Her dazzling smile froze.
“Malcolm Penn-Leith?” she repeated.
Ah.
He heard the recognition in her voice, and therefore, could nearly recite the next sentence for her.
“Are you a relation of Mr. Ethan Penn-Leith, by any chance?” she asked, a sort of hesitant eagerness in her tone.
“Aye.” Malcolm beamed with pride. “Ethan’s my wee brother.”
Again, she laughed, as if he had said something absolutely astonishing. Heaven help him, but her delight poured across his chest like golden sunshine.
Malcolm wanted to make her laugh again. Immediately.
“Weebrother?” she repeated. “Does Mr. Penn-Leith prefer to be called that then?”
Malcolm couldn’t help his own wide grin, the motion pulling at his cheeks and reminding him that he did not smile often enough.
“Aye,” he replied.
Again, silence hung. The lady paused, her body canting toward his, as if waiting for him to finish some thought.
Malcolm’s brain scrambled, trying to find purchase, to remember what they were talking about.
Oh, right. Introductions.
“And your name, madam?” he asked.
A small hesitation and then, “Miss Viola Brodure.”
Malcolm could not stem his startled inhalation. “The authoress?”
She ducked her head in apparent bashfulness. “The very same.”
Malcolm’s mind hummed in stunned silence for a moment.
Thiswas Viola Brodure? The woman of Ethan’s letters? This sunny, effervescent creature?
Foolish of him not to make the connection immediately. How many other English ladies did he anticipate would be summering in Fettermill?
Malcolm had known it was a possibility that she might arrive here.
And yet . . .
Why would he have supposed this woman to be Viola Brodure?
His brain sputtered, scarcely able to reconcile the whole of it. To merge his fierce admiration for Miss Brodure’s writing with the striking woman before him. The one who had set his heart to beating out a rapid tattoo. The one who stirred longings he thought long buried in the kirkyard of the Fettermill parish church.
Miss Brodure looked away, as if embarrassed or, more likely, finally realizing the distance between their stations in life.
Malcolm was little more than an uneducated farmer.
Viola Brodure was a gentleman’s daughter and a celebrated novelist.
More to the point, she was destined for his ownwee brother.
“Why does it behave like this?” she asked after a pause.
