Love Practically Prologue #2
He had arrived in a burst of ribald laughter and youthful scuffling—Lord Dennis’s, not his own. Mr. Carnegie had stood behind his friend, arms folded, expression wry and watchful. There had been a quiet sense of noticing about him, a steadiness that had instantly drawn Leah in.
Granted, it hadn’t hurt that he looked remarkably dashing in the red coat of the 64th Regiment of Foot.
The crimson wool caught the auburn highlights in his blond hair and accentuated the sharp line of his jaw.
Her eyes had stubbornly followed him—noting the liquid grace of his walk, the way his shoulders tilted toward a person as he listened, the kind gentleness in his tone.
Not that Mr. Carnegie had spared a glance for the awkwardly shy Scottish lass Leah knew herself to be. None of the gentlemen in attendance did.
Though . . . Mr. Carnegie appeared to be noticing her now.
In the lamplight, his gaze skimmed her, likely taking in the unadorned linen of her night rail, the homespun wool of her thick stockings, the tattered edge of her shawl. She pulled the garment closer.
Leah knew her features were a study in nondeterminate mediocrity—bland and vacillating.
Her hair was not quite blond, nor brown, nor auburn, but some unflattering mix of the three.
Her hazel eyes changed color with her moods—brown to green and back again.
The rest of her—body, bosom, height—remained stubbornly average.
If Mr. Carnegie found her lacking, his expression didn’t show it.
He cleared his throat. “You seem to have the advantage of me, Miss . . .” His voice drifted off, a ruddy flush climbing his cheeks. “I know we were likely introduced, but my memory for faces is not the best, and I fear with all that has happened, your name has plum slipped my mind.”
He said the words kindly, but Leah experienced a sinking sensation nonetheless.
She was forgettable. She knew this, and yet . . .
“Miss Leah Penn-Leith, at your service, Mr. Carnegie.”
He winced. “Of course, you have the manners to remember my name.”
“As your Christian name is Fox, it does have a tendency tae stick.”
He smiled at that, teeth flashing and sending a zing of pleasure chasing her spine. The sensation was akin to winning first place in the jam-making contest at the Fettermill Summer Fair. (Which she had done. Twice.)
More to the point, his grin rendered him boyish and young, too young to be in a soldier’s uniform. Was Mr. Carnegie even older than herself?
“I must apologize for Lord Dennis.” He nodded toward his friend, sleeping beside him. “I fear he mistook your room for . . . another’s.”
“Another lady?” The thought was rather shocking. That Lord Dennis would have entered a woman’s room, crawled into bed with her, and the lady would have . . . welcomed it?
Lascivious, indeed.
“I shall say nothing more upon the matter, as it involves some delicacy, as you might imagine.”
Well, Leah hadn’t been imagining it, but now . . .
Her eyes dropped to the long fingers dangling over his knees. What if it had been Mr. Carnegie’s gentle hands reaching for her? Would she have pulled away so quickly?
She looked away, a blush scalding her skin.
“Regardless,” he continued quietly, thankfully oblivious to her wayward thoughts, “I noticed when we parted that Lord Dennis had gone down the wrong corridor, so I followed hi—”
Wham!
Another door banged down the hallway, causing them both to jump.
Someone giggled.
Mr. Carnegie frowned and sent a speaking glance toward the door. “I fear it might be a while before we can make an escape unseen, Miss Penn-Leith.” He nudged Lord Dennis’s prone body with his foot.
Leah nodded.
They sat in silence for a moment. It was a companionable sort of thing, as if they were comrades in arms, waiting to complete an important tactical mission.
Having been raised by a stoically silent father, Leah understood that silence was often a conversation unto itself.
Sometimes it could be as soothing as an embrace, as understanding as a long blether.
Other times, silence was a noisy thing—loud and shouty and demanding attention.
Not everyone was fluent in the language of silence, but Mr. Carnegie appeared to have mastered it. Quiet felt peaceful in his presence.
Leah liked him all the more for it.
The scent of shaving soap and sandalwood drifted over her. It was a remarkably masculine smell, the sort that rendered a young woman weak-kneed and pliable, willing to make all sorts of poor decisions.
Keep your wits about ye, Leah!
“So . . .” she began, floundering for a topic, “uhmmm, Fox . . . that is an unusual given name.”
“I suppose,” he snorted. “My father was quite fond of Mr. Charles Fox’s politics. I was named in his honor.”
Leah was unsure how to respond. The name Charles Fox was vaguely familiar. Hadn’t Mr. Jamieson, the town glazier, once said something rather crude about Mr. Fox when he thought no women were present?
“He was always a bit of a radical, Mr. Fox,” Mr. Carnegie continued as if he, too, were eager to have a topic to discuss.
“He championed revolution, hated imperialistic warmongering, and detested our current Hanoverian kings. My father was rather passionate about Mr. Fox’s pacifistic views and democratic principles. ”
Something caught in Leah’s chest at that.
My father was. Past tense.
She understood something about a past-tense parent.
“Do ye share your father’s views then?” she asked, looking pointedly at the brass buttons on his regimental waistcoat, at the monarchy and imperialism they represented.
He followed her gaze, plucking at the sturdy red wool.
“It hardly matters now, I suppose.” He shrugged and looked away, the lamplight casting his profile in stark shadow upon the wall behind.
Footsteps echoed down the hallway, drifting away from her door. Lord Dennis muttered in his sleep.
“How did ye end up as a commissioned officer then, if I may ask?”
Mr. Carnegie rested his head against the wall with a soft thump, as if the question troubled him. “I was orphaned last autumn, but I will not reach my majority for another two years. Worse, my father lost most of his fortune due to poor speculation, leaving me with little.”
Leah’s heart gave another wee lurch. So he was young . . . only nineteen.
“My uncle became my guardian after my father’s death,” he continued.
“Unlike my pacifistic father, my uncle believes a man must do his duty and go to war when needed. I cannot say I relish the thought, but I must provide for myself and I have no interest in the Church. Therefore, the military is the only choice left. Uncle purchased me a commission in the 64th Foot, and here I am.”
Living a life I never really wanted.
He didn’t say the words, but she heard them nonetheless.
Leah knew that in-between feeling. When the smooth sailing of life crashed into a hard, unforgiving calamity.
“I ken a bit about change. My mother died two years past when my youngest brother was born—” She blink, blink, blinked before swallowing back her grief. “—and my father is still heartbroken over her loss. My younger brothers are too wee tae be without a mother, so I’ve had tae become their mamma.”
Leah let out a slow breath, thinking about Malcolm and Ethan back home at Thistle Muir.
How Malcolm, barely five, had greited and clung to her skirts as she walked to Uncle Leith’s waiting carriage.
How Ethan, scarcely two, had wailed his distress, reaching for her, fighting to get out of Cousin Elspeth’s arms.
It had been too much. Leah had nearly turned back and stayed.
“Get on with ye. Go tae London,” Elspeth had urged, holding Ethan tighter. As a lifelong spinster, her father’s cousin had spent her years being passed like a parcel between relatives. “Get yourself a husband, lass.”
Leah’s father had stepped forward and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead.
“Aye,” he said, voice gruff and eyes suspiciously bright. “Your mother wouldnae want ye tae be here. Go have a wee adventure. And if ye come back tae us married to some braw, young gentleman, so much the better.”
Well, Fox Carnegie certainly fit the definition of a ‘braw, young gentleman.’
“How challenging for you, to be raising your brothers,” Mr. Carnegie replied, hair glinting in the firelight. “To take on so much, so young.”
“You are kind tae say so, but we do what we must.”
He sighed, a weary, body-worn sound. “You speak truth.”
Silence descended.
A silence of kinship this time. A sense that, despite the differences in their upbringing and experiences, she and Fox Carnegie saw the world through a similar lens.
That they were, perhaps, cut from the same cloth.
He angled his head toward the door, listening intently. “We might finally be in the clear.”
“Let me check.”
Leah approached the door on light feet, pressing her ear against the dark oak.
Nothing.
Cautiously, she turned the lock and peered out into the hallway.
No one.
“How does it look?” he asked, his words close to her ear.
Leah jumped slightly, looking to him. Mr. Carnegie was scarcely a foot away. So close, she could see a faint mole to the right of his nose and count his individual eyelashes. So close, she could feel the heat of his body. So close, she would only have to lift onto tiptoe to press her mouth to his.
She blinked.
What had he asked?
“Good.” Was her voice breathless? She felt breathless. “The coast is clear.”
Nodding, he stooped down and hefted Lord Dennis upright once more. His lordship’s eyes fluttered open and closed. Mr. Carnegie adjusted his hold, draping Dennis’s elbow over his own shoulders and wrapping another arm around the man’s waist.
“Thank you again for your kind company, Miss Penn-Leith,” Mr. Carnegie whispered. “We shall remove ourselves, and let you see to your slumber.”
He saluted her with his free hand and then he was gone, slipping out the door with his burden as soundlessly as he had entered it.
But the feel of Fox Carnegie lingered. A whiff of sandalwood. A sense of adventure in the air.
Sleep was decidedly long in coming.