Page 3 of To My Scot, With Love
“Well, now you’ve seen her. Be ready next time. You can’t be panting after the master’s pretty wife. You’ll find yourself dismissed…or worse.”
3
Mal
Present Day — Twelve Years Later
Thornfield Hall,
Jennings Family Country Seat
Kent, England
February 1796
MALCOLM SET DOWN the bridle he was polishing on the table before him and rolled his shoulders. He tilted his head to the side until that delightful pull stretched across the tight muscles of his neck.
“We’re off to the tavern. You joining us, Campbell?”
Malcolm glanced up, already shaking his head. He caught Wright’s gaze from where the groom leaned against the tack room doorway, tapping his tricorn hat against his thigh. “Nae, next time.”
“You said that the last time,” Wright pointed out. Accurately. Damn the cove.
Malcolm lifted the bridle in one hand and gestured to the saddle slung over a rack. “Still more to prepare for the morrow.”
“That can wait until mornin’. The wenches can’t.” He threw Malcolm a wink.
Malcolm’s lips twitched. The lad was still a young buck, eager to find a willing lass agreeable to a quick tumble. But he was a good lad. Loyal. Clever. Had a genuine heart.
“Best I dinnae go, or else none of the wenches will take ye to bed, aye?”
Wright snorted and started backing away. “I’d call you an arrogant bastard for that statement. But you’ve proved that to be true one too many times.” His face split into a teasing grin. “No idea what they see in your ugly old arse.”
A chuckle rumbled from deep in Malcolm’s chest. “They’re not looking at my arse, lad.”
Wright threw back his head and laughed. “That’s God’s own truth.” And then, with a salute, the man disappeared, his footfalls slowly fading away.
Wenching didn’t hold the same appeal it once had for Malcolm. When he’d first come to work at Thornfield Hall as a lad of eighteen, he’d frequented the village in search for a bonnie lass. Then he’d had a brief stint where he’d been a wee bit wild, falling into bed with a wench or drowning himself in the bottom of a tankard more oft than he cared to admit. But he’d been desperate back then. Desperate to smother feelings he didn’t know what to do with, ones he knew he shouldn’t be having. About a woman who wasn’t for the likes of him.
He dipped his cloth in the beeswax and began working it over the reins. But it’d been near twelve years living with those feelings. He had a handle on them now. He scoffed quietly, the lie ricocheting around the tack room. The work he was doing right now was a glaring example of the falsehood he fed himself.
“Wright told me you declined. Again.”
Malcolm drew in a deep breath and let his frame sag as he released it. Porter.
“The polishing willnae do itself,” he said without looking up.
Footsteps echoed and then paused next to Malcolm. His boss—the aging stable master. The man Malcolm would take over for in a year’s time. The one who had taught Malcolm everything he knew—about working the stables, about being a man. He’d been, in many ways, the only father Malcolm had ever known. And he’d been the one who had dunked Malcolm’s drunk arse in a bucket of frigid water after an especially raucous night out in the village.
Porter had hauled Malcolm back to his own home that night, thrust a hunk of bread in his hand, and let him sleep off the drink. Come morning, he’d delivered a tongue-lashing so sharp, Malcolm still had the scars—figuratively speaking. Porter had laid it bare: the path Malcolm was treading would cost him everything. A position as groom, and eventually head groom, at the Bentley stables was a prestigious, highly sought after position. Arareopportunity, and Malcolm was in line for securing it. It was not something to be squandered pining over a woman Malcolm could never have.
The lecture had been effective. Malcolm’s reckless carousing was a relic of a younger, more foolish man.
Porter dropped down next to him, the bench creaking under their combined weight.
“You’re five-and-thirty, Malcolm.”
Och. Porter Malcolm-ing him? Another lecture was coming. And like any cheeky son would do, Malcolm responded, “You’re eight-and-fifty, Porter.”
