Well, maybe not as sweet as she looked. Evie began to relax as she took Megan’s hand.
“You arrived at the perfect time,” Belle said, setting aside her book. “Curry has brought tea. Perhaps you ought to set it down, Curry.”
Curry made a show of depositing the tray carefully on a table. “Earl Gray, Oolong, and Darjeeling,” he announced. “Whatever your preference, miss. And Cook has put on her famous cakes.”
“Excellent,” Beth said. “Thank her for me, Curry. Ian.” Beth led Evie past Jamie’s sisters and the tempting tea tray, to where his father sat, still writing his equations. “Come and meet Miss McKnight.”
For a moment, Ian did not respond. The pencil continued to scratch, Ian writing numbers with neat precision. At the end of an equation, his hand finally stilled.
Ian deliberately lifted the pencil, turned it perpendicular to the writing, and laid it down in the exact center of the paper. He straightened his back and unfolded to his feet, turning in silence toward Beth and Evie.
Jamie moved to Evie’s side as Evie gazed up at Ian, blinking a little when Ian did not greet her.
Jamie touched Evie’s arm. “This is her, Dad.”
Ian flicked his gaze to Jamie, his golden eyes meeting his son’s. “I know,” he said, as though Jamie was a simpleton.
Evie extended her hand. “How do you do, Lord Ian?”
Ian moved his gaze from Jamie to Evie’s slim hand, suntanned and sturdy.
Without a word, Ian reached for her, but instead of shaking the offered hand, he tucked it into the crook of his arm. Turning, he led her across the large room to a set of chairs near one of the windows. The nook provided a nice vista to the park across the road on a sunny day, a cozy corner with the drapes closed at night.
Jamie started after them in some worry, but Beth pulled him back, a pleased smile on her face.
“Let him get to know her,” Beth said. “Megan, will you give us some music?”
Evie felt her tension and hurt fade a bit as Lord Ian Mackenzie assisted her to a chair and took the one facing her.
Behind them a sweet melody sprang up from the piano, one neither too loud and dramatic, nor too soft and cloying. The music spoke of joy, serene and untroubled. Evie had no idea what the song was, but she found it soothing.
Ian’s eyes were like pieces of dark gold. He closely resembled Jamie, or what Jamie would become in twenty-five years. Lord Ian was a solid man, large hands resting on his knees, his face hard but handsome. No softness about him. His physique spoke of long walks across the Highlands through sun, wind, and rain.
Like Jamie’s, Ian’s kilt was well-worn but obviously comfortable. Thick socks encased firm calves, and Ian wore his coat loosely closed over a shirt with no waistcoat, as Jamie did.
Jamie tried to emulate him, Evie saw with sudden insight. Jamie admired this man and wanted to be everything he was.
Perhaps that was Jamie’s pain. He feared he’d be compared to the famous Lord Ian and always be found wanting. Maybe many had already done such a thing.
Evie had suffered loss, but Jamie’s heartache was loving this father and knowing he could never be exactly like him.
Ian said nothing at all. He didn’t meet Evie’s eyes but still managed to gaze at her with the intensity of an alert lion. He gave her no hard, unscrupulous once-over, as Sir Hector Atherton had done when Hayden had presented Evie to him. Ian simply took her in as though waiting to decide what he thought of her.
Evie could have broken the silence with an awkward and inane statement about the weather or his lovely house, or glanced across at Jamie for reassurance. But as the moments stretched, she found she had no wish to do so. Ian didn’t sit mutely because of any distressing reason, but because he knew there was no need for words.
The lovely music drew to a close, but Megan began another piece immediately. The fire, which was low on this spring night, relaxed Evie further with its warmth.
“He believes he has to live up to me.” Ian’s voice held the low rumbling note of Jamie’s, but with a subtle difference. He spoke with the experience of years, in the manner of one who had suffered greatly but found peace, and who’d learned the value of stillness. “To be what they expect him to be as my son.”
Ian didn’t elaborate on who “they” were, but Evie understood. They were the world, those who judged Jamie because he was Scottish, wealthy, and the son of a supposed madman.
Evie did not answer, somehow knowing Ian did not expect her to.
“He is the most wonderful boy in the world,” Ian continued. “The perfect gift.” His eyes softened, crinkles appearing at the corners. “Because his mother gave him to me.”
Evie couldn’t curtail her reaction to that. She reached forward before she could stop herself and laid her hand on his strong arm.
Lord Ian didn’t like to be touched, people whispered. Very odd about it, but then, that entire family is mad.
Evie quickly withdrew, but Ian captured her hand before she could return it to her lap. He deliberately enclosed it in both his big ones and gently squeezed.
“You are a gift,” he informed Evie. Lord Ian briefly met her eyes, like a flash of sunbeam escaping a cloud. “A gift for him.”
“Oh.” Evie now understood why Beth Mackenzie had fallen in love with this man, and why Beth was so serene. She sensed that their long marriage was full of deep awareness, a love that needed no reassurance. “You are very kind, sir.”
Ian’s brows drew together the slightest bit. He carefully settled Evie’s hand back on her lap and released her. “It is not kindness.”
He hadn’t been giving her platitudes, she realized, but speaking the truth as he saw it.
“I understand.” Evie gave him a nod.
Ian waited a long moment, then he returned the nod, but as one who’d been told it was the polite thing to do.
His instincts were different, Evie perceived. Not wrong, not worse, only different. Right for him.
Megan began another piece, again with a sweet complexity that was more powerful than dramatic, banging chords. “What is this music?” she asked Ian.
“Beethoven. One of his Bagatelles.”
Evie’s brows went up. “I never knew he wrote such lyrical music.”
“He did.” Ian’s eyes softened again, and the hint of a smile became a real one. “Megan plays it perfectly, and with all her heart.”
“She is very talented,” Evie agreed.
“She is also a gift.”
The proud parent shone through. Evie saw that Ian loved his children with more intensity than anyone would comprehend. She hoped the three of them comprehended it—sometimes it was difficult to discern a parent’s love.
This had never been a difficulty in Evie’s own family, where her father and mother had showered their daughters with love and affection since their birth. They’d managed to without coddling or overindulging them, which, Evie reflected now, had been quite a feat. She must ask her mother for advice when she had her own children.
Her heart plummeted. She was no longer an engaged young lady, looking forward to her marriage and to filling her nursery.
And yet, there was relief. The idea that she would not have to marry Hayden made her limbs slack with gladness.