CHAPTER THREE
Four years earlier
“They say he was sent down from Oxford for wenching,” said her cousin Moira.
“I heard it was gambling—and the man he fleeced was a don!”
“He set a fire in the Bodleian.” This from Helen Selkirk. “They lost dozens of books, and expelled him. He disappeared for a year afterward; even his own father didn’t know where he’d gone.”
Anna had been listening with half an ear, her attention on the dance floor. She liked a reel, the stomp and spring of it, but this orchestra had clearly been given orders to the contrary. The hostess, Mrs. Cameron, was determined to bring her daughter’s suitor up to snuff, and apparently believed that four waltzes in a row would do the trick.
“Anna, he was asking after you, you know.”
Anna glanced over. Helen Selkirk was a terrible gossip, but also a discerning one; she did not carry tales that turned out to be false. “Who said so?”
“I heard him myself, speaking with your auntie May. Imagine it—she said you didn’t like to dance!”
The other girls groaned. Anna glanced to the far corner, where Aunt May was whispering furiously into her son Daniel’s ear. Daniel looked miserable, his broad, handsome face contorting into grimaces as he furiously shook his head.
Poor Daniel. He was a sweet, decent fellow, who thought of her as a sister, and who loved a girl from Glasgow whose father was a clerk. His parents wanted more for him. They wanted him to wed Anna, to be precise.
They were not alone in that effort. All the aunts had plans for Anna. During her childhood, they had passed her around more quickly than a hot potato, despairing of her as an ungainly, graceless tomboy. But now she was grown, every one of them had a son or nephew that they knew would make a perfect match for her.
Happily, ungainly tomboys did not grow up to be easy marks.
“Poor Lord Lockwood,” purred Moira. “How downcast he must feel, to think you don’t wish to dance with him.”
“Fortune hunter,” Anna said dismissively.
“Oh, Anna!” This from Fiona Shaw. “He’s very handsome. And quite popular in London, I believe. If he only wanted a fortune—”
“I don’t wish to be introduced.”
The others gasped, their fans fluttering harder. “What? You can’t mean it,” said Moira.
“But I do.” Anna did stand in need of a husband. Otherwise, she would never have consented to an entire spring of incessant house parties up and down the country. She would much rather be on the island, for spring was very beautiful on Rawsey, the waves feisty and sparkling, the light strong and clear.
But to have the island, she must first acquire a husband.
He would not be an Englishman, though. An Englishman would, quite reasonably, expect his wife to spend time in England. Anna had no interest in that. She had refused all encouragement to make her debut in London. What was the point? To make a life in Scotland, she required a Scot.
Moira still looked aghast. “You mean to say that if he approached to ask your hand, you’d refuse him?”
“Precisely,” said Anna. “I congratulate you on your keen wit, Moira.”
“He’s the Earl of Lockwood, coz! You can’t cut him!”
Anna shrugged. “English titles don’t impress me.”
“He owns eighty thousand acres!”
“In England,” said Anna.
“All of it gone to seed,” Helen put in slyly.
Moira bridled. “Is he to blame for that? He only just came into the title.”
Anna smiled. “It rather sounds as though you fancy him.”
“Who wouldn’t?” Moira blushed. “Have you seen him?”
Anna had seen him. Any woman with a pulse had noticed him. He was tall, broad shouldered, with a warm laugh that traveled the length of a room. He had a strong, chiseled face and he waltzed like an athlete. Those long, flying strides had been wasted on his other dance partners tonight, but Anna could have matched him turn for turn.
Alas. “I’ve no interest in jackanapes,” she said.
“Oh ho!” Moira’s voice was growing heated. “And here I thought you were looking for a man with spirit.”
“I’ve no objection to spirit—or gambling, as you say, or wenching, either, as long as the wench is willing. But a man who sets fire to a library?” Anna snorted. “That’s base idiocy at best, wanton malice at worst.”
“Base idiocy,” came a smooth, low voice from behind her. Moira gasped. Anna, looking into her cousin’s reddening face, was left with no doubt as to who owned that voice—which matched his laugh, intriguingly warm and husky, despite the clipped vowels that marred it.
She fanned herself, and did not turn. She did not speak to eavesdroppers. “Fiona, is that genuine ratafia, or did the Davis boys manage to slip in some spice?”
Fiona glanced helplessly from the eavesdropper to her cup. “I—” She cleared her throat, then continued primly, “I’m sure I couldn’t say.”
Anna rolled her eyes. The moment an English title came sniffing about, her friends began to posture like nuns. “I’ll go find out.” She pushed through the others, cutting across the dance floor for the refreshment room.
It did not entirely surprise her to realize that he was following her. From the corner of her vision, she caught Aunt May’s concerned frown: that was her first clue. The second, rather more blunt, was when he caught her elbow in the hall.
As she swung to face him, she stepped backward, freeing herself of his grip and causing her white muslin skirts to bell wide, which in turn left him no choice but to quickly back away from her circumference.
“You’re as rude as a potboy,” she said—rather less crisply than she would have liked, for she was startled to find him laughing at her, his hands raised in mock surrender.
“True,” he said. “What else can one expect from an idiot who sets a library on fire?”
To follow her bespoke a confidence born of arrogance. But to mock himself suggested the opposite quality. The intention to put him in his place briefly wavered. He was very handsome, which counted against him. On the other hand, he could laugh at himself, a rare quality.
“You really did set the Bodleian on fire?”
He gave a rueful tug of his mouth. “If I told you the truth, it would seem like a lie to save face. So I’ll own the sin, and ask you only to believe that if I’d truly intended to burn a book, I would have positioned myself in the Latinate stacks, rather than chemistry.”
Struck, she opened her mouth—then closed it, suspicious. A fortune hunter, indeed. He had done his research on her. “I suppose,” she said dryly, “that you have a passionate interest in the sciences.”
“Not passion, but genuine interest, yes—unsupported by any discipline.” He smiled again. “There: I have confessed my greatest failing.”
He had a dimple in his left cheek, and amber-colored eyes that seemed more alive than other men’s. She found herself avoiding them, lest she surrender to the impulse to stare.
He stepped closer. “I wished to make your acquaintance,” he said. “I suppose you’ve heard so already.”
He was a few inches taller than her. She was not accustomed to being overshadowed, but the temptation to step backward felt too much like retreat. He wore cologne, a rather womanish affectation—but no woman would have chosen such a woodsy, clean scent. She caught herself inhaling, and expelled the breath in annoyance.
“Yes,” she said, “but I barely remarked it. Any number of men ask to make my acquaintance, particularly once they have learned how well I might enrich them.”
His eyes opened wide, and then he laughed again, an open-throated sound of true amusement. “Touché.” He raked a long-fingered hand through his brown hair, leaving the sun-lightened tips standing astray. No pomade—his countrymen would judge him. “You are, indeed, a plainspoken woman.”
“Yes. Worse yet, Lord Lockwood, I speak not only plainly, but as often as I like.”
He nodded. “Professor Arbuthnot had told me so, but only now do I perceive it was a warning.”
She blinked. “Professor . . .” She could not have heard right. Professor Arbuthnot would waste no time on book burners. “I beg your pardon,” she said coolly. “A warning?”
“A warning to buffle-headed young men. I will have to use my brain in this conversation, and I confess, I may be out of practice at it.”
She stared, uncertain if she had been complimented or insulted. “How do you know Professor Arbuthnot?”
“I studied with him at Oxford.”
“Before or after you burned down the library?”
“A dozen books,” he said evenly. “But the professor was quite disappointed in me. And I, in turn, was distraught to have lost his confidence. You’ll understand, then, when I tell you what a compliment it was to be entrusted with your manuscript.”
Her breath caught. “What?”
“He has reviewed it quite thoroughly, he says, and scribbled all through the margins. I did not read it,” he added quickly, again lifting his hands in a sign of truce. She noticed calluses on his palms, not a typical sight in an English gentleman. “But I did promise to ferry it to you, since he knew my path led me north for the spring.”
A queer buzzing filled her ears as she compassed how deeply she had misjudged this situation. “I see.” She cleared her throat, then, to her horror, felt her lips twitch. “I . . .” She needed to apologize. But suddenly, with him marveling at her, it struck her as absurdly amusing. “I’m sorry,” she managed through a sudden irrepressible giggle. “How dreadfully rude of me—but I thought—”
“You thought a penniless English earl saw an opportunity.” Before she could deny it, he flashed a lopsided grin, boyish, which somehow mocked himself and her, too. “Yes, well, don’t think it didn’t cross my mind. We penniless earls must look for love in high places, particularly with all those crumbling castles to pay for. But that was before I knew your opinion of wenching.”
Her face felt afire now. He had overheard that? On a deep breath, she brazened through it. “I see. I hope this doesn’t mean that you disregard whether the wenches are willing.”
“Oh no,” he said, then leaned forward, close enough that his breath warmed her cheek as he murmured, “The wenches are always willing. But I could never court a lady who doubted it.”
As he drew back, her heart skipped a beat. She rather believed he was right about the wenches.
But she would not give him the satisfaction of knowing so. “It must be your vanity that impresses them.”
“It is very large,” he said solemnly, “but I’ve not yet had complaints.”
She sputtered on a scandalized laugh. Good heavens. Surely he didn’t mean . . . ?
He dimpled as though in answer, and she felt herself blush. “You’re a rogue,” she said.
“Entirely.”
“And unashamed of it, too.”
He laughed, an easy and relaxed sound. “You would be surprised at how far roguery can take a man. Behold: I’ve had you to myself for five minutes now. Can any other man here claim such good fortune?”
It was not like her to fall for flattery. But she felt the odd urge to preen.
In the space of her hesitation, he continued in a more formal tone. “I did not bring the manuscript with me tonight. But I’ll have it sent over tomorrow, if that suits you.”
“Yes.” A smile bloomed on her lips as she fathomed the implications of his errand. “He read it, you say?”
“He did.”
“And he liked it?”
“The professor would not waste his opinions on me. But judging by his manner when he handed me the manuscript, I would guess he liked it very much.”
Now she felt purely dizzy, as though the floor were floating away. “How marvelous,” she murmured. And then, catching his gaze on her, she felt herself flush again. The light in his eye left no doubt that he was admiring her.
Well, at the least, he was a man of fine judgment, then.
She smiled at him, deliberately this time, and did not miss how his breath caught. Her smile was her greatest beauty; everyone always said it.
“Do send it,” she said. “Or better yet, bring it yourself, but only if you’re in the mood for a walk.”
“Delightful.” He bowed and turned away. But before he stepped out of view, she called after him.
“You’ll need to arrive before daylight if you want to join us.”
She caught his glance toward the nearby grandfather clock. It was already half past midnight. “Ambitious,” he said.
“Quite. And if you arrive too late, I’ll be forced to conclude that you’re afraid of heights, and looked for an excuse not to come.”
The interest on his face was unmistakable. “I’ve no fear of heights. But which heights, exactly, do you mean?”
“The highest one,” she said. “We are climbing Ben Nevis. Don’t be late.”
• • •
Liam had anticipated a pastoral frolic. The proof of his misjudgment was now plain in his own ragged breath as he labored up the woodland path. In college, he’d conquered the cricket fields. At university, no rower could outpace him. But Anna Winterslow Wallace, Countess of Forth, was built of some strange mettle, the same no doubt as steam trains, so steadily she chugged along.
He was at risk of falling behind.
His recent routine was to blame for it. Gone were the mornings of disciplined exertion. For the past few months, he’d been on a tour of sorts—a survey of likely heiresses up and down the British Isles. He was a bachelor with a title: everywhere he went, he was welcomed and feted and flirted with. But this campaign entailed a great many late nights, and bottles of wine and rich food. Now, in his laboring lungs, he found evidence of his own dissipation.
Lady Forth, meanwhile, was rumored to be on a campaign of her own—Professor Arbuthnot had said as much when handing over the manuscript. Don’t get any ideas, lad. She’ll be looking for a husband of substance, not a book burner. But since Scottish flirtations evidently entailed scaling mountains, Lady Forth’s desirability had turned her into an athlete.
Liam wanted to tell her now that the professor’s spectacles were as thick as windowpanes: on that fateful night in the Bodleian, he’d mistaken Liam’s attempt to beat out the flames for an effort to fan them. But it seemed rather late to launch his self-defense. Getting tossed out of Trinity had led to some grand times abroad, and so Liam had never minded the rumors, nor imagined a time when they might irk him.
For that matter, he’d never foreseen himself laboring to keep up with a woman, much less struggling to impress her. Why, as recently as last night, he’d gone to sleep quite content. Countess Forth was attractive, clever, and prickly enough to make it interesting. Wealthy enough, too, to solve his problems, which was the reason he’d bothered in the first place. He’d envisioned this walk as a chance to evaluate her—not to be evaluated. For what rich young heiress, denied a season in London and kept sequestered in the north, would look on a gentleman such as himself, and not think of the fun they could have?
The answer: Anna Winterslow Wallace, who, despite his best and most charming discourse over the last hour of walking, seemed thoroughly unimpressed by tales of London, Rome, Geneva, Madrid—and not at all out of breath, either, though the slope continued to steepen.
He was shamefully grateful when she drew up by a waterfall, a sparkling ribbon that danced down the granite flank of the mountain. “You’ve certainly traveled a great deal,” she said. Usually these words came lofting on a warm current of admiration, but her tone was arid.
Of course, there had been other pretty young women at the Camerons’ last night—all of them seeming excited to make his acquaintance. Perhaps one of them had money. He looked up the path, but their companions had taken a half hour’s head start. “We had been waiting for an hour already,” Countess Forth had told him when he’d arrived, “and they went ahead, fearing it would rain.”
He’d overslept. It was one of his vices.
Lady Forth crept near to the falls to refill her canteen. The other women—he had caught sight of them above, as the trail twisted sharply—were dressed in sensible but respectable woolen gowns. The countess, in all her scientific glory, was wearing split skirts, the hems of which she had tucked into tall boots. Nor, he suspected, was she wearing a corset. She looked like a Zouave soldier; all she lacked was the mustache and medals.
Troubling, then, that he found himself staring at her backside. She had a narrow waist, and magnificently broad Scottish hips. He was perverse. The experience of failing to charm a woman was somehow seducing him.
“Should we try to catch up with the others?” he asked when she sat down on a mossy rock and began to drink. “They may be waiting for us.”
It was only water that she was drinking—water no doubt flavored by deer droppings. But she swallowed it with such obvious relish that he felt a stirring in his groin, and that, paired with the hoarseness in his breath, was too much for his vanity.
She was as tall as a man, and wearing trousers. No matter that she had two hundred thousand pounds to her name, or that her hair looked brighter than the fire in the Bodleian that night. He had standards to keep.
She glanced up, her green eyes cool. “No,” she said, “they won’t be waiting. After all, it was I who invited you on this walk. It is not their responsibility to see to your comfort.” Her gaze dropped significantly to his boots. “Are your feet all right?”
“Brilliant,” he said. These boots were the height of fashion. They had started pinching a mile ago. He would have sliced off his toes before admitting it.
“I see.” She paused. “I had thought you were limping. My mistake!”
He bit back a rueful smile. She had standards as well—and he clearly did not meet them.
She rose and set out without a backward glance. He was reminded, as he trailed her, of equally miserable adventures as a child—crammed between his mother and cousin in some carriage, his head aching from the rattle of the windows and jostling of springs, while Stephen delivered some ingratiating monologue on the historical sights ahead, to Liam’s parents’ encouragement—Tell us more, Stephen; how clever you are—while all the while Liam tried not to vomit, praying the journey would end before he disgraced himself.
The memories faded as he caught up with Lady Forth, leaving melancholy in their wake.
He missed his parents.
They had never taken him to Scotland. It had not been in fashion in his youth. But his mother would have adored these surroundings—the path bedecked by green ferns and shoots of heather, and below, in the shadow cast by the mountain, foothills studded by alder and birch trees whose bright leaves rippled in the wind.
She would have liked the Countess of Forth, too. His mother had been hot tempered, elegant, strong willed. She had loathed a sidesaddle, and spoken fondly of her youth, when women had sometimes stepped out wearing only a single petticoat, and had “the full use of their limbs,” as she’d put it, allowing them to tramp for hours across hill and dale.
He missed her. He missed her even more now than in the year immediately following her death. While his father had still lived, they had remembered her together, so often and so openly that she had seemed still to hover between them. But now, with both parents gone, Liam felt truly alone.
An image came to him suddenly, vivid and frightening: his own figure, reduced to slightness by the looming debts, the crumbling estates, the hungry and hollow-cheeked tenants staring toward him in search of hope.
The Countess of Forth would not be his solution. But he needed to find one quickly. For while life could be a grand adventure for a gentleman born to his station, money was the trick—and without it, this adventure would quickly become far more unpleasant, not only for himself.
“Are you thinking of England?” asked the countess.
Startled, he lied: “No.” Then, with a frown—could she also be a witch?—he asked, “Why do you wonder?”
“You had a very grim look on your face.” She cut him a mischievous look, and then laughed.
He found himself startled again. One moment she seemed like a plain gorgon. The next, her wit flashed out, dry and clever, and when humor lit her face, she abruptly seemed beautiful.
He cleared his throat and fixed his gaze on the trail. If she was not the solution, then she was at least his temporary hostess on this mountain, and he would treat her with respect.
Not with leers. He would reserve those for the solution, he hoped. His father had not strayed, and had not raised Liam to do so, either.
“England’s beauty is less dramatic,” he said, “but no less remarkable. Surely you’ve visited the Lake District?”
“I have never been south of the border.” His unconcealed surprise made her laugh again. “Is that so unimaginable?”
“Most ladies of your station do spend a season in London, at least.”
She shrugged. “I never saw the use.”
A thousand objections sprang to mind. What kind of cramped and calloused soul proved indifferent to the lure of strange places, distant cities?
But he was determined to be pleasant for the remainder of their walk. “Was it here, then, that you met Professor Arbuthnot?”
“Yes, at his lecture in Edinburgh. Every scientist of note passes through that city eventually, and when I am in residence, I attend all the engagements.”
For a woman of such broad mind, it seemed very odd that she did not wish to explore the world. “You must have impressed him a great deal,” Liam said. “He took far less interest in my work as an undergraduate.”
“Oh, I privately suspect that the good professor has a weakness for redheads.” She winked at him.
His jaw nearly dropped. “I . . . see.”
“I approached him after his lecture, inquiring about his work on the spectroscope. I was having some trouble reproducing his results, you see. He was tremendously kind to take the time to explain my error. And later he proposed a most ingenious way to simplify the whole business, which proved useful for little fingers.”
His glance dropped down to her hands; she gave him a sideways smile.
“Not my fingers.” She held them up. “These hands I have heard my own aunt call paws. ‘Manly paws,’ to be precise.”
His denial was automatic: “Nonsense.” But in truth, her hands matched the rest of her: uncommonly large for a woman.
She snorted. “Flattery only appeals when rooted in truth.” She stretched her hands to their full span and beamed at them. “Far from little! But I’ve dozens of cousins with children of their own, and their hands still have growing to do.”
He realized he was smiling. Women often took opportunities to slight themselves in order to invite his compliments. But Lady Forth looked visibly pleased with, even fond of, her own supposed flaw. His reassurances would be superfluous. “So the children assist your experiments, then?”
“Of course.” She looked startled. Was she blushing? Some marvelous glow spread across her skin, darkening the freckles on her plump, rosy cheeks. “Did you imagine that I . . . Goodness!” Now she grinned, a toothy and entirely unself-conscious expression of delight, girlish and deeply charming. “You were imagining me as a true scientist, weren’t you? Presiding over experiments of my own design!”
She sounded delightfully gratified. He said, “I confess, the vision held appeal.”
“Alas! Perhaps if I’d been born a man. Or born a Nightingale, even!” She shrugged. “I’m no true scientist, sir. I took an interest for the sake of my estates—it seems that every day brings some new revolution in agricultural chemistry. But from there, I kept reading. We live in such a marvelous, modern age—I like to keep abreast of new discoveries.”
“And to keep your small cousins abreast as well.”
“It does entertain them. And when all of them are under the same roof, you would not believe how useful it proves.”
“Oh, I believe it.” For part of the journey, he had shared a train carriage with an apologetic matron and her five small boys. The nanny gave sudden notice, she had said weakly to him, as the boys ran riot over the benches. “That must make a pretty picture, all the children gathering to assist you.”
“Not pretty in the least,” she said cheerfully. “We get very dirty in our experiments. Once or twice, somebody has blown something up.”
“How fearsome.”
“Oh, we’ve only lost one eye and two fingers to date.”
Her delivery was so deadpan that it took him a moment to realize she was joking. She laughed at him again.
“And the manuscript,” he said, smiling back. “Is it a memoir of these misadventures?”
“Who would want to read that? No, it’s a book in the style of Mrs. Marcet and Mrs. Lowry. They were the great heroes of my youth, writing tales of science that even a little girl could understand.”
“Not only little girls.” He had adored Mrs. Marcet’s volumes as a boy. He could still recall their exact placement on the little bookshelf, which he’d insisted on keeping directly next to his bed. “I found those primers tremendously interesting.”
The countess nodded. “Chemistry and geology, the animal kingdom and the wonders of plant life . . . Mrs. Marcet and Mrs. Lowry retired, of course, but science has kept marching onward. For my cousins’ sake, I decided to take up their banner.”
“I think that’s marvelous,” he said sincerely. How lucky that she had not taken a liking to him—he would not have known what to do with such a talented wife. He would have ruined her.
The vegetation was thinning now, and as the path twisted around a scree-covered slope, one side abruptly dropped away, the rocky bank sloping at a deadly angle into a gully far below. The sun slipped behind clouds, the temperature beginning to drop. They walked in silence for several long minutes until a thin layer of mist began to rise around them.
“Oh dear,” said the countess.
Was there some cause for concern? He opened his mouth to inquire, and the chill abruptly became icy. In the space of a moment, the mist reached them and solidified, rising to form a freezing and impenetrable wall.
The countess came to a stop, and he nearly bumped into her.
“Ah, Ben Nevis,” she said, an affectionate scolding note in her voice. “This is its greatest trick, you know—blind the walker, so he plummets to his death off a cliff.”
“How cheerful,” he said dryly. “Shall we take shelter until the mist clears?”
“No need. I’ve done this walk a hundred times.”
But he hadn’t. “Very well,” he said, unwilling to be outdone by her.
She adopted a slower pace, but not slow enough for his liking; his brain remained acutely aware of the sudden drop to his right and shrieked at his stupidity as he blundered forward, regardless. He had never seen mist so thick, save in the worst London pea soupers, which certainly concealed runaway carriages and open sewers, but no cliffs, a fact for which he now realized he should be grateful.
A voice floated down to them. “Anna!” it cried. “Anna, can you . . .”
“That’s Moira,” exclaimed his regrettably plucky guide. “Moira!” she bellowed—directly beside his ear, causing him to wince. She had missed her calling as an opera singer. “Moira, are you at the summit?”
They waited silently in a milky white haze for a reply that never came. “Did she sound distressed?” asked the countess, her former blitheness nowhere in evidence. “I hope somebody hasn’t twisted an ankle.”
He bit his tongue lest he remind her that she had mentioned darker possibilities not minutes ago. “If they’re coming down, surely the wisest thing is to wait.”
“She needs help,” the countess snapped. “Otherwise, why would she have called for me?”
“To check on your welfare?”
The notion appeared to surprise her. “No,” she said. “Moira wouldn’t—she knows I’m fine.”
A peculiar insight: Lady Forth’s assurance came with a price. Nobody ever checked on her.
“You wait here,” she said. “I’ll go on up, quickly, and I—”
“To hell with that.” He regretted the curse a second too late, but she did not seem to notice it. “Splitting up is a very poor idea. If we but wait—”
She ripped free of his grip—only then did he realize he’d grabbed hold of her. “Stay here,” she said, and in the next second, she had moved into the mist and disappeared.
Now he did curse deliberately. He didn’t know the trail. But to wait here meant leaving her alone on the path, with a deadly fall looming on one side. Following was unwise, but not following was unchivalrous.
He listened hard, and caught the sound of her footsteps crunching on small rocks ahead. He slowly walked toward the sound—realizing, with each deep and steady breath, that there was a reason he’d forgone that excursion into the Alps last year. Heights were not his strength.
“Moira!” She was calling out, her voice still nearby. “Moira, can you—”
Her gasp did not sound intentional.
“Countess.” He called out sharply—even smacked at the mist like an idiot, as though it would somehow dissolve beneath the wave of his lordly hand. “Countess!”
Silence.
Damn it to hell. He shuffled forward faster, and called out again. “My lady—Anna! Can you—”
“Here,” came a strained whisper.
He stopped. That whisper came from very close. He squinted into the field of consuming white. “Where? Speak again.”
“I am here,” she muttered. A little to the left, a pace or two ahead— “Don’t follow,” she groaned. “I went over the . . . edge.”
His body froze. Muscles congealed, bones stiffened. He stood very still. “You’re—you’ve got hold of something?”
“A root.” Her voice was growing tighter. She was struggling, he realized, to remain calm. “It’s . . . not very . . . strong. What an idiot I am!”
He dropped to all fours, the rocky soil digging into his palms and knees. “Keep speaking,” he said. “Hum, if that’s easier.”
The first weak, ragged bars of “Rule, Britannia!” hit his ears. He swallowed a laugh, half hysteria, half amazement. Not the choice he’d expected of her.
The sound led him forward. With one hand, he made wide, sweeping arcs—found the edge of the path, the drop beyond it. But he could not feel her.
Her humming abruptly ceased. “Oh,” she said, almost inaudible. “It’s giving way. It’s break—”
He lunged forward on a prayer, thrusting his hand blindly into the ether, thanking God when his grip closed on her forearm.
Sporting might prove useless in walking competitions against a Scotswoman, but it did aid in pulling. With a mighty heave, he hauled the countess up, and she tumbled atop him into the dirt.
For a long moment they lay pressed together, dazed, panting, as the mist iced around them. From somewhere nearby came the stray peep of a snow bunting, and the angry flutter of wings.
She felt shockingly warm against him, her breath burning his ear like a brand. She was very tall for a woman. But he was taller. She fit against him perfectly.
“ ‘Rule, Britannia’?” he asked in a whisper.
“Horrid song,” she whispered back. “But I thought your last memory of me should be pleasant for you.”
The force of his sudden laughter proved contagious. She joined in as she rolled off him, and they lay side by side in the white mist, giggling like loons.
When at last he sobered, he heard himself say, “I did not set that fire in the library.”
“Oh?” She still sounded amused, breathless and giddy. “Then who was it?”
“Makes no difference. What matters is that you know it wasn’t me.”
She pushed herself up on one elbow, smiling down at him. Her eyes were a green not found elsewhere on the earth, luminous and pale, more vibrant than spring leaves. “And why should that matter to me?”
He stared up at her, gripped by some premonition that felt sweet and powerful and altogether new.
“Because you have no truck with book burners,” he said. “So you should know beforehand: you have no cause to turn away.”
A line appeared between her russet brows. But her mouth was still smiling. “Turn away from what?”
“From me,” he said, “when I kiss you.”
“Kiss me!” She drew back, wide-eyed. “And when will you try that?”
“I’m still deciding.”
The smile kept toying with her lips, slipping and changing shape, as though she was torn between amusement and disapproval. “Is it customary,” she said, “for Englishmen to announce their kisses beforehand?”
“Only when at the edge of a cliff, with a lady strong enough to give a good shove.”
The laughter escaped her in a bright, happy cascade. There was the sign. He moved more quickly than he ever had on any playing field—sitting up, slipping his hand through the heavy silk of her hair, and pulling her mouth to his.
Her lips were soft, full, a glorious shock.
She sighed into his mouth, and did not pull away.