Tempting the Laird by Julia London

Author:Julia London
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HQN Books
Published: 2018-04-16T18:55:04+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE MEAL WAS SUPERB. Catriona was certain she’d never tasted food so well prepared, and she was not shy about eating what was served. The goose was succulent, the asparagus a pleasant surprise. And there was a wonderful cake to finish the meal.

The Blackthorn Hall dining room was not as large as the one at Norwood Park—that one would seat three dozen—but she preferred this one. It was intimate and warm, and the fire in the hearth thankfully drowned out the sound of rain lashing at the windows.

The extra place settings had been cleared away, and the two of them sat at one end of the table. Stuart and a footman served them in perfect unison. They spoke of Miss Guinne’s illness while they dined, of childhood illnesses they had endured. Montrose claimed he had never had an ague.

“Impossible!” she cried.

“Entirely possible,” he countered.

“Perhaps if you were an only child. Were you an only child, then?”

“I’ve a younger brother, the Viscount Brownglen. But as the heir, I was separated from him if he fell ill.”

“Ah. I’ve three brothers and one sister, and if one of us was struck down, all of us were,” she said. She told him about a room at the top of Balhaire, long and narrow, where the five of them would lie in their sickbeds to keep from infecting the rest of the castle. “We use it still,” she said with a laugh. “I’ve many nieces and nephews.”

“Your childhood sounds as if it was idyllic,” he remarked.

“It was,” she agreed. “It was before the rebellion, of course.” She shrugged, thinking back to the time of greater fortune than what her family enjoyed now. “We’ve always been together. And what of your childhood, your grace? Was it idyllic?”

He glanced thoughtfully at his plate and shook his head. “My mother died when Charles and I were verra young. My father was stern and scarcely around that I recall. We were left to the care of governesses and tutors.”

“Oh.” She felt a swell of sorrow for him. Her family was tight-knit, particularly during the dark days following the failed Jacobite rebellion of 1745. “I’m sorry for you.”

He smiled sheepishly. “Thank you, but that’s the way of a duke’s family, as I know it. The duke produces the obligatory heir and the spare, and leaves them to the seat to be reared properly.”

She knew enough from her mother’s upbringing to know that was true. “Has your father been dead long, then?”

“Thirteen years.”

He didn’t say more, and she didn’t press him. She had the sense it was not a pleasant memory for him and turned the conversation to horses.

When they finished the cake, Catriona leaned back in her chair and put her hand over her belly. “That was delicious, your grace. I must compliment Aubin the next opportunity I have. I’d no’ have thought him the sort to turn out a meal such as this, aye?”

Montrose chuckled. “He came to Blackthorn Hall claiming to have great culinary skill. I said he must prove it was so.

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