Page 15 of Too Scot to Handle

“We won’t tap the ’89 until you’re back home where you belong.” Maarten buckled his satchel closed. “I already sent word that the duke is to be gifted with a barrel of the ’93.”

“The Duke of Moreland?”

“Your brother—the Duke of Murdoch.”

“Right.” And wrong too, somehow. Hamish was Hamish, and no more enamored of having a title than Colin was.

MacGinnes’s tap sounded on the door again.

“Come in!” For God’s sake.

“No need to announce me,” Winthrop Montague said, dodging around MacGinnes. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize you had company.”

Montague peered at Maarten as if not quite sure Colin’s man of business was animate.

“Mr. Maarten and I were finished with our meeting,” Colin said, rather than subject Maarten to an introduction. “Maarten, my thanks, and please do start on your travel arrangements. The ’93 for His Grace is an inspired notion. Perhaps we’ll name the ’89 for the duchess.”

Maarten bowed and withdrew, never so much as making eye contact with Montague. MacGinnes drew the door closed, and Colin wrestled with a longing for a wee dram.

Not the ’89, which would be lovely beyond imagining.

Not even the ’93, a whisky worthy of a duke.

Any damned whisky would do, provided it took the edge off his restlessness.

“That’s your man of business?” Montague asked. “He’s different.”

“Try to entice him away from my employ and I’ll call you out,” Colin said. “Maarten is shrewd, honest, hard-working, good with the men, and not prone to consuming my inventory.”

Montague took the seat behind Colin’s desk, because where else would a lordling choose to sit? “You’re not joking, are you?”

“I found him working in one of my warehouses. He brought to my attention a discrepancy between items on hand and items supposedly delivered from another of my warehouses.”

Montague opened the drawer to his right—even Edana and Rhona wouldn’t have been so bold. “Have you any snuff? I’m in need of a dose. Going a bit short of sleep these days.”

“I don’t partake. Shall we be off?”

They were to ride in the park at the fashionable hour, there being safety in numbers, according to Montague.

“You don’t fancy a late luncheon before we go? The weather is fair, meaning this won’t be a short outing.”

Typically English of the weather to be so disobliging. “A footman can lay out a tray for us in the garden. If you fancy ale, I’ll have that served instead of tea.”

“Please, God, some decent ale,” Montague said, lounging back in the cushioned chair. “Just how many warehouses do you own?”

“Six, and I trade shares in six others.”

“Twelve—? You own shares in twelve different warehouses?”

“I have a theory,” Colin said, heading for the door. “Where the whisky ages has a lot to do with its flavor. A cask stored high in a warehouse near the sea will have that scent, that freshness and brine. One tucked away in a Highland glen will bring the mountains into the nose or the finish. Sometimes, the sherry or port previously stored in the barrel overpowers the palate, but before and after, that’s where the subtleties sneak in.”

“One can hardly understand you when you wax poetical about your barbarian libation,” Montague said. “You put me oddly in mind of the temperance ladies when they’re on about demon rum and blue ruin.”

He gave a mock shudder as they emerged onto the back terrace, though the English temperance society hadn’t been convened that could outdo its Scottish cousins for zeal.

“Are you sure we have to idle about in the park this afternoon?” Colin asked. “I have some correspondence to see to.”

Montague had taken pains to instruct him on this point. A gentleman did not announce to even his friends that he craved to work on estimates for pricing and distribution of his finest whisky yet. A gentleman tended to correspondence.