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Fiona away, my love? Mary Fran will be heartbroken, and Matthew will stop at nothing to retrieve the child.”
    Augusta’s fine dark brows knit, which made Ian want to kiss them. He resisted this notion, because babies slept only so long, and he valued his wife’s counsel.
    “Maybe he’s merely showing the colors, Ian. You can’t assume because he’s English his purpose is necessarily nefarious.”
    “Nefarious and English are synonyms in the Scottish lexicon, my love. The Flynns made it plain they considered the girl child of a handfast marriage little more than a bastard. They’ve never sent so much as a groat for Fiona’s upkeep or a token for her birthday. I’m not inclined to trust Spathfoy’s avuncular motives very far.”
    “Is his father perhaps ailing? That can shift a man’s perspective on family matters.”
    Ian let out a sigh of his own. The topic was curdling any notions of further efforts to ensure the large family his wife sought, but Augusta was a good sounding board, and theirs was a marriage without secrets. “I’ll ride over in the morning and get the lay of the land. Hester sounds like she’s in quite a dither, though Aunt Ree will manage the man well enough I’m sure.”
    “You’ll behave?” She rose off his chest to spear him with a look. “Charm at the ready, all Scottish good cheer to the fore? You can be very charming when you set your mind to it, Ian. I have your ring on my finger as a result of your charm.”
    “There was a bit more to it than that, my love.”
    “ More , Ian?” She smiled a feline smile, feathered her thumbs over his nipples, and Ian barely had time to send up a prayer that the baby would sleep for at least another hour before Augusta was offering him more , indeed.
    ***
    Hester had forgotten the pleasure of spending time with a man on his best behavior, particularly a handsome man with a gorgeous voice. If she’d known scolding a lordling would have this effect, she might have behaved very differently with her former fiancé.
    Though it was irksome in the extreme to think she’d have to withstand Spathfoy’s good behavior all on her own for the duration of an entire meal. Aunt had decided to take a tray with Fiona, which was probably as well, given the child’s difficult day.
    “I am sorry Lady Ariadne will not be joining us for dinner.” Spathfoy offered his arm with all the courtly élan imbued by his breeding. “She gave me to understand she’s something of a family historian, and I would love to hear the tales she has stored in her head.”
    “She’s a treasure.” Also a terror. “But her stories are not such as would flatter English ears.”
    He seated her at the table without replying, and he had the knack of even that.
    A lady needed assistance taking her seat because she had to manage her skirts and petticoats, which involved two hands, generally, and that left the gentleman to manage the chair. Her brother Matthew was no good at it at all, usually catching hems under chair legs, or bumping the chair right into the backs of her knees.
    Matthew was her brother. Spathfoy was… a pest. An elegant pest who’d bathed and changed for the evening meal, though even in informal attire, he exuded a kind of inborn grace that was not having a good effect on Hester’s disposition.
    “You might be interested to know I am half English, Miss Daniels.”
    He’d murmured that soft aside right near her ear as she’d fluffed out her skirts, and in addition to the impact of his silken voice twining through her awareness, she caught a whiff of his scent.
    It was all she could do not to bat him away. He smelled of lavender and something lovely—attar of roses? Honeysuckle? She was still trying to dissect the incongruous sweetness in his fragrance when he took the chair to her right.
    “Your mother is Scottish, my lord?”
    “A Lowlander, but yes. I get my height from her side of the family. May I serve you?”
    They were dining informally, with the