Heartless (The House of Rohan 5)

had been playing a sullen game of hide and seek behind the clouds, had finally decided to change and do what it almost never did.

It was shining. The sun sparkled on the drops of water dripping off the leaves from the early morning mist, it shone from the vast array of windows that lined the front of the ancient house, the gloomy gray stones almost white in the sunlight.

It was shockingly beautiful, this home of his heart, and he was tempted to turn back, to keep that vision of Ballykeep secure, to remember on his travels.

But then the knowledge began to click in his brain. Filthy windows didn’t glisten. The old gray stones didn’t seem lighter in the sunshine—they actually were.

The massive front door of the house stood open, and he could see people moving around inside, including his blasted dog. Tammas had been sniffing around the freshly potted greenery by the front entrance, lifting his leg when he thought no one was looking, but then the sound of a piercing whistle made the dog lift his silken head and trot obediently into the house.

Brandon moved down the hill so quickly that he fell, twisting his bad leg. He rose again with a curse, ignoring the shaft of pain that sliced through him, and kept moving, not bothering to hide his damned limp. Maybe his mother had decided that opening the house would cheer him up, except that it was impossible that her orders could have arrived before he had.

The first person he saw when he reached the curving entrance was a maid, young, perhaps fifteen, with the bright red hair that was so prevalent in the Highlands.

She stopped dead still, staring at him like he was a ghost. His face, he assumed, but her sudden shy smile shot that theory to hell, and besides, young Scottish girls weren’t nearly as squeamish as their English counterparts. It was a hard life up here, and pretty faces and smooth skin meant nothing without a strong back and a willingness to work.

“Mr. Rohan,” she said breathlessly. “Welcome home. Everything is in order for you.”

He was staring at her like a village idiot, and he quickly shut his mouth. “Ready?” he echoed lamely.

“Oh, dear, should I have called you ‘Lord Brandon’ then? My mother said as I should, but the mistress told me not to, and I’m that confused. . .”

His damned mother! He should have known Charlotte Rohan would accomplish the impossible and arrive ahead of him. She hadn’t wanted him to go haring off again, and she’d done everything she could to keep him here.

It wasn’t enough. “Where’s your mistress?” he demanded in a dangerous voice. “I have a few words for her.”

“Last time I saw her she was in the kitchens. Cook is new, you see, and she was trying to explain simple country cooking. . .”

Brandon walked past her without another word, into the house that smelled of beeswax and honey and the earliest of spring flowers, straight into the kitchens that hadn’t been used for more than twenty years. The kitchens that had provided him bannocks this morning, he realized.

It had never looked so good. The massive copper pots were shining, every surface was scrubbed, the ancient flag-stone floor was spotless, and there was only one woman in the vast room, and it wasn’t his mother.

Tammas had been trailing at her skirts with abject adoration, but seeing his master was too great a temptation, and he bounded over to him, whining a happy little greeting, dancing around in joy.

And the woman turned around to face him.

She was beautiful, but there had never been a time when Emma Cadbury had been less than stunning, even battered and bruised and covered in mud. Her color was good—in fact, it almost looked like she was blushing. She’d added some healthy weight to her too-thin frame. Her thick dark hair was in some loose topknot, not the severe arrangement she usually favored, and the sun that speared through the windows seemed to capture bright crystalline wetness in her eyes. Emma didn’t blush, Emma didn’t cry. Emma didn’t suddenly appear where she knew he’d come—she ran away.

But she was definitely here, and she was trying very hard not to cry, her smile a bit wobbly, her gray eyes almost panic-stricken.

The maid from the front of the house dashed in, coming to an abrupt halt when she saw him before turning to Emma.

“Beg pardon, mistress, but Mr. Ellis says I was to inform you that Mr. Rohan has arrived. Er . . . that is . . . Lord Brandon . . .”

“Mr. Rohan will do,” Brandon said, never taking his eyes off Emma. She was trembling slightly, and he wondered what in the world she was afraid of.

He heard the girl scuttle away as they looked at each other. “Ellis,” he said finally. “As in my sister’s butler?”

She started to say something, choked, coughed, cleared her throat and began again. “He was tired of the Lake District,” she said finally. “And tired of the Scorpion’s ramshackle behavior. He wanted a more settled household.”

Brandon had been moving closer, slowly stalking her, but she held her ground, when he knew damned well that part of her wanted to cut and run as she always did. For once she held still, her gray eyes huge and uneasy, as if she were a cornered hare. “Mistress?” he said, and Emma’s flush disappeared.

“I know that’s not appropriate,” she said, eyeing him nervously now that he could almost reach her. “But I didn’t want to be Mrs. Cadbury and a simple ‘miss’ would be more difficult to explain.”

“You’ve never been a simple miss in your life. Mistress will do. Lovers. Bane of my existence. Harpy. Mrs. Rohan. Unless you prefer Lady Brandon. I’d think you’d hate that, but I’m game if you happen to want it.”

There were tears in her huge gray eyes. The tears he had never seen before spilled over, sliding down her cheeks.

“Brandon, you can’t marry me and you know it! The scandal would never go away. I’ll stay with you as long as you want me, but I can’t marry you. You’ve worked too hard to throw it all away on someone like me.”