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“I don’t conquer, I submit.”
Giacomon Casanova
After enjoying a hearty breakfast of freshly baked bread and eggs, they went to the library. Patrick had removed the dust sheets from a couple rooms at Julius’s request so that they might make use of them, and Audrey had mentioned she had explored little of the stacks on earlier visits, unable to decipher how it was organized. Julius was excited to show her Lord Hays’s fine collection.
Leading her through the stacks, he pointed out novels and volumes of poetry and pulled forth a volume of Byron’s poems.
“I noticed Casanova’s memoirs in your chamber. Does it belong to your uncle’s library?”
Julius grinned, shaking his head. “I own multiple copies. Anywhere I lay my head, you will find his memoirs. When I have trouble sleeping, I read about Giacomo’s brazen antics.”
Audrey smiled up at him, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Do they serve as inspiration?”
“Indubitably. I like to be unpredictable.” He laughed.
Audrey gave a little snort. Her eyes strayed briefly to his lips before darting away. “More like incorrigible.”
He smiled in response, warmth flickering in his gaze. The look made her blink, but he shifted the moment with grace. “Have you seen the portrait gallery?
Audrey shook her head. “I mostly spent time in the drawing rooms and library on my previous stays, although I have wandered the halls.”
Julius offered an arm. “Shall we?”
He led her to the gallery, where Audrey exclaimed with delight over the portrait of his aunt hung beside the entrance.
“She is so young!”
Indeed, Aunt Gertrude was dressed in the fashion of forty or fifty years earlier, her hair powdered and lifted with whatever odd contraptions they had used in the last century. Her moss-green eyes stared down, her face perfectly austere, as was characteristic of aristocratic portraiture.
Julius preferred the real-life version, being rather fond of his maternal great-aunt. Countless times as a youth, he had escaped Lord Snarling’s grim lectures by sneaking into her home. Rose, who helped in the kitchens when the family was in residence, made the best biscuits—warm from the oven—and despite being a traditional lady of the ton, Aunty Gertrude had always been kind to her unhappy nephew.
They walked together down the length of the gallery, stopping to view each of the family portraits that recorded the history of the Hays family until they reached the far end.
“What is this?” asked Audrey, pausing at the end of the gallery.
Julius sauntered after her, finding she was staring up at a recent portrait of Lord Hays mounted above a display case covered with a dust sheet. His great-uncle was attired in the style that had been adopted in London of late—that of a Highland lord, with a box-pleated kilt of red, green, and yellow. The artist had been generous, filling out Lord Hays’s aged figure to make him appear far more robust than he had truly been at the time of the sitting.
“Lord Hays holds a minor title in Scotland that he inherited through his mother, which is why he belongs to the Highland Society of London. They took it into their heads to collect the patterns of tartans. Something about preserving the clan histories. I think they might be deluded about the whole thing, but it has become quite fashionable amongst those who hold Scottish titles to claim these … vanity tartans, if you will.”
Audrey pointed up at the kilt. “So this is meant to be the tartan of the clan that he is from?”
“That is the theory. My valet has family from Scotland, and he tells me it is all a bit of fanciful propaganda, and that there were no official clan tartans until this recent obsession took hold.”
Julius leaned down to grab the edge of the sheet, yanking it back to reveal the ornate enamel and glass display case beneath.
He tapped a fingernail on the glass, his hands still bare from breakfast. Beneath the polished surface lay a catalogue. “See, there is Bannockburn’s key pattern book, published a few years ago, a collection of tartans the lairds have submitted as belonging to their clans.”
Audrey peered down, tilting her head, her brow drawn in concentration. “May I look at the pattern book?”
Julius raised a brow in surprise but acquiesced, feeling about for the latch and swinging the lid up. He reached in and withdrew the book, placing it gently atop the case before closing the lid.
Audrey leafed through, silent, her fingers grazing the old paper as though it were a sacred text. She nibbled at her lip, always a sign she was troubled. Julius stood quietly, watching her, resisting the urge to reach out and smooth the crease between her brows.
She stopped on a page featuring a green-and-blue tartan, leaning in, then drawing back, her gaze shifting as if the pattern might rearrange itself.
“I have seen this worn by a Scottish regiment,” he offered softly, hoping to draw her thoughts into the open.
