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He nodded slowly. “So I understand, and I do appreciate his help in that matter. And yours, for the care you gave to my sister when she was ill.”
“We did our best, Frances, Matilda and I. And God was merciful.”
He let out a low chuckle. “I suspect my sister’s recovery owes at least as much to the marquis’s prompt actions and to your diligence at it does to divine providence.”
Sensing some softening in his attitude, Katherine pressed the point. “So, you will consider giving your consent to the marriage.”
“Iamconsidering it,” he replied. He took another sip of his buttermilk. “But what of you, Lady Katherine?”
“Me? I do not understand.”
“I never met your brother, though I knew of him, of course.”
“I see.” Katherine wrapped her fingers around her own mug.
“You must miss him,” the earl continued.
She nodded. “I do, sometimes. Though Stephen has been very kind.”
“Kind?”
“Yes. He has permitted me to remain here, welcomed me. He did not have to do so.”
“It was rumoured that you and he might wed.”
She peered at him in the flickering firelight. “Was it?” Surely, there had been no gossip beyond these walls.
“Aye. Just speculation, really. I may live in another country, but I like to keep abreast of affairs south o’ the border, especially those which may concern my clan. An’ I can put two and two together. When ye stayed at Elborne, most simply assumed—”
“You put two and two together and came up with five, then. There is nothing between Stephen and me. He loves Flora.”
“Until last summer he had never even met her. You and he have shared Elborne far longer than that.”
“Six months, that is all. We agreed to…to remain here together. I manage the household and he defends it. The arrangement is excellent.”
“Until now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Will ye stay? When another woman is mistress here?”
She gaped at him. Was her predicament so obvious?
“I do not know,” she confessed at last. “I suppose I must, since I have nowhere else to go.”
“Will ye be happy?”
“What a strange question. Is anyone happy?”
He contemplated his buttermilk as though the mysteries of the universe were captured within his mug. “I am beginning to suspect that my sister might be.”
“Yes, well, apart from Flora?” Katherine set her own mug aside. “You mean to give their marriage your blessing, then?”
“I believe I shall. We spoke at length earlier. Apart from Flora’s obvious affection for the man, the marquis makes a fair point regarding the potential strategic advantage of allying the MacKinnons to Otterburn. I am sick of always fighting. Perhaps we might try another way of rubbin’ along together.”
“A truce, you mean? An alliance, by marriage.”
“Exactly. D’ye believe it could work?”
