But she had nothing else.
“I . . . I should like to try.”
“Because ye value the archeology?” He studied her for another long moment. “Or because ye need funds?”
Blunt.
So very blunt.
But then, that had always been his way.
Alistair Maclagan would always say precisely what he meant.
“Well.” Chrissi looked to the fire in the hearth, then to the ancient tapestries hanging from the walls before coming back to him. “Can it not be both?”
He shifted forward, elbows coming to his knees. “We both know ye would be on the first train out of Deeside if ye could manage it—happy, once more, to see the backend of my sorry carcass.”
Chrissi bit the inside of her cheek.
True that.
“Nonsense,” she replied. “I would watch the front end of you disappear just as happily.”
The quip earned her a crack of laughter. Alis tilted his head back, white teeth flashing as he chuckled.
It hurt, that sudden burst of joy.
Chrissi had to forcibly resist pressing the heel of her hand to her breastbone to still the ache there.
“Ah, Chris—ehr, Mrs. Newton—how I’ve missed your humor,” he smiled. “Ye were never one to let a proper jibe pass ye by.”
Chrissi pressed her lips together, disliking how they ached to curve into a matching smile. Hating the warmth his words—her name upon his lips—ignited in her chest.
Only Alis had ever called her Chris.
A commotion sounded outside the door—peopleclimbing the stairwell leading from the entrance hall to the great hall.
The butler entered.
“Mrs. Rollins and Miss Rollins, my lord,” he intoned.
A fashionably dressed matron and her daughter breezed past the butler into the room.
A palpable change swept over Alis—spine straightening, gaze eager. Smiling broadly, he stood and crossed the room to greet his guests.
“Welcome.” He bowed first over Mrs. Rollins’s hand and then Miss Rollins’s. “It is a pleasure to have ye here.”
Chrissi rose to her feet, studying the women.
With bright blue eyes and gleaming blonde hair, Miss Rollins appeared the picture of demure, maidenly innocence. She blushed prettily at Alis’s words.
Mrs. Rollins was an older version of her daughter, supervising Alis and her charge with a benevolent expression.
“Please”—he motioned the pair forward—“come greet my houseguest.”
Chrissi well understood her cue to cross the room and smile as Alis made introductions.
“Ye be much younger than I would have supposed, Mrs. Newton. Do ye not think, Mamma?” Miss Rollins smiled prettily at Chrissi and then her mother.
