Free Waking the Princess by Susan King Page B

trouble of learning their names. He was a brilliant poet, but a featherhead about names." He turned the newspaper page. "I prefer to call her Muriel."
    "What about Bonnie Jean and Wee Jean?"
    "Bonnie Jean—that happens to be her name. And Wee Jeanie, who scrubs in the kitchen, is Eliza."
    "So that's what you call her."
    "Aye." He sipped his steaming coffee. "I consider it fair to show respect for the servants. Mrs. Gunn still calls the maids the Jeanies. She clings to my father's rules out of habit, perhaps because she misses him still."
    "His presence and influence are everywhere here."
    "True." Aware that she watched him steadily, Aedan held the newspaper up like a shield and tried to concentrate on a column that reported Queen Victoria's public schedule. The royal family would soon arrive at their Highland home of Balmoral, he saw, and the queen and her consort planned to attend the opening of the Glasgow Waterworks on October the sixteenth.
    Scarcely two months, he thought, before his highway must be completed. He lowered the paper to glance at Christina Blackburn. How remarkable that this petite, lovely creature had the power to prevent him from meeting his obligations.
    He turned the newspaper page, and when Christina rose to go to the sideboard, he stood when she did, then sat again to read the paper. He had eaten his fill earlier of the variety of foods arranged there. She selected fruit, porridge, eggs, and toast and carried her plate toward the table, pausing at the window.
    "What's that?" she asked. "Beyond the trees—that arch of stone in the sunlight?"
    Aedan looked up from his paper. "That's the Remembrance. It's a monument to the ancient princess of Dundrennan."
    "How romantic! It looks like a medieval ruin."
    "It's quite old. And it may be wildly romantic, but it's a maintenance problem—crumbling stones, mildew, so forth."
    "Still, you must be proud to have it here on the estate."
    He stood to hold out her chair while she sat again. "It is nicely picturesque," he admitted, glancing through the window at graceful arches surrounded by trees and roses. Odd how Christina Blackburn made him see familiar things with a fresh perspective. "My father hired stonemasons to restore the arcade and clean up the stone. You must see it before you leave." He sat and took up his newspaper again.
    "My brother might like to sketch it, if that would be allowed, Sir Aedan."
    "He may draw it to his heart's content, madam," he murmured, and turned another page. He was acting coolly toward her, but needed the distance. Since her arrival, he had revealed too much of himself. Now he must reel in any lines he had cast out. The woman was only a business acquaintance, and in a few days she would be gone.
    Yet he felt as if he had known her all his life, as if she were a missing puzzle piece, newly discovered, that fit neatly and essentially into a space he had not even known was empty.
    He frowned, but could not resist peeking at her over his newspaper.
    She ate discreetly but with nice appetite, something he liked in women, who sometimes ate like birds due to silly notions about appearance and propriety. Amy regularly skipped breakfast and nibbled at luncheon and dinner, and fainted, albeit prettily, now and then, from hunger or tight stays.
    He sipped his coffee and began to open his mail, finding a frantic plea from the Parliamentary Commissioners for a firm date on the completion of the road. Scowling, he pocketed the letter.
    "Sir Aedan," Christina said, "am I late this morning? There is no one else about. My brother will be down soon, but I thought others might be breakfasting. It is nearly eight o'clock."
    "You and I are the early risers this morning, but for Mr. Stewart, who has gone into Glasgow. Lady Strathlin has gone back to Balmossie to be with her children—they have a little boy and an infant girl. My aunt and my cousin are rarely seen before ten-thirty when they are here, and then they eat lightly. Mrs. Gunn is a good