Once Upon a Tartan (21 page)

Which was more than he could say for himself.

“Do you want to read with me? I’m reading old Aesop.” Fiona’s voice was heartrendingly hopeful. She patted the place beside her on the couch. “It’s nice and cozy here in the library, and there’s nobody to make you do lessons or tell you not to get in the way.”

He knew this trap. He’d laid it for his own mother at bedtime as a boy. He’d been ensnared in it by his younger sisters on many a stormy night.

“One story only, and I get to read.”

She bounced over a few inches on the couch and passed him the book when he sat beside her. “You get to read, but I get to pick.”

“We’ll negotiate, because you’ll just pick the longest one in the book.” He leafed through the pages and looked for one with a picture, because his sisters had always preferred the ones with the pictures. He paused at an illustration of a Greek boy holding the paw of a huge, fanged lion. The beast’s face was contorted into a grimace, and a horrific splinter, roughly half the size of a railroad tie, protruded from the animal’s paw.

“This was your father’s favorite.”

“Read that one.” She budged up so tightly to his side, she was all but sitting in his lap. “I don’t read it often because it’s toward the back and I can’t say the name.”

“Androcles.” Tye launched into the tale of a boy who’d come upon a fierce lion in the woods, the lion’s stated agenda being to make a snack of the boy. Androcles offered instead to remove the awful splinter from the animal’s paw in hopes of improving the lion’s disposition. The lion granted the boy a favor as a result, to be called in at the time and place of the boy’s choosing.

Tye turned a page slowly, while Fiona fidgeted beside him. “How did they make friends if the lion couldn’t talk?”

“This is a fable, child. Make believe. It has no bearing on reality but serves for entertainment only or perhaps to make some moral point. Now…” Predictably, the lion and the human met years later, when the mature Androcles was to be fed to the lions. The favor was called in—though the lion was hardly going to devour his old friend—and the emperor was so impressed that both man and lion were returned to their forest to live happily ever after.

“I wonder if he ever got another splinter.” Fiona seized the book from Tye’s hands. “You said there are lions in London.”

“There are, at the Royal Menagerie, and all manner of strange beasts.”

“I want to go there. I want to make friends with the lions.”

Tye gently pried the book from her grasp and set it aside, thinking about tangled webs and old men too stubborn to consider the happiness of their daughters over political gain and financial machinations. “They aren’t very happy lions, Fiona. They’re far from home, and they miss their families.”

Fiona retrieved her book. “I miss my mama and my papa.”

Oh, not this bloody nonsense…

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.”

“I winter
up
here
. Fiona has spent every winter of her life
up
here
.” Something wasn’t making sense. Spathfoy looked not chagrined, but rather, miserable.

Torn.

“I know that, Balfour. I know now that Fiona is well cared for here, and I know her mother and stepfather aren’t on hand to prevent me from taking the child. I did not know these things when I left England.”

“So your own dear papa is not showing you all his cards, and you’re his son and heir. How can you speak for his intentions toward Fiona?”

Spathfoy ran a hand through his damp hair, suggesting Ian’s question had hit a tender spot. “My father has assured me it was Gordie’s express wish, conveyed in his last will and testament, that any of Gordie’s children be raised by Gordie’s surviving family. My father would not lie about such a thing.”

Ian had read law. There was lying, and then there were the English versions of the truth, which were many, varied, and often grossly inaccurate without being what English barristers would call lies. “Have you
seen
your brother’s will?”

The knuckles on Spathfoy’s hand, the hand holding his drink, were white. “I would not insult my father by demanding such a thing.”

“Ah, but he’d insult you by sending you up here to steal a child without giving you the lay of the land. He’d insult me by sending you to do it without contacting me first as head of Fiona’s family and the man who has been writing to the marquess regularly regarding the child, and he’d insult Lady Mary Frances by failing to extend an invitation to the child’s mother to visit the almighty Flynn family seat with her daughter.”

Ian did not raise his voice, though the urge to shout and break things—Spathfoy’s handsome head included—was nigh overpowering.

“Let me be clear, Balfour.” Spathfoy didn’t shout either. “I am not borrowing Fiona for the rest of the summer. I am taking her to place her in the sole care and custody of the Marquess of Quinworth, her paternal grandfather. That is the purpose of my visit.”

“You will be sure Quinworth’s affairs are in order when you head south, won’t you?” Ian took a sip of his drink, needing spirits to calm his heart as it pounded slowly against his ribs.

“Quinworth’s affairs are always in order.” Spathfoy replied with such assurance, Ian concluded it was Spathfoy’s responsibility to ensure those affairs remained in order.

“That’s just fine then, for Mary Fran will kill your father, Spathfoy. Altsax will load and reload her gun for her if necessary. Fiona’s mother would consider it worth her life to keep Fee safe from Gordie’s family, and particularly from her grandfather. More whisky?”

Spathfoy had the sense to cast a wary glance at Ian’s offer of more drink. The threat to Quinworth’s life if Fiona were kidnapped was far from a jest.

“The whisky would be appreciated, and I will consider that your description of your sister’s behavior is mere dramatics.”

“Laddie, that was not dramatics. That was a promise.” Ian went to the sideboard and brought the decanter to the coffee table. “Help yourself.”

He wasn’t trying to be rude, but he wanted to note whether Spathfoy’s hands shook when he poured himself a drink. “I have to wonder, Spathfoy, why you didn’t simply ride out with Fee, bundle her onto the train in Ballater, and send us a wire she’s being held for ransom.”

“Ransom?” Spathfoy set the decanter on the table—his hands were steady, damn the man. “That is a ridiculous notion. Quinworth’s finances are quite sound. My mother and I have both seen to it.”