“Hmm.” She took a moment to sip from whatever was in the mug as she studied him. “I have never seen a man look so sad while being so honorable.”
The observation startled a chuckle out of Bull, and he busied himself with pulling Rose’s door fully closed. “I wish Iwasnaeso honorable, but…” He shrugged. “Yer daughter is special. She deserves the best.”
“Yes, she does.” Georgia’s expression was carefully neutral. “And you do not think that is you?”
Shite.
The last place Bull wanted to talk about his feelings was standing in the pre-dawn dimness outside Rose’s room after having his tongue in her—but Georgia deserved to know the truth. Hell. Notallthe truth. “I am…no’ the kind of man a duke’s daughter marries. I came from nothing?—”
“You came from two very fine families with loving bonds, even if you are illegitimate. And you have many talents, and have used those talents to build yourself a successful life.”
You are good at making friends. Rose had said that. Standingthere with his fingers tapping out a complex rhythm on his thighs, Bull tried to figure out if her mother was agreeing.
Georgia didn’t give him time to respond. “Do you love her?”
The answer to that one was easy, at least. He blew out a breath as his fingers stilled, as certainty filled him. “I do. I ken there’s nae future for us, but I…I cannae let her go.”
“Hmmm.”
Rose’s mother didn’t say anything to such a bold vow, but studied him over the lip of the mug. Then, with nothing more than a nod, she turned down the corridor toward her bedchamber. “I will join you in the library again later today. I would like to continue the search into my mother’s origins.”
And Bull watched her go, more confused than ever.
Rosie wasn’t whistling as she bounced down the stairs on the way to lunch, but it was close. She’d slept brilliantly, and somehow woken in her own bed well after the breakfast hour had passed. She could pretend the reason was because of the previous nights in strange beds…but she knew it was because of Bull.
When she’d awoken she smelled his soap on her pillows, and known she hadn’t imagined cuddling with him all night.
So yes, she was smiling as she joined her father at the table. “Good morning, Da.”
“Morning?” he grunted, sorting through the day’s post without looking up. “Ye slept until almost noon, lassie. When I was yer age, I was up with the dawn?—“
“Walking to school,” she finished for him, reaching for the soup to pour herself some. “Uphill?—”
“Both ways, on my hands and knees?—”
“Yes, I forgot you had to crawl,” Rosie said seriously.
Her Da’s mouth twitched. “In the snow.”
“Or the mud,” she teased. “This is Scotland, after all.”
Her father glared at her over the pair of reading glasses he’d taken to wearing when he dealt with estate business, or when he was enjoying one of the books from his vast library. “All I’m saying is that ye bairns have it easy these days, what with yer newfangled music and electricity and pockets.”
Rose nodded solemnly as she lifted a spoonful of soup. “We are truly what is wrong with this world.”
His eyes narrowed. “Are ye mocking me?”
“Aye, ye dunderbore,” she drawled. “I learned from the best.”
Her father merely snorted, rolled his eyes, and went back to his sorting. “Bills, bills…all I get is bills. Here’s a letter for yer mother.”
Rose glanced toward the door. “WhereisMother?” And where, for that matter, was Bull?
Not that she was daft enough to ask her father that…
“In the library,” Da said, without looking up. “She and that rapscallion idiot of yers are combing through the history of the peerage in the last fifty centuries. Sounds boring as fook to me.”
Rose placed her spoon down, her throat having suddenly closed. “But necessary to our case,” she rasped. Bull had told her that had been his plan for the day, and she needed to help him.
