Free Once Upon a Tartan by Grace Burrowes Page A

defensible as an information-gathering expedition—also a pleasant respite after a demanding journey—but his time was limited, and each day had to count.
    “This is Hannibal. He’s Uncle Ian’s horse, but he’s getting on. If I’m tall enough, I can have him when Uncle says Hannibal needs a lighter rider.”
    Hannibal was every bit as substantial and elegant as Flying Rowan, but there was gray encroaching on the horse’s muzzle, and above his eyes, the bone structure testified to advancing years.
    “Wouldn’t you rather start off with a pony, Fiona?”
    She stood beside him on a sturdy trunk, her hand extended through the bars into the horse’s stall, and yet Tye could feel every fiber of her little being go still. “Mama says I can’t have a pony until I’m nine.”
    “That seems a very long way off.” To a child, even a few months could feel like forever, and a year or two an unfathomable eternity.
    “It is forever , a terrible, awful, perishing long time.” She turned around, and with a hearty huff, plopped her backside onto the trunk. “Mama never changes her mind. Aunt Hester says Mama is the Rock of Gibraltar on matters of importance. I think she’s stubborn, and Uncle Ian once told me I wasn’t wrong. I’m stubborn too—so is Uncle Ian.”
    Tye had to wonder about a belted earl sharing confidences with a girl child, but then, here he was himself, attempting the very same thing. He took a seat beside his niece on the trunk. “Does your mother have a reason for making you wait such a terribly, awfully, perishing long time?”
    “Yes. Mama has a reason, and Papa says it’s a sound reason, so I must not wheedle. Her reason is this: ponies are small, but I am going to be a great, strapping beauty, and so I will outgrow ponies very quickly. The longer I wait for my first one, the fewer ponies I will outgrow. Mama wanted me to wait until I was twelve, but Papa said I was already quite tall, so Mama compromised. They had an argument.”
    “Arguments can be loud.”
    “They go in the bedroom and lock the door. It isn’t loud. Sometimes I hear Mama laughing.” She hopped off the trunk and crossed the aisle to lean over Rowan’s half door. “He’s very handsome.”
    Tye remained where he was, oddly reluctant to pry further information from the child. “Will you miss Rowan when he goes?”
    She whirled, which caused the gelding to startle in his stall. “You just got here. You can’t be going away so soon! Why doesn’t anybody want to stay with me? Aunt Ree is too old to travel, and Aunt Hester is only here for the summer to look after Aunt Ree and me. It isn’t fair.”
    She turned again to extend a hand to Rowan. The gelding overcame his nerves enough to sniff delicately at her fingers.
    “He smells that fish,” Tye said. “Would you enjoy traveling, Fiona? Seeing the sea and the north country, Edinburgh and London?”
    She was quiet for a moment while Rowan went back to lipping his hay. “I’ve been to Aberdeen. There are lots of horses there, everything is made of stone, and it smells like fish by the sea. I don’t like the ocean.”
    “Come here.” He patted the place beside him. “There’s a menagerie in London, and the royal mews too, which is where the great golden coronation coach is.”
    She scrambled onto the trunk and crammed right up against his side. “Is it really made of gold?”
    “Sit with me for a moment, and I’ll tell you about it.” He tucked an arm around her small, bony shoulders and tried to recall what had first impressed him about the coach when he’d seen it as a small and easily enchanted boy.
    ***
    Augusta MacGregor, Countess of Balfour, worried about her cousin Hester, and thus Ian MacGregor, Earl of Balfour, was prone to the same anxiety. The girl looked far too tired and serious for her tender years.
    “Is Fiona running you ragged, Hester?” Ian bent to kiss his pretty cousin-in-law’s cheek, catching a pleasant whiff of lemon as he