Page 96 of All Scot and Bothered

“A doctor, ye say? Have ye been talking to Alexandra?” His sister-in-law was an archeologist first and a duchess second, at least in her own estimation.

“A lady doctor,” she announced. “One who takes care of women who are having babies.”

“Ye mean a midwife?”

“No,” she stated vehemently. “My mother, she diedgiving birth to me. A midwife didn’t know what to do, but a doctor might have done.”

“I see,” he murmured, incalculably glad for the umpteenth time to have been born a man.

Phoebe prattled ceaselessly as she walked, and Ramsay did his best to follow along. She spoke of Frances Bacon and Fanny de Beaufort. Who, apparently, didn’t accompany them on their outing as they preferred not to get wet.

The loch was little more than a grotto dammed by a rock wall that might have been a bridge in centuries past, collapsed by any number of marauding armies or clannish skirmishes or nothing more violent than the forages of time.

Ramsay settled Phoebe on the other edge of the wall where the river slowed to a trickle allowed by a break in the dam. He threatened to truss and blindfold her if she peeked over the wall as he bathed, only half joking.

He washed in record time, chuckling quietly as he listened to the girl sing with astonishing lack of intonation as she played. Donning his trousers, he climbed the rocks and peeked over to find her wrapping a ribbon around a bouquet of wildflowers.

“Are those for Miss Teague?” he asked, teetering over the dam and making his way down the rocks toward her.

“Yes.” She presented the bouquet to him with pride. “I thinkyoushould give them to her.”

He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Do ye, now?”

She nodded ardently. “Aren’t dashing men supposed to give ladies flowers?”

Rubbing his chin, he eyed the bouquet with consternation. “Aye, but I’m not dashing.”

She brought the flowers back to her chest, studying himintently, measuring his amount of dashingness. “Well… not as dashing as some of the men who would visit Miss Henrietta and Genny,” she admitted with no small amount of sincerity. “But I think Miss Cecelia likes you in spite of that. Besides, you’re big and brave and have better hair then most men your age.”

“A distinguished commendation, indeed,” he said wryly.

“And you saved her just like d’Artagnan,” she said dreamily. “If she’s any sort of proper damsel, she’s supposed to love you after that, so…” She reoffered the bunch of flowers to him.

Ramsay hesitated to take them, because Cecelia Teague was no sort of proper damsel.

Phoebe pressed them upward, standing on her tiptoes. “I brought a purple ribbon, as that’s Cecelia’s favorite color.”

“I’d noticed she wears violet often.” He gingerly took the flowers, hoping they’d not disintegrate in his big, unwieldy hands.

“Don’t you think she’s rather fetching in violet?” The girl’s countenance glowed with shy mischief. “In most colors, really. And I know some women look plain with spectacles, but not Cecelia. She’s lovely all the time.”

“She is lovely all the time,” he agreed before adopting a stern look. “Ye’re playing matchmaker, are ye?”

Phoebe shrugged, climbing up the bank to skirt the dam. “Do you think you’ll marry her?” she queried, disastrously portending nonchalance.

“Would ye mind?” he asked.

She plopped down on the line of grass that skirted the black pebbled sand of the loch and began to unlace her boots. “Will you let me go to university if she marries you?”

Ramsay couldn’t contain a smile. “If ye want to be a doctor, I’ll not stop ye.”

She paused for a moment, chewing on a troubling thought. “Do you think… you’ll kiss her?”

“I already did once,” he confided with a waggle of his brows.

She giggled and relieved her little foot of her second boot.

“But…” Her face was serious as she stood, brushing the sand from her skirts. “You won’t make babies, will you?”