Tempting The Laird

“They’ve no grounds for distress!” he proclaimed. “I will have you all know that I mean to help her. What sort of men are we to punish a woman’s true compassion? Is that not what we all seek from the fairer sex? The Lord Advocate contends the property is forfeit for housing those traitors a decade ago, but by God, I shall have something to say for it.”

Miss Mackenzie groaned softly and bowed her head.

“And what have you to say for that, Montrose?” MacLaren challenged him. “Is the property forfeit?”

“I’ll no’ pass judgment on events for which I donna have all the facts, sir, and I’ll no’ do so here for your entertainment.”

A ghost of a smile appeared on MacLaren’s lips. If he wanted to find reason to deny him the vote, then so be it. But Hamlin would not be goaded into making a pronouncement on Miss Mackenzie’s good intentions.

“I beg your pardon, Lord Norwood, but what have these women to do with the rebels?” Miss Wilke-Smythe asked.

“You see, don’t you, my dear, that once the rebels slipped away, it was only natural that women and children who had lost their protectors and providers to the same battlefield and desertion would follow? And once they were gone, others who had no place to go, no way to feed their children came behind them. It was a noble calling that Zelda and Catriona undertook.”

“I would argue that,” Furness sniffed. “Seems rather foolhardy and ill-advised to me. Precisely the sort of thing one can expect to happen when one leaves aunts and daughters to their own devices without proper arrangements for marital supervision.”

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