When a Scot Loves a Lady (28 page)

Wrapped in furs and mufflers, Fiona and Isobel took tea in the brilliant sun. His younger sister leaped up from the table, a graceful sylph of pinstriped muslin, red cloak, and dark curls flying across the terrace. She flung herself upon him and he caught her up.

“You are here!” Her slender arms squeezed. He bent to buss her upon one cheek, then the other. When their mother died in Leam's fifteenth year, Fiona had been a wee one. Now on the verge of eighteen she was a beauty, tall like Isobel yet still slender as a reed. “We thought you would never come!”

He smiled into her laughing eyes. “I began to believe I never would either.”

“What delayed you?”

“A snowstorm in Shropshire.” He took her hand and led her back to the table. “What are you doing out here? Haven't you a place to enjoy tea within where it is warm?”

“I could not
resist
the sunshine. It is the first in weeks of gray, which makes perfect sense now. Nature knew you were coming home today.” Her smile danced.

“What were you doing in Shropshire?” Isobel did not rise or even offer her hand. In five years she had not forgiven him as Fiona and their brother Gavin had. None of them had ever spoken of it, but Leam suspected Gavin understood, and Fiona had never cared much for James. As a child she'd made Leam her favorite, and her character was steeped in loyalty—much as Leam had pretended for years to society concerning his wife. But Fiona's unshakable affection was real.

She squeezed his hand and hung on his arm.

“Yes, do tell us. I wish to know every little bit of everything you have done since we saw you last Christmas. Oh, but it is a terrible shame you missed it this year. Jamie and I made a
croque-en-bouche
.”

“Should I know what that is?”

“A French tower of cream puffs, silly!” She pinched his arm. “I read about it in a Parisian fashion magazine and supposed with all your world traveling you
must
have eaten one before. So we made it for you. It remained upright for nearly an hour, until Mary put it too close to the hearth and the sugar melted. The puffs were still quite tasty, though sticky of course.”

“Of course.”

“We are still waiting to hear what took you to Shropshire, brother.” Isobel's skin was pale, her cheeks too hollow, her hair severely dressed. She had done this to herself, and he had not stopped her from it.

“Yale asked me to accompany him to the house party of some acquaintances he preferred not to meet alone.”

Fiona's eyes sparkled. “I wish you had brought him here with you instead.”

“I have no doubt you wish that.” He shook his head. “What will I do with you when I must allow you to enter society this spring?”

“Will you, Leam?” Her eyes brightened for a moment, then her visage fell. “But I will have no one to take me about, for Isa cannot, being unmarried.”

“I shall.” He took a slow breath. “I intend to remain at Alvamoor permanently.”

Her grip on his arm tightened. “Truly?” Hope danced in her eyes.

“You will be eighteen.” For all he wished to remain holed up in his house, come the spring it would be his duty to escort her about the countryside around Edinburgh and make her known to the mothers with eligible sons. Their brother Gavin was too young to see to it, only five-and-twenty, the same age as Leam when he had met Miss Cornelia Cobb at the assembly rooms.

“I
will
be eighteen, and you will take me to parties and perhaps even a ball.” She hugged him again.

“Not if you don't learn a modicum of comportment by then,” Isobel muttered.

Fiona's arms unwrapped from around him and she suppressed her giggles. “I will behave, Leam. I promise.” She was all smiles. “Have you seen Jamie yet?”

“I only now arrived.”

“He is with his tutor, but I will run and fetch him.”

“No. Enjoy your tea while the sunshine remains. I will go, but I fear you will take a chill if you remain here long.”

Fiona shook her head with a smile, but Isobel offered him an even stare. “You are so rarely in residence, we suppose you don't care one way or another how we go along in your house.”

“It is your house too, Isobel. For as long as you wish.”

She narrowed her eyes. Fiona fidgeted. Leam cast his youngest sister a smile, then went inside.

He moved across the entrance hall, and the scent of lilies met him like a punch to his midsection. A bundle of flowers decorated a table. He strode over and snatched the hot-house bouquet from the vase. He turned about and found a footman.

“Dispose of these.” He thrust them at a lad he did not recognize. “Who are you?”

“That's the new boy.” Leam's housekeeper strode swiftly into the hall, a bustle of efficiency. “Come on this last muin.” She shoed away the footman and curtsied to Leam. “Welcome home, malord.”

“Hello, Mrs. Phillips. How are you?”

“Well, sir. A thought as ye might be wanting tae clean out milady's personal effects so we can use that bedchamber for guests an the like. Nou that ye'll be staying, that is.”

“News travels swiftly, it seems.” He nodded. “Yes. I shall see to Lady Blackwood's chambers myself.”

He made his way toward the stair, the lingering scent of lilies sickening in his nostrils. The day of James's funeral the church had hung thick with the fragrance. Two months later when Leam buried Cornelia, torn between grief and relief, he'd smelled them again. Within weeks of that second funeral he had joined Colin Gray in his new club, and shortly after that met young Mr. Wyn Yale in Calcutta.

He had run away, changing his life, but
he
had not changed.

Imagining Kitty with other men was enough to drive him mad. Imagining losing his heart entirely to her, only to have her reject it eventually, was even worse. He was the same passionate fool as always, unable to control the depth of his feelings when once he allowed them rein—emotions that would inevitably lead to violence against those he loved, as they had before. The burning within him would never truly be quelled, certainly not when inspired by a woman like Kitty Savege.

Five years of avoiding his own home had not changed him in the least. But at least he had learned how to escape. Recalling Kitty's shocked face beneath the snowy trees, he knew he was a master at that.

He paused on the landing and looked up to meet his wife's smiling gaze. The breath went out of him, as always. Even in oil on canvas her golden beauty dazzled. But that no longer affected him. For the past five years, each time he had come home and seen the portrait, only guilt shook him.

He'd had the likeness painted during their first month of marriage. She sat for Ramsay—the most expensive artist Leam could find—only the best for his perfect bride, the Incomparable nobody from nowhere remarkable whose parents nevertheless disapproved of her wedding a Scot, even a titled man. Only minor gentry, they hadn't even the where-withal to give their daughter a proper season, but instead had sent her off to visit a Scottish school friend during her first season in Edinburgh. Yet their English snobbery and mistrust of him, a Scot, had run deep.

But Cornelia insisted. She had cried, weeping desperate tears, begging them to allow her to marry him because she simply could not live without him. In the end they had relented.

He stared at the portrait. Posing for Ramsay, she had smiled at Leam just so, with her twinkling blue eyes and dimpled chin. He'd sat watching throughout the long days, glued to his chair every minute, a besotted fool, never knowing his brother's child was growing in her womb. His brother James, who—before Leam even met her—had refused to wed her because of his own broken heart.

“Mother was very beautiful.”

The voice at his side was steady and young. He looked down and met his nephew's sober eyes. At nearly six he still looked more like James than Cornelia. And so, Leam mused, he looked like him. Like a Blackwood.

He returned his attention to the portrait.

“She was.” Beautiful and selfish and manipulative. But the old anger did not rise as it always had before. Guilt still for what he had done to them after he discovered their secret, but no fury for what they had done to him.

He breathed slowly, testing the sensation. It lasted. When had the anger gone?

“Welcome home, Father.” Jamie extended his hand. The boy's bones were sturdy, his grip firm.

“It seems you have grown four inches since last Christmas.”

“No, Father. Only two and one quarter inches. Mrs. Phillips measured me last week.”

“Did she? Well, Mrs. Phillips must be right. I daresay she's never wrong about anything.”

“She was wrong about you coming home for Christmas.” He spoke so earnestly, as though he had given it great thought yet accepted this erroneous fact.

Leam crouched down and met the boy's gaze on level.

“I am sorry I did not arrive in time for Christmas. Can you forgive me?”

“Yes, Father.” His dark eyes were so steady for one so young. “Did business keep you? Aunt Fiona says you're very occupied with business most of the time, and on account of it you cannot remain here long.”

“I intend to remain this time, Jamie. Would you like that?”

The lad's eyes widened and his collar jerked up and down with a thick swallow.

“Yes, sir. I would like that above all things.”

Leam nodded, his chest tight with an aching that would not cease. Despite all, he loved this boy, the son of his brother. He had been away far too long. “Good. Then it is settled.” He stood. “You must have been on your way somewhere when you encountered me here.”

“Mr. Wadsmere says he will read to me about Hercules if I finish my letters before dinner.”

“Hercules, hm? Then you must not delay in completing your work.” He set his hand on the boy's shoulder. “May I accompany you up and perhaps watch? I was once something of an expert at letters, but I'm afraid I've gotten a bit rusty with that sort of thing. Perhaps you could refresh my memory.”

The barest hint of a grin shaped the boy's mouth.

“I don't guess that's true. But Aunt Isobel says gentlemen often tell tales to encourage others to do as they wish. But I don't mind it. You can come along even if you tell the truth.” The grin got full rein. He started up the stairs. Throat tight, Leam followed.

T
hree weeks after returning home, he finally entered Cornelia's chambers to sort through her belongings. No dust clung to surfaces in her bedchamber or dressing room. No spirit-fearing Scottish maidservant would willingly clean a dead woman's effects for five and a half years, but his housekeeper, Mrs. Phillips, was made of stern stuff.

The place still reflected Cornelia's flirtatious femininity, all peach and rose to complement her ivory and golden charms. On her dressing table sat three perfume bottles on a silver tray and a set of silver-backed comb and brush. He touched his fingertips to the brush handle not an inch from where a single shining strand of guinea hair clung to the bristles.

He drew in a breath. For years his heart had no longer raced when he thought of her, only beat dully for what he had done to her. What he had driven her to.

He moved into the dressing chamber. Her garments still hung upon pegs. She'd always dressed in the first stare of fashion, the pale colors and current styles suiting her delicately rounded figure. She was only eighteen when they met, the plumpness of youth dimpling her elbows and cheeks.

At that assembly rooms ball admirers had surrounded her. New to Edinburgh, her perfect English face was animated with giddiness. But after he found an acquaintance to introduce them, all her rosy-lipped smiles were for him. Or so he believed. During the following fortnight he courted her unceasingly. She accepted his suit swiftly, he'd thought, because she was as smitten as he.

Now Leam could admit there had been a great deal of pride laced through his fury. During those three weeks in which the banns were read before the wedding, when either Cornelia or James could have halted it, they let him make a tragic fool of himself instead.

A heavy cedar chest dominated the small chamber. It seemed as good a place as any to begin. He opened the latch and drew forth the contents. They were the stuff of a young lady's life—lacy kerchiefs, ribbons, a dried posy, even a note he had written to her that first week full of poetic declarations of love.

Astoundingly, he cared nothing for it. No pain of betrayal or dashed hopes stirred in him as he sorted his wife's belongings, not even a twinge of resentment. Perhaps he had forgiven her finally. She had been nothing more than an impetuous, selfish girl, not unlike the impetuous, selfish young man she had married to save herself from ruination.

Yet in the end he had brought her to true ruin. He had sent her to her death just as he sent his brother. That pain would live with him like a knife wedged between his ribs forever.

“So you are finally doing it.”

Isobel stood in the open doorway. Her once-lovely visage was dour now, a sharp contrast to the feminine charm of Cornelia's chambers.