When a Scot Loves a Lady Read Online Free PDF Page B

greetings. Yet he had changed her life.
    He had remarkably high cheekbones, a rawboned borderlands hollowness from the plane of his cheek to his whisker-covered jaw, and his eyes were indolently hooded. Kitty knew better than to trust in that indolence. At least she’d once imagined so, on that night when that dark gaze had seemed to look right through her. Into her.
    â€œWhat brings you to Shropshire, my lord?”
    â€œThe fishing, lass.” A rumble of easy pleasure sounded from his chest behind a coat of excellent quality and no elegance whatsoever. “Catching up frae the summer. Raising mair dails than ye can lig, than, I wis.”
    â€œI see.” She had no idea what he’d said. There was no rationally conversing with a barbarian, even a very handsome one. “Are you lodging here as well?”
    â€œAye. Storm’s a beast.”
    The innkeeper appeared. “My ladies, here’s Mrs. Milch to see you to your chambers. I’ll have dinner laid when you prefer.”
    â€œWe’ve only the mutton sausage, and the gentlemen ate half already.” His wife glowered, swathed from skinny neck to knee in dull cambric. “Nothing else came today but them and the eggs, and I’ll be saving those for breakfast.”
    â€œMutton sausage will do splendidly.” Kitty moved toward the woman, away from the fire and the large man.
    â€œDidn’t expect the Quality to be taking up with us tonight,” Mrs. Milch muttered in a damp voice. “Don’t have anything on hand.”
    Kitty followed her and Emily up the stairs. But at the top she could not help glancing back. Lord Blackwood watched her. No grin lit his face now, only a glint behind the indolence of something cold and sharp.
    That night three years ago his warm, dark eyes had glimmered with that steel. Across a dimly lit ballroom he had looked at her as he did now, and that was all she had needed to redirect the course of her life.
    For three years Kitty had wondered if her imagination had invented that hard gleam to serve her own need at the time. Now she knew.

Chapter 3
    â€œK atherine Savege is here.” Leam scraped the razor along his chin. “And Lady Emily Vale.”
    â€œLady Katherine, the unwed exquisite?” Yale lounged in the chamber’s single wooden chair, playing a guinea between his fingers. Back and forth, gold flickered in the thin morning light filtering through the window. Nothing wasted. The game improved agility.
    â€œThe very one. Haut société . Political. She frequents the Countess of March’s salon,” and through friends at that salon six months earlier, she had sealed a treasonous lord’s fate.
    â€œBeauty and intelligence.” Yale’s gaze remained on the coin. “But the latter would not interest the cretin Earl of Blackwood.”
    â€œHer mother plays cards.”
    â€œAh. More to the point.”
    â€œLady Katherine has a number of close acquaintances on the Board of Admiralty in particular.”
    With a flick of his wrist, the Welshman pocketed the coin. “Not our business, then.”
    â€œNot any longer.” Cold metal swished along Leam’s skin. Soap dropped to the cloth below, laden with the past. “Deuced inconvenient, though.”
    â€œThen why are you shaving?”
    Leam drew the linen from about his neck and swiped it across his clean cheeks and chin. He ran his hand along the smooth skin. By God, it felt good to be civilized again.
    â€œIt was on the schedule,” unlike this detour that kept him from Alvamoor where he should be by now. Damn Jin for changing their rendezvous from Bristol to Liverpool. If it weren’t for the snow, Leam would have left it to Yale and washed his hands of the Falcon Club’s business once and for all.
    â€œWho is Lady Emily?”
    Leam knotted his cravat. “Less than a fortnight off the job and already losing your edge? You were introduced to her at