Page 12 of The Elusive Earl (The Bad Heir Day Tales #3)

CHAPTER TWELVE

“You’ve been avoiding me.” Morna fell in step beside a freshly bathed and shaved Graham, one who exuded the pleasant scent of heather and the relaxed attitude of a man who’d put in a good day’s work.

A day’s work anywhere but at the castle, again. She hadn’t exactly lain in wait for him, but she’d

enjoyed the view from the alcove across from the earl’s quarters at length.

“I cannot avoid you,” Graham said, taking her hand and patting her knuckles. “You’re in my every waking thought and most of my dreams. I dare hope your thoughts similarly dwell on me.”

They did, blast him. Her thoughts and her longings, both. “Spare me your flattery, Graham. I know what you’re about.”

“Falling in love? Wallowing in love? Please explain the situation to me, mo chridhe , because I am in an exceedingly pleasant muddle.”

My heart. “You’ve stooped to endearments. Next, you will be admiring my bonnie blue eyes. Graham, you needn’t bother.”

Morna stopped outside her own apartment, a modest configuration of sitting room, bedroom, and dressing closet that had been hers since she’d put up her hair. Lanie dwelled directly down the corridor, while Peter and Brodie had quarters on the other side of the main staircase. The countess’s old suite was vacant, an unused guest room in the middle of the family accommodations.

“Your eyes are gorgeous,” Graham said, sounding slightly bewildered. “Are compliments no longer an aspect of courting?”

“Now you’re doing the humble suitor bit. You needn’t bother with that either.” Morna opened the door to her apartment, hauled him in by the wrist, and closed the door behind him. “I’m taking you to bed. I would like to take you to bed, rather.”

His smile was equal parts puzzled and bashful. “Now?”

“Yes, now. Peter and Lanie are working on a pianoforte duet in the music room, which is a glorified excuse to sit nearly in each other’s laps. They will rehearse until the third supper bell. Brodie is reading the Society pages while he indulges in his pre-pre-supper tipple, and that invariably ends in him snoring. We have privacy and time. Let’s be about it.”

Before I lose my nerve.

Graham studied her, then seemed to come to some sort of decision, because he locked her sitting room door.

“You find me irresistible,” he said, “and your days are a torment of yearning. Though I haven’t even properly proposed to you yet—the ritual wants a ring, as best I recall—I am supposed to presume on your virtue and pleasure you witless in the process. Do I have that much right?”

He’d somehow grown more imposing as he spoke—also more serious.

“I haven’t any virtue to presume on. You should know that.”

Graham led her to the sofa, in the opposite direction of the bedroom door.

“Your previous encounters are none of my business, Morna, provided you were a consenting adult at the time. As far as I am concerned, you bristle with virtues.” He came down beside her, inches away and yet subtly remote too.

“You make me sound like a hedgehog. I was a curious, restless, foolish adult. He was kind, I suppose you’d say. Knew I wasn’t smitten, and neither was he, but I wanted to know…”

“We all want to know. That’s normal and healthy. Did he break your heart?”

To discuss this with Graham in the broad light of day was both unnerving and a relief. “Heavens no. He was the marquess’s guest. He went back to Kent at the end of the summer, and last I heard, he’d married an American. He was a pleasant, canny, good-looking devil, but, Graham…”

Why was it necessary to delve into the details?

“Just say it, Morna. In case you’ve forgotten, lovers are supposed to trust each other.”

Lovers. Well, yes. “He wasn’t you.”

Graham nodded. “You and I were cheated. I spent months plotting and planning how to advance my campaign in your direction, but then Grandmama died, and my hopes with her. What might have been has haunted me, Morna, and I don’t want to bungle with you this time around.”

“You are,” Morna said, stifling the urge to pace. “Bungling, that is. Off you go at first light to march the boundaries, but I know what you’re truly about.”

“Mending wall?”

“Avoiding me. You have resumed your plotting and planning, considering all possibilities, and still fretting that some coach will come thundering out of the woods to flatten you. Do you propose to me and put me in danger too? Do you write me sweet little poems and leave flowers on my pillow? Do you marry me and see about filling the nursery because titles come with responsibilities, and Peter longs to build steam engines?”

“And kiss Lanie.”

“That too, and she wants to more than kiss him. You are ruminating and brooding when you should be kissing me . If, heaven forbid, you should be struck down by a runaway team or bad eggs or the spring ague, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wishing , Graham.”

That sentiment—selfish, honest, and more than a little desperate—wasn’t the worst admission Morna could have made, but it was bad enough.

Graham wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “I am supposed to argue with you,” he said, “to insist that vows be spoken first, or at least promises exchanged.”

“Please don’t. Words uttered for the sake of propriety don’t change how I feel. I want the words, and I appreciate them, but more significantly, I want you.”

“When I ask you to marry me, Morna, will you say yes?”

“Of course.”

He was sitting beside her, his half-embrace warm and secure, and Morna waited. She was so damned tired of waiting—for spring, for the next letter from St. Didier, for Graham.

“I think,” Graham said, “we are allowed to be anxious, you and I. We worry that we’ll be cheated again, maybe the next time cheated forever. We’re together now, but we both know life has a way of inflicting the unexpected and even the tragic on the undeserving. I don’t want to lose you either, Morna.”

“You won’t.” He had, though, put a delicate finger on the part Morna wasn’t willing to admit out loud: She was haunted by a now-or-never fear, by the certain knowledge that what had been snatched away once could be snatched away again.

“I could have lost you,” Graham said. “That handsome, witty fellow from Kent could have wheedled you into marriage. The bad eggs could have been served to you, and illness is no respecter of persons. I worried, too, Morna, and I’ve acres of cleared ground outside Sydney to show for it.”

“Acres?”

“Cleared ground, fences, a tidy little cottage. I worked myself to flinders because that was the only patent remedy available. ‘What if I lose her? What if I’ve already lost her?’”

The rabbits dancing about in Morna’s middle quieted. “Wait until you see the Christmas linens. Lanie says I went needle-mad the first winter you were gone. And the second, and the third.”

Graham apparently understood that she was still a bit mad, and—what a thing to share—he clearly was too. Still haunted by separation and loss, still fearful that the next parting could become permanent.

“We’ll take each other to bed, then,” Graham said. “If you’re sure?”

“I am now.”

He stood and offered her his hand. “You weren’t before?”

“I was certain of my goal, not as certain of the strategy for achieving it.”

Graham drew her into his arms. “A word of caution, darling Morna. If you announce an intention to take me to bed, you are soon likely to be sharing a bed with me.”

He was utterly, absolutely in earnest.

“Good to know. Graham MacNeil. I would very much like to take you to bed.”

“Then,”—he beamed at her—“let’s be about it, shall we?”

Morna had seen what Graham had been trying to ignore. He had honestly been concerned with renewing his acquaintances among the neighbors, and he’d been making a staked goat of himself to any enemy willing to set foot on MacNeil land. He’d also been pondering the past and making what inquiries he could to shed light on Grandmama’s death.

And all the while, he’d been keeping his distance from Morna. Since their outing to the overlook, when Graham had been ambushed by thoughts of trysting en plein air , he’d retreated to figurative high ground. The future Countess of Dunhaven deserved better than lovemaking against the nearest handy birch tree.

How did a man court lightning? How did he romance a female tempest of intelligence, common sense, wit, and passion? How did he make up for years apart and find his way back to a shared future?

The answer that came to him as Morna led him into the bedroom was simple: He undertook the vast privilege of wooing his prospective wife slowly. He paused when he wanted to plunder and listened when tempted to shout.

He drove himself half barmy, in other words, or completely barmy if need be.

“I should have built up the fire,” Morna said, closing the bedroom door.

“But that would have been tempting fate, inviting disappointment. We’ll be warm enough under the covers.”

Graham perched on the raised hearth to remove his boots, something he’d done in Morna’s presence any number of times. He’d seen her bare feet too—wading in the shallows of the Tay, drying off in the summer sun—but the thought of those bare feet now had him staring at his stockings.

“You’re sure?” he asked again. He was sure, desperately sure.

“I have been sure since the day you carried Lanie into the river and let her dip her toes into the water until your teeth were chattering.”

Graham peeled off his stockings. “I’d forgotten that. She longed to go wading, but didn’t trust her balance. I thought she’d never let me take her back to dry land.”

“You were so sweet and so determined, and Lanie was so happy.”

He set his boots on the far side of the vanity, away from the fire, and sat next to Morna on the mattress.

Her bedroom was unique in that its appointments sported no plaid. Her preference was flowers—red roses and purple irises patterned both the wallpaper and the carpet. The bedspread was quilted with the same adornments, and the green velvet curtains and bed hangings supported the floral theme.

A respite from blue and green plaid and a lovely setting for the lady herself.

“I fell in love with you regularly,” Graham said. “When I came home after university, I finally recognized the symptoms for what they were. You tore a strip off Uncle Brodie for teasing Peter, laid into him in English and Erse. Said he had no business criticizing Peter’s scholarship when he himself had excelled only in drinking, wagering, and vexing Grandmama. Grandpapa was positively jolly for the next week.”

“Brodie has mellowed since. He fancied himself a frustrated satirist, but picking on children is never humorous.”

Nor would Morna ever overlook such a transgression. Graham loved that about her, loved her forthright, shy, brisk, fierce, tenderhearted …

“I love you,” Graham said. “I want to get that out now, while I can still manage complete sentences.”

“I love you too,” Morna said, toeing off her slippers. “Though I may burden you with a repetition of that declaration at odd moments.”

“Because for years, we could not say it, we could not write it, we hardly dared think it. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

She bumped him with her shoulder. “Unfasten my hooks, please.”

“I’ll love doing that too.”

The next part, which could have been awkward, was simple. Clothing piled up on the chest at the foot of the bed—one stack for him, another for her, though Graham hung Morna’s dress from a peg on the bedpost.

Morna disappeared into the dressing closet while Graham used the warmer on the sheets. She returned wearing a dressing gown over her shift—more green velvet—and waited while Graham peeled down to his riding breeches.

She held up one foot swaddled in a thick gray wool sock. “My feet are always cold. I sleep with socks on.”

Graham poured a glass of water from the carafe sitting on the vanity. “I set out two glasses of water for myself every night, and they are always empty in the morning, but I seldom recall taking even a sip. I sleep-drink.”

They smiled at each other, then Morna hung the dressing gown on another bedpost and climbed beneath the covers.

“Don’t be shy,” she said. “It’s only me.”

“Not shy,” Graham said, unbuttoning his falls. “Modest.” Also half aroused and self-conscious with it. Did she expect him to leap beneath the covers, saber at the ready? To have kept all erotic thoughts at bay?

Something in between would have to do.

“Graham.” Morna was sitting in the middle of the bed, cross-legged. She drew her shift over her head and threw it at him. “You are stalling.”

He caught the linen against his bare chest, sniffed it—roses, his favorite flower forever—and draped it atop his shirt and waistcoat.

“I am taking my time, because the one thing I do know about how matters should proceed from here…” He paused to step out of his breeches. “Is that haste is to be avoided.”

Morna visually inspected him while he worshiped the sight of her from a distance of six feet. Pale breasts, rosy nipples, a slender waist, and a houri’s smile.

Haste was to be avoided. A flying leap onto the bed would likely be unwise as well.

“Stop showing off,” Morna said, though her tone lacked its usual decisiveness. “Half the ladies in Australia must be mourning your absence.”

“Not half,” Graham said, climbing onto the bed. “Not even one.” He arranged himself over her on all fours. “They weren’t you.”

She wrapped arms and legs around him, kissed him witless—slowly—and drove him mad with the sensation of fuzzy socks rubbed along his flanks.

“Graham,” she panted, a small, exquisite eternity of arousal later, “it’s not haste if you’re simply getting on with the business.”

“It’s not?” He positioned himself against her heat. “Are you certain? Where exactly does the line between haste and passion, between a direct—ye gods, Morna.”

She’d taken him into her body with an expedient roll of her hips. “This is lovely,” she said. “This is quite lovely.”

“If it’s only lovely, I’ve some work to do.” He went about his appointed rounds silently and slowly, keeping a tight rein on desire and a close eye on Morna. She was exercising similarly determined self-control, and that would not do.

Graham changed the angle of their bodies, heard a small gasp near his ear and then a sweet, soft sigh.

Got you at last. Morna yielded graciously, accepting what he offered until Graham felt her pleasure transform into satisfaction. Her hold on him loosened, and the soft socks brushed his flanks one last time.

“Worth the wait,” she said, patting his bum. “Absolutely worth the wait.”

Had he been capable of speech, he might have agreed with her. Instead, he began moving again and mentally vowed that his beloved would always have a vast supply of thick, soft socks to keep her feet warm.

The family parlor was cheerier, the smell of peat smoke more pleasant, and even the portrait of the first countess seemed to be smiling. Graham was still debating whether he deserved a tot to steady his nerves when Brodie joined him.

“Damned rain,” Brodie said, going straight to the sideboard. “Civilized countries have seasons. Now it’s summer, very pleasant if a bit hot. Now it’s autumn, time for harvest. Scotland has weather , a fickle, fiendish procession of sunshine, hail, bitter cold, rain, and more sunshine, but nothing predictable enough that a man knows which coat to wear. We’ll have a lambing snow tonight, mark my words.”

Graham watched as Brodie poured himself a generous serving of brandy. “You can learn to miss snow, believe it or not.” To miss familiar birds and fish, to miss the particular quality of a location’s sunshine.

“I do not believe it.” Brodie finished about half his drink at one go. “I also cannot believe that you chose to return to this drafty old pile, but I suppose the title was a rather compelling argument for the defense.”

The title hadn’t figured in the decision at all. “If I could make you the earl, Uncle, would you want me to?”

Graham sampled his drink and resented the burden of making small talk. He’d rather bask in the glow of becoming Morna’s lover in more than name, rather enjoy the memory of her spent and sleepy in his arms.

“If I were the earl,” Brodie said, scowling at his drink, “I would look in here at the castle for about two weeks in high summer and spend the rest of my time in cultured surrounds. The average Perthshire formal dinner gathering wouldn’t know witty repartee if it was brought to the table on serving trays between the soup and the fish courses.”

Uncle was in a mood, but then, he was often in a mood. “If you are so eager to enjoy more sophisticated company, then pack your trunks and go,” Graham said. “You will always have a home here.” Grandmama would have expected at least that for her brother.

“Easy for you to say.” Brodie finished his drink and poured himself another. “You will likely be off to London by midsummer. I’m surprised you came home without tarrying for a time in Mayfair. That lot would overlook a bit of murder in your past, now that you’re the earl. They might not offer you their daughters with all the trimmings, but they’d invite you for the novelty factor.”

“Not murder, Uncle. Involuntary manslaughter. If you must bring up painful memories, at least do so accurately.”

Brodie shrugged and went to the window to stare out at the rainy darkness. “My sister died—call it what you will. I call it a sad accident, but perhaps you did her a favor. Poor thing was in agony, but she had to drag herself to table and to divine services, and there was old Dunhaven, encouraging that foolishness.”

Part of the reason Brodie had been able to tease Peter so relentlessly was that Peter had, for the longest time, risen to the bait. This discussion was baiting—and the last topic Graham wanted to air in his present mood.

And yet, needs must. “Uncle, what do you recall about the night Grandmama died?”

Brodie shot him an unreadable look. “Not much, having done my usual best to appreciate the libation at supper and afterward. You lot were on your assigned maneuvers with possets and remedies and whatnot. I left you to it, as usual. Just because I was her ladyship’s only surviving blood relative on the premises was no reason to entrust me with the smallest aspect of her care.”

Peter, John, and Graham had all been related to the countess by blood. “You generally avoided her ladyship’s apartments, as I recall.”

“Damned right I did—avoided her sickroom. I hated to see her like that, and she appreciated that I kept my distance. The rest of you would have done better to leave her more privacy. A woman reduced to slurping gruel doesn’t need or want an audience.”

Grandmama had never been reduced to slurping gruel . “So why bide here?” Graham asked, joining Brodie at the window. “If you have such unhappy memories of this place, if you’re so miserable here, why not lark off to Paris or London? Heaven knows, Edinburgh has its share of wits, poets, and pundits.”

“I promised my sister I’d keep watch over you youngsters, and I’ve kept my word. What do you suppose is delaying the others? I’m famished.”

An abrupt change of topic from the family raconteur. A bit odd. “Peter and Lanie were still at the pianoforte when the second bell rang. If they needed to change for supper, they might be a few minutes yet. What do you hear from your correspondents in London?”

Brodie launched into a recitation of elopements, duels, and phaeton races undertaken by people he’d never met in a city he hadn’t visited for years. Brodie had regularly jaunted off to London and Edinburgh in Graham’s youth, collected a new arsenal of quips and on dits , then returned to the castle to fire off his witticisms at any who’d listen.

Over and over. Grandpapa had taken a dim view of Brodie’s peripatetic pleasures, but Grandmama had argued the merits of a respite from her brother’s company.

“You then have no specific recollections of the night Grandmama died?” Graham asked when Brodie had refreshed his drink for the second time and recounted his famous wager at White’s for the thousandth.

“I recall losing my sister,” Brodie said on a sigh. “I miss her. But as for the sound of John’s unsteady tread passing my door, a muted scream, drops of blood on the carpet, or any other such Gothic excesses, of course not. I would have informed the sheriff’s man of same, except that I had nothing to tell him. My sister was dead, at peace at last, and that was that. If Peter goes to his reward before you do, perhaps you’ll spare a thought for your old uncle and the sorrow visited upon him that night.”

“I certainly will.”

Lanie joined them before Brodie could start another round of when-I-was-in-Brighton. She looked radiant in an ensemble of blue merino that complemented her MacNeil plaid shawl wonderfully.

“I heard you and Peter practicing,” Graham said. “You’re better than he is.”

“I’m better because I must pay closer attention. Morna plays through the pieces for me so I can hear them, and then I look over the score as best I can, holding the music at a very odd angle. Then I try to replicate what I heard and saw, and that takes concentration. Peter just skims through the notes, and he’s quite good at it.”

Lanie’s smile suggested that she, too, was savoring precious memories, and that warmed Graham’s heart. Old Brodie’s problem was loneliness, and one could not blame him for that.

“I was just asking our Graham,” Brodie said, “when he plans to quit the castle. As quickly as he travels, he could still enjoy the Mayfair Season or even pop over to Paris.”

Half the glow in Lanie’s eyes disappeared. “Why would Graham leave the castle? He just got here, and we’ve already done the pretty in Edinburgh.”

“I don’t plan to leave the castle,” Graham said. “Uncle is teasing. This is my home, and I’ve spent quite enough time away from it.”

“You’ll grow bored,” Brodie said. “Trust me on this. You’ve seen the world, albeit from the deck of a transport ship. You won’t be content to muck out stalls and chat up rustics in plaid. You cannot imagine leaving this place ever again, but you never imagined traveling to Australia as a convicted felon, did you?”

Brodie was determined to be disagreeable, and if pressed, he’d say he was simply being honest or plainspoken, and one must not hide from the past.

What was Brodie hiding from? Because the poor old sod was definitely bedeviled by something. Before Graham could ask—plain speaking did have its uses—Morna arrived arm in arm with Peter, both of them looking like cats who’d found undefended barrels of cream.

Nothing like practicing duets to put spring in the air. Graham handed drinks around and silently toasted a day full of exceedingly precious memories. By the time he was escorting Morna in to supper, the rain had turned to sleet, suggesting Brodie had got at least one thing right.

They’d have snow overnight. With any luck, a pretty morning would melt into a mild, sunny afternoon. St. Didier would return from his errands in Edinburgh, and Graham could get a ring on his beloved’s finger before sunset tomorrow.