“I think they felt you aren’t tortured enough to be a true artist. Your steady, sunny disposition and dashing persona are at odds with the melancholic appearance and unsociable behavior of other poets. I believe Milton and Burns himself were posited as examples.”
“And so because I am not a raving lunatic for at least part of the time, I cannot truly be artistic?” Ethan scoffed.
“Precisely. You are, simply put, far too congenial to be an effective poet.”
“What twattle.” He stopped, a hungry look in his eyes Allie had come to recognize. “In fact, I think I feel inspired to prove that author wrong right this instant.”
Five minutes later, Allie found herself lying on her back, staring up at Ethan propped on an elbow beside her as he composed a poem.
“I believe I would begin by comparing love to a religion.” He leaned and drew the rose down her face, its petals silken on her cheek. “Something like . . .
My love rings like the echoing aftermath
of evensong. An unbroken hosanna
rising to heaven . . .”
He punctuated each line with a caress of the rose . . . across her cheek, over her chin, down her throat . . .
The entire scenario should have been ridiculously maudlin.
Instead, Allie was quite sure it was the single most romantic moment of her life.
Like the rose across her lips, Ethan Penn-Leith drew every sincere emotion out of her heart.
How had she gone from the cynical woman robbing coaches with her colleagues in theSüdtirolto this saccharine English lady tumbling head-over-heels for a Scottish poet?
Worse, she treasured every second of it.
Particularly when Ethan tossed the rose aside and repeated its caresses with his lips.
“I always adoreseeing the place you call home,” Allie said, looking around the front parlor of Thistle Muir.
“I always adore seeing ye in the place I call home.” Ethan smiled, unable to stem the lovestruck look on his face.
It had become, more or less, his permanent expression over the past two weeks.
As the days passed, Ethan feared his heart would expire from sheer happiness. The poor organ skipped and danced and raced every moment he was in Lady Allegra’s company.
So it was no surprise that his heart had leaped when, an hour past luncheon, Hadley’s barouche had rolled to a stop before the front door of Thistle Muir and a footman handed Allie and Lady Isolde down.
“Thistle Muir has that lived-in feeling.” Allie ran a palm over the window seat cushion where they sat. “The sense that love has forged it into a true home.”
She was not wrong in that.
The house with its tall windows and symmetrical construction had been a love letter from Ethan’s father to his mother. A way for John Penn to demonstrably express his adoration for Isobel Leith.
Of course, Thistle Muir was no longer quite the same house Ethan had grown up in. Viola and Malcolm had made the home their own. There were several new bookcases along the walls, and the sagging sofa with its well-worn fabric had been replaced by a new one upholstered in a satiny velvet. Malcolm, however, had managed to retain his favorite armchair and footstool—battered and well-used—which still rested before the fire.
Despite the changes, the room exuded the same homey warmth of Ethan’s childhood.
Again, he thought of his epiphany—that Allie wished for belonging more than freedom. How would she respond if he confronted her with the idea?
A laugh from across the room drew their attention.
Lady Isolde was ensconced with Viola on the sofa before the hearth, chatting amiably. Beowoof, Malcolm’s dog, shuffled from his bed before the fireplace to rest his chin in Viola’s lap. Ethan’s sister-in-law scratched the pup’s curly head, setting his tail to thumping.
Poor Viola was well into her confinement and near to bursting with child. How the tiny, blonde woman had room to carry a babe was a mystery of biology. And given her wee stature, Ethan understood why Malcolm was beside himself with worry over his wife’s looming childbed. It was nearly the only topic of conversation Malcolm could discuss at the moment—what if Viola’s body was too petite to push out the babe? what if the midwife was unable to stem the bleeding?
