Page 5 of A Hot Scot for Christmas
She stopped petting the filly. She knew a gentle dismissal when she heard one.
“Have breakfast with me tomorrow,” she said.
He cocked his head. “That sounds like the beginning of a proposition.”
“Because, Mr. MacLeod, it is.”
Chapter Two
A growling stomach drove Rory squinty-eyed out of the barn and into a slice of pastoral heaven. Cattle lowing, birds chirping, chickens scratching in winter-yellow grass. Water’s flowing hush teased his ears. The River Eden, he suspected. He cocked his head to listen and made his way through the yard. At the heart of all this splendor was Mrs. Throckmorton-Rutherford’s compact Palladian-style house—probably built when the first King George put his rump on the throne.
Rory held up a hand to shield his eyes from sunlight leaping off the Englishwoman’s eight polished windows, two of them arched.
“Poor lass must’ve married a fat squire.”
Not that her husband was any of his concern.
Rory trudged onward, mud sucking his boots. His father raised no fool. He’d have breakfast and leave after hearing the gentlewoman’s mysterious request.
Women and their propositions.
Typically, he’d say yes. Adventure was his byword. Or it had been until a few months ago.
That’s when a highborn woman nearly killed him.
He gritted his teeth at the memory. The Countess of Denton was a beautiful widow with a viper’s tongue. Knowledge of her—and there had been knowledge in the Biblical sense—left him…ragged.
But the fair lass he met last night had wistful green eyes.
Longing and flashes of kindness sprung from their depths. She’d opened her own door rather than rouse a servant. A good sign, that. Benevolent women were a weakness of his, especially if the woman’s voice was feather-soft when flirting.
Nonetheless.
“She’s married,” he said loud enough to send three hens squawking.
Mrs. Throckmorton-Rutherford was best forgotten.
He reached her front door, pain twinging him. Last night’s tumble left a wicked reminder, the ache made worse from winter’s chill. Grimacing, he gave the brass knocker atap, tapand rubbed his shoulder until the door swung wide.
A rail-thin butler in plum livery greeted him.
“Mr. MacLeod, welcome to Eden House. Mrs. Throckmorton-Rutherford is expecting you.”
He blinked, mildly surprised. The butler knew his name.
“For breakfast, I hope.”
“Of course, sir.” The servant collected Rory’s hat and great coat. “Mrs. Throckmorton-Rutherford always sets a fine table.”
Rory dragged a muddied boot across the iron boot wipe. Good manners required it, but the small act allowed him to dally. A cheery place was the Throckmorton-Rutherford home. The entry stretched long. Its wood plank floors displayed a scuffed, painted-on black and white chess board pattern, a trick of the gentry who couldn’t afford marble floors. Pale blue walls, no friezes or fresh hot house flowers—and no fat squire leaping out of the woodwork.
Only the old butler beckoning from an archway.
“This way, sir.”
Rory followed though he could’ve found the small dining room by scent alone. Plump sausages, crispy bacon, fried bread, and coddled eggs heaped high in porcelain tureens on a sideboard. Marmalade glistened in two small bowls on the table, but, ah, that sideboard. He ambled to it, his stomach rumbling while he piled food onto his plate.
The butler disappeared, replaced by a bright-eyed blonde maid who curtsied with a pitcher in hand.
