A Very Highland Holiday - Kathryn Le Veque Page 0,36
through him, so did another indisputable fact. One hundred and fifty years later, he was still a nobleman, one tasked to uphold honor.
And she was a lady deserving of his respect and deference.
Goddammit.
He bloody turned around.
The rustles of her unseen actions intrigued and tempted him, but he clenched his fists and forced himself to stay right where he was.
“I’m Miss Vanessa Latimer.”
He heard the towel hit the ground and this time was able to bite into his fist. Death, it seemed, did not diminish desire.
“Johnathan de Lohr,” he finally gritted out. “Earl of Hereford.”
“I don’t think so,” she laughed over the sound of her belt buckling.
“Do you presume to tell me I don’t know my own name?” he asked crossly.
“Not at all, but I’ve been introduced to Johnathan de Lohr, Earl of Hereford at the Countess of Bainbridge’s ball a few years past, and have it on good authority that he’s very much alive. As far as I know, there was not an Earl of Hereford who died at Culloden.”
He frowned, bloody irked by the entire business. “And how would you know that?”
Her rueful sound vibrated through the dimness. “My mother always wanted me to marry a peer, so I’ve studied Burke’s more than the Bible, the encyclopedia, and most literature combined. More’s the pity. I find it tedious in the extreme.”
“I was hardly Earl long enough to make it into the annals of Burke’s.” Hope leapt into his chest. News of his kinsmen never traveled to this place, and he always wondered about the fate of his family. “Tell me about him? About the Hereford you met.”
“Well…” She drew the word out as if it helped her retrieve a memory. “He’s attractive but not in that charming, handsome way of most gentlemen. More like brutally well-built. Tall and wide, golden haired like a lion. His hand was warm and strong when we were introduced. And his eyes…his eyes were…” She drifted off, though the little sounds of friction and fabric told him she still dressed herself.
“Blue?” he prompted after the silence had become untenable. De Lohr eyes were almost invariably blue.
“Yes. But I was going to say empty.”
“Empty?” he echoed.
She made a melancholy little sound. “He stared at me for a long time, and I could sense no light behind the eyes. They were cold and hollow as a hellmouth, I’m afraid.” She seemed to shake herself, her voice losing the dreamy huskiness and regaining some of the crisp starch his countrywomen were famous for. “But worry not, he’s possessed of an impeccable reputation and an obscene fortune, so you should be proud of your legacy, all things considered… When were you the Earl, my lord?”
“Please, call me John,” he requested. “I’ve technically no title now; I died during the Jacobite rebellion of seventeen forty-five. My brother, James, became the Earl after I perished at the battle of Culloden.”
“You had no heir?”
A bleak and familiar ache opened in his chest. A void that existed whenever he thought of the life he didn’t have the chance to live. “I had no wife.”
She made that noise again, one that made him wonder what she was thinking. That made him want to turn around to search her beautiful face. Her remarkability was evidenced in the description she’d made of his kinsman. Most people, when asked, would recount reputation and accomplishments, not impressions of one’s soul behind their eyes. Miss Vanessa Latimer observed the world in a different way than most.
“It remains strange to me,” she was saying, “that you are here. Culloden is miles and miles away.”
“Yes. Well. I’ve gathered from listening to locals that we English won. That Scotland is firmly beneath the rule of King and Crown.”
“Queen,” she corrected. “Queen Victoria.”
“Still?” he marveled. “Surely she’s dead by now.”
“She’s ruled for fifty-three years. Though, while we’re on the subject, I don’t know many Scotsmen who would deign to call themselves British, though we are technically united under one sovereign. It’s no longer a blood-soaked subject, but it’s still a complicated one, even after all this time.”
Of that, he had no doubt. “I always respected the Scots. I fought because it was my obligation. I was no great supporter of the Stewarts or the bloody King. The de Lohrs prosper regardless of what idiot ass sits on the throne, but we do our duty by our birthright, and sometimes that means going to war.”
“Why, then, do you think you’re stuck here haunting a small village inn some seventy miles from Culloden?”