“Tell me the rest of it, Matthew. If I can put this in context…”

He rose from the trunk and straightened a bridle hanging on the opposite wall. “I compromised a decent woman. What context could possibly excuse that?”

“You were grieving.” Mary Fran hunched in on herself, the very idea of making excuses for him rankling—he would never make excuses for himself. “Maybe the girl grabbed you and threatened to scream if you didn’t oblige her. Maybe you were drunk—very drunk. Maybe you were trying to distract her from a fellow who would make her miserable or give her diseases.”

He shook his head and tidied another bridle, but in his very silence, another idea tried to crowd into Mary Frances’s misery, more a feeling than an idea.

“You aren’t telling me the whole of it, Matthew Daniels.” She knew this the same way she knew when Fiona was lying or her brothers had done something they were uncomfortable with. “What do you think to spare me? I’ve been compromised. I’ve been labeled a whore. I’ve watched my family work themselves nigh to death just to keep up appearances. I’ve buried a husband I had no intention of grieving, only to find myself devastated by guilt. I’ve put up with groping old men and sly young ones…”

He did not look at her. He faced the whips lined up from longest to shortest on the side wall, though Mary Fran doubted he saw what was before him. “I wanted to dally with you, Mary Fran. I wanted to give you some pleasure, some relief and comfort.” More catechism, which only confirmed Mary Fran’s suspicion he was holding back.

“Oblivion and desire, Matthew?” She wanted to slap him, to slap the sadness off his handsome profile. “We’ve agreed that isn’t enough. When you’re ready to tell me the whole of your folly, then I’ll be ready to listen.”

She hopped off the trunk, her limbs protesting the sudden movement, her heart breaking to leave things thus.

“Mary Frances?” He did not touch her, but his gaze pleaded with her for—what?

“Why not Lady Mary Frances, if we’re to have so little trust to go along with our oblivion and desire?”

The damned wretched man smiled, a slow, gentle curving of his lips. “If I could tell you the whole of it, I would. That’s as much concession as I can make.”

His admission was a concession. She could see that in the caution lurking behind his smiling sadness. But it wasn’t concession enough.

“I’d marry a cad and a bounder—I’ve done it before, if you’ll recall—but I cannot marry a man who won’t trust me.”

***

“Break my sister’s heart, and I’ll kill you. Connor and Gilgallon will dig your grave, and the entire Deeside branch of the clan will dance at your funeral.” Balfour offered his promise cheerfully, sporting a grin that revealed even white teeth in abundant number. “A wee dram to ward off the chill, Mr. Daniels?”

Matthew nodded. They were alone in the library, and the earl’s warning was probably the Scottish equivalent of permission to court, which was ironic.

“And what if you break my sister’s heart, Balfour? I suppose I’ll have to see to both your execution and your burial myself? Dance you into the grave when I haven’t even a proper kilt to my name?”

Balfour’s dark brows rose, and then his expression became thoughtful. “Wearing a kilt takes a certain confidence. Try it before you mock us for it.”

“I have a kilt, not the full-dress business, but a McDaniel plaid.”

That had been a perfectly unnecessary admission, and it didn’t seem to make any impression on the earl.

Balfour poured out two stout servings of whisky. “The McDaniel dress plaid is a pretty pattern. You could wear it to the ball next week, and we’d kit you out in company style. I was serious about you breaking Mary Fran’s heart.”

Ian MacGregor held forth like a general, his speech—it wasn’t exactly conversation—leaping from one topic to the next without any pretension of manners. Matthew followed him easily.

“And I was serious about you breaking Genie’s heart.” Matthew lifted his glass slightly. “To the ladies.”

Balfour saluted with his whisky and took a sip. He served it neat, the way it deserved to be consumed. “Your sister Genie wants nothing to do with me. I can’t see how I’d break her heart, unless it’s by marrying her. I’ve reason to wonder why your dear papa has his heart so set on this match when the lady isn’t exactly willing.”

“Are you insulting my sister, Balfour? Implying she’s in some way tarnished goods?”

Balfour scrubbed a hand over his face. “And people claim the Scots have bad tempers. I would not insult your sister, Daniels. She’s sweet, pretty, endearingly stubborn, and scared to death of your father. That is not a sound basis for a marriage.”

Endearingly stubborn. Matthew filed that description away to apply to Mary Fran at some opportune moment. “Are you declining to court Genie because you’re concerned for her happiness?”

“I am concerned for her happiness—also for my own. My family needs coin desperately, though we need our honor more.”

Made with such casual, weary assurance, the observation stung. “Genie has a notion she’ll marry only for love, Balfour. I don’t know where she came by it. Altsax thinks marrying for love is vulgar, stupid, and common.”

“Not common enough,” Balfour muttered. “I had some questions to put to you on another matter, if you’ve a moment.”

And now the man with the piercing green eyes who made casual death threats and summarized Matthew’s sister accurately in a few words took to studying a portrait of some crusty old Highlander over the fireplace.

“Balfour, I do not share my father’s opinion on the matter of marriage. I married once for duty, for Queen and Country, and while it was not a horror, it was not what either I or my wife deserved. Ask me your questions. If I know the answers, I’ll gladly share them, though I have to warn you—the press of business means I must travel south in the morning.” The press of business and the dictates of sanity.

The emotions flitting through the earl’s gaze weren’t hard to name: relief, wariness, and bewilderment. “Travel on if you must, but my questions are about your cousin.”

The words were parted with carefully, with a studied neutrality that fooled Matthew not one whit. “Break Augusta’s heart, and the same promise applies, Balfour. She’s been through enough. Too much, in fact, and all she wants is to be left in peace.”

“No, that is not all she wants.” Balfour spoke softly, humor and sadness both in his tone. “Neither is it what she deserves, but that’s a discussion for another time. I was wondering if you could tell me the other things.” He ran a hand through thick dark hair, took another sip of his drink, and commenced staring out the mullioned window at gardens he’d had years to study.

“What other things?”

“The small things… What is Augusta’s favorite flower? How did she come by her love of drawing? Is she partial to sweets? Does she prefer chess or cribbage or backgammon?”

The personal things. Abruptly, Matthew recognized a fellow suffering swain, particularly in the earl’s mention of the difference between what a lady wants and what she deserves.

“I could use a game of cribbage myself, my lord, and perhaps we’d best keep that decanter handy.”

“Never a bad idea.” Balfour crossed the room to rummage in a desk drawer. “Turnabout is fair play, too, you know.” He slapped a deck of cards on the desk, then a carved cribbage board.

“Turnabout?”

“You have questions, Daniels. About Mary Fran. As long as you don’t ask me to violate a confidence—the woman has a wicked temper and very accurate aim with a riding crop—I’ll answer them.”

Matthew fetched the decanter and prepared to lose at least one game of cribbage. He’d lost two—only one intentionally—before Balfour asked Matthew to fetch some sensitive documents back to him here in the Highlands posthaste.

Perhaps that was fitting, that Matthew be given a chance to torment himself with another glimpse of Mary Frances, and to contribute to the happiness of others—his own being a lost cause.

***

“Where are you going?” Fiona asked the question as she tried to descend from the hayloft while holding her kitten, Spats. Mr. Daniels’s horse didn’t take exception to the company, but then, the horse had likely known Fee was above.

“Have you started sleeping in haylofts, Fee?”

“The sun comes up early, and I wanted to play with my kitten. Are you out for a ride?”

He smiled at her. Mr. Daniels had nice eyes—he smiled with his eyes more than he smiled with his mouth. “I’m leaving for the South, Fee. Business, you know.”

This was not good. Mama had disappeared into the saddle room the other day with Mr. Daniels, and she’d been smiling radiantly at the time—also holding Mr. Daniels’s hand. “Send a wire for your business. That’s what Her Majesty does.”

Mr. Daniels slipped off the horse’s headstall and looped the reins of a bridle over the gelding’s neck. “Her Majesty explains her business practices to you, does she?”

“She comes to our tea parties in the nursery at Balmoral sometimes, and so does His Royal Highness. They speak German to help us learn. If you’re leaving, you ought to pay a call on her.”

And he ought not to leave. Fiona would bet her favorite doll on that—if she could find it.

“Her Majesty is the last person I want to spend time with, Fiona.”

Mr. Daniels had been in the cavalry. He put a bridle on his horse in a precise order, and he checked each strap and buckle in order too.

“I like the Queen. Why are you leaving?”