Read When a Scot Loves a Lady for Free Online

Pembroke’s ball last spring.”
    Yale’s face sobered. “Athena?”
    â€œShe goes by Marie Antoine now, apparently.”
    The Welshman stood and headed for the door. “Well, I shall be off and away before les belles bestir themselves for breakfast.”
    â€œTwo feet of snow on the ground.” If Leam could bear to abuse his animals so, he would saddle his horse and take Bella and Hermes to the road without delay. But he could not. He was well trapped hundreds of miles from where he ought to be two days hence. “Where do you expect to go?”
    â€œI shall dig a trench to the dock, purloin a punt, and once at the river’s mouth cast mine eyes to the sea in search of a tardy privateer.”
    â€œWyn.”
    â€œLeam?”
    â€œBehave yourself.”
    The younger man bowed with a flourish. Save for snowy linens, he wore all black, his single honest affectation. “As ever, my lord.”
    Leam tugged his coat over his shoulders, leaving it unbuttoned. Trapped in an inn with a pair of ladies who moved in the highest circles, he could not yet fully divest himself of the court jester; his public persona was too well-known. At home there would be fewer encounters with the existence he had led for half a decade. There he could dress and behave as he pleased. He would not go to Edinburgh. He had no reason to see others, and sufficient work on his estate to keep him there. He had neglected it for too long already, and not only the estate.
    He slipped a knife into the slit sewn into his sleeve at the wrist. Company had followed on the road the previous day. But each time they stopped to water the horses, the path had been empty and no one caught them up. Someone was following at a discreet distance.
    The inn’s ground floor was no more than a rustic ale room, set now for breakfast. Sounds stirred in the kitchen behind a door, the clinking of dishes and the continuous limp scold of the innkeeper’s wife to her lord and master. The aroma of coffee tinted the fire-warmed air.
    Lady Emily sat in a chair before the hearth, a book between her hands and a pair of spectacles perched atop the bridge of her nose. She glanced up with an abstracted squint.
    â€œGood morning, my lord.”
    â€œGuid morning, ma’am.”
    â€œBreakfast is to be served shortly. Eggs and little else, I believe.” Brow furrowed, she returned her attention to her page.
    Leam went around beneath the stair to the rear foyer. On hooks hung two ladies’ cloaks, his own overcoat, and several others of lesser quality. The exit let onto the yard behind the inn, and Leam had not yet investigated it in the light of day. But danger rarely entered through the front door.
    The heavy wooden panel, bloated with damp, stuck. He nudged it with his boot and it jerked open. Lady Katherine Savege, standing on the tiny covered porch, swung about, slipped, and tumbled forward.
    Leam grabbed her up. Her hands clutched his coat sleeves. Her breath hiccupped, sending a cloud of frosty air between them. He scanned her face, a swift perusal of fine features—pert nose, wide mouth, eyes shrouded with thick lashes. She wore neither bonnet nor cap. Her satiny hair, dark like crushed walnut shells and carefully plaited with bejeweled combs, enhanced the perfect cream of her skin.
    â€œWeel, nou, maleddy,” he said slowly. “Mind the ice.”
    â€œI beg your pardon, my lord.” She did not lift her gaze. To his surprise.
    Leam did not care for surprises.
    Her breaths came rapidly against his chest. Her grip on him slackened and her arms dropped.
    â€œI lost my balance when the door opened. The step is slick, yet I came out only in slippers. I wished to see the depth of the snow.”
    â€œDid ye?”
    â€œI shall be quite careful not be so careless again.” Her voice grew cooler with each utterance. Here was the sort of female with whom Leam had little commerce. Ladies like Katherine