Page 43 of The Beastly Earl

“I would never pity you,” she exclaimed softly. “If I did, I would not have…I could not…I’ve never behaved so brazenly with…with any man except, my husband.”

Embarrassment echoed in her words as another bout of tense silence filled the space between them. As they continued to move forward, Ewan remembered how passionately she’d kissed him such a short time ago. Even the first time he’d tasted her lips in his study her response had been unrestrained.

Her reaction on both occasions was hardly that of a woman worried about his physical impairments. His jaw tightened at what that might mean. Ewan turned his head to see she was looking straight ahead.

“It appears I must apologize, ” he said quietly. She had no doubt expected a chaste kiss. “I took advantage—”

“No, you don’t understand.” Her voice softened and echoed with either guilt or embarrassment. He couldn’t tell which. “I liked it—very much. I wanted…”

Her admission took his breath away as he saw the pink color rising in her cheeks. It gave her the appearance of a young debutante before she turned her head toward him. The desire flaring in her eyes was a punch to his gut. Instantly his body cried out for her, but he knew bedding her was the worst thing he could do to her. Even if she didn’t care that he lacked an arm or eye, no woman should ever be saddle with a man who was less than whole.

“Louisa, I’m—”

“Oh, please don’t. You must think me a wanton hussy for acting as I did.”

“No.” He came to an abrupt halt and stopped her as well. “I don’t think that. What I think is that it’s been a long time since you’ve been kissed.”

An odd expression crossed her face as she met his gaze steadily. She appeared to be struggling with a dilemma of some sort. Whatever it was, she shook her head as if she had chosen not to pursue it. Not too far away, the boys were shouting jubilantly, and she glanced in the direction of the noise before looking at him again.

“It sounds as if they’ve found our Christmas tree.” A small smile curved her mouth as she lightly touched his arm. “Shall we?”

The moment her lips curved upward, he realized he would find it impossible to resist her smile if she were to use it to her advantage.

§ § §

Ewan leaned forward with a grunt and pressed his weight against the tall fir tree they’d brought back from the forest. The tree was much larger than Louisa had suggested, but he and the boys had overridden her when she’d pointed out a much smaller tree. At this precise moment he was regretting the fact.

The soft wool cloth protecting his skin against the leather cup of his artificial limb had shifted and become useless. Retrieving Louisa’s hat had been the first offense to the stump of his arm. The workout he’d performed in transporting and raising the tree in the keep had only exacerbated his discomfort.

Vanity was another part of the problem. Unwilling to let Louisa see any sign of weakness on his part, he’d stubbornly refused to seek out a quiet place to adjust the damn piece of cloth. Despite the painful burning of leather against raw flesh, it was easy to dismiss the pain when he saw the excitement in the boys.

Ross in particular was showing an exhilaration he’d never seen in the boy before. Earlier when he’d shown the boys how to cut down the tree using the two-handed saw, Ross had worked opposite him with great concentration. When the tree had fallen, the boy’s smile had served to emphasize Ewan’s decision to take a greater interest in the child had been the right one. He should have remembered his own miserable childhood much sooner and how much a kind word meant.

“Would you like help, Father.” The quiet words made Ewan look down to see Ross staring up at him with a hopeful expression on his solemn features. With a nod, he shuffled his feet back slightly to form a small arch and jerked his head in a downward motion

“Slide in here, and reach through the branches until you reach the trunk so you can hold it steady.” The boy did as he instructed, while Louisa’s children carried in two buckets of rocks Finn had gathered earlier.

On the floor beneath him, McCallum kept his head under the tree, blindly stretching his arm out to accept the buckets. The noisy clatter of stone against stone sailed upward as the Scotsman poured the rock into the small barrel they were using as a stand for the tree.

“I think this is the last one we’ll need, laddie,” McCallum said as Charlie’s pail of rocks disappeared beneath the branches.

Another noisy clatter echoed up through the tree branches, and Ewan heard McCallum release a satisfied sound. A moment later the Scotsman carefully rolled out from under the tree.

“It should be sturdy now, my lord.” At the family retainer’s words, Ewan nodded and looked down at the boy leaning into the tree.

“Ross, you can let go now.”

At his instructions, the boy carefully slid out from between Ewan and the tree. With the child out of the way, Ewan slowly eased his grip on the tree and stepped back to stare at their afternoon’s handiwork. It was the first time he’d ever seen a tree in the Keep, and he enjoyed the sight.

“That tree should never have been brought into this house.”

The harsh words spilled out into the air behind him. As always a familiar tension tightened his body whenever he heard his mother’s voice. In his youth, it had represented fear and painful rejection. As an adult, the dowager’s vitriol had evolved into nothing more than irritation. Ewan turned to face his mother who was glaring at him with disgust.

“Exactly what troubles you about the tree, Mother?”

“You know full well, celebration of the holiday was outlawed years ago.”

“I also know the ban was done away with not too long ago.” Ewan arched his eyebrows in scorn at her protest. “Pray tell, to what exactly do we owe the honor of your presence?”