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Placing the unopened razor horizontally beside the bowl of water would be his signal to Robbie not to shave. Then Nash washed with the same sandalwood soap Robbie would use and splashed water on his face, drying it with the towel one of the timid maids had left.

Dressed, he tied his cravat simply as he and Robbie had agreed and lifted the brown tailcoat from where Robbie had left it on a peg the night before. He had only to run a comb through his hair before slipping from the room.

In the dining room, the servants were just changing the linens from those who had eaten earlier. “Breakfast will be ready shortly,” said the young footman.

Nash nodded. “I shall return then.”

Emily had told him where the orangery was the night before so he hurried to the corridor between the kitchen and the library across from William’s study. At the end, he found a door. The moment he opened it, he was surrounded by warm sweet-smelling air. He closed the door, drinking in the scented air, as enticing as the smells that had awakened him.

The structure he had entered was separate from the house. He did not see the stoves he knew must be the source of heat, nor did he smell any fumes. For some years, hot water had been piped into homes in London from stoves located outside, so perhaps the stoves were in a separate structure.

The orangery had to be thirty feet in length. On one end, backed against a wall of brick, stood a virtual forest of orange trees in rows of large wooden boxes, their brightly colored fruit peeking through green leaves. Emily had certainly been busy in the year she’d been here.

In the middle of the orangery were a variety of plants, some in pots and others in large raised platforms framed in wood. Included among them was the dreaded kale.

One side of the orangery featured wide glass doors, the kind that folded open, allowing the plants to be moved outside in the summer. But even on this winter day, pale sunlight flowed through the angled windows to bring light into the large space.

Outside, the world was covered in winter’s snow but, inside, the scent of the orange trees and flowers dominated, reminding him of his trips to the West Indies.

Several pots of flowers stood on one side. He recognized the yellow hibiscus and brightly colored camellias. More clay pots containing flowers lined the windows. He bent to smell the delicate flowers of the lily of the valley, recognizing the sweet smell as Ailie’s from their dinner the night before. Nearby, the white Christmas rose was just beginning to flower.

As he made his way to the far end, he saw a smaller glassed area. Carefully, he opened the glass door and stepped inside where he encountered even warmer air.

So this is where Emily is growing her pineapples.

Six leafy plants growing in clay pots had been sunk into a rectangular pit strewn with chips of oak bark. Some of the pineapples, their spiny leaves rising in the air, were already yellow ripe. He was impressed.

William had told him the Scots had been growing pineapples for a hundred years, yet Nash had never seen it done before.

Returning to the somewhat cooler main part of the orangery, Nash walked among the orange trees, occasionally glancing toward the windows and the snow-covered ground outside just to remind him where he was in Scotland in December.

When the invitation had first come, Nash had questioned Ormond’s thinking stuffing his friends into a ship in the dead of winter and sailing them to the far edge of the North Sea. But the assignment from Sidmouth that Robbie had accepted for them changed his wonder into a fortuitous opportunity. Now that Nash had met Ailie Stephen, he wondered if it were fate.

Suddenly, between branches of green leaves, a flash of vivid red hair caught his eye. He eased around a tree for a better view. Dashing barefoot through the fruit trees, her long hair flying behind her, was Ailie.

“Can it be the Mistress of the Setters loose in the orangery?”

She gasped and whirled around, blinking, her hand over her mouth.

Slowly, he emerged from the trees. “I have caught you!”

She dropped her hand to her chest. “So you have. And scared me to death in the doing of it. I had no idea anyone was here.”

He came closer, noticing her flushed cheeks. Looking down at her bare toes, he thought of the ladies in London who would be horrified for a man to glimpse a bare ankle, much less bare feet. “Do you often run barefoot in the orangery?”

She let out an exasperated huff. “Every day as a matter of truth. I cannot very well run in deep drifts of snow, now can I?”

He smiled, delighted to have her alone. “I suppose not. I am glad to find you here, though our being alone is not quite proper, is it?”

“You’re a houseguest and you’re in Scotland. ’Tis different.”

“Then I shall look forward to more moments alone with you.” He imagined running with her not through the orangery but through heather on Scotland’s sun-bathed hills. He could imagine lying with her in that same heather. Shaking off his wild imaginings, he asked, “May I escort you to breakfast, Miss Stephen?”

“You may, Robbie. But first, I must find my shoes and stockings. I left them just inside the door.”

“’Tis not Robbie who would escort you, but Nash.” He was used to people mistaking him for his brother, at times he and Robbie even encouraged their confusion, but he did not want this woman to be confused.

“You are wearing the brown coat Robbie wore last evening!” she protested. “’Tis most unfair.” She turned abruptly and headed to the door. He fell into step behind her. When she arrived at her shoes and stockings, unceremoniously dumped in a pile on the stone floor, she turned. “Em… you must turn around while I recompose myself. The task requires a wee bit of time.”