Part 27 (1/2)
Scott came to join Walter at her knee, both dogs leaning against her. Her heart like a lead weight, Bronwyn wrapped her arms about them both. ”Thank you for coming to speak with me. I know it can't have been easy.”
”What's not easy is seeing you hurt. I wish-” Mama sighed.
Hot tears stung Bronwyn's eyes, but she held them at bay. ”If you don't mind, I'd like some time to think about this.”
”Of course.” Mama stood, uncertainty on her face. ”I'll tell your sisters you won't be attending tomorrow's dinner at Tulloch. Shall we just say you don't feel well?”
Bronwyn didn't look up. ”For now, that will be fine.”
Mama started to say something more, but on seeing Bronwyn's bent head, she instead turned and quietly let herself out, leaving Bronwyn alone with her dogs and her thoughts.
”You won't find any answers in there, I fear.”
Alexsey looked up from the golden depths of his scotch to find Strathmoor in the doorway of his bedchamber, clad in a red velvet dressing coat. ”You never know. I've found answers in stranger places.”
Strath sauntered in and closed the door behind him. ”You left your door open. I will take that as an invitation.”
He shrugged. ”We're practically alone in this wing.”
”My uncle's none-too-subtle way of letting us know he thinks us h.e.l.lions.” Strath paused to pour himself a gla.s.s of scotch before he came to take the seat across from Alexsey. ”Let me know if you find answers, questions, or anything other than good smoky scotch in there. For if you do, then the footmen have not been was.h.i.+ng the gla.s.ses as they ought.” He stretched his legs before the fire and took an appreciative sip.
Alexsey eyed his friend. ”You are up late. Did the brightness of your dressing coat prevent you from sleeping? It is keeping me awake right now.”
Strath waved his gla.s.s. ”Mock all you wish. I bought it in France and paid a fortune for it, and have heard nothing but praise for it.”
”Whoever praised it was merely being polite.”
Strath grinned. ”Probably, but for what I paid, I'll accept any compliment I receive. I was so foxed when I bought it, I could barely count out the coins.” He ran a hand over the velvet. ”At least it's warm.”
”That's a good thing here.”
”Ah, 'tis a chilly old castle.”
The two men sat in silence for a while, the crackling fire the only sound in the room. Finally, Strath said, ”Look at us, two boisterous, happy chaps. I barely know how to bear our overwhelming cheerfulness.”
”I'll admit it; I'm gloomy this evening.”
”Because of the Murdoch chit?”
”Aye. I went to visit her today. Twice. Her stepmother received me both times and seemed rather odd. She lied to me and told me Bronwyn wasn't home either time.”
”Perhaps Miss Murdoch was reluctant to see you and sent her stepmother to speak with you instead.”
”I thought of that, but when I last saw Bronwyn-” He frowned into his gla.s.s. ”No. It's her stepmother. But I can't help thinking that perhaps I'm at fault. If perhaps I've pushed things too far, too fast with Miss Murdoch, expected too much. . . .” He shook his head. ”I don't know.”
He shouldn't have been surprised; he'd asked her to act far outside her normal area of comfort.
”I can't believe this. You, the man who's never refused by any girl, downright gloomy over a woman?”
h.e.l.l yes. A very stubborn, uncooperating, infuriating, and totally adorable woman. Realizing Strath's eyes were upon him, Alexsey shrugged. ”I'm being gloomy, yes. It is nothing, probably caused by the gray weather that's moved in. When it clears tomorrow, I'm sure we'll all be in better fettle.”
”Clears?” Strath snorted. ”You obviously don't know Scotland. Our weather is rainy, misty, foggy, hazy, icy, and-for two weeks every year, whether we deserve it or not-sunny.”
”Yet there is a certain mystical charm to your weather. Much as there is to your women.”
” 'Mystical charm.' That's a good way to put it.” Strath nodded and swirled his scotch slowly. ”I've been thinking about someone myself.”
”Anyone I know?”
Strath took a swallow of the scotch. ”It doesn't matter, for she won't have me.”
Alexsey looked at his friend in surprise. ”You're in love?”
”Lud, no. I'm in deep l.u.s.t. I don't believe in love.”
”Oh?” Alexsey lifted a brow.
”No,” Strath said in much too stubborn a voice. ”But this woman . . . she is the devil's own to decipher. One moment she's hot, then she's cold, much like our weather.”
”Ah. She is reluctant, then?”
”Very. But then, so am I.”
Despite his low spirits, Alexsey had to laugh. ”Both of you reluctant, so how did the two of you even come to be?”
”I don't know. That's the devil of it. There we were, denying one another one moment, and kissing the next. Now we tear between those two extremes until we're both dizzy with it.”
”She likes you, then, or there would be no kisses.”
”For now. Sadly, women change their minds as frequently as they do their gowns.”
Alexsey nodded. His spirits would be dragging even lower if he didn't hold on to the fact that he had not yet spoken to Bronwyn. Until he did, he would not accept this version her stepmother kept putting forth, that she had experienced a change of heart and wanted nothing more to do with him.
Of course, he wasn't in love like poor Strath. What Alexsey felt was deep, agonizing l.u.s.t combined with a strong dose of like. He liked Bronwyn. And somehow that made everything more difficult. He couldn't seem to stop thinking about her. Everything reminded him of some moment they'd shared.
”You're staring into your gla.s.s again, only now you're scowling.”
”I wish your uncle would tell his cook to stop using so much rosemary.”
Strath blinked. ”What's wrong with rosemary?”
Every meal now served as a reminder of Bronwyn. ”Every b.l.o.o.d.y dish has rosemary in it. Every one.”
”I don't even know what rosemary smells like.”
”I do. If you knew, it would annoy you, too. And there is too much singing in this house, too.”
Strath looked even more confused. ”Singing. That's bothering you, as well?”
”Da. The housemaid who sets my fires in the morning hums. Then, when she is in the hallway, she sings. I don't wish to hear singing.”