Highland Heiress - By Margaret Moore Page 0,73

to leave, she couldn’t resist as he put his arm around her and pulled her close, his naked flesh against her own. “I’ll miss you. I miss you already.”

“I’m right here!” she protested, trying not to think about their inevitable, if temporary, parting.

“What do you think your father will say when he finds out I want to marry you?”

“And that I want to marry you,” she returned. She ran her hand down his shoulder and along his side, in part to touch him, but also to ensure that he wasn’t bleeding again.

Fortunately, the bandage was still dry, although the problem of her father’s reaction to her future marriage to Gordon remained. “He said he wanted me to marry,” she offered.

“To a solicitor?”

“He didn’t say anything about my husband’s profession.”

“He doesn’t have to. He’s an earl now, Moira, and you’re a lady. He no doubt thinks you should have a titled husband.”

She brushed Gordon’s hair from his forehead and kissed his cheek. “I don’t want a titled husband. I want you.” They were so close, she added, “As much as you want me right now.”

He rolled her onto her back, so that he was above her, his weight on his elbows. “I do want you now, and for the rest of my life, too.”

He leaned down to brush his lips over hers, then drew back with a sorrowful smile and moved away so that she could get up. “Unfortunately, unless we want to be discovered together, you had best return to your own room, my lady, and leave me here to dress, so that I can go back to Edinburgh and begin to close my practice.”

She still could hardly believe he would do that for her. “Write to me in Glasgow,” she said, reluctantly rising from the bed and wrapping the coverlet about her. She went to the small desk in the far corner of the room to note her address.

“I’ll be staying with—oh, no!” she cried as she saw the robe on the floor half under the bed where Gordon had kicked it as they’d stumbled, still embracing, to bed. “What if the chambermaid saw my robe? Maybe that’s why she took so long!”

“I don’t think so. The room was dark when she entered, and it’s still fairly dim now with the drapes drawn. I confess I opened my eyes a bit to see why she hadn’t left and she was…” He gave her a wry, self-deprecating smile. “Well, she was staring at me. If she suspects anything’s amiss, it will be because I was blushing. I’m not used to being looked at that way.”

Just as Moira had suspected, and she let out her breath in a slow sigh of relief. Then she grinned as she picked up her nightdress from the floor on her side of the bed and put it on. “You’d better get used to that, Gordon McHeath, because I intend to stare at your naked body every chance I get.”

“So long as I get to admire yours at every opportunity, too.”

She laughed softly, her body warming both with the thought of his scrutiny and realizing he was regarding her intently at that moment. “I really must go,” she said again, both for his benefit and her own.

Gordon didn’t try to dissuade her. After all, she was right—it would make things more difficult for them both, but especially her, if word got out that they’d shared a bed. Even so, it was difficult to watch her and realize that it could be weeks before they could be together again, let alone marry, and in that time, a host of things could happen.

Then something did.

A familiar voice came roaring from the foyer below. “I want to see them both, by God, and I want to see them now!”

Chapter Twenty

Their startled gazes met as they recognized Robbie’s slurring shout before simultaneously starting for the door.

“I have to get to my room and dress,” Moira said, reaching it first. “Stay here. I’ll see what he wants.”

“No, let me speak to him.”

“I think the butler’s coming upstairs,” Moira whispered as she opened the door and peered into the corridor. She glanced back at him. “Whatever his reasons, Robbie has no right to come here and demand anything,” she said before she slipped from the room.

She was right about that, of course, yet that probably wouldn’t occur to a man like Robbie, who was used to getting his own way in everything.

So he had best make haste and get to him first.