The Duchess (Montgomery/Taggert 16)

“James the First, of course. Elizabeth the First turned all of England over to a Scotsman. All the rest of the English kings and queens are descended from Scotsmen.”

Trevelyan stood and walked toward the bed to look down at her. “What a romantic you are. Do you always tell yourself what you want to believe?”

She lifted herself to her elbows. “I know my history and—”

“Bah!” he said. “James the First spent only the first few months of his life in Scotland. He was as English as your young duke, and our present queen, Victoria, is more German than she is English.”

Claire well knew all this, but she much preferred to ignore it. “Just the same—” She broke off when he left the room. She lay back on the bed and smiled. It was rather nice to talk to someone who knew some of the things that she did. Actually, it was just plain nice to talk to anyone at all, about anything. She got off the bed and went into the sitting room. He was already back at one of his tables and writing.

“How—?” she began, but he turned on her.

“If you stay you must be quiet. I can’t abide chattering while I’m working.”

“If you’d tell me what you’re working on, I might be able to help you.” Just the thought of having something to do made her feel better than she had in days.

“Can you read Arabic script?”

“No, but I can—”

“Then you are of no use to me. Go and sit there.” He nodded toward a cushioned window seat. “Get a book or take some paper and a pen.”

Claire went to the window seat, sat on it, and looked out the window. She had to open the ancient iron hinges to be able to see, as the glass was old and too imperfect to be able to see through. She looked across the gardens to the woods and the heather-covered hills beyond.

She sat there for a long while, breathing the sweet, cool Scottish air and looking at the hills. After a while she turned and saw that Trevelyan was staring at her. He seemed able to read her thoughts, but she had no idea what he was thinking.

As usual she was startled by the intensity of his eyes and the greenish cast to his skin. “Are you very ill?” she asked softly.

“I have been,” he answered curtly and it was obvious that he didn’t want to talk about his health. “Do you read or are you one of those simpering misses who is capable of doing nothing for days on end?”

“Are you always bad-tempered or is it just me?”

He almost smiled at that. “I’m the same for everyone.”

“Horrible thought,” she said under her breath.

He did smile at that, and she saw that he didn’t look so ill or quite so ugly when he smiled. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, he interrupted her. “Don’t start asking me questions again.” He stood and went to two small oak doors imbedded in the stone walls. When he opened the doors she saw there were books inside. She gasped and came off the seat to stand by him, and, as he had his hand on the top corner of one of the doors, she slipped under his arm to see the titles on the books more clearly. She was unaware of how Trevelyan looked down at the top of her head. He leaned forward to smell her hair. It smelled of sunshine and heather and he had difficulty controlling an urge to put his lips against her neck.

Claire didn’t know what was happening to her, but suddenly her body broke out in gooseflesh. As though she’d been scalded, she jumped away from him. “I…I think I ought to leave.”

He was again wearing that infuriating look on his face, his eyes lazy looking, almost hooded. Under his mustache, his lips curved into a slight smile as he pulled a book from the shelf. “I thought you wanted to read. Ah, here’s one. Tibet Rediscovered. Oh, no, it’s in Italian.” He started to replace the book on the shelf but she snatched it from his hand, staying as far from him as possible.

“For your information, I can read Italian, but, as it happens, I’ve read this book. I’ve read all of Captain Baker’s books. I told you I had.”

“So you did. So then I doubt they bear a second reading.”

“I have read the parts that I like repeatedly.”

“What does that mean, ‘the parts you like’??

??

“Why do you take criticism personally? The man wrote on every aspect of everything he saw. Some of it was quite boring.”

“Such as?”

He had taken a step closer to her, but, frowning, Claire moved back. “His descriptions of wagons, for instance,” she said quickly, looking away from him. “He would measure them and tell all the dimensions of the wheels and the seats and the length of the thing. He’d go on and on until a reader could scream.”

“You should not have taxed your small brain with his books if you didn’t like them,” he said softly, teasingly. “You—”