Highland Rogue

Then a copy of the London Times had fallen into his hands. Ewan vowed to have that blessed paper gilded and mounted. For it had informed him that the Honorable Miss Tessa Talbot, daughter of Lady Lydiard and her late husband, was engaged to be married.

Only engaged!

All his old fallow feelings for her had burst back into bloom, and Ewan had booked passage on the fastest steamer that would get him across the Atlantic.

“Worthy? What nonsense!” Tessa gave him a token slap with the hand that rested on his shoulder. “You know I’ve always thought more of real people who work for a living than I ever have of useless aristocrats.”

Her fervent declaration should have pleased him no end, but for reasons that eluded Ewan, it made him strangely uneasy. He told himself not to be so foolish. He had everything he’d ever wanted within his grasp. Nothing and no one would stop him now. Least of all some vague foreboding he could not even put into words.

It was like the feeling he used to get when stalking game in the hills above Strathandrew. When he’d slowly turn, to discover a pair of wild, wary eyes fixed on him. Try as he might, Ewan could not shake it.

When the final notes of the waltz died away, he bowed to Tessa. “Shall we get something to drink, then find a quiet spot where we can sit and talk?”

While he waited for her answer, his gaze roved over the Fortescues’ ballroom.

There! Near the orchestra dais. A tall, elegant-looking woman was watching him.

The color of her hair, her willowy grace of figure and her long, delicate features all put him in mind of a doe. But the relentless intensity of her gaze better suited a wildcat defending her young.

Did he know the woman? Ewan reckoned he might. But from where?

Then it came to him.

The elder Miss Talbot. What was her name? Catherine? Charlotte?

Whatever she called herself, no wonder she was looking daggers at him. The lady had always twitted and found fault with him during the summers when Lord Lydiard had brought his family north to their Scottish hunting estate.

She’d especially disapproved of his obvious fancy for her half sister. Ewan wondered if she might have been the one who’d tattled to old Lord Lydiard about his midnight meeting with Tessa, on the Talbots’ last night in Scotland, ten years ago.

Well, she’d get her comeuppance when he made Tessa his bride!

Long ago, Ewan had discovered that nothing vexed the elder Miss Talbot so much as when he pretended her slights had no power to vex him. Now, he shot her a wide grin of friendly recognition, with the faintest suggestion of mockery twinkling in his eyes. He knew it was bound to send her into a sputter of indignation. After all these years, he still relished the prospect of getting a rise out of her.

Miss Talbot crossed the ballroom floor with a brisk, purposeful stride. A man followed her.

“Claire!” Tessa cried when she spotted her sister. “What are you doing here? You never go out in the evenings.”

The two women clasped hands and touched cheeks with unfeigned affection.

Ewan had often wondered at their closeness. They were only half sisters, after all, and as opposite in temperament as any two women could be. Each had ample cause to envy the other, too. Tessa, her elder sister’s fortune and consequence in the family. Claire, her younger sister’s beauty and charm.

Claire Talbot smoothed a stray curl off Tessa’s forehead in a gesture that looked almost motherly. “I gather it’s high time I ventured out in society more often. To keep an eye on what you’ve been getting up to while poor Spencer is away. After all, we wouldn’t want any silly gossip to spoil your wedding plans, would we?”

Though she spoke to Tessa, Ewan could tell Miss Talbot’s warning was aimed at him. Did she think him too stupid to know about her sister’s betrothal?

Claire’s mild rebuke appeared to fluster Tessa, which Ewan added to his growing list of grudges against the woman.

“We’ll talk about all that another time, Claire.” Tessa glanced at Ewan and immediately recovered her usual sparkle. “You’ll never guess who’s come to London after all these years!”

“My powers of deduction are better than you may imagine, dearest.” Claire turned to Ewan and thrust out her hand. “Mr. Geddes, isn’t it?”

Ignoring her intention to shake his hand, Ewan caught her long slender fingers in his and raised them to his lips instead. “I’m flattered ye remember me, Miss Talbot.”

As he’d hoped, the gesture and the pretended warmth of his greeting succeeded in provoking her.

She pulled her hand away with the barest pretense of civility. “Pray, don’t flatter yourself too much, sir. I take care to remember a good many people. Not always for the most pleasant of reasons.”

Tessa must have sensed the tension between them, for her voice rang with forced brightness as she asked her sister, “Who is your escort tonight? I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

For a moment, Claire Talbot gave her sister a blank stare, then she turned to the man behind her. “Oh! Pardon my manners. This is Mr. Obadiah Hutt, a business associate of mine. Mr. Hutt, allow me to introduce my sister, Tessa, and Mr. Ewan Geddes…an old friend of the family.”

Ewan bridled. Did she think he was ashamed of who he’d been or where he’d come from? Was her introduction a veiled threat to expose his past?

And who was this Hutt fellow, anyway? He lacked the languid ease of a gentleman, and he shook Ewan’s hand with a firm grip, meeting his eye with a direct gaze…almost too direct.

“What Miss Talbot means, sir—” Ewan tried to stare her down, but she did not flinch “—is that I used to be a gillie on her father’s estate in Scotland.”

When a look of puzzlement wrinkled the other man’s brow, Ewan explained, “A gillie’s a sort of guide for hunting and fishing. Totes gear, loads guns, dresses the kill. That sort of thing.”

Tessa clasped his arm in a show of support that touched Ewan. “He was perfectly marvelous at it, too! Why, I can still picture him striding off to the hills in his kilt, with a gun slung over his shoulder. Like a hero of Sir Walter Scott’s, I always used to think.”

Miss Talbot’s business associate nodded at the explanation. “And what brings you down from Scotland, Mr. Geddes?”

“I didn’t come from Scotland, sir.” Hard as he tried to sound matter-of-fact, Ewan couldn’t manage it. “I left my home ten years ago, and I’ve never been back since.”

Thanks to Lord Lydiard. With a little help, perhaps, from the woman who now stood before Ewan, eyeing him with barely disguised hostility.

His old plans for revenge tempted Ewan sorely. Perhaps he should make a few discreet inquiries about Brancasters, after all.

I left my home ten years ago.

Ewan Geddes’s words, and the glint of outrage beneath his facade of casual charm, made Claire’s stomach constrict and her breath catch, as if strong hands had suddenly pulled the stays of her corset even tighter.

She’d come tonight expecting to do battle with a simple fortune hunter, like Major Hamilton-Smythe. Instead, she’d found an old adversary who might have far darker motives and a far greater capacity for mischief. One who might wish to harm the only two things in the world she cared about—her sister and Brancasters.

As the orchestra struck up a new tune, Claire turned to Obadiah Hutt. Behind the cover of her gloved hand, she whispered, “Ask her to dance.”

When he seemed not to hear, or perhaps not to understand, she hissed, “My sister! Invite her to dance.”

“Miss Tessa?” Mr. Hutt extended his arm, as Claire had bidden him. “May I have the honor?”

When Tessa cast a doubtful glance at Ewan Geddes, Claire urged, “Go ahead, dearest. There’s apt to be less talk if you’re seen dancing with a number of different gentlemen while Spencer is out of town.”

“Very well, then.” Tessa shot her sister a look as she took to the floor with Mr. Hutt—half warning, half pleading with Claire not to make a scene.

Claire and Ewan stood for a moment in awkward silence, watching Tessa and Mr. Hutt ease their way into the swirl of dancers.

“Well?” she challenged, when it became obvious he meant to ignore the opportunity. “Aren’t you going to invite me to dance?”

She quashed a foolish flicker of eagerness to feel his arms about her once again. Hadn’t ten years and a succession of men like Max Hamilton-Smythe taught her anything?

The Scotsman raised his dark, emphatic brows and thrust out his lower lip in a doubtful expression. “Ye wouldn’t think it too forward—a former servant taking liberties with the laird’s daughter?”

Claire skewered him with an icy glare, but she kept her tone and smile impeccably polite. “That would not be a first for you, would it?”

That wasn’t fair, her conscience protested. Ten years ago, she’d craved every liberty Ewan Geddes had been prepared to take with her. The trouble was, he’d only ever wanted to take them with her beautiful, vivacious younger sister.

For a moment, his gray eyes darkened like thunderheads over Ben Blane. Then, just as quickly, they cleared like the morning mist off Loch Liath. Both stirred something in Claire that she did not wish to have stirred. Heaven help her if she let this man gain any of his old power over her heart, or, worse yet, guess that he had.

He made a bow, so deep and sweeping it verged on mockery. “In that case, Miss Talbot, as my folks say, I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. Will ye do me the honor of a dance?”

No one had ever roused her usually temperate emotions the way he did. Claire struggled to subdue them.

“Did your people steal a great many sheep?” she inquired with arch civility, as she took Ewan’s arm and let him lead her to the floor.

“Only as many as they needed to keep from starving after they were driven from their land.” He spoke in a tone of cheerful banter quite at odds with his words. But when he took Claire’s hand in his and slipped his arm around her waist, she could feel the taut clench of his muscles.

Perhaps she provoked a more intense reaction in him than he had ever permitted her to see. The possibility restored a bit of her self-respect.

Remembering the reason she had lured him to the dance floor in the first place, she ignored his bait about starving Highlanders. “You look very prosperous now. You’ve done well for yourself in America?”

Not so well, surely, that the Brancaster fortune would fail to tempt him?

“Well enough.” His reply confirmed Claire’s suspicion. “There’s no limit, in the New World, to how far a man’s brains and hard work will take him.”

And if that wasn’t far enough, thought Claire, he could always cross the Atlantic to see how far hollow charm and a total lack of scruples would take him.

“I believe a truly determined man will succeed anywhere, Mr. Geddes. My grandfather, for instance. He built Brancasters from nothing, and he didn’t have to go all the way to America to do it.”

Ewan acknowledged her point with a nod. “A great achievement, to be sure. Then he was able to marry his daughter off to a laird.”

That stung. Had her father’s hurtful warning about fortune hunters been the voice of experience speaking? Claire refused to let Ewan see her flinch. One needed a tough hide to trade barbs with the man these days.

“If you think that gives you leave to pursue my sister, Mr. Geddes, I beg to differ. Poaching a few sheep is one thing. Poaching another man’s fiancée is quite another. Exactly what are your intentions toward Tessa?”

“Only the most honorable, I can assure you.” The hand that held hers tightened, as did the one around her waist. “I agree, Miss Talbot, there is a difference between sheep thieving and courting a lady. Sheep, curse their stupid heads, don’t give a hang who shears them. But a lady may have a strong preference about who she weds. If she changes her affections from one man to another before she gets to the altar, I’d hardly call that poaching.”

Heavens! This dance had become more like a fencing match set to music. For all that, some traitorous part of Claire enjoyed their thinly veiled cut and thrust. She had not felt so alive in years.

“My sister may have a strong, even passionate preference for one man this week, sir, then be quite as smitten with another fellow the next. Did it never occur to you why a lady of her beauty and charm should still be unwed at the age of twenty-six?”

Ewan’s roving gaze flitted to Tessa as she danced by in the arms of Obadiah Hutt.

“A bit fickle in her favors, is she?” He did not sound as troubled by the possibility as he should be. “What about ye, Miss Talbot? Why is an attractive lady of fortune like yerself still single at the age of…?”

“Twenty-eight.” Claire rapped out the words with perverse pride. “As well you know, Mr. Geddes, since my sister was sixteen and I eighteen during your last summer at Strathandrew.”

She let her reply sink in for a moment before she added, “I have not remained unmarried for lack of opportunity. Of that you may be sure. No woman with my size fortune has the luxury of going unpursued, no matter how great her deficiencies of beauty, wit or temperament.”

For the first time since they had been reintroduced, Claire sensed a change in Ewan Geddes’s manner. Gone was the antagonism disguised as affable banter. Something she’d said must have struck a nerve with him.

But what? And why?

For the first time since he’d met Claire Talbot, more than twenty years ago, Ewan felt a glimmer of sympathy for the woman.

In the past year or two, she’d been the target of several fortune hunters. It was not an experience he’d have wished on his worst enemy, let alone the sister of the woman he loved.

Around them, the music swelled to its dazzling conclusion. The dancers came to a stop and applauded politely. Some withdrew from the floor to rest or seek refreshment, while others lingered for the start of the next number.

Though he’d had every intention of escaping Miss Talbot’s company at the earliest opportunity, Ewan heard himself ask, “Shall we have another go, then?”

She seemed as surprised by the invitation as he. “Y-yes. I suppose. Thank you.”

Over her shoulder he could see Tessa staring his way with a look of puzzled annoyance. He tossed her a reassuring wink, hoping she’d understand that he was trying to jolly her sister around.

He was confident Tessa would break her engagement to marry him. But whether she’d stay the course against the disapproval of both her mother and her sister, Ewan wasn’t so certain. Some intuition warned him that he could never win favor with Lady Lydiard. But Claire Talbot might just learn to like him, if she’d let herself.

Perhaps he needed to take a different tack with the lady. Remember that he was no longer a nineteen-year-old gillie with a chip on his shoulder the size of a full-grown Scotch pine, and stop letting her gibes get under his skin. Lavish on her a little of the charm with which he’d won her sister’s heart.

“Only a rank fool would claim ye lack for wit, Miss Talbot.” He held her out at arm’s length and pretended to scrutinize her from head to heels. “And I can’t say I see any deficiency in yer looks, either.”

Nor did he.

Oh, she might not have the breath-catching beauty of his Tessa, but Claire Talbot was a bonny woman all the same. What her distinct, regular features lacked in softness, they made up for in character. Her eyes were not the warm blue-green of some southern sea, but the bracing blue-gray of a Highland loch. If he had not known her age, he would have guessed her to be several years younger.

His modest compliment seemed to fluster her more than any of his subtle digs. “You needn’t take pity on me, sir. I’ve lived with my sister long enough to recognize female beauty. And to know that I do not find it in my own looking glass.”

The music began again, this time a gentler melody that put Ewan in mind of a spring breeze whispering through the trees around Loch Liath.

He drew Miss Talbot toward him.

“Pity?” He stared at her as if he’d never heard anything so outrageous. “Ye’ll get none of that here, lass. For ye never had a drop to spare for me in the old days.”

And that, Ewan realized, was one thing he’d always liked about her. Oh, she’d taunted him, outright insulted him at times. Yet somehow she’d made him feel it was because she considered him an equal in character—a worthy opponent, not some poor soul she ought to patronize with gracious platitudes.

“I reckon there’s more than one kind of beauty, don’t ye?” he asked.

“What other kinds can there be?” She sounded dubious.

“Well…” Ewan scrambled for an example that would prove his point. “Plenty of folks think Surrey’s a beautiful place.”

“I am one of them.”

“Does that mean the Highlands aren’t beautiful, then?” He twirled her about so fast it made him a trifle dizzy. “Just because they don’t look like Surrey?”

“Well, of course not!”

The sincerity of her outrage touched him.

“There ye go, then. Perhaps Miss Tessa’s got a Surrey kind of beauty and ye’ve a Highland kind.”

“Harsh, rugged and cold?” Her eyes sparkled with triumph at having cornered him into a slight he hadn’t meant.

“If I didn’t know better, Miss Talbot, I’d swear ye were fishing for flattery.”

“You were once a gillie. Tell me, am I using the right bait?”

If he hadn’t known better, Ewan might have supposed she was trying to flirt with him. But Claire Talbot flirting? No, that was too outrageous.

“Ye shouldn’t have to speak ill of yerself to get folks to praise ye. I expect ye know yer own worth well enough, and I think ye know what I meant about Highland beauty, too.”

“Perhaps I do, Mr. Geddes.” She spoke in a soft voice, and for a moment, her face took on a pensive look. Then her guard went up again. “You’re a more skillful flatterer than most men of my acquaintance. You don’t make the mistake of laying it on too thick.”

Ewan laughed. “I think ye’ve given me an indirect answer to my question, Miss Talbot.”

“Pray, what question might that be?”

“The impertinent one about why ye hadn’t found a husband.”

“Ah.” She nodded. “With the equally impertinent reference to my advanced age?”

“Guilty as charged.” Ewan flashed her a rueful grin. “Dare I offer a humble apology and throw myself on the mercy of the court?”

“Anything is possible, though I doubt you have a humble bone in your body.” Her expression softened. “Very well, then, I accept your apology. I am not ashamed of my age, nor of being unwed.”

“No reason ye should be. I’d say ye’re not married because ye haven’t yet found a man who can give ye a good run for yer money.”

She considered his suggestion. “If one did present himself, I expect he’d be lost in the scrum of those anxious to chase my money.”

Again Ewan found himself laughing at one of her wry quips. He’d often thought something like that of himself.

That was why he’d decided not to reveal the full extent of his wealth until Tessa had formally accepted his proposal. Not that he had any fear she’d wed him for his fortune. How much sweeter his victory would be, though, if she had no idea how far he’d risen in the world, but agreed to wed him just the same.

The thought made Ewan anxious to get back to her as soon as this waltz ended. He nearly missed the words Claire Talbot murmured. Ones she might not have meant to speak aloud.

“I once thought I’d met a man who could give me a run for my money. It turned out I was wrong.”

Ewan forgot about not feeling sorry for her.

Little wonder she mistrusted his feelings for Tessa if she’d been sought after by fortune hunters and let down by the one man she’d cared for.

The music ended and once again the dancers applauded.

“Thank you, Mr. Geddes.” Claire Talbot backed away from him. “You’re a fine dancer.”

He bowed to acknowledge the compliment. “I’ve learned a thing or two in the past ten years. Including that I’m the one who should thank ye for the honor of yer company.”

When she started to turn away, Ewan caught her hand. “I expect we’ve both changed a good deal in the past ten years, Miss Talbot. Maybe we should stop treating each other as though we’re the same folk we were then, and make a new start. What do ye say?”

Her gaze seemed to search his face, weighing his sincerity.

Ewan found himself hanging on her reply with far more suspense than it merited.

Then her face blossomed into a smile as sudden and unexpectedly bonny as the blooming of the heather. “Very well, Mr. Geddes. What you say makes a great deal of sense.”

Her agreement and the modest compliment elated Ewan far more than they ought to have.

“But,” she added in a tone that brooked no contradiction, “that does not mean I will surrender my sister to you without a fight.”

Ewan considered for a moment. “It doesn’t mean I’ll give her up without a fight, either.”

Strangely, the prospect of such a battle of wits and wills with Claire Talbot fired his blood.

Chapter Three

“Come now, Tessa, be sensible, dearest,” Claire begged her sister. “You can’t mean to jilt poor Spencer over a man you barely know.”

A few days after the Fortescues’ ball, they sat in the morning room of Lydiard House. Claire occupied an armchair opposite a matching settee that held Tessa and her mother. A tea tray rested on the low table between them.

This was the first time in the three years since her father’s death that Claire had paid a call on Lydiard House.

“I wish you wouldn’t use an awful word like jilt!” Tessa thrust out her full lower lip in a pretty pout. “It sounds perfectly heartless!”

Lady Lydiard set down her cup of tea, for once in complete agreement with her stepdaughter. “It is a rather heartless thing to do, dear, no matter what you call it. Especially considering how long poor Spencer has waited for you.”

“That’s part of the problem, isn’t it?” Tessa’s splendid eyes flashed with more green than blue, a sure sign of rough sailing for anyone foolish enough to oppose her. “If Spencer had been truly eager to marry me, I cannot believe he would have stood for so many delays.”

After the forbearance he’d shown her sister, Claire would not tolerate hearing Spencer Stanton abused. Not even by his own fiancée.

“Delays that were your idea, may I remind you! Spencer has only wanted to give you time to be certain of your feelings. Would you rather he’d blustered and bullied you to get his own way, like some men?”

“Of course not.” Tessa sighed. “Spencer’s been perfectly sensible and selfless, as always, and I feel ghastly about—” she hesitated over the word, then steeled herself and spat it out “—jilting the dear fellow. But I cannot go through with the wedding when I’m head over heels in love with another man, now, can I?”

It made a sort of topsy-turvy sense, though not a kind Claire could have much sympathy with. If she had given her word, and the gentleman in question had done nothing to make her change her mind, she could not have brought herself to break her promise.

“If you ask me, head over heels does not sound like a very balanced frame of mind in which to make such an important decision.” Claire reached across the low tea table to rest her hand on top of her sister’s. “For Spencer’s sake and especially for your own, please do not act in haste. How much do you really know about Ewan Geddes, after all?”

His name came far too readily to her tongue, curse him! It gave her a ridiculous little rush of pleasure to wrap her lips around it. And to hear it spoken by her own voice…as if that granted her some secret sense of ownership.

Worse yet, the sound of it conjured up a vivid image of the man, and a disturbingly intense memory of how it had felt to whirl around the dance floor in his arms, his voice beguiling her more deeply with every word. It was bad enough she hadn’t been able to get him out of her thoughts last night. If he was going to plague her during the day, as well, how would she get anything done?