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don’t, I will, and then there’s Con, and Mary Fran, and…”
    “What about Mary Fran?” The earl’s sister posed her question from the door then headed directly for the buffet. “And the truth, Gilgallon Concannon MacGregor, or I’ll skelp yer bum but good.”
    Julia spoke up for the first time. “You’ll do what?”
    “She’ll spank him,” Connor supplied, for Gilgallon was munching his peach, or the earl’s peach. “Again. Motherhood has made Mary Fran a dab hand with a spanking.”
    “Quit braggin’ on me, ye daft, glaikit mon,” Mary Frances said, bringing a full plate to the table.
    A few more minutes into the general banter, Augusta noticed the earl leaning over to offer Genie another one of his teasing asides, but Genie kept her gaze on her teacup, apparently wise to the man’s tricks. Balfour left off his wooing, for that’s what it was, when Matthew joined the assemblage.
    Matthew, who might have been Augusta’s… husband .
    She regarded her cousin with as much dispassion as she could muster over hot, buttery scones and strong breakfast tea.
    He was handsome, tall, lithe, and where she had gotten some ancestor’s Celtic black hair, Matthew had been spared such a fate and sported blond hair going reddish at the temples. He’d been spared the peculiar eyes too, his being a perfectly circumspect shade of blue.
    She tried to consider him objectively—they were both presently unwed—but the idea of bearing his children left her… disturbed. Cousins could marry legally, and royal cousins frequently did.
    Matthew had been the one to teach her how to tie her boots, the older boy who’d shown her how to make a fist—thumb outside —and instructed her about where exactly a female might knee a bothersome fellow to allow her time to flee to safety. These were not memories conducive to marital inclinations. Not years ago and not now.
    And Matthew had grown so serious. The change had started before he’d joined the cavalry, and Augusta regretted it—for his sake and for hers.
    “Good morning, Cousin.” Matthew took a seat beside her as he spoke. “The teapot, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble?”
    She obliged, pouring for him in silence. Several seats up the table, Gilgallon was now appropriating his sister’s bacon and getting his tanned wrist slapped for it.
    “Such violence in an earl’s daughter,” Connor chided, taking a sip of Gil’s tea. “And I’ve diagnosed Gil’s problem. He fails to sweeten his tea, which cannot be good for his disposition.”
    “My disposition would benefit from a ride directly after breakfast,” Gil said, ignoring his brother’s larceny. “And I would sweeten my tea, but you lot have plundered the sugar bowl.”
    “Perhaps the ladies would like to join you on your ride,” the earl suggested. He lounged at his end of the table, lord of all he surveyed, a smile lighting his eyes.
    How different this breakfast was among Scottish strangers from all the breakfasts Augusta had shared with her relations—and the breakfasts she’d shared with nobody save her cat.
    “I would enjoy a tour of the estate,” Genie said, pinning a nigh-desperate gaze on Gil. “A tame mount would be best, though.”
    “We’ll make it a foursome if the younger Mr. MacGregor will come along,” Hester chimed in, smiling at Connor. “Aunt, perhaps you’d like to join us as well?”
    Julia appeared to consider this offer as she peered at her tea. “It has been ages since I’ve ridden. Augusta, will you join us so I won’t be the only one left to amble along on an aged pony?”
    Augusta was tempted. Oh, how she was tempted. But for her to be riding about with the young ladies when Julia was on hand to do so might be getting above her station.
    “I’ll leave the girls to your watchful eye,” Augusta said. “Perhaps I’ll ride some other day.”
    Three seats up, the Baron folded down his newspaper and frowned at the sugar bowl. “We’re to tour the estate? Can’t say