The Sins of Lord Lockwood (Rules for the Reckless #6)(15)

She would have liked the Countess of Forth, too. His mother had been hot tempered, elegant, strong willed. She had loathed a sidesaddle, and spoken fondly of her youth, when women had sometimes stepped out wearing only a single petticoat, and had “the full use of their limbs,” as she’d put it, allowing them to tramp for hours across hill and dale.

He missed her. He missed her even more now than in the year immediately following her death. While his father had still lived, they had remembered her together, so often and so openly that she had seemed still to hover between them. But now, with both parents gone, Liam felt truly alone.

An image came to him suddenly, vivid and frightening: his own figure, reduced to slightness by the looming debts, the crumbling estates, the hungry and hollow-cheeked tenants staring toward him in search of hope.

The Countess of Forth would not be his solution. But he needed to find one quickly. For while life could be a grand adventure for a gentleman born to his station, money was the trick—and without it, this adventure would quickly become far more unpleasant, not only for himself.

“Are you thinking of England?” asked the countess.

Startled, he lied: “No.” Then, with a frown—could she also be a witch?—he asked, “Why do you wonder?”

“You had a very grim look on your face.” She cut him a mischievous look, and then laughed.

He found himself startled again. One moment she seemed like a plain gorgon. The next, her wit flashed out, dry and clever, and when humor lit her face, she abruptly seemed beautiful.

He cleared his throat and fixed his gaze on the trail. If she was not the solution, then she was at least his temporary hostess on this mountain, and he would treat her with respect.

Not with leers. He would reserve those for the solution, he hoped. His father had not strayed, and had not raised Liam to do so, either.

“England’s beauty is less dramatic,” he said, “but no less remarkable. Surely you’ve visited the Lake District?”

“I have never been south of the border.” His unconcealed surprise made her laugh again. “Is that so unimaginable?”

“Most ladies of your station do spend a season in London, at least.”

She shrugged. “I never saw the use.”

A thousand objections sprang to mind. What kind of cramped and calloused soul proved indifferent to the lure of strange places, distant cities?

But he was determined to be pleasant for the remainder of their walk. “Was it here, then, that you met Professor Arbuthnot?”

“Yes, at his lecture in Edinburgh. Every scientist of note passes through that city eventually, and when I am in residence, I attend all the engagements.”

For a woman of such broad mind, it seemed very odd that she did not wish to explore the world. “You must have impressed him a great deal,” Liam said. “He took far less interest in my work as an undergraduate.”

“Oh, I privately suspect that the good professor has a weakness for redheads.” She winked at him.

His jaw nearly dropped. “I . . . see.”

“I approached him after his lecture, inquiring about his work on the spectroscope. I was having some trouble reproducing his results, you see. He was tremendously kind to take the time to explain my error. And later he proposed a most ingenious way to simplify the whole business, which proved useful for little fingers.”

His glance dropped down to her hands; she gave him a sideways smile.

“Not my fingers.” She held them up. “These hands I have heard my own aunt call paws. ‘Manly paws,’ to be precise.”

His denial was automatic: “Nonsense.” But in truth, her hands matched the rest of her: uncommonly large for a woman.

She snorted. “Flattery only appeals when rooted in truth.” She stretched her hands to their full span and beamed at them. “Far from little! But I’ve dozens of cousins with children of their own, and their hands still have growing to do.”

He realized he was smiling. Women often took opportunities to slight themselves in order to invite his compliments. But Lady Forth looked visibly pleased with, even fond of, her own supposed flaw. His reassurances would be superfluous. “So the children assist your experiments, then?”

“Of course.” She looked startled. Was she blushing? Some marvelous glow spread across her skin, darkening the freckles on her plump, rosy cheeks. “Did you imagine that I . . . Goodness!” Now she grinned, a toothy and entirely unself-conscious expression of delight, girlish and deeply charming. “You were imagining me as a true scientist, weren’t you? Presiding over experiments of my own design!”

She sounded delightfully gratified. He said, “I confess, the vision held appeal.”

“Alas! Perhaps if I’d been born a man. Or born a Nightingale, even!” She shrugged. “I’m no true scientist, sir. I took an interest for the sake of my estates—it seems that every day brings some new revolution in agricultural chemistry. But from there, I kept reading. We live in such a marvelous, modern age—I like to keep abreast of new discoveries.”

“And to keep your small cousins abreast as well.”

“It does entertain them. And when all of them are under the same roof, you would not believe how useful it proves.”

“Oh, I believe it.” For part of the journey, he had shared a train carriage with an apologetic matron and her five small boys. The nanny gave sudden notice, she had said weakly to him, as the boys ran riot over the benches. “That must make a pretty picture, all the children gathering to assist you.”