Highland Heiress
Highland Heiress
Margaret Moore
No sooner does wealthy heiress Lady Moira MacMurdaugh breathe a sigh of relief for avoiding a disastrous marriage to a gambling womaniser than she is served with a lawsuit! Torn between duty and this impulsive beauty who stirs him to distraction, solicitor Gordon McHeath has no choice but to go up against the woman whose kiss he’s never forgotten.Until sinister forces threaten to upend Lady Moira’s world and Gordon must cast the law book aside!
It felt wonderful, as if somehow this woman was meant to be in his arms.
Which had to be the greatest flight of fancy his logical, lawyerly mind had ever taken.
‘There you are, safe as houses,’ he said with a smile, trying to sound as if he did this sort of thing every day.
‘Thank you for rescuing me. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t, Mr …?’
‘McHeath. Gordon McHeath. Of Edinburgh.’
‘I am in your debt, Mr Gordon McHeath of Edinburgh.’
Never had he been happier to hear the word debt.
Then, without a word, without a hint of warning, before he could even realise what she was doing, this woman whose name he didn’t even know raised herself on her toes and kissed him.
Praise for USA TODAY bestselling author Margaret Moore:
‘The talented Moore has penned another exciting Regency.’
—RT Book Reviews on HIGHLAND ROGUE, LONDON MISS
‘The story is fresh, fun, fast-paced, engaging and passionate, with an added touch of adventure.’
—The Romance Readers Connection on THE NOTORIOUS KNIGHT
‘Readers continue to ask for “Moore”. Her latest book is a sparkling, dynamic tale of two lonely hearts who find each other despite their pasts and the evil forces surrounding them.’
—RT Book Reviews on HERS TO DESIRE
‘Colourful and compelling details of life in the Middle Ages abound.’
—Publishers Weekly on HERS TO COMMAND
‘A lively adventure with enough tension and romance to keep me turning pages.’
—International bestselling author Roberta Gellis on HERS TO COMMAND
‘This captivating adventure of thirteenth-century Scotland kept me enthralled from beginning to end. It’s a keeper!’
—Romance Junkies on BRIDE OF LOCHBARR
‘Margaret Moore is a master storyteller who has the uncanny ability to develop new twists on old themes.’
—Affaire de Coeur
‘When it comes to excellence in historical romance books, no one provides the audience with more than the award-winning Ms Moore.’
—Under the Covers
Highland Heiress
Margaret Moore
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
USA TODAY bestselling author MARGARET MOORE has written over forty historical romance novels and novellas. She graduated with distinction from the University of Toronto, has served in the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve, and is a past president of the Toronto chapter of Romance Writers of America. For more information about Margaret, including a complete list of all her books, please visit her website at www.margaretmoore.com
Previous novels by the same author:
THE OVERLORD’S BRIDE
COMFORT AND JOY (in The Christmas Visit) BRIDE OF LOCHBARR LORD OF DUNKEATHE THE VAGABOND KNIGHT (in Yuletide Weddings) THE UNWILLING BRIDE THE DUKE’S DESIRE HERS TO COMMAND HERS TO DESIRE THE DUKE’S DILEMMA MY LORD’S DESIRE THE NOTORIOUS KNIGHT HIGHLAND ROGUE, LONDON MISS KNAVE’S HONOUR A LOVER’S KISS THE VISCOUNT’S KISS
And as a Mills & Boon
Historical Undone! eBook:
THE WELSH LORD’S MISTRESS
Did you know that some of the novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
With many thanks to my parents, my husband
and my children for all the support, wisdom
and laughs along the way.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter One
Scottish Highlands, 1817
He had been too long in the city, Gordon McHeath thought as he rode along the crest of a hill toward the village of Dunbrachie. He drew in a great, deep breath of the fresh air. After so many years in Edinburgh, he’d forgotten how clean and bracing the air of the Highlands could be. He’d become too used to the smoke and the smells, the noise and the crowds, of a bustling city. Here the silence was broken only by birdsong and the occasional bleating of sheep or lowing of cattle.
The north-facing slope on his left was covered with gorse and bracken, the one on his right with a wood of birch, alders and pine. The needles of the pine were deep green and their scent came to him on the breeze, making him think of Christmas and dark winter nights, although it was only September. The leaves of the other trees were already turning brown and gold, and he guessed the ground beneath would be muddy and damp and thick with mulch. Through the trees he spotted a fast-moving river rushing between rocky banks that probably teemed with salmon in the spring.
Unfortunately, he’d also forgotten how cold a Highland breeze could be, and those heavy, gray clouds in the distance were definitely moving closer. Unless he wanted to be caught in a downpour, he had to get his hired light brown nag moving faster than a walk.
As he went to nudge his horse into a trot, a dog’s furious barking broke the country quiet. It wasn’t the baying of a hunting hound—more like a watchdog sounding an alarm. A shepherd’s dog, perhaps, or a farm dog guarding a crofter’s hut.
Gordon rose in his stirrups and looked around. He could see no herd of sheep, no crofter’s hut or anything that might require a watchdog.
“Help! Help me!”
The woman’s plaintive cry from somewhere in the wood was barely audible over the barking and rushing water, yet there was no mistaking the words, or the desperation.
Punching his heels into the horse’s side, Gordon tried to make it leave the road and head toward the sound of the woman and the dog, to no avail, for the beast had the toughest mouth of any horse he’d ever ridden and refused to obey, as if it were more mule than horse.
With a muttered curse, Gordon dismounted, threw the reins over the branch of a nearby bush and began to make his way down the rocky, slippery slope between the trees as quickly as he could.
He tore the sleeve of his three-caped greatcoat on a holly bush. His riding boots were soon covered with mud that dirtied the hem of his coat. His hat got knocked off by a dangling branch he didn’t see until it was too late. Reaching down to pick up his hat, he slipped and landed hard and started to slide, until he managed to grab a tree limb.
The dog kept barking, and the woman called out for help again, closer this time, thank God, although he still couldn’t see her.
He scrambled to his feet and as he did, he caught sight of the largest, most vicious-looking black dog he’d ever seen at the base of a tall, slender, golden-leafed birch not far from the bank of the river. The dog of no breed Gordon could name was one of the ugliest he’d ever seen, with a huge head and jaw, wide-set eyes and small ears. It stood with legs planted aggressively, growling, a dribble of saliva dripping from its mouth.
Despite that, Gordon was fairly certain it wasn’t a mad dog. He’d seen a rabid dog once, frothing and wild-eyed, moving with an uneven sideways gait, and he would never forget it. Nevertheless, he would keep as far from the beast as he could.
“Are you hurt?” The woman’s voice came from the same direction as the dog, her accent telling Gordon she was no peasant or shepherdess.
“No,” he called back.
Who was she? Where was she? He couldn’t see anyone near the dog, or that tree, unless… As he came cautiously closer, he peered up into its branches.
There she was, her arms wrapped around the trunk, standing on a branch that, although she was slender, looked barely able to support her weight.
Despite the circumstance, he couldn’t help noticing that she was also exceptionally pretty, with fine features, large, dark eyes and dark curls that peeked out from beneath a daffodil-yellow riding bonnet. Her whole riding habit was that same color of velvet—hardly the outfit of a thief or vagabond.
“I’m all right. Are you injured?” he asked as he considered what to do about the situation, especially that threatening, growling dog.
He had a pistol in his indigo greatcoat, for no man traveled alone and unarmed in this part of the country if he could avoid it, but shooting the animal should be a last resort. It might, after all, only be doing what it was supposed to do, if the young woman had ventured onto private land, for instance.
So instead of taking out his pistol, he bent down and picked up a rock that fit comfortably in the palm of his hand. He’d been a fairly skilled cricket player in his school days, and he prayed his aim hadn’t deserted him as he threw the rock at the dog’s hindquarters.
It struck the animal hard enough to draw its attention; unfortunately, it didn’t run away.
He swiftly searched for another suitable missile that would be heavy enough to make the beast leave, but not to seriously hurt it. A solicitor, he could easily imagine an irate farmer bringing a lawsuit against him for killing his dog that had been dutifully protecting his property.
“This branch is creaking. It’s going to break!” the woman cried.
And that would be a long way for her to fall.
He grabbed a rock slightly larger than the last. It was covered with mud and slippery, but he managed to lob it at the dog before it slipped from his gloved hands. It sailed through the air, bits of dirt and debris flying off it before it landed squarely on the dog’s back.
Finally the dog fled, loping away through the trees toward the river, where they could hear it splashing.
“Oh, thank you!” the woman cried as Gordon hurried to the foot of the tree. “I was afraid I’d have to stay here all night!”
He could see her better now. She stood balanced on a branch that was only about three inches thick, her arms wrapped around the slim white trunk. In addition to her velvet riding habit, the young woman, who looked to be about twenty, wore tan kid leather gloves and boots. Her skin was fair and smooth, her lips rosy and bow-shaped, and her big coffee-brown eyes regarded him with admiration.
“I’m happy to be of assistance.”
“I was lucky you were riding by,” she said as she began to climb down with unexpected alacrity, “and equally fortunate I spent so much time climbing in my father’s warehouses when I was a girl, or I daresay my fate would be worse.”
Warehouses? Of course, her father must be rich. That would explain the velvet. He wondered if she had a mother, brothers, sisters or possibly a fortunate husband.
His curiosity on that point was momentarily suspended when the hem of her dress got caught on a smaller branch, revealing first her booted foot, then her shapely ankle, then her equally shapely, stocking-covered calf….
Good God, what was he doing? Or rather, not doing? “I beg your pardon. Your dress is caught.”
“Aye, so it is,” the fair unknown replied, tugging it free while a blush added more color to her smooth cheeks. “I had no trouble getting up in the tree when I was afraid that dog would hurt me, but getting down is a different matter.”
“Allow me to assist you,” he offered when she reached the lowest branch about three feet from the ground.
Although he wasn’t quite sure exactly what he was going to do, Gordon stripped off his muddy gloves and shoved them into his pocket before stepping forward.
Not that he should touch her. That wouldn’t be proper.
On the other hand, surely these were exceptional circumstances.
She spared him having to come up with a plan by putting her hands on his shoulders. He lifted his arms and grabbed her around the waist. Then she jumped.
Her action was so quick, so confident, he wasn’t quite prepared and nearly lost his balance. They both would have fallen to the ground if he hadn’t immediately put his arms around her.
He didn’t even know her name, yet holding her in his arms felt undeniably…right. No, better than just right.
It felt wonderful, as if somehow, this woman was meant to be in his arms.
Which had to be the greatest flight of fancy his logical lawyerly mind had ever taken.
Worse, he was blushing like a schoolboy, although he was nearly twenty-nine. Nor was this the first time he’d ever held a woman in his arms.
“There you are, safe as houses,” he said with a smile, trying to sound as if he did this sort of thing every day.
“Thank you for rescuing me. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t, Mr…?”
“McHeath. Gordon McHeath, of Edinburgh.”
“I am in your debt, Mr. Gordon McHeath of Edinburgh.”
Never had he been happier to hear the word debt.
Then, without a word, without a hint of warning, before he could even realize what she was doing, this woman whose name he didn’t even know raised herself on her toes and kissed him.
Her lips were soft, her body lithe and shapely, and her touch sent a rush of fire flashing through his body.
Without thought, acting only on instinct and need, he put his arms around her and pulled her closer. His heartbeat thundered in his ears as he slid his mouth over hers, gliding and grazing, until he coaxed her to let his tongue slip into the moist warmth of her willing mouth. His hands slowly explored the contours of her arching back, caressing her supple spine, her breasts pressed against his rapidly rising and falling chest.
Her hands moved upward, cupping his shoulders from behind, her body relaxing against his.
God help him, he had never been kissed like this. He had never kissed like this. He didn’t want to stop kissing like this….
Until he remembered that he was no Lothario, but an Edinburgh solicitor, and she must be from a well-to-do family, perhaps with a father or brothers, or even a husband.
At nearly the same time, she drew back as suddenly as if a wedge had been driven between them. She flushed as red as a soldier’s coat and swallowed hard, while he wondered what on earth he should say.
She spoke first. “I’m…I’m sorry, Mr. McHeath,” she said, her voice as flustered as her expression. “I don’t know what came over me. I’m not usually so… That is, I hope you don’t think I often kiss strange men.”
He wasn’t a strange man, but he knew what she meant. “I don’t usually kiss women I haven’t been introduced to,” he replied.
She moved back even more and ran her gloved hand over her forehead. “It must have been the strain. Or the relief. And gratitude, of course.”
Those could be explanations for her actions; what was his excuse for returning her kiss with such fervor?
Loneliness. A heart recently broken, or wounded at least. Her beauty. The feel of a woman’s arms around him, although they weren’t Catriona McNare’s.
Indeed, this bold young woman wasn’t at all like the meek and mild Catriona McNare.
“May I ask where you’re staying, Mr. McHeath? I’m sure my father will want to meet you, and an invitation to dinner is surely the very least we can do to express our appreciation for your timely assistance.”
She spoke of a father, not a husband.
Thank God. “I’m staying at McStuart House.”
Her whole manner and attitude altered as if he’d announced he was an inmate of the Edinburgh gaol. Her body stiffened and her luscious lips curled with disdain.
“Are you a friend of Sir Robert McStuart’s?” she demanded, her voice as cold as her kiss had been passionate.
“Aye. We went to school together.”
Her face reddened not with embarrassment but with obvious rage. What the devil could Robbie have done to make her so angry?
Since it was Robbie, he could think of several things, not the least of which was seduction—and as he knew from legal experience, hell really had no fury like a woman scorned.
“Did he tell you about me?” she demanded, her arms at her sides, her hands curled into fists. “Is that why you thought you could kiss me like that?”
“Sir Robert didn’t mention any young women when he invited me here,” he answered honestly, trying to remain calm in spite of her verbal attack. “I must also point out that I still don’t even know your name, and,” he added, “you kissed me.”
Undaunted by his response, she raised her chin and spoke as if she were the queen. “Thank you for your help today, Mr. McHeath, but any friend of Robbie McStuart is no friend of mine!”
“Obviously,” he muttered as she turned on her heel and marched away.
The moment Moira MacMurdaugh was out of Gordon McHeath’s sight, she gathered up her skirts and ran all the way home.
How could she have been so foolish? And impetuous? And bold? She never should have kissed him. Never should have touched him. She should simply have thanked him and let him go on his way.
When he pulled her closer, she should have broken away at once…even if Gordon McHeath’s kiss was like something from a French novel, full of heat and desire and need and yearning.
Worse, she could only imagine what Robbie Mc Stuart would make of this encounter, for surely Gordon Mc Heath would tell him. Soon more gossip about her would spread through Dunbrachie—and this time, it would be all her fault.
As if that weren’t bad enough, it was even more distressing to imagine her father’s possible reaction when he found out what she’d done.
He’d kept his pledge to her for nearly six months now—the longest span yet—and it sickened her to think her thoughtless act might cause him to start drinking to excess again.
Perhaps Mr. McHeath wouldn’t tell Robbie. After all, he was just as guilty of an improper embrace as she.
“My lady, ye’re back! Did ye fall? Are ye hurt?” the gray-haired, stocky head groom cried.
Jem hurried toward her from the entrance to the stables as she entered the yard bordered by a tall stone wall that had once surrounded a castle during the time of Edward Longshanks and William Wallace.
“Yes, I fell, but I’m not hurt. Did Dougal come home?” she asked, speaking of her horse.
“Aye, he’s here, the rascal,” Jem replied. “We were about to start a search for ye. Your father’s going to be that relieved when he sees you.”
Cursing herself again for lingering with the handsome Mr. McHeath, even if he was a tall, tawny-haired, strong-jawed, brown-eyed young man who looked like one of those Greek statues she’d seen in London, she hoped she wasn’t already too late…until she remembered all the wine and spirits were locked away and she had the only key. It wasn’t like Glasgow, where her father had only to go down the street to a tavern.
Nevertheless, she walked quickly through the new part of the manor that had been built by the previous earl, past the kitchen and buttery, the laundry and the servants’ dining room.
The delightful, homey smells of fresh bread and roasted beef filled her nostrils, and she felt a pang of nostalgia for the old days, before her father had started to drink heavily and before he’d come into his title and inheritance.
She reached the main floor of the house and the corridor leading to the library, her father’s study and the drawing room. The drawing room was part of the new building; the entrance hall with its dark oak panelling, the study and the library were not. Other rooms had been added in the times between the construction of the castle and the renovation and additions to the manor, so that now the country seat of the Earl of Dunbrachie was an amalgam of every architectural style from the Middle Ages to the Georgian period. She’d spent many hours when they first arrived here exploring all the nooks and crannies, cellars and attics, discovering forgotten pictures and furniture, dust, cobwebs and the occasional dead mouse.
Pausing for a moment to check her reflection in one of the pier glasses that were intended to brighten the otherwise very dark hall, and taking some deep breaths to calm her nerves, Moira removed her bonnet and laid it on the marble-topped side table beneath the mirror, then patted down the smooth crown of her hair.
“Moira!”
She turned to find her father in the door of his study. He was obviously agitated and his dishevelled thick gray hair indicated that he’d run his hands through it repeatedly.
“What happened? Are you hurt?” he asked as she approached. He took hold of her hands as he studied her face and clothes.
She decided the least said about what had happened that day, the better. “I’m quite all right. I took a tumble and Dougal ran off, so I had to walk back.”
“I was about to go after you myself.”
That explained his riding clothes—which he rarely wore, because he was no horseman, having spent most of his life in offices, mills and warehouses. Thank heavens she’d arrived before he’d gotten on a horse.
“I’m fine, Papa, really,” she replied, taking his arm and steering him into his study, which was the one room in the vast hall that seemed most like their old home in Glasgow.
As always, her father’s massive mahogany desk was littered with various papers, contracts, ledgers, quills, ink bottles and account books, for although he’d inherited a title and estate, he continued to oversee his business interests back in Glasgow. It looked a mess, but no one was allowed to tidy it, or else, her father claimed, he could never find anything. Older ledgers and account books were on the shelves behind his desk and a threadbare chair stood behind it. She’d been trying to persuade him to recover the chair for years, but he refused that, too, saying it was comfortable just the way it was. The only ornamentation in the room was a bust of Shakespeare sitting on the dark marble mantel that had belonged to one of the other earls.
“I don’t think you should be riding alone all over the countryside. What if you’d broken a limb?” her father asked as she sat on the slightly less worn sofa and he leaned back against his desk, wrinkling a paper that was half off the edge.
“I’ll be more careful next time. I promise.”
“Perhaps you should have a calmer mount—a nice, gentle mare wouldn’t be likely to throw you.”
Or gallop very fast, either. “Perhaps,” she prevaricated, not wanting to upset him more by protesting directly.
“And in future, you must take a groom with you.”
Her heart sank as she laced her fingers in her lap. She enjoyed having some time alone, away from the constant presence of all the servants. She supposed wealthy people who’d grown up in such circumstances were used to it; she, as yet, was not.
“You really must start acting more like a lady, Moira.”
“I’ll try,” she said. “There’s just so much to remember.”
And so many restrictions.
“With rank comes both privileges and duty,” her father reminded her.
Moira was well aware of that. Fortunately, not everything some would consider a duty was onerous to her.
“The school building is coming along nicely, Papa. You should come and see. And I’ve sent out the advertisement for a teacher,” she said, turning the subject away from her fall and its aftermath, and especially Gordon McHeath, silently vowing to stay far away from handsome strangers even if they looked like a maiden’s dream, kissed like Casanova and came charging to the rescue like William Wallace attacking the English.
His expression pensive, her father walked round his desk and shuffled some papers before he spoke again. “You do realize, Moira,” he began without looking at her, “that not everyone in Dunbrachie is in favor of your charitable endeavor? Even parents whose children will benefit are afraid you’ll be filling their heads with visions of futures that can’t possibly come to pass.”
“That’s because they don’t yet appreciate the value of an education,” she staunchly replied. “I expected some opposition. There always is when something is new and different. But once they see the value of being able to read and write and the opportunities it will afford their children, surely their opposition will melt away.”
“I hope so,” her father replied, glancing up at her. “I truly hope so. I would never forgive myself if something happened to you.”
She knew how much her father loved her and wanted her to be safe and happy. A more selfish, ambitious man would never worry about her as he did, or try to keep his promise not to overimbibe, or come to her with such a stricken, sorrowful expression when he discovered the truth about the man she had agreed to marry, and the things he’d done. She didn’t doubt that it had been almost as upsetting for her father to learn the true nature of her fiancé and have to tell her about it as it had been for her to hear it.
She hurried to embrace him. “We’ll look after each other, Papa,” she said with fervent determination, “as we’ve always done, in good times and bad.”
So she said, although she just as fervently hoped the bad times were at an end.
Chapter Two
Built in the Palladian style of granite and with a slate roof, McStuart House nestled on the side of the hill overlooking the village of Dunbrachie. The first time Gordon had been there as a lad of twelve he’d been awed into silence by the magnificent and spacious house and its army of servants. The last time he’d visited here, about five years ago, he’d counted the windows and discovered there were thirty-eight, front and back, and not including the French doors that led to the terrace from the drawing room and library.
But the architectural details of Robbie’s home, which he’d inherited on the death of his father three years ago, were not uppermost in Gordon’s mind as he approached this day. Nor were the thickening rain clouds.
He was thinking about that young woman, and Robbie—not that he wanted to think of them together, in any way.
He didn’t want to believe that his first assumption about the cause of her rage—a love affair gone wrong—was the correct one, so he tried to come up with other explanations for her anger.
Maybe there had been a family business venture involving Robbie that went awry. Robbie was not the most responsible of men, and he had no head for figures—except those of women—so it could well be that some sort of transaction or bargain had turned out badly.
Perhaps there was a sister or a cousin or a friend Robbie had flirted with and she was angry because she was jealous.
Whatever the explanation, as he neared the large portico at the front of McStuart House and the first drops of rain began to fall, he decided not to mention the encounter to Robbie. He didn’t want to hear Robbie’s account or explanations, especially if he and that bold, beautiful young woman had been lovers. He wanted to rest, and to try to forget Catriona.
He tied the horse to the ring on one of the columns and hurried up the three wide steps to the equally wide front door with a stained glass fanlight above. The door swung open to reveal a tall, austere butler Gordon didn’t recognize.
“Mr. McHeath, I presume?” the older man said in a refined English accent.
“Aye,” Gordon answered, giving his coat and hat to the liveried footman who appeared beside the butler.
“Sir Robert is expecting you in the drawing room.”
Gordon nodded and hurried inside, making his way to the drawing room through the imposing foyer with walls covered with the horns of stags and rams, spears, pikes, swords and armor. Beyond the drawing room and wide double staircase were several other rooms, such as the library where he and Robbie had played at soldiers when they were younger, and a billiard room they’d used when they were older. There were at least three bedrooms on the main level and twelve above, and servants’ quarters above that, on the uppermost level. He still had no idea how many smaller rooms existed below stairs, where the kitchen, laundry, pantry, buttery, wine cellar, servants’ parlor, servants’ dining room and various other rooms necessary for the running of the house were located.
When he entered the drawing room, he immediately spotted Robbie standing by the French doors leading to the flagstone terrace where the rain was now falling in earnest. Looking out over the garden that had been designed by Inigo Jones, his friend stood with his head lowered, one hand braced against the door frame, the other loosely holding an empty wineglass.
That was such an unusual pose for Robbie, Gordon wasn’t sure if he should disturb him or not, so he took a moment to survey the room. Nothing seemed to have changed since the last time he was here. The walls were still papered in that unusual shade of ochre, the gilded furniture was still covered with the same dark green velvet. The same portraits of long-dead ancestors hung in the same places, the same landscapes in theirs. Even the books on the side tables looked as if they were the ones that had been there five years ago. Everything was clean, with not a speck of dust to be seen, but otherwise, it was as if time had stood still.
Until Robbie turned around.
What the devil had happened to him? He looked as if he’d aged a decade, and a hard-lived decade at that. His face was pale and gaunt and there were dark semicircles beneath his bloodshot blue eyes. While his body had always been slim, now it looked almost skeletal. Only his thick, waving fair hair appeared unchanged.
As Gordon tried not to stare, Robbie set his wineglass on the nearest table and walked toward him smiling.
At least his smile was the same, merry and charming, and a spark of vitality was in his voice as he cried, “Gordo, you old bookworm! I thought you’d never get here! But I never should have doubted you’d arrive after sending me word you’d come, should I? Always dependable, that’s Gordo!”
Gordon had always detested that particular version of his name, yet he was far too concerned about his friend’s state of health to be annoyed. “I ran into a bit of trouble on the far side of the village,” he said dismissively before asking with more concern, “How are you, Robbie?”
“I’ve been a little under the weather,” his friend admitted as he reached out to shake Gordon’s hand.
“Nothing serious, so stop staring at me like an undertaker taking mental measurements,” he finished with a laugh, his grip strong and firm. “Just a little too much of the juice of the grape last night.”
That would certainly explain his appearance. And Robbie had never been much of an eater. But it was his hearty handshake that convinced Gordon there was nothing seriously amiss with his health.
“Let’s have a drink. I’m sure you need one,” his friend continued as he went to a cabinet and poured some amber-colored liquid into two glasses. “The roads around here can make for a damned uncomfortable ride.”
Although Gordon suspected Robbie had already been drinking more than was good for him, he was tired and thirsty and accepted the whiskey. “Thank you.”
Robbie downed his neat. Still holding the glass, he ambled toward the ornately carved hearth. “I suppose you were surprised to get my invitation.”
“I was delighted,” Gordon truthfully replied. And very happy to have a good reason to be away from Edinburgh for a while.
Robbie fingered his glass and looked down at the empty interior. “Yes, well, I confess my motives weren’t completely selfless. I’ve had a bit of trouble, Gordo.”
Involving a beautiful young woman whose passion could send a man reeling? God, he hoped not!
Nevertheless, he managed to calmly reply. “I see. What sort of trouble?”
Robbie gestured toward the sofa closest to him. “Sit down and I’ll tell you all about it—or do you want a bite to eat first? I’ve got a new cook, a Frenchman. Can’t understand half of what he says, but the food’s wonderful.”
No doubt costly, too, but the McStuarts had been rich since the Jacobite Rebellion, when they’d switched churches and allegiances to their advantage as easily as most men changed trousers. Not the most honorable of heritages, Robbie used to say, but it had kept the family solvent ever since.
“No, thank you. I’d rather hear about you,” Gordon replied as he sat down.
Robbie poured himself another whiskey, while Gordon twisted his half-full glass in his hand and waited.
“Well, Gordo, I suppose it had to happen eventually,” Robbie began, sighing as he leaned against the cabinet, holding his glass loose in his fingers with the same casual ease he always displayed, even when called before the tyrannical headmaster at the school where they’d met when they were ten years old. “I’ve had my heart broken at last, old chum. Smashed. Shattered. Wrecked and ruined by a cold and stubborn woman.”
A romantic affair gone wrong then.
Even though there was still the chance that Robbie’s heart had been broken by a woman who didn’t wear a yellow velvet riding habit, Gordon wished he’d taken another route, so he’d never have had that passionate, disastrous encounter.
“Yes, Gordo, it’s true. I fell in love—deeply, completely in love. And I thought she loved me, too, so I asked her to marry me.”
That was even more shocking. Robbie had certainly professed to being in love before—many times, in fact—but as far as Gordon knew, he’d never gone so far as to propose.
What, then, had gone wrong?
“Yes, I was actually ready to put my neck into the matrimonial noose—and she accepted. Seemed only too happy, in fact. We announced it at a ball at her father’s house.”
“Her father being…?”
“The Earl of Dunbrachie.”
Gordon tried to keep his expression suitably sober, although his heart fairly leaped with relief. Her father was a merchant or manufacturer who owned warehouses, not a titled nobleman.
“A fine match for us both, and then barely a fortnight later, she tells me she won’t marry me after all.”
No wonder Robbie looked exhausted. He, too, had spent many a night these past few months tossing and turning, thinking about his feelings for Catriona McNare. What he’d done and not done, said or should have said. Although he would never have sought solace in a bottle as he feared Robbie had been doing, he could certainly appreciate the inclination to want to drown his sorrows and seek the comforting company of an old friend. “I’m very sorry, Robbie.”
“I knew I could count on you to be sympathetic,” Robbie said with a grin. “And in one way, I suppose I should count myself lucky. Do you know what her father was before he inherited the title? A wool merchant. A very rich wool merchant, but a wool merchant nonetheless.”
The ceiling collapsing on Gordon’s head couldn’t have shocked him more. A rich wool merchant would have warehouses, or access to them.
“He was so distantly related to the late earl,” Robbie continued without looking at his silent friend, “it came as a shock to everybody—including him, I gather. And Moira herself can be eccentric. She has a positive mania about educating the poor. Wants to build a school for the children of Dunbrachie, although what they’d do with an education I have no idea. It’s not like most of the men in Dunbrachie want a school, either.”
If it was the same woman—and Gordon clung to the fast-diminishing hope that he was still jumping to the wrong conclusion—why had she broken the engagement? To be sure, Robbie could be impulsive and wasn’t prone to planning, but he was handsome, rich and titled, loyal and good-natured. Many a nobleman’s daughter could, and did, do worse.
“It would have been upsetting if she’d refused when I’d asked her, but I daresay I would have gotten over it soon enough. After all, there are plenty of other attractive, rich and nobly born women who would welcome my attention.”
Whoever the woman was, Gordon could certainly understand Robbie’s bitterness. Still, there was an arrogance in his tone that made it more difficult to sympathize with his friend. On the other hand, would he not have sounded so bitter and defensive if someone had asked him what was troubling him lately, too?
Robbie walked to the French doors, turned on his heel and made a sweeping gesture with the hand holding his empty glass. “Who does Moira MacMurdaugh think she is, that she can make a fool out of Sir Robert McStuart? She’s the fool if she thinks I’m simply going to let her humiliate me. That’s why I need your help, Gordo.” He straightened his shoulders and a triumphant gleam came to his bloodshot eyes. “I want to sue Lady Moira MacMurdaugh for breach of promise.”
Now it was as if the floor had given way, too. “You want to sue this woman for breach of promise?” Gordon repeated.
“Exactly.”
Gordon forced himself to try to forget about the woman who might or might not be the one he’d kissed, and think like the solicitor he was. Robbie clearly hadn’t considered all the ramifications of starting a legal action that was generally the province of women. “I can appreciate that you’re upset—”
“Upset? I’m not upset,” Robbie snapped, setting his glass down on an ebony-inlaid side table so hard, Gordon expected it to break. “I simply want her to understand that she can’t go around accepting proposals and rejecting them out of hand. Or don’t you think I have a case?”
Now things were getting even more difficult. Robbie might have a case, but there were other considerations he should take into account, as Gordon proceeded to explain. “If the engagement was public knowledge, you do have some cause of action. However, there’s something else you might want to think about first, Robbie. Dunbrachie is a small village, but this sort of legal activity will likely come to the attention of a wider circle, and probably the press, at least in Scotland. Your—” he hesitated, and chose a word other than humiliation “personal concerns may well become gossip fodder, splashed about the papers and discussed by complete strangers.
“Would it not be better to simply forget what happened? After all, as you yourself said, there have always been women eager for your attention.
“I’m sure you’ll find love again,” he finished, voicing a wish he harbored for himself, a wish that had suddenly seemed far more possible when he’d looked up and seen a beautiful woman trapped in a tree.
“You’re rather missing the point, Gordo,” Robbie said as he threw himself onto the sofa. “I’m not just doing this for myself. I’m doing it for all the other poor sods whose hearts she might break.”
He turned his head and regarded Gordon with a measuring, sidelong look. “If I were a woman in such circumstances, you’d take the case, wouldn’t you?”
“Perhaps,” Gordon replied. He wasn’t really sure what he’d do. However, he truly believed it would do Robbie more harm than good to sue. “What reason did she give for breaking the engagement? She did have a reason, I assume.”
Scowling, Robbie sat up. “She said she didn’t love me,” he replied with more than a hint of defiance, as if such a thing were too ludicrous to be credible.
Given Robbie’s experience with the fairer sex, he might be excused for thinking so. Nevertheless… “Perhaps it’s for the best then,” Gordon replied, repeating the same thing he’d been telling himself ever since he’d met Catriona McNare’s fiancé.
Robbie’s brows lowered and his mouth got that stubborn set Gordon well remembered. “She said she could never love a man like me.”
A man like Robbie, who was handsome and charming and a good friend? “What on earth did she mean by that?”
Robbie jumped to his feet and strode to the window. “It means she doesn’t understand how the upper class lives. I haven’t committed any crime. I haven’t done anything every nobleman in Scotland or England and certainly France hasn’t done before me. She claims to be a lady, yet she broke the engagement over a trifle.”
If he had done something to cause her to change her mind, that made a difference. “I think you’d better tell me what exactly this ‘trifle’ was.”
Robbie didn’t answer right away. First he marched to the cabinet and poured himself another drink, making Gordon wonder if too much drink was the trifle, and if so, it was indeed no trifle. No woman of sense wanted to marry a drunkard.
“If I’m to act as your solicitor in this matter, Robbie, I have to know all the details,” Gordon said quietly, beginning to feel a bit sorry that he’d accepted Robbie’s invitation.
He thought his friend had asked him there because they were friends and it had been a long time since they’d seen each other, not because he needed legal advice, yet now there was a possibility he was going to get embroiled in a case he’d prefer to avoid.
Robbie gulped down his whiskey and when he looked at Gordon again, he appeared even more haggard, as if telling the truth was physically painful. Nevertheless, he smiled his merry, charming smile—only this time, it seemed more like a death’s-head grin to Gordon.
“No need to look so stern, Gordo. It was only a dalliance with one of the maids, the sort of thing that goes on all the time.”
He should have guessed it would be something like this. Robbie had always had “high spirits,” as their headmaster had called it when Robbie had been discovered with one of the maids at school. Indeed, he’d been famous for his liaisons and the envy of every boy in school.
But that was in the world of males. He could easily imagine—and sympathize with—a potential bride’s dismay at learning of her future husband’s lustful activities with a servant. “Did you assure her you’d be faithful once you were married?”
Robbie looked at Gordon as if he’d suggested giving up food and drink. “No. Why would I? Why should I?”
Gordon’s heart sank. “Because you were going to make such a promise when you said your marriage vows.”
“Gad, Gordo, don’t tell me you, with your profession, are naive enough to think any man’s really going to be faithful to his wife?”
“I’ve met several who are,” Gordon replied, recalling some of the happily married clients who’d passed through his offices.
Robbie slouched onto an armchair near the sofa and frowned like a petulant child. “Sometimes I forget you’re…” He fell silent and picked at a bit of lint on his lapel with his slender fingers that had never done a day’s work.
“Not of your class?” Gordon finished for him.
His friend blushed, the fire of his anger apparently quenched as he regarded Gordon with dismay, and the first sign of genuine remorse. “I’m sorry, Gordon.” He spread his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’ll be perfectly honest with you. Yes, I dallied with one of the maids, but I never thought a fiancée or even a wife would really mind. I mean, you were at school. You heard the other boys talking about their fathers’ and brothers’ mistresses and lovers. It’s accepted in our world, or at least condoned. It was just a maid, after all. It’s not like I was keeping a mistress in the house. And I turned her out as soon as Moira learned about her.”
While Gordon was certainly well aware that many rich and titled men treated women like their personal toys to be used or discarded at will, he didn’t approve of that selfish behavior. And if Robbie thought hearing that the maid had lost her place because of their liaison was going to increase Gordon’s sympathy for his cause, he was even more mistaken. Gordon had helped too many servants who’d been seduced and cast out by their employers, suing for back wages at the very least, to have any sympathy for a master who took advantage of one.
In spite of his efforts to keep a blank countenance, his face must have betrayed something of his feelings, for Robbie’s next words had more than a tinge of self-defence. “It’s not as if the maid wasn’t willing. She was, I assure you. Very willing. Indeed, I think she seduced me.”
Gordon had heard this sort of excuse many times, too. “You were her master, Robbie. She might have felt she couldn’t refuse.”
“Of course she could!” Robbie retorted, hoisting himself to his feet. “I’m hardly some kind of brutal ogre.”
No, he wasn’t. Nevertheless…
“And I was honest enough not to make a promise to Moira that I wasn’t going to keep. But did she appreciate that? No, she looked at me as if I’d committed murder.”
Robbie ran his hand through his hair before starting for the cabinet again. “Maybe if she hadn’t been so angry…” Wrapping his hand around the decanter, he shook his head. “Oh, I don’t know what I would have done if she’d been calmer.” He walked away without pouring another drink and went to the fireplace. He picked up the poker and vigorously stirred the coals, sending ash swirling upward.
“Maybe instead of suing her, you should be grateful,” Gordon said quietly. “If you’d married her and strayed, and then she found out—”
“We would have been married and there would have been nothing she could do about it. She would have learned to accept that it’s a nobleman’s privilege, as my mother did and her mother before her.”
Gordon didn’t like what he was hearing. It smacked of brutal arrogance, of utter selfishness and a complete disregard for the feelings of another human being, the sort of attitude that spurred him to find justice for the weak and abused and cheated, and especially for women, who had so few rights under the law.
Rising, he went to face his friend, the better to see his face and read his expression, for eyes often said what words did not.
As a certain young lady’s eyes had spoken of desire before they’d kissed.
“What if your wife took a lover? Would you say then it was simply what people of your class do?”
Robbie clenched his jaw for the briefest of moments before he answered. “Of course. As long as I had an heir and a spare, my wife could take as many lovers as she liked.”
Robbie marched across the room to the cabinet, then turned to face his friend. “Obviously, I should have lied to you, and her. I should have said that of course I would be faithful. That I’d never even look at another woman.
“But I didn’t. So if you’d rather not represent me in this, I’ll find another solicitor who will. With you or without you, Gordo, I’m suing Moira McMurdaugh for breaking our engagement.”
Gordon regarded Robbie steadily. While Robbie never made any reference to what had happened at school, Gordon could never forget what he owed Robbie McStuart.
And if it was the same woman he’d rescued from the tree and kissed?
He still owed Robbie his career. “Of course I’ll represent you, Robbie.”
Chapter Three
Three days later, Moira leaned over the pedestal table in the book-lined library, studying the builder’s drawings of the future school, as well as his notations. She wanted to be sure that she was right before she addressed the prosperous middle-aged man standing before her with his thumbs in his vest pockets, rocking back and forth on his heels.
She was, but having dealt with tradesmen for many years, she didn’t begin with a direct accusation. That would only lead to confrontation, arguments, denials and, eventually, the pronouncement that women couldn’t be expected to understand business or the arithmetic that went with it.
“Mr. Stamford,” she began, “I must confess that I find your estimates rather…excessive.”
The plump man merely smiled with frustrating condescension. “Perhaps, my lady, we should wait for your father’s return from Glasgow. He’d due back today, is he not?”
“Yes, he is,” she replied, hoping with all her heart he would return as promised and hadn’t met any of his friends who had, in the past, led him astray. “However, the school is my responsibility, not his.”
Her statement didn’t appear to make any difference to the builder, for the man continued to regard her as if she were merely an overgrown child, and one incapable of understanding simple addition and multiplication, too. “I’m sure, as a former man of business, your father will be able to comprehend the figures better than a young lady. You mustn’t trouble your pretty head with such things as measurements and structure, square feet and raw materials,” Mr. Stamford continued with that same insufferable patronage. “Perhaps you don’t understand, Mr. Stamford, that as the daughter of a man of business who’s been keeping household accounts for ten years, ever since my mother died, I’m not incapable of calculating totals and expenditures,” she said, determined not to let this man think he could flatter her into believing that his estimates of the costs of materials were reasonable when they were so obviously not. “Nor, having had considerable work done on this house, am I ignorant of the costs involved when refurbishing a building. I find your estimate of the price for the necessary materials for the school and labor excessive. You’re building a school, after all, not a manor house.”
The man’s cheeks puffed out with an annoyed huff. “Far be it from me to contradict a lady. However, if one wishes to use the best materials—and I was under the impression you did—then one has to pay accordingly.”
“I want the best for the purpose,” she clarified. “The prices you’re quoting would seem to indicate you’re using wood and stone more suitable for a cathedral than a village school. We recently had the dining room of this house panelled in mahogany brought especially from Jamaica, Mr. Stamford, and the price of that mahogany was less than this quotation for the oak ceiling beams of the main schoolroom. I fail to see how that is possible, unless the oak is gilded.”
The builder’s face turned as red as lip rouge. He reached for the plans spread on the table and began to roll them up, the pages crackling and crinkling with his swift action. “If you don’t like the plans or the cost, my lady, you can always hire another man!”
“Unless you can provide me with a more reasonable quote, I may have to,” Moira replied, not a whit disturbed or intimidated by his bluster, “although I’d hate to think you’ve done so much work for nothing.”
“Nothing?” the man almost shrieked. “I expect to be paid for the time and effort I’ve already—!”
“Of course,” she smoothly interrupted, “it would be a pity to have this assignment come to a premature end.”
“Like some women’s engagements?” he retorted.
Moira managed to control the rage that spiralled through her. She wanted to dismiss him on the spot, but that would lead to a delay, which would surely upset her father. That was always something to be avoided, lest he be tempted to break his vow.
“It would also be unfortunate that you wouldn’t be able to brag about working for the Earl of Dunbrachie’s daughter anymore, as I believe you already have.”
Or so the butler had informed her, having had it from the footman, who’d been in the village tavern the night before last.
The man’s gaze finally faltered and he put the plans back on the table. “Aye, yes, well, perhaps I was a tad hasty, my lady,” he said in a conciliatory tone, “and I’m a hot-tempered fellow. I suppose we could use less oak and more pine, and maybe I don’t have to buy so much slate for the roof.”
Despite his change of manner and her relief that things could proceed as planned, there was something else she considered important to make clear. “I don’t want any corners cut. The building must be safe and sound.”
“That school will be so well built, it’ll still be standing a hundred years from now,” he assured her.
“Excellent, Mr. Stamford,” she conceded, “and if I see more realistic figures, I see no need to tell my father about our difference of opinion. Now I give you good day, sir. I’ll be by to check the progress of the school later in the week.”
“Yes, my lady. Goodbye, my lady, and I’m sure I’ll be able to find ways to economize, my lady.”
With that, he bustled out of the library as if he couldn’t get away fast enough, which was probably the case. She was just as relieved to see him go. She was well aware that her broken engagement to Sir Robert McStuart was no secret, but it was nevertheless galling to have it flung into her face.
It was even more galling to realize that Gordon McHeath had surely heard about her broken engagement by now, and from Robbie McStuart, too, she thought as she walked around the room, brushing her fingertips over the leather spines of the books that had so delighted her when they’d first arrived. Her former fiancé would undoubtedly paint what had happened between them in the worst possible way, making light of his own transgressions and describing her as some sort of narrow-minded, unsophisticated bumpkin.
If only she could stay as angry and indignant as she’d been when she found out the man who had come to her rescue was Robbie McStuart’s friend. Unfortunately, as time had passed, she found herself thinking less of his friendship with Robbie and more of the passion she’d felt in his arms. The excitement. The wish that his embrace would never end. She remembered Gordon McHeath’s smile, his gentlemanly demeanor and the sight of him charging down the hill like a knight errant. Even more vividly, she recalled the urge to kiss him that she hadn’t been able to fight, his passionate response, the sensation of his arms around her and his lips covering hers, seeking, demanding, wanting….
“I beg your pardon, my lady,” the butler intoned from the door. “A gentleman wishes to see you.” He held out a silver salver with a card upon it. “He says it’s a legal matter, my lady.”
Legal matter? “Did you tell him the earl isn’t at home?”
“I did, and he said it doesn’t involve the earl, my lady. His business is with you.”
Perhaps it had something to do with the school, although she couldn’t imagine what. She went to the door and took the card. She glanced at it, then stared.
Gordon McHeath, Solicitor, Edinburgh.
Robbie McStuart’s friend was a solicitor? Even so, what could he possibly want with her? It couldn’t be because of that kiss…could it? That hadn’t violated any law that she was aware of.
Perhaps it had something to do with the dog that had chased her. “Show him in, please.”
Smoothing down her skirt and tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear, determined to keep the conversation coolly business-like, she perched primly on an armchair covered in emerald-green damask near the hearth.
Mr. McHeath appeared on the threshold. He wasn’t dressed in his caped greatcoat and hat; otherwise, his clothing was similar, down to his riding boots. Without his hat, his tawny hair waved like ripples on a lake, and he was definitely as handsome and well built as she remembered.
He hesitated, and a look passed over his face that made her think he was about to leave just as abruptly.
He didn’t. His visage slightly flushed, as she suspected hers must be, he came farther into the room, his expression solemn to the point of grimness.
Commanding herself to be calm and detached, and above all to forget she had ever kissed him, she said, “So, Mr. McHeath, what is this legal matter that has brought you here today?”
His gaze swept over the room and furnishings, lingering for a moment at the pedestal table with the drawings still on top before he came to a halt and pulled a folded document from the pocket of his navy blue jacket.
“I’ve come on behalf of Sir Robert McStuart regarding the matter of your broken engagement,” he said, his voice just as coldly formal as hers had been. “He’s bringing an action against you for breach of promise.”
Moira stared at him in stunned disbelief. “Breach of…? He’s suing me?”
“Yes.” McHeath took a deep breath, like a man about to dive into frigid water. “He’s seeking damages in the amount of five thousand pounds.”
With a gasp as if she’d landed in that frigid water, Moira jumped to her feet. “I don’t believe it! Five thousand pounds? Five thousand pounds?”
“I agree it’s a considerable sum, but you must be aware of the damage your change of mind has done to his reputation. He feels he should be duly compensated.”
“His reputation?” she repeated, her hands balling into fists, her whole body shaking with righteous indignation. “What was his reputation, that he should set such store on it? And what about mine? Don’t you think mine has suffered just as much, if not more?”
The solicitor didn’t seem the least nonplussed. “Then perhaps, my lady, you should offer a sum to settle before the matter goes before a judge.”
“You want me to pay him off? Are you mad?” she demanded, appalled as well as angry. “I’m not going to give that libertine a ha’penny. If there’s anyone at fault for what happened, it’s him. Didn’t he tell you why I broke the engagement?”
“He told me that you informed him that you no longer loved him,” the solicitor replied, still standing as stiff and straight as a soldier on a parade square. “He said that you were angry about his dalliance with a maid, and because he refused to assure you he would be faithful in the future.”
All that was true and yet…” A dalliance? Only one?”
Finally, something seemed to bring a spark of passionate life back to Gordon McHeath’s eyes. Unfortunately, the change lasted only an instant before he resumed that statuelike demeanor. “Yes, only one.”
“In addition to the chambermaid at McStuart House, there were three girls at his family’s weaving mill and the scullery maid in his town house in Edinburgh that I know about,” she informed him. “There may very well be more. He also drinks, Mr. McHeath, far too much. He managed to keep that hidden from me for quite some time, but fortunately not long enough for me to go through with the marriage. I have long vowed that I would never marry a sot.”
McHeath glanced down at the toes of his boots, so she couldn’t see his face. When he raised his eyes to her, his expression was again that blank mask, as if they’d never even met, let alone kissed. Indeed, she could hardly believe this was the same man who’d come rushing so gallantly to her rescue and who’d kissed her with such fervent passion.
“It was your duty to find out about the man proposing marriage before you accepted him, my lady,” he said. “Apparently you did not. You could have asked for more time to consider. You did not. You also said that you no longer loved him. This suggests you not only felt a moral indignation when you learned of his liaisons, you experienced an inner revelation concerning the depth of your own feelings. That is something over which my friend had absolutely no control. You alone are responsible for that and as such, Sir Robert has some justification for his claim.
“More importantly from a legal point of view, you entered into a verbal contract that was publicly announced, and you broke that contract.”
“Good God,” she gasped, aghast at his cool and condemning response and backing away from him as if he held a loaded pistol. “You’re absolutely serious about this!”
“I assure you, my lady, I would never jest about a lawsuit.”
That she could well believe. Indeed, at this moment, she could well believe he never made a jest or joke about anything. But he was the man who had saved her from that dog, so surely he could have some sympathy for her feelings, and her decision. “Whatever I thought I felt, I realized I was wrong and acted accordingly. Would you really have me marry a man I no longer cared for and could no longer even respect? Would you really want me—or any woman—to tie herself to such a man under those conditions?”
The attorney had the grace to blush as he steadily met her gaze. “No, I wouldn’t, but again I remind you, my lady, that whatever Sir Robert’s faults, it was your responsibility to discover them before you accepted his proposal.”
Was the man made of marble? Had he no heart? “Surely a judge will side with me and agree that I was right to end the engagement.”
“Judges are men, my lady. He may well agree that Sir Robert deserves to be compensated.”
Unfortunately, he had a point. Men made the laws, and men upheld them.
And what about Gordon McHeath, who had seemed so kind and chivalrous? “Do you condone his behavior, Mr. McHeath?”
He didn’t look away. “Condone? No, I do not. But I was not raised as he was, by parents who believed their birth and station meant certain social mores didn’t apply to them.”
“So even if you don’t agree with what he’s doing, you would defend him?”
“I represent him.”
With a horrible sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, she thought of another reason he might believe a judge would side with Robbie. “Did you tell him that we kissed?”
Although Mr. McHeath continued to regard her dispassionately, his cheeks reddened a little more. “I saw no need to mention that particular act to Sir Robert, or anyone else. I hope you have been similarly reticent. It does neither of us credit.”
Her heart began to beat again, albeit erratically, for despite his explanation for his reticence, she sensed he wasn’t as sorry or ashamed as he claimed to be.
Neither, she realized, was she—even now. Wanting to see if she was right, she pressed him for more of an explanation. “It would help your case, would it not?”
“I saw no need to provide more evidence when I had hoped you would be reasonable and offer a sum in settlement so that the case need not proceed.”
In spite of his evenly spoken reply, she sidled a little closer, so that she could see into his eyes, the better to gauge his true response. “Given that Sir Robert seems to be selective with the facts, are you aware that five thousand pounds was to be the amount of my dowry?”
No, he hadn’t known that. She could see the surprise he tried to hide. “Obviously he wants the dowry he didn’t get,” she observed.
Mr. McHeath swiftly recovered from his surprise. “Whatever his reasons, that is the sum he feels is appropriate compensation.”
“I feel he’s not entitled to anything, and nothing you say will ever make me change my mind.”
Mr. McHeath inclined his head. “Very well, my lady, and since we seem to be unable to come to any agreement, I shall bid you good day.”
She shouldn’t feel any regret when he said those words. She shouldn’t be sorry he was leaving. After all, she barely knew him, and he was working for Robbie.
“You may also tell Sir Robert that I do not and never will regret breaking our engagement. If anything, his petty, vindictive action further convinces me that I was right to do so,” she said as she went to the hearth and tugged the bellpull beside it. “Good day, Mr. McHeath. Walters will show you out.”
When Gordon returned to McStuart House, he immediately went in search of his host, although every step seemed an effort. He wasn’t looking forward to having to relay Lady Moira’s response any more than he’d been to confront her. Indeed, he’d been seriously tempted to leave without revealing the purpose of his visit when he saw that Lady Moira was the woman he’d helped and kissed, but gratitude and duty demanded that he do what he’d been asked to do. Now Robbie would want to know what had happened.
It would be far better for all concerned if they each simply went their own way, and let the past stay in the past. Unfortunately, despite his best efforts, Robbie was determined to have his day in court, and be compensated for the blow to his pride.
Even more unfortunately, Lady Moira wasn’t the only person in Dunbrachie who could be faulted for not knowing more about a man before entering into an agreement with him. He should have been much more wary of agreeing to represent Robbie in a legal matter, especially after he’d noticed how much Robbie drank that first afternoon.
He finally found Robbie in the last room he thought to look—the library. Unlike the earl’s library, this one had an air of musty neglect, and many of the volumes weren’t even real books. In fact, Gordon was rather sure neither Robbie nor his father had read a book in its entirety after they left school.
The dark draperies added to a sense of genteel decay, and the portraits in this room all seemed to be of people in a state of chronic indigestion.
Its only saving grace—and perhaps its appeal for Robbie—was the large windows opening to the terrace. Or maybe its isolation from the other rooms, and thus its silence, explained why he had gone there.
Naturally Robbie wasn’t reading a book. He wasn’t even awake. He lay sprawled on his back on one of the worn, silk-covered sofas, his right arm thrown over his face, his left crossed over his chest and an empty bottle of port on the floor beside him.
Chapter Four
Gordon sighed heavily and leaned back against one of the shelves. Whatever Robbie thought, Lady Moira was right to be wary of marrying a man who drank so much. In his practice he’d seen too many marriages fall into bitter ruin and too many families destroyed because of drink.
Robbie’s blue eyes flickered open. “Gordo! You’re back!” he muttered as he lurched to a sitting position. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
“I’m only just returned,” he replied. He came farther into the room and sat in a wing chair opposite Robbie. He nodded at the bottle on the floor. “Isn’t it a little early for that?”
Robbie sighed and rubbed his temples as he hunched over. “My head ached, so I had a little drink for medicinal purposes.”
“A little drink?”
“Aye, just enough to put me to sleep.”
“Perhaps your head ached from imbibing too much last night,” Gordon suggested, trying to keep his tone nonjudgmental.
Robbie frowned. “You’re not my nursemaid.”
“No, I’m not. I’m your friend, and I’m worried about you.”
Robbie slid down until he was lying on his back, his head resting on the arm of the sofa. “If I’m drinking a little more than usual, it’s because that’s the only way I can sleep most nights.”
Gordon wondered what his “usual” amount of drinks per day would be, then decided that really didn’t matter. What mattered was Robbie’s current condition, which was obviously far from healthy. He was still too thin and pale, with dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. “Maybe we should send for the doctor.”
Robbie shook his head as he closed his eyes. “No doctor. It’s this business with Moira that has me out of sorts, that’s all. I’ll be fine when it’s over.”
“Perhaps if we went riding, or walked up the hills, that would help you sleep.”
Robbie turned his head to look out the long mullioned windows. “Not today,” he said with a weary sigh. “It’s going to rain.”
He was, unfortunately, right. The sky was a dull slate gray that foretold a downpour before the afternoon was over.
Robbie suddenly seemed to remember where Gordon had been. “So what happened?” he demanded as he squirmed to a sitting position, his feet on the floor. “What did my former fiancée say when you told her I was suing her for breach of promise?”
Not wanting to inflame the situation even more, Gordon tried to choose his words wisely. “Naturally she was upset.”
That was true, although not in the way Robbie seemed to interpret his response, judging by the gleam of triumph that came to his red-rimmed eyes. “As well she should be! Was she willing to settle out of court?”
Gordon had done his best to talk Robbie out of naming such a huge sum in damages; the best he’d been able to do was suggest that he be willing to compromise and eventually settle for a lesser amount in order to save time and expenses. After much persuading, Robbie had finally agreed. Regrettably, Lady Moira had rendered his victory moot. “No, she did not.”
Robbie’s expression dulled, but only for a moment. “Well then, she’ll have to pay the whole amount when we win—plus expenses!”
Robbie had always been a confident fellow and clearly nothing that had happened to him had altered that. “She believes she will not lose.”
“Ha!” Robbie snorted as he got to his feet, kicking over the bottle and paying it no heed as it rolled across the Aubusson carpet and came to a halt at the edge of the marble hearth. “Of course she will! Everybody in Dunbrachie knew we were engaged. Everybody knows she broke it off. How did you put it? Ah, yes—she breached a verbal contract. And I’ve got the best solicitor in Scotland and England, too, to represent me.”
This was no time to prevaricate. “I’m flattered by your compliments, Robbie, but she feels that given some of your less-than-exemplary behavior, a judge will be sympathetic to her.”
Robbie laughed, although not with his usual merry mirth. This laugh was cold and harsh and ugly. “A female judge might take her side, but since there are no lady judges and never will be, I’ll win and Moira will have to pay. And then I…”
He didn’t finish as he went to what looked like a row of books, pulled one half out of its slot, and revealed another liquor cabinet.
Though Gordon didn’t think Robbie should have another drink, that wasn’t what bothered him most now. “And then you…what?”
“And then I’ll be finished with her once and for all.”
There was more to it than that, or Robbie wouldn’t be suing her. He would simply leave her alone. And he’d sounded almost…desperate.
“You need the money!” Gordon blurted as an explanation for that desperation burst into his mind.
“No. That is, not exactly,” Robbie said, blushing as he poured some whiskey from a Waterford decanter into a crystal glass that looked nearly as dusty as the books.
Did the man have alcohol squirreled away in every room of his house? Was that where his money was going?
But the McStuarts had been rich for generations, with more wealth than any one man could possibly drink away.
“The money would come in handy, that’s all,” Robbie said as the distinct scent of whiskey reached Gordon’s nostrils. “I have a few debts I’d like to get rid of sooner rather than later.
“Besides, it’s the principle of the thing. She broke a contract and she ought to pay a penalty,” he finished before he downed his whiskey in a gulp.
“Was that why you were going to marry her? Because her father is rich?” Gordon asked, hoping he was wrong. Silently praying that he was.
“Of course not!” Robbie retorted as he whirled around, his chest heaving with what Gordon believed—to his relief—was genuine dismay. “I loved her! You saw her—you’ve seen how beautiful she is. She is beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Aye, very beautiful,” Gordon agreed. And strong willed. And resolute. And brave and passionate and desirable.
“Who wouldn’t fall in love with a woman like her? Well, maybe you wouldn’t,” he amended, swinging his glass around to point at Gordon and spilling a third of its contents. As with the port bottle, Robbie ignored the spill, even though the carpet had to be worth several thousand pounds. “You’re far too serious and studious to fall in love, I think. Not for Gordo the insanity of Eros, eh?”
Gordon silently begged to differ. He’d been in love—or thought he was—so he knew exactly what Robbie was talking about. “But I was in love,” his friend continued with a dramatic flourish as, still holding the glass, he pointed to his own chest.
His declaration might have fooled somebody who didn’t know Robbie well, but Gordon did, and what he saw beneath the colorful words and dramatic gestures was need. Not for Lady Moira, or her love, or even happiness, but money—and badly.
As if to prove his observation, Robbie muttered half under his breath, “It was just a bonus that her father was rich and could help me with some financial reversals I’ve suffered recently.”
Disappointment, dismay, disgust—Gordon felt them all. And something else. Something that felt like…liberation.
Suddenly Robbie threw his glass at the hearth, shattering it into a thousand little shards. “Don’t look at me like that, Gordo! Not you! It was bad enough that she looked at me as if I were a worm or some other loathsome creature. You’re a man—aye and an attorney, too—so you should understand that sometimes men have to make rational decisions, even when it comes to marriage. Especially when it comes to marriage and especially if you have a title. We don’t have the luxury of marrying solely for love.”
There it was again—the excuse that the upper class lived by different rules. Different needs. Different choices.
Not better, Gordon noted. Just different. “I can appreciate that you take financial matters into account when you marry, Robbie.” Indeed, he’d written enough marriage settlements to know that he certainly wasn’t alone in that. “But what I don’t understand is why a man as wealthy as you feels the need to get more money by such means.”
Robbie’s shoulders slumped as he let out his breath in a long sigh and sank wearily onto the sofa.
“Then I’ll explain so that you can,” he said, all pretence of pride or vanity gone. He was much more like the Robbie Gordon remembered as he spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I’m not rich. My family hasn’t been rich for years and I’m in debt up to my ears.”
Gordon simply couldn’t believe it. “But your family…this house… How is that possible?”
“I wasted my fair share of the family purse in my youth,” Robbie admitted, “because like you and everybody else, I thought my family had plenty of money. Then my father died and I discovered he’d lost most of our family fortune gambling—cards and investments that were bound to fail. The pater clearly had no head for business and could be talked into almost anything. While my mother was alive, she managed to save him from total ruin, but after her death…” He shrugged. “My father had no one to stop him, so this estate and all our other property is mortgaged to the hilt, and we owe a fortune in other debts, too.”
This wasn’t the first time Gordon had heard of a family discovering that they’d been left deeply in debt. Widows especially were often shocked and dismayed to learn the extent of their husband’s debts and financial obligations.
And when he considered how freely Robbie had spent money in their youth, it became easier to believe that things could be as grim as he described.
Gordon got up and walked to the window. Out in the garden, three men were trimming a hedge. Another was weeding one of the beds.
This huge house, the town houses, the servants, Robbie’s clothes, food and drink… “How are you paying for everything now?” he asked as he turned toward his friend again.
“Credit. Most of my creditors think they’re the only one I’ve borrowed from.” His elbows on his knees, he covered his face with his hands. “It’s a nightmare keeping everything straight in my head because I don’t dare write it down. How much I’ve borrowed from this one, how much from another. And when, and when they’re due.” He raised haunted eyes to look at Gordon. “I can’t sleep, can barely eat. I’m desperate, Gordo—so desperate I’ve even thought of running off to America.”
“Instead you decided to marry Lady Moira?”
Despite Robbie’s obvious distress, it shouldn’t have fallen to Lady Moira or her father or anyone else to repay the debts of the McStuarts, even if marrying for money wasn’t exactly a new or innovative way for men of any class to recover from a financial loss.
His head hanging like that of a defeated general who sees his troops marching to slaughter, Robbie clasped his hands. “God, no. Not exactly, or I would have proposed to that horse-faced daughter of Lord Renfield after my father died.”
He rose and came to stand in front of Gordon. “While I don’t deny I was pleased Moira’s dowry was considerable, that wasn’t the only reason I wanted to marry her. I truly cared for her, Gordon. She’s a rather remarkable woman—but stubborn and biased and too straitlaced, obviously. If only she’d been born into the title, instead of having it thrust upon her when she was already grown, she wouldn’t have been so upset when she heard about those girls and we’d still be getting married and all my problems would be solved.”
While Lady Moira’s would be just beginning.
“There must be something else you can do,” Gordon said, trying to come up with solutions that didn’t involve the sacrifice of a woman’s happiness.
“If there is, I’m damned if I know what it might be,” Robbie replied with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “The only people who will make a loan to me now are the kind who charge exorbitant rates and hurt you if you miss a payment.”
“I have some money put away that I could—” Gordon began.
“I’d rather marry an actual horse than take your money,” Robbie interrupted. “I know how hard you work for it.”
“I’m your friend, Rob, and friends help each other.”
Robbie went back to the whiskey decanter and poured himself another drink. “You are helping, by representing me.” He glanced sharply at Gordon as he lifted the glass. “Or are you saying you won’t do that anymore?”
“No, that’s not what I’m proposing,” Gordon swiftly replied. Not exactly. Even though he would rather not take on such a suit as this, he wasn’t going to abandon his friend. “Given that Lady Moira isn’t willing to settle, this case could drag on for quite some time. We can continue the suit if you like, but surely it would be better to find another way to raise the necessary funds in a swifter fashion.”
“I suppose I could propose to Lord Renfield’s daughter,” Robbie said with a frown after taking a sip of whiskey. “She’d accept, I’m sure, in spite of the fact that Moira jilted me.” He gave Gordon a sardonic grin. “The last time her family visited here, when my father was still alive and I was a mere stripling of seventeen, I found her waiting in my bed, naked.” He gave a dramatic shiver. “I’ve never been less tempted by a woman in my life. I covered her up in a blanket and sent her back to her room.”
He owed it to Robbie as a client, as well as a friend, to give him the best advice he could. “Marrying for money is never wise. In my experience, a man or woman pays a steep price in misery and unhappiness if they do.”
“Then I have no choice but to sue and hope Lady Moira’s very wealthy father is forced to pay, or settle out of court for a substantial amount. I don’t want to, Gordon, but…”
Robbie’s gaze faltered and when he next raised his eyes, Gordon saw a vestige of the boy he’d known, or thought he had. “I’m not proud of having to resort to such measures, but what else can I do? Sir Robert Mc Stuart can hardly advertise for a job.”
“There’s the law,” Gordon suggested, glad he had broached the subject. “You could be a barrister.”
“Are you forgetting I was never much for study? Besides, that would take more time than I have. I need money now, not years from now, or I’ll have already lost the estate and town houses and what would be the point?”
Gordon surveyed the walls of the drawing room. “You could sell some of the art.”
“I’ve borrowed against most of the good pieces,” Robbie replied, “and if I were to try to sell all the rest, I might as well advertise in the Times that I’m bankrupt. I can just imagine what my creditors will do then.”
“Perhaps I could contact your creditors on your behalf—discreetly, of course—and try to negotiate different terms for repayment or an extension. In my experience, lenders are often willing to receive something rather than nothing.”
Robbie’s face brightened, and he looked better than he had since Gordon had arrived. “Do you really think they’d do that?”
“It’s certainly worth pursuing,” Gordon assured him.
“That would be a damn sight better than asking Horse-face to marry me,” Robbie said as he grinned and walked toward Gordon to shake his hand. “I swear, Gordo, inviting you here is one of the best ideas I’ve ever had in my life!”
Perhaps it was, but Gordon wished he’d never had it.
“Ouch!”
Sticking her index finger in her mouth before she bled on her embroidery, Moira pushed the frame away with her other hand. This was the third time she’d jabbed herself with the needle since she’d started.
She glanced at the gilded clock on the mantelpiece of the upstairs sitting room. The late-afternoon light was brighter in this part of the house if the day was sunny, so she kept all her needlework here. Today, however, had not been sunny, so there was another reason she’d chosen this relatively isolated room to spend her time.
She could see the whole long driveway from her vantage point by the window.
It was nearly time for tea, and her father still hadn’t returned from Glasgow, although he should have been back by noon.
Frowning, she wrapped her handkerchief around her finger and put the small scissors, pincushion and yarns in their box, then closed the lid. This delay could mean nothing; he might have had more business to do than she suspected.
Besides, she would have to tell him about Robbie’s lawsuit when he got home, and that was not something she was looking forward to. Still, the dread of telling him about that was less distressing than the dread of learning that her father had broken his vow not to imbibe to excess.
She hoped she wasn’t disappointed. Again.
Sighing, she looked out the window once more, to see her father’s carriage turn onto the long sweeping drive.
Chapter Five
Moira left the room at once and hurried to the top of the stairs, where she could see the foyer and watch her father enter the house.
His clothes were neat and tidy, and his gait straight and firm as he came into view.
With a relieved sigh, she rushed down the stairs and into her father’s open arms.
“Moira, my girl! How I missed you!” he cried as he hugged her.
“I missed you, too, Papa,” she said, holding him close, happy and relieved that he didn’t smell of wine, and his eyes were clear and shining. “Your journey was a success?”
“Aye, better than I expected,” he replied as he moved away to hand his coat and hat to Walters, who was waiting expectantly nearby. “I took some time to visit some of our friends, too. The Misses Jenkins all send their best, and Mrs. McGovern, and the Bruces.”
“I miss them all,” she said with heartfelt sincerity, taking his arm and leading him to the drawing room, where they would have their tea.
Despite her cares and duties as mistress of her father’s house in Glasgow, those days often seemed like a happy, carefree dream, until his drinking had become a worry. “Perhaps we could invite Sally and her sister for a visit soon.”
“Excellent idea,” her father replied as he sat down before the tea table.
In addition to the tea, milk and sugar, there were scones—her father’s favorite—and fresh butter and strawberry jam.
As they sat side by side on the damask-covered sofa and her father regaled her with tales of his dealings, it was almost like having tea back in their much-smaller home in Glasgow.
Almost.
“So I told the old skinflint that he should be delighted I was making such an offer,” her father said with a laugh. “Just because I’ve got a title, I haven’t lost my wits, I said. You should have seen his face, Moira!”
“Then everything went just as you’d hoped?”
“Better! That’s why I was a little late returning. But I had another reason. I stand to make such a tidy profit, I stopped to get a present for a certain young lady of my acquaintance.” He reached into his jacket and produced a small blue velvet box tied with a scarlet satin ribbon that he held out to her. “A trifle for my darling daughter.”
Even the wrapping looked expensive. “Oh, Papa, you shouldn’t have!”
“If I can’t spoil my daughter, who can I spoil, at least until I have grandchildren?” he replied. “Besides, I thought you deserved something after…well, after your recent troubles.”
More grateful for his sympathy, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
“Enough of that! Just put it on.”
She undid the ribbon and opened the box. “Oh, Papa!” she gasped at the sight of a lovely cameo of a woman’s profile, the background a beautiful periwinkle blue. She lifted it out and held it up to admire against her cream-colored day gown. “It’s lovely!”
“I saw it and immediately thought of you, my dear.”
She pinned it to her bodice and went to look at her reflection in the mirror. It was the perfect size, and pretty and delicate.
“So, my dear, you know how my trip to Glasgow was. What have you been doing in my absence? Not spending all your time on that school, I hope.”
No, she most definitely had not.
But she certainly didn’t want to ruin this moment by telling him about meeting Mr. McHeath in the wood, and especially about that kiss, and surely Robbie’s legal challenge could wait a little while. Too many times in recent months her time with her father had been colored by dread and dismay. “I did have a meeting with Mr. Stamford about the school.”
Her father tilted his head and paused with another scone halfway to his mouth. “And?”
“And he seemed to think he could charge whatever he liked because I wouldn’t be aware of the cost of building materials.”
Her father chuckled before he took a bite of the scone. “More fool him. Speaking of fools, have those three idiot women done anything more to upset you?”
Moira wished her father hadn’t been with her the last time she’d gone into Dunbrachie. He’d been much more disturbed by the way the three young women had given her the cut direct than she had been, in part because she didn’t particularly care for the leader of the cabal, Sarah Taggart. “No, Papa, I haven’t seen them lately.”
He eased himself back on the sofa. “So, you’ve had a peaceful time in Dunbrachie, then.”
Moira laced her fingers in her lap and took a deep breath. Although she would rather wait, he was going to have to hear about Robbie’s lawsuit eventually, so she might as well tell him now, while he was in a good mood. And it would be better here, where all the wine and spirits were under her control. “I’m afraid there’s been some difficulty with Sir Robert.”
When he was sober, her father’s gaze could cut like a knife. “What do you mean, difficulty?”
She swallowed hard before answering, and tried to keep her voice level and calm. “It seems, Papa, that Sir Robert has decided to sue me for breach of promise.”
Her father bolted up from the sofa as if she’d stuck him with a pin, and his face bore the same incredulous expression that had probably been on her face when McHeath had made the same announcement. “What?”
“Because I broke our engagement, he’s suing me for breach of promise.”
“That’s ridiculous!” her father exclaimed, his face turning as red as ripe cherries, a stark contrast to his white hair.
“I quite agree, but ridiculous or not, that’s what he’s doing,” she replied, her hands clasped in her lap, hoping that if she was calm, he would be, too, although it might take a while. “Apparently his attorney thinks he has a case because our engagement was public knowledge, so what can be considered a verbal contract was also public knowledge.”
“Public knowledge?” her father angrily repeated. “Aye, your engagement was public knowledge and so were his liaisons with all those young women—to everybody in Dunbrachie but us!”
“Nevertheless, his solicitor said—”
“Has Gallagher lost his mind?” her father demanded, naming Sir Robert’s usual solicitor, the man who’d been involved in the drafting of her marriage settlement.
“It wasn’t Mr. Gallagher. The solicitor is a friend of Sir Robert’s from Edinburgh, Mr. Gordon McHeath.”
“I don’t give a damn who he is or where he’s from. They’ll never win.”
It was probably better to tell her father everything here and now. “Mr. McHeath said he can argue that it was my duty to find out more about Sir Robert before I accepted his proposal. Since I didn’t, the fault lies with me for breaking the engagement.”
Unfortunately, she had to admit, if only to herself, that Mr. McHeath was right about that one thing, at least. She should have tried to find out more about the handsome, flirtatious Sir Robert before accepting his proposal. If she hadn’t been so flattered by his attention, she might have realized that he didn’t stir her passion, certainly not the way Mr. McHeath did from the moment she met him.
But then, nobody had stirred her passion the way Mr. McHeath did.
Her father strode to the windows, turned and marched back again. “That man has the morals and backbone of a worm!” he declared, shaking his fist. “To sue a woman for jilting him! The man is even more of an idiot that those silly women.”
“I don’t think he’s stupid, Papa, or that idea would never have occurred to him. He’s certainly vain, though, and I’ve wounded his pride, enough that he’s seeking five thousand pounds in compensation.”
“Five thousand…?” her father gasped. “The man is mad if he thinks we’ll pay him even a quarter of that.”
“That’s exactly what I told Mr. McHeath, or as good as. Perhaps once Sir Robert realizes we’re not going to surrender easily, he’ll drop the suit,” she said as, relieved the worst of her revelations were over, she poured her father another cup of tea. “Please sit down, Papa, and have some tea.”
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Margaret Moore
No sooner does wealthy heiress Lady Moira MacMurdaugh breathe a sigh of relief for avoiding a disastrous marriage to a gambling womaniser than she is served with a lawsuit! Torn between duty and this impulsive beauty who stirs him to distraction, solicitor Gordon McHeath has no choice but to go up against the woman whose kiss he’s never forgotten.Until sinister forces threaten to upend Lady Moira’s world and Gordon must cast the law book aside!
It felt wonderful, as if somehow this woman was meant to be in his arms.
Which had to be the greatest flight of fancy his logical, lawyerly mind had ever taken.
‘There you are, safe as houses,’ he said with a smile, trying to sound as if he did this sort of thing every day.
‘Thank you for rescuing me. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t, Mr …?’
‘McHeath. Gordon McHeath. Of Edinburgh.’
‘I am in your debt, Mr Gordon McHeath of Edinburgh.’
Never had he been happier to hear the word debt.
Then, without a word, without a hint of warning, before he could even realise what she was doing, this woman whose name he didn’t even know raised herself on her toes and kissed him.
Praise for USA TODAY bestselling author Margaret Moore:
‘The talented Moore has penned another exciting Regency.’
—RT Book Reviews on HIGHLAND ROGUE, LONDON MISS
‘The story is fresh, fun, fast-paced, engaging and passionate, with an added touch of adventure.’
—The Romance Readers Connection on THE NOTORIOUS KNIGHT
‘Readers continue to ask for “Moore”. Her latest book is a sparkling, dynamic tale of two lonely hearts who find each other despite their pasts and the evil forces surrounding them.’
—RT Book Reviews on HERS TO DESIRE
‘Colourful and compelling details of life in the Middle Ages abound.’
—Publishers Weekly on HERS TO COMMAND
‘A lively adventure with enough tension and romance to keep me turning pages.’
—International bestselling author Roberta Gellis on HERS TO COMMAND
‘This captivating adventure of thirteenth-century Scotland kept me enthralled from beginning to end. It’s a keeper!’
—Romance Junkies on BRIDE OF LOCHBARR
‘Margaret Moore is a master storyteller who has the uncanny ability to develop new twists on old themes.’
—Affaire de Coeur
‘When it comes to excellence in historical romance books, no one provides the audience with more than the award-winning Ms Moore.’
—Under the Covers
Highland Heiress
Margaret Moore
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
USA TODAY bestselling author MARGARET MOORE has written over forty historical romance novels and novellas. She graduated with distinction from the University of Toronto, has served in the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve, and is a past president of the Toronto chapter of Romance Writers of America. For more information about Margaret, including a complete list of all her books, please visit her website at www.margaretmoore.com
Previous novels by the same author:
THE OVERLORD’S BRIDE
COMFORT AND JOY (in The Christmas Visit) BRIDE OF LOCHBARR LORD OF DUNKEATHE THE VAGABOND KNIGHT (in Yuletide Weddings) THE UNWILLING BRIDE THE DUKE’S DESIRE HERS TO COMMAND HERS TO DESIRE THE DUKE’S DILEMMA MY LORD’S DESIRE THE NOTORIOUS KNIGHT HIGHLAND ROGUE, LONDON MISS KNAVE’S HONOUR A LOVER’S KISS THE VISCOUNT’S KISS
And as a Mills & Boon
Historical Undone! eBook:
THE WELSH LORD’S MISTRESS
Did you know that some of the novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
With many thanks to my parents, my husband
and my children for all the support, wisdom
and laughs along the way.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter One
Scottish Highlands, 1817
He had been too long in the city, Gordon McHeath thought as he rode along the crest of a hill toward the village of Dunbrachie. He drew in a great, deep breath of the fresh air. After so many years in Edinburgh, he’d forgotten how clean and bracing the air of the Highlands could be. He’d become too used to the smoke and the smells, the noise and the crowds, of a bustling city. Here the silence was broken only by birdsong and the occasional bleating of sheep or lowing of cattle.
The north-facing slope on his left was covered with gorse and bracken, the one on his right with a wood of birch, alders and pine. The needles of the pine were deep green and their scent came to him on the breeze, making him think of Christmas and dark winter nights, although it was only September. The leaves of the other trees were already turning brown and gold, and he guessed the ground beneath would be muddy and damp and thick with mulch. Through the trees he spotted a fast-moving river rushing between rocky banks that probably teemed with salmon in the spring.
Unfortunately, he’d also forgotten how cold a Highland breeze could be, and those heavy, gray clouds in the distance were definitely moving closer. Unless he wanted to be caught in a downpour, he had to get his hired light brown nag moving faster than a walk.
As he went to nudge his horse into a trot, a dog’s furious barking broke the country quiet. It wasn’t the baying of a hunting hound—more like a watchdog sounding an alarm. A shepherd’s dog, perhaps, or a farm dog guarding a crofter’s hut.
Gordon rose in his stirrups and looked around. He could see no herd of sheep, no crofter’s hut or anything that might require a watchdog.
“Help! Help me!”
The woman’s plaintive cry from somewhere in the wood was barely audible over the barking and rushing water, yet there was no mistaking the words, or the desperation.
Punching his heels into the horse’s side, Gordon tried to make it leave the road and head toward the sound of the woman and the dog, to no avail, for the beast had the toughest mouth of any horse he’d ever ridden and refused to obey, as if it were more mule than horse.
With a muttered curse, Gordon dismounted, threw the reins over the branch of a nearby bush and began to make his way down the rocky, slippery slope between the trees as quickly as he could.
He tore the sleeve of his three-caped greatcoat on a holly bush. His riding boots were soon covered with mud that dirtied the hem of his coat. His hat got knocked off by a dangling branch he didn’t see until it was too late. Reaching down to pick up his hat, he slipped and landed hard and started to slide, until he managed to grab a tree limb.
The dog kept barking, and the woman called out for help again, closer this time, thank God, although he still couldn’t see her.
He scrambled to his feet and as he did, he caught sight of the largest, most vicious-looking black dog he’d ever seen at the base of a tall, slender, golden-leafed birch not far from the bank of the river. The dog of no breed Gordon could name was one of the ugliest he’d ever seen, with a huge head and jaw, wide-set eyes and small ears. It stood with legs planted aggressively, growling, a dribble of saliva dripping from its mouth.
Despite that, Gordon was fairly certain it wasn’t a mad dog. He’d seen a rabid dog once, frothing and wild-eyed, moving with an uneven sideways gait, and he would never forget it. Nevertheless, he would keep as far from the beast as he could.
“Are you hurt?” The woman’s voice came from the same direction as the dog, her accent telling Gordon she was no peasant or shepherdess.
“No,” he called back.
Who was she? Where was she? He couldn’t see anyone near the dog, or that tree, unless… As he came cautiously closer, he peered up into its branches.
There she was, her arms wrapped around the trunk, standing on a branch that, although she was slender, looked barely able to support her weight.
Despite the circumstance, he couldn’t help noticing that she was also exceptionally pretty, with fine features, large, dark eyes and dark curls that peeked out from beneath a daffodil-yellow riding bonnet. Her whole riding habit was that same color of velvet—hardly the outfit of a thief or vagabond.
“I’m all right. Are you injured?” he asked as he considered what to do about the situation, especially that threatening, growling dog.
He had a pistol in his indigo greatcoat, for no man traveled alone and unarmed in this part of the country if he could avoid it, but shooting the animal should be a last resort. It might, after all, only be doing what it was supposed to do, if the young woman had ventured onto private land, for instance.
So instead of taking out his pistol, he bent down and picked up a rock that fit comfortably in the palm of his hand. He’d been a fairly skilled cricket player in his school days, and he prayed his aim hadn’t deserted him as he threw the rock at the dog’s hindquarters.
It struck the animal hard enough to draw its attention; unfortunately, it didn’t run away.
He swiftly searched for another suitable missile that would be heavy enough to make the beast leave, but not to seriously hurt it. A solicitor, he could easily imagine an irate farmer bringing a lawsuit against him for killing his dog that had been dutifully protecting his property.
“This branch is creaking. It’s going to break!” the woman cried.
And that would be a long way for her to fall.
He grabbed a rock slightly larger than the last. It was covered with mud and slippery, but he managed to lob it at the dog before it slipped from his gloved hands. It sailed through the air, bits of dirt and debris flying off it before it landed squarely on the dog’s back.
Finally the dog fled, loping away through the trees toward the river, where they could hear it splashing.
“Oh, thank you!” the woman cried as Gordon hurried to the foot of the tree. “I was afraid I’d have to stay here all night!”
He could see her better now. She stood balanced on a branch that was only about three inches thick, her arms wrapped around the slim white trunk. In addition to her velvet riding habit, the young woman, who looked to be about twenty, wore tan kid leather gloves and boots. Her skin was fair and smooth, her lips rosy and bow-shaped, and her big coffee-brown eyes regarded him with admiration.
“I’m happy to be of assistance.”
“I was lucky you were riding by,” she said as she began to climb down with unexpected alacrity, “and equally fortunate I spent so much time climbing in my father’s warehouses when I was a girl, or I daresay my fate would be worse.”
Warehouses? Of course, her father must be rich. That would explain the velvet. He wondered if she had a mother, brothers, sisters or possibly a fortunate husband.
His curiosity on that point was momentarily suspended when the hem of her dress got caught on a smaller branch, revealing first her booted foot, then her shapely ankle, then her equally shapely, stocking-covered calf….
Good God, what was he doing? Or rather, not doing? “I beg your pardon. Your dress is caught.”
“Aye, so it is,” the fair unknown replied, tugging it free while a blush added more color to her smooth cheeks. “I had no trouble getting up in the tree when I was afraid that dog would hurt me, but getting down is a different matter.”
“Allow me to assist you,” he offered when she reached the lowest branch about three feet from the ground.
Although he wasn’t quite sure exactly what he was going to do, Gordon stripped off his muddy gloves and shoved them into his pocket before stepping forward.
Not that he should touch her. That wouldn’t be proper.
On the other hand, surely these were exceptional circumstances.
She spared him having to come up with a plan by putting her hands on his shoulders. He lifted his arms and grabbed her around the waist. Then she jumped.
Her action was so quick, so confident, he wasn’t quite prepared and nearly lost his balance. They both would have fallen to the ground if he hadn’t immediately put his arms around her.
He didn’t even know her name, yet holding her in his arms felt undeniably…right. No, better than just right.
It felt wonderful, as if somehow, this woman was meant to be in his arms.
Which had to be the greatest flight of fancy his logical lawyerly mind had ever taken.
Worse, he was blushing like a schoolboy, although he was nearly twenty-nine. Nor was this the first time he’d ever held a woman in his arms.
“There you are, safe as houses,” he said with a smile, trying to sound as if he did this sort of thing every day.
“Thank you for rescuing me. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t, Mr…?”
“McHeath. Gordon McHeath, of Edinburgh.”
“I am in your debt, Mr. Gordon McHeath of Edinburgh.”
Never had he been happier to hear the word debt.
Then, without a word, without a hint of warning, before he could even realize what she was doing, this woman whose name he didn’t even know raised herself on her toes and kissed him.
Her lips were soft, her body lithe and shapely, and her touch sent a rush of fire flashing through his body.
Without thought, acting only on instinct and need, he put his arms around her and pulled her closer. His heartbeat thundered in his ears as he slid his mouth over hers, gliding and grazing, until he coaxed her to let his tongue slip into the moist warmth of her willing mouth. His hands slowly explored the contours of her arching back, caressing her supple spine, her breasts pressed against his rapidly rising and falling chest.
Her hands moved upward, cupping his shoulders from behind, her body relaxing against his.
God help him, he had never been kissed like this. He had never kissed like this. He didn’t want to stop kissing like this….
Until he remembered that he was no Lothario, but an Edinburgh solicitor, and she must be from a well-to-do family, perhaps with a father or brothers, or even a husband.
At nearly the same time, she drew back as suddenly as if a wedge had been driven between them. She flushed as red as a soldier’s coat and swallowed hard, while he wondered what on earth he should say.
She spoke first. “I’m…I’m sorry, Mr. McHeath,” she said, her voice as flustered as her expression. “I don’t know what came over me. I’m not usually so… That is, I hope you don’t think I often kiss strange men.”
He wasn’t a strange man, but he knew what she meant. “I don’t usually kiss women I haven’t been introduced to,” he replied.
She moved back even more and ran her gloved hand over her forehead. “It must have been the strain. Or the relief. And gratitude, of course.”
Those could be explanations for her actions; what was his excuse for returning her kiss with such fervor?
Loneliness. A heart recently broken, or wounded at least. Her beauty. The feel of a woman’s arms around him, although they weren’t Catriona McNare’s.
Indeed, this bold young woman wasn’t at all like the meek and mild Catriona McNare.
“May I ask where you’re staying, Mr. McHeath? I’m sure my father will want to meet you, and an invitation to dinner is surely the very least we can do to express our appreciation for your timely assistance.”
She spoke of a father, not a husband.
Thank God. “I’m staying at McStuart House.”
Her whole manner and attitude altered as if he’d announced he was an inmate of the Edinburgh gaol. Her body stiffened and her luscious lips curled with disdain.
“Are you a friend of Sir Robert McStuart’s?” she demanded, her voice as cold as her kiss had been passionate.
“Aye. We went to school together.”
Her face reddened not with embarrassment but with obvious rage. What the devil could Robbie have done to make her so angry?
Since it was Robbie, he could think of several things, not the least of which was seduction—and as he knew from legal experience, hell really had no fury like a woman scorned.
“Did he tell you about me?” she demanded, her arms at her sides, her hands curled into fists. “Is that why you thought you could kiss me like that?”
“Sir Robert didn’t mention any young women when he invited me here,” he answered honestly, trying to remain calm in spite of her verbal attack. “I must also point out that I still don’t even know your name, and,” he added, “you kissed me.”
Undaunted by his response, she raised her chin and spoke as if she were the queen. “Thank you for your help today, Mr. McHeath, but any friend of Robbie McStuart is no friend of mine!”
“Obviously,” he muttered as she turned on her heel and marched away.
The moment Moira MacMurdaugh was out of Gordon McHeath’s sight, she gathered up her skirts and ran all the way home.
How could she have been so foolish? And impetuous? And bold? She never should have kissed him. Never should have touched him. She should simply have thanked him and let him go on his way.
When he pulled her closer, she should have broken away at once…even if Gordon McHeath’s kiss was like something from a French novel, full of heat and desire and need and yearning.
Worse, she could only imagine what Robbie Mc Stuart would make of this encounter, for surely Gordon Mc Heath would tell him. Soon more gossip about her would spread through Dunbrachie—and this time, it would be all her fault.
As if that weren’t bad enough, it was even more distressing to imagine her father’s possible reaction when he found out what she’d done.
He’d kept his pledge to her for nearly six months now—the longest span yet—and it sickened her to think her thoughtless act might cause him to start drinking to excess again.
Perhaps Mr. McHeath wouldn’t tell Robbie. After all, he was just as guilty of an improper embrace as she.
“My lady, ye’re back! Did ye fall? Are ye hurt?” the gray-haired, stocky head groom cried.
Jem hurried toward her from the entrance to the stables as she entered the yard bordered by a tall stone wall that had once surrounded a castle during the time of Edward Longshanks and William Wallace.
“Yes, I fell, but I’m not hurt. Did Dougal come home?” she asked, speaking of her horse.
“Aye, he’s here, the rascal,” Jem replied. “We were about to start a search for ye. Your father’s going to be that relieved when he sees you.”
Cursing herself again for lingering with the handsome Mr. McHeath, even if he was a tall, tawny-haired, strong-jawed, brown-eyed young man who looked like one of those Greek statues she’d seen in London, she hoped she wasn’t already too late…until she remembered all the wine and spirits were locked away and she had the only key. It wasn’t like Glasgow, where her father had only to go down the street to a tavern.
Nevertheless, she walked quickly through the new part of the manor that had been built by the previous earl, past the kitchen and buttery, the laundry and the servants’ dining room.
The delightful, homey smells of fresh bread and roasted beef filled her nostrils, and she felt a pang of nostalgia for the old days, before her father had started to drink heavily and before he’d come into his title and inheritance.
She reached the main floor of the house and the corridor leading to the library, her father’s study and the drawing room. The drawing room was part of the new building; the entrance hall with its dark oak panelling, the study and the library were not. Other rooms had been added in the times between the construction of the castle and the renovation and additions to the manor, so that now the country seat of the Earl of Dunbrachie was an amalgam of every architectural style from the Middle Ages to the Georgian period. She’d spent many hours when they first arrived here exploring all the nooks and crannies, cellars and attics, discovering forgotten pictures and furniture, dust, cobwebs and the occasional dead mouse.
Pausing for a moment to check her reflection in one of the pier glasses that were intended to brighten the otherwise very dark hall, and taking some deep breaths to calm her nerves, Moira removed her bonnet and laid it on the marble-topped side table beneath the mirror, then patted down the smooth crown of her hair.
“Moira!”
She turned to find her father in the door of his study. He was obviously agitated and his dishevelled thick gray hair indicated that he’d run his hands through it repeatedly.
“What happened? Are you hurt?” he asked as she approached. He took hold of her hands as he studied her face and clothes.
She decided the least said about what had happened that day, the better. “I’m quite all right. I took a tumble and Dougal ran off, so I had to walk back.”
“I was about to go after you myself.”
That explained his riding clothes—which he rarely wore, because he was no horseman, having spent most of his life in offices, mills and warehouses. Thank heavens she’d arrived before he’d gotten on a horse.
“I’m fine, Papa, really,” she replied, taking his arm and steering him into his study, which was the one room in the vast hall that seemed most like their old home in Glasgow.
As always, her father’s massive mahogany desk was littered with various papers, contracts, ledgers, quills, ink bottles and account books, for although he’d inherited a title and estate, he continued to oversee his business interests back in Glasgow. It looked a mess, but no one was allowed to tidy it, or else, her father claimed, he could never find anything. Older ledgers and account books were on the shelves behind his desk and a threadbare chair stood behind it. She’d been trying to persuade him to recover the chair for years, but he refused that, too, saying it was comfortable just the way it was. The only ornamentation in the room was a bust of Shakespeare sitting on the dark marble mantel that had belonged to one of the other earls.
“I don’t think you should be riding alone all over the countryside. What if you’d broken a limb?” her father asked as she sat on the slightly less worn sofa and he leaned back against his desk, wrinkling a paper that was half off the edge.
“I’ll be more careful next time. I promise.”
“Perhaps you should have a calmer mount—a nice, gentle mare wouldn’t be likely to throw you.”
Or gallop very fast, either. “Perhaps,” she prevaricated, not wanting to upset him more by protesting directly.
“And in future, you must take a groom with you.”
Her heart sank as she laced her fingers in her lap. She enjoyed having some time alone, away from the constant presence of all the servants. She supposed wealthy people who’d grown up in such circumstances were used to it; she, as yet, was not.
“You really must start acting more like a lady, Moira.”
“I’ll try,” she said. “There’s just so much to remember.”
And so many restrictions.
“With rank comes both privileges and duty,” her father reminded her.
Moira was well aware of that. Fortunately, not everything some would consider a duty was onerous to her.
“The school building is coming along nicely, Papa. You should come and see. And I’ve sent out the advertisement for a teacher,” she said, turning the subject away from her fall and its aftermath, and especially Gordon McHeath, silently vowing to stay far away from handsome strangers even if they looked like a maiden’s dream, kissed like Casanova and came charging to the rescue like William Wallace attacking the English.
His expression pensive, her father walked round his desk and shuffled some papers before he spoke again. “You do realize, Moira,” he began without looking at her, “that not everyone in Dunbrachie is in favor of your charitable endeavor? Even parents whose children will benefit are afraid you’ll be filling their heads with visions of futures that can’t possibly come to pass.”
“That’s because they don’t yet appreciate the value of an education,” she staunchly replied. “I expected some opposition. There always is when something is new and different. But once they see the value of being able to read and write and the opportunities it will afford their children, surely their opposition will melt away.”
“I hope so,” her father replied, glancing up at her. “I truly hope so. I would never forgive myself if something happened to you.”
She knew how much her father loved her and wanted her to be safe and happy. A more selfish, ambitious man would never worry about her as he did, or try to keep his promise not to overimbibe, or come to her with such a stricken, sorrowful expression when he discovered the truth about the man she had agreed to marry, and the things he’d done. She didn’t doubt that it had been almost as upsetting for her father to learn the true nature of her fiancé and have to tell her about it as it had been for her to hear it.
She hurried to embrace him. “We’ll look after each other, Papa,” she said with fervent determination, “as we’ve always done, in good times and bad.”
So she said, although she just as fervently hoped the bad times were at an end.
Chapter Two
Built in the Palladian style of granite and with a slate roof, McStuart House nestled on the side of the hill overlooking the village of Dunbrachie. The first time Gordon had been there as a lad of twelve he’d been awed into silence by the magnificent and spacious house and its army of servants. The last time he’d visited here, about five years ago, he’d counted the windows and discovered there were thirty-eight, front and back, and not including the French doors that led to the terrace from the drawing room and library.
But the architectural details of Robbie’s home, which he’d inherited on the death of his father three years ago, were not uppermost in Gordon’s mind as he approached this day. Nor were the thickening rain clouds.
He was thinking about that young woman, and Robbie—not that he wanted to think of them together, in any way.
He didn’t want to believe that his first assumption about the cause of her rage—a love affair gone wrong—was the correct one, so he tried to come up with other explanations for her anger.
Maybe there had been a family business venture involving Robbie that went awry. Robbie was not the most responsible of men, and he had no head for figures—except those of women—so it could well be that some sort of transaction or bargain had turned out badly.
Perhaps there was a sister or a cousin or a friend Robbie had flirted with and she was angry because she was jealous.
Whatever the explanation, as he neared the large portico at the front of McStuart House and the first drops of rain began to fall, he decided not to mention the encounter to Robbie. He didn’t want to hear Robbie’s account or explanations, especially if he and that bold, beautiful young woman had been lovers. He wanted to rest, and to try to forget Catriona.
He tied the horse to the ring on one of the columns and hurried up the three wide steps to the equally wide front door with a stained glass fanlight above. The door swung open to reveal a tall, austere butler Gordon didn’t recognize.
“Mr. McHeath, I presume?” the older man said in a refined English accent.
“Aye,” Gordon answered, giving his coat and hat to the liveried footman who appeared beside the butler.
“Sir Robert is expecting you in the drawing room.”
Gordon nodded and hurried inside, making his way to the drawing room through the imposing foyer with walls covered with the horns of stags and rams, spears, pikes, swords and armor. Beyond the drawing room and wide double staircase were several other rooms, such as the library where he and Robbie had played at soldiers when they were younger, and a billiard room they’d used when they were older. There were at least three bedrooms on the main level and twelve above, and servants’ quarters above that, on the uppermost level. He still had no idea how many smaller rooms existed below stairs, where the kitchen, laundry, pantry, buttery, wine cellar, servants’ parlor, servants’ dining room and various other rooms necessary for the running of the house were located.
When he entered the drawing room, he immediately spotted Robbie standing by the French doors leading to the flagstone terrace where the rain was now falling in earnest. Looking out over the garden that had been designed by Inigo Jones, his friend stood with his head lowered, one hand braced against the door frame, the other loosely holding an empty wineglass.
That was such an unusual pose for Robbie, Gordon wasn’t sure if he should disturb him or not, so he took a moment to survey the room. Nothing seemed to have changed since the last time he was here. The walls were still papered in that unusual shade of ochre, the gilded furniture was still covered with the same dark green velvet. The same portraits of long-dead ancestors hung in the same places, the same landscapes in theirs. Even the books on the side tables looked as if they were the ones that had been there five years ago. Everything was clean, with not a speck of dust to be seen, but otherwise, it was as if time had stood still.
Until Robbie turned around.
What the devil had happened to him? He looked as if he’d aged a decade, and a hard-lived decade at that. His face was pale and gaunt and there were dark semicircles beneath his bloodshot blue eyes. While his body had always been slim, now it looked almost skeletal. Only his thick, waving fair hair appeared unchanged.
As Gordon tried not to stare, Robbie set his wineglass on the nearest table and walked toward him smiling.
At least his smile was the same, merry and charming, and a spark of vitality was in his voice as he cried, “Gordo, you old bookworm! I thought you’d never get here! But I never should have doubted you’d arrive after sending me word you’d come, should I? Always dependable, that’s Gordo!”
Gordon had always detested that particular version of his name, yet he was far too concerned about his friend’s state of health to be annoyed. “I ran into a bit of trouble on the far side of the village,” he said dismissively before asking with more concern, “How are you, Robbie?”
“I’ve been a little under the weather,” his friend admitted as he reached out to shake Gordon’s hand.
“Nothing serious, so stop staring at me like an undertaker taking mental measurements,” he finished with a laugh, his grip strong and firm. “Just a little too much of the juice of the grape last night.”
That would certainly explain his appearance. And Robbie had never been much of an eater. But it was his hearty handshake that convinced Gordon there was nothing seriously amiss with his health.
“Let’s have a drink. I’m sure you need one,” his friend continued as he went to a cabinet and poured some amber-colored liquid into two glasses. “The roads around here can make for a damned uncomfortable ride.”
Although Gordon suspected Robbie had already been drinking more than was good for him, he was tired and thirsty and accepted the whiskey. “Thank you.”
Robbie downed his neat. Still holding the glass, he ambled toward the ornately carved hearth. “I suppose you were surprised to get my invitation.”
“I was delighted,” Gordon truthfully replied. And very happy to have a good reason to be away from Edinburgh for a while.
Robbie fingered his glass and looked down at the empty interior. “Yes, well, I confess my motives weren’t completely selfless. I’ve had a bit of trouble, Gordo.”
Involving a beautiful young woman whose passion could send a man reeling? God, he hoped not!
Nevertheless, he managed to calmly reply. “I see. What sort of trouble?”
Robbie gestured toward the sofa closest to him. “Sit down and I’ll tell you all about it—or do you want a bite to eat first? I’ve got a new cook, a Frenchman. Can’t understand half of what he says, but the food’s wonderful.”
No doubt costly, too, but the McStuarts had been rich since the Jacobite Rebellion, when they’d switched churches and allegiances to their advantage as easily as most men changed trousers. Not the most honorable of heritages, Robbie used to say, but it had kept the family solvent ever since.
“No, thank you. I’d rather hear about you,” Gordon replied as he sat down.
Robbie poured himself another whiskey, while Gordon twisted his half-full glass in his hand and waited.
“Well, Gordo, I suppose it had to happen eventually,” Robbie began, sighing as he leaned against the cabinet, holding his glass loose in his fingers with the same casual ease he always displayed, even when called before the tyrannical headmaster at the school where they’d met when they were ten years old. “I’ve had my heart broken at last, old chum. Smashed. Shattered. Wrecked and ruined by a cold and stubborn woman.”
A romantic affair gone wrong then.
Even though there was still the chance that Robbie’s heart had been broken by a woman who didn’t wear a yellow velvet riding habit, Gordon wished he’d taken another route, so he’d never have had that passionate, disastrous encounter.
“Yes, Gordo, it’s true. I fell in love—deeply, completely in love. And I thought she loved me, too, so I asked her to marry me.”
That was even more shocking. Robbie had certainly professed to being in love before—many times, in fact—but as far as Gordon knew, he’d never gone so far as to propose.
What, then, had gone wrong?
“Yes, I was actually ready to put my neck into the matrimonial noose—and she accepted. Seemed only too happy, in fact. We announced it at a ball at her father’s house.”
“Her father being…?”
“The Earl of Dunbrachie.”
Gordon tried to keep his expression suitably sober, although his heart fairly leaped with relief. Her father was a merchant or manufacturer who owned warehouses, not a titled nobleman.
“A fine match for us both, and then barely a fortnight later, she tells me she won’t marry me after all.”
No wonder Robbie looked exhausted. He, too, had spent many a night these past few months tossing and turning, thinking about his feelings for Catriona McNare. What he’d done and not done, said or should have said. Although he would never have sought solace in a bottle as he feared Robbie had been doing, he could certainly appreciate the inclination to want to drown his sorrows and seek the comforting company of an old friend. “I’m very sorry, Robbie.”
“I knew I could count on you to be sympathetic,” Robbie said with a grin. “And in one way, I suppose I should count myself lucky. Do you know what her father was before he inherited the title? A wool merchant. A very rich wool merchant, but a wool merchant nonetheless.”
The ceiling collapsing on Gordon’s head couldn’t have shocked him more. A rich wool merchant would have warehouses, or access to them.
“He was so distantly related to the late earl,” Robbie continued without looking at his silent friend, “it came as a shock to everybody—including him, I gather. And Moira herself can be eccentric. She has a positive mania about educating the poor. Wants to build a school for the children of Dunbrachie, although what they’d do with an education I have no idea. It’s not like most of the men in Dunbrachie want a school, either.”
If it was the same woman—and Gordon clung to the fast-diminishing hope that he was still jumping to the wrong conclusion—why had she broken the engagement? To be sure, Robbie could be impulsive and wasn’t prone to planning, but he was handsome, rich and titled, loyal and good-natured. Many a nobleman’s daughter could, and did, do worse.
“It would have been upsetting if she’d refused when I’d asked her, but I daresay I would have gotten over it soon enough. After all, there are plenty of other attractive, rich and nobly born women who would welcome my attention.”
Whoever the woman was, Gordon could certainly understand Robbie’s bitterness. Still, there was an arrogance in his tone that made it more difficult to sympathize with his friend. On the other hand, would he not have sounded so bitter and defensive if someone had asked him what was troubling him lately, too?
Robbie walked to the French doors, turned on his heel and made a sweeping gesture with the hand holding his empty glass. “Who does Moira MacMurdaugh think she is, that she can make a fool out of Sir Robert McStuart? She’s the fool if she thinks I’m simply going to let her humiliate me. That’s why I need your help, Gordo.” He straightened his shoulders and a triumphant gleam came to his bloodshot eyes. “I want to sue Lady Moira MacMurdaugh for breach of promise.”
Now it was as if the floor had given way, too. “You want to sue this woman for breach of promise?” Gordon repeated.
“Exactly.”
Gordon forced himself to try to forget about the woman who might or might not be the one he’d kissed, and think like the solicitor he was. Robbie clearly hadn’t considered all the ramifications of starting a legal action that was generally the province of women. “I can appreciate that you’re upset—”
“Upset? I’m not upset,” Robbie snapped, setting his glass down on an ebony-inlaid side table so hard, Gordon expected it to break. “I simply want her to understand that she can’t go around accepting proposals and rejecting them out of hand. Or don’t you think I have a case?”
Now things were getting even more difficult. Robbie might have a case, but there were other considerations he should take into account, as Gordon proceeded to explain. “If the engagement was public knowledge, you do have some cause of action. However, there’s something else you might want to think about first, Robbie. Dunbrachie is a small village, but this sort of legal activity will likely come to the attention of a wider circle, and probably the press, at least in Scotland. Your—” he hesitated, and chose a word other than humiliation “personal concerns may well become gossip fodder, splashed about the papers and discussed by complete strangers.
“Would it not be better to simply forget what happened? After all, as you yourself said, there have always been women eager for your attention.
“I’m sure you’ll find love again,” he finished, voicing a wish he harbored for himself, a wish that had suddenly seemed far more possible when he’d looked up and seen a beautiful woman trapped in a tree.
“You’re rather missing the point, Gordo,” Robbie said as he threw himself onto the sofa. “I’m not just doing this for myself. I’m doing it for all the other poor sods whose hearts she might break.”
He turned his head and regarded Gordon with a measuring, sidelong look. “If I were a woman in such circumstances, you’d take the case, wouldn’t you?”
“Perhaps,” Gordon replied. He wasn’t really sure what he’d do. However, he truly believed it would do Robbie more harm than good to sue. “What reason did she give for breaking the engagement? She did have a reason, I assume.”
Scowling, Robbie sat up. “She said she didn’t love me,” he replied with more than a hint of defiance, as if such a thing were too ludicrous to be credible.
Given Robbie’s experience with the fairer sex, he might be excused for thinking so. Nevertheless… “Perhaps it’s for the best then,” Gordon replied, repeating the same thing he’d been telling himself ever since he’d met Catriona McNare’s fiancé.
Robbie’s brows lowered and his mouth got that stubborn set Gordon well remembered. “She said she could never love a man like me.”
A man like Robbie, who was handsome and charming and a good friend? “What on earth did she mean by that?”
Robbie jumped to his feet and strode to the window. “It means she doesn’t understand how the upper class lives. I haven’t committed any crime. I haven’t done anything every nobleman in Scotland or England and certainly France hasn’t done before me. She claims to be a lady, yet she broke the engagement over a trifle.”
If he had done something to cause her to change her mind, that made a difference. “I think you’d better tell me what exactly this ‘trifle’ was.”
Robbie didn’t answer right away. First he marched to the cabinet and poured himself another drink, making Gordon wonder if too much drink was the trifle, and if so, it was indeed no trifle. No woman of sense wanted to marry a drunkard.
“If I’m to act as your solicitor in this matter, Robbie, I have to know all the details,” Gordon said quietly, beginning to feel a bit sorry that he’d accepted Robbie’s invitation.
He thought his friend had asked him there because they were friends and it had been a long time since they’d seen each other, not because he needed legal advice, yet now there was a possibility he was going to get embroiled in a case he’d prefer to avoid.
Robbie gulped down his whiskey and when he looked at Gordon again, he appeared even more haggard, as if telling the truth was physically painful. Nevertheless, he smiled his merry, charming smile—only this time, it seemed more like a death’s-head grin to Gordon.
“No need to look so stern, Gordo. It was only a dalliance with one of the maids, the sort of thing that goes on all the time.”
He should have guessed it would be something like this. Robbie had always had “high spirits,” as their headmaster had called it when Robbie had been discovered with one of the maids at school. Indeed, he’d been famous for his liaisons and the envy of every boy in school.
But that was in the world of males. He could easily imagine—and sympathize with—a potential bride’s dismay at learning of her future husband’s lustful activities with a servant. “Did you assure her you’d be faithful once you were married?”
Robbie looked at Gordon as if he’d suggested giving up food and drink. “No. Why would I? Why should I?”
Gordon’s heart sank. “Because you were going to make such a promise when you said your marriage vows.”
“Gad, Gordo, don’t tell me you, with your profession, are naive enough to think any man’s really going to be faithful to his wife?”
“I’ve met several who are,” Gordon replied, recalling some of the happily married clients who’d passed through his offices.
Robbie slouched onto an armchair near the sofa and frowned like a petulant child. “Sometimes I forget you’re…” He fell silent and picked at a bit of lint on his lapel with his slender fingers that had never done a day’s work.
“Not of your class?” Gordon finished for him.
His friend blushed, the fire of his anger apparently quenched as he regarded Gordon with dismay, and the first sign of genuine remorse. “I’m sorry, Gordon.” He spread his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’ll be perfectly honest with you. Yes, I dallied with one of the maids, but I never thought a fiancée or even a wife would really mind. I mean, you were at school. You heard the other boys talking about their fathers’ and brothers’ mistresses and lovers. It’s accepted in our world, or at least condoned. It was just a maid, after all. It’s not like I was keeping a mistress in the house. And I turned her out as soon as Moira learned about her.”
While Gordon was certainly well aware that many rich and titled men treated women like their personal toys to be used or discarded at will, he didn’t approve of that selfish behavior. And if Robbie thought hearing that the maid had lost her place because of their liaison was going to increase Gordon’s sympathy for his cause, he was even more mistaken. Gordon had helped too many servants who’d been seduced and cast out by their employers, suing for back wages at the very least, to have any sympathy for a master who took advantage of one.
In spite of his efforts to keep a blank countenance, his face must have betrayed something of his feelings, for Robbie’s next words had more than a tinge of self-defence. “It’s not as if the maid wasn’t willing. She was, I assure you. Very willing. Indeed, I think she seduced me.”
Gordon had heard this sort of excuse many times, too. “You were her master, Robbie. She might have felt she couldn’t refuse.”
“Of course she could!” Robbie retorted, hoisting himself to his feet. “I’m hardly some kind of brutal ogre.”
No, he wasn’t. Nevertheless…
“And I was honest enough not to make a promise to Moira that I wasn’t going to keep. But did she appreciate that? No, she looked at me as if I’d committed murder.”
Robbie ran his hand through his hair before starting for the cabinet again. “Maybe if she hadn’t been so angry…” Wrapping his hand around the decanter, he shook his head. “Oh, I don’t know what I would have done if she’d been calmer.” He walked away without pouring another drink and went to the fireplace. He picked up the poker and vigorously stirred the coals, sending ash swirling upward.
“Maybe instead of suing her, you should be grateful,” Gordon said quietly. “If you’d married her and strayed, and then she found out—”
“We would have been married and there would have been nothing she could do about it. She would have learned to accept that it’s a nobleman’s privilege, as my mother did and her mother before her.”
Gordon didn’t like what he was hearing. It smacked of brutal arrogance, of utter selfishness and a complete disregard for the feelings of another human being, the sort of attitude that spurred him to find justice for the weak and abused and cheated, and especially for women, who had so few rights under the law.
Rising, he went to face his friend, the better to see his face and read his expression, for eyes often said what words did not.
As a certain young lady’s eyes had spoken of desire before they’d kissed.
“What if your wife took a lover? Would you say then it was simply what people of your class do?”
Robbie clenched his jaw for the briefest of moments before he answered. “Of course. As long as I had an heir and a spare, my wife could take as many lovers as she liked.”
Robbie marched across the room to the cabinet, then turned to face his friend. “Obviously, I should have lied to you, and her. I should have said that of course I would be faithful. That I’d never even look at another woman.
“But I didn’t. So if you’d rather not represent me in this, I’ll find another solicitor who will. With you or without you, Gordo, I’m suing Moira McMurdaugh for breaking our engagement.”
Gordon regarded Robbie steadily. While Robbie never made any reference to what had happened at school, Gordon could never forget what he owed Robbie McStuart.
And if it was the same woman he’d rescued from the tree and kissed?
He still owed Robbie his career. “Of course I’ll represent you, Robbie.”
Chapter Three
Three days later, Moira leaned over the pedestal table in the book-lined library, studying the builder’s drawings of the future school, as well as his notations. She wanted to be sure that she was right before she addressed the prosperous middle-aged man standing before her with his thumbs in his vest pockets, rocking back and forth on his heels.
She was, but having dealt with tradesmen for many years, she didn’t begin with a direct accusation. That would only lead to confrontation, arguments, denials and, eventually, the pronouncement that women couldn’t be expected to understand business or the arithmetic that went with it.
“Mr. Stamford,” she began, “I must confess that I find your estimates rather…excessive.”
The plump man merely smiled with frustrating condescension. “Perhaps, my lady, we should wait for your father’s return from Glasgow. He’d due back today, is he not?”
“Yes, he is,” she replied, hoping with all her heart he would return as promised and hadn’t met any of his friends who had, in the past, led him astray. “However, the school is my responsibility, not his.”
Her statement didn’t appear to make any difference to the builder, for the man continued to regard her as if she were merely an overgrown child, and one incapable of understanding simple addition and multiplication, too. “I’m sure, as a former man of business, your father will be able to comprehend the figures better than a young lady. You mustn’t trouble your pretty head with such things as measurements and structure, square feet and raw materials,” Mr. Stamford continued with that same insufferable patronage. “Perhaps you don’t understand, Mr. Stamford, that as the daughter of a man of business who’s been keeping household accounts for ten years, ever since my mother died, I’m not incapable of calculating totals and expenditures,” she said, determined not to let this man think he could flatter her into believing that his estimates of the costs of materials were reasonable when they were so obviously not. “Nor, having had considerable work done on this house, am I ignorant of the costs involved when refurbishing a building. I find your estimate of the price for the necessary materials for the school and labor excessive. You’re building a school, after all, not a manor house.”
The man’s cheeks puffed out with an annoyed huff. “Far be it from me to contradict a lady. However, if one wishes to use the best materials—and I was under the impression you did—then one has to pay accordingly.”
“I want the best for the purpose,” she clarified. “The prices you’re quoting would seem to indicate you’re using wood and stone more suitable for a cathedral than a village school. We recently had the dining room of this house panelled in mahogany brought especially from Jamaica, Mr. Stamford, and the price of that mahogany was less than this quotation for the oak ceiling beams of the main schoolroom. I fail to see how that is possible, unless the oak is gilded.”
The builder’s face turned as red as lip rouge. He reached for the plans spread on the table and began to roll them up, the pages crackling and crinkling with his swift action. “If you don’t like the plans or the cost, my lady, you can always hire another man!”
“Unless you can provide me with a more reasonable quote, I may have to,” Moira replied, not a whit disturbed or intimidated by his bluster, “although I’d hate to think you’ve done so much work for nothing.”
“Nothing?” the man almost shrieked. “I expect to be paid for the time and effort I’ve already—!”
“Of course,” she smoothly interrupted, “it would be a pity to have this assignment come to a premature end.”
“Like some women’s engagements?” he retorted.
Moira managed to control the rage that spiralled through her. She wanted to dismiss him on the spot, but that would lead to a delay, which would surely upset her father. That was always something to be avoided, lest he be tempted to break his vow.
“It would also be unfortunate that you wouldn’t be able to brag about working for the Earl of Dunbrachie’s daughter anymore, as I believe you already have.”
Or so the butler had informed her, having had it from the footman, who’d been in the village tavern the night before last.
The man’s gaze finally faltered and he put the plans back on the table. “Aye, yes, well, perhaps I was a tad hasty, my lady,” he said in a conciliatory tone, “and I’m a hot-tempered fellow. I suppose we could use less oak and more pine, and maybe I don’t have to buy so much slate for the roof.”
Despite his change of manner and her relief that things could proceed as planned, there was something else she considered important to make clear. “I don’t want any corners cut. The building must be safe and sound.”
“That school will be so well built, it’ll still be standing a hundred years from now,” he assured her.
“Excellent, Mr. Stamford,” she conceded, “and if I see more realistic figures, I see no need to tell my father about our difference of opinion. Now I give you good day, sir. I’ll be by to check the progress of the school later in the week.”
“Yes, my lady. Goodbye, my lady, and I’m sure I’ll be able to find ways to economize, my lady.”
With that, he bustled out of the library as if he couldn’t get away fast enough, which was probably the case. She was just as relieved to see him go. She was well aware that her broken engagement to Sir Robert McStuart was no secret, but it was nevertheless galling to have it flung into her face.
It was even more galling to realize that Gordon McHeath had surely heard about her broken engagement by now, and from Robbie McStuart, too, she thought as she walked around the room, brushing her fingertips over the leather spines of the books that had so delighted her when they’d first arrived. Her former fiancé would undoubtedly paint what had happened between them in the worst possible way, making light of his own transgressions and describing her as some sort of narrow-minded, unsophisticated bumpkin.
If only she could stay as angry and indignant as she’d been when she found out the man who had come to her rescue was Robbie McStuart’s friend. Unfortunately, as time had passed, she found herself thinking less of his friendship with Robbie and more of the passion she’d felt in his arms. The excitement. The wish that his embrace would never end. She remembered Gordon McHeath’s smile, his gentlemanly demeanor and the sight of him charging down the hill like a knight errant. Even more vividly, she recalled the urge to kiss him that she hadn’t been able to fight, his passionate response, the sensation of his arms around her and his lips covering hers, seeking, demanding, wanting….
“I beg your pardon, my lady,” the butler intoned from the door. “A gentleman wishes to see you.” He held out a silver salver with a card upon it. “He says it’s a legal matter, my lady.”
Legal matter? “Did you tell him the earl isn’t at home?”
“I did, and he said it doesn’t involve the earl, my lady. His business is with you.”
Perhaps it had something to do with the school, although she couldn’t imagine what. She went to the door and took the card. She glanced at it, then stared.
Gordon McHeath, Solicitor, Edinburgh.
Robbie McStuart’s friend was a solicitor? Even so, what could he possibly want with her? It couldn’t be because of that kiss…could it? That hadn’t violated any law that she was aware of.
Perhaps it had something to do with the dog that had chased her. “Show him in, please.”
Smoothing down her skirt and tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear, determined to keep the conversation coolly business-like, she perched primly on an armchair covered in emerald-green damask near the hearth.
Mr. McHeath appeared on the threshold. He wasn’t dressed in his caped greatcoat and hat; otherwise, his clothing was similar, down to his riding boots. Without his hat, his tawny hair waved like ripples on a lake, and he was definitely as handsome and well built as she remembered.
He hesitated, and a look passed over his face that made her think he was about to leave just as abruptly.
He didn’t. His visage slightly flushed, as she suspected hers must be, he came farther into the room, his expression solemn to the point of grimness.
Commanding herself to be calm and detached, and above all to forget she had ever kissed him, she said, “So, Mr. McHeath, what is this legal matter that has brought you here today?”
His gaze swept over the room and furnishings, lingering for a moment at the pedestal table with the drawings still on top before he came to a halt and pulled a folded document from the pocket of his navy blue jacket.
“I’ve come on behalf of Sir Robert McStuart regarding the matter of your broken engagement,” he said, his voice just as coldly formal as hers had been. “He’s bringing an action against you for breach of promise.”
Moira stared at him in stunned disbelief. “Breach of…? He’s suing me?”
“Yes.” McHeath took a deep breath, like a man about to dive into frigid water. “He’s seeking damages in the amount of five thousand pounds.”
With a gasp as if she’d landed in that frigid water, Moira jumped to her feet. “I don’t believe it! Five thousand pounds? Five thousand pounds?”
“I agree it’s a considerable sum, but you must be aware of the damage your change of mind has done to his reputation. He feels he should be duly compensated.”
“His reputation?” she repeated, her hands balling into fists, her whole body shaking with righteous indignation. “What was his reputation, that he should set such store on it? And what about mine? Don’t you think mine has suffered just as much, if not more?”
The solicitor didn’t seem the least nonplussed. “Then perhaps, my lady, you should offer a sum to settle before the matter goes before a judge.”
“You want me to pay him off? Are you mad?” she demanded, appalled as well as angry. “I’m not going to give that libertine a ha’penny. If there’s anyone at fault for what happened, it’s him. Didn’t he tell you why I broke the engagement?”
“He told me that you informed him that you no longer loved him,” the solicitor replied, still standing as stiff and straight as a soldier on a parade square. “He said that you were angry about his dalliance with a maid, and because he refused to assure you he would be faithful in the future.”
All that was true and yet…” A dalliance? Only one?”
Finally, something seemed to bring a spark of passionate life back to Gordon McHeath’s eyes. Unfortunately, the change lasted only an instant before he resumed that statuelike demeanor. “Yes, only one.”
“In addition to the chambermaid at McStuart House, there were three girls at his family’s weaving mill and the scullery maid in his town house in Edinburgh that I know about,” she informed him. “There may very well be more. He also drinks, Mr. McHeath, far too much. He managed to keep that hidden from me for quite some time, but fortunately not long enough for me to go through with the marriage. I have long vowed that I would never marry a sot.”
McHeath glanced down at the toes of his boots, so she couldn’t see his face. When he raised his eyes to her, his expression was again that blank mask, as if they’d never even met, let alone kissed. Indeed, she could hardly believe this was the same man who’d come rushing so gallantly to her rescue and who’d kissed her with such fervent passion.
“It was your duty to find out about the man proposing marriage before you accepted him, my lady,” he said. “Apparently you did not. You could have asked for more time to consider. You did not. You also said that you no longer loved him. This suggests you not only felt a moral indignation when you learned of his liaisons, you experienced an inner revelation concerning the depth of your own feelings. That is something over which my friend had absolutely no control. You alone are responsible for that and as such, Sir Robert has some justification for his claim.
“More importantly from a legal point of view, you entered into a verbal contract that was publicly announced, and you broke that contract.”
“Good God,” she gasped, aghast at his cool and condemning response and backing away from him as if he held a loaded pistol. “You’re absolutely serious about this!”
“I assure you, my lady, I would never jest about a lawsuit.”
That she could well believe. Indeed, at this moment, she could well believe he never made a jest or joke about anything. But he was the man who had saved her from that dog, so surely he could have some sympathy for her feelings, and her decision. “Whatever I thought I felt, I realized I was wrong and acted accordingly. Would you really have me marry a man I no longer cared for and could no longer even respect? Would you really want me—or any woman—to tie herself to such a man under those conditions?”
The attorney had the grace to blush as he steadily met her gaze. “No, I wouldn’t, but again I remind you, my lady, that whatever Sir Robert’s faults, it was your responsibility to discover them before you accepted his proposal.”
Was the man made of marble? Had he no heart? “Surely a judge will side with me and agree that I was right to end the engagement.”
“Judges are men, my lady. He may well agree that Sir Robert deserves to be compensated.”
Unfortunately, he had a point. Men made the laws, and men upheld them.
And what about Gordon McHeath, who had seemed so kind and chivalrous? “Do you condone his behavior, Mr. McHeath?”
He didn’t look away. “Condone? No, I do not. But I was not raised as he was, by parents who believed their birth and station meant certain social mores didn’t apply to them.”
“So even if you don’t agree with what he’s doing, you would defend him?”
“I represent him.”
With a horrible sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, she thought of another reason he might believe a judge would side with Robbie. “Did you tell him that we kissed?”
Although Mr. McHeath continued to regard her dispassionately, his cheeks reddened a little more. “I saw no need to mention that particular act to Sir Robert, or anyone else. I hope you have been similarly reticent. It does neither of us credit.”
Her heart began to beat again, albeit erratically, for despite his explanation for his reticence, she sensed he wasn’t as sorry or ashamed as he claimed to be.
Neither, she realized, was she—even now. Wanting to see if she was right, she pressed him for more of an explanation. “It would help your case, would it not?”
“I saw no need to provide more evidence when I had hoped you would be reasonable and offer a sum in settlement so that the case need not proceed.”
In spite of his evenly spoken reply, she sidled a little closer, so that she could see into his eyes, the better to gauge his true response. “Given that Sir Robert seems to be selective with the facts, are you aware that five thousand pounds was to be the amount of my dowry?”
No, he hadn’t known that. She could see the surprise he tried to hide. “Obviously he wants the dowry he didn’t get,” she observed.
Mr. McHeath swiftly recovered from his surprise. “Whatever his reasons, that is the sum he feels is appropriate compensation.”
“I feel he’s not entitled to anything, and nothing you say will ever make me change my mind.”
Mr. McHeath inclined his head. “Very well, my lady, and since we seem to be unable to come to any agreement, I shall bid you good day.”
She shouldn’t feel any regret when he said those words. She shouldn’t be sorry he was leaving. After all, she barely knew him, and he was working for Robbie.
“You may also tell Sir Robert that I do not and never will regret breaking our engagement. If anything, his petty, vindictive action further convinces me that I was right to do so,” she said as she went to the hearth and tugged the bellpull beside it. “Good day, Mr. McHeath. Walters will show you out.”
When Gordon returned to McStuart House, he immediately went in search of his host, although every step seemed an effort. He wasn’t looking forward to having to relay Lady Moira’s response any more than he’d been to confront her. Indeed, he’d been seriously tempted to leave without revealing the purpose of his visit when he saw that Lady Moira was the woman he’d helped and kissed, but gratitude and duty demanded that he do what he’d been asked to do. Now Robbie would want to know what had happened.
It would be far better for all concerned if they each simply went their own way, and let the past stay in the past. Unfortunately, despite his best efforts, Robbie was determined to have his day in court, and be compensated for the blow to his pride.
Even more unfortunately, Lady Moira wasn’t the only person in Dunbrachie who could be faulted for not knowing more about a man before entering into an agreement with him. He should have been much more wary of agreeing to represent Robbie in a legal matter, especially after he’d noticed how much Robbie drank that first afternoon.
He finally found Robbie in the last room he thought to look—the library. Unlike the earl’s library, this one had an air of musty neglect, and many of the volumes weren’t even real books. In fact, Gordon was rather sure neither Robbie nor his father had read a book in its entirety after they left school.
The dark draperies added to a sense of genteel decay, and the portraits in this room all seemed to be of people in a state of chronic indigestion.
Its only saving grace—and perhaps its appeal for Robbie—was the large windows opening to the terrace. Or maybe its isolation from the other rooms, and thus its silence, explained why he had gone there.
Naturally Robbie wasn’t reading a book. He wasn’t even awake. He lay sprawled on his back on one of the worn, silk-covered sofas, his right arm thrown over his face, his left crossed over his chest and an empty bottle of port on the floor beside him.
Chapter Four
Gordon sighed heavily and leaned back against one of the shelves. Whatever Robbie thought, Lady Moira was right to be wary of marrying a man who drank so much. In his practice he’d seen too many marriages fall into bitter ruin and too many families destroyed because of drink.
Robbie’s blue eyes flickered open. “Gordo! You’re back!” he muttered as he lurched to a sitting position. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
“I’m only just returned,” he replied. He came farther into the room and sat in a wing chair opposite Robbie. He nodded at the bottle on the floor. “Isn’t it a little early for that?”
Robbie sighed and rubbed his temples as he hunched over. “My head ached, so I had a little drink for medicinal purposes.”
“A little drink?”
“Aye, just enough to put me to sleep.”
“Perhaps your head ached from imbibing too much last night,” Gordon suggested, trying to keep his tone nonjudgmental.
Robbie frowned. “You’re not my nursemaid.”
“No, I’m not. I’m your friend, and I’m worried about you.”
Robbie slid down until he was lying on his back, his head resting on the arm of the sofa. “If I’m drinking a little more than usual, it’s because that’s the only way I can sleep most nights.”
Gordon wondered what his “usual” amount of drinks per day would be, then decided that really didn’t matter. What mattered was Robbie’s current condition, which was obviously far from healthy. He was still too thin and pale, with dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. “Maybe we should send for the doctor.”
Robbie shook his head as he closed his eyes. “No doctor. It’s this business with Moira that has me out of sorts, that’s all. I’ll be fine when it’s over.”
“Perhaps if we went riding, or walked up the hills, that would help you sleep.”
Robbie turned his head to look out the long mullioned windows. “Not today,” he said with a weary sigh. “It’s going to rain.”
He was, unfortunately, right. The sky was a dull slate gray that foretold a downpour before the afternoon was over.
Robbie suddenly seemed to remember where Gordon had been. “So what happened?” he demanded as he squirmed to a sitting position, his feet on the floor. “What did my former fiancée say when you told her I was suing her for breach of promise?”
Not wanting to inflame the situation even more, Gordon tried to choose his words wisely. “Naturally she was upset.”
That was true, although not in the way Robbie seemed to interpret his response, judging by the gleam of triumph that came to his red-rimmed eyes. “As well she should be! Was she willing to settle out of court?”
Gordon had done his best to talk Robbie out of naming such a huge sum in damages; the best he’d been able to do was suggest that he be willing to compromise and eventually settle for a lesser amount in order to save time and expenses. After much persuading, Robbie had finally agreed. Regrettably, Lady Moira had rendered his victory moot. “No, she did not.”
Robbie’s expression dulled, but only for a moment. “Well then, she’ll have to pay the whole amount when we win—plus expenses!”
Robbie had always been a confident fellow and clearly nothing that had happened to him had altered that. “She believes she will not lose.”
“Ha!” Robbie snorted as he got to his feet, kicking over the bottle and paying it no heed as it rolled across the Aubusson carpet and came to a halt at the edge of the marble hearth. “Of course she will! Everybody in Dunbrachie knew we were engaged. Everybody knows she broke it off. How did you put it? Ah, yes—she breached a verbal contract. And I’ve got the best solicitor in Scotland and England, too, to represent me.”
This was no time to prevaricate. “I’m flattered by your compliments, Robbie, but she feels that given some of your less-than-exemplary behavior, a judge will be sympathetic to her.”
Robbie laughed, although not with his usual merry mirth. This laugh was cold and harsh and ugly. “A female judge might take her side, but since there are no lady judges and never will be, I’ll win and Moira will have to pay. And then I…”
He didn’t finish as he went to what looked like a row of books, pulled one half out of its slot, and revealed another liquor cabinet.
Though Gordon didn’t think Robbie should have another drink, that wasn’t what bothered him most now. “And then you…what?”
“And then I’ll be finished with her once and for all.”
There was more to it than that, or Robbie wouldn’t be suing her. He would simply leave her alone. And he’d sounded almost…desperate.
“You need the money!” Gordon blurted as an explanation for that desperation burst into his mind.
“No. That is, not exactly,” Robbie said, blushing as he poured some whiskey from a Waterford decanter into a crystal glass that looked nearly as dusty as the books.
Did the man have alcohol squirreled away in every room of his house? Was that where his money was going?
But the McStuarts had been rich for generations, with more wealth than any one man could possibly drink away.
“The money would come in handy, that’s all,” Robbie said as the distinct scent of whiskey reached Gordon’s nostrils. “I have a few debts I’d like to get rid of sooner rather than later.
“Besides, it’s the principle of the thing. She broke a contract and she ought to pay a penalty,” he finished before he downed his whiskey in a gulp.
“Was that why you were going to marry her? Because her father is rich?” Gordon asked, hoping he was wrong. Silently praying that he was.
“Of course not!” Robbie retorted as he whirled around, his chest heaving with what Gordon believed—to his relief—was genuine dismay. “I loved her! You saw her—you’ve seen how beautiful she is. She is beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Aye, very beautiful,” Gordon agreed. And strong willed. And resolute. And brave and passionate and desirable.
“Who wouldn’t fall in love with a woman like her? Well, maybe you wouldn’t,” he amended, swinging his glass around to point at Gordon and spilling a third of its contents. As with the port bottle, Robbie ignored the spill, even though the carpet had to be worth several thousand pounds. “You’re far too serious and studious to fall in love, I think. Not for Gordo the insanity of Eros, eh?”
Gordon silently begged to differ. He’d been in love—or thought he was—so he knew exactly what Robbie was talking about. “But I was in love,” his friend continued with a dramatic flourish as, still holding the glass, he pointed to his own chest.
His declaration might have fooled somebody who didn’t know Robbie well, but Gordon did, and what he saw beneath the colorful words and dramatic gestures was need. Not for Lady Moira, or her love, or even happiness, but money—and badly.
As if to prove his observation, Robbie muttered half under his breath, “It was just a bonus that her father was rich and could help me with some financial reversals I’ve suffered recently.”
Disappointment, dismay, disgust—Gordon felt them all. And something else. Something that felt like…liberation.
Suddenly Robbie threw his glass at the hearth, shattering it into a thousand little shards. “Don’t look at me like that, Gordo! Not you! It was bad enough that she looked at me as if I were a worm or some other loathsome creature. You’re a man—aye and an attorney, too—so you should understand that sometimes men have to make rational decisions, even when it comes to marriage. Especially when it comes to marriage and especially if you have a title. We don’t have the luxury of marrying solely for love.”
There it was again—the excuse that the upper class lived by different rules. Different needs. Different choices.
Not better, Gordon noted. Just different. “I can appreciate that you take financial matters into account when you marry, Robbie.” Indeed, he’d written enough marriage settlements to know that he certainly wasn’t alone in that. “But what I don’t understand is why a man as wealthy as you feels the need to get more money by such means.”
Robbie’s shoulders slumped as he let out his breath in a long sigh and sank wearily onto the sofa.
“Then I’ll explain so that you can,” he said, all pretence of pride or vanity gone. He was much more like the Robbie Gordon remembered as he spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I’m not rich. My family hasn’t been rich for years and I’m in debt up to my ears.”
Gordon simply couldn’t believe it. “But your family…this house… How is that possible?”
“I wasted my fair share of the family purse in my youth,” Robbie admitted, “because like you and everybody else, I thought my family had plenty of money. Then my father died and I discovered he’d lost most of our family fortune gambling—cards and investments that were bound to fail. The pater clearly had no head for business and could be talked into almost anything. While my mother was alive, she managed to save him from total ruin, but after her death…” He shrugged. “My father had no one to stop him, so this estate and all our other property is mortgaged to the hilt, and we owe a fortune in other debts, too.”
This wasn’t the first time Gordon had heard of a family discovering that they’d been left deeply in debt. Widows especially were often shocked and dismayed to learn the extent of their husband’s debts and financial obligations.
And when he considered how freely Robbie had spent money in their youth, it became easier to believe that things could be as grim as he described.
Gordon got up and walked to the window. Out in the garden, three men were trimming a hedge. Another was weeding one of the beds.
This huge house, the town houses, the servants, Robbie’s clothes, food and drink… “How are you paying for everything now?” he asked as he turned toward his friend again.
“Credit. Most of my creditors think they’re the only one I’ve borrowed from.” His elbows on his knees, he covered his face with his hands. “It’s a nightmare keeping everything straight in my head because I don’t dare write it down. How much I’ve borrowed from this one, how much from another. And when, and when they’re due.” He raised haunted eyes to look at Gordon. “I can’t sleep, can barely eat. I’m desperate, Gordo—so desperate I’ve even thought of running off to America.”
“Instead you decided to marry Lady Moira?”
Despite Robbie’s obvious distress, it shouldn’t have fallen to Lady Moira or her father or anyone else to repay the debts of the McStuarts, even if marrying for money wasn’t exactly a new or innovative way for men of any class to recover from a financial loss.
His head hanging like that of a defeated general who sees his troops marching to slaughter, Robbie clasped his hands. “God, no. Not exactly, or I would have proposed to that horse-faced daughter of Lord Renfield after my father died.”
He rose and came to stand in front of Gordon. “While I don’t deny I was pleased Moira’s dowry was considerable, that wasn’t the only reason I wanted to marry her. I truly cared for her, Gordon. She’s a rather remarkable woman—but stubborn and biased and too straitlaced, obviously. If only she’d been born into the title, instead of having it thrust upon her when she was already grown, she wouldn’t have been so upset when she heard about those girls and we’d still be getting married and all my problems would be solved.”
While Lady Moira’s would be just beginning.
“There must be something else you can do,” Gordon said, trying to come up with solutions that didn’t involve the sacrifice of a woman’s happiness.
“If there is, I’m damned if I know what it might be,” Robbie replied with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “The only people who will make a loan to me now are the kind who charge exorbitant rates and hurt you if you miss a payment.”
“I have some money put away that I could—” Gordon began.
“I’d rather marry an actual horse than take your money,” Robbie interrupted. “I know how hard you work for it.”
“I’m your friend, Rob, and friends help each other.”
Robbie went back to the whiskey decanter and poured himself another drink. “You are helping, by representing me.” He glanced sharply at Gordon as he lifted the glass. “Or are you saying you won’t do that anymore?”
“No, that’s not what I’m proposing,” Gordon swiftly replied. Not exactly. Even though he would rather not take on such a suit as this, he wasn’t going to abandon his friend. “Given that Lady Moira isn’t willing to settle, this case could drag on for quite some time. We can continue the suit if you like, but surely it would be better to find another way to raise the necessary funds in a swifter fashion.”
“I suppose I could propose to Lord Renfield’s daughter,” Robbie said with a frown after taking a sip of whiskey. “She’d accept, I’m sure, in spite of the fact that Moira jilted me.” He gave Gordon a sardonic grin. “The last time her family visited here, when my father was still alive and I was a mere stripling of seventeen, I found her waiting in my bed, naked.” He gave a dramatic shiver. “I’ve never been less tempted by a woman in my life. I covered her up in a blanket and sent her back to her room.”
He owed it to Robbie as a client, as well as a friend, to give him the best advice he could. “Marrying for money is never wise. In my experience, a man or woman pays a steep price in misery and unhappiness if they do.”
“Then I have no choice but to sue and hope Lady Moira’s very wealthy father is forced to pay, or settle out of court for a substantial amount. I don’t want to, Gordon, but…”
Robbie’s gaze faltered and when he next raised his eyes, Gordon saw a vestige of the boy he’d known, or thought he had. “I’m not proud of having to resort to such measures, but what else can I do? Sir Robert Mc Stuart can hardly advertise for a job.”
“There’s the law,” Gordon suggested, glad he had broached the subject. “You could be a barrister.”
“Are you forgetting I was never much for study? Besides, that would take more time than I have. I need money now, not years from now, or I’ll have already lost the estate and town houses and what would be the point?”
Gordon surveyed the walls of the drawing room. “You could sell some of the art.”
“I’ve borrowed against most of the good pieces,” Robbie replied, “and if I were to try to sell all the rest, I might as well advertise in the Times that I’m bankrupt. I can just imagine what my creditors will do then.”
“Perhaps I could contact your creditors on your behalf—discreetly, of course—and try to negotiate different terms for repayment or an extension. In my experience, lenders are often willing to receive something rather than nothing.”
Robbie’s face brightened, and he looked better than he had since Gordon had arrived. “Do you really think they’d do that?”
“It’s certainly worth pursuing,” Gordon assured him.
“That would be a damn sight better than asking Horse-face to marry me,” Robbie said as he grinned and walked toward Gordon to shake his hand. “I swear, Gordo, inviting you here is one of the best ideas I’ve ever had in my life!”
Perhaps it was, but Gordon wished he’d never had it.
“Ouch!”
Sticking her index finger in her mouth before she bled on her embroidery, Moira pushed the frame away with her other hand. This was the third time she’d jabbed herself with the needle since she’d started.
She glanced at the gilded clock on the mantelpiece of the upstairs sitting room. The late-afternoon light was brighter in this part of the house if the day was sunny, so she kept all her needlework here. Today, however, had not been sunny, so there was another reason she’d chosen this relatively isolated room to spend her time.
She could see the whole long driveway from her vantage point by the window.
It was nearly time for tea, and her father still hadn’t returned from Glasgow, although he should have been back by noon.
Frowning, she wrapped her handkerchief around her finger and put the small scissors, pincushion and yarns in their box, then closed the lid. This delay could mean nothing; he might have had more business to do than she suspected.
Besides, she would have to tell him about Robbie’s lawsuit when he got home, and that was not something she was looking forward to. Still, the dread of telling him about that was less distressing than the dread of learning that her father had broken his vow not to imbibe to excess.
She hoped she wasn’t disappointed. Again.
Sighing, she looked out the window once more, to see her father’s carriage turn onto the long sweeping drive.
Chapter Five
Moira left the room at once and hurried to the top of the stairs, where she could see the foyer and watch her father enter the house.
His clothes were neat and tidy, and his gait straight and firm as he came into view.
With a relieved sigh, she rushed down the stairs and into her father’s open arms.
“Moira, my girl! How I missed you!” he cried as he hugged her.
“I missed you, too, Papa,” she said, holding him close, happy and relieved that he didn’t smell of wine, and his eyes were clear and shining. “Your journey was a success?”
“Aye, better than I expected,” he replied as he moved away to hand his coat and hat to Walters, who was waiting expectantly nearby. “I took some time to visit some of our friends, too. The Misses Jenkins all send their best, and Mrs. McGovern, and the Bruces.”
“I miss them all,” she said with heartfelt sincerity, taking his arm and leading him to the drawing room, where they would have their tea.
Despite her cares and duties as mistress of her father’s house in Glasgow, those days often seemed like a happy, carefree dream, until his drinking had become a worry. “Perhaps we could invite Sally and her sister for a visit soon.”
“Excellent idea,” her father replied as he sat down before the tea table.
In addition to the tea, milk and sugar, there were scones—her father’s favorite—and fresh butter and strawberry jam.
As they sat side by side on the damask-covered sofa and her father regaled her with tales of his dealings, it was almost like having tea back in their much-smaller home in Glasgow.
Almost.
“So I told the old skinflint that he should be delighted I was making such an offer,” her father said with a laugh. “Just because I’ve got a title, I haven’t lost my wits, I said. You should have seen his face, Moira!”
“Then everything went just as you’d hoped?”
“Better! That’s why I was a little late returning. But I had another reason. I stand to make such a tidy profit, I stopped to get a present for a certain young lady of my acquaintance.” He reached into his jacket and produced a small blue velvet box tied with a scarlet satin ribbon that he held out to her. “A trifle for my darling daughter.”
Even the wrapping looked expensive. “Oh, Papa, you shouldn’t have!”
“If I can’t spoil my daughter, who can I spoil, at least until I have grandchildren?” he replied. “Besides, I thought you deserved something after…well, after your recent troubles.”
More grateful for his sympathy, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
“Enough of that! Just put it on.”
She undid the ribbon and opened the box. “Oh, Papa!” she gasped at the sight of a lovely cameo of a woman’s profile, the background a beautiful periwinkle blue. She lifted it out and held it up to admire against her cream-colored day gown. “It’s lovely!”
“I saw it and immediately thought of you, my dear.”
She pinned it to her bodice and went to look at her reflection in the mirror. It was the perfect size, and pretty and delicate.
“So, my dear, you know how my trip to Glasgow was. What have you been doing in my absence? Not spending all your time on that school, I hope.”
No, she most definitely had not.
But she certainly didn’t want to ruin this moment by telling him about meeting Mr. McHeath in the wood, and especially about that kiss, and surely Robbie’s legal challenge could wait a little while. Too many times in recent months her time with her father had been colored by dread and dismay. “I did have a meeting with Mr. Stamford about the school.”
Her father tilted his head and paused with another scone halfway to his mouth. “And?”
“And he seemed to think he could charge whatever he liked because I wouldn’t be aware of the cost of building materials.”
Her father chuckled before he took a bite of the scone. “More fool him. Speaking of fools, have those three idiot women done anything more to upset you?”
Moira wished her father hadn’t been with her the last time she’d gone into Dunbrachie. He’d been much more disturbed by the way the three young women had given her the cut direct than she had been, in part because she didn’t particularly care for the leader of the cabal, Sarah Taggart. “No, Papa, I haven’t seen them lately.”
He eased himself back on the sofa. “So, you’ve had a peaceful time in Dunbrachie, then.”
Moira laced her fingers in her lap and took a deep breath. Although she would rather wait, he was going to have to hear about Robbie’s lawsuit eventually, so she might as well tell him now, while he was in a good mood. And it would be better here, where all the wine and spirits were under her control. “I’m afraid there’s been some difficulty with Sir Robert.”
When he was sober, her father’s gaze could cut like a knife. “What do you mean, difficulty?”
She swallowed hard before answering, and tried to keep her voice level and calm. “It seems, Papa, that Sir Robert has decided to sue me for breach of promise.”
Her father bolted up from the sofa as if she’d stuck him with a pin, and his face bore the same incredulous expression that had probably been on her face when McHeath had made the same announcement. “What?”
“Because I broke our engagement, he’s suing me for breach of promise.”
“That’s ridiculous!” her father exclaimed, his face turning as red as ripe cherries, a stark contrast to his white hair.
“I quite agree, but ridiculous or not, that’s what he’s doing,” she replied, her hands clasped in her lap, hoping that if she was calm, he would be, too, although it might take a while. “Apparently his attorney thinks he has a case because our engagement was public knowledge, so what can be considered a verbal contract was also public knowledge.”
“Public knowledge?” her father angrily repeated. “Aye, your engagement was public knowledge and so were his liaisons with all those young women—to everybody in Dunbrachie but us!”
“Nevertheless, his solicitor said—”
“Has Gallagher lost his mind?” her father demanded, naming Sir Robert’s usual solicitor, the man who’d been involved in the drafting of her marriage settlement.
“It wasn’t Mr. Gallagher. The solicitor is a friend of Sir Robert’s from Edinburgh, Mr. Gordon McHeath.”
“I don’t give a damn who he is or where he’s from. They’ll never win.”
It was probably better to tell her father everything here and now. “Mr. McHeath said he can argue that it was my duty to find out more about Sir Robert before I accepted his proposal. Since I didn’t, the fault lies with me for breaking the engagement.”
Unfortunately, she had to admit, if only to herself, that Mr. McHeath was right about that one thing, at least. She should have tried to find out more about the handsome, flirtatious Sir Robert before accepting his proposal. If she hadn’t been so flattered by his attention, she might have realized that he didn’t stir her passion, certainly not the way Mr. McHeath did from the moment she met him.
But then, nobody had stirred her passion the way Mr. McHeath did.
Her father strode to the windows, turned and marched back again. “That man has the morals and backbone of a worm!” he declared, shaking his fist. “To sue a woman for jilting him! The man is even more of an idiot that those silly women.”
“I don’t think he’s stupid, Papa, or that idea would never have occurred to him. He’s certainly vain, though, and I’ve wounded his pride, enough that he’s seeking five thousand pounds in compensation.”
“Five thousand…?” her father gasped. “The man is mad if he thinks we’ll pay him even a quarter of that.”
“That’s exactly what I told Mr. McHeath, or as good as. Perhaps once Sir Robert realizes we’re not going to surrender easily, he’ll drop the suit,” she said as, relieved the worst of her revelations were over, she poured her father another cup of tea. “Please sit down, Papa, and have some tea.”
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Margaret Moore
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: No sooner does wealthy heiress Lady Moira MacMurdaugh breathe a sigh of relief for avoiding a disastrous marriage to a gambling womaniser than she is served with a lawsuit! Torn between duty and this impulsive beauty who stirs him to distraction, solicitor Gordon McHeath has no choice but to go up against the woman whose kiss he’s never forgotten.Until sinister forces threaten to upend Lady Moira’s world and Gordon must cast the law book aside!