fiona’s birth.
And then there was Mary Frances’s pain, should her own child be lost to her. This pain was too great to contemplate at any length.
“And why will you be taking Fiona from the only family to love her?”
Spathfoy rose and braced one arm on the mantel. “You’re not going to argue?”
“Answer the question.” Ian kept his seat, the better to watch his guest.
“Familial duty. The marquess has said it should be so, and I’m the logical one to retrieve the girl.” Spathfoy contemplated the fire as if he’d prefer leaping into it to this familial duty.
“What aren’t you telling me, Spathfoy? Quinworth forgets about the girl for years, all but denies her patrimony, and now he wants to reave her away from home the first time her mother isn’t on hand to go with her. Even an English marquess wouldn’t take that queer a start without some provocation.”
“I wish to hell I knew what the old man’s game was.” Spathfoy threw himself back into the chair. “When I came up here, I thought I’d simply collect the child, leave a bank draft with her mother, have a brandy with Altsax, and promise them they could visit her while she was with us. Altsax has a title, and nobody winters up here if they have a choice.”