Once Upon a Tartan by Grace Burrowes Page A

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