“Mm-hm. Have Johnny help ye. He built the chicken coop. And I’ll have Brendan lend a hand, too.” He’d also have a chat with the sixteen-year-old about frightening their youngest brother for no good reason. “And Connell?”
“Aye?”
“Thank ye fer telling me.”
Putting on a huge grin, Connell nodded. “Thank ye,bràthair. I couldnae leave them there in the heather withoot their ma.”
With a return smile, Graeme tugged his brother’s ear. “I know ye couldnae. Now take Fluff and Hop and Gray and go tell everyone, so we’ll nae have any surprises.” The boy fled, and Graeme squatted down in front of Marjorie. “How much convincing did that take ye?”
“Not much. I think he wanted to tell you, but couldn’t figure out how to do it.” She put a hand on his knee, beneath the hem of his kilt. “He’s been very worried you would find out and make him let them go.”
“Nae. I may nae be a civilized man, but I do ken when a boy who didnae know his own mother needs to rescue bairns who’ve lost theirs. Every animal beneath this roof’s an orphan, me included.”
“I am, as well. Gabriel and I lost our parents when he was seventeen, and I was eight. His answer was to join the army and use his pay to send me to boarding school.”
“Ye were the age Connell is now, and ye went off on yer own to boarding school?” He couldn’t even imagine his youngest brother sent away from his siblings. The abrupt anger he felt toward the mighty Duke of Lattimer made his jaw clench.
“We couldn’t keep the house. The money for it paid off our parents’ debts, bought him a commission, and paid for my acceptance and first semester of school. If Gabriel hadn’t done that, I don’t know where I would be now.”
His anger eased again, though he remained certain he would have found a way for him and his siblings to stay together. “Ye dunnae think that wherever ye might have ended up would be better than being kidnapped by three nodcocks and held prisoner in the Highlands?”
She grinned at him. “Considering I’m alive to be kidnapped, I’d have to say no.”
Graeme leaned forward, resting his weight on his bent knuckles, and kissed her. She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him back. Time seemed to slow, the sounds of the noisy house faded, and he could swear sunlight burned through the clouds outside to shine down on the countryside.
The door stood wide open, so as much as he wanted to prolong the moment, as much as he would have done so with anyone but this propriety-obsessed lass, he straightened and stood, holding down a hand to help her to her feet. Aye, he would let her go for now, but tonight he meant to visit her. Two evenings without her was two evenings too many, as far as he was concerned.
“You’ve never mentioned your father,” she said, nudging his mind off its trail and into the shrubbery. “Do you mind my asking what happened to him?”
Since meeting her, he’d only wanted to forget. And yet by one action the dead man dictated the way he meant to live the remainder of his life. “My mother died giving birth to Connell. Brian Maxton was always mad fer her. Two days after she passed, he walked oot to the river and shot himself in the head.”
Her dark blue eyes widened. “Oh.”
“Dunnae ye dare call it romantic,” he stated, accustomed to hearing those murmurs from every lass in the countryside. “He left three boys under ten years old with nae a parent.”
“That’s why Connell said you’d been looking after him since he was two days old.”
He nodded. “Aye.” Graeme forced a smile he didn’t feel. “Ye may nae believe me, but at twenty I was a wee bit uncivilized. I did my damnedest, even thought aboot finding a bride to help me raise them, but it seemed like someaught I should do myself. They—all this—were my responsibility.” Everything became his responsibility, all at once. Whether he’d been successful or not wasn’t for him to judge, but no one could say he hadn’t done everything he could.
“You? Wild?” She tugged on the black sleeve of his coat.
“You summoned me, Lord Maxton?” Mrs. Giswell’s precise voice came from the doorway.
Marjorie immediately lowered her hand as he straightened. “Aye,” he said, keeping his expression neutral as he faced the woman. Brown hair turning to gray, sharp green eyes, a mouth presently pinched a little in disapproval. She had a grand bosom, large and prominent enough to support a tea tray, while the rest of her went down in a straight line past her hips and then to a sturdy pair of legs.
“I insist you cease ogling me, sir,” she stated, clasping her hands in front of her bosom.
“I wasnae!”
“Good,” Marjorie murmured from beside him, almost soundlessly. He heard her, though, and her response warmed his insides. She did like him, or at least want him, whatever she might prefer to have him believe.
“I’ve word that the blacksmith in Sheiling has been looking fer a lass named Hortensia fer the past few days,” he told Marjorie’s companion. “Loudly.”
Her cheeks darkened to crimson. “I have in no way encouraged any such thing,” she said, a slight squeak in her voice. She fanned at her face with both hands.
“Regardless, I cannae have him stirring up questions.”
“Please don’t tell me you mean to kidnap him,” Marjorie put in, clearly only half jesting.
