“’Tis a pity that Lady Stewart’s luncheon garden party is nearly upon us,” Dr. Ruxton added with a wry grin. “Her ladyship will be crestfallen that she didn’t hold out for Kendall’s arrival.”
Malcolm excused himself from the small group, not wishing to listen to more of Dr. Brodure’s raptures over Kendall. Or to ponder the duke’s possible motives for coaxing a courtship between Viola and Ethan.
How was Malcolm to suffer through it?
Because one awful, terrible thought coalesced as he walked down the road toward Thistle Muir.
Despite the differences in their upbringing and social stations—
Despite the loyalty and love he felt for Ethan—
Despite his own belief that he would never remarry, never fall in love again—
Malcolm Penn-Leith wished to pursue Viola Brodure for himself.
10
The next morning, Viola sat at her desk in the front parlor, staring at the purple foxglove and cheery daisies blooming in the front garden.
Ostensibly, she was writing a short story for Kendall.
But in actuality, she was trying to understand how every word she exchanged with Malcolm Penn-Leith expanded in her mind like a balloon, engulfing all other thoughts.
Did Sir Isaac Newton have a law that explained such a phenomenon? Or was the problem less a law of physics and more a neurosis?
Regardless, seeing the anguished twist of Malcolm’s mouth as he candidly discussed the depth of his grief, the harsh reality of it . . .
It had been humbling. Overwhelming.
She had wanted to gather him into her arms and soothe his pain. To somehow take his burdens upon her own small shoulders.
An absurd thought, given that he was easily three times her size and could speak to a stranger without devolving into a stammering, asthmatic shambles of a person. He clearly did not need a mere wisp of a woman to hold him.
And yet, the impulse had remained.
Worse—or was it better?—she longed to answer his confidences with her own. To lay her conundrum withA Hard Truthat his feet and together work toward a solution. If one was to be had.
She frowned and looked down at the starkly blank page before her. Kendall’s expectations weighed heavily, particularly as the duke was supposedly wending his way north at this very moment.
Ethan, the wee brother, had become more and more forward in his attentions. He visited nearly daily, ensconcing himself on the velvet sofa at Viola’s back and talking endlessly.
Viola found Ethan . . . perplexing.
On the one hand, he was a skilled conversationalist. He could monologue for hours on just about any topic. The unkind part of her wanted to ask him something absurd—Tell me, Mr. Penn-Leith, what do you think about the mating habits of the Southern Andian finch?—just to see what he would say.
On the other hand, as a shy person, she preferred listening to talking anyway, and so she couldn’t say, in all truthfulness, that she disliked Ethan’s visits.
Moreover when she did speak, their conversations veered toward writing—the difficulties inherent with publishers, adoring (and not-so-adoring) readers, and so on. Andthat, a friendship between like-minded writers, she enjoyed immensely.
Ethan had sent over a poem two days past. Viola touched the foolscap where it rested beside her blank notebook page. The poem was clever, written in Ethan’s bold handwriting, the words comparing friendship to exploring a foreign land:
Carry onward, bold soul, to that heart-land
Of ready marvel and mystery,
Where gorse lies waiting to understand
Why you lay no flag of victory.
