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“How was lunch, and do you know anything about agricultural preservation?” Jane asked.

By agreement, Dunstan and his wife tried to keep their demeanor professional during office hours. At home, Jane would likely have greeted him with a hug and a kiss. Now, she remained at her desk, amber glasses perched on her nose, hair in a sleek chignon.

The very picture of a woman whom Dunstan would dearly love to muss and cuddle.

“Lunch was interesting,” Dunstan said, hanging his suit coat on the back of his chair. “Did you know Aaron Glover is writing a book?”

“Half the bar association is probably writing boring old legal thrillers, poor fools, while you and I are living a romance. I take it the Holmes hearing went OK?”

How had he practiced law for years without a partner? Jane had been wiser than he, teaming up with a lady who now numbered among Dunstan’s cousins by marriage, while Dunstan had slogged along as a solo practitioner. From one year to the next, he’d barely made ends meet—frequent travel back to Scotland cost a pretty penny—and always, he’d promised himself he’d socialize more “soon.”

“The hearing was postponed,” he said, loosening his tie. “Aaron’s star witness, a forensic accountant, came down with some stomach flu last night, and was getting IV fluids at Hopkins when last Aaron spoke to him. The court was overbooked, and we were bumped. Tell me about the meeting with Maitland.”

“Bumped can be good, when the clients ought to be talking settlement,” Jane said. “Maitland played it cool, but he wants that farm. Elias does not want to sell it to him for reasons that might have to do with Violet Hughes, of the readily available shower.”

Dunstan propped his feet on the corner of his desk, something he never did before clients.

“I worried that I should have been at the meeting today, because Elias is my cousin. Then I resented the worry, because a man with an extra 800-acre farm on his hands doesn’t need my fretting, and then I felt ashamed of the resentment. If he can blunder into poison ivy, he’s worth some fretting over.” Dunstan’s feelings were more complicated than that, and he’d ponder them at greater length after office hours. “Did you get anything to eat?”

  “Stopped at the Stale and Awful,” Jane said, assuming the same feet-up posture Dunstan had. She wore a pair of purple high heels of which Dunstan was exceedingly fond.

The Steak and Ale was a reliably good meal, contrary to its moniker. Lawyers took humor where they could find it.

“Elias wants you to go with him to meet with the bank tomorrow,” Jane said. “I think you should accompany him, if you can.”

“I can. Tell me about the meeting with Maitland.”

Jane stuck her pen in her chignon, leaned back, and closed her eyes. “Maitland, of course, wants to thoroughly vet the land before he lays down a penny. I suspect he wants to keep it from other developers at least as much as he wants to build there himself. He was honest, I guess is the word. Elias was… Elias has a lot of cool, Dunstan. I don’t know what I was expecting, but with very few words and excellent manners, none of them flamboyant, that meeting went exactly as Elias wanted it to go. He reminds me of you.”

“Thank you, I think. Where did you leave it with Maitland?”

“Ball is in his court. Elias will entertain an offer for a lump sum, and Maitland can have the land as is, where is. The transaction will be fast and simple or there won’t be a transaction. Damson Valley goes straight to hell, and Elias walks with a crap-ton of cash.”

“A well-planned development isn’t hell, Jane.” Dunstan argued not because lawyers argued compulsively, but because Elias was not responsible for the fate of an entire valley—not exactly.

Jane peered at him over her glasses. “I grew up in the burbs, Dunstan. Unless the neighbors had kids in the same classes I was in, I had no idea who my neighbors were. The parents didn’t know which kids went with which houses, much less what their names were. Those houses were very nice, plenty of parking, not much crime, but there wasn’t much community either. Then too, once you kill a farm, that land is dead forever for any other purpose. A tot lot feeds no one but the Weed and Seed crews, and who knows what poison they’re adding to our grandchildren’s groundwater.”

Jane was effortlessly fierce. Even in repose, her mind seized on logic and data the way a raptor on the wing spotted prey.

“I had no idea I’d married an environmental crusader.”

“I like to eat,” Jane said. “And I’m not a crusader. If I wanted congestion, higher taxes, lines at the drive through, noise, and lower air quality, I would have stayed closer to either D.C. or Baltimore. I wanted peace and quiet and a small town practice with a handsome, brilliant, hard-working Scotsman.”

“You forgot passionate,” Dunstan said. “And lucky, and married to the love of his life.”

“And so modest,” Jane said, grinning. “You still good to leave around four?”

“God forbid I should miss your company cooking, wee Jane. Where do you suppose Elias has got off to this afternoon?”

Jane leaned forward to unhook the straps of her stilettos, then put her feet down. “I sent him on a little errand.”

And Elias, like the prudent Scots he’d descended from, had apparently marched out smartly, Jane’s orders in his hand.

“The truth, if you please, wee Jane. The whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

“When we met with Maitland, Elias brought up the idea of selling his development rights to the state, so the farm always remains a farm. It wouldn’t be anywhere near as much money as Maitland would offer him, and I gather the state runs the program competitively. You figure out what a developer would pay, offer the state a discount, and the greater the discount, the more likely you are to be accepted into the program. Maitland about gave birth to striped kittens.”

“Elias is the last person to sink his wealth into something as bothersome as a farm,” Dunstan said, though in an honest corner of his mind, he wished at least one other member of the family might develop ties with the Damson Valley. 

Cousins should grow up knowing each other, after all.

Jane’s cell phone buzzed to the opening theme from the old “Perry Mason” show. She peered at the screen. “Elias wants to bring company to dinner and he won’t forget to pick up the eggs.”

Eggs? Ah, well. Jane hadn’t sent Elias to the supermarket for those eggs.

Jane tapped at her phone screen, then put it away.

“Elias is bringing company to dinner?” Dunstan asked.

“Violet Hughes. I sent Elias to buy eggs, but I also told him to grill Violet about that easement thingie. Real estate law makes my eyes to cross and my teeth to ache. What has put that frown on your handsome face, Mr. Cromarty?”

“Elias isn’t about to give up the right to develop that land, Jane. He’s a shrewd negotiator, and I’m sure he was merely posturing to intimidate Maitland.”

Jane opened her desk drawer, peered inside, then closed it.

“The pen is in your bun.”

She extracted the pen from her hair, twisted it to retract the point, and tossed it in the drawer. “Why do you think Elias was posturing? Agriculture is the largest industry in Maryland. He could probably make money at it.”

“Some money, but a farm requires management, and he’s not a farmer. He was rattling his swords, and he’ll get a better price from Maitland because the display was convincing.”

Jane crossed her arms, and had Dunstan been on the witness stand, he would have known to fashion his half of the dialogue very carefully.

“Dunstan Cromarty, why are you so unwilling to consider Elias might like it here? He’s on jump-in-the-shower terms with Violet Hughes, and his castle will be turned upside down for the next five years, at least. I like having him around, and I suspect you do too.”

“I do,” Dunstan said. “I like hearing the sound of home, I like… I love you, Jane, but to have no family, none at all, within a thousand miles—Magnus is clear out in Montana, for God’s sake. I never saw myself settling down so far from family, and yet, I can promise you, Elias won’t be settling down on that farm.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I’ve known Elias all of our lives, Jane. Did you know he’s quite the business turn-around consultant? He specializes in not-for-profits, and he can pick and choose his clients, all over the European Union. I thought he traveled constantly simply for pleasure, but Jeannie says there’s plenty of business involved. Elias, who’s probably worth the whole rest of the family put together, works for a living.”

Which apparently wasn’t common knowledge even among the Scottish cousins, because Elias didn’t advertise his profession.

“This is the information age,” Jane said. “He can do his consulting over the internet. What’s your point, Dunstan?”

The point, now that Dunstan had clarified it in his own mind, was sad. “You said it yourself, Jane. Elias will close this deal, make a ton of money, and walk. That’s what Elias Brodie does. He takes care of business, and then he walks away. Always.”

Violet drifted off, lulled by the patter of the rain, and the caress of Elias’s fingers winnowing through her hair and stroking gently over her nape. The bliss of cuddling next to him was laced with sadness, because this was a stolen pleasure.

Elias might still do business with Maitland—the possibility made Violet ill—but whether he sold the farm, sold the development rights, or borrowed against the land, his time in Maryland grew short.

Rant, rave, and rail against fate later, cuddle now. Had Elias shown any resistance to Violet’s presumption, she would have apologized and backed off.

Her pillow shifted, probably getting out his phone. He tapped away for several minutes, the rhythm blending with the rainfall.

“They never leave you alone, do they?” she murmured.

“I’m alone much of the time. I’ve learned to enjoy solitude.”

Had he mastered that lesson because he was an only child, orphaned at an early age? Violet laced her fingers with his.

Why did Scotland have to be so far from Maryland?

The storm was fading, the thunder moving off, but no part of Violet was interested in leaving the couch, much less in being productive.

“May I ask a favor of you?” Elias said.

“Of course.” He’d asked for her help developing options for his farm, his request more gratifying than he could know.

“Will you join me for dinner with Dunstan and Jane this evening?”

Violet scooted around and sat up, keeping the quilt over her lap. “I expected you to ask me, I don’t know, to keep an eye on the house when you leave, or take in the mail.”

“Will you come to dinner with me?”

His expression was hard to read—he did hard to read well—but that in itself told Violet this request was important to him.

“Why, Elias? I have a passing acquaintance with Jane, but she and her husband are your family. I’m sure they’d rather not have a stranger gatecrashing supper.”

Elias rose and let the dogs out, though a soft drizzle was still falling. He remained by the door, silhouetted against a day turned gloomy and cool.

“I know you have endless obligations, Violet, and your time is valuable. I’ve taken up too much of it, I know that as well. I also know you need to get away from here for more than the mandatory trips to the feed store and the farmers market. I’d like to have your company this evening, but say no if I’m imposing.”

Violet joined him in the doorway and wrapped an arm around his waist. “You’re offering an olive branch, a consolation for selling your property to Maitland, because that’s still your best option.”

Elias’s arm settled around her shoulders. “I’m not sure what the best option is. We don’t know much more than we did twenty-four hours ago.”

And yet, Elias’s course had changed significantly. He was looking for options, investigating alternatives, hesitating rather than grabbing the pot of gold right at his feet.

“Yesterday,” Violet said. “You wanted… that is, I wasn’t prepared. I was surprised yesterday too.”

The careful glance he brushed over her suggested Violet had surprised him with her admission.

“Yesterday, I had an erection,” Elias said. “As it happens, the same befell me when I awoke this morning, and will likely occur again if we belabor the topic. We needn’t discuss—”

Violet kissed him, because he was being too chivalrous for his own good. She belabored the pleasure of her mouth on his, and further expounded on how well their bodies fit in a close embrace. Then she indulged in a digression focused on insinuating her knee between Elias’s legs, the better to summarize for him the arguments in favor of a trip upstairs.

“You mean business,” Elias said, feathering his thumbs over her cheeks. “Do you mean to make love with me? I have it on the best authority that we’ve already done that, and it won’t help anything.”

Her rejection yesterday had hurt him, in other words, even though he hadn’t really been offering.

“I have it on the best authority we did not hook up the first time we were intimate, Mr. Brodie, but I’m here to tell you, we also didn’t make love. Right now, my heart aches, and I expect it will ache again tomorrow. Making love with you won’t fix that, but I don’t think anything could make it hurt worse.”

Elias gave her a lingering kiss—not an apology, more of a consolation. “My heart aches too, Violet. Will you come to dinner?”

So determined and so careful. “Yes, I will come to dinner. Will you come to bed?”

Elias had read the first earl’s journals, kept throughout much of Wellington’s march across Spain. Two hundred years ago, war between France and England had proceeded with an odd abundance of civility. The French and English camps would often use the same streams and rivers as a mutual water supply, each patrolling one bank within easy firing distance of the other.

Outside of a pitched battle, however, the rivers were demilitarized zones despite an absence of articles of war or general orders to that effect.

An English officer might confer with his French counterpart on where pickets should be deployed, lest confusion result in unnecessary skirmishes. Under the same circumstances, French officers might trade their brandy for English flour, and military gossip flowed across the lines in many languages.

The first earl had excelled at that peculiar battlefield diplomacy.

Elias felt some kinship with his progenitor that mere assumption of the title hadn’t yielded. In the midst of significant differences, Elias and Violet would also acknowledge a significant connection. 

As they undressed on opposite sides of the bed, Elias took a moment to appreciate the view from Violet’s window: Newly mown hayfields, croplands beyond, sheep grazing contentedly, oblivious to the drizzling rain.

This was worth protecting—this was worth protecting, too.

“I wish I could show you my castle,” Elias said. “It’s not grand, as Scottish castles go, and no great battles were fought outside its walls that we know of, but it’s lovely. Special.”

Right now, that castle was also a source of sorrow. Elias acknowledged the sorrow in silence, and wedged it aside far enough to admit a shaft of hope.

The numbers might work out, the bank might cooperate, the conservation easement might be lucrative enough. On the basis of more ephemeral hopes, many a Scot had struck out for a new life in a new land and found success.

“I would love to see your castle,” Violet said, “and you can tell me all about it—later. For the next hour, Elias, we will not worry over castles or mortgages or crops or easements. We won’t worry at all.”

A fine plan, if impossible to execute. Elias climbed under the quilt and Violet tucked herself against his side. Desire simmered, not the adult glee that anticipated a passing encounter, but a combination of arousal, tenderness, and loss.

Violet took Elias’s hand and placed it over her breast. “No worries, Elias. We are entitled to one hour on our own terms.”

When Violet got serious about her loving, Elias lost the ability to focus on anything else. She struck a balance between attentive and demanding that let him know he was intensely desired, but that his needs were important to her too.

“How many condoms do we have?” Violet asked as she wrestled Elias over her.

“Two.” To buy more would have tempted fate, to Elias’s way of thinking.

“Let’s make this count.” Everything strong, brave and vital in Violet expressed itself in her passion, but Elias wanted the other parts of her too.

When Violet demanded with her hips, Elias teased with his tongue.

When she fisted a hand in his hair he used a fingertip to gently trace each of her features.

When her kisses grew desperate, Elias paused and simply stroked her cheek until her breathing had slowed.

“Elias, you are slaying me.”

Storming her castle walls, that she might take him prisoner. “I mean only to love you,” he said, “to bring you pleasure.”

“I’ll cry if we do it your way.”

She referred to both a tender loving and to the sale of the land, and Elias didn’t know how to answer her. This time—very likely their last time—he wanted to love her. No faking, no pretending he could leave her with a wink and a smile in the morning, no denying she’d haunt him for all the rest of his days.

He reached for the condom, and Violet let him deal with the practicalities. She didn’t take charge, hand down rules of engagement, or declare certain subjects off limits. She lay on her back, one hand resting near her head on the pillow.

A lovely, wanton picture, and yet, her gaze reflected worry too.

Elias took her hand in his, cradling her knuckles against his palm. I will find a way. Find a way to turn that worry into trust, if not trust in him, then trust in a secure future for her valley.

Violet undulated against him, joining them in one slow, sinuous movement, and Elias answered her with a deep, measured rhythm. He held his pleasure back, even as he drove her up into a silent, shuddering surrender.   

I will find a way, to safeguard her dreams, to honor his obligations to family and to a legacy that stretched back for centuries.

Violet subsided beneath him on a soft sigh, her only movement a slow glide of her hand down his back. Elias gathered her close, poised between the desire to ravish, and the longing to cherish. They needed so much more than an hour for all the emotion she stirred in him, all the challenges they faced.

A trickle of damp heat kissed Elias’s collarbone.

“Again, Elias. Please, almighty God, again.”

Not a command, a plea, and Elias obliged, but first he kissed the tears from Violet’s eyes, and silently offered her the only promise he could make:

I will find a way, no matter the cost. I will find a way.  

“Violet, if you’d help me with the dishes, I’d appreciate it.” Jane said. “Dunstan, it’s your turn to feed Wallace.”

“One doesn’t feed Wallace,” Dunstan said, taking Violet’s plate and stacking it on top of his own. “One surrenders placatory offerings to him, in hopes he won’t leave dismembered rodents where bare feet are most likely to tread in the dark. Elias, your plate.”

“You’re turning into Uncle Donald,” Elias said, passing his plate. “Donald insists that scraping plates at the table is the most efficient means of clearing a meal. Fewer trips from table to kitchen, however unrefined the guests might find it.”

Dunstan picked up Jane’s plate. “Uncle Donald likes to remain where he has an audience, and avoid the real work that’s done in the kitchen. Come along, Elias. We’ll feed the cat, and have a wee dram to finish a fine meal.”

“Jane,” Elias said, “my thanks for an excellent dinner. I’m available to assist with the dishes, assuming Wallace doesn’t have me for a snack.”

“Get your own wife,” Dunstan said, giving Jane a kiss, “and stop flirting with mine.”

“Flirt with me all you like,” Jane said, picking up the stack of dirty dishes. “But feed the cat first. Wallace has a fanatic attachment to regular meals. C’mon, Violet. Dunstan, stop worrying. I won’t cross-examine her, and she’s not a hostile witness.”

“Don’t turn her into one,” Dunstan said. “Violet, take the fifth as much as you need to.”

The men left, and Violet gathered up silverware and glasses, then followed Jane into the kitchen. The meal had been delicious—a homemade pizza buried in pepperonis, black olives, mushrooms, and peppers; and a salad of grated cheese, more mushrooms, and chopped celery.

Deceptively hearty fare, particularly when topped off with a warm brownie that shouted, “made from scratch” with every forkful.

“I rarely use the dishwasher,” Jane said. “I can make an exception tonight.”

“Let’s deal with the dishes now so you don’t have to unload in the morning. I gather Elias and Dunstan are preparing for tomorrow’s meeting with the bankers?”

The local banks had all been bought out by multi-state banks years ago, and Violet’s relationship with the bank had become arms’ length and perfunctory. Elias would likely merit better treatment than she received, though she was a third-generation customer. Money not only talked, it was addressed in the most polite terms.

“You’re here to keep me company,” Jane said, piling dishes in a dish tub. “Have a seat. I know how hard farmers work, and you’re my guest. That means you get to endure my hospitality, which is a nice way to say that in my kitchen, I’m the boss.”

Violet took a barstool at the end of the counter. “I’m not a lawyer, Jane de Luca, so you don’t have to be on the offensive with me. Didn’t anybody tell you it’s OK to be shy? And you do not know how hard farmers work—nobody does, except another farmer. What do I have to do to get some peppermint tea around here?”

Jane’s expression went from wary, to bashful, to pleased. “You would have made a fine lawyer, Violet Hughes. Not too late to go to law school, you know. Does wonders for us shy, retiring types. Teas are in the cabinet above the breadbox. Honey and agave nectar on the lazy susan, and my half of that brownie we’re splitting should be at least two inches square.”

“Being shy burns a lot of calories. What did you really drag me in here to discuss?”

Jane shut off the tap and stared at the dirty dishes. “I’ll get to that, but part of my motive for putting you on dish duty is that I want Dunstan and Elias to act like cousins. To watch them, you’d think they were opposing counsel in a high stakes divorce. Maybe it’s Scottish family stuff, but I can tell you, the de Lucas aren’t like that.”

Violet got up to put herself together a cup of tea, rather than admit the greater Hughes family settled for inconsistent Christmas cards.

“You’re worried about Elias and Dunstan?”

“Yes, I’m worried about them. They’re my family. I’ll have a cup of tea too, plain peppermint will do. Has Elias told you about his castle?”

He had, after a loving so thorough and tender Violet had cried—twice. Once in Elias’s arms, and again in the privacy of the shower before they’d come here for dinner.

“He loves that castle,” Violet said, nudging Jane away from the sink long enough to fill a teakettle.  “He loves what it stands for, and what it can mean to future generations. I respect the everlasting aspirations out of a man who cares for his legacy.”

“But?”

Violet set the kettle on the burner and cranked the heat up to high. “But I want to throttle him for wrecking my valley. I want to shove statistics at him, about the loss of farmland worldwide, not only to development, but to climate change. We cannot afford to develop too many more Damson Valleys if we want our children to have enough to eat, and now you’ve gotten me started. I was doing so well, too.”

“I happen to agree with you,” Jane said, turning her back on the dishes, and leaning against the counter. “In Scotland, there’s plenty of green space, and not very many people, relatively. There, they worry about the environment, and about their history, and about looking after each other, but they’re not going to run out of land any time soon.”

“It’s not just a matter of having the space, Jane. We build out hundreds of acres as if we’re setting up toys that can all be thrown back in the toy box at naptime. The developers always want the best farmland, not too far from existing population centers, attractively situated in the middle of the countryside, unencumbered by municipal zoning controls, and environmentally clean. I’ve given this speech so many times, at so many zoning board meetings.”

She hadn’t given it to Elias, though, not the whole sermon. She’d hummed a few bars, and Elias had probably googled the rest.

“You might have to give it at a few more,” Jane said, as the kettle began to whistle. “Weren’t we about to fortify ourselves with another dose of brownie?”

“Help yourself, I’ll get the tea.”

The soothing aroma of peppermint soon filled the kitchen. Violet drizzled honey into hers, gave it a stir, and set Jane’s by her plate.

“You’re letting the dishes soak?” Violet asked.

“Brownies before dishes,” Jane said, taking the other bar stool. “Sitcha down, Violet. Let’s talk about the conservation easement, because I get the sense that Elias will go for it if he can make the numbers work.”

“The program is one of the oldest and best run in the country,” Violet said, sliding onto the barstool. “A lot of the farms around me have either applied or been approved for conservancy zoning, and the state likes that—big, contiguous chunks of farmland, a greenbelt, only more productive.” 

“Then maybe I’m worrying for nothing,” Jane said, picking up her brownie. “I hope I’m worrying for nothing, because for purely selfish reasons, I’d like to see Elias keep his farm.”

Violet was desperate for him to keep his farm, for reasons altruistic, selfish, delusional, and everything in between. “The state should consider a property that size very favorably.”

Jane gave her a sympathetic look around a mouthful of brownie.

“I know,” Violet muttered. “Applying to the program costs money and takes time, if you get all the studies, tests, and certifications done, and Elias has neither time nor money. If I had any spare cash at all, I’d give it to him just so he had some breathing room.”

Jane stopped chewing. “My husband will be feeding that cat for the next month.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Dunstan just lost another bet. I think he does it on purpose, to spoil me without me noticing. Let’s crash the meeting on the porch. If we come bearing brownies, the guys will act pleased at the interruption. Don’t tell anybody, but Dunstan has been known to dunk a brownie in his whisky.”

Jane was smiling a marital smile, speaking a marital dialect, and Violet was hopelessly jealous. To enjoy both office and home with the person you loved most in the world, sharing the work, the dreams, the challenges and the triumphs—how sweet was that, and how few couples had it?

 Violet put two more brownies on a plate, and followed Jane out of the kitchen. They hadn’t started down the hallway before Violet heard the unmistakable—if nearly unintelligible—sound of two Scotsmen in the midst of a roaring difference of opinion.