Love Practically (The Penn-Leiths of Thistle Muir, #1)

by Nichole Van

“I cannot say, Madeline,” he replied, licking his lips and willing the contents of his stomach to stay put. “There are . . . impediments.” Namely his suit before the Court of Arches and a tentative truce that allowed him to keep Madeline in his care. “Im-ped-i-ments,” she repeated slowly, as if savoring the word and committing it to memory. Damn, but she looked like her mother.

I know you are not in a physical state to do anything about it. But I felt it best for you to hear as soon as possible. A certain man (I am sure you can surmise of whom I speak) has been most persistent in his pursuit of your lady, Miss Honoria Hampstead. I know you have been helping to settle her late brother’s estates in the West Indies. I don’t think anyone expected the man to leave all his property to his younger sister, but unfortunately, her newfound wealth has made her the target of every fortune hunter in Madras . . .

She liked this about him, she realized. The ease with which he owned his wrongs and apologized, just as he had the morning after their wedding.

And the few moments she did speak with him, he was either charming and warm or irritable and snappish. There was no in-between. The barometer of his moods was entirely tied to the fullness (or lack thereof) of his whisky decanter.

Much-needed servants arrived thanks to Mr. Ashcroft and his list at the Old Drover’s Inn. The innkeep was rapidly becoming Leah’s own staffing agency.

Leah frowned, staring at the closed door to her room. How had the dratted cat slipped into her bedchamber? As if hearing the question, he peered over his shoulder at her. And then, in an answer to it, he leapt up and used his front paws to grab the door handle. The weight of his body released the latch. The door swung open and Mr. Dandy sauntered out, bushy tail held high in mockery.

And Scotland had never had a history of priest holes or other such hideaways. No, instead Scotland had

Creeping closer, she finally saw it. The faintest outline of a door in the paneling, cleverly hidden but noticeable as it was currently slightly ajar. Found ye. Leah carefully opened the door, peering inside. Just as she had surmised, a series of steep steps led downward, cut into the stone wall that bordered the great hall. At the bottom, a hole in the wall—the hollow underneath the plaster that she had seen from the hall—let in sunlight from the enormous room below.

Tis the Laird’s Lug,” she whispered in return. “The . . . what?” “The Laird’s Lug—or the Lord’s Ear, in English. Most Scottish castles have them. ’Tis a wee hidey-hole that allowed the laird tae overhear what was being said in the great hall.” “A spy chamber of sorts.” “Aye. Precisely.”

The puff of Fox’s laughter brushed her ear. “Clever lass. Both of you.” Leah flushed at the gentle compliment. And still, he held her. Would that she could hold the moment forever.

She glanced back down at Fox’s shirt, now crumpled and wrinkled. It still smelled of sandalwood and leather and man. She meant to set the shirt back on the chair before the hearth. Truly she did. But, somehow, it remained in her hand right until the moment she slipped it under her pillow.

And then had smiled up at him, looking so earnest and clever, Fox had to forcibly stop himself from kissing her. Such wayward desires had been tempting him with greater regularity. The nip of Leah’s waist pleaded for his hands. The slope of her throat begged for his lips. His arms often felt empty, and he knew that only the warmth of her body could fill them. It was the most exquisite torture.

“Aye. Mrs. Carnegie’s brothers—Mr. Malcolm and Mr. Ethan Penn-Leith have arrived. Are ye at home to visitors?” His wife’s brothers? And ‘at home,’ as if he were a lordling in Mayfair?

Ethan followed his bow with an enthusiastic handshake and infectious grin. His accent was more subtle than that of his siblings, more akin to Lord Hadley’s refined Scottish brogue.

“You’re unhappy,” Malcolm said on a frown. The first words he had spoken. He lifted his head and speared Fox with a hard stare. “Why isnae my sister happy?” The accusation punched the air from Fox’s lungs. His wife wasn’t happy?

If I know ye at all, ye are working yourself to the bone and taking everyone else’s problems as your own. ’Tis no way tae begin married life.”

Theirs might be a marriage of convenience, but he didn’t need to neglect her.

Instead of coaxing concerns out of her, he been waiting for her to lay them at his feet.

The first with a cook who had prepared an elegant meal—mulligatawny soup, roasted venison in onion gravy, stewed partridge, and treacle tart for dessert.

“when I was in India, I once bet my friend, Captain Lord Dennis Battleton, that he couldn’t pet a tiger.”

Drink had a way of bringing his roots to the surface.

Given that they were into June now, darkness came late this far north.

How she ached to melt into him, to soak up the heat of his body. Even drunk, Fox held an unshakable allure.

I’ve been content for a span of years, but I cannae rightly remember when I was last genuinely happy.

“I was happy when those I loved most were not yet dead.” An immense weight sank through his words.

“Whenever I think about times I felt happy, I realize now they were merely—” He flicked the hand not draped over her. “—spaces of naivete. I was happy then because I didn’t know what I know now. I was only happy because I was ignorant.”

Laudanum? What—?! “I took a direct hit from a raj’s saber.” He pointed at his neck and the scar there, tracing a path from his throat down his chest, indicating the length of the wound. Pushing off the wall, he leaned back into her and began slowly climbing the stairs again. “I should have died. I wanted to die at times, the pain was so intense. But I had Susan waiting for me, depending on me, and so I took laudanum instead. Anything to live.”

“Susan . . . and Madeline.” “Madeline.” “They were in Madras, you see. Alone, without me.

“I was too far gone into laudanum. My body had healed, but at what cost? I was an opium-eater . . . useless to help Susan or care for Madeline. I couldn’t protect them. I couldn’t stop what happened from . . . happening.” His voice caught. Leah’s heart nearly broke at the pain in his words. An opium-eater?

“If I wished Madeline . . . to have a future, I couldn’t take laudanum. Had to make myself fit to care for her.”

“Fishing.” He said the word quietly, as if testing its shape in his mouth. “I do like fishing . . . Used to go with Dennis and Honor—” He stopped mid-syllable. Honoria.

“I inherited a fortune from my miserly uncle. The one who . . . forced me into the military in the first place.”

So something had happened with Honoria, as the letter had warned. Something that Honoria’s riches had precipitated.

“I might be a very foxed Fox,” he hiccupped again, “but I can manage to avoid telling you everything.” Leah nearly smiled at that. She knew it was not helpful, but she liked this teasing, bleeding-heart drunk version of Fox.

Something rumbled deep in his chest, not unlike a cat purring. “I like your hands on me.” Oh! Not quite the confession Leah had expected. Thankfully, the dark stairwell masked the intensity of her firecracker cheeks. Well, that is good, because I like putting my hands on you. “There is no harm in that. I am your wife, sir.” Leah sounded as breathless as she felt.

“I wager . . . I wager you kiss better than Honoria, too,” he said. The words dropped between them like a torch onto dry logs on Bonfire Night. Whoosh. Leah’s entire body burst into flames.

To her—horror? surprise? delight?—Fox took her lifted chin as an invitation. He dragged his nose up her neck and then followed the same path again with his lips, leaving fire in his wake. Her breathing hitched and every nerve in her body flared to life, destroying all coherent thought. Involuntarily, her eyes rolled back in her head, her chin lifting helplessly higher to give him further access. His mouth on her throat sent butterflies pulsing along her skin and amassed a cloud of wings in her chest. “Love . . . smell . . . wife.” He continued nuzzling her neck.

Courage. She could summon the courage to do this. “Fox, I like your hands on me, too,” she whispered. He grunted and continued to nuzzle her neck.

Fox Carnegie had been kissing her throat and, finding the experience so transcendent, he had promptly . . . fallen asleep.

Unable to help herself, she pressed a kiss to his temple, pausing to breathe in the sleepy male smell of him. She ran her hand through his hair, tracing her fingers from his temple down to the scratchy whiskers of his jaw. Wishing with all her might that she had his permission to do so anytime she wished.

He swore the smell of her still lingered in the morning air, on the collar of his shirt, on the tips of his fingers.

“How did ye sleep, husband?” she asked, perhaps a bit louder than was strictly necessary. All three men blanched. Leah tried hiding a smile and failed miserably. Fox should have been annoyed. Truly, he should have. But instead he found it—found her—adorable. The mischievous light in her eyes. The way her lips twitched, trying to stifle an impish grin. Granted, his wife appeared quite delectable this morning.

When had his wife morphed from merely attractive to this vivid, lush beauty? More memories rose, vague but . . . tantalizing. The scrape of her fingernails on his scalp, gooseflesh skittering . . . The press of her soft chest against his . . . The feel of her throat, smooth and impossibly delicate under his lips . . . But, frustratingly, he could remember nothing more. What had happened last night?

Instead, Fox recalled his last fishing excursion—Dennis laughing, Honoria flirting, himself basking in a happy glow, oblivious to the shattering future just months away— Fishing itself was a lovely activity. The memories, however . . .

He might be uninterested in a true marriage between themselves, but she could try to be a good friend to him. And, she suspected, he would be a good friend to her in return.

He spat Honoria’s name and reverenced Susan.

Questions burrowed their way into her psyche. What had Susan been to Fox to so thoroughly earn his love? To become a woman he would discuss with such unabashed, open affection? What had Honoria Hampstead done precisely to merit such scathing anger?

You are precious cargo, and I should suffer the torments of Hell were anything to happen to you. Leah flipped the letter over, reading the signature: Your soon-to-be wife, Susan.

The motion felt meditative, nearly spiritual.

Why had it taken him so long to go fishing again? Even if the last occasion stood as a red-flag warning? That time . . . Dennis, Honoria, and himself had journeyed up the Adyar River that ran through Madras.