A Scottish Love

Chapter 1

Cora looked at the garden, then back to her painting. Her brush made slight scratches on the canvas as she overlaid the first layer of paint. Her wide brimmed hat protected her eyes and face from the warm early summer sun, her old smock catching the bits of paint that leapt from the canvas as the paint was gently applied. The back garden sang to her, the first roses beginning to release from their buds in a chorus of reds, yellows, light pinks and whites.

Cora heard a faint argument coming from the house, her mother and oldest sister Alice's voices raising in the morning, their mother concerned about the time Alice had returned home last evening. Alice's reply was muffled, but Cora knew what she was saying.

"Mother!! I am not a schoolgirl anymore! The party at the White's didn't end until dawn! It would reflect badly on me if I had left before the party ended."

"Alice, who brought you home? Did the Whites bring you back?"

Intelligible screeching.

"As kind as Sir White is, he shouldn't have had to send his butler and a maid in his carriage to see that you and the other young ladies got home safely. You need to go home with William when we send him where you are. That is a lack of courtesy on your part. I was awake and worried about you until you came home!"

Alice simply screamed this time. Cora heard it and shook her head. The Season had made her usually levelheaded sister act in a careless manner. Alice was so concerned about finding a suitable match this Season that she was getting desperate. She was on her way to going on the shelf soon if she didn't find a suitable man this Season.

Maybe love would find her if she wasn't looking so hard for it.

Catherine walked in the small rose garden toward Cora in her white morning dress, light blonde hair already pinned in place with a matching white hat with long lavender ribbons, shaking her head. "Painting again, Cora?"

Cora looked at Catherine and smiled. "How is your morning so far?" she asked lightly, looking up at her pretty older sister's pale blue eyes.

"I want to find whoever came up with the marriage mart and slap them. Hard."

Cora shook her head. "It is intolerable, what a young lady has to go through to be properly wed."

Catherine side-eyed her younger sister. "You don't seem very worried about the whole thing. Do you expect Father to support you for the rest of your life?"

"I fail to see what that has to do with marriage. There are plenty of ways to earn money without having a husband."

"Like what? Painting?"

Cora flinched at the blunt words. "Even if I felt the way you do, I cannot have an understanding with a man or marry if you and Alice have no suitors or engagement with a suitable fiance first. That is the way of things."

Catherine's light blue eyes looked thoughtful. "Or, maybe not."

Cora watched her sister closely. "Do you know something that I don't?"

"Possibly," Catherine smirked slightly. "I do believe that I'll let Mother tell you about this."

Cora tossed her paintbrush into the case, already irritated. "Why can't you just tell me?"

Catherine shook her head mischievously. "I can't, but I will say this. Remember the old Marchioness of Tamberly? Apparently, her only daughter ran off and eloped with a Scotsman laird named Banner thirty years ago. They had two sons together, and then the oldest son had only daughters. That left the younger son's eldest son as the heir."