Lady Guinevere and the Rogue with a Brogue - Julie Johnstone Page 0,78
build this business.”
Guinevere bit her lip. She knew nothing of how hard it must have been for him, but she wanted to know everything. Every small detail. Every triumph. Every failure. “I’d love to go to Scotland and visit one of your distilleries,” she told him, wanting to convey to him that she was proud of him and thought it wonderful that he’d made a successful business.
His gaze came to her soft as a caress and stirred blazing heat within her. “I intend to take ye. I have, in fact, this day bestowed upon ye one of my distilleries as part of our marriage contract.”
“What?” Guinevere asked, astonished.
“Can you do that?” her mother cried out, clearly dismayed.
“He can, and he has,” her father answered. “We worked through the marriage contracts this morning. Guinevere, upon wedding Carrington, you will be the one who inherits his largest distillery, Lochmond, if he should die, so for all intents and purposes, you are the owner.”
“That’s a lovely name for a business!” Guinevere exclaimed.
“Bite your tongue, child,” her mother said.
Guinevere happily ignored her as she stared at Asher. “Where is Lochmond located?”
He grinned. “On the River Clyde, just outside of Glasgow.”
“Papa,” Guinevere asked, “have you ever tasted the whisky from one of Carrington’s distilleries?”
“Please,” her mother moaned, “let us not talk of whisky anymore. Let us forget the distilleries and concentrate on more acceptable pastimes. Carrington, do you hunt?” her mother asked, her voice high and hopeful while distraught.
“Guinevere, to your question,” her father said, ignoring her mother’s plea, “I was actually introduced to whisky by Carrington’s father.”
“What?” Asher slanted a disbelieving look at her father.
Papa nodded. “Yes. He paid me a visit a few months before he died, talked of your distilleries, and brought me some whisky as a gift.”
Asher frowned. “I’m surprised my father would share such information with ye. He kept to himself, as far as I knew.”
“He did,” Guinevere’s father agreed, “but at one time, your father and I were good friends—back in our university days.”
Asher frowned. “And he just showed up here one day uninvited? Without provocation?”
“We had business to discuss,” her father said rather evasively.
Asher apparently thought so, as well, because his gaze narrowed. “What sort of business?” Asher prodded.
If her father’s eyes had been windows, then someone had just slammed them shut. He got a shuddered look. “Personal business,” he replied, looking between Asher and Guinevere. “I will say this, though: your father could be a most insightful man when he turned his focus on something. He had the mind of a true tactician. It was, in fact, what drew us together in the first place.”
Asher nodded, and Guinevere could practically see his thoughts turning in his head. She wanted a moment alone with him before he left, and as if he read her thoughts—or more likely he noted the way she was staring with longing—he looked to her father. “Might yer daughter and I have a moment alone before I leave?”
“Of course,” her father replied, waving a hand to the same garden where he’d allowed her to be alone with Kilgore.
Asher’s mouth tightened, and Guinevere bit her lip. She wished she had never stepped into that garden with Kilgore.
When Asher proffered his arm, she took it, feeling his body respond to her touch. Their gazes met as they moved through the corridors to the door that led to the garden and then outside. When the door closed behind them, she turned to face him. There was so much she wanted to say, but she’d start with what she thought was most important.
“Please do not give any credit to what my mother said about why I refused the marriage offers I received.”
“Why did ye turn down the offers of marriage?” he asked, which did not give her much indication of how he was feeling.
She had thought herself very brave, but in this moment she was fearful to confess that he’d stolen her heart and she’d been unable to forget the feeling he had filled her with, the one that had made her think he had seen her inside and out and had liked what he’d seen. He had given her hope that she could have a marriage with a man who would appreciate her, and she had been unable to fully relinquish that hope. What if she told him all of that, what if she blurted her love, and he did not tell her the same? Or what if she bared her soul and discovered, in this moment,