When his tongue threatened to roll onto the ground, he swiped a hand across his mouth and shifted his balance in an attempt to alleviate the sudden snugness in the front of his own breeches. “I just came back from a ride. But I’d be happy tae have another go. Ye should have a companion.”
She gave a small sniff. “As it so happens, I already do.”
Lachlan’s eyes thinned as a man, vaguely familiar with dark hair, gray eyes, and the chiseled features of an aristocrat, came out of the barn holding the reins of a large bay horse.
Make that stumbled out of the barn, he corrected when Brynne’s riding companion staggered over to where she was standing and leaned heavily against his mount’s shoulder.
“It’s too early for physical exercise,” he complained, and when Lachlan heard his voice–a deep, cultured baritone–he instantly connected his face with a name.
“Yer Grace,” he greeted Sterling Nottingham, Duke of Hanover. “Good tae see ye again.”
Squinting at him even though the sun had since gone behind a cloud, Sterling grinned and extended his hand. While Brynne looked on with thinly veiled displeasure, the two men engaged in a hearty shake and obligatory manly back slapping.
“Lachlan Campbell!” Sterling exclaimed once they’d broken apart. “Devil finally dragged you back to civilized country, I see. How long has it been? The last time I saw you–”
“Was here.” He flicked a glance at Brynne, whose expressionless countenance was impossible to read. “For a house party.”
“That’s right. Now I remember.” The duke scratched under his hat, a black beaver top, and gave the brim an absent tug. “Just missed another, mate. Rollicking good fun.”
“Says the guest who spent the majority of the past four weeks sleeping in the parlor,” Brynne put in with an arched brow. “We should begin our ride, Your Grace, if we’re to return before luncheon.”
“But there was something I wanted to ask Campbell. What was it…what was it…” Sterling muttered, tapping his chin with the end of his riding crop. His eyes lit up. “Now I remember! Whisky.”
“Whisky,” Lachlan repeated blandly even as a muscle ticked in his jaw.
Beside him, Brynne sucked in a breath.
“Indeed,” said Sterling, completely oblivious to the cloud of tension that had descended onto the courtyard. “From Glenavon Distillery. You gave a bottle of it to the Earl of Hawkridge, and I’m after one for myself. Name your price.”
Lachlan clearly remembered gifting Weston the bottle. A congratulatory gift for making it through Eton, and a token of the friendship they’d developed both there and during their summers spent together here, at Hawkridge Manor.
“There’s no price tae name,” he said, his apologetic shrug belying none of the strain that simmered right beneath the surface of his amiable façade. “I’m afraid there’s none left of that vintage. The original distillery was started by me great-great-grandfather, Robert Campbell, and abandoned soon after. Only a few barrels survived, and what wasna drunk by the immediate family has since been given away.”
Sterling frowned. “That’s a deuced shame.”
“Aye.” He hesitated, gave another glance at Brynne, who was refusing to meet his eyes. He squared his shoulders. This was his dream, his lifelong aspiration, and he wasn’t going to let himself feel guilty for pursuing it. Not anymore. “But if ye wouldna mind the wait, I should have a new batch come spring. It’s already barreled, and while it willna taste exactly the same, I seeded and grew the barley in the same field my great-great-grandfather used.”
NowBrynne looked at him. With a startled gasp, her eyes widened, and she even took a step towards him before she caught herself. “You did it, Lachlan. You really did it.”
“Aye,” he said, hating that there was bitterness to be had in the accomplishment. “I did.”
“But that’s–that’ssplendid. You must be inordinately proud.” She clasped her hands together. “Congratulations. That’s wonderful.”
He could have let it pass.
Probably should have, given the company they were in.
But his Scot’s temper was riding high, and he wasn’t of the mind to rein it in.
“Congratulations, is it?” he sneered. “That’s not what ye said before.”
Sterling cleared his throat. “Ahem–”
“It was different before.”
“Was it?” His head canted. “How so?”
“This is not the place for such a conversation,” she said tersely.
