Page 4 of The Scot's Perfect Match
“Understood. Do come by when ye can, we’ll go for a shoot.”
“’Twould be an honor, my lord.” Gavan bowed to them both, and it took every ounce of willpower Ava possessed not to sniff disdainfully in his direction, or perhaps throw her fan at his smug, stupid head.
As if sensing that, he grinned. “Good day, my lady.”
Only a nudge from her father had her returning the farewell. And she could have sworn she heard Gavan laughing the entire way back to their carriage.
2
The Ladies’ Marriage Prospects Bulletin
Gavan Douglas, Baron Darkwood: 7000 per annum. Estates across Scotland.
"What do ye mean he’s gone?"
The door creaked as he stepped inside the empty crofter’s cottage, the sound echoing too loudly in the hollow space. Dust motes danced in the sunlight slicing through the window, catching on the edges of a battered table pushed against the wall. Six chairs remained, empty of the once boisterous family who’d lived here. The hearth was cold, its ashes long settled, the massive pot that used to hold stews gone. Shelves that once stored bowls or tools now stood bare. The air still held the faint scent of smoke and something older, earthy, lived-in, now abandoned. It was a room stripped of life but still bearing its shape, like a body without a soul.
Seamus had taken over the ownership of the croft and the running of this particular part of Gavan's property from his father, who had passed away last year. He could still remember Seamus’s father, stooped, proud, loyal. And now the house was empty. The sheep still grazed, but they had no shepherd, abandoned.
Just like his own estate had become slowly neglected, room by room, field by field, as his father aged. The man had refused to hire more help, refused to admit the land needed more than legacy to sustain it. His father had spent more time at the club or hunting than keeping up with his lands and taken the estate down with him. God rest his soul, Gavan’s father had held on too long, too sick and too stubborn to let go, leaving the estate to crumble around them one failing field at a time.
Seamus was a young man and known to be popular with the ladies. But it hadn’t been on Gavan’s purview that Seamus was looking to leave.
"Immigrated to Canada, my lord."
"What do ye mean he immigrated to Canada?"
Gavan had been trying to keep his crofters from doing just that. There had been a mass migration of Scots to Canada, leaving lands unattended, the sheep abandoned.
To his left, the hillside rolled gently into a wide stretch of open field, golden-green beneath the mocking morning sun. The sheep dotted the land like tufts of wool scattered like a game of knucklebones, their thick coats catching the light as they grazed. A few lifted their heads lazily, blinking toward him with that blank, trusting calm that made his chest ache. They had no idea their keeper was gone. No sense of what had been lost. The grass was rich, the breeze soft, but the silence felt different now, hollow, like a Scottish ballad missing its melody.
A thistle had pushed up through the stone path at the front of the croft, defiant, sharp. Nature reclaiming what man had abandoned. He’d seen more of that lately. Shuttered windows. Weeds in the troughs. Silence where there should have been shouting, laughter, life.
Even now, he could look out into the field and see that the sheep were there. He stared at Seamus’s cousin, who had been in the fields.
"Fell in love." The cousin shrugged.
"Fell in love?" Gavan frowned. What would make a man fall in love and then leave his own country, leave his duties, behind?
"What does falling in love have to do with going to Canada?" he asked. "He could’ve fallen in love here."
"The lass he was matched with was from Canada."
Gavan didn’t know why his ears perked at the word matched, but they perked all the same. He glanced down at Seamus’s cousin, eyebrows raised.
"Matched?" he asked.
The cousin shook his head, looking down at the ground.
"It was all rather sudden, my lord."
"Explain."
"Well, he met the young Canadian lass at a local dance. And he was smitten. So, the lady arranged for the two of them to meet."
Gavan’s ears perked once more. This was starting to sound all too familiar to him.
"The lady?"
