“I am confident Lady Rayland expected nothing less than paying Boyde’s debts on my part,” Aaran admitted.
“And will expect it again and again,” Duncan predicted.
Aaran knew such was true, but what could he do? He was not a man who would turn his heart from those for whom he cared, and he sincerely cared for Boyde Graham, even when he disapproved of his younger brother’s antics.
Before he could respond to Duncan’s observation, His Lordship asked, “Will you also call upon Cunningham’s daughter?”
“Such was not part of my plans for today,” Aaran said dutifully, though the woman was constantly on his mind.
“We will all stand with you and against Cunningham if Lady Freya is your choice,” Duncan assured.
“I held no doubt otherwise,” Aaran replied. “But I have been asking myself if such would be fair to the lady? She would be losing her family—her mother and her sister. Cunningham would never permit his wife and his eldest daughter to acknowledge Lady Freya again. I know firsthand what it is to wish to see your features in the others who surround you.”
“You would instead see her as Sir Patrick Hodge’s wife?” Duncan challenged.
Aaran swallowed the rush of denial upon his lips. “I was thinking perhaps Lady Freya might be a good match for Boyde.”
Duncan shook his head in denial. “According to your sisters in marriage, Lady Freya’s heart is set upon you.”
“The lady’s heart is set on avoiding a connection to Sir Patrick; therefore, both she and Cunningham will approve of her joining to the Grahams—just not to me.”
“I am not so convinced of that,” Duncan admitted. “When you return from your visit with Boyde, you and I should have a serious talk. There are things of which you should be made aware.”
Freya was surprisedby how easily she had managed to reach a sturdy branch upon which to perch, though she would not wish anyone to take notice. Her shirttails were hiked higher than she would like, but she had efficiently removed herself from the bull’s view. “Hopefully, he will quickly find his way back to his adoring throng,” she groused. With a sigh of acceptance, she glanced about to see if anyone had viewed her antics. “No one to know otherwise.”
For nearly a quarter hour, Freya observed the bull’s antics as the animal playfully nudged two different cows, as if attempting each to meet him in the shadows. “Come on, Romeo,” Freya coaxed aloud, though she would not wish to view nature’s act.
Then she heard hoofbeats and looked down to her shirttails, but there was little she could do to cover herself properly. A rider was actually following the road from the main house towards the village. Despite wishing to be rescued, Freya had no desire to be found in a tree. Even so, she took a good hold of the limb and forced herself to call out. “Help! Help please!” The man did not turn to notice her, but the bull did. The animal snorted and pawed the ground several times.
For a frightful moment, she thought the gentleman would pass her by, but he stopped and waved—not to her—but to another rider. Her heart sank as a figure she would know anywhere reined in before the first. “Wonderful!” she groaned in despair, and both men turned together to view her situation.
The younger man frowned, but, as was typical of the other man, the man she was learning to love, Lord Aaran Graham smiled. He turned his horse to climb the hill, while the other rider followed. “Fancy meeting you here, Lady Freya,” Lord Aaran Graham called as he stepped down from his horse.
“She is trespassing on my stepfather’s land,” the younger gentleman declared with a sense of importance.
“Not true,” Lord Graham corrected. “I believe the lady is the niece of Rayland’s clergyman.” Lord Graham was staring up at her exposed legs and grinning widely.
“But she should not be in Lord Rayland’s tree,” the other man, who she now knew must be Lord Boyde Graham, argued.
“Her father outranks Rayland,” Lord Graham said with a frown of disapproval, for her actions or his brother’s absurdity, she did not know. He returned his attention to her dangling legs. “Might you wish to join us on the ground, my lady?”
“I would gladly do so,” she said with a huff of irritation. “However, Lord Rayland’s bull still expresses his dislike of our interrupting his amorous affairs.”
Both men looked to where she pointed. As she had described, the bull remained at the bottom of the hill, snorting and pawing the ground in displeasure.
“Perhaps, Boyde,” Lord Graham instructed, “you might convince the cows to move on so the bull will follow, while I assist Lady Freya to the ground.”
“Why must I chase away the bull,” the younger man argued, “and you assist the lady?”
Freya knew Lord Graham swallowed his first thought. “Instead,” he asked, “are you prepared to marry the girl for taking her in your arms? As I see it, there are no means of assisting her down without doing so. Trust me, her father, Lord Iain Cunningham will use this incident to force you to marry his youngest daughter. His Lordship has chosen a husband for the lady, but as you are both a relatively wealthy lord and Scottish, rather than an English baronet, I imagine Lord Cunningham might change his mind. Moreover, you are young enough that His Lordship might take you under his tutelage.”
“Why would he not do the same with you?” the younger Graham brother demanded.
“For he would rather see his daughter’s reputation in ruins than to present her to the likes of me,” Lord Graham said with only a hint of bitterness in his tone, which Freya thought remarkable considering Lord Graham’s place in society.
The younger lord shook his head in disbelief. “You are an odd one, Aaran. You could buy her father—heck, every father’s approval if only…”
“I would not want that type of approval,” Lord Graham said in hard tones. “Now be about driving the cows away, while I assist Lady Freya down. I mean to call upon your mother this morning.”
