Hester reached for her water goblet at the same time Spathfoy reached for his wine, and their hands brushed again.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Daniels. You were saying something about fish?” He took a sip of his wine, not by word or gesture suggesting a little collision of hands might unnerve him the way it unnerved her.

“The River Dee is among the finest salmon streams in the world, my lord. Throughout Deeside, there are excellent inns and hostelries to accommodate the fishermen who come here for sport. His Highness is a great sportsman, and that doesn’t hurt either.”

“But the royal family is not now in residence at Balmoral, are they?” He ate almost daintily, and yet the food was disappearing from his plate at a great rate.

“Her Majesty usually removes here closer to August. We get quite the influx of English then, all mad for a walk in the Highlands in hopes they’ll encounter the royal family on a ramble.”

“You say this with some aspersion.”

His lovely voice held not so much censure as curiosity. Hester collected her thoughts while she took a sip of her wine, though the truth came out anyway.

“I came to Scotland to be with family, my lord. To escape the social confines of London, and the expectations incumbent on the daughter of a titled man when she emerges from mourning that man’s death. I do not relish the idea of coming across in the woods the very people I sought to avoid when I quit London.”

He was regarding her closely, his expression hard to read, and then he did the most unexpected thing: he patted her hand. A gentle, glancing stroke of his fingers over her knuckles.

The gesture should have felt condescending, but instead it was… comforting.

“Society is the very devil.” He topped off her wine. “As the heir to a marquess, I can only sympathize with your disparagement of it. And my condolences on the loss of your father. I’m hoping my own lives to a biblical age.”

He sounded very sincere in this wish, very human. Hester tried not to be disconcerted by that.

She’d thought dinner would be a struggle, but by the time he was asking her to finish his serving of trifle, she realized more than an hour in Spathfoy’s company had been… enjoyable.

“We’ve almost lost the light, Miss Daniels, but is there time for a short turn in the garden? A stroll before retiring settles the meal and is a personal habit of mine. If nothing else, I can look in on Flying Rowan.”

She could not politely refuse, and it wasn’t pitch dark yet. He assisted her to her feet, taking her hand then tucking it over his arm. He touched her with a certain competence, a male assurance that suggested handling women came instinctively to him.

She could not quite resent him for this—being handled competently was too rare a treat—but Hester vowed she would not be swayed by his abilities in this regard. He was an invading army of one, and his company manners did not make his mission any less suspect.

“The roses are particularly lovely,” she said as they moved across the terrace. “Mary Fran spares no effort in their care.”

“My grandmother was quite the gardener. My Scottish grandmother, that is.”

“And you must have seen her gardens at some point?”

He walked along beside her, making a gentlemanly accommodation to her shorter stride, and yet she felt him hesitate at the question.

“I did. For a succession of boyhood summers, I was sent to my grandparents while my parents attended various house parties in the South.”

He said nothing more, revealed no memories of those long-ago summers, so Hester was casting about for a polite topic they hadn’t yet exhausted, when an odd, ugly sound split the evening gloom. Beside her, Spathfoy paused.

Hester shuddered, wanting to put her hands over her ears. “What is that? It sound like a child in distress, a very young child.”

“It’s a fox, and I’ve been told that sound is Reynard’s attempt to attract a mate.”

“Pity the poor vixen, then, if that’s his best effort at courtship.” Hester wanted to move, to get away from that unpleasant, raucous noise, though it didn’t seem to bother her escort.

“The female’s lot is often unenviable, or so my sisters would have me believe. Which is your favorite rose?”

They made a circuit of the entire garden, until Hester’s head was beginning to ache with the unaccustomed amount of wine she’d consumed and the burden of being sociable to a man she did not like or trust. He left the impression that being cordially pleasant was no effort for him, so thoroughly ingrained were his gentlemanly inclinations.

“It is nearly dark,” Hester said. “Shall you visit your horse?”

“Let’s sit for a moment. It has been some time since I paused to appreciate the fragrance of roses on the evening air.”

Mother of God, he sounded wistful, and there was nothing for it but she must sit with him. Hester appropriated a wooden bench between the Bourbons and the Damasks, hearing the seat creak when Spathfoy came down beside her.

“I see a lamp burning in the opposite wing from my bedroom, though I doubt you have servants biding on the ground floor.”

“Aunt Ree’s rooms are on the ground floor to spare her the stairs and put her closer to the kitchens if she’s in need of a posset at bedtime.”

As they watched, Lady Ariadne herself bobbed past a window, her purple turban no longer in evidence.

“My grandmother had the same snow-white hair,” Spathfoy said. “What do you suppose she’s reading?”

Hester sensed that this too was part of his nature, a curiosity about anything and everything around him, because a man likely to inherit a marquessate would not comprehend that people with small lives treasured at least the privacy of those small lives.

“She reads old love letters before retiring and hopes her former swains will visit her in her dreams.”

Ariadne’s habit sounded daft, put into words like that. Daft and lonely.

And he had nothing to say to this, so a silence fell while Hester felt fatigue of both body and spirit seeping into her bones.

Spathfoy stretched out long, long legs and crossed them at the ankles. “At least she has love letters. Are you growing chilled, Miss Daniels? I can offer my coat, or return you to the house.”

Hester rose. The idea of being enveloped in the warmth and fragrance of his clothing was more disturbing than any slight chill in the evening air. “No thank you, my lord. I’ll see myself in, and my thanks, too, for your company at dinner. Breakfast is on the sideboard in the same dining parlor no later than first light.”

He got to his feet. “My thanks as well, Miss Daniels. Pleasant dreams.”

She might have tarried, might have reminded him to ring for anything he needed, and added admonitions that Highland hospitality meant their home was his for the duration of his stay, but she left him among the roses and shadows. Reminding Lady Ariadne to close her curtains was a far more urgent and worthy mission.

* * *

Tye hadn’t lied. A stroll after dinner was one of his personal habits. He’d acquired this habit in defense of his peace of mind when the alternative had been port and cigars with his father—a domestic ritual that invariably degenerated into vituperation of the Commons, the Prince Consort, his lordship’s own marchioness, or the fairer sex at large.

And seeing Flying Rowan properly bedded down was also part of Tye’s routine, though it served nicely to allow for discreet reconnaissance of Matthew Daniels’s outbuildings and grounds as well.

If the stables and gardens were any indication, Daniels was no slacker.

“Unlike you.”

Rowan flicked an elegant black ear as his owner approached. The horse stood in a loose box bedded in ample, fragrant oat straw. A full bucket of clean water hung on the wall, and the gelding’s coat showed signs of a thorough grooming after his exertions earlier in the day.

“Don’t get too comfortable here, horse. The poor of the parish—of which there are more than a few—could use a hearty stew.”

Rowan wuffled and turned large, luminous eyes on Tye.

“Shameless beggar.” Tye let himself into the stall and produced a lump of sugar from his coat pocket. “Does it trouble you, horse, that you have no love letters to read by your bedside of a night?”

Rowan dispatched the lump of sugar and used a big roman nose to gently nudge at Tye’s pocket.

“You have no love letters, do you? Neither do I, thank The Almighty. Don’t beg.” He tapped the horse’s nose. “It’s ungentlemanly.” Tye scratched the beast’s withers, also part of his end-of-day ritual with the horse. “Quinworth reads old letters. One almost pities him when one finds him in such a state. Swilling whisky and chasing it with sentiment.”

The horse groaned and shivered all over. When Tye dropped his hand, the gelding craned its neck to pin Tye with another pointed look.

“You have no dignity, horse.” Tye moved around and started scratching from the horse’s other side. “And Quinworth has too much. The old boy has me neatly boxed in, make no mistake. If I don’t retrieve my darling niece, there will be hell to pay.”

And for just a moment, Tye let himself wonder if the ends truly justified the means. A childhood served out on Quinworth’s terms was not exactly a guarantee of happiness—far from it.

He slung an arm over the horse’s withers and leaned in, resting his weight against the animal for a moment. Fiona would be better off being acknowledged by her paternal family, and she would want for nothing money could buy.

And that should be an end to it.

“We’ll be heading back south before too much longer. Enjoy your Scottish holiday while you can.”