A Governess Under the Mistletoe: Highland Christmas Book 2 Read online

  Blair turned to her, frowning. “I think ye misunderstand, Mrs. Drummond. I do not intend to stay more than a few weeks.”

  Confusion flickered across her features. “But…Lord Glenrose’s solicitors told us they’d discovered a relation who would serve as guardian.”

  “Aye, I am to oversee the estate and Lady Lavinia’s upbringing until she comes of age. But both can likely be managed from afar. Lady Lavinia is old enough for boarding school, and the estate…” Blair cleared his throat. “I am only here to determine what sort of management the estate requires. I anticipate that will not take long to make out.”

  Much to Blair’s discomfort, Mrs. Drummond’s face sagged with shock and then hardened to stone at his words. Even without speaking plainly, she clearly understood his intentions now. Aye, and by the way she was looking at him, she’d identified him as the enemy.

  “Speaking of Lady Lavinia,” Blair said, eager to break the suddenly frosty silence. “Where is my ward?”

  Mrs. Drummond shifted her gaze to the side. “She is…likely nearby somewhere.”

  Blair’s brows lowered. An odd answer. “I noticed the stairs in the entrance hall, which I assume lead to the rest of the keep’s chambers. Might she be up there?”

  “Ye can of course look, milord.”

  Blair puzzled over that second strange reply as he followed Mrs. Drummond back to the entrance hall. They wound their way up the stairs, which ended one storey up.

  Mrs. Drummond guided him past several private chambers. Blair glanced into the open door of one, which had been fashioned into a schoolroom where Lady Lavinia apparently took her lessons. The housekeeper also indicated Lady Lavinia’s bedroom, but the girl was nowhere in sight.

  By the time Mrs. Drummond had concluded the tour with a gesture toward the wing of servants’ quarters, Blair was beginning to lose patience.

  “Perhaps ye should fetch Lady Lavinia now. I’d like to introduce myself.”

  Mrs. Drummond fiddled with her brown woolen skirts. “There is just one problem, milord.”

  “Oh? And what is that?”

  “Lady Livie, that is Lavinia, she…I cannae say exactly where she is.”

  Blair stared at the housekeeper for a long moment. “But ye said she was nearby.”

  “Och, aye,” Mrs. Drummond hurried to say. “She is in the manor somewhere, I am sure of it. It is just…I dinnae ken precisely where in the manor she is at the moment.”

  Through gritted molars, Blair said, “Please explain.”

  “Milady likes to hide. She kens every nook and cranny of this keep, ye see, and she disappears from time to time. But dinnae worry, milord, she always reappears eventually.”

  Blair felt a headache coming on. “Who was responsible for the lass before I arrived? Ye?”

  “Oh nay, milord. Her governess, Miss Amelia Harlow, ensures that Lady Livie is well looked after.”

  “And where is Miss Harlow now?”

  Mrs. Drummond’s gaze landed on everything but Blair. “She is…out, milord.”

  “Out where?”

  “When Lady Livie’s lessons are done, she often pays visits to the nearby crofts.”

  Blair glanced out the window at the end of the hallway. His tour of Glenrose had eaten what little had remained of the overcast day, and now the sky was turning blue-gray with gloaming. What was more, a soft but persistent rain pattered against the glass.

  “Does she take a carriage on these visits?”

  “Nay, milord, she always goes on foot.”

  “Alone?”

  “Aye, milord.”

  All the budding fondness Blair had begun to feel for Glenrose’s cozy, old-fashioned manor evaporated then. He shouldn’t have let himself grow sentimental over this place, even for an instant, for it seemed his task would be even more troublesome than he’d initially anticipated.

  Apparently he’d inherited not only an invisible ward, but a wayward governess. Miss Harlow could only be one of two things—a dolt, or an indolent shirker of responsibility. Nothing else could explain her decision to leave her charge unattended and go wandering about the Highland countryside at dusk. On foot. In the rain.

  “In which direction did she set out?”

  “Southwesterly, I believe, milord.”

  Blair barely managed to suppress an oath. He’d ridden in from that direction, and if memory served, he hadn’t seen any crofts dotting the rolling landscape for miles before he’d reached the manor.

  It seemed he was not only expected to get the estate’s ledgers in order, but also its staff. With a curt nod to Mrs. Drummond, Blair descended the stairs and strode into the master suite, retrieving his coat, hat, and gloves. Then he headed directly for the manor’s double doors.

  “Milord, where are ye going?” Mrs. Drummond called after him.

  “To fetch the governess,” he replied over his shoulder before slamming the door behind him.

  Chapter Three

  Rain dripped from the rim of Amelia’s hood and onto her nose. She hunkered deeper into her cloak and quickened her pace as much as the muddy, uneven path would permit.

  This was her fourth winter in the Highlands, but it never ceased to surprise her how rapidly—and how early—dusk fell at this time of year.

  She’d lingered at the Timms’s croft, for Isla, Hamish, and Mary had all trudged just as far as she had to join Rabbie for his lesson. She would never deny them a moment of daylight with their readers and slates just to avoid a gloomy, damp walk home.

  Still, the thought of a cup of hot tea, a thick blanket, and a seat by the drawing room’s hearth had her hastening her steps even more. She lifted her skirts out of the way as her boots squelched and slid in the thick mud.

  At the hedgerow marking the corner of Glenrose manor’s grounds, she gave up all propriety and clambered faster. She ducked under the dripping hedge and built speed, preparing to dash the final stretch across the open slope leading up to the keep.

  Just as she broke free of the hedge, a dark blur loomed over her. A horse’s agitated neigh pierced the air, followed by a rough, low curse.

  The breath caught in her throat. Amelia skittered backward, nearly slipping on the wet grass. Somehow she managed to keep her feet, but the horse’s abrupt halt sent clumps of mud and grass dashing across her skirts.

  Amelia blinked up through the rain at the horse and its decidedly fuming rider. He cut a dark figure against the charcoal sky behind him. Rain dripped in rivulets off the brim of his black top hat. Beneath the hat, his hair coiled in damp ebony waves to his hard-set jaw.

  The man’s thick, dark wool overcoat could not obscure the breadth of his shoulders, nor the tension in them as he brought his enormous bay gelding under control. Her gaze traveled up to his face, which was set in rigid lines of displeasure. Above the flat line of his mouth and a straight, hawkish nose, blue eyes as cold as an iced-over Highland loch captured and held her immobile.

  “Are ye the governess?”

  From the smart cut of his coat, this man was clearly a gentleman. Yet he didn’t speak like one.

  What little of her mind she could marshal snagged on the unusual inflection in his voice. She couldn’t quite place it. He certainly wasn’t English—Amelia had yet to hear an accent to match her own since she’d come to Glenrose. A faint trace of the Highland brogue she’d grown accustomed to these last few years curled through his words, yet his accent had been flattened somehow, smoothed of its roughest edges.

  She should have been offended at his sharp tone and blunt question, but all she managed to do for a long moment was stand there in silence. It felt as though she were an insect pegged to a corkboard by those piercing eyes.

  Amelia gave herself a small shake. Whoever he was, he clearly knew about her position at Glenrose. “Y-yes.”

  “What the bloody hell are ye doing out here?” he demanded.

  As the fright from their near-collision dissipated, her wits at last began to catch up. “What business is that of yours, sir
?”

  He reined his horse around, never breaking their stare. “It is my business,” he ground out, “because I have no interest in employing a foolhardy governess who wanders about in all weather, leaving her charge unattended. Nor do I wish to be answerable for one who dies of exposure.”

  Employing? Comprehension rushed over her. Lord Glenrose’s solicitors had written that they’d discovered a distant relation who could serve as guardian to the estate—and Livie.

  Amelia jerked her head down and dipped into a curtsy.

  “Lord Brenmore. I beg your pardon. I didn’t realize it was you.”

  “Word travels faster in the Highlands than the wind,” he muttered. “How do ye know my name?”

  “Mr. Morgan, one of the solicitors handing Lord Glenrose’s will, told us you were to manage the estate until Lady Livie comes of age.”

  Though she kept her head ducked out of respect for her new employer, she could feel his gaze on her. “Ye still haven’t answered my first question. What are ye doing out here?”

  Amelia swallowed. “When my lessons with Livie are complete, I visit the children of some of the nearby crofters. Lord Glenrose gave his blessing for these outings.”

  “But Lord Glenrose is no longer in charge of such decisions.”

  Her head snapped up and despite the fact that she knew better, she stared incredulously up into his eyes. How dare he speak so callously of the deceased? “He was a good man. A kind soul.”

  “I have no doubt of it. But I am now responsible for Glenrose—and all those on the estate—until Lady Lavinia inherits.”

  “Are you rescinding Lord Glenrose’s permission that I may assist the local children in learning their letters and numbers, then, my lord?”

  He shifted in the saddle. “That remains to be decided. But ye ought to prepare yerself for a great deal of change at Glenrose, Miss Harlow. Starting with this—ye are not to go walking alone so close to nightfall, nor in poor weather.”

  Beneath her cloak, Amelia’s hands tightened into knots. In the span of just a few minutes, Lord Brenmore had managed to insult the late Earl, throw the future of the local children’s education into doubt, and restrict her to walking only when the sun was shining—as if that ever happened in a Highland December.

  But what he did next shocked her most of all.

  “Come.” He extended a gloved hand down to her. “I’ll see ye back to Glenrose before this rain worsens.”

  She stared at his hand, then up at him. “I am perfectly capable of walking the rest of the way.”

  He sighed, a white puff of frosty air forming before his face. “Of course ye are. But as I said, I’m not in the business of employing governesses who catch their death while roaming about on some folly or other.”

  She bit her tongue against the retort that helping children on the Glenrose estate was no folly.

  “Come,” he urged again, the edge easing from his voice. “Spare me from becoming damper than I already am and let me escort ye back to Glenrose. Besides, I cannot leave ye out here to accost some other hapless rider.”

  Was it her imagination, or was he teasing her? She ought to refuse. It was entirely inappropriate to share a horse with a strange man, let alone an Earl who was her new employer. But she found herself reluctantly placing her hand in his anyway.

  Instead of waiting for her to notch her foot over his boot and boost herself up, the instant she’d given her hand he lifted her straight off the ground with shocking ease. A startled noise rose in her throat at the feel of his arm wrapping around her, her feet dangling in the air for a fraction of a second before he settled her across his hard thighs.

  As she dropped into his lap, her hood was dislodged. It fell back, leaving her head bare to the icy downpour. A hank of her dark brown hair came loose from the knot at the back of her neck and quickly became plastered to her cheek by the rain.

  Lord Brenmore grunted and shifted her slightly so that one of his hands was free. To Amelia’s stunned confusion, he reached up and tucked the lock behind her ear. Even through his kidskin gloves, she could feel the heat of his hand as it brushed across her cheek with surprising gentleness.

  Then he lifted her hood and positioned it over her head to block the rain once more.

  He reached around her to grip the horse’s reins, one arm cradling her back and the other hovering just in front of her stomach. Beneath her, she could feel the corded muscles in his thighs clench as he urged the horse into motion.

  Unexpected—and unwanted—heat bloomed across her skin. No man had ever been so familiar with her. His nearness, his size, and the hard contours of him under her, around her, made her lungs compress almost painfully.

  This close, she could see the dark shadow of black stubble along his angular jaw, and the fine lines etched around those frosty blue eyes. Had they been formed from laughter?

  More likely from scowling, as he was doing now. He certainly cut an imposing, and frankly downright fearsome, figure. Yet he fascinated her, as the stripes on a tiger no doubt fascinated a lamb.

  He kept the horse to a slow walk, but the animal’s gait still sent her rocking in his lap. Despite her best efforts to keep a modest distance between them, her shoulder repeatedly bumped into the wall of his chest. He didn’t seem to notice, however, for he kept his flinty gaze fixed on the manor house as it rose before them, his jaw locked tight against further conversation.

  Amelia remained silent as well, though inside, a riot of thoughts crashed through her.

  Who was the Earl of Brenmore? What was the man’s character, and what did he intend for Glenrose?

  And what on earth was she to make of the way his nearness sent a rippling, warm awareness coursing through her?

  Chapter Four

  Their arrival at Glenrose manor gave Amelia cause to put some blessedly cooling space between them once more.

  Lord Brenmore helped her dismount, then led his horse to the stables before returning to enter the keep with her. As Mrs. Drummond hustled forward to take the lord’s gloves and hat, he turned to Amelia, pinning her with a sharp gaze once more.

  “I have a few questions about my ward,” he said, shrugging out of his overcoat.

  “Oh?”

  “Aye. To begin with, where is she? Mrs. Drummond said she was hiding.”

  Amelia busied herself unfastening her cloak. “Yes, she does that.”

  Lord Brenmore made a displeased noise, but before he could growl another question, his attention was diverted by a pale orange blur coming down the stairs. Scone, the manor’s large tomcat, went straight to Lord Brenmore and began sniffing his boot.

  “Scone, leave the master alone,” Mrs. Drummond chided, shooing at the cat as she departed to hang their soaking outer garments.

  Scone was undeterred, however. Finding Lord Brenmore’s boot acceptable, the cat sidled his body against the Earl’s trouser leg, leaving a smattering of pastel orange fur plastered to the dark material.

  Frowning, Lord Brenmore shook his leg, but the fur did not budge from the wet wool. “Who is this?”

  “This is Scone, Lady Livie’s pet,” Amelia replied.

  “And why is he inside and not in the stables catching mice?”

  Oh, honestly. How could anyone be grumpy with a cat he’d only just met?

  “He is quite domesticated, I assure you.” she said. “He was rather a nuisance a few years ago, what with the trail of kittens he left in his wake. But instead of drowning or shooting him, one of the crofters suggested that he be castrated as farm animals are.”

  Amelia cleared her throat delicately, feeling a blush rise to her face. Why was she talking about castration and bastard kittens to the Earl?

  “It worked, and he’s become quite tame,” she concluded hastily. “And he’s almost inseparable from Livie. In fact, his appearance is a good indication that she is close by.”

  Still frowning, Lord Brenmore swung his gaze over the entrance hall. His eyes snagged on the spiral staircase. Sure enough, Am
elia caught a flash of strawberry-blonde ringlets and one wide blue eye before the girl ducked behind the stones.

  Ignoring the cat weaving between his feet, Lord Brenmore strode purposefully toward the stairs. “Lady Lavinia,” he said in a loud, gruff voice. “Please come down. I should like to meet ye properly.”

  The pattering of the girl’s slippers told Amelia that she’d fled, but Lord Brenmore continued on to the stairs. Realizing that he meant to continue after Livie, she hastily darted forward and gripped his arm to halt him.

  And halt him she did. He stopped and spun toward her so abruptly that Amelia nearly crashed into his chest.

  “I—forgive me, my lord.” She yanked her hand back from his sleeve.

  Perhaps he’d been right when he’d accused her of being foolhardy. She had no right to grab him, but she’d acted rashly to avert what was sure to be a disastrous and perhaps even damaging first encounter.

  “Forgive me,” she repeated, “but I fear that a forced introduction will only strain matters between you and Livie. You must understand that she’s been through a great deal of late. Her father passed only six months ago, and now her home and her future have been placed in the hands of a stranger.”

  He pursed his lips, but instead of chastising her for her boldness, he said, “Why do ye and Mrs. Drummond call her Livie instead of Lavinia?”

  The question caught her off-guard. “We don’t stand on formality here at Glenrose—that was as the late Earl wished it. Livie has always been…unconventional. She is lucky her father sought to encourage rather than quash her spirit. He extended the same liberty to those he employed.”

  “And he died six months past?” Lord Brenmore scrubbed a hand along his jaw. “The solicitors must have sought me at Brenmore before locating me in Edinburgh.”

  He tsked softly, as if that displeased him, but Amelia wasn’t sure why. Before she could ponder that further, he continued.

  “I understand what it is to lose a father,” he murmured. “And also that all of ye have had to find yer own way these last several months.” His eyes tightened ever so slightly. “But I meant what I said before. There will be changes at Glenrose. It would be better for all involved if that inevitability is accepted.”