Return of the Prodigal Gilvry
Return of the Prodigal Gilvry
Ann Lethbridge
BEHIND THE HIGHLANDER’S SCARS…Reeling from betrayal, the once devastatingly handsome Andrew Gilvry has returned to Scottish shores to fulfil a promise made to a dying man. The widowed Rowena MacDonald has been entrusted to his care, and Drew must do all he can to protect her…LIES A DARK PASSION!But Drew’s honour is about to be tested – because there’s something in Rowena’s dove-grey eyes which awakens a flame long extinguished. And on a perilous journey across the Highlands, with only this alluring woman for company, how long can he deny his desires?The Gilvrys of Dunross, Capturing ladies’ hearts across the Highlands
A tall man, all lean physique and long stride, prowled along the quay, his coat flying open.
He walked as if the ground owed him homage, his by right. Images of the pirate who haunted her dreams with his strong clever fingers and wicked mouth danced across her mind.
Shocked, she squeezed her eyes shut against the flutter of desire low in her belly. Embarrassed, she ignored the salacious sensations.
The last passenger was level with her now. A scarf swathed about his head covered all but his eyes beneath a hat pulled down low. He wore a fashionable greatcoat—a thing with many capes. Too short. Perhaps that was why he’d left it undone. The boots on his feet were scuffed and worn. A man who, for all his appearance of pride, wore second-hand clothes.
‘Mrs MacDonald?’
The man’s voice had the lilt of the Highlands and a raspy disused quality. And he had spoken her name. Her heart followed her stomach to the floor.
‘I am Mrs MacDonald,’ she said, unable to keep the edge from her voice.
He bowed, hand to heart. ‘Andrew Gilvry, at your service.’
AUTHOR NOTE
I am so sad that I have reached the end of my The Gilvrys of Dunross series. I have enjoyed writing the stories of these brothers so much, and I hope you have enjoyed making the journey with me. I was very glad that Drew finally came home. In the beginning I wasn’t sure he could.
Scotland has always held a special place in my heart as I lived in the wilds of the Outer Hebrides as a pre-teen and loved the wildness and the lonely spaces, so I was delighted to be able to set this Regency series in the Highlands. For all that the Prince Regent, later King George IV, was unpopular with his English subjects, he did make Scotland the fashion—with the help of Sir Walter Scott. And during his reign there were at least some changes that made life for Highlanders a little easier. The change to the distilling laws addressed in these books was one of them.
If you want to know more about my books, find out what is coming next, or simply drop by and say hello, you can find me at http://www.annlethbridge.com (http://www.annlethbridge.com)
Return of the
Prodigal Gilvry
Ann Lethbridge
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to my dad, without whom I would never have had the wonderful adventure of visiting Scotland and thus the desire to return.
My thanks go out to all involved in making this a better book, in particular Joanne Grant, my editor.
ANN LETHBRIDGE has been reading Regency novels for as long as she can remember. She always imagined herself as Lizzie Bennet, or one of Georgette Heyer’s heroines, and would often recreate the stories in her head with different outcomes or scenes. When she sat down to write her own novel it was no wonder that she returned to her first love: the Regency. Ann grew up roaming Britain with her military father. Her family lived in many towns and villages across the country, from the Outer Hebrides to Hampshire. She spent memorable family holidays in the West Country and in Dover, where her father was born. She now lives in Canada, with her husband, two beautiful daughters, and a Maltese terrier named Teaser, who spends his days on a chair beside the computer, making sure she doesn’t slack off.
Ann visits Britain every year, to undertake research and also to visit family members who are very understanding about her need to poke around old buildings and visit every antiquity within a hundred miles. If you would like to know more about Ann and her research, or to contact her, visit her website at www.annlethbridge.com (http://www.annlethbridge.com). She loves to hear from readers.
Previous novels by this author:
THE RAKE’S INHERITED COURTESAN† (#ulink_3a1c987f-b1c0-5de2-b078-23717d2ca582) WICKED RAKE, DEFIANT MISTRESS CAPTURED FOR THE CAPTAIN’S PLEASURE THE GOVERNESS AND THE EARL (part of Mills & Boon New Voices … anthology) THE GAMEKEEPER’S LADY* (#ulink_3a1c987f-b1c0-5de2-b078-23717d2ca582) MORE THAN A MISTRESS* (#ulink_3a1c987f-b1c0-5de2-b078-23717d2ca582) LADY ROSABELLA’S RUSE† (#ulink_3a1c987f-b1c0-5de2-b078-23717d2ca582) THE LAIRD’S FORBIDDEN LADY** (#ulink_3a1c987f-b1c0-5de2-b078-23717d2ca582) HAUNTED BY THE EARL’S TOUCH HER HIGHLAND PROTECTOR** (#ulink_3a1c987f-b1c0-5de2-b078-23717d2ca582) FALLING FOR THE HIGHLAND ROGUE** (#ulink_3a1c987f-b1c0-5de2-b078-23717d2ca582)
And in Mills & Boon
Historical Undone! eBooks:
THE RAKE’S INTIMATE ENCOUNTER
THE LAIRD AND THE WANTON WIDOW
ONE NIGHT AS A COURTESAN
UNMASKING LADY INNOCENT
DELICIOUSLY DEBAUCHED BY THE RAKE
A RAKE FOR CHRISTMAS
IN BED WITH THE HIGHLANDER
ONE NIGHT WITH THE HIGHLANDER** (#ulink_3a1c987f-b1c0-5de2-b078-23717d2ca582)
And in Mills & Boon
Historical eBooks:
PRINCESS CHARLOTTE’S CHOICE
(part of Royal Weddings Through the Ages anthology)
And in M&B: LADY OF SHAME (part of Castonbury Park Regency mini-series)
* (#ulink_75c5d908-8488-5766-ad55-86c098f0d555)linked by character † (#ulink_75c5d908-8488-5766-ad55-86c098f0d555)linked by character ** (#ulink_75c5d908-8488-5766-ad55-86c098f0d555)The Gilvrys of Dunross
Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
Chapter One (#u81fcedad-2628-50b4-8bc3-9a5b62ad259c)
Chapter Two (#u26dd03ad-16e5-58d2-8970-867b24531a80)
Chapter Three (#u13ba1cdc-50eb-57f0-91a0-741588adbe80)
Chapter Four (#u4dc4b8a7-3e7a-5a0f-9a96-b6ccbb92ca67)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
Dundee, November 1822
How dare he? The anger inside Rowena MacDonald increased with each oar stroke of the longboat crossing the grey waves between the ship and the quay where she stood. She wrapped her threadbare cloak tighter against the November wind screaming in from the North Sea.
The dark afternoon suited her mood. After two years of absence and no word, how dare her husband demand she welcome him back to Scotland? The rage she had worked so hard at suppressing these past two years lashed her the same way the wind whipped the wave tops into foam.
The letter, forwarded on from her last address, had scarcely arrived at her place of employment in time for her to meet the ship. She’d toyed with the idea of refusing his summons. But he was her husband and had the power to further ruin her life. And now, after she had been sure she was free of him, how easily he’d found her and brought her to heel.
Or so he thought, no doubt. As to that, he was going to hear a few home truths. If nothing else, she would make sure he knew she would never ever forgive him for his lies. Or the heartbreak of realising how pathetic she’d been in thinking that he had actually married her for more than her fortune. That he had some tender feelings towards her.
Not love. She had known it wasn’t love, but she had thought he cared, at least a little.
She fought the stab of pain as she recalled his betrayal. She would not show how deeply she’d been hurt. Or how greatly she dreaded their reunion. Calm reason must be the order of the day. She took a deep breath of icy-cold air and steeled herself against any sign of weakness. The moisture trickling from the corner of her eyes was caused by the sting of the salt-laden sea. Nothing else.
The boat drew closer. Close enough to make out its occupants. Six sailors at the oars. Three passengers, all men, muffled in coats and hats and scarves against the wind, arriving on the last merchant ship from America before winter made the Atlantic crossing impossible. And oddly, upright in the stern, a barrel.
An uncomfortable feeling curled in her stomach. None of the passengers looked in the slightest like her husband. Admittedly, she had only been married two months before Samuel had fled like the proverbial thief in the night, but surely she would recognise him from this distance, despite the other people crowded around her at this end of the jetty making it difficult to see, tall though she was? On her side of the barrier, there were longshoremen waiting to unload the ship’s cargo. A small family consisting of a mother and two children stirred with excitement at the approach of the boat, no doubt meeting a loved one.
All those waiting were held back by the formalities of landing. The visit to the harbour master, the presenting of passports, paperwork for Customs. And still Rowena could not pick out Samuel amid those mounting the jetty steps to dry land.
Could he have lied to her again? Changed his mind?
Her stomach dipped all the way to the cold stones beneath her feet. Her hand tightened around the strings of her reticule containing his letter. His command to be waiting at Dundee dock.
How could she ever have trusted herself to such a feckless man? Sadly, she knew exactly why. Because she had wanted to believe in him, instead of trusting what she had always known. Handsome gentlemen did not fall in love with her type of female. They just didn’t. As he’d made quite clear after the wedding, it was a marriage of convenience, colluded in by a cousin, who ought to have had her interests at heart. But didn’t.
Two of the passengers left the quay, one disappearing into the arms of the little family squealing their glee and quickly led off. The second signalled to a waiting carriage and was whisked away.
Finally, the third, a tall man with the carriage of a man in his prime, all lean physique and long stride, prowled along the quay, his coat flying open. He walked as if the ground owed him homage, his by right. Images of the pirate who haunted her dreams with his strong clever fingers and wicked mouth danced across her mind.
Shocked, she squeezed her eyes shut against the flutter of desire low in her belly. Embarrassed, she ignored the salacious sensations. If anyone ever guessed the wicked thoughts that went on in her head in the long reaches of the night, they would never let her near their children.
She forced her attention back to reality. To a sailor pushing a handcart containing the barrel she had noticed on the longboat.
And the fact that there was still no sign of Samuel.
She wasn’t sure if the feeling in her chest was more anger or relief. Or was it false hope? She turned her gaze back to the ship standing off from the shore. Could there be a second boat? Had he been delayed on board for some reason?
The last passenger was level with her now, a scarf, so swathed about his head it covered all but his eyes beneath a hat pulled down low. He wore a fashionable greatcoat, a thing with many capes, much like the one Samuel had worn during their whirlwind courtship. It looked too tight. Too short. Perhaps that was why he left it undone. The boots on his feet were scuffed and worn. A man who, for all his appearance of pride, wore second-hand clothes.
‘Mrs MacDonald?’ The man’s voice had the lilt of the Highlands and a raspy disused quality. And he had spoken her name. Her heart followed her stomach to the floor. Samuel had fooled her again.
All she could see of the man’s face was a pair of wary green eyes. They reminded her of dark ocean depths and fierce forest creatures. ‘I am Mrs MacDonald,’ she said, unable to keep the edge from her voice.
He bowed, hand to heart. ‘Andrew Gilvry, at your service.’
She’d been right. Samuel had brought her here for nothing. ‘And where, might I ask, is my husband?’
He recoiled slightly at her haughtily delivered question. ‘I am sorry...’
She drew herself up to her full height, the way she did with her students. It was the reason they called her the dragon, out of her hearing. Not the younger ones. Or the girls. They didn’t need such demonstrations of strength. The two older boys were a different matter. They, she’d learned quickly, would take advantage of any sign she did not have the upper hand.
‘So he is not on the ship after all.’ The anger she’d been so carefully keeping under control began to bubble hot in her breast.
The man hesitated. ‘I gather you didna’ get my letter, then?’
What, did he have some excuse to offer for Samuel’s absence? ‘The only letter I received was from my husband, requesting me to meet him at this ship. And he is not on board after all.’
‘He was on board, in a manner of speaking,’ the man said gently, the way people did when delivering bad news. He gestured to the sailor with the barrel. ‘He charged me with seeing his remains home to his family.’
The air rushed from her lungs. Her heart seemed to stop for a second as if all the blood had drained from her body. The ground beneath her feet felt as if it was spinning. ‘His remains?’ she whispered.
‘Aye.’ He reached out and took her by the elbow, clearly fearing she would faint. His coat streamed out behind him, flapping wildly. He wasn’t wearing any gloves, she noticed, and the warmth of his hand sent tingles running up beneath her flesh, all the way to her shoulder. Across her breasts. Female awareness. How could that be? Was the pirate now springing forth to plague her days?
She forced her thoughts into proper order. ‘Are you saying he is dead?’
He nodded tersely. ‘My condolences, ma’am. He was killed by Indians in the mountains of North Carolina. I was with him when he died.’
She stared at the barrel. ‘He’s in...?’ She couldn’t finish her question, but received another terse nod.
Staring at the barrel, she took a deep breath. And another. And then a third. ‘But why? Why bring him here?’
While she couldn’t see his face, she had the feeling he wished he was anywhere else but here. And that he disapproved of her question.
‘He wanted to be buried in Scotland.’ He released her elbow and stepped back. ‘I gave him my word to see him home.’ He gestured to the cart. ‘And so I have. Or at least I will have, when I have handed him over to an agent of the Duke of Mere.’
‘The Duke of Mere? Why on earth would you want to do that?’
The fair brows, just visible beneath his hat brim, lowered in a frown. ‘He is executor to your husband’s will.’
* * *
In the face of her distress, guilt squirmed in Drew’s gut like a live thing. But for him, Samuel MacDonald might have been standing on this quay greeting his wife, instead of him. Mrs MacDonald looked ready to faint, but touching her again was out of the question. She was nothing like the antidote he’d been led to expect. A veritable harridan of a female.
He could see why the doughy Samuel MacDonald might have found her physically daunting. She was imposingly tall for a woman, though the top of her head barely reached Drew’s eye level, and as lean as a racehorse to the point of boniness.
She was not a pretty woman. The features in her face were too strong and aesthetic for prettiness. Her jaw a little too square for womanly softness, the nose a little too Roman. Her best feature was her dove-grey eyes, clear and bright, and far too intelligent for a man to be comfortable. And yet for some odd reason he found her attractive. Perhaps even alluring.
He fought the stirring of attraction. The effect of too many weeks of male-only company on board ship when he’d been used to— Damn. Why think of that now? A shudder of disgust ran through him. Not only had the woman just discovered she was a widow, but there wasn’t a woman alive who would welcome his attentions. Not unless he was paying. Not when they took a look at his face.
The old anger rose in his chest. The desire to wreak vengeance for what had been done to him was always with him, deep inside and like a carefully banked fire. Once brought back to mind, it blazed like a beacon that would never be doused. Not until he had exacted justice from his brother.
Getting a grip on his anger, he glanced up at the sky. It was three in the afternoon, the sun was already looking to set and no sign of the lawyer who should take charge of the matter at hand. Damnation upon the head of all lawyers.
He glanced along the quay with a frown. ‘Where is your carriage, Mrs MacDonald?’
‘Carriage?’ she asked, looking nonplussed.
No carriage, then. A hackney? Or had she walked the mile from the town to the quay carrying the large bag sitting at her feet? The worn cloak, the practical shoes, the modest undecorated bonnet, things in the old days he would have taken in with one glance, now came into focus. Aye, she would have walked. For a man who bragged of his high connections and incipient wealth, MacDonald had not taken such good care of his wife.
So Drew would have to fill the breach. At least for a day or so.
He gestured for her to walk in the direction of the road at the end of the jetty. ‘Do you have a room booked for the night in town?’
She eyed him with a frown. ‘Of course not, Mr Gilvry. I must return to my place of employment. I spent last night here, but must leave today.’
Her strength of will in the face of adversity surprised him. A woman who would not submit easily to anyone’s command. A burst of heat low in his belly shocked him. He could not be attracted to this domineering woman, as her husband had described her in the most unflattering terms. But there was no denying the surge of lust in his blood. Had his last years among the Indians made him less of a man? His throat dried at the thought. But he knew it wasn’t possible.
Unnatural bastard. He’d heard the accusation more than once from the women he’d brought to his bed. But this would not be one of them.
The sooner he delivered her to her husband’s family and got on with the business of settling his score with Ian, the better. ‘I promised to see you safe in the hands of your husband’s family. No doubt the lawyer will be here in the morning. Or I will send him another message. Let us find a carriage to transport us and...’ He glanced back at the sailor with the cart, who was shifting from foot to foot with impatience.
She followed his gaze and a small shiver passed through her body. Clearly she was not as unaffected as she made out.
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I will hear what this lawyer of yours has to say, if he arrives tomorrow. The stage let me down at the Crown. We will go there and I will change my ticket to tomorrow night. I cannot stay a day longer.’
Drew swallowed a sigh of relief at her practical manner. Despite MacDonald’s words, he’d expected to suffer through a bout of feminine hysterics. No doubt that would come later, when she got a good look at his face.
‘Ye’ll find a carriage for hire at the end of the jetty,’ the sailor said, who had clearly been listening in to their conversation. The man trundled off with his burden, leaving Drew to escort Mrs MacDonald and carry her bag.
Her spine was so straight, her face so calm, he resisted the temptation to offer his arm for support. She clearly didn’t need it or welcome it. So why did he have the feeling that, despite her outward appearance, she might collapse? She didn’t look fragile. Anything but. She could have outmarched a general with that straight back of hers. Yet he could not get past the idea that, beneath the outward reserve, she was terrified. The woman was a puzzle and no mistake. But not one he intended to solve.
As the sailor had said, they found a hire carriage at a stand at the end of the quay and reached an agreement on terms to take them into the town centre. Drew helped the widow into the carriage, saw to the disposal of the luggage, then climbed up beside the driver. It would give her time to come to terms with her new circumstance. And allow him to avoid her questions, he admitted grimly.
* * *
The Crown Hotel was located in the centre of Dundee, about a mile from the quayside, and when the carriage halted, Drew climbed down and saw to the unloading of the barrel. The driver put his battered valise beside it on the cobbles.
Mrs MacDonald stared at the leather bag for a long moment. She raised her gaze to meet his and his stomach dipped. She must recognise it as her husband’s. He had no choice but to answer her silent query.
‘You are right. It is your husband’s valise,’ he said. ‘I have made use of his clothes, since I had to leave mine behind.’
Not that he’d had much to leave, unless you counted a breechclout and a pair of moccasins.
She stiffened slightly. ‘And you travelled on his ticket?’
He had not been mistaken in the quick wits behind that high forehead. ‘Since he was making the journey in the hold, I saw no reason to purchase another.’ He winced at the cold sound of his words. ‘And I used what money he had for necessary expenses.’ Like the makeshift coffin. And a pair of boots. He could hardly travel barefoot and MacDonald’s boots had been far too small. He had bought the cheapest he could find, however.
‘How very convenient,’ she said.
She suspected him of doing away with her husband and stealing his property. And he had in a manner of speaking. He met her gaze without flinching. ‘I gave my word to your husband that he would board that ship, Mrs MacDonald. I kept my promise.’ Out of guilt. MacDonald had not really expected to die on the journey back to civilisation. He had been full of talk of a glorious future in his fevered ravings. And of riches beyond any man’s dreams. Riches that would no doubt remain untapped now he was dead.
Guilt stabbed Drew anew. But it would not change what had happened, nor his intentions to follow through with his self-imposed duty. He would see MacDonald’s remains and his wife delivered safely to the lawyer and that was all he would do.
He picked up the valise and strode into the inn.
‘Off the ship, are ye, then?’ the innkeeper asked, meeting him just inside the door.
‘Yes. The lady needs a room with a private parlour,’ Gilvry said. ‘I’ll bed down in the stables.’
The innkeeper looked him up and down as if trying to decide if he was trying to gull him.
‘A chamber is all I require,’ Mrs MacDonald said from behind Drew, her reticule clutched at her breast as if she feared its contents would not be enough to pay for her night’s lodgings.
He pulled out MacDonald’s purse and jingled the few remaining coins. ‘The lady’s husband charged me with her travel arrangements. A room with a private parlour, if you please, and the use of a maid. Mrs MacDonald will take dinner in her room.’
The innkeeper bowed. ‘This way, please, madam.’
‘Don’t worry about the rest of the luggage, Mrs MacDonald,’ Drew said as, stiff-backed with indignation, she followed the host up the stairs. ‘I will keep it safe.’
She cast him a look of dislike over her shoulder. ‘Then I hope you have a good night’s rest, Mr Gilvry.’
Ah, irony. He’d missed its edge all these many years. No doubt she was hoping her husband would haunt him. Which he would, because, in a manner of speaking, he had been, ever since he died.
Drew turned and stomped out to the yard.
* * *
It was only when Rowena had removed her coat and hat inside her room that she fully absorbed the news. Samuel MacDonald was dead.
She squeezed her eyes closed against the sudden pain at her temples as her thoughts spiralled out of control. She had to think about this logically.
She was a widow.
A destitute widow, she amended. She had very little hope that anything remained of the money Samuel had realised from the sale of her half of her father’s linen factory. Creditors had assailed her from all sides after his sudden departure for America, leaving her no choice but to find work and support herself. Her anger at her foolishness bubbled up all over again. How could she have been so taken in after fending off so many fortune hunters over the years?
But she knew why. After her father died when she was eighteen, she had lived with his partner and cousin. She’d hated it. Not that these family members had been particularly unkind, but whereas her father had respected her mind and listened to her advice, her cousin had insisted she leave all business matters to him. He had not valued her opinions at all.
As far as he was concerned, women were brainless. Only good to decorate a man’s arm and attend to his house.
And then she’d proved him right. She’d fallen for the blandishments of an out-and-out scoundrel who had fled almost as soon as he had his hands on her money, leaving her to face the creditors he’d apparently forgotten to pay. Her cousin, who had encouraged the marriage, had washed his hands of her, as well he might, once he owned everything.
She stripped off her thin leather gloves and sat down on the chair beside the hearth, holding her hands out to the flames, revelling in the heat on her frozen fingers. It was a long time since she’d had such a warm fire at her disposal. But creature comforts could not hold her thoughts for long.
Was it possible her cousin had insisted Samuel settle some money on her future when he acted on her behalf in the matter of the marriage?
If so, it was a relief to know that her only family hadn’t totally taken advantage of her lapse of good sense in accepting Samuel as a husband. When she’d learned her cousin had bought her half of the family business for a sum vastly below its true worth right after the wedding, she’d suspected her cousin of underhanded dealings.
It seemed she might have been wrong about her cousin. And about Samuel. Partly wrong at any rate, if arrangements had been made for her future.
Samuel was dead.
At least that was what Mr Gilvry had said. But how did she know for certain? She’d be a fool to take any man’s word at face value. And she hadn’t even seen Mr Gilvry’s face. He had raised his hat when he bowed, but not removed his muffler. Nor had he removed it when he entered the inn.
All she had to go on was what she had seen in a pair of piercing green eyes and heard in a deep voice with a lovely Highland lilt. And felt in the flutter deep in her stomach. Attraction. Something she should know better than to trust.
He really hadn’t told her what had happened to Samuel. Was there some reason behind his reticence she couldn’t fathom?
She got up and rang the bell. It wasn’t long before the maid the innkeeper’s wife had assigned arrived to do her bidding. ‘Be so good as to tell Mr Gilvry I wish to see him at once.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘Please tell the kitchen I would like dinner for two delivered at half past seven.’
The maid bobbed a curtsy and left.
Now to see if he answered the summons. And if he did not? Then she would know that she definitely should not trust him.
And if he did? Did that mean she should? Likely not. But it would help put an end to the strange feelings she had in his presence. He was just a man, not an enigma she needed to solve. She simply wanted the facts about her husband’s death.
She opened her door to the passageway. He was a man who had done her a service, no matter how unpleasant. He should not have to scratch at the door like a servant. She shook her head at this odd sense of the man’s pride as she took the chair beside the hearth facing the door.
A few minutes later, he appeared before her, his broad shoulders filling the doorway. How odd that she hadn’t heard his footsteps, though she had listened for them. Nor had she realised quite how tall a man he was when they were out on the quay.
She frowned. He was still wearing his scarf, wrapped around his head and draped across his face in the manner of a Turk.
His dark coat, like the greatcoat he’d worn off the ship, fitted him ill, the fabric straining across his shoulders, yet loose at the waist, and the sleeves leaving more cuff visible than was desirable. His pantaloons were tight, too, outlining the musculature of his impressive calves, his long lean thighs and his— She forced her gaze back up to meet his eyes. ‘Please come in, Mr Gilvry. Leave the door open, if you please.’
She didn’t want the inn servants to gossip about her entertaining a man alone in her room. People were quick to judge and she didn’t need a scandal destroying her reputation with her employer.
The man did not so much as walk into the room as he prowled across the space to take her outstretched hand. His steps were silent, light as air, but incredibly manly.
The same walk she’d first noticed on the quay. The walk of a hunter intent on stalking his prey. Or a marauding pirate, or a maiden-stealing sheikh. All man. All danger. A betraying little shiver ran down her spine.
Trying to hide her response to his presence, she gestured coldly to the seat on the other side of the hearth, the way she would direct a recalcitrant student. ‘Pray be seated.’
He sat down, folding his long body into the large wing chair with an easy grace. But why hide his face? She’d thought nothing of the muffler out on the quay. She’d tucked her chin into her own scarf in the bitter November wind.
‘Please, make yourself comfortable.’ She looked pointedly as his headgear.
The wide chest rose and fell on a deep indrawn breath. He straightened his shoulders. ‘It is an invitation you might regret.’ There was bitter humour in his voice, and something else she could not define. Defiance, perhaps? Bravado?
Turning partly away he unwound the muffler. At first all she could see was the left side of his face and hair of a dark reddish-blonde, thick and surprisingly long. His skin was a warm golden bronze. Side on he looked like an alabaster plaque of a Greek god in profile, only warm and living. Never had she seen a man so handsome.
He turned and faced her full on.
She recoiled with a gasp at the sight of the tributary of scars running down the right side of his face. A jagged, badly healed puckering of skin that sliced a diagonal from cheekbone to chin, pulling the corner of his mouth into a mocking smile. A dreadful mutilation of pure male beauty. She wanted to weep.
‘I warned that you’d prefer it covered.’ Clearly resigned, he reached for the scarf.
How many people must have turned away in horror at the sight? From a man who would have once drawn eyes because of his unusual beauty.
‘Of course not,’ she said firmly, deeply regretting her surprised response. ‘Would you like a dram of whisky?’ She made to rise.
Looking relieved, he rose to his feet. ‘I’ll help myself.’
He crossed to the table beside the window and poured whisky from the decanter, the good side of his face turned towards her. It made her heart ache to see him so careful. He lifted the glass and tossed off half in one go. He frowned at the remainder. ‘I didna’ expect to find you alone. Did they no’ give you the maid I requested?’
‘She has duties in the kitchen, preparing the evening meal.’
He lifted his head, his narrowed gaze meeting hers, the muscles in his jaw jumping, pulling at the scars, making them gleam bone white. Her stomach curled up tight. She could only imagine the pain such an injury must have caused, along with the anguish at the loss of such perfection.
Anger flared in his eyes as if he somehow read her thoughts and resented them.
He did not want her sympathy.
She looked down at her hands and gripped them together in her lap. She had asked him here to answer her questions. She might as well get straight to the point.
‘Mr Gilvry, I would like to know exactly what happened to my husband, if you wouldn’t mind?’ Did she sound too blunt? Too suspicious?
She glanced up to test his reaction to her words. He was gazing out into the darkness, his face partly hidden by his hair. ‘Aye. I’ll tell you what I can.’
She frowned at the strange choice of words. ‘Were you travelling with Samuel, when...when—?’
‘No. I found him some time after the Indians had attacked his party. He had managed to crawl away from the camp and hide, but he was badly injured.’
‘Why? Why were they attacked?’
He turned his head slightly, watching her from the corner of his eye. ‘I don’t know.’
Why did she have the sense he was not telling her the truth? What reason would he have to lie? ‘So you just happened upon him? Afterwards.’
‘I heard shots, but arrived too late to be of help.’ His head lowered slightly. ‘I’m sorry.’
He sounded sorry. More regretful than she would have expected under the circumstances he described. ‘He was alive when you found him?’
He took a deep breath. ‘He was. I hoped—’ He shook his head. ‘I carried him down from the mountains. For a while I thought he would live. The fever took him a few nights later.’
‘And he requested that you bring his remains back to me?’ She could not help the incredulity in her voice.
He shifted, half turning towards her. ‘To Scotland. To his family. That is you, is it not?’
‘I doubt he thought of me as family.’ She spoke the words without thinking and winced at how bitter she sounded.
‘He had regrets, your husband, I think. At the last.’ His voice was low and deep and full of sympathy.
An odd lump rose in her throat. The thought that Samuel had cared. Even if it was out of guilt. It had been a long time since anyone had truly cared. She fought the softening emotion. It was too late for her to feel pain. How would it help her now? ‘And his executor is to meet us here? In Dundee.’
‘Aye. Or at least his lawyer. A Mr Jones. I wrote to him from Wilmington. But if you didna’ get my letter...’
‘The address you used, it came from Samuel? Naturally it did,’ she amended quickly at his frown.
‘Aye.’
‘I moved. I had no way of letting Samuel know.’ She’d also changed her name. She could scarcely have Samuel’s creditors coming to her place of employment. ‘An old friend forwarded Samuel’s note, because I asked him to do so.’ Her cousin’s butler, once her father’s man, would not have forwarded a letter unless he knew the name of the sender. There had been too many odd requests for money and not all of them from tradesmen. ‘I doubt your other letter was similarly impeded. Let us hope Mr Jones will arrive tomorrow.’
The sound of footsteps carried along the passageway outside. He turned to look, his fair brows raised in question.
‘Our dinner,’ she said with a little jolt of her heart, as if she was afraid he would leave.
‘Ours?’ He looked surprised.
‘I thought we could talk while we ate. That is, if you have not already dined?’
‘No, I havena’,’ he said warily. He turned his back on the room, once more looking out into the night as two maids entered, followed by the innkeeper’s wife who directed the setting up of the table and the serving of dinner. The plump woman curtsied deeply. ‘Will there be anything else, madam?’
‘No, thank you,’ Rowena said. ‘I think we can manage to serve ourselves.’
The woman’s gaze rested on Mr Gilvry’s back for a moment, her eyes hard. ‘Would you like our Emmie to serve you, madam?’
Rowena could see the woman’s thoughts about single ladies entertaining a gentleman in her rooms.
She stared at the woman down the nose that had been her plague as a girl, but now had its uses. An arrogant nose, it put people in their place. Her father had used his own bigger version to great effect in his business. ‘No, thank you, Mrs Robertson. That will be all.’
The woman huffed out a breath, but stomped out of the room, defeated.
Mr Gilvry turned around as the door closed behind their hostess, his expression dark. ‘The woman is right. You should ask the maid to attend you. Or dine alone. You must think of your reputation.’ He took an urgent step towards the door.
The vehemence in his voice surprised her. Was he was afraid for her reputation or his? Did he fear she might put him in a compromising position? It hardly seemed likely. ‘You honour me with your concern, Mr Gilvry, however, I am not accountable to the wife of an innkeeper.’ She lifted her chin as another thought occurred to her. ‘Or are you seeing it as an excuse to avoid my questions?’
He glared. ‘I have answered all of your questions.’
Had he? Then why did she have the sense he was keeping something back? ‘You have,’ she said. It would do no good to insult the man. ‘But I have more. You must excuse my curiosity. I know little of my husband’s activities in America.’
His mouth tightened. His gaze shuttered, hiding his thoughts. ‘There is little I can tell you on that score, I am afraid. Perhaps this Mr Jones can tell you more.’
Avoidance. It was as plain as the nose on her face. Her exceedingly plain nose on her exceedingly plain face, as Samuel had made no bones to tell her, once he had control of her money. But it wasn’t because she cared whether this man found her attractive or otherwise that she wanted him to stay; she simply wanted to know if she dared trust him. That was all.
For one thing, she had never before heard of this Mr Jones. And she was hoping Mr Gilvry could shed some light on how he fitted into the scheme of things before she faced the man.
She offered a smile. ‘I am sorry if I sound over forward, but I find I do not wish to eat alone tonight. My thoughts about the news give me no rest.’ And nor did her suspicions.
His shoulders relaxed. ‘Aye, I understand it has come as a shock.’
And a welcome relief. Guilt assailed her at the uncharitable thought. He would think her dreadful if he guessed at the direction of her thoughts.
She gestured to the table. ‘The food is here. It would be a shame for it to go to waste.’
He swept a red-gold lock back from his forehead. ‘To tell the truth, the smell of the food is hard to resist and I doubt they’ll feed me in the kitchen, if yon mistress has aught to say in it.’
He glanced at the table with longing and it was only then that she realised how very gaunt was his face. His cheekbones stood out beneath his skin as if he had not eaten well in months. At first one only noticed the scars. And the terrible dichotomy they made of his face.
‘Then you will keep me company?’ she asked. She wasn’t the sort of woman men fell over themselves to be with, but he was not a man who would have much choice in women. Not now. She stilled at the thought. Was that hope she felt? Surely not. Hope where men were concerned had been stamped out beneath Samuel’s careless boots. What man would want her? Especially now, when she was poor.
He shook his head with a rueful expression. ‘Aye. It seems I will.’
The gladness she felt at his acceptance was out of all proportion with the circumstances and her reasons for inviting him. A gladness she must not let him see. With a cool nod, she let him seat her at the dining table.
He took the chair opposite. ‘May I pour you some wine and carve you a portion of what looks to be an excellent fowl?’
‘You may, indeed.’
While she had little appetite herself after the day’s events, it was a pleasure to see him eat with obvious enjoyment. And his manners were impeccable. He was a gentleman, no matter his poor clothing.
She cut her slice of chicken into small pieces and tasted a morsel. It was moist and the white sauce was excellent. And she could not help watching him from beneath her lowered lashes as she tasted her food. He might not be handsome any longer, but his youth, his physical strength and powerful male presence were undeniable. Big hands. Wide shoulders. White, even teeth. A formidable man with an energy she could feel from across the table.
She wanted to ask him what it was that drove him. What he cared about. What he planned. It was none of her business. She would do well to remember that.
She held her questions while he satisfied his appetite. It was her experience, both at home and in the two positions she’d held as a governess, that men became more amenable with a full stomach. She waited until he had cut himself a piece of apple pie before opening a conversation that did not include passing gravy or salt, or the last of the roast pork.
‘The locals say that it is likely to be a hard winter,’ she said, lifting her wine glass.
‘I heard the same,’ he replied.
She waited for him to say more, but was not surprised when he did not. He said little unless it was to the point. Idle conversation had a tendency to lead to the baring of souls. He was not that sort of man.
She took a sip of wine and considered her next words. Shock him, perhaps? Get beneath his guard, as her father would have said? Her heart raced a little. ‘The coat you are wearing is Samuel’s, is it not?’
Eyes wary, he put down his forkful of pie. ‘He had no more use for it. My own clothes were ruined on the journey to the coast.’
Defensive. But why? What he said made perfect sense. Perhaps he feared she’d be overcome by her emotions at the thought of him wearing Samuel’s clothes? Another woman might be, she supposed.
She kept her voice light and even. ‘It must have been a terrible journey?’
‘I’ve had worse.’
She stared, surprised by the edge in his voice. He looked up and caught her gaze. His skin coloured, just a little, as if he realised he’d been brusque.
‘But, yes,’ he said, his voice a little more gentle, ‘it was no’ so easy.’ His voice dropped. ‘Your husband bore it verra well at the end, if it is of comfort to you.’
It did not sound like the Samuel she had known. He’d been a man who liked an easy life. The reason he had married her money. Could there be some sort of mistake? Her stomach clenched at the idea, but she asked the question anyway. ‘You are sure that he is...I mean, he was Samuel MacDonald? My husband?’
Misplaced pity filled his gaze. ‘There is no doubt in my mind the man was your husband, Mrs MacDonald. We talked. Of you. Of other things. How else would I know about the lawyer?’ He frowned and looked grim. ‘But you are right. Someone should identify his remains. To make things legal. I didna’ think you...’
Her stomach lurched. She pushed her plate away, stood and moved from the table to the hearth. ‘No. You are right. This Mr Jones should do it.’
‘If he knew him personally.’
She whirled around. ‘You think he did not?’
‘Your husband was not always lucid, Mrs MacDonald. He suffered greatly. But he was most insistent on my contacting those in charge of Mere’s estate.’
The Duke of Mere. Why did that name sound so familiar? She had heard it spoken of recently, surely? She didn’t care for gossip, but now she remembered her employer’s remark. She turned to face him. ‘The Duke of Mere is dead.’
His jaw dropped. ‘But...’ He shook his head, got up and took a step towards her. ‘One duke dies. Another follows right behind. Like the king.’
He was right. She swallowed. ‘Of course.’
He drew closer. Very close, until she could feel the warmth from his body, the sense of male strength held in check, though why that should be she could not imagine. ‘Mrs MacDonald,’ he said softly, ‘dinna fash yourself. Jones will come tomorrow and your husband’s family will do their duty by you.’
What family? According to Samuel he was as alone in the world as she was. It was one of the things that had drawn her to him. His need for family. Not that he had needed her, once he had her money. It would be nice to be needed. To be able to lean on a man and have him take care of her in return. She felt herself leaning towards Mr Gilvry, as if his strength could sustain her.
Shocked, she straightened. She moved away, turning to face him with a hard-won smile against the melting sensation in her limbs. ‘You are right. It seems that Mr Jones holds the key to everything.’ She put a hand to her temple. It was throbbing again. Too much thinking. Too much worrying. Too much hope that she had not been entirely abandoned after all.
‘Mr Gilvry, my husband asked much of you.’ She looked at his poor ruined face and saw nothing but sympathy in his gaze. She hesitated, her mouth dry, the words stuck fast in her throat. She took a breath. ‘Could I trouble you some more? May I request your presence at the interview with Mr Jones?’
If he was surprised, he hid it well. ‘If that is your wish,’ he said, his voice a little gruff.
Instinctively, she swayed towards all that beautiful male strength, her eyes closing in relief. ‘Thank you.’
She felt his hand on her arm, warm and strong and infinitely gentle. Once more, strange tingles ran up her arm at the strength of his touch. Did he feel them, too? Was that why he released her so quickly?
‘Sit down, Mrs MacDonald,’ he said in a rasping voice. ‘By the hearth. I’ll ask our hostess to send up tea. And the maid. It is a good night’s sleep you need. Things will be clearer in the morning.’
When she looked up, he was gone. So silently for such a tall man. A man whose absence left a very empty hole in the room. But he had said he would stand by her on the morrow. She clung to that thought as if her life depended on it and wondered at her sudden sensation of weakness.
Chapter Two
Drew paced up and down between the stalls, cursing under his breath. Frustration scoured through his blood. Desire. He struck out at a post and accepted the pain in his knuckles as his just reward.
What the hell did he think he was doing? The woman had just learned of her husband’s death and instead of offering platitudes and help, he’d almost pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
He wasn’t drawn to respectable women. Ever. He was depraved. And he knew where to find what he wanted. What the hell had he been thinking up there?
How could he possibly consider wanting her, let alone begin envisaging her naked and open and...? He hit the post again, then sucked the copper-tasting blood from his knuckles and remembered her soft, wide mouth.
Damn him. Hadn’t his experience with Alice Fulton been lesson enough? If his family hadn’t been desperate, he would never have taken her in order to force a wedding. The moment he did it, he’d known it would never work. Not for him. He’d have spent his life in purgatory.
He’d never been so relieved as when she had backed out of their engagement. So why had he almost kissed Rowena MacDonald?
Because he felt sorry for her? Or because he was grateful that, after her first horrified look at his face, she’d acted as if he was normal. As if his appearance didn’t make her stomach turn.
Jones had better turn up tomorrow and take charge of this woman, because if he didn’t, Drew was just going to walk away. He squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t. He’d sworn to himself that he would see her safe and secure. He didn’t have a choice, not when it was his fault her husband was dead.
A man staggered down the steps from the loft. The old groom in charge of the stables. He glared at Drew, then recoiled as he saw his face in the light from the lantern hanging from a beam.
‘Isn’t it bad enough that your pounding and cursing knocked me out of my bed,’ the old man railed, shaking his fist. ‘Do you have to ruin my dreams with that devil’s face?’
Drew laughed. He couldn’t help it. The old man’s reaction was exactly the same as everyone else’s, but at least he had the courage to say it.
He bowed. ‘I beg your pardon.’
‘Aye, well ye might. If ye’re wanting to bed down, you best get up that ladder now, because when I’m back from tending to nature I’m bolting the trapdoor from the inside. To keep out Old Nick, you understand.’ He staggered to the door at the far end, still muttering under his breath.
Drew wished he had something to keep out the devil he carried around inside him. But he didn’t. And while the devil wanted a woman, Drew wanted his revenge on Ian more. And so he would keep the devil caged. He’d done it for the past few years; he would continue.
He had to get Mrs MacDonald off his hands and his conscience. Then he would send Ian to hell, where he belonged.
* * *
‘A gentleman to see you, Mrs Macdonald,’ the maid announced from the doorway to her private parlour the next morning.
She looked up from her struggle to compose a suitable letter to Mrs Preston, her employer, asking for a few more days’ absence. For a moment she thought it might be Mr Gilvry and her heart lifted a fraction. But at the same moment she knew it was not. He would not have asked the maid to announce him. ‘Did the gentleman give his name?’
Emmie held out a square of white paper. ‘His card, ma’am.’
Mr Brian Jones, solicitor, the card stated in bold black letters. On the reverse, a rather crabbed script added cryptically, man of business to the Duke of Mere.
‘Show him in, please. And ask Mr Gilvry to come up, if you will.’ The girl raised questioning brows, but hurried off without a word.
Rowena moved from the writing desk to the sofa and sat facing the door.
The man who stepped across the threshold a few moments later was surprisingly young for such a responsible position. In his mid-thirties, she thought, and reasonably fair of face, if one ignored the tendency of his long nose to sharpness and the slight weakness of his chin. But his pale blue eyes were sharp and his smile positively charming. He was dressed quite as soberly as one would expect for a lawyer, though his cravat was perhaps a shade flamboyant in its intricacy.
‘Mrs MacDonald,’ he said with a deeper bow than someone of her station warranted. An odd little slip for such a man.
‘Mr Jones. Please, be seated.’
He settled himself into the armchair opposite without a sign of any nervousness. Indeed, if anything, he looked confidently in control. A small smile hovered on his lips as he waited for her to speak. She could wait him out. Her father had taught her the game of negotiation almost before she had learned how to sew a fine seam. But with her future in the balance, she wasn’t in the mood.
‘You received the message about my husband’s death from Mr Gilvry, I assume?’
He arranged his face into an expression of sympathy. ‘I did. May I offer you my condolences on your loss,’ he said, inclining his head. ‘Indians, I understand.’
She nodded. ‘So I gather.’
‘Most unfortunate.’ A touch of colour tinged his cheeks. ‘Did you—’ He coughed delicately. ‘Are you certain he did not survive the attack?’
His eyes were fixed intently on her face. A strange feeling rippled across her shoulders. Her scalp tightened at the shock of it. It was something like the sensation described as a ghost walking over one’s grave, only more unpleasant. A premonition of danger. Clearly, she wasn’t the only one who had wondered about the truth of Samuel’s death. ‘If you require confirmation, Mr Jones, you must inspect his remains. They have been returned to Scotland at his wish.’
Distaste twisted his mouth. ‘Not me. I never met Mr MacDonald in person.’ He coughed behind his hand. ‘I have arranged for someone in the duke’s household to confirm his identity.’
The duke’s household? ‘My husband never mentioned the Duke of Mere once to me during our marriage.’
‘Ah, dear lady, it is a distant connection. Your husband’s branch of the family has long been estranged from its senior branch. He visited Mere shortly before his departure for America. It was Mere’s wish that relationships that were broken be mended. The identification is mere formality, you understand, but a necessary one.’
His smile felt just a little too forced. But then it was likely difficult to know what to do with one’s face in the presence of a supposedly grieving widow. He drew a notebook from his pocket and a small silver pen. He turned the pages as if looking for something. ‘It was a Mr Gilvry who discovered his body. It was his letter we received.’
‘Yes. He accompanied my husband’s remains from America.’ His voice made her wonder if he harboured doubts about Mr Gilvry. She pursed her lips. Where was he? He had promised to attend this meeting. ‘He will join us shortly.’
He looked around somewhat disapprovingly as if he expected Mr Gilvry to pop out of her bedroom.
‘Nothing can move forward until the circumstances of your husband’s death are fully documented and sworn to,’ he continued. ‘It is this—’ he glanced down at his notebook ‘—Gilvry I need to speak to. As well as verifying the death of your husband and...’ He frowned. ‘And the validity of your marriage.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘None of the MacDonalds were aware that Mr Samuel MacDonald had taken a wife.’
‘You will find it in the records of my parish church.’
Again that delicate cough. ‘Or if there are offspring? Our contact with Mr MacDonald was most perfunctory.’
‘No.’ She raised her chin. ‘No offspring.’ And she’d been glad of it, too, given how he’d left her in the lurch.
‘And Mr Gilvry?’
She glanced towards the door. Where on earth was he?
* * *
The call to attend Rowena and Mr Jones came at eleven. Damn it, not Rowena. Mrs MacDonald. All night he’d been thinking about the lovely pale skin glowing in candlelight over dinner, his memories of the challenge her slender curves and hollows presented to his own desires and cursing himself.
He’d made very sure the servants had seen him leave her room. He’d sent the maid up to help her ready for bed, too, so she would know nothing untoward had occurred. He’d done all he could to protect her from gossip. He would have to make sure this lawyer saw only mistress and servant.
Once more he was dressed in her husband’s second-best coat, pretending to be what he was not.
The atmosphere when he stepped into the room was tense. Mrs MacDonald sagged at the sight of him. He frowned. What had this lawyer being saying to her that would upset her usual calm?
He bowed. ‘You sent for me, Mrs MacDonald.’
‘Yes, Mr Gilvry. Mr Jones has some questions for you.’
‘Indeed I do,’ the dapper young man said. ‘On what date did Mr MacDonald meet his end? The day and the month.’
Drew had expected questions about the circumstances of MacDonald’s death. Dreaded them. But the date?
He hadn’t known at the time. He’d spent too long living by the seasons and the rise and set of the sun to be aware of dates. But he knew it now. The date was carved in his mind by words that chilled him to the bone. Unbelievable that any man would allow... ‘September fifteenth.’ He forced the words out.
The lawyer’s eyes flickered with some sort of emotion. Disappointment? He gathered himself so quickly it was hard to be sure. He smiled a prissy smile. ‘Are you positive?’
‘I am.’
The lawyer looked at him expectantly. When he said nothing, the man shook his head. ‘You have proof?’
A deep dark cold entered his gut. ‘My word should be enough.’
‘Any statement made is subject to being contested without proof.’
The cold expended to fill his chest. He had the proof. But to make his shame public, a byword.... There had to be another way. ‘If you dinna have the date, is it a problem?’
The lawyer tapped his chin with a well-manicured nail, making Drew aware of his rough weather-beaten hands. No longer the hands of a gentleman. Jones frowned down at paper before him. ‘It is true the date is not so important, once his identity is established. Without proof it is best if we couch it in the most general of terms.’ He looked up with a lawyerly smile. ‘And remain within the bounds of the law, you understand. Yes. Yes. It will serve very well.’
The man talked in such flowing periods, Drew wanted to hit him.
He picked up his pen and filled in some blank spaces on the document. ‘Hmm. Date of death, sometime in late September.’
Drew looked at Rowena. She was pale, worrying at her bottom lip and looking tense. She clearly sensed something was wrong and, damn it, so did he.
The lawyer pushed the paper across the desk. ‘Make your mark there,’ he said, pointing. ‘I’ll witness it.’
His younger brother Niall had always wanted to study the law. One of the things he had said when they talked around the dinner table was that it was a foolish man who signed anything he did not understand. And it was clear the lawyer thought he couldn’t read. He picked up the pen. ‘Why not write the fifteenth as I told you?’
‘You cannot put a date if you cannot prove it,’ the lawyer said. ‘It would not be right.’ He moved the paper out of Drew’s reach with a frown. ‘And as I said, it is not all that important. As long as we have the proof of his death.’ He gave a sly little smile. ‘As we will do, once the remains are carried to Mere.’
‘Then let us omit any mention of the date at all.’ Drew replied.
‘Will that be sufficient?’ Rowena asked, her posture stiff, her expression remote, yet stern. Drew sensed her anxiety.
The lawyer pulled his legal superiority around him like a shield. ‘If more is required, we can return to the matter at a later time.’
It seemed reasonable to Drew. Then why did he have this odd sense of worry? He glanced at Rowena. She also looked troubled, but she met his gaze and nodded.
He pulled the paper back across the table, scratched out the line and signed the document.
‘Mr Jones,’ Mrs MacDonald said sharply, ‘there are other matters pressing upon me at the moment with which I require your assistance.’
His gaze sharpened with wariness. ‘Matters, madam?’
‘Matters such as my husband’s will. His estate.’
‘My dear Mrs MacDonald,’ the man said with a condescension that again made Drew want to hit him, ‘probate of a will takes time. There are many formalities to be undertaken, as I have already explained.’
She gazed at him coolly. ‘I understand. But you must know something of his affairs. I am a governess. I must return to my position at once.’
His eyes widened. ‘Oh, most certainly not. You and Mr Gilvry must travel to Mere.’
Drew stared at him. ‘I have no intention of going to Mere. My own affairs take me in quite another direction.’
The lawyer shifted in his seat. ‘It was my understanding that you were to accompany Mr MacDonald’s remains to his final resting place. That is Mere.’
‘I prefer to leave that to you.’
The lawyer shook his head. ‘Until a third party has confirmed that the deceased is truly Samuel MacDonald, at which time the court will no doubt accept your information, Mr Gilvry, I cannot release you from your obligations.’
He turned to Rowena and, if anything, his smile became more oily. ‘I should not be saying this, but before he left, Mr MacDonald changed his will. Everything is left to Mere’s estate. Any settlements will be at the discretion of the new duke. You will not find him ungenerous, I assure you, once your claim is established.’
Drew’s hackles rose. The longer he spent in this man’s company, the less he trusted him. While at first glance he seemed charming, with that ready smile, his eyes drifted away when met head-on, even taking into account that no one liked to look Drew full in the face.
Rowena visibly wilted as if the stuffing had been knocked out of her. ‘He left everything to Mere? He indicated to Mr Gilvry that he made a settlement—’
Jones shook his head. ‘It is in Mere’s hands now. I am merely his representative. You will have to take your case directly to him.’
Drew glared and the man shifted his gaze to the documents on the table. ‘MacDonald told me his wife would be cared for.’ The dying man had said it with such bitterness, Drew had been shocked, but he had not doubted his words.
Jones frowned. ‘The duke takes his responsibilities seriously, I can assure you.’ Again that tight little smile at Rowena. ‘As you will discover, Mrs MacDonald, if you will allow yourself to be guided by me.’
Rowena took an unsteady breath. ‘It would be enough if I am relieved of his debt.’
The defeat on her face made Drew’s chest feel as if it was weighed down with a rock.
‘If there are assets, they should be passed on to MacDonald’s widow,’ he said firmly.
The lawyer was tapping his chin again. A sign he was thinking on his feet, perhaps. ‘I see you are not satisfied with the word of a duke,’ Jones said in an exasperated tone. ‘Very well. If your claims are proved—’ he inclined his head slightly ‘—as I am sure they will be, dear lady, there is a house set aside for you, at Mere, and an annuity.’
She perked up. ‘The house would be mine? Something I can sell?’
Jones shook his head. ‘It is on land that is part of the estate.’
‘So the duke will continue to own the house.’
He nodded. ‘Indeed. But once your husband’s will has gone through probate, there may be more. You did mention debts?’
She looked down her autocratic nose and the lawyer visibly wilted. ‘Yes, but none of my making.’ She let go a little breath. ‘But Mr MacDonald realised a large sum from the sale of my half of McFail’s. I cannot believe there is nothing left.’
‘Let us hope you are right. In the meantime...’
‘In the meantime, it seems I have no choice but to accept the duke’s generous offer. I will travel to Mere and learn the outcome of my husband’s business affairs.’
Jones turned his gaze to Drew. ‘I do hope I can prevail upon you to finish what you set out to accomplish. The return of Mr MacDonald to the bosom of his family. You will, of course, be rewarded for your time.’
‘I would prefer to leave it to you,’ Drew said. ‘I have another engagement.’ Ian. His gut clenched painfully.
Jones gathered up his papers. ‘My first duty is to ascertain this lady’s claim of marriage, which takes me in a different direction, after which I will then make post-haste to Mere. But you must allow it is vital that the poor dear departed be taken swiftly to his final resting place. Who knows what ravages may have occurred during shipment? If it is not possible to prove his identity...’
Rowena paled. Drew felt slightly nauseous, though the undertaker had assured him all would be well.
Rowena looked at him and, while her expression was one of serene indifference, he knew from the pleas deep in those soft grey eyes that she wanted him to say yes. ‘Verra well. I will accompany Mrs MacDonald to Mere.’
The lawyer looked far too relieved at his words, but Drew could hardly change his mind, because Rowena had looked equally relieved.
‘Excellent,’ Jones said. ‘You will make your way to Penwood House. No doubt his Grace will be delighted to receive you at the castle once you are established there.’
Drew didn’t like the glint of triumph in Jones’s eyes. ‘And a conveyance?’ Drew asked.
‘I will arrange for a cart for the transportation of the...luggage.’
Rowena’s face shuttered. ‘I am to travel on this cart?’
‘You may. Unless you prefer to ride. The driver, a man by the name of Pockle, and his wife will serve your needs along the road, which regrettably is a difficult journey this time of year.’
Did the man hope she’d become lost on the way? Drew glared at him, knowing only too well the dangers of cross-country travel. ‘How long will it take?’ Drew asked.
‘Two or three days. Longer if the weather is bad.’
‘And where is Mrs MacDonald to spend the nights?’ Drew asked. He could not get away from his sense of danger. ‘You surely don’t expect her to camp out in the hills.’
‘Certainly not. There are inns along the way. Please be ready to leave in the morning. I will take care of all the arrangements before I leave later today.’ He gathered up his papers and packed them away. ‘I look forward to our next meeting at Mere, Mrs MacDonald.’
He bowed and left.
Rowena frowned. ‘He was so keen on a date at first. Why do you think he changed his mind so quickly?’
The lass had a very sharp mind.
He shook his head. ‘That’s a tricky wee fellow, I’m thinking. You are right to seek out the duke.’
‘Are you sure you don’t mind going, too? While he seemed to want your presence at Mere, I could probably manage with the driver and his wife, since it is not too far distant.’
It was madness to agree to it. To spend more time in her company. To feel the call of her milk-white skin and find himself falling into the depths of her clear grey eyes. Madness and torture for the sake of a promise no one had heard but himself. ‘Once I start on something, I have to see it through.’
No matter how long it took.
A soft breath came from her parted lips and he wanted to capture it in his mouth. ‘Thank you.’
He turned briskly for the door. ‘It seems I must find some sort of nag for the journey.’
His business with Ian could wait. A week. A month. A year. It made no difference; it had waited so long already.
Yet he could not help feeling he might be making the worst mistake of his life. And he’d made some bad ones in the past.
Chapter Three
Why on earth did Mere have to reside in such an inaccessible place in wintertime? Rowena thought, huddling deeper into her cloak. Why couldn’t he live in Edinburgh like any civilised person? This was their second day since leaving Dundee and Rowena was already exhausted by the journey. The roads were so abysmal, the cart travelled at less than walking speed and, this afternoon, the sky had turned a lowering grey just skimming the hilltops.
The cold, damp air wormed its way through every fibre of her clothing. Worse was the way Mr Gilvry, riding ahead of the cavalcade, glanced up at the sky from time to time.
She urged her horse forward. ‘Is it going to rain?’
She was on his left side and the beauty of his features struck her anew, though she hoped she managed to hide the sudden hitch in her breath.
‘Snow,’ he said with such assurance, she did not doubt him.
Lovely. She shivered. ‘How long before we reach the next inn?’ She could just imagine a warm fire and a hot bath.
Mr Gilvry glanced back over his shoulder at the cart, where the driver and his wife sat pressed close together for warmth. ‘Our next stopping place is fifteen miles from where we stayed last night. Since we havena’ made more than ten miles, I would say we have another five to go.’
‘Can we make it by nightfall?’
‘Aye.’
He sounded confident, but she wasn’t fooled. These one-word answers were meant to disguise his concern. ‘You mean, if it doesn’t snow and if the cart doesn’t get stuck.’
He gave her a quick sideways glance and she could have sworn the corner of his mouth curled up in a smile. The effect was more than charming, it was wickedly seductive. Her inner muscles gave a little squeeze. Not the sort of reaction one should be having sitting on a horse. Or at all. But at least a new kind of warmth was now pulsing through her body.
‘Aye, that is just what I mean,’ he said.
To hide her flush, she also looked over her shoulder at the cart and its occupants. Twice it had become stuck in a muddy rut on the previous day. On both occasions, she’d been impressed with Mr Gilvry’s strength and his whipcord leanness when he had removed his coats and heaved with all his might.
‘I’m beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t have just gone back to my place of employment and forgotten all about ever being married.’
His amusement faded. ‘Would you let that wee mannie Jones have the best of you? I don’t know what game Mere is playing, but your husband was telling me the truth. He made some sort of settlement for you.’
‘It won’t make any difference if I freeze to death out here.’
‘I’ll be certain that doesna’ happen.’
From anyone else she might have taken his words as bravado, but the determination in both his voice and his face gave her a modicum of comfort, even as her heart sank at the sight of the next hill rising before them. The track disappeared up into the clouds. Who knew what lay ahead.
It was the steepest hill they’d encountered so far. ‘We’d best walk the horses again,’ Mr Gilvry said, dismounting in a swirl of coat. ‘They need to rest, but we canna stop if we are to make shelter by nightfall.’
He reached up and lifted her down as he did each time she needed to dismount. Again the heat of his touch warmed her through and through. It was all in her mind, of course, there were layers and layers of clothing between his skin and hers, but it was the only bright spot in a very dreary day.
She smiled her thanks when he set her on her feet and received a nod in reply. A very cool nod, indeed. He was clearly regretting his agreement to escort her to the duke. But he’d given his word and he would keep it. Knowing he at least was a man of his word gave her comfort. A sense of security she had not known in a long time.
And that was a mistake. She’d thought the same about Samuel and look how that had ended. And if this trip to Mere ended the same way, she was going to be in dire straits indeed since Mrs Preston, rather than extending her leave of absence, had terminated her employment.
All her reliance was now on the generosity of the Duke of Mere.
They walked in silence, one behind the other for a while. Rowena turned to look back down the hill. There was no sign of the cart in the mist that had closed in around them.
‘Shouldn’t we wait for them?’ she called out.
‘They’ll catch us up at the crest,’ he replied. ‘I’ll make tea to warm us and have it ready when they arrive.’
That was the other thing she found strange about him. The way he carried an assortment of objects in his saddlebag, as if he was used to living in the wilds. A handful of oats. A tin kettle to make tea. And of course the leaves. No milk, though. Just a flask of whisky from which he added a splash to the brew. It certainly warmed her from the inside out and she found herself looking forward to their arrival at the top of the hill.
The Pockles also carried supplies in the cart—bread, cheese, some oatcakes—but Mr Gilvry’s tea was the best of all of it.
* * *
They had plodded upwards for what felt like a good half an hour. At this rate they would be lucky to make the last five miles to the next inn before it was dark.
At the top, catching her breath, Rowena looked around her, but there was nothing to see. Just a rolling blanket of white and a barely visible track disappearing downwards. Disappointing, really. She’d been looking forward to seeing the Highlands in all their glory. But it really was the wrong time of year for travel. She shivered and pulled her cloak tighter around her.
Mr Gilvry set about making a fire from a clump of peat he had picked up somewhere along the way, or perhaps taken from the inn where they stayed the previous night. The inn had only one bedchamber. Everyone else was expected to sleep in the commons. Mr Gilvry had preferred the stables. She didn’t really blame him. The driver and his wife were a nice enough couple, if a little dour, but they were not as particular about their cleanliness as they might have been. She would not have wanted to spend a night with them in close quarters.
It didn’t take him long to get the fire started and, while the small can heated over the flame, she bent to warm her numb fingers against the heat.
‘I wish I understood what game the duke is playing,’ she said softly. He crouched beside her on his heels. He looked so comfortable she thought about trying it.
‘The only way to find out is to meet him face-to-face,’ he said.
‘If he will meet with me.’
‘I canna see why he would not?’
No, she could not either, but there was something odd about the way Mr Jones had insisted they make this journey. And then there was the issue of the date of Samuel’s death. Not just the lawyer’s swift change of mind, but the way Mr Gilvry had stiffened at the mention of proof.
The water started to boil and she stepped back from the fire to give him room to brew his concoction. A few moments later, he held out a small pewter mug. She wrapped her gloved fingers around it and breathed in the steam. Bitter tea and whisky. While she sipped and felt the warmth slide down her throat, she stared into the mist. What sort of house would a duke have set aside for the wife of a distant relative? If she couldn’t sell it, and Samuel had not after all left her some money, would she be stuck out here in the Highlands for the rest of her life?
It seemed likely. Unless she married again.
She glanced at Mr Gilvry. He was looking back the way they had come with a frown. And then the jingle of a bridle pierced the muffling mist and the next moment the cart and its occupants came into view.
Mr Gilvry collected the Pockles’ mugs and filled them from the kettle. He kicked out the fire and stamped on the embers. ‘We’ll keep going, aye?’ he said to Pockle. ‘We don’t want to be out here at nightfall.’
‘That we don’t,’ said Pockle, cradling his mug just as Rowena had done and blowing on it to cool it. ‘Old McRae willna’ open the door to us if we arrive after sunset.’
Mr Gilvry glared at him. ‘Why did you say nothing of this before?’
Pockle shrugged. ‘We were making good time. Nae need to distress the lady for naught.’
Mrs Pockle took a deep swallow from her mug and made a little sound of satisfaction. Rowena had the feeling she cared more about the whisky than the tea. ‘Auld McRae is afraid of the piskies hereabouts,’ she announced. ‘Locks up tight come the dark.’
Mr Gilvry made no comment, but she could see the irritation in his expression. Not a man to believe in piskies, then.
‘We’d best be moving on,’ he said. He took her mug, tossed the dregs and wrapped it in a cloth, before throwing her back in the saddle. ‘We’ll make the best use of the downhill slope to make up a little time.’
‘I’ll catch ye up,’ Pockle said. ‘I’ve a need to empty my bladder.’ He handed his empty mug to his wife and jumped down.
‘Dinna be taking too long, man,’ Mr Gilvry said. ‘We’ll wait for you at McRae’s place and I’ll be sure of letting ye in, dark or no.’
Pockle touched a hand to his cap.
‘Don’t you think it would be better if we all stayed together?’ Rowena said. ‘What if we get lost? Pockle knows the way.’
‘I won’t get lost.’ Mr Gilvry growled. ‘I looked at the map before we left.’
He mounted up and grabbed for Rowena’s reins. ‘But you might.’ He glanced up at the sky. ‘The sooner we get going, the sooner we will arrive.’
Normally she would not have considered letting a man lead her along like a child, but the worry in his eyes made such pride a foolish luxury. ‘Just be careful, Mr Gilvry,’ she said coolly. ‘I would not like to follow you off a cliff.’
His sharp stare said the prospect was not out of the realm of possibility and her stomach dipped. So much for trying to strike a lighter note. Something that actually never seemed possible with this particular man, any more than it had been with Samuel.
She sighed. Say nothing, and then you can’t possibly go wrong.
His horse moved ahead and hers followed at his tug on the bridle. After a few minutes of them heading downhill, big wet flakes drifted down to settle on her shoulders and her horse’s neck. They melted almost at once.
Mr Gilvry muttered something under his breath. A curse, no doubt. She felt like cursing herself. Instead, she ducked deeper into her hood.
After a time, the numbness in her fingers and toes spread inwards. She blew on her fingers with little hope it would help and lifted her head to peer ahead, then she wished she hadn’t. A gust of windblown snow stung her cheeks. But even that swift glimpse told her night was closing in fast.
Mr Gilvry stopped. Were they lost? Her heart began a sharp staccato in her chest.
She let her horse come up alongside his.
‘Lights,’ he said, leaning close so she could hear him through the muffling scarf he’d pulled up around his face.
The breath left her body in such a rush, she felt light-headed. ‘McRae’s?’
He nodded and urged his horse forward at a trot. Her mount followed suit.
He’d been right. He did know the way. She’d have to apologise for her doubts once they were warm and dry.
The inn stood alone, off to one side of the track they’d been following, a lantern lighting its sign. A golden glow spilled from the windows, making square patches of snow glitter as if dusted with stars.
Mr Gilvry helped her down from her horse. Not only light issued forth from the inn, there was sound, too. The sound of men talking and laughing. She glanced up at Mr Gilvry and, while she could not see his face, she could see his eyes narrow.
‘It seems we are not the only company tonight,’ she said.
‘Aye. Wait here. I’ll see the landlord about a room.’ He thrust the reins into her hands and ducked as he opened the door.
‘Duin an dòras,’ someone shouted.
Gaelic. Someone not pleased about the draught from the door being opened. The door slammed shut. Rowena glanced around. The stables must be at the back of the inn, but no one had come to take their horses. Perhaps she should take them herself. She was so cold, the wind biting through her cloak, even the thought of a stable was a lure.
Before she could make a move, Mr Gilvry returned with a man and a woman with a shawl over her head in tow. The man, a spry fellow, regarded her with interest before relieving her of the reins. ‘While I help yon lad with the horses, Mrs McRae will see you upstairs.’
The woman gestured for her to follow. ‘This way, ma’am. There’s a nice warm fire ready and waiting.’
Warmth. What more could she ask? She started to follow.
Mr Gilvry caught her arm, turned her around and brought her close, grasping her by her elbows and lifting her on her toes so she could see the glitter of the lamp over the door in his eyes. ‘The men in there are a dangerous lot,’ he murmured close to her ear. ‘Do not look their way.’
Then he kissed her. Full on the lips. A warm dry pressure on her mouth. The heat of his breath on her frozen cheek, the thud of his heart beneath her fingertips where they rested on the side of his throat.
He broke away, gazing down at her, his expression dark, his mouth sensuously soft. She must have imagined it, because he set her away from him with a laugh as if it was she who had kissed him.
Stunned, she stared at him and her hand fell to her side.
He swung her around, pushing her forward with a tap on the rump. ‘Ye’ll be saving that for later, lassie.’ He turned away, dragging her horse behind him.
Lassie? Later. What on earth...? She touched her lips still tingling from his unexpected kiss.
The landlady laughed. ‘That’s one cheeky lad ye have there for a husband.’
Husband? And so the goodwife might think after such a display. Her heart knocking against her ribs, whether out of fear for what she would find inside that he needed to warn her in such an odd way or the effect of that kiss, she didn’t quite know.
Right now she didn’t care about anything as long as she ended up close to the warmth of a fire. Later, though, when she wasn’t too cold to think—cold on the outside, that was—she intended to discover just what sort of game he thought he was playing.
As she entered the inn, she realised he was right about the men in what must be the only barroom in the house. She had a brief impression of three burly males filling the low-beamed room, all looking at her. She kept her gaze firmly fixed on the landlady’s back and mounted the stairs to a low rumble of male appreciation.
‘Dinna mind them, missus,’ the landlady said in comfortable tones, opening the door to a chamber at the end of a short corridor at the top of the stairs. ‘McRae won’t put up wi’ any o’ their nonsense.’
She hoped not.
Mrs McRae ushered her into a chamber that barely had room for a bed, a settle by the hearth and a table with two chairs in the corner.
The woman turned down the sheets and gave the bed a pat. ‘And that man of yours is more than a match for them, aye?’ She chuckled.
Rowena narrowed her eyes at the woman. Now, what should she say to that? Deny that Mr Gilvry was her man, or wait for his explanation? Discretion was no doubt the better part of valour in this circumstance.
‘Take off your cloak, my dear,’ the landlady urged. ‘I’ll send up my Sin to help you out of those wet clothes in a minute or two.’ And with that she whisked out, shutting the door behind her.
Sin. Well, there was an interesting name. She removed her bonnet and tossed it on the bed, then unfastened her cloak and hung it over the settle where it could dry. She held her hands out to the fire and watched the steam rise off her skirts.
A knock at the door heralded the arrival of Sin, who turned out to be a pretty, blue-eyed, auburn-haired girl of about eighteen. As pretty as sin indeed.
She bobbed a curtsy. ‘Mam says I’m to help you undress, mistress.’
‘I’m afraid my luggage is still somewhere behind us on the road. I have nothing dry to change into.’
The girl gave her a grin. ‘Your man said as how you was to take off your wet things and wrap yourself in the quilt.’ She pointed at the bed.
‘My man,’ Rowena said drily. What on earth were the Pockles going to think when they arrived with the landlady calling Mr Gilvry her man? And what if it came to the duke’s ears? She pressed her lips together against the urge to deny that Mr Gilvry was her man. She would let him explain, before she took him to task.
The girl scurried around behind her and began attacking her laces. ‘Very positive he was about it, my lady, you being so damp and all. He feared you might take a chill. Said I was to get you out of these wet things, no matter what you said.’
‘How very forceful,’ Rowena said, wryly imagining Mr Gilvry dishing out orders and feeling a little shiver pass down her spine.
‘Oh, yes,’ the girl said, coming around to the front to help her unpin her bodice. ‘Very forceful he was.’ She giggled.
A strong urge to bash the girl over the head with a poker arose in Rowena’s breast. Though why that would be, she had no idea. She didn’t care in the least if Mr Gilvry made an innkeeper’s daughter giggle. She probably hadn’t seen his face. Oh, now that was mean.
‘Was it a duel?’ the girl asked. She sounded breathless. Too breathless for the effort to undo a few tapes on a gown.
‘Was what a duel?’
‘The scar. Was it a duel over a woman?’ She sighed in the most nauseating way.
‘I have no idea,’ Rowena said repressively and stepped out of the gown. ‘I have never asked him.’
‘He must have been a right bonnie lad before...’ The maid’s voice tailed off.
Furious, and not knowing why, Rowena turned her back to give the maid access her stays. ‘Do you think so?’ She could not keep emotion from colouring her voice.
‘I beg your pardon, ma’am. Not that he isn’t bonnie now, of course. Lovely wide shoulders and those green eyes of his. They almost make up for the scar. We don’t get many handsome young gentlemen passing through these parts.’ The girl sighed.
‘Are you done?’
The girl dropped the stays on top of the gown and picked up the counterpane. ‘If you will just wrap this around you,’ she said, ‘I’ll unpin your hair and gi’ it a good brushing.’
Chapter Four
Drew followed the stableman, his head reeling. What the hell had he been thinking, kissing her like that? He’d just wanted to impress on her the importance of his words, and then the way she’d looked up at him, so sinfully tempting and ready to argue, it was all he could think of.
No doubt she’d be having his hide for that piece of foolishness. And for saying he was her husband. But the moment he saw the men inside the inn, he’d known they were trouble. His suspicions were confirmed by what he saw around him. The stables were full to the brim with ponies and stacked with barrels.
The three men in the common room were smugglers, and a rougher-looking lot he hoped never to see. The storm must have brought them in, because if things remained as they had been before he left for America, they would usually avoid any place where the gaugers might visit. There would be no excisemen out on a night like tonight.
It was a damnable nuisance that Pockle had been unable to keep up. It would have evened the odds.
Drew jerked his chin in the direction of the inn. ‘Where are the men from?’
The little man’s face closed up tighter than a Scotsman’s purse. ‘You’ll find no loose tongues here, sir, but since you are a true Highland gentleman, I can tell you they work for McKenzie out of Edinburgh. A rough lot, I can tell you that. You would do as well to keep an eye on that wife of yours.’
Drew nodded and made a show of pulling his pistol from his saddle holster and tucking it in his belt along with powder and shot.
He glanced up to find the man watching him. ‘Aye, well, I’m a man who kens how to look after his own.’
The little man grinned. ‘As well to be safe as sorry, they do say.’
The cold feeling in Drew’s chest expanded. Pockle should never have suggested they stay at a known smugglers’ haunt. They should have stopped earlier in the day.
‘You can leave the horses to me,’ the groom said. ‘I’ll look in on them later. You’d best keep an eye on that woman of yours and get yourself warm.’ He gave Drew a nudge in the ribs.
Drew gritted his teeth at the thought of the impending chilly reception. He should not have let himself be tempted.
‘Is there a back door into the inn?’ he asked the groom.
‘Aye, straight across. You’ll go through the kitchen.’ He winked. ‘There’s but one set of stairs.’
Drew didn’t much like the sound of that. It was always good to have more than one way out. He picked up their saddlebags and heaved them over one shoulder, leaving one hand free to use his pistol. He just hoped he wouldn’t need it.
He crossed from the stables to the back door of the inn. The goodwife was busy at the hearth, a pot bubbling with stew. It didn’t smell too bad and right now he really didn’t think he cared what was in it as long as it was hot and filling. She waved her ladle at him. ‘I’ll be up wi’ your dinner in a minute or two.’
He entered the taproom. Only one man seemed to be taking any real interest. His eyes narrowed when they caught sight of Drew’s pistol. A grim sense of satisfaction filled him. At least they knew he was not easy pickings. Still, he didn’t trust them an inch.
He had nothing against smugglers. He’d dealt with enough of them in the old days. He’d been one. But these men were different. Harder eyed and not Highlanders by their speech.
He sauntered between them to the bar along one wall. ‘I’ll take a bottle of whisky and two glasses,’ he said to the landlord.
‘Yes, sir,’ the portly, red-faced fellow said, reaching under his counter.
One of the men behind him sniggered. ‘Wi’ that face you likely have to get her drunk before she’ll have ought to do wi’ ye.’
Drew turned and faced the room, fists loose but ready. ‘If you have something to say, you can say it to my ugly face.’
The oldest man in the room eyed him for a moment, then nodded an acknowledgement. He shoved at a scrawny-looking fellow with a straggling beard. ‘Yon Roger’s had a wee bitty too much to drink,’ he said. ‘Haven’t you, Roger?’
Roger looked sullen, but at another shove nodded and disappeared into his tankard.
‘You’ll have your men keep a civil tongue in their heads, man,’ the landlord said from behind Drew. ‘Or I’ll be sending you back out in the snow.’
Drew grinned. ‘I wouldn’t be asking a dog to go out in that, lads.’ He turned back to the innkeeper. ‘Give them all a dram on me.’
The mood in the room lightened considerably. Drew picked up the bottle and glasses and raised it in salute, strolling out of the bar as three men rushed forward. Sugar was better than vinegar any day of the week. Not that he’d trust any of them.
He didn’t take his eyes off them as he climbed the bottom steps, just to be sure he didn’t get a knife in the back. Roger turned and met his gaze. He had the look of a man who was trying to solve a puzzle.
Drew halted. ‘Is something else wrong?’
The man shook his head. ‘I just had the feeling I’ve seen you before.’
Drew raised a brow. ‘People don’t usually forget my face.’
The man grimaced with distaste. ‘You never had the scar last time I saw you.’
The hairs on Drew’s nape rose. Was it possible he had met this man in his smuggling days? ‘You are mistaken, my friend. Sorry.’ He continued up the stairs, but from the feeling between his shoulder blades, the man watched him until he was out of sight.
He’d known a lot of people in the trade in the old days. Him and Ian. But he could not think of a reason why any of them would hold a grudge.
He knocked on the door of the chamber assigned to him and Mrs MacDonald.
‘Who is it?’
At least she had sense enough not to just open the door without checking. ‘Drew.’
‘Just a moment.’
A rustle of skirts, the door swung back, opened by a maid, but his gaze went straight to the figure kneeling by the hearth, wrapped in a cotton cover, and his mind ceased working. Her unpinned hair hung down her back, as sleek and as shiny a chestnut as would do a thoroughbred proud.
There was something extraordinarily intimate about seeing a woman with her hair down around her shoulders. And on her knees, too. His body responded as if she’d offered him the most personal of attentions. He almost groaned out loud at the blaze of heat scorching through his blood. At this rate, he wasn’t going to need the fire to get warm. Disgusted by his reaction, he dropped the saddlebags off to one side and set the whisky and the glasses on the table.
‘Out,’ he said to the maid.
Mrs MacDonald rose up on her knees and turned to look at him, surprise on her face.
Drew looked at the maid. ‘If you don’t mind?’ he said as politely as he could manage.
The little lass bustled past him.
Drew closed and locked the door, using the moment to repress the wicked images his mind had conjured up.
‘Mrs McRae will be along shortly wi’ our supper,’ he said, annoyed by the hoarseness in his voice.
She put her hands on her hips. ‘Well, well, if it isn’t my dear husband.’ Her eyes sparkled like water running over pebbles in a brook. Anger or amusement. Whichever it was, it made a breath catch in his throat; she looked so lovely with her hair hanging about her shoulders and her cheeks flushed by the warmth from the fire.
He strode for the window and opened it.
The wind gusted in, bringing with it a whirl of snowflakes and a chill to his overheated blood.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ she asked, her voice rising in pitch.
‘Admiring the view,’ he said over his shoulder. And checking for a way out should it be needed. The kitchen roof jutted out a few feet below. An easy climb down to the ground.
He took a deep breath, closed the window and turned back to face her. ‘I’m sorry I had to tell them we were wed. I couldna’ leave you up here alone with that lot staying below.’
Her lips thinned. ‘And I suppose you are sorry you had to kiss me, too.’
Heat travelled up his neck. ‘It was necessary, but, aye, I’m sorry.’
The apology didn’t seem to mollify her one little bit.
He jerked his chin at her saddlebag. ‘Is there something dry in there you can change into?’
She glanced down at the bag and then up at him. ‘Only my nightgown. I wasn’t expecting to put up at an inn without my luggage, which is now with the Pockles who, by the way, will be surprised to find us calling ourselves man and wife.’
The Pockles were another worry. They could not have been more than a half hour or so behind them, so they should have arrived by now. He didn’t see any reason to let her know his concern, though.
He shrugged. ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’
A rap sounded at the door. ‘Who is it?’ he asked, one hand going to his pistol.
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Ann Lethbridge
BEHIND THE HIGHLANDER’S SCARS…Reeling from betrayal, the once devastatingly handsome Andrew Gilvry has returned to Scottish shores to fulfil a promise made to a dying man. The widowed Rowena MacDonald has been entrusted to his care, and Drew must do all he can to protect her…LIES A DARK PASSION!But Drew’s honour is about to be tested – because there’s something in Rowena’s dove-grey eyes which awakens a flame long extinguished. And on a perilous journey across the Highlands, with only this alluring woman for company, how long can he deny his desires?The Gilvrys of Dunross, Capturing ladies’ hearts across the Highlands
A tall man, all lean physique and long stride, prowled along the quay, his coat flying open.
He walked as if the ground owed him homage, his by right. Images of the pirate who haunted her dreams with his strong clever fingers and wicked mouth danced across her mind.
Shocked, she squeezed her eyes shut against the flutter of desire low in her belly. Embarrassed, she ignored the salacious sensations.
The last passenger was level with her now. A scarf swathed about his head covered all but his eyes beneath a hat pulled down low. He wore a fashionable greatcoat—a thing with many capes. Too short. Perhaps that was why he’d left it undone. The boots on his feet were scuffed and worn. A man who, for all his appearance of pride, wore second-hand clothes.
‘Mrs MacDonald?’
The man’s voice had the lilt of the Highlands and a raspy disused quality. And he had spoken her name. Her heart followed her stomach to the floor.
‘I am Mrs MacDonald,’ she said, unable to keep the edge from her voice.
He bowed, hand to heart. ‘Andrew Gilvry, at your service.’
AUTHOR NOTE
I am so sad that I have reached the end of my The Gilvrys of Dunross series. I have enjoyed writing the stories of these brothers so much, and I hope you have enjoyed making the journey with me. I was very glad that Drew finally came home. In the beginning I wasn’t sure he could.
Scotland has always held a special place in my heart as I lived in the wilds of the Outer Hebrides as a pre-teen and loved the wildness and the lonely spaces, so I was delighted to be able to set this Regency series in the Highlands. For all that the Prince Regent, later King George IV, was unpopular with his English subjects, he did make Scotland the fashion—with the help of Sir Walter Scott. And during his reign there were at least some changes that made life for Highlanders a little easier. The change to the distilling laws addressed in these books was one of them.
If you want to know more about my books, find out what is coming next, or simply drop by and say hello, you can find me at http://www.annlethbridge.com (http://www.annlethbridge.com)
Return of the
Prodigal Gilvry
Ann Lethbridge
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to my dad, without whom I would never have had the wonderful adventure of visiting Scotland and thus the desire to return.
My thanks go out to all involved in making this a better book, in particular Joanne Grant, my editor.
ANN LETHBRIDGE has been reading Regency novels for as long as she can remember. She always imagined herself as Lizzie Bennet, or one of Georgette Heyer’s heroines, and would often recreate the stories in her head with different outcomes or scenes. When she sat down to write her own novel it was no wonder that she returned to her first love: the Regency. Ann grew up roaming Britain with her military father. Her family lived in many towns and villages across the country, from the Outer Hebrides to Hampshire. She spent memorable family holidays in the West Country and in Dover, where her father was born. She now lives in Canada, with her husband, two beautiful daughters, and a Maltese terrier named Teaser, who spends his days on a chair beside the computer, making sure she doesn’t slack off.
Ann visits Britain every year, to undertake research and also to visit family members who are very understanding about her need to poke around old buildings and visit every antiquity within a hundred miles. If you would like to know more about Ann and her research, or to contact her, visit her website at www.annlethbridge.com (http://www.annlethbridge.com). She loves to hear from readers.
Previous novels by this author:
THE RAKE’S INHERITED COURTESAN† (#ulink_3a1c987f-b1c0-5de2-b078-23717d2ca582) WICKED RAKE, DEFIANT MISTRESS CAPTURED FOR THE CAPTAIN’S PLEASURE THE GOVERNESS AND THE EARL (part of Mills & Boon New Voices … anthology) THE GAMEKEEPER’S LADY* (#ulink_3a1c987f-b1c0-5de2-b078-23717d2ca582) MORE THAN A MISTRESS* (#ulink_3a1c987f-b1c0-5de2-b078-23717d2ca582) LADY ROSABELLA’S RUSE† (#ulink_3a1c987f-b1c0-5de2-b078-23717d2ca582) THE LAIRD’S FORBIDDEN LADY** (#ulink_3a1c987f-b1c0-5de2-b078-23717d2ca582) HAUNTED BY THE EARL’S TOUCH HER HIGHLAND PROTECTOR** (#ulink_3a1c987f-b1c0-5de2-b078-23717d2ca582) FALLING FOR THE HIGHLAND ROGUE** (#ulink_3a1c987f-b1c0-5de2-b078-23717d2ca582)
And in Mills & Boon
Historical Undone! eBooks:
THE RAKE’S INTIMATE ENCOUNTER
THE LAIRD AND THE WANTON WIDOW
ONE NIGHT AS A COURTESAN
UNMASKING LADY INNOCENT
DELICIOUSLY DEBAUCHED BY THE RAKE
A RAKE FOR CHRISTMAS
IN BED WITH THE HIGHLANDER
ONE NIGHT WITH THE HIGHLANDER** (#ulink_3a1c987f-b1c0-5de2-b078-23717d2ca582)
And in Mills & Boon
Historical eBooks:
PRINCESS CHARLOTTE’S CHOICE
(part of Royal Weddings Through the Ages anthology)
And in M&B: LADY OF SHAME (part of Castonbury Park Regency mini-series)
* (#ulink_75c5d908-8488-5766-ad55-86c098f0d555)linked by character † (#ulink_75c5d908-8488-5766-ad55-86c098f0d555)linked by character ** (#ulink_75c5d908-8488-5766-ad55-86c098f0d555)The Gilvrys of Dunross
Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
Chapter One (#u81fcedad-2628-50b4-8bc3-9a5b62ad259c)
Chapter Two (#u26dd03ad-16e5-58d2-8970-867b24531a80)
Chapter Three (#u13ba1cdc-50eb-57f0-91a0-741588adbe80)
Chapter Four (#u4dc4b8a7-3e7a-5a0f-9a96-b6ccbb92ca67)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
Dundee, November 1822
How dare he? The anger inside Rowena MacDonald increased with each oar stroke of the longboat crossing the grey waves between the ship and the quay where she stood. She wrapped her threadbare cloak tighter against the November wind screaming in from the North Sea.
The dark afternoon suited her mood. After two years of absence and no word, how dare her husband demand she welcome him back to Scotland? The rage she had worked so hard at suppressing these past two years lashed her the same way the wind whipped the wave tops into foam.
The letter, forwarded on from her last address, had scarcely arrived at her place of employment in time for her to meet the ship. She’d toyed with the idea of refusing his summons. But he was her husband and had the power to further ruin her life. And now, after she had been sure she was free of him, how easily he’d found her and brought her to heel.
Or so he thought, no doubt. As to that, he was going to hear a few home truths. If nothing else, she would make sure he knew she would never ever forgive him for his lies. Or the heartbreak of realising how pathetic she’d been in thinking that he had actually married her for more than her fortune. That he had some tender feelings towards her.
Not love. She had known it wasn’t love, but she had thought he cared, at least a little.
She fought the stab of pain as she recalled his betrayal. She would not show how deeply she’d been hurt. Or how greatly she dreaded their reunion. Calm reason must be the order of the day. She took a deep breath of icy-cold air and steeled herself against any sign of weakness. The moisture trickling from the corner of her eyes was caused by the sting of the salt-laden sea. Nothing else.
The boat drew closer. Close enough to make out its occupants. Six sailors at the oars. Three passengers, all men, muffled in coats and hats and scarves against the wind, arriving on the last merchant ship from America before winter made the Atlantic crossing impossible. And oddly, upright in the stern, a barrel.
An uncomfortable feeling curled in her stomach. None of the passengers looked in the slightest like her husband. Admittedly, she had only been married two months before Samuel had fled like the proverbial thief in the night, but surely she would recognise him from this distance, despite the other people crowded around her at this end of the jetty making it difficult to see, tall though she was? On her side of the barrier, there were longshoremen waiting to unload the ship’s cargo. A small family consisting of a mother and two children stirred with excitement at the approach of the boat, no doubt meeting a loved one.
All those waiting were held back by the formalities of landing. The visit to the harbour master, the presenting of passports, paperwork for Customs. And still Rowena could not pick out Samuel amid those mounting the jetty steps to dry land.
Could he have lied to her again? Changed his mind?
Her stomach dipped all the way to the cold stones beneath her feet. Her hand tightened around the strings of her reticule containing his letter. His command to be waiting at Dundee dock.
How could she ever have trusted herself to such a feckless man? Sadly, she knew exactly why. Because she had wanted to believe in him, instead of trusting what she had always known. Handsome gentlemen did not fall in love with her type of female. They just didn’t. As he’d made quite clear after the wedding, it was a marriage of convenience, colluded in by a cousin, who ought to have had her interests at heart. But didn’t.
Two of the passengers left the quay, one disappearing into the arms of the little family squealing their glee and quickly led off. The second signalled to a waiting carriage and was whisked away.
Finally, the third, a tall man with the carriage of a man in his prime, all lean physique and long stride, prowled along the quay, his coat flying open. He walked as if the ground owed him homage, his by right. Images of the pirate who haunted her dreams with his strong clever fingers and wicked mouth danced across her mind.
Shocked, she squeezed her eyes shut against the flutter of desire low in her belly. Embarrassed, she ignored the salacious sensations. If anyone ever guessed the wicked thoughts that went on in her head in the long reaches of the night, they would never let her near their children.
She forced her attention back to reality. To a sailor pushing a handcart containing the barrel she had noticed on the longboat.
And the fact that there was still no sign of Samuel.
She wasn’t sure if the feeling in her chest was more anger or relief. Or was it false hope? She turned her gaze back to the ship standing off from the shore. Could there be a second boat? Had he been delayed on board for some reason?
The last passenger was level with her now, a scarf, so swathed about his head it covered all but his eyes beneath a hat pulled down low. He wore a fashionable greatcoat, a thing with many capes, much like the one Samuel had worn during their whirlwind courtship. It looked too tight. Too short. Perhaps that was why he left it undone. The boots on his feet were scuffed and worn. A man who, for all his appearance of pride, wore second-hand clothes.
‘Mrs MacDonald?’ The man’s voice had the lilt of the Highlands and a raspy disused quality. And he had spoken her name. Her heart followed her stomach to the floor. Samuel had fooled her again.
All she could see of the man’s face was a pair of wary green eyes. They reminded her of dark ocean depths and fierce forest creatures. ‘I am Mrs MacDonald,’ she said, unable to keep the edge from her voice.
He bowed, hand to heart. ‘Andrew Gilvry, at your service.’
She’d been right. Samuel had brought her here for nothing. ‘And where, might I ask, is my husband?’
He recoiled slightly at her haughtily delivered question. ‘I am sorry...’
She drew herself up to her full height, the way she did with her students. It was the reason they called her the dragon, out of her hearing. Not the younger ones. Or the girls. They didn’t need such demonstrations of strength. The two older boys were a different matter. They, she’d learned quickly, would take advantage of any sign she did not have the upper hand.
‘So he is not on the ship after all.’ The anger she’d been so carefully keeping under control began to bubble hot in her breast.
The man hesitated. ‘I gather you didna’ get my letter, then?’
What, did he have some excuse to offer for Samuel’s absence? ‘The only letter I received was from my husband, requesting me to meet him at this ship. And he is not on board after all.’
‘He was on board, in a manner of speaking,’ the man said gently, the way people did when delivering bad news. He gestured to the sailor with the barrel. ‘He charged me with seeing his remains home to his family.’
The air rushed from her lungs. Her heart seemed to stop for a second as if all the blood had drained from her body. The ground beneath her feet felt as if it was spinning. ‘His remains?’ she whispered.
‘Aye.’ He reached out and took her by the elbow, clearly fearing she would faint. His coat streamed out behind him, flapping wildly. He wasn’t wearing any gloves, she noticed, and the warmth of his hand sent tingles running up beneath her flesh, all the way to her shoulder. Across her breasts. Female awareness. How could that be? Was the pirate now springing forth to plague her days?
She forced her thoughts into proper order. ‘Are you saying he is dead?’
He nodded tersely. ‘My condolences, ma’am. He was killed by Indians in the mountains of North Carolina. I was with him when he died.’
She stared at the barrel. ‘He’s in...?’ She couldn’t finish her question, but received another terse nod.
Staring at the barrel, she took a deep breath. And another. And then a third. ‘But why? Why bring him here?’
While she couldn’t see his face, she had the feeling he wished he was anywhere else but here. And that he disapproved of her question.
‘He wanted to be buried in Scotland.’ He released her elbow and stepped back. ‘I gave him my word to see him home.’ He gestured to the cart. ‘And so I have. Or at least I will have, when I have handed him over to an agent of the Duke of Mere.’
‘The Duke of Mere? Why on earth would you want to do that?’
The fair brows, just visible beneath his hat brim, lowered in a frown. ‘He is executor to your husband’s will.’
* * *
In the face of her distress, guilt squirmed in Drew’s gut like a live thing. But for him, Samuel MacDonald might have been standing on this quay greeting his wife, instead of him. Mrs MacDonald looked ready to faint, but touching her again was out of the question. She was nothing like the antidote he’d been led to expect. A veritable harridan of a female.
He could see why the doughy Samuel MacDonald might have found her physically daunting. She was imposingly tall for a woman, though the top of her head barely reached Drew’s eye level, and as lean as a racehorse to the point of boniness.
She was not a pretty woman. The features in her face were too strong and aesthetic for prettiness. Her jaw a little too square for womanly softness, the nose a little too Roman. Her best feature was her dove-grey eyes, clear and bright, and far too intelligent for a man to be comfortable. And yet for some odd reason he found her attractive. Perhaps even alluring.
He fought the stirring of attraction. The effect of too many weeks of male-only company on board ship when he’d been used to— Damn. Why think of that now? A shudder of disgust ran through him. Not only had the woman just discovered she was a widow, but there wasn’t a woman alive who would welcome his attentions. Not unless he was paying. Not when they took a look at his face.
The old anger rose in his chest. The desire to wreak vengeance for what had been done to him was always with him, deep inside and like a carefully banked fire. Once brought back to mind, it blazed like a beacon that would never be doused. Not until he had exacted justice from his brother.
Getting a grip on his anger, he glanced up at the sky. It was three in the afternoon, the sun was already looking to set and no sign of the lawyer who should take charge of the matter at hand. Damnation upon the head of all lawyers.
He glanced along the quay with a frown. ‘Where is your carriage, Mrs MacDonald?’
‘Carriage?’ she asked, looking nonplussed.
No carriage, then. A hackney? Or had she walked the mile from the town to the quay carrying the large bag sitting at her feet? The worn cloak, the practical shoes, the modest undecorated bonnet, things in the old days he would have taken in with one glance, now came into focus. Aye, she would have walked. For a man who bragged of his high connections and incipient wealth, MacDonald had not taken such good care of his wife.
So Drew would have to fill the breach. At least for a day or so.
He gestured for her to walk in the direction of the road at the end of the jetty. ‘Do you have a room booked for the night in town?’
She eyed him with a frown. ‘Of course not, Mr Gilvry. I must return to my place of employment. I spent last night here, but must leave today.’
Her strength of will in the face of adversity surprised him. A woman who would not submit easily to anyone’s command. A burst of heat low in his belly shocked him. He could not be attracted to this domineering woman, as her husband had described her in the most unflattering terms. But there was no denying the surge of lust in his blood. Had his last years among the Indians made him less of a man? His throat dried at the thought. But he knew it wasn’t possible.
Unnatural bastard. He’d heard the accusation more than once from the women he’d brought to his bed. But this would not be one of them.
The sooner he delivered her to her husband’s family and got on with the business of settling his score with Ian, the better. ‘I promised to see you safe in the hands of your husband’s family. No doubt the lawyer will be here in the morning. Or I will send him another message. Let us find a carriage to transport us and...’ He glanced back at the sailor with the cart, who was shifting from foot to foot with impatience.
She followed his gaze and a small shiver passed through her body. Clearly she was not as unaffected as she made out.
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I will hear what this lawyer of yours has to say, if he arrives tomorrow. The stage let me down at the Crown. We will go there and I will change my ticket to tomorrow night. I cannot stay a day longer.’
Drew swallowed a sigh of relief at her practical manner. Despite MacDonald’s words, he’d expected to suffer through a bout of feminine hysterics. No doubt that would come later, when she got a good look at his face.
‘Ye’ll find a carriage for hire at the end of the jetty,’ the sailor said, who had clearly been listening in to their conversation. The man trundled off with his burden, leaving Drew to escort Mrs MacDonald and carry her bag.
Her spine was so straight, her face so calm, he resisted the temptation to offer his arm for support. She clearly didn’t need it or welcome it. So why did he have the feeling that, despite her outward appearance, she might collapse? She didn’t look fragile. Anything but. She could have outmarched a general with that straight back of hers. Yet he could not get past the idea that, beneath the outward reserve, she was terrified. The woman was a puzzle and no mistake. But not one he intended to solve.
As the sailor had said, they found a hire carriage at a stand at the end of the quay and reached an agreement on terms to take them into the town centre. Drew helped the widow into the carriage, saw to the disposal of the luggage, then climbed up beside the driver. It would give her time to come to terms with her new circumstance. And allow him to avoid her questions, he admitted grimly.
* * *
The Crown Hotel was located in the centre of Dundee, about a mile from the quayside, and when the carriage halted, Drew climbed down and saw to the unloading of the barrel. The driver put his battered valise beside it on the cobbles.
Mrs MacDonald stared at the leather bag for a long moment. She raised her gaze to meet his and his stomach dipped. She must recognise it as her husband’s. He had no choice but to answer her silent query.
‘You are right. It is your husband’s valise,’ he said. ‘I have made use of his clothes, since I had to leave mine behind.’
Not that he’d had much to leave, unless you counted a breechclout and a pair of moccasins.
She stiffened slightly. ‘And you travelled on his ticket?’
He had not been mistaken in the quick wits behind that high forehead. ‘Since he was making the journey in the hold, I saw no reason to purchase another.’ He winced at the cold sound of his words. ‘And I used what money he had for necessary expenses.’ Like the makeshift coffin. And a pair of boots. He could hardly travel barefoot and MacDonald’s boots had been far too small. He had bought the cheapest he could find, however.
‘How very convenient,’ she said.
She suspected him of doing away with her husband and stealing his property. And he had in a manner of speaking. He met her gaze without flinching. ‘I gave my word to your husband that he would board that ship, Mrs MacDonald. I kept my promise.’ Out of guilt. MacDonald had not really expected to die on the journey back to civilisation. He had been full of talk of a glorious future in his fevered ravings. And of riches beyond any man’s dreams. Riches that would no doubt remain untapped now he was dead.
Guilt stabbed Drew anew. But it would not change what had happened, nor his intentions to follow through with his self-imposed duty. He would see MacDonald’s remains and his wife delivered safely to the lawyer and that was all he would do.
He picked up the valise and strode into the inn.
‘Off the ship, are ye, then?’ the innkeeper asked, meeting him just inside the door.
‘Yes. The lady needs a room with a private parlour,’ Gilvry said. ‘I’ll bed down in the stables.’
The innkeeper looked him up and down as if trying to decide if he was trying to gull him.
‘A chamber is all I require,’ Mrs MacDonald said from behind Drew, her reticule clutched at her breast as if she feared its contents would not be enough to pay for her night’s lodgings.
He pulled out MacDonald’s purse and jingled the few remaining coins. ‘The lady’s husband charged me with her travel arrangements. A room with a private parlour, if you please, and the use of a maid. Mrs MacDonald will take dinner in her room.’
The innkeeper bowed. ‘This way, please, madam.’
‘Don’t worry about the rest of the luggage, Mrs MacDonald,’ Drew said as, stiff-backed with indignation, she followed the host up the stairs. ‘I will keep it safe.’
She cast him a look of dislike over her shoulder. ‘Then I hope you have a good night’s rest, Mr Gilvry.’
Ah, irony. He’d missed its edge all these many years. No doubt she was hoping her husband would haunt him. Which he would, because, in a manner of speaking, he had been, ever since he died.
Drew turned and stomped out to the yard.
* * *
It was only when Rowena had removed her coat and hat inside her room that she fully absorbed the news. Samuel MacDonald was dead.
She squeezed her eyes closed against the sudden pain at her temples as her thoughts spiralled out of control. She had to think about this logically.
She was a widow.
A destitute widow, she amended. She had very little hope that anything remained of the money Samuel had realised from the sale of her half of her father’s linen factory. Creditors had assailed her from all sides after his sudden departure for America, leaving her no choice but to find work and support herself. Her anger at her foolishness bubbled up all over again. How could she have been so taken in after fending off so many fortune hunters over the years?
But she knew why. After her father died when she was eighteen, she had lived with his partner and cousin. She’d hated it. Not that these family members had been particularly unkind, but whereas her father had respected her mind and listened to her advice, her cousin had insisted she leave all business matters to him. He had not valued her opinions at all.
As far as he was concerned, women were brainless. Only good to decorate a man’s arm and attend to his house.
And then she’d proved him right. She’d fallen for the blandishments of an out-and-out scoundrel who had fled almost as soon as he had his hands on her money, leaving her to face the creditors he’d apparently forgotten to pay. Her cousin, who had encouraged the marriage, had washed his hands of her, as well he might, once he owned everything.
She stripped off her thin leather gloves and sat down on the chair beside the hearth, holding her hands out to the flames, revelling in the heat on her frozen fingers. It was a long time since she’d had such a warm fire at her disposal. But creature comforts could not hold her thoughts for long.
Was it possible her cousin had insisted Samuel settle some money on her future when he acted on her behalf in the matter of the marriage?
If so, it was a relief to know that her only family hadn’t totally taken advantage of her lapse of good sense in accepting Samuel as a husband. When she’d learned her cousin had bought her half of the family business for a sum vastly below its true worth right after the wedding, she’d suspected her cousin of underhanded dealings.
It seemed she might have been wrong about her cousin. And about Samuel. Partly wrong at any rate, if arrangements had been made for her future.
Samuel was dead.
At least that was what Mr Gilvry had said. But how did she know for certain? She’d be a fool to take any man’s word at face value. And she hadn’t even seen Mr Gilvry’s face. He had raised his hat when he bowed, but not removed his muffler. Nor had he removed it when he entered the inn.
All she had to go on was what she had seen in a pair of piercing green eyes and heard in a deep voice with a lovely Highland lilt. And felt in the flutter deep in her stomach. Attraction. Something she should know better than to trust.
He really hadn’t told her what had happened to Samuel. Was there some reason behind his reticence she couldn’t fathom?
She got up and rang the bell. It wasn’t long before the maid the innkeeper’s wife had assigned arrived to do her bidding. ‘Be so good as to tell Mr Gilvry I wish to see him at once.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘Please tell the kitchen I would like dinner for two delivered at half past seven.’
The maid bobbed a curtsy and left.
Now to see if he answered the summons. And if he did not? Then she would know that she definitely should not trust him.
And if he did? Did that mean she should? Likely not. But it would help put an end to the strange feelings she had in his presence. He was just a man, not an enigma she needed to solve. She simply wanted the facts about her husband’s death.
She opened her door to the passageway. He was a man who had done her a service, no matter how unpleasant. He should not have to scratch at the door like a servant. She shook her head at this odd sense of the man’s pride as she took the chair beside the hearth facing the door.
A few minutes later, he appeared before her, his broad shoulders filling the doorway. How odd that she hadn’t heard his footsteps, though she had listened for them. Nor had she realised quite how tall a man he was when they were out on the quay.
She frowned. He was still wearing his scarf, wrapped around his head and draped across his face in the manner of a Turk.
His dark coat, like the greatcoat he’d worn off the ship, fitted him ill, the fabric straining across his shoulders, yet loose at the waist, and the sleeves leaving more cuff visible than was desirable. His pantaloons were tight, too, outlining the musculature of his impressive calves, his long lean thighs and his— She forced her gaze back up to meet his eyes. ‘Please come in, Mr Gilvry. Leave the door open, if you please.’
She didn’t want the inn servants to gossip about her entertaining a man alone in her room. People were quick to judge and she didn’t need a scandal destroying her reputation with her employer.
The man did not so much as walk into the room as he prowled across the space to take her outstretched hand. His steps were silent, light as air, but incredibly manly.
The same walk she’d first noticed on the quay. The walk of a hunter intent on stalking his prey. Or a marauding pirate, or a maiden-stealing sheikh. All man. All danger. A betraying little shiver ran down her spine.
Trying to hide her response to his presence, she gestured coldly to the seat on the other side of the hearth, the way she would direct a recalcitrant student. ‘Pray be seated.’
He sat down, folding his long body into the large wing chair with an easy grace. But why hide his face? She’d thought nothing of the muffler out on the quay. She’d tucked her chin into her own scarf in the bitter November wind.
‘Please, make yourself comfortable.’ She looked pointedly as his headgear.
The wide chest rose and fell on a deep indrawn breath. He straightened his shoulders. ‘It is an invitation you might regret.’ There was bitter humour in his voice, and something else she could not define. Defiance, perhaps? Bravado?
Turning partly away he unwound the muffler. At first all she could see was the left side of his face and hair of a dark reddish-blonde, thick and surprisingly long. His skin was a warm golden bronze. Side on he looked like an alabaster plaque of a Greek god in profile, only warm and living. Never had she seen a man so handsome.
He turned and faced her full on.
She recoiled with a gasp at the sight of the tributary of scars running down the right side of his face. A jagged, badly healed puckering of skin that sliced a diagonal from cheekbone to chin, pulling the corner of his mouth into a mocking smile. A dreadful mutilation of pure male beauty. She wanted to weep.
‘I warned that you’d prefer it covered.’ Clearly resigned, he reached for the scarf.
How many people must have turned away in horror at the sight? From a man who would have once drawn eyes because of his unusual beauty.
‘Of course not,’ she said firmly, deeply regretting her surprised response. ‘Would you like a dram of whisky?’ She made to rise.
Looking relieved, he rose to his feet. ‘I’ll help myself.’
He crossed to the table beside the window and poured whisky from the decanter, the good side of his face turned towards her. It made her heart ache to see him so careful. He lifted the glass and tossed off half in one go. He frowned at the remainder. ‘I didna’ expect to find you alone. Did they no’ give you the maid I requested?’
‘She has duties in the kitchen, preparing the evening meal.’
He lifted his head, his narrowed gaze meeting hers, the muscles in his jaw jumping, pulling at the scars, making them gleam bone white. Her stomach curled up tight. She could only imagine the pain such an injury must have caused, along with the anguish at the loss of such perfection.
Anger flared in his eyes as if he somehow read her thoughts and resented them.
He did not want her sympathy.
She looked down at her hands and gripped them together in her lap. She had asked him here to answer her questions. She might as well get straight to the point.
‘Mr Gilvry, I would like to know exactly what happened to my husband, if you wouldn’t mind?’ Did she sound too blunt? Too suspicious?
She glanced up to test his reaction to her words. He was gazing out into the darkness, his face partly hidden by his hair. ‘Aye. I’ll tell you what I can.’
She frowned at the strange choice of words. ‘Were you travelling with Samuel, when...when—?’
‘No. I found him some time after the Indians had attacked his party. He had managed to crawl away from the camp and hide, but he was badly injured.’
‘Why? Why were they attacked?’
He turned his head slightly, watching her from the corner of his eye. ‘I don’t know.’
Why did she have the sense he was not telling her the truth? What reason would he have to lie? ‘So you just happened upon him? Afterwards.’
‘I heard shots, but arrived too late to be of help.’ His head lowered slightly. ‘I’m sorry.’
He sounded sorry. More regretful than she would have expected under the circumstances he described. ‘He was alive when you found him?’
He took a deep breath. ‘He was. I hoped—’ He shook his head. ‘I carried him down from the mountains. For a while I thought he would live. The fever took him a few nights later.’
‘And he requested that you bring his remains back to me?’ She could not help the incredulity in her voice.
He shifted, half turning towards her. ‘To Scotland. To his family. That is you, is it not?’
‘I doubt he thought of me as family.’ She spoke the words without thinking and winced at how bitter she sounded.
‘He had regrets, your husband, I think. At the last.’ His voice was low and deep and full of sympathy.
An odd lump rose in her throat. The thought that Samuel had cared. Even if it was out of guilt. It had been a long time since anyone had truly cared. She fought the softening emotion. It was too late for her to feel pain. How would it help her now? ‘And his executor is to meet us here? In Dundee.’
‘Aye. Or at least his lawyer. A Mr Jones. I wrote to him from Wilmington. But if you didna’ get my letter...’
‘The address you used, it came from Samuel? Naturally it did,’ she amended quickly at his frown.
‘Aye.’
‘I moved. I had no way of letting Samuel know.’ She’d also changed her name. She could scarcely have Samuel’s creditors coming to her place of employment. ‘An old friend forwarded Samuel’s note, because I asked him to do so.’ Her cousin’s butler, once her father’s man, would not have forwarded a letter unless he knew the name of the sender. There had been too many odd requests for money and not all of them from tradesmen. ‘I doubt your other letter was similarly impeded. Let us hope Mr Jones will arrive tomorrow.’
The sound of footsteps carried along the passageway outside. He turned to look, his fair brows raised in question.
‘Our dinner,’ she said with a little jolt of her heart, as if she was afraid he would leave.
‘Ours?’ He looked surprised.
‘I thought we could talk while we ate. That is, if you have not already dined?’
‘No, I havena’,’ he said warily. He turned his back on the room, once more looking out into the night as two maids entered, followed by the innkeeper’s wife who directed the setting up of the table and the serving of dinner. The plump woman curtsied deeply. ‘Will there be anything else, madam?’
‘No, thank you,’ Rowena said. ‘I think we can manage to serve ourselves.’
The woman’s gaze rested on Mr Gilvry’s back for a moment, her eyes hard. ‘Would you like our Emmie to serve you, madam?’
Rowena could see the woman’s thoughts about single ladies entertaining a gentleman in her rooms.
She stared at the woman down the nose that had been her plague as a girl, but now had its uses. An arrogant nose, it put people in their place. Her father had used his own bigger version to great effect in his business. ‘No, thank you, Mrs Robertson. That will be all.’
The woman huffed out a breath, but stomped out of the room, defeated.
Mr Gilvry turned around as the door closed behind their hostess, his expression dark. ‘The woman is right. You should ask the maid to attend you. Or dine alone. You must think of your reputation.’ He took an urgent step towards the door.
The vehemence in his voice surprised her. Was he was afraid for her reputation or his? Did he fear she might put him in a compromising position? It hardly seemed likely. ‘You honour me with your concern, Mr Gilvry, however, I am not accountable to the wife of an innkeeper.’ She lifted her chin as another thought occurred to her. ‘Or are you seeing it as an excuse to avoid my questions?’
He glared. ‘I have answered all of your questions.’
Had he? Then why did she have the sense he was keeping something back? ‘You have,’ she said. It would do no good to insult the man. ‘But I have more. You must excuse my curiosity. I know little of my husband’s activities in America.’
His mouth tightened. His gaze shuttered, hiding his thoughts. ‘There is little I can tell you on that score, I am afraid. Perhaps this Mr Jones can tell you more.’
Avoidance. It was as plain as the nose on her face. Her exceedingly plain nose on her exceedingly plain face, as Samuel had made no bones to tell her, once he had control of her money. But it wasn’t because she cared whether this man found her attractive or otherwise that she wanted him to stay; she simply wanted to know if she dared trust him. That was all.
For one thing, she had never before heard of this Mr Jones. And she was hoping Mr Gilvry could shed some light on how he fitted into the scheme of things before she faced the man.
She offered a smile. ‘I am sorry if I sound over forward, but I find I do not wish to eat alone tonight. My thoughts about the news give me no rest.’ And nor did her suspicions.
His shoulders relaxed. ‘Aye, I understand it has come as a shock.’
And a welcome relief. Guilt assailed her at the uncharitable thought. He would think her dreadful if he guessed at the direction of her thoughts.
She gestured to the table. ‘The food is here. It would be a shame for it to go to waste.’
He swept a red-gold lock back from his forehead. ‘To tell the truth, the smell of the food is hard to resist and I doubt they’ll feed me in the kitchen, if yon mistress has aught to say in it.’
He glanced at the table with longing and it was only then that she realised how very gaunt was his face. His cheekbones stood out beneath his skin as if he had not eaten well in months. At first one only noticed the scars. And the terrible dichotomy they made of his face.
‘Then you will keep me company?’ she asked. She wasn’t the sort of woman men fell over themselves to be with, but he was not a man who would have much choice in women. Not now. She stilled at the thought. Was that hope she felt? Surely not. Hope where men were concerned had been stamped out beneath Samuel’s careless boots. What man would want her? Especially now, when she was poor.
He shook his head with a rueful expression. ‘Aye. It seems I will.’
The gladness she felt at his acceptance was out of all proportion with the circumstances and her reasons for inviting him. A gladness she must not let him see. With a cool nod, she let him seat her at the dining table.
He took the chair opposite. ‘May I pour you some wine and carve you a portion of what looks to be an excellent fowl?’
‘You may, indeed.’
While she had little appetite herself after the day’s events, it was a pleasure to see him eat with obvious enjoyment. And his manners were impeccable. He was a gentleman, no matter his poor clothing.
She cut her slice of chicken into small pieces and tasted a morsel. It was moist and the white sauce was excellent. And she could not help watching him from beneath her lowered lashes as she tasted her food. He might not be handsome any longer, but his youth, his physical strength and powerful male presence were undeniable. Big hands. Wide shoulders. White, even teeth. A formidable man with an energy she could feel from across the table.
She wanted to ask him what it was that drove him. What he cared about. What he planned. It was none of her business. She would do well to remember that.
She held her questions while he satisfied his appetite. It was her experience, both at home and in the two positions she’d held as a governess, that men became more amenable with a full stomach. She waited until he had cut himself a piece of apple pie before opening a conversation that did not include passing gravy or salt, or the last of the roast pork.
‘The locals say that it is likely to be a hard winter,’ she said, lifting her wine glass.
‘I heard the same,’ he replied.
She waited for him to say more, but was not surprised when he did not. He said little unless it was to the point. Idle conversation had a tendency to lead to the baring of souls. He was not that sort of man.
She took a sip of wine and considered her next words. Shock him, perhaps? Get beneath his guard, as her father would have said? Her heart raced a little. ‘The coat you are wearing is Samuel’s, is it not?’
Eyes wary, he put down his forkful of pie. ‘He had no more use for it. My own clothes were ruined on the journey to the coast.’
Defensive. But why? What he said made perfect sense. Perhaps he feared she’d be overcome by her emotions at the thought of him wearing Samuel’s clothes? Another woman might be, she supposed.
She kept her voice light and even. ‘It must have been a terrible journey?’
‘I’ve had worse.’
She stared, surprised by the edge in his voice. He looked up and caught her gaze. His skin coloured, just a little, as if he realised he’d been brusque.
‘But, yes,’ he said, his voice a little more gentle, ‘it was no’ so easy.’ His voice dropped. ‘Your husband bore it verra well at the end, if it is of comfort to you.’
It did not sound like the Samuel she had known. He’d been a man who liked an easy life. The reason he had married her money. Could there be some sort of mistake? Her stomach clenched at the idea, but she asked the question anyway. ‘You are sure that he is...I mean, he was Samuel MacDonald? My husband?’
Misplaced pity filled his gaze. ‘There is no doubt in my mind the man was your husband, Mrs MacDonald. We talked. Of you. Of other things. How else would I know about the lawyer?’ He frowned and looked grim. ‘But you are right. Someone should identify his remains. To make things legal. I didna’ think you...’
Her stomach lurched. She pushed her plate away, stood and moved from the table to the hearth. ‘No. You are right. This Mr Jones should do it.’
‘If he knew him personally.’
She whirled around. ‘You think he did not?’
‘Your husband was not always lucid, Mrs MacDonald. He suffered greatly. But he was most insistent on my contacting those in charge of Mere’s estate.’
The Duke of Mere. Why did that name sound so familiar? She had heard it spoken of recently, surely? She didn’t care for gossip, but now she remembered her employer’s remark. She turned to face him. ‘The Duke of Mere is dead.’
His jaw dropped. ‘But...’ He shook his head, got up and took a step towards her. ‘One duke dies. Another follows right behind. Like the king.’
He was right. She swallowed. ‘Of course.’
He drew closer. Very close, until she could feel the warmth from his body, the sense of male strength held in check, though why that should be she could not imagine. ‘Mrs MacDonald,’ he said softly, ‘dinna fash yourself. Jones will come tomorrow and your husband’s family will do their duty by you.’
What family? According to Samuel he was as alone in the world as she was. It was one of the things that had drawn her to him. His need for family. Not that he had needed her, once he had her money. It would be nice to be needed. To be able to lean on a man and have him take care of her in return. She felt herself leaning towards Mr Gilvry, as if his strength could sustain her.
Shocked, she straightened. She moved away, turning to face him with a hard-won smile against the melting sensation in her limbs. ‘You are right. It seems that Mr Jones holds the key to everything.’ She put a hand to her temple. It was throbbing again. Too much thinking. Too much worrying. Too much hope that she had not been entirely abandoned after all.
‘Mr Gilvry, my husband asked much of you.’ She looked at his poor ruined face and saw nothing but sympathy in his gaze. She hesitated, her mouth dry, the words stuck fast in her throat. She took a breath. ‘Could I trouble you some more? May I request your presence at the interview with Mr Jones?’
If he was surprised, he hid it well. ‘If that is your wish,’ he said, his voice a little gruff.
Instinctively, she swayed towards all that beautiful male strength, her eyes closing in relief. ‘Thank you.’
She felt his hand on her arm, warm and strong and infinitely gentle. Once more, strange tingles ran up her arm at the strength of his touch. Did he feel them, too? Was that why he released her so quickly?
‘Sit down, Mrs MacDonald,’ he said in a rasping voice. ‘By the hearth. I’ll ask our hostess to send up tea. And the maid. It is a good night’s sleep you need. Things will be clearer in the morning.’
When she looked up, he was gone. So silently for such a tall man. A man whose absence left a very empty hole in the room. But he had said he would stand by her on the morrow. She clung to that thought as if her life depended on it and wondered at her sudden sensation of weakness.
Chapter Two
Drew paced up and down between the stalls, cursing under his breath. Frustration scoured through his blood. Desire. He struck out at a post and accepted the pain in his knuckles as his just reward.
What the hell did he think he was doing? The woman had just learned of her husband’s death and instead of offering platitudes and help, he’d almost pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
He wasn’t drawn to respectable women. Ever. He was depraved. And he knew where to find what he wanted. What the hell had he been thinking up there?
How could he possibly consider wanting her, let alone begin envisaging her naked and open and...? He hit the post again, then sucked the copper-tasting blood from his knuckles and remembered her soft, wide mouth.
Damn him. Hadn’t his experience with Alice Fulton been lesson enough? If his family hadn’t been desperate, he would never have taken her in order to force a wedding. The moment he did it, he’d known it would never work. Not for him. He’d have spent his life in purgatory.
He’d never been so relieved as when she had backed out of their engagement. So why had he almost kissed Rowena MacDonald?
Because he felt sorry for her? Or because he was grateful that, after her first horrified look at his face, she’d acted as if he was normal. As if his appearance didn’t make her stomach turn.
Jones had better turn up tomorrow and take charge of this woman, because if he didn’t, Drew was just going to walk away. He squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t. He’d sworn to himself that he would see her safe and secure. He didn’t have a choice, not when it was his fault her husband was dead.
A man staggered down the steps from the loft. The old groom in charge of the stables. He glared at Drew, then recoiled as he saw his face in the light from the lantern hanging from a beam.
‘Isn’t it bad enough that your pounding and cursing knocked me out of my bed,’ the old man railed, shaking his fist. ‘Do you have to ruin my dreams with that devil’s face?’
Drew laughed. He couldn’t help it. The old man’s reaction was exactly the same as everyone else’s, but at least he had the courage to say it.
He bowed. ‘I beg your pardon.’
‘Aye, well ye might. If ye’re wanting to bed down, you best get up that ladder now, because when I’m back from tending to nature I’m bolting the trapdoor from the inside. To keep out Old Nick, you understand.’ He staggered to the door at the far end, still muttering under his breath.
Drew wished he had something to keep out the devil he carried around inside him. But he didn’t. And while the devil wanted a woman, Drew wanted his revenge on Ian more. And so he would keep the devil caged. He’d done it for the past few years; he would continue.
He had to get Mrs MacDonald off his hands and his conscience. Then he would send Ian to hell, where he belonged.
* * *
‘A gentleman to see you, Mrs Macdonald,’ the maid announced from the doorway to her private parlour the next morning.
She looked up from her struggle to compose a suitable letter to Mrs Preston, her employer, asking for a few more days’ absence. For a moment she thought it might be Mr Gilvry and her heart lifted a fraction. But at the same moment she knew it was not. He would not have asked the maid to announce him. ‘Did the gentleman give his name?’
Emmie held out a square of white paper. ‘His card, ma’am.’
Mr Brian Jones, solicitor, the card stated in bold black letters. On the reverse, a rather crabbed script added cryptically, man of business to the Duke of Mere.
‘Show him in, please. And ask Mr Gilvry to come up, if you will.’ The girl raised questioning brows, but hurried off without a word.
Rowena moved from the writing desk to the sofa and sat facing the door.
The man who stepped across the threshold a few moments later was surprisingly young for such a responsible position. In his mid-thirties, she thought, and reasonably fair of face, if one ignored the tendency of his long nose to sharpness and the slight weakness of his chin. But his pale blue eyes were sharp and his smile positively charming. He was dressed quite as soberly as one would expect for a lawyer, though his cravat was perhaps a shade flamboyant in its intricacy.
‘Mrs MacDonald,’ he said with a deeper bow than someone of her station warranted. An odd little slip for such a man.
‘Mr Jones. Please, be seated.’
He settled himself into the armchair opposite without a sign of any nervousness. Indeed, if anything, he looked confidently in control. A small smile hovered on his lips as he waited for her to speak. She could wait him out. Her father had taught her the game of negotiation almost before she had learned how to sew a fine seam. But with her future in the balance, she wasn’t in the mood.
‘You received the message about my husband’s death from Mr Gilvry, I assume?’
He arranged his face into an expression of sympathy. ‘I did. May I offer you my condolences on your loss,’ he said, inclining his head. ‘Indians, I understand.’
She nodded. ‘So I gather.’
‘Most unfortunate.’ A touch of colour tinged his cheeks. ‘Did you—’ He coughed delicately. ‘Are you certain he did not survive the attack?’
His eyes were fixed intently on her face. A strange feeling rippled across her shoulders. Her scalp tightened at the shock of it. It was something like the sensation described as a ghost walking over one’s grave, only more unpleasant. A premonition of danger. Clearly, she wasn’t the only one who had wondered about the truth of Samuel’s death. ‘If you require confirmation, Mr Jones, you must inspect his remains. They have been returned to Scotland at his wish.’
Distaste twisted his mouth. ‘Not me. I never met Mr MacDonald in person.’ He coughed behind his hand. ‘I have arranged for someone in the duke’s household to confirm his identity.’
The duke’s household? ‘My husband never mentioned the Duke of Mere once to me during our marriage.’
‘Ah, dear lady, it is a distant connection. Your husband’s branch of the family has long been estranged from its senior branch. He visited Mere shortly before his departure for America. It was Mere’s wish that relationships that were broken be mended. The identification is mere formality, you understand, but a necessary one.’
His smile felt just a little too forced. But then it was likely difficult to know what to do with one’s face in the presence of a supposedly grieving widow. He drew a notebook from his pocket and a small silver pen. He turned the pages as if looking for something. ‘It was a Mr Gilvry who discovered his body. It was his letter we received.’
‘Yes. He accompanied my husband’s remains from America.’ His voice made her wonder if he harboured doubts about Mr Gilvry. She pursed her lips. Where was he? He had promised to attend this meeting. ‘He will join us shortly.’
He looked around somewhat disapprovingly as if he expected Mr Gilvry to pop out of her bedroom.
‘Nothing can move forward until the circumstances of your husband’s death are fully documented and sworn to,’ he continued. ‘It is this—’ he glanced down at his notebook ‘—Gilvry I need to speak to. As well as verifying the death of your husband and...’ He frowned. ‘And the validity of your marriage.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘None of the MacDonalds were aware that Mr Samuel MacDonald had taken a wife.’
‘You will find it in the records of my parish church.’
Again that delicate cough. ‘Or if there are offspring? Our contact with Mr MacDonald was most perfunctory.’
‘No.’ She raised her chin. ‘No offspring.’ And she’d been glad of it, too, given how he’d left her in the lurch.
‘And Mr Gilvry?’
She glanced towards the door. Where on earth was he?
* * *
The call to attend Rowena and Mr Jones came at eleven. Damn it, not Rowena. Mrs MacDonald. All night he’d been thinking about the lovely pale skin glowing in candlelight over dinner, his memories of the challenge her slender curves and hollows presented to his own desires and cursing himself.
He’d made very sure the servants had seen him leave her room. He’d sent the maid up to help her ready for bed, too, so she would know nothing untoward had occurred. He’d done all he could to protect her from gossip. He would have to make sure this lawyer saw only mistress and servant.
Once more he was dressed in her husband’s second-best coat, pretending to be what he was not.
The atmosphere when he stepped into the room was tense. Mrs MacDonald sagged at the sight of him. He frowned. What had this lawyer being saying to her that would upset her usual calm?
He bowed. ‘You sent for me, Mrs MacDonald.’
‘Yes, Mr Gilvry. Mr Jones has some questions for you.’
‘Indeed I do,’ the dapper young man said. ‘On what date did Mr MacDonald meet his end? The day and the month.’
Drew had expected questions about the circumstances of MacDonald’s death. Dreaded them. But the date?
He hadn’t known at the time. He’d spent too long living by the seasons and the rise and set of the sun to be aware of dates. But he knew it now. The date was carved in his mind by words that chilled him to the bone. Unbelievable that any man would allow... ‘September fifteenth.’ He forced the words out.
The lawyer’s eyes flickered with some sort of emotion. Disappointment? He gathered himself so quickly it was hard to be sure. He smiled a prissy smile. ‘Are you positive?’
‘I am.’
The lawyer looked at him expectantly. When he said nothing, the man shook his head. ‘You have proof?’
A deep dark cold entered his gut. ‘My word should be enough.’
‘Any statement made is subject to being contested without proof.’
The cold expended to fill his chest. He had the proof. But to make his shame public, a byword.... There had to be another way. ‘If you dinna have the date, is it a problem?’
The lawyer tapped his chin with a well-manicured nail, making Drew aware of his rough weather-beaten hands. No longer the hands of a gentleman. Jones frowned down at paper before him. ‘It is true the date is not so important, once his identity is established. Without proof it is best if we couch it in the most general of terms.’ He looked up with a lawyerly smile. ‘And remain within the bounds of the law, you understand. Yes. Yes. It will serve very well.’
The man talked in such flowing periods, Drew wanted to hit him.
He picked up his pen and filled in some blank spaces on the document. ‘Hmm. Date of death, sometime in late September.’
Drew looked at Rowena. She was pale, worrying at her bottom lip and looking tense. She clearly sensed something was wrong and, damn it, so did he.
The lawyer pushed the paper across the desk. ‘Make your mark there,’ he said, pointing. ‘I’ll witness it.’
His younger brother Niall had always wanted to study the law. One of the things he had said when they talked around the dinner table was that it was a foolish man who signed anything he did not understand. And it was clear the lawyer thought he couldn’t read. He picked up the pen. ‘Why not write the fifteenth as I told you?’
‘You cannot put a date if you cannot prove it,’ the lawyer said. ‘It would not be right.’ He moved the paper out of Drew’s reach with a frown. ‘And as I said, it is not all that important. As long as we have the proof of his death.’ He gave a sly little smile. ‘As we will do, once the remains are carried to Mere.’
‘Then let us omit any mention of the date at all.’ Drew replied.
‘Will that be sufficient?’ Rowena asked, her posture stiff, her expression remote, yet stern. Drew sensed her anxiety.
The lawyer pulled his legal superiority around him like a shield. ‘If more is required, we can return to the matter at a later time.’
It seemed reasonable to Drew. Then why did he have this odd sense of worry? He glanced at Rowena. She also looked troubled, but she met his gaze and nodded.
He pulled the paper back across the table, scratched out the line and signed the document.
‘Mr Jones,’ Mrs MacDonald said sharply, ‘there are other matters pressing upon me at the moment with which I require your assistance.’
His gaze sharpened with wariness. ‘Matters, madam?’
‘Matters such as my husband’s will. His estate.’
‘My dear Mrs MacDonald,’ the man said with a condescension that again made Drew want to hit him, ‘probate of a will takes time. There are many formalities to be undertaken, as I have already explained.’
She gazed at him coolly. ‘I understand. But you must know something of his affairs. I am a governess. I must return to my position at once.’
His eyes widened. ‘Oh, most certainly not. You and Mr Gilvry must travel to Mere.’
Drew stared at him. ‘I have no intention of going to Mere. My own affairs take me in quite another direction.’
The lawyer shifted in his seat. ‘It was my understanding that you were to accompany Mr MacDonald’s remains to his final resting place. That is Mere.’
‘I prefer to leave that to you.’
The lawyer shook his head. ‘Until a third party has confirmed that the deceased is truly Samuel MacDonald, at which time the court will no doubt accept your information, Mr Gilvry, I cannot release you from your obligations.’
He turned to Rowena and, if anything, his smile became more oily. ‘I should not be saying this, but before he left, Mr MacDonald changed his will. Everything is left to Mere’s estate. Any settlements will be at the discretion of the new duke. You will not find him ungenerous, I assure you, once your claim is established.’
Drew’s hackles rose. The longer he spent in this man’s company, the less he trusted him. While at first glance he seemed charming, with that ready smile, his eyes drifted away when met head-on, even taking into account that no one liked to look Drew full in the face.
Rowena visibly wilted as if the stuffing had been knocked out of her. ‘He left everything to Mere? He indicated to Mr Gilvry that he made a settlement—’
Jones shook his head. ‘It is in Mere’s hands now. I am merely his representative. You will have to take your case directly to him.’
Drew glared and the man shifted his gaze to the documents on the table. ‘MacDonald told me his wife would be cared for.’ The dying man had said it with such bitterness, Drew had been shocked, but he had not doubted his words.
Jones frowned. ‘The duke takes his responsibilities seriously, I can assure you.’ Again that tight little smile at Rowena. ‘As you will discover, Mrs MacDonald, if you will allow yourself to be guided by me.’
Rowena took an unsteady breath. ‘It would be enough if I am relieved of his debt.’
The defeat on her face made Drew’s chest feel as if it was weighed down with a rock.
‘If there are assets, they should be passed on to MacDonald’s widow,’ he said firmly.
The lawyer was tapping his chin again. A sign he was thinking on his feet, perhaps. ‘I see you are not satisfied with the word of a duke,’ Jones said in an exasperated tone. ‘Very well. If your claims are proved—’ he inclined his head slightly ‘—as I am sure they will be, dear lady, there is a house set aside for you, at Mere, and an annuity.’
She perked up. ‘The house would be mine? Something I can sell?’
Jones shook his head. ‘It is on land that is part of the estate.’
‘So the duke will continue to own the house.’
He nodded. ‘Indeed. But once your husband’s will has gone through probate, there may be more. You did mention debts?’
She looked down her autocratic nose and the lawyer visibly wilted. ‘Yes, but none of my making.’ She let go a little breath. ‘But Mr MacDonald realised a large sum from the sale of my half of McFail’s. I cannot believe there is nothing left.’
‘Let us hope you are right. In the meantime...’
‘In the meantime, it seems I have no choice but to accept the duke’s generous offer. I will travel to Mere and learn the outcome of my husband’s business affairs.’
Jones turned his gaze to Drew. ‘I do hope I can prevail upon you to finish what you set out to accomplish. The return of Mr MacDonald to the bosom of his family. You will, of course, be rewarded for your time.’
‘I would prefer to leave it to you,’ Drew said. ‘I have another engagement.’ Ian. His gut clenched painfully.
Jones gathered up his papers. ‘My first duty is to ascertain this lady’s claim of marriage, which takes me in a different direction, after which I will then make post-haste to Mere. But you must allow it is vital that the poor dear departed be taken swiftly to his final resting place. Who knows what ravages may have occurred during shipment? If it is not possible to prove his identity...’
Rowena paled. Drew felt slightly nauseous, though the undertaker had assured him all would be well.
Rowena looked at him and, while her expression was one of serene indifference, he knew from the pleas deep in those soft grey eyes that she wanted him to say yes. ‘Verra well. I will accompany Mrs MacDonald to Mere.’
The lawyer looked far too relieved at his words, but Drew could hardly change his mind, because Rowena had looked equally relieved.
‘Excellent,’ Jones said. ‘You will make your way to Penwood House. No doubt his Grace will be delighted to receive you at the castle once you are established there.’
Drew didn’t like the glint of triumph in Jones’s eyes. ‘And a conveyance?’ Drew asked.
‘I will arrange for a cart for the transportation of the...luggage.’
Rowena’s face shuttered. ‘I am to travel on this cart?’
‘You may. Unless you prefer to ride. The driver, a man by the name of Pockle, and his wife will serve your needs along the road, which regrettably is a difficult journey this time of year.’
Did the man hope she’d become lost on the way? Drew glared at him, knowing only too well the dangers of cross-country travel. ‘How long will it take?’ Drew asked.
‘Two or three days. Longer if the weather is bad.’
‘And where is Mrs MacDonald to spend the nights?’ Drew asked. He could not get away from his sense of danger. ‘You surely don’t expect her to camp out in the hills.’
‘Certainly not. There are inns along the way. Please be ready to leave in the morning. I will take care of all the arrangements before I leave later today.’ He gathered up his papers and packed them away. ‘I look forward to our next meeting at Mere, Mrs MacDonald.’
He bowed and left.
Rowena frowned. ‘He was so keen on a date at first. Why do you think he changed his mind so quickly?’
The lass had a very sharp mind.
He shook his head. ‘That’s a tricky wee fellow, I’m thinking. You are right to seek out the duke.’
‘Are you sure you don’t mind going, too? While he seemed to want your presence at Mere, I could probably manage with the driver and his wife, since it is not too far distant.’
It was madness to agree to it. To spend more time in her company. To feel the call of her milk-white skin and find himself falling into the depths of her clear grey eyes. Madness and torture for the sake of a promise no one had heard but himself. ‘Once I start on something, I have to see it through.’
No matter how long it took.
A soft breath came from her parted lips and he wanted to capture it in his mouth. ‘Thank you.’
He turned briskly for the door. ‘It seems I must find some sort of nag for the journey.’
His business with Ian could wait. A week. A month. A year. It made no difference; it had waited so long already.
Yet he could not help feeling he might be making the worst mistake of his life. And he’d made some bad ones in the past.
Chapter Three
Why on earth did Mere have to reside in such an inaccessible place in wintertime? Rowena thought, huddling deeper into her cloak. Why couldn’t he live in Edinburgh like any civilised person? This was their second day since leaving Dundee and Rowena was already exhausted by the journey. The roads were so abysmal, the cart travelled at less than walking speed and, this afternoon, the sky had turned a lowering grey just skimming the hilltops.
The cold, damp air wormed its way through every fibre of her clothing. Worse was the way Mr Gilvry, riding ahead of the cavalcade, glanced up at the sky from time to time.
She urged her horse forward. ‘Is it going to rain?’
She was on his left side and the beauty of his features struck her anew, though she hoped she managed to hide the sudden hitch in her breath.
‘Snow,’ he said with such assurance, she did not doubt him.
Lovely. She shivered. ‘How long before we reach the next inn?’ She could just imagine a warm fire and a hot bath.
Mr Gilvry glanced back over his shoulder at the cart, where the driver and his wife sat pressed close together for warmth. ‘Our next stopping place is fifteen miles from where we stayed last night. Since we havena’ made more than ten miles, I would say we have another five to go.’
‘Can we make it by nightfall?’
‘Aye.’
He sounded confident, but she wasn’t fooled. These one-word answers were meant to disguise his concern. ‘You mean, if it doesn’t snow and if the cart doesn’t get stuck.’
He gave her a quick sideways glance and she could have sworn the corner of his mouth curled up in a smile. The effect was more than charming, it was wickedly seductive. Her inner muscles gave a little squeeze. Not the sort of reaction one should be having sitting on a horse. Or at all. But at least a new kind of warmth was now pulsing through her body.
‘Aye, that is just what I mean,’ he said.
To hide her flush, she also looked over her shoulder at the cart and its occupants. Twice it had become stuck in a muddy rut on the previous day. On both occasions, she’d been impressed with Mr Gilvry’s strength and his whipcord leanness when he had removed his coats and heaved with all his might.
‘I’m beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t have just gone back to my place of employment and forgotten all about ever being married.’
His amusement faded. ‘Would you let that wee mannie Jones have the best of you? I don’t know what game Mere is playing, but your husband was telling me the truth. He made some sort of settlement for you.’
‘It won’t make any difference if I freeze to death out here.’
‘I’ll be certain that doesna’ happen.’
From anyone else she might have taken his words as bravado, but the determination in both his voice and his face gave her a modicum of comfort, even as her heart sank at the sight of the next hill rising before them. The track disappeared up into the clouds. Who knew what lay ahead.
It was the steepest hill they’d encountered so far. ‘We’d best walk the horses again,’ Mr Gilvry said, dismounting in a swirl of coat. ‘They need to rest, but we canna stop if we are to make shelter by nightfall.’
He reached up and lifted her down as he did each time she needed to dismount. Again the heat of his touch warmed her through and through. It was all in her mind, of course, there were layers and layers of clothing between his skin and hers, but it was the only bright spot in a very dreary day.
She smiled her thanks when he set her on her feet and received a nod in reply. A very cool nod, indeed. He was clearly regretting his agreement to escort her to the duke. But he’d given his word and he would keep it. Knowing he at least was a man of his word gave her comfort. A sense of security she had not known in a long time.
And that was a mistake. She’d thought the same about Samuel and look how that had ended. And if this trip to Mere ended the same way, she was going to be in dire straits indeed since Mrs Preston, rather than extending her leave of absence, had terminated her employment.
All her reliance was now on the generosity of the Duke of Mere.
They walked in silence, one behind the other for a while. Rowena turned to look back down the hill. There was no sign of the cart in the mist that had closed in around them.
‘Shouldn’t we wait for them?’ she called out.
‘They’ll catch us up at the crest,’ he replied. ‘I’ll make tea to warm us and have it ready when they arrive.’
That was the other thing she found strange about him. The way he carried an assortment of objects in his saddlebag, as if he was used to living in the wilds. A handful of oats. A tin kettle to make tea. And of course the leaves. No milk, though. Just a flask of whisky from which he added a splash to the brew. It certainly warmed her from the inside out and she found herself looking forward to their arrival at the top of the hill.
The Pockles also carried supplies in the cart—bread, cheese, some oatcakes—but Mr Gilvry’s tea was the best of all of it.
* * *
They had plodded upwards for what felt like a good half an hour. At this rate they would be lucky to make the last five miles to the next inn before it was dark.
At the top, catching her breath, Rowena looked around her, but there was nothing to see. Just a rolling blanket of white and a barely visible track disappearing downwards. Disappointing, really. She’d been looking forward to seeing the Highlands in all their glory. But it really was the wrong time of year for travel. She shivered and pulled her cloak tighter around her.
Mr Gilvry set about making a fire from a clump of peat he had picked up somewhere along the way, or perhaps taken from the inn where they stayed the previous night. The inn had only one bedchamber. Everyone else was expected to sleep in the commons. Mr Gilvry had preferred the stables. She didn’t really blame him. The driver and his wife were a nice enough couple, if a little dour, but they were not as particular about their cleanliness as they might have been. She would not have wanted to spend a night with them in close quarters.
It didn’t take him long to get the fire started and, while the small can heated over the flame, she bent to warm her numb fingers against the heat.
‘I wish I understood what game the duke is playing,’ she said softly. He crouched beside her on his heels. He looked so comfortable she thought about trying it.
‘The only way to find out is to meet him face-to-face,’ he said.
‘If he will meet with me.’
‘I canna see why he would not?’
No, she could not either, but there was something odd about the way Mr Jones had insisted they make this journey. And then there was the issue of the date of Samuel’s death. Not just the lawyer’s swift change of mind, but the way Mr Gilvry had stiffened at the mention of proof.
The water started to boil and she stepped back from the fire to give him room to brew his concoction. A few moments later, he held out a small pewter mug. She wrapped her gloved fingers around it and breathed in the steam. Bitter tea and whisky. While she sipped and felt the warmth slide down her throat, she stared into the mist. What sort of house would a duke have set aside for the wife of a distant relative? If she couldn’t sell it, and Samuel had not after all left her some money, would she be stuck out here in the Highlands for the rest of her life?
It seemed likely. Unless she married again.
She glanced at Mr Gilvry. He was looking back the way they had come with a frown. And then the jingle of a bridle pierced the muffling mist and the next moment the cart and its occupants came into view.
Mr Gilvry collected the Pockles’ mugs and filled them from the kettle. He kicked out the fire and stamped on the embers. ‘We’ll keep going, aye?’ he said to Pockle. ‘We don’t want to be out here at nightfall.’
‘That we don’t,’ said Pockle, cradling his mug just as Rowena had done and blowing on it to cool it. ‘Old McRae willna’ open the door to us if we arrive after sunset.’
Mr Gilvry glared at him. ‘Why did you say nothing of this before?’
Pockle shrugged. ‘We were making good time. Nae need to distress the lady for naught.’
Mrs Pockle took a deep swallow from her mug and made a little sound of satisfaction. Rowena had the feeling she cared more about the whisky than the tea. ‘Auld McRae is afraid of the piskies hereabouts,’ she announced. ‘Locks up tight come the dark.’
Mr Gilvry made no comment, but she could see the irritation in his expression. Not a man to believe in piskies, then.
‘We’d best be moving on,’ he said. He took her mug, tossed the dregs and wrapped it in a cloth, before throwing her back in the saddle. ‘We’ll make the best use of the downhill slope to make up a little time.’
‘I’ll catch ye up,’ Pockle said. ‘I’ve a need to empty my bladder.’ He handed his empty mug to his wife and jumped down.
‘Dinna be taking too long, man,’ Mr Gilvry said. ‘We’ll wait for you at McRae’s place and I’ll be sure of letting ye in, dark or no.’
Pockle touched a hand to his cap.
‘Don’t you think it would be better if we all stayed together?’ Rowena said. ‘What if we get lost? Pockle knows the way.’
‘I won’t get lost.’ Mr Gilvry growled. ‘I looked at the map before we left.’
He mounted up and grabbed for Rowena’s reins. ‘But you might.’ He glanced up at the sky. ‘The sooner we get going, the sooner we will arrive.’
Normally she would not have considered letting a man lead her along like a child, but the worry in his eyes made such pride a foolish luxury. ‘Just be careful, Mr Gilvry,’ she said coolly. ‘I would not like to follow you off a cliff.’
His sharp stare said the prospect was not out of the realm of possibility and her stomach dipped. So much for trying to strike a lighter note. Something that actually never seemed possible with this particular man, any more than it had been with Samuel.
She sighed. Say nothing, and then you can’t possibly go wrong.
His horse moved ahead and hers followed at his tug on the bridle. After a few minutes of them heading downhill, big wet flakes drifted down to settle on her shoulders and her horse’s neck. They melted almost at once.
Mr Gilvry muttered something under his breath. A curse, no doubt. She felt like cursing herself. Instead, she ducked deeper into her hood.
After a time, the numbness in her fingers and toes spread inwards. She blew on her fingers with little hope it would help and lifted her head to peer ahead, then she wished she hadn’t. A gust of windblown snow stung her cheeks. But even that swift glimpse told her night was closing in fast.
Mr Gilvry stopped. Were they lost? Her heart began a sharp staccato in her chest.
She let her horse come up alongside his.
‘Lights,’ he said, leaning close so she could hear him through the muffling scarf he’d pulled up around his face.
The breath left her body in such a rush, she felt light-headed. ‘McRae’s?’
He nodded and urged his horse forward at a trot. Her mount followed suit.
He’d been right. He did know the way. She’d have to apologise for her doubts once they were warm and dry.
The inn stood alone, off to one side of the track they’d been following, a lantern lighting its sign. A golden glow spilled from the windows, making square patches of snow glitter as if dusted with stars.
Mr Gilvry helped her down from her horse. Not only light issued forth from the inn, there was sound, too. The sound of men talking and laughing. She glanced up at Mr Gilvry and, while she could not see his face, she could see his eyes narrow.
‘It seems we are not the only company tonight,’ she said.
‘Aye. Wait here. I’ll see the landlord about a room.’ He thrust the reins into her hands and ducked as he opened the door.
‘Duin an dòras,’ someone shouted.
Gaelic. Someone not pleased about the draught from the door being opened. The door slammed shut. Rowena glanced around. The stables must be at the back of the inn, but no one had come to take their horses. Perhaps she should take them herself. She was so cold, the wind biting through her cloak, even the thought of a stable was a lure.
Before she could make a move, Mr Gilvry returned with a man and a woman with a shawl over her head in tow. The man, a spry fellow, regarded her with interest before relieving her of the reins. ‘While I help yon lad with the horses, Mrs McRae will see you upstairs.’
The woman gestured for her to follow. ‘This way, ma’am. There’s a nice warm fire ready and waiting.’
Warmth. What more could she ask? She started to follow.
Mr Gilvry caught her arm, turned her around and brought her close, grasping her by her elbows and lifting her on her toes so she could see the glitter of the lamp over the door in his eyes. ‘The men in there are a dangerous lot,’ he murmured close to her ear. ‘Do not look their way.’
Then he kissed her. Full on the lips. A warm dry pressure on her mouth. The heat of his breath on her frozen cheek, the thud of his heart beneath her fingertips where they rested on the side of his throat.
He broke away, gazing down at her, his expression dark, his mouth sensuously soft. She must have imagined it, because he set her away from him with a laugh as if it was she who had kissed him.
Stunned, she stared at him and her hand fell to her side.
He swung her around, pushing her forward with a tap on the rump. ‘Ye’ll be saving that for later, lassie.’ He turned away, dragging her horse behind him.
Lassie? Later. What on earth...? She touched her lips still tingling from his unexpected kiss.
The landlady laughed. ‘That’s one cheeky lad ye have there for a husband.’
Husband? And so the goodwife might think after such a display. Her heart knocking against her ribs, whether out of fear for what she would find inside that he needed to warn her in such an odd way or the effect of that kiss, she didn’t quite know.
Right now she didn’t care about anything as long as she ended up close to the warmth of a fire. Later, though, when she wasn’t too cold to think—cold on the outside, that was—she intended to discover just what sort of game he thought he was playing.
As she entered the inn, she realised he was right about the men in what must be the only barroom in the house. She had a brief impression of three burly males filling the low-beamed room, all looking at her. She kept her gaze firmly fixed on the landlady’s back and mounted the stairs to a low rumble of male appreciation.
‘Dinna mind them, missus,’ the landlady said in comfortable tones, opening the door to a chamber at the end of a short corridor at the top of the stairs. ‘McRae won’t put up wi’ any o’ their nonsense.’
She hoped not.
Mrs McRae ushered her into a chamber that barely had room for a bed, a settle by the hearth and a table with two chairs in the corner.
The woman turned down the sheets and gave the bed a pat. ‘And that man of yours is more than a match for them, aye?’ She chuckled.
Rowena narrowed her eyes at the woman. Now, what should she say to that? Deny that Mr Gilvry was her man, or wait for his explanation? Discretion was no doubt the better part of valour in this circumstance.
‘Take off your cloak, my dear,’ the landlady urged. ‘I’ll send up my Sin to help you out of those wet clothes in a minute or two.’ And with that she whisked out, shutting the door behind her.
Sin. Well, there was an interesting name. She removed her bonnet and tossed it on the bed, then unfastened her cloak and hung it over the settle where it could dry. She held her hands out to the fire and watched the steam rise off her skirts.
A knock at the door heralded the arrival of Sin, who turned out to be a pretty, blue-eyed, auburn-haired girl of about eighteen. As pretty as sin indeed.
She bobbed a curtsy. ‘Mam says I’m to help you undress, mistress.’
‘I’m afraid my luggage is still somewhere behind us on the road. I have nothing dry to change into.’
The girl gave her a grin. ‘Your man said as how you was to take off your wet things and wrap yourself in the quilt.’ She pointed at the bed.
‘My man,’ Rowena said drily. What on earth were the Pockles going to think when they arrived with the landlady calling Mr Gilvry her man? And what if it came to the duke’s ears? She pressed her lips together against the urge to deny that Mr Gilvry was her man. She would let him explain, before she took him to task.
The girl scurried around behind her and began attacking her laces. ‘Very positive he was about it, my lady, you being so damp and all. He feared you might take a chill. Said I was to get you out of these wet things, no matter what you said.’
‘How very forceful,’ Rowena said, wryly imagining Mr Gilvry dishing out orders and feeling a little shiver pass down her spine.
‘Oh, yes,’ the girl said, coming around to the front to help her unpin her bodice. ‘Very forceful he was.’ She giggled.
A strong urge to bash the girl over the head with a poker arose in Rowena’s breast. Though why that would be, she had no idea. She didn’t care in the least if Mr Gilvry made an innkeeper’s daughter giggle. She probably hadn’t seen his face. Oh, now that was mean.
‘Was it a duel?’ the girl asked. She sounded breathless. Too breathless for the effort to undo a few tapes on a gown.
‘Was what a duel?’
‘The scar. Was it a duel over a woman?’ She sighed in the most nauseating way.
‘I have no idea,’ Rowena said repressively and stepped out of the gown. ‘I have never asked him.’
‘He must have been a right bonnie lad before...’ The maid’s voice tailed off.
Furious, and not knowing why, Rowena turned her back to give the maid access her stays. ‘Do you think so?’ She could not keep emotion from colouring her voice.
‘I beg your pardon, ma’am. Not that he isn’t bonnie now, of course. Lovely wide shoulders and those green eyes of his. They almost make up for the scar. We don’t get many handsome young gentlemen passing through these parts.’ The girl sighed.
‘Are you done?’
The girl dropped the stays on top of the gown and picked up the counterpane. ‘If you will just wrap this around you,’ she said, ‘I’ll unpin your hair and gi’ it a good brushing.’
Chapter Four
Drew followed the stableman, his head reeling. What the hell had he been thinking, kissing her like that? He’d just wanted to impress on her the importance of his words, and then the way she’d looked up at him, so sinfully tempting and ready to argue, it was all he could think of.
No doubt she’d be having his hide for that piece of foolishness. And for saying he was her husband. But the moment he saw the men inside the inn, he’d known they were trouble. His suspicions were confirmed by what he saw around him. The stables were full to the brim with ponies and stacked with barrels.
The three men in the common room were smugglers, and a rougher-looking lot he hoped never to see. The storm must have brought them in, because if things remained as they had been before he left for America, they would usually avoid any place where the gaugers might visit. There would be no excisemen out on a night like tonight.
It was a damnable nuisance that Pockle had been unable to keep up. It would have evened the odds.
Drew jerked his chin in the direction of the inn. ‘Where are the men from?’
The little man’s face closed up tighter than a Scotsman’s purse. ‘You’ll find no loose tongues here, sir, but since you are a true Highland gentleman, I can tell you they work for McKenzie out of Edinburgh. A rough lot, I can tell you that. You would do as well to keep an eye on that wife of yours.’
Drew nodded and made a show of pulling his pistol from his saddle holster and tucking it in his belt along with powder and shot.
He glanced up to find the man watching him. ‘Aye, well, I’m a man who kens how to look after his own.’
The little man grinned. ‘As well to be safe as sorry, they do say.’
The cold feeling in Drew’s chest expanded. Pockle should never have suggested they stay at a known smugglers’ haunt. They should have stopped earlier in the day.
‘You can leave the horses to me,’ the groom said. ‘I’ll look in on them later. You’d best keep an eye on that woman of yours and get yourself warm.’ He gave Drew a nudge in the ribs.
Drew gritted his teeth at the thought of the impending chilly reception. He should not have let himself be tempted.
‘Is there a back door into the inn?’ he asked the groom.
‘Aye, straight across. You’ll go through the kitchen.’ He winked. ‘There’s but one set of stairs.’
Drew didn’t much like the sound of that. It was always good to have more than one way out. He picked up their saddlebags and heaved them over one shoulder, leaving one hand free to use his pistol. He just hoped he wouldn’t need it.
He crossed from the stables to the back door of the inn. The goodwife was busy at the hearth, a pot bubbling with stew. It didn’t smell too bad and right now he really didn’t think he cared what was in it as long as it was hot and filling. She waved her ladle at him. ‘I’ll be up wi’ your dinner in a minute or two.’
He entered the taproom. Only one man seemed to be taking any real interest. His eyes narrowed when they caught sight of Drew’s pistol. A grim sense of satisfaction filled him. At least they knew he was not easy pickings. Still, he didn’t trust them an inch.
He had nothing against smugglers. He’d dealt with enough of them in the old days. He’d been one. But these men were different. Harder eyed and not Highlanders by their speech.
He sauntered between them to the bar along one wall. ‘I’ll take a bottle of whisky and two glasses,’ he said to the landlord.
‘Yes, sir,’ the portly, red-faced fellow said, reaching under his counter.
One of the men behind him sniggered. ‘Wi’ that face you likely have to get her drunk before she’ll have ought to do wi’ ye.’
Drew turned and faced the room, fists loose but ready. ‘If you have something to say, you can say it to my ugly face.’
The oldest man in the room eyed him for a moment, then nodded an acknowledgement. He shoved at a scrawny-looking fellow with a straggling beard. ‘Yon Roger’s had a wee bitty too much to drink,’ he said. ‘Haven’t you, Roger?’
Roger looked sullen, but at another shove nodded and disappeared into his tankard.
‘You’ll have your men keep a civil tongue in their heads, man,’ the landlord said from behind Drew. ‘Or I’ll be sending you back out in the snow.’
Drew grinned. ‘I wouldn’t be asking a dog to go out in that, lads.’ He turned back to the innkeeper. ‘Give them all a dram on me.’
The mood in the room lightened considerably. Drew picked up the bottle and glasses and raised it in salute, strolling out of the bar as three men rushed forward. Sugar was better than vinegar any day of the week. Not that he’d trust any of them.
He didn’t take his eyes off them as he climbed the bottom steps, just to be sure he didn’t get a knife in the back. Roger turned and met his gaze. He had the look of a man who was trying to solve a puzzle.
Drew halted. ‘Is something else wrong?’
The man shook his head. ‘I just had the feeling I’ve seen you before.’
Drew raised a brow. ‘People don’t usually forget my face.’
The man grimaced with distaste. ‘You never had the scar last time I saw you.’
The hairs on Drew’s nape rose. Was it possible he had met this man in his smuggling days? ‘You are mistaken, my friend. Sorry.’ He continued up the stairs, but from the feeling between his shoulder blades, the man watched him until he was out of sight.
He’d known a lot of people in the trade in the old days. Him and Ian. But he could not think of a reason why any of them would hold a grudge.
He knocked on the door of the chamber assigned to him and Mrs MacDonald.
‘Who is it?’
At least she had sense enough not to just open the door without checking. ‘Drew.’
‘Just a moment.’
A rustle of skirts, the door swung back, opened by a maid, but his gaze went straight to the figure kneeling by the hearth, wrapped in a cotton cover, and his mind ceased working. Her unpinned hair hung down her back, as sleek and as shiny a chestnut as would do a thoroughbred proud.
There was something extraordinarily intimate about seeing a woman with her hair down around her shoulders. And on her knees, too. His body responded as if she’d offered him the most personal of attentions. He almost groaned out loud at the blaze of heat scorching through his blood. At this rate, he wasn’t going to need the fire to get warm. Disgusted by his reaction, he dropped the saddlebags off to one side and set the whisky and the glasses on the table.
‘Out,’ he said to the maid.
Mrs MacDonald rose up on her knees and turned to look at him, surprise on her face.
Drew looked at the maid. ‘If you don’t mind?’ he said as politely as he could manage.
The little lass bustled past him.
Drew closed and locked the door, using the moment to repress the wicked images his mind had conjured up.
‘Mrs McRae will be along shortly wi’ our supper,’ he said, annoyed by the hoarseness in his voice.
She put her hands on her hips. ‘Well, well, if it isn’t my dear husband.’ Her eyes sparkled like water running over pebbles in a brook. Anger or amusement. Whichever it was, it made a breath catch in his throat; she looked so lovely with her hair hanging about her shoulders and her cheeks flushed by the warmth from the fire.
He strode for the window and opened it.
The wind gusted in, bringing with it a whirl of snowflakes and a chill to his overheated blood.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ she asked, her voice rising in pitch.
‘Admiring the view,’ he said over his shoulder. And checking for a way out should it be needed. The kitchen roof jutted out a few feet below. An easy climb down to the ground.
He took a deep breath, closed the window and turned back to face her. ‘I’m sorry I had to tell them we were wed. I couldna’ leave you up here alone with that lot staying below.’
Her lips thinned. ‘And I suppose you are sorry you had to kiss me, too.’
Heat travelled up his neck. ‘It was necessary, but, aye, I’m sorry.’
The apology didn’t seem to mollify her one little bit.
He jerked his chin at her saddlebag. ‘Is there something dry in there you can change into?’
She glanced down at the bag and then up at him. ‘Only my nightgown. I wasn’t expecting to put up at an inn without my luggage, which is now with the Pockles who, by the way, will be surprised to find us calling ourselves man and wife.’
The Pockles were another worry. They could not have been more than a half hour or so behind them, so they should have arrived by now. He didn’t see any reason to let her know his concern, though.
He shrugged. ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’
A rap sounded at the door. ‘Who is it?’ he asked, one hand going to his pistol.
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Ann Lethbridge
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: BEHIND THE HIGHLANDER’S SCARS…Reeling from betrayal, the once devastatingly handsome Andrew Gilvry has returned to Scottish shores to fulfil a promise made to a dying man. The widowed Rowena MacDonald has been entrusted to his care, and Drew must do all he can to protect her…LIES A DARK PASSION!But Drew’s honour is about to be tested – because there’s something in Rowena’s dove-grey eyes which awakens a flame long extinguished. And on a perilous journey across the Highlands, with only this alluring woman for company, how long can he deny his desires?The Gilvrys of Dunross, Capturing ladies’ hearts across the Highlands