When a Scot Loves a Lady Read Free

trained his tongue to suppress as a youth. And yet five years earlier, in service to the crown, he had reclaimed that Scots. Five numb years ago. Quite willingly.
    But no more.
    â€œBella. Hermes.” He snapped his fingers. Two giant shadows emerged from the park opposite. He’d brought the dogs along tonight to sniff out the woman from a scrap of her clothing provided by her husband. Sight hounds by breeding, they were helpful enough in a pinch. The manager of the seedy hotel in which they had run the woman to ground hadn’t minded the animals, and the agents of the Falcon Club had once again found their quarry. Yet another lost soul.
    Of course the pup, Hermes, had stirred up trouble in the hotel kitchen. But Bella hadn’t bothered anyone. She was a good old girl, maistly wonderfu’ contented .
    That made one of them.
    â€œQuite sure you wish to give this up, old chap?” The gentleman on the sidewalk behind Leam murmured into the damp cold. From the tone of Wyn Yale’s voice, Leam guessed his expression: a slight smile, narrowed silver eyes. “Must be satisfying to wrap lovely matrons so easily around your little finger.”
    â€œLadies admire tragic heroes.” Beside Yale, Constance Read’s soft voice lilted with northern music. “And my cousin is very charming, as well as handsome, of course. Just like you, Wyn.”
    â€œYou are all kindness, my lady,” Yale replied. “But alas, a Welshman can never best a Scot. History proves it.”
    â€œLadies don’t give a fig about history. Especially the young ladies, who like you quite well enough.” She laughed, a ripple of silk that relieved the tension corded about Leam’s lungs.
    â€œThe hotel manager’s wife called him a ruffian,” Yale added.
    â€œShe was flirting. They all flirt with him. She also called him a tease.”
    â€œThey haven’t any idea.” The Welshman’s voice was sly.
    No idea whatsoever.
    Leam passed a hand over his face again. Four years at Cambridge. Three after that at Edinburgh. He spoke seven languages, read two more, had traveled three continents, owned a vast Lowlands estate, and was heir to a dukedom possessed of a fortune built on East Indian silks and tea. Yet society imagined him a ruffian and a tease. Because that was the man he showed to the world.
    By God, he’d had enough of this. Five years’ worth of enough. And yet in his heart there was a kind of fighting that would not let him sleep .
    Good Lord. Shakespearean thoughts in the wake of silly females and bad poetry. Brandy seemed an excellent idea after all.
    Leam swiveled on his heels.
    â€œIf you two are quite finished, perhaps we might go inside. The night advances and I have elsewhere to be.” He gestured toward the door to the modest town house before which they stood. Like the falcon-shaped knocker, the bronze numbers 14½ above the lintel glistened in the glow of a nearby gas lamplight.
    â€œWhere elsewhere?” His cousin Constance, a sparkling beauty who at twenty had already sent a hundred men to their knees in London drawing rooms, lifted azure eyes full of keen curiosity.
    â€œAnywhere but here.” He drew her up the steps.
    â€œDon’t set your hopes on that too securely, old chap. Colin has plans.” Yale pressed the door open and winked at Constance as she passed through.
    â€œColin can go hang,” Leam muttered.
    â€œI would rather not.” At the parlor threshold, the head agent of the Falcon Club, Viscount Colin Gray, stood as he had any number of nights, calmly awaiting their return from yet another assignment. The edge of his mouth ticked up ever so slightly. Gray rarely smiled. His was a grave sort of English rectitude, one Leam had admired since their school days. He met Leam’s gaze, his indigo eyes sober. “But if you wait long enough, my friend, you might get lucky.”
    â€œMore likely to be a guillotine than a