No more romanticizing Lord Rossbury’s lips or tip-tilted smiles or anything else about his person. She had come to Scotland to see her aunt, and now she’d help resolve this matter of Invermere and keeping Aunt Cassandra in her beloved home.
That’s what mattered most.
Chapter Eight
James woke with a start, yet it seemed only moments had passed since he’d closed his eyes and sighed at the quality of the mattress in the room the butler had led him to. Judging by the light slanting through the half-pulled drapery, hours had gone by, but he was still exhausted.
Rising from bed, he slipped on his shirt and strode to the window.
So, this was Scotland.
Fog crept over the ground and the horizon glowed with the promise of sun, despite the still-dim sky. Beyond the fields near the manor, he could make out rolling hills and a misty forest. Nearer the house, a breeze set gold and crimson leaves fluttering from branches.
The beauty of the countryside soothed him for a moment, then sparked a memory he’d left far behind. Childhood visits to Shropshire and the endlessly green grounds of Summervale estate with a forest at its edge. Each time he’d run too far toward the copse of trees, he’d turn back to see his mother, fear and concern etched on her face. It was how he recalled her from that day on the train too.
Shaking his head, he pushed that pain down. Those days were best left behind.
The gorgeous landscape of Scotland would make Invermere easier to sell. That’s what mattered.
Fatigue hit again when he stepped away from the window, but his mind raced. An urgency to be done with this business, to be done with Beck, and to get his life back.
He should speak to the staff first thing and determine whether there were any valuations in their possession. Abercrombie would send a surveyor as promised, and James suspected any records about the manor might help speed his assessment.
As soon as the sun was up, he’d take a look at the house for himself. What he’d seen so far appeared in good repair, but that had been through tired eyes at night. And he’d been too damned preoccupied with a pretty noblewoman.
Oh hell, he still was.
Chivalrous impulse, he tried telling himself. A young woman on her own would spark protectiveness in most men. But that didn’t explain why he wanted to touch her every time she was near. Why he wanted to know the taste of her, how her hair would feel sliding across his chest. He’d quieted such yearnings after he’d lost everything, but they were back with a vengeance.
Never had a woman caught his interest so quickly and thoroughly.
There hadn’t been a moment since meeting Lucy Westmont that she wasn’t on his mind, and thesight of her when he’d cracked an eye open on that backbreaking settee had soothed the odd stitch that wedged itself in his chest the moment they’d parted in Edinburgh.
Longing for the niece of the woman he was about to evict.Wonderful.
Foolishly, impossibly, he wanted to see her again. Now. There was much to say. Much to explain. But the sun had yet to come up, and despite all the ways he and Lucy had pushed the limits of propriety on the train, the staff were already wary of him, and he had no right to risk her reputation.
Though he steered clear of entanglements with noblewomen, he had some notion of how fragile a lady’s good name could be in the upper circles of society.
Odd how that rule he’d set for himself for decades hadn’t stopped him from this all-consuming fascination with one petite daughter of an earl.
How bloody strange to think that the death of a man he hadn’t seen in nearly thirty years had now made him an earl too. Perhaps Lucy’s father would give him lessons.
That thought amused him for the twelve seconds it took to remember the title he’d inherited made him even more penniless than he’d been before. Now there were his uncle’s debts to settle as well as his own.
No, he had no right to visit Lucy’s bedchamber. No right to his preoccupation with her at all. He had nothing to offer such a lady, however temptingshe might be. And judging by her headstrong independence, he doubted she’d wish him to.
Even if they were beyond propriety. Even if he knew how her skin felt against his fingertips. Even if he’d been blessed with the ability to draw a pink wash of color to her cheeks whenever they were close to each other.
Good god, he was in trouble.
He opened his bedroom door because he needed to move. Perhaps a walk across Invermere’s misty fields would do him good.
He found Hercules outside his door. The deerhound got to his feet, ears perked, tail wagging, as if he was ready for a predawn wander too.
“I admire your loyalty, good sir.” James bent to pet the dog’s wiry fur. “And I shall savor it now because you’ll no doubt hate me when your mistress arrives.”
James made his way downstairs as quietly as he could, aware that beyond one of the doors he passed, Lucy slumbered. Near one door, Hercules paused and let out a little whine.
