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He couldn’t keep thinking along these perilous lines. Allowing his imagination free rein. Not and go downstairs without someone noticing his obvious arousal.
“Thank ye, Kendra.”
Her expression grew more bewildered as if she hadn’t come to terms with their kiss and had no idea why he thanked her.
“Thank ye?” she asked. “For what?”
She’d voiced his very thoughts.
He didn’t have an answer.
Not one that made any sense.
“There ye are, Broden,” his mother called as she advanced toward them, her gait uneven and labored this morning.
Forcing his arousal to recede, he smiled a welcome. He really must acquire a cane for her. She’d refused one thus far, but he feared she might stumble and fall. Particularly at Eytone Hall with its many more stairs than at home.
“Good mornin’, my dear,” she said when she reached him. She nodded politely at Kendra. “Miss MacKay. I trust ye slept well? Yer gown is most becomin’.”
“Thank you. I did, indeed, rest well,” she said, putting a little more distance between herself and Broden.
He hadn’t rested well. Not a single night since she’d visited in her night robe, and he’d had nothing better to do than conjure one naughty vision after another to occupy his time. It had proved quite diverting and entertaining.
“Please, do call me Kendra, Mrs. McGregor.”
Kendra had made that request multiple times, but Mother continued to address her formally.
Why? Because she wanted to keep a barrier of formality between them?
Technically, as an earl’s mother, she outranked a feudal baron’s sister, so she couldn’t use their social positions as an excuse. And he’d never breathed a word of the conflict between him and Kendra.
His mother rarely attended social functions, so she’d not have heard of their less than amicable encounters.
The question would plague him until he had his answer.
“Very well, my dear. Kendra, it is,” his mother said.
Broden was fairly certain he gawped like a spectator viewing a freaks of nature exhibition for the first time.
Nowhis mother agreed?
He knew she suspected his attraction to Kendra. Had she decided to help him court her? It was exactly the sort of thing she would do.
“Good morn, Mother.” He found his tongue and greeted her to draw her focus back to him before she noticed Kendra’s flushed face and wondered at the reason for her high color.
“I was worried sick when I knocked at yer chamber, and ye didna answer.” Mother folded her hands to her ample chest in an unconscious, protective gesture. “I was afraid…”
He bent and kissed her rounded cheek. She smelled of lavender water, and vaguely of rum, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Had she been indulging in more of Kendra’s hot milk punch?
“I’m sorry. I didna think to let ye ken that I had decided to go down to break my fast this mornin’.”
He leaned back, taking in her gown. No apron covered the front. When was the last time he’d seen her without an apron? The holly-berry red and forest-green plaid was one of her finer gowns. Yes, she most definitely was up to something.
Had she noticed Kendra’s kiss-reddened, slightly swollen lips?
Only by exercising extreme self-control did he keep from cutting Kendra a sidelong peek.
No. Mother’s skeptical eyebrow didn’t make a censuring appearance, but a worry-borne crease still balanced on the bridge of her nose. Nevertheless, she summoned a bright smile, which included Kendra. “Might I impose upon ye to give me yer arm, Broden?”
At once, he offered his elbow to her, letting her set the pace as they descended, Kendra following behind.
One hand gripping the banister, and the other tightly clinging to his arm, his mother angled her head sideways. “I take it yer leavin’ yer sick bed means we’ll be departin’ today?”
