She wrapped it around Miss Gracie’s shoulders without meeting his gaze. “Your family has its own colors. Imagine that. If the Chapmans had colors, it would be different shades of gray. The colors of poverty.”
“Who are the Chapmans?”
“Oh!” She smiled sheepishly. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone—it is part of the agreement with Lord Thorne—but Lady Thorne trusts you, so… Gallagher is not my name. My father was a Chapman.”
Fergus’s brows dropped low over his eyes. “Why do you call yourself Gallagher?”
“It’s a long tale, but the shortened version is Lord Thorne chose it when he made arrangements for mine and Gracie’s names to appear on the manifest from the ship arriving from Dublin. Lord Thorne didn’t know my family name, so I suppose he chose something Irish.”
The story of Miss Gracie arriving from Ireland with her chaperone, Mistress Gallagher, to live with Lord and Lady Thorne was a fabrication. There was no socially acceptable way to explain the girl had been living with a courtesan prior to bringing her into the Thornes’ home, so Lord Thorne had found another way to account for her presence.
“I want to travel on arealship,” Miss Gracie said, “not a pretend one.”
Mistress Gallagher smoothed her hand over the lass’s golden curls. “The ship is real, and if anyone asks, we sailed from Dublin. Some secrets aren’t to be shared with anyone except family.”
The lass cocked her head to the side, her gaze traveling back and forth between him and Mistress Gallagher. “I think we make a good family—Helena, Sebastian, you, and Fergus.” She smiled at Fergus. “But you should marry Edith so she doesn’t have to be a Gallagher anymore.”
“Gracie!” Mistress Gallagher snatched the picnic hamper from the floor where he’d placed it and carried it to the kitchen table. “What is in here?”
Fergus’s gaze remained on her as she made a show of unpacking the food his mother had prepared. Her rigid back was to them as she mumbled to herself. “We have bread, cheese… Oh, this looks good.”
Miss Gracie crossed her arms and raised her brows at him. “You know it is high time you chose a wife and began filling your nursery.”
His grunt of surprise turned into a chuckle. “You’ve been spending too much time in the kitchens, lass. Yer beginning to sound like my mother.”
The prospect of making Edith Gallagher—eh, Chapman—his wife didn’t fill him with horror, so he didn’t pretend otherwise. It wasn’t anything he’d given thought to, but perhaps the lassie recognized something he and Mistress Gallagher hadn’t yet. She wasn’t hard on the eyes. She was bright. And she wasn’t a relation. He couldn’t say the same about many lasses.
“Fruited nut cake!” Mistress Gallagher’s voice was filled with wonder. She glanced back over her shoulder. “Did you tell your mother I like fruited nut cake?”
He shrugged, warmth stealing into his face. “I dinna believe I mentioned yer fondness for it, so much as suggested she should bake the cake.”
“Suggested?” She slowly spun to face him. “Why do I have a feeling your suggestion resembled a demand?”
“I cannae say, lass. Perhaps yer a touch too ready to label me a ne’er-do-well.”
She frowned. “That isn’t true. At least, you’ve never impressed me as one.”
“Aye, now we have the truth. I’ve never impressed ye.” He laughed as he scooped Gracie from the chair and carried her to the table. “Enough quarreling. I’m famished.”
Mistress Gallagher remained standing even after he retrieved three plates and cups and joined Miss Gracie at the table. After he’d piled food on his and the little lassie’s plates, they dove in without waiting. Eventually, Mistress Gallagher pulled out a chair across from him and sank onto it.
“I wasn’t quarreling,” she muttered. “And youhaveimpressed me—once or twice.”
“Och! I havena tried to impress ye yet, lass. Now that I know it is possible, prepare to be amazed.” When he winked, she answered with a smile.
Five
Edith stoodbefore the washstand in her chambers and scrubbed the stubborn chocolate stain setting into Mr. McTaggart’s shirt. When Gracie tipped over her mug at Mr. McTaggart’s table earlier that morning and splattered the front of the garment, Edith had insisted on bringing it back to Aldmist Fell to clean.
“I do my own wash, lass,” he had argued, but while he was readying the sleigh to bring them back to the castle, she had shoved the shirt in the picnic hamper and grabbed it to carry inside Aldmist Fell before he could.
“Blasted stubborn Scot,” she grumbled to herself.
When she held up the shirt to check her progress, rivulets of water ran off it and landed in the basin. Edith could see from the worn places in the fabric, his method of doing the wash probably involved the stream outside his house and pounding his clothes with a rock. It was fortuitous he planned to find a wife once she and the Thornes returned to England. Mr. McTaggart needed one.
A hurried knock sounded at her door, but before she could respond, the door flew open and Gracie bounded into Edith’s chamber. “They’ve arrived. Lavinia and Pearl are here.”
Forgetting her manners, Edith squealed with delight and dropped the shirt into the basin. She dried her hands on a cloth then bustled from the room to go greet her dear friend. Gracie raced her down the curved staircase, their slippers making a pitter-patter sound against the stone.
