The Highlander's English Bride (The Lairds Most Likely 6)

d with an effortlessly regal air. If he acted like the king of the beasts, he knew where he got it from. "It’s easy to be kind to her. She’ll find her place, Hamish. She has you and God willing, the children that will come. Life will offer consolations for her bereavement. It’s what happens."

Guilt settled like a lump of melted iron in his gut. There would be no children, and he was no consolation to Emily at all. Guilt along with sorrow, because he knew his mother spoke from her own experience after his father’s death eleven years ago.

The lost expression Emily wore was familiar. He’d often seen it on his mother’s face.

He took his mother’s hand and leaned in to kiss her cheek. The familiar childhood scents of vanilla and roses filled his head and made him feel better, despite the fact that he was a child no longer. "You found your way, Mamma. I’m sure Emily will, too."

His mother cupped his jaw in one hand. "You’re a good lad, Hamish. You’ll come through with flying colors. Just listen to your old mother."

He mustered a smile, although that blasted heaviness in his gut wasn’t going anywhere soon. "You’re not old, Mamma. Your beauty is immortal."

She responded with the famous husky chuckle that Lord Melbourne said was worth fifty votes in the House of Commons. "Oh, you’re such a flatterer, my son." She glanced over at Emily who still sat on the sofa, staring into the distance. "I’ll say goodbye to your wife and leave you alone. The two of you must be desperate for some quiet and privacy."

Emily was, he knew. All day, she’d looked strained. Now she appeared brittle enough to snap into a hundred pieces. The problem was that Hamish suspected her idea of quiet and privacy included the absence of her unloved husband.

***

Over the last few days, Hamish had taken his dinner in the library. While the dining room wasn’t overly large, it felt overly large when he sat alone at the head of the shiny mahogany table. Since her father’s death, Emily had retired to her room in the evenings. Avoiding him, he guessed.

He was staring with little enthusiasm at his congealing fish soup when the door opened. He looked up, expecting one of the servants, but it was his wife, still wearing the elegant black dress. Propriety frowned on women attending funerals, but he admired that she’d insisted on being there.

He smiled with surprised pleasure and waved toward a chair opposite the desk that served as his dining table. "Have you come to join me?"

She didn’t accept his invitation, just stared at him out of her wan face as if she expected him to accuse her of some crime. "I thought you’d be in the dining room."

"It’s too lonely. I prefer taking my meals in here." His pleasure ebbed. It was clear she’d come down at this time, specifically because she believed the room would be empty. He waited for her to make some excuse and disappear upstairs again.

She didn’t go. Perhaps she took pity on him when he said he’d been lonely. "This has always been my favorite room in the house."

"Mine, too." He paused and hoped he wasn’t overstepping the mark. "I can still sense your father in the air here. It’s as if he might walk through the door, excited about his latest theory."

To his surprise, a faint smile curved her lips. He was glad to see her step into the room and close the door behind her. This was the first time she’d sought his company since the night they’d returned from dinner at his mother’s house.

"If his spirit lingers, this will be the place." She glanced around the walls lined with shelves crammed with books, mostly scientific texts. "He spent the majority of his life in here."

"I know. It was also where he brought his students when he wanted a private word."

"Because you were in trouble – as you often were."

When he’d lived in this house, he’d been dedicated to his studies, but he’d also been a high-spirited and willful young man. A young man who occasionally kicked over the traces when the capital’s temptations proved too alluring.

"Your father wasn’t one for ranting and raving."

The smile settled for a moment, so full of love that Hamish felt like weeping himself. He wanted to hug her, take her in his arms and tell her that everything would be all right.

"No, he wasn’t. But he had a way of looking so disappointed in you that—"

"That you almost wished he’d shout. I know. I’m sure I’d have been even more trouble, if I didn’t feel that every transgression broke his heart."

Emily ventured forward to sit in front of the desk, exactly where Hamish had sat as a youth, when he’d received a gentle rebuke for disrupting the house. "He always loved you, you know."

"I loved him. He was a great man."

"Yes, he was." For one fleeting moment, he met Emily’s glance, and they shared an unspoken understanding. It was as if they drew together under the benevolent regard of her father’s ghost. "He always believed you would surpass him. He never doubted your brilliance."

A jagged lump of emotion blocked Hamish’s throat. "I didn’t know."

"Well, it’s true."