Highland Heiress - By Margaret Moore Page 0,74
He certainly wasn’t going to hide up here and leave Moira to deal with Robbie alone.
Determined to do so, Gordon got dressed as quickly as he could. Shaving would have to wait.
He was buttoning his shirt when there was a knock at the door, and he opened it to find the agitated butler.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, sir,” Walters said, “but Sir Robert McStuart has arrived and wishes to speak to you at once.”
That was a polite way to put Robbie’s shouted demand. “Where is he?”
“The drawing room.”
“Tell him I’ll be down directly.”
“Yes, sir.”
Thankfully it would take Moira longer to dress, so hopefully he’d be able to get Robbie out of the house before she had to see him, let alone speak to him. “Is he drunk?”
Walters gravely inclined his head. “I believe he is, sir.”
“Thank you, Walters.”
Gordon ducked back into the room to finish doing up his shirt. That done, he abandoned his cravat and was sure he was ready before Moira. Nevertheless, when he left the blue bedroom, she was dressed and coming out of hers. She now wore a day gown of pale green muslin, and her hair had been simply coiled around her head.
“Moira, there’s no need for us both to go below,” he said. “He was my friend. Let me deal with him.”
“I’m not a child, Gordon,” she resolutely replied. “Whatever Robbie wants, it must involve me, too.”
He should have known she wouldn’t shirk from facing this difficulty, either. “Very well, but according to Walters, he’s drunk.”
“I do have some experience dealing with drunken men,” she grimly reminded him as they started toward the stairs.
How he wished she didn’t! How he wished he could somehow erase that part of her past or at least make her forget anyone who had ever caused her grief.
He couldn’t. All he could do was be with her and hold her hand as they went down the stairs to the drawing room, regardless of who might see them.
The butler waited just outside the drawing room door, and two more footmen stood at attention nearby.
“Reinforcements, should we require them,” Moira murmured with relief as they went through the double doors.
To find Robbie in a state of extreme agitation, as jittery as any prisoner in the box Gordon had ever seen.
He wasn’t alone. Standing almost in the corner was a slender, slim-featured man of indeterminate age, wearing a severely plain black jacket and trousers, his shirt white linen, his cravat simply tied, his hair slicked down and combed back from his forehead.
Pointing and glaring at them, Robbie turned to this unknown fellow and cried, “You see? They are in league together!”
“Robbie, calm yourself,” Gordon sternly commanded as he moved forward as fast as he could, ignoring a twinge of pain in his side.
“That’s fine advice coming from a traitor!” his friend declared. “How long have you been lovers? Since you were supposedly hurt? Or before that? Maybe you met in Edinburgh. Maybe that’s why she broke our engagement.”
“Breaking our engagement had nothing to do with Gordon,” Moira forcefully replied. “It had everything to do with the state you’re in now. I discovered you’re a sot, and a philanderer. That’s why I wouldn’t marry you.”
Robbie’s lip curled up with scorn. “Are you going to try to tell me you aren’t lovers?”
Moira drew herself up. “No, I’m not going to tell you anything that isn’t any of your business.”
“Robbie,” Gordon began in a mollifying tone, “we can discuss this—”
“Later? No, we can’t. You’ve played me false, Gordo. All this time, I thought you were my friend, looking out for my best interests, and instead, you’re sleeping with the enemy. And don’t you dare try to deny it! I saw the look in her eyes when she told me you were too sick to be moved. The hell you were! It was an excuse for you two to be together, right under everybody’s noses! Well, you might have fooled them, but you can’t fool me!”
And then he threw a punch at Gordon.
As Moira cried a warning, Gordon instinctively ducked the blow. The butler and the footmen rushed into the room and pinned the nobleman’s arms at his sides.
“Get out!” Moira ordered, pointing at the drawing room door. “Get out of this house!”
“Not until I tell you why I’ve come,” Robbie retorted as he twisted and turned, trying to free himself from the servants’ grasp.
“I don’t care why,” Moira returned. “Take him out,” she ordered the footmen.
“My lady, a moment if you please,” the unknown man