Highland Heiress - By Margaret Moore Page 0,28

started to follow her, then stopped. What could he possibly say that would make him sound any better than Robbie, a man she had jilted for lack of self-control?

As he slumped back against the wall, one thing above all else was clear in his mind. Whatever was happening between him and Lady Moira, he couldn’t stay in Dunbrachie, not even for Robbie. He would give Robbie the work he’d already done, wish him good luck with a new solicitor and return to Edinburgh. Robbie would be angry, perhaps angry enough to never see or speak to him again, but would that be any worse than finding himself at the mercy of a passion he couldn’t control?

He had to get back to Edinburgh, to familiar surroundings and what would feel like solid ground instead of this rocky, unstable terrain. To be sure, his heart had been wounded in Edinburgh, but at least that was familiar, too.

He also couldn’t stay in this lane forever.

Determined to find Robbie and go back to McStuart House, but equally determined that no one know he’d been near Lady Moira, let alone talked to her, let alone kissed her, he left the lane at the opposite end. He strode across the green and shoved open the door to the tavern, a rather run-down establishment of gray granite and slate, with a huge hearth that smoked, and several patrons who did, too, so that the air of the taproom was redolent of smoke, tobacco, sweat, sawdust and ale. It was noisy, too, from the voices of several men, including Robbie’s.

As his eyes grew accustomed to the sudden dimness, he searched for his friend and saw him at the far end of the room. Robbie was sprawled in a chair, a wine bottle on the table in front of him and several men who looked like merchants or tradesmen around him, listening to him as if intent on his every word.

On the opposite side near the door of the low-ceilinged room was another group of what looked like farmers or laborers. They, too, had someone occupying the center of attention—a tall, beefy fellow dressed in rough homespun, who looked as if he washed no more than once a year.

“I took her down a peg or two,” the unwashed man crowed in triumph as Gordon entered.

He was probably talking about his no doubt downtrodden wife.

“Thinks she’s so high-and-mighty, with her money and her title, tellin’ us all what’s best for our children. I told her what she could do with her bloody school.”

Gordon’s steps slowed and his resolve to leave immediately lessened a little. How many titled women could there be in Dunbrachie?

“She had the gall to cast her pa up to me. He made money before he inherited the title, says she, because he can read and write. So what if he can? He was born lucky if ever a man was. Well, most of us ain’t!”

The men around him nodded. “That’s right, Jack,” one of them, a short man with a squint, agreed.

“Gordo, old chap, here you are!” Robbie called out, and Gordon had no choice but to approach him.

As he got closer to Robbie’s table, he got a better look at the men he was with. They looked like the sort of hail-fellow-well-met rascals that Robbie would find entertaining and be happy to entertain, the same sort who could easily goad him into paying for every round of drinks and gamble with him until he had nothing left in his wallet.

Gordon joined them, but he did not sit down, and he only made the most perfunctory nod as he was introduced to men he’d likely never meet again. “Gentlemen,” he said to them all. “Sir Robert, if you don’t mind, I think it’s time we returned to McStuart House.”

“It’s not even noon!” Robbie protested with frowning dismay.

“Rather past it,” Gordon replied. Robbie had already finished a bottle of wine, by the looks of it, and by himself, for the other men all had mugs of ale either in their hands or on the table in front of them.

Robbie ignored him and addressed the men at the table.

“Well, what did I tell you, boys?” He pushed back his chair, jumped to his feet and threw his arm companionably around Gordon’s shoulder. “Built like a first-class prizefighter, isn’t he? He was the champion of the school when we were boys.”

That was true and once he would have been thrilled to hear Robbie boasting of his prowess, but not now.