Highland Heiress - By Margaret Moore Page 0,22

he had never stayed drunk for days in a row, for which she was grateful, and that meant his business hadn’t suffered. Yet.

MacKracken scowled. “So you say, m’lady.”

“Aye, so I do,” she replied. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some purchases to make.”

She started forward without waiting for the big man to move. Fortunately, he did, or she didn’t know what she would have done. She couldn’t count on Mr. McHeath coming to her rescue again, even if he were here.

She had already ascertained, by a swift perusal of the green, that he was not.

She joined a group of older girls and women already gathered at Sam Corlett’s wagon. If they had witnessed her encounter with MacKracken, they gave no sign, although none ventured more than a greeting and a curtsey, and all kept a careful distance from her.

“Good day, my lady!” Sam cried in his Cockney accent when he spotted her, tugging his forelock and grinning, for she’d bought from him before. “I was hopin’ you’d be here today. Got some lovely bits o’ ribbon today. Perfect for a lady like yourself.”

“I need some green ribbon, Sam. Light green.”

His eyes lit up like a candle in the dark. “As a matter o’ fact, my lady, I’ve got just the thing!”

He reached into the back of his wagon, moving some cotton thread and what looked like dyed goose feathers out of the way before producing a bolt of apple-green grosgrain that was exactly what she required.

But betray too eager a countenance she would not. “How much?”

“Tuppence a yard.”

Ah, Sam, she thought with pleasant respect. Always trying to get the better of her in a bargain—as well he should. Nevertheless, he had named a price at least twice what the ribbon was worth, and probably four times what he’d paid for it.

Happily playing the game, she kept her expression grave as she raised an inquiring brow. “Is it from France?”

His visage assumed an equally grave, somewhat dismayed, appearance. “No, miss, no. Good British ribbon, that is.”

Both her brows rose. “Really? I thought it must be foreign for you to charge such an outrageous price.”

“Well, now, my lady, there’s transport involved, that’s for certain, feed costin’ what it does these days. And the effort to find the best, o’ course. I don’t just buys any ribbon, as you know. That’s the best to be had in Scotland at any price.”

“I don’t need the best, Sam,” she countered.

“I have this, then,” he said, reaching into his wagon and pulling out a roll of a green ribbon of a shade that surely didn’t exist in nature, or anywhere else except a dyer’s, if the dyer had terrible eyesight.

“That’s quite an interesting color, but this one will match better,” she said. “Still, at tuppence a yard, it’s too dear for what I intend.”

She turned away as if planning to leave.

“I suppose, since you’re such a pretty lady, I could let you have two yards for a tuppence,” Sam suggested.

Keeping any triumph from her expression, she turned back. “Really? Oh, that would be wonderful,” she said, giving him a smile. “It is lovely ribbon.”

Sam’s answering grin told her she was paying exactly the amount he wanted and had expected, satisfying them both.

“Listen to her haggling like a fishwife, and her father rich as Croesus!” a peevish feminine voice muttered nearby.

Miss Sarah Taggart. And no doubt her two acolytes were with her.

Miss Sarah Taggart, an ironmonger’s daughter, Miss Mabel Hornby, sister of the local miller, and Miss Emmeline Swanson, niece of a prominent distiller, had been keen to be Moira’s friends when she’d first arrived in Dunbrachie. Once Robbie started to pay more attention to her than to them, however, and especially once she was engaged to him, their attitude had turned frosty.

After the engagement had been broken, she’d wondered if they’d try to befriend her again. They had not, choosing instead to cut her.

Or rather, Miss Sarah Taggart had chosen to cut her, and therefore so did her comrades.

However, she had no intention of giving Sarah the satisfaction of letting her know she’d heard her.

Instead, she paid Sam and, with her ribbon, started back toward the livery stable. Her steps slowed as she drew near the baker’s. Baked goods were plentiful at home, so she had no need to purchase anything; it was just the wonderful rich smell of fresh bread and pastries that made her linger until she heard two familiar male voices, one jovial and jesting, the other more sedate.

Sir Robert McStuart and