Love Practically Prologue #3
The next morning, Leah gathered with the other young women to watch the gentlemen play cricket on the south lawn. Lord Dennis scowled in the outfield, wincing into the strong morning light and hopefully regretting his excesses of the previous evening.
Leah, of course, only had eyes for Mr. Carnegie who played bowler. He had a potent arm and threw the ball into the wickets with deadly accuracy, evading the batter and sending the wicketkeeper scrambling more than once. She cheered him on.
After a particularly fine bowl, Mr. Carnegie turned toward the sound of her voice, meeting her gaze for the briefest of moments, a wee secret smile on his lips.
Leah’s poor heart nearly burst from the joy of it. That he noticed her. That perhaps he felt the same connection that she did.
After the match, Leah feigned retying her boot, timing her motions to allow her to fall into step with Mr. Carnegie and two other young men as they left the pitch. Lord Dennis walked ahead of them, Miss Smith and Miss Wells on each arm.
“Ye played well, Mr. Carnegie,” she said, voice shy. “Your bowling arm is strong.”
He turned to her, his smile so bright she instinctively lifted a hand to shield her eyes.
“Thank you, Miss Penn . . .” He trailed off, a frown denting his forehead.
“Leith. Penn-Leith.” She helped him along with a weak laugh, though her spirits tumbled that he hadn’t remembered her name. “It can be a wee bit of a mouthful.”
“Nonsense.” He had the decency to appear abashed. “I didn’t exaggerate when I said I am terrible with names. Please forgive me.”
“There is nothing tae forgive.”
They walked in that companionable silence. His friends strode ahead of them, flirting with the ladies and teasing Lord Dennis about his sore head.
Mr. Carnegie studied Lord Dennis for a moment and then half-leaned toward her, lowering his voice. “I trust all went well after . . .”
Leah nodded, sharing yet another secret look with him. “No harm done.”
His shoulders relaxed.
“That eases my conscience. Dennis should never have—” He broke off abruptly, shaking his head as if to toss off a thought. “His behavior last night was hardly that of a gentleman. He was suitably chastened this morning and properly begged me not to tell tale to his father.”
“The Duke of Westhampton?”
“Aye. Dennis lives in holy terror of his father’s wrath.”
Leah supposed if her father were a powerful duke, she would live in fear of his fury, as well.
They approached a wee stream which meandered through the lush gardens to the south of the great house. The rushing water appeared to have been there for centuries, but Leah had overheard the under-gardener say the stream was created within the last decade.
Only the wealthiest of people could transform landscape into history at the snap of their fingers.
A charming bridge crossed the stream fifty yards to the right.
But given that their current path was the straightest one from the cricket pitch to the house, some enterprising person had placed a series of stones in the stream, creating a shortcut.
Lord Dennis and the other gentlemen bounded across, hopping from rock to rock, and then turned to help the Miss Wells and Miss Smith across.
When Leah and Mr. Carnegie reached the stream, he followed suit, leaping onto the first stone with nimble feet. Given that Leah had been raised a farmer’s daughter in the Highlands, she lifted her skirts, feeling more than equal to the task of rock hopping.
But then Mr. Carnegie paused, turned, and offered Leah his hand. His bare hand, as he had yet to don his gloves after bowling—slender fingers, broad palm, lifeline grooves crisscrossing his skin.
She watched her own gloved hand lift and press gently in his. Despite the soft kid leather between them, the casual touch flared with a heat that fairly stole Leah’s breath.
Lifting her gaze, she met his smiling blue eyes, so earnest and kind.
“I have you,” he encouraged. “I shan’t let you fall.”
But he was wrong.
Because Leah did fall.
Not into the stream . . . that she managed to cross easily.
No.
Instead, that was the moment Miss Leah Penn-Leith fell in love—completely, irrevocably—with Mr. Fox Carnegie.
Joy bubbled through her veins, effervescent and intoxicating.
He saw her. He cared.
They shared a . . . bond.
Surely, this was love.
That night, her eyes followed Mr. Carnegie at dinner—noting his slightly sun-burned nose from the afternoon’s play, the playful tilt of his head as he bestowed clever ripostes on Miss Smith over the soup course.
Miss Smith, of course, giggled from behind her blond curls at the attention.
But even in that moment, Mr. Carnegie glanced toward Leah, again meeting her gaze, again with that same secret smile.
And once more, Leah’s heart skipped and frolicked and kicked up a merry mayhem in her chest.
After dinner, her riotous thoughts would not leave her be.
The house party ended tomorrow. What would become of this burgeoning . . . something . . . between her and Mr. Carnegie? Would she ever see him again?
If Mr. Carnegie felt anything similar, he did nothing to act upon it. Instead, he and Lord Dennis sat together, laughing, in one corner of the drawing room.
Finally, Leah could take the suspense no more. Pretending to be entranced by a large portrait of a stallion, she edged close enough to eavesdrop on the gentlemen’s conversation.
Shameless, but desperate times and all that. Leah was nothing if not resourceful.
“. . . not quite sure I believe your protestations, Carnegie,” Lord Dennis was saying. “I think you fancy her.”
Leah’s pulse sped up. Were they speaking of her then?
She bent forward, inspecting the horse’s hooves and praying her scorching blush did not give her away.
“Don’t be coy,” Lord Dennis continued. “She is your type of chit, and well you know it.”
“And what type of chit would that be?” Mr. Carnegie sounded amused.
Lord Dennis snorted. “Blond, buxom, and flirtatious.”
Leah’s breath left her lungs in a deflated whoosh of air.