Page 4 of Savage Blooms (Unearthly Delights #1)

“Arabella?” the lord echoed, taking her time while giving Adam a once-over.

It didn’t feel quite like being sized up or quite like being leered at, both of which would have at least been familiar.

It felt more like she was committing every detail of him to memory, which was somehow more discomfiting. “Do you mean Arabella Kirkfoyle?”

“Yes,” Adam said, relief rushing through him.

He had half convinced himself there was no one left alive who might remember that name.

No one to answer his questions, and no one to give him closure.

“I know this may sound strange, but I’m here on a sort of…

pilgrimage? My grandfather was very important to me, and he died last year, but I actually don’t know that much about his life.

I know he spent his younger years traveling, and he used to tell me stories about this place.

Craigmar, I mean. But I never knew where in Scotland it was. Recently, I found this…”

Adam reached inside his vest and retrieved the letter. It never left his person during the day, and he slept with it within arm’s reach at night.

“It’s a letter from my grandfather, addressed to this house, made out to Arabella Kirkfoyle. I thought if she were still living here, she might be able to tell me more about who my grandfather was.”

Adam swallowed hard, embarrassment rising in his cheeks. He felt as though he had shared far too many intimate details, but also that he hadn’t shared enough for his story to make sense.

“You came all the way out here for that?” the lord asked. “Quite the quest.”

“I guess I, uh, don’t have a lot else going on at the moment.”

The lord of the manor walked right up to Adam, enveloping him with the scent of peaty whisky and her iris perfume.

She wore a somewhat worse for wear clan badge pinned to her chest, displaying her family’s emblem and motto.

It was a leaping hare encircled with iron into which the words “vivere militare est” were carved.

“May I?” she asked, holding her hand out for the letter.

Adam wanted to deny her – this was one of the only clues to his grandfather’s life that Adam had left – but she spoke with such effortless command.

Like she was asking Adam to hand her one of her own possessions that he had simply been tasked with minding.

And she looked right at him with those black eyes, blacker than any eyes Adam had ever seen, never once wavering.

“It’s very delicate,” he said, trying to find the courage to tell her no.

“Precious things often are,” she said, the whisper of a smile touching her lips.

Between the day-drinking and the jodhpurs and the antiquated formal title, Adam had assumed she was much older than him.

But now, up close, he saw that she was thirty at the oldest, perhaps not even that.

She and Finley might have been siblings, if it weren’t for their obvious difference in social station and the way the lord’s complexion, alarmingly pale and latticed with thin blue veins, clashed with Finley’s healthy, olive-toned skin.

“I just want to take a look. I’ll give it right back, I promise. ”

Adam took a deep breath, then placed the letter into her waiting palm.

The lord made a humming sound in her throat, like she was very pleased with him indeed. Adam’s stomach tightened, with arousal or with some other more fearful kind of anticipation. It was hard to say.

“Please have a seat, both of you,” she said, sweeping a hand towards the couch. “Would you like a drink? You must be hungry from the road. I can have Finley heat up the venison pie from last night, or tea and scones if you want something lighter?”

“Oh no,” Adam said. “We’re all right—”

“Tea and scones sound fab,” Nicola said, plopping down on the couch.

She didn’t look exactly at ease, but she was good at making herself at home in strange situations.

Finley slipped from the room and Adam sat down next to Nicola, eyeing a collection of very old and very complicated-looking board games stacked tidily in the middle of the coffee table.

“How did you come into possession of this?” the lord asked, unfolding the letter and holding it up to the firelight. Adam’s heart leapt into his throat, but she didn’t toss the note into the flames, just studied the script with a curious furrow between her brows. “Did someone give it to you?”

“Yeah,” Adam said. “Whenever my mom finds something of my grandfather’s, she passes it on to me. I figured no one else would be interested in it.”

“Oh, I’m very interested,” the lord said, flipping the paper over as though confirming its veracity. And then, in a curious lilt that sounded to Adam like stories woven by a fireside, she read the letter aloud.

My Arabella,

It’s spring here in Michigan, and I’ve never seen sunlight so bright. It hits Lake Huron like a mirror, and fills your eyes with stars. The people in this part of the country are very friendly, and respect hard work and honesty. I think I might stay here, at least for a little while.

Last night, I dreamed of Craigmar, at Easter this time. I miss your mother’s lamb roast, and the bonfires your father built, but most of all I miss going on morning hikes through the hills with you. I wonder if I’ll ever dream of anywhere else.

I hope you’re keeping well, and I hope these letters aren’t inappropriate. But I suspect that you read them and that they make you smile, even if you don’t write back.

Yours always,

Robbie

Adam had read the letter dozens of times, but hearing it in someone else’s voice made a lump form in his throat.

He would go weeks without crying over his grandfather, and then it would hit him all at once.

He stared into the fire, willing the heat to dry his eyes before anyone noticed he was getting misty.

“Thank you for sharing that with me,” the lord said, handing the letter back to Adam.

She squeezed his shoulder before she moved away, an unexpected jolt of human warmth that startled him out of his grief.

“I realized I never introduced myself. I’m Eileen Kirkfoyle.

Arabella’s granddaughter. This is my land, and the fellow who was good enough to give you directions to the house is my groundskeeper. ”

Adam’s shoulder burned where Eileen had touched him. It hadn’t escaped his notice that his grandfather’s letter could have been a love letter, and if Arabella had been anything like Eileen, Adam could understand the appeal of Kirkfoyle women.

“Pleasure to meet you,” Adam said, and he really meant that.

“I’m afraid I don’t know much about my grandmother.

She died before I was born. But I’ve lived here all my life, and my family keeps thorough hereditary records, so I still may be able to help you.

” Eileen sat in the chair opposite Adam and Nicola, leaning forward with her elbows propped on the knees of her spread legs.

There was something masculine in the way she carried herself, like a country gentleman trapped in the body of a lithe girl.

“I’m always happy to learn more about my ancestors, or any of their friends.

It seems like your grandfather and my grandmother were very good friends indeed. ”

Finley appeared with a wooden tray laden with a pot of steaming breakfast tea, three china cups so well used the paint had started to wear away, a plate of fluffy halved scones, a jar of raspberry jam and a dish of clotted cream.

Adam wondered idly if Eileen had any staff outside of Finley, but then hunger took over and he became distracted by getting as much scone inside his empty stomach as quickly as possible without eating like he had been raised in a barn.

“Adam’s playing it cool,” Nicola said, her pink tongue darting out to lap a bit of jam from her thumb. “But coming out here is all he’s been able to talk about for months. We’re very grateful for your hospitality and your willingness to chat with us. It’s exciting, to finally be at Craigmar.”

“You’re a very good girlfriend, traipsing all the way out here with your man,” Eileen said, smiling behind a sip of tea. “If I were you I would have made him leave me back at the hotel.”

“Oh, I’m not his girlfriend,” Nicola said, a blush blooming across her nose.

She was always quick to correct anyone who thought they were together, which happened more often than Adam would have liked.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought about getting with Nicola – he had thought about it an embarrassing amount, actually, when they were out together, or when they were apart, or when he was alone in bed at night – it was that getting with Nicola was out of the question.

She was gorgeous, sure, and they were good friends, but they were a bad personality match in the long term.

So Adam had never spoiled anything with a short-sighted hookup. “I’m just a friend along for the ride.”

“Suit yourself,” Eileen said, as though she didn’t believe Nicola at all.

Nicola looked affronted at these fighting words. Adam knew from experience that Nicola would box the ears of a frat guy who got too handsy, or yank the hair of a bitchy girl at a bar, and he hated to see what she would do to landed gentry.

“Nicola’s been a godsend,” Adam said, stepping in to diffuse the situation. “And she studies Scottish folklore—”

“As a hobby,” Nicola put in.

“You finished a whole medieval literature degree,” Adam corrected, refusing to let her downplay her intelligence. “Anyway, this kind of thing is very up her alley so I’m glad she came with me.”

“What a lovely turn of events,” Eileen said. “So, how may I be of assistance?”

“Any information you might have about my grandfather would be great. You never heard anyone in your family talk about a Robert Lancaster, did you?”

“I can’t say I did. Was he a guest of the family, perhaps? Or brought on the grounds to do some kind of contract work?”