She hadn’t intended for him to actuallyanswerit.
Her aim had been to drive him away. To ask something ridiculously impertinent and, therefore, cause him to retreat. To halt his relentlessly prying questions and ludicrous talk of friendship.
But instead of a polite retreat, the wretched Scot had figuratively turned onto his back and presented her with the soft underbelly of his sincerity.
The unexpected trust jolted her. She was torn between the urge to race from the room or grab hold and kiss him just as she had on that road in Italy.
She found herself genuinely . . .likinghim.
Uffa.
How utterly absurd.
There would be—could be—no ‘friendship’ between them. As in thevetturinilast summer, she and Ethan Penn-Leith were merely travelers passing one another on very different paths of life. Her, on the way to freedom from her brother. Him, to a life full of . . . whatever famous Scottish poets did.
And yet . . .
Were circumstances different, would she have liked claiming Ethan Penn-Leith as a friend? The question prickled, like a sprig of holly held too carelessly between her fingers.
Worse, he continued to regard her with those summer-green eyes that caused her breathing to splutter.
She couldn’t give him the truthful answer to his question. And so, as was her wont, she dodged it entirely.
“You mentioned you are the youngest of your family?” she asked.
Ethan paused, those mossy eyes narrowing, as if trying to understand the unexpected bent of her conversation.
His eyes drifted toward the ajar door and then came back to her.
“Aye,” he finally nodded. “I have an older brother and sister who delight in tormenting me.”
Again, the spare facts glittered in Allie’s mind. Part of her heart lunged at its restraining tether. The part that missed Tristan and their mother, that ached for whispered confidences and late-night cuddles.
She pulled the tether tight, silencing those longings.
“Something tells me ye haven’t had much teasing in your life,” he continued.
Similar to his earlier remarks, the comment was a probing one.
“I am the first-born twin.” Though even as she said those words, Allie thought of the older step-siblings she had never met. The children of her father’s first bigamous marriage, those who had been raised to rule the Kendall dukedom only to find themselves abruptly declared bastards and disinherited.
Didn’t one of them live in Scotland? Sir Rafe Gordon, or some such?
Allie shook her head.
“I am the tormentor, not the tormented,” she continued. “I believe it is a hard fast rule of elder siblinghood.”
“Unrestrained tormentation?” he asked, lips twitching with amusement.
“Aye,” she drawled, mimicking his accent.
That earned her a smooth chuckle.
Allie felt a small smile tug the corners of her lips, coaxing them upward.
This man . . .
He was a walking, talking sphere of sunshine, radiating warmth to everyone he met.
