A Highlander's Heart: A Sexy Regency Romance (Highland Knights Book 1) by Jennifer Haymore Read Free Book Online Page A

as if his gaze could dive into her and see all her deepest desires and hopes. But she wasn’t ready for that. She tried to keep some impassivity in her expression. It was too early to bare herself to him completely. Her connection with him was still too fragile, too uncertain.
    Things were not even close to being resolved between them. But, she reminded herself, it was the small steps. The kiss… Even if he regretted it, it was a start.
    Whatever he saw evidently appeased him, because he touched her hand—just a small, light touch—and said, “Well, then. I’m glad you’re here.”

Chapter Five
    They left Waterloo the following day for Ostend. Per the instructions that had come from the Duke of Wellington, Rob was to join his friends Captains Stirling and McLeod, along with two lieutenants, Andrew Innes and Ewan Ross, and two sergeants of their choice. For the sergeants, Rob was told to choose loyal, intelligent men with officer potential. The seven of them were to report to the War Office upon arrival in London to receive their orders.
    It was all very mysterious, given that the Gordon Highlanders were marching to Paris and they were leaving their remaining injured men in Waterloo for the time being. And the association to the Duke of Wellington continued to bewilder him.
    But Rob didn’t question the orders of his superiors. He followed them, just as he counted on those below him to follow his command. The first sergeant he chose was Duncan Mackenzie. At twenty-three, Mackenzie was very young compared to the rest of them, but he was a true Mackenzie warrior. He’d been injured in the battle with a serious stab wound to the arm, but he had proven himself not only as a fighter but as a loyal and intelligent leader in the four years Rob had known him.
    The second sergeant was George Fraser, of “brave, braw, and broon” fame. But not only was he brave, handsome, and dark-haired, he was loyal to a fault. Stirling had chosen Fraser to guard Rob’s wife, and if it had been up to Rob, he would have made the same choice.
    The only two in their motley crew who hadn’t been injured were Stirling and Sergeant Fraser. Besides Mackenzie’s stab wound, McLeod had suffered a blow to the leg that had required forty stitches, and walking was a trial for him. The two lieutenants had been grazed by gunfire—one on the arm and the other above his hip.
    From Ostend, the seven of them, along with Claire, Grace, and their maid, had boarded a ship for Dover, arriving late the following day, sodden and tired. Rob was surprisingly thankful for Claire’s presence. She had tirelessly tended to the men’s injuries, seen to their welfare, and provided a sense of calm that felt foreign to all of them after the events of the past month.
    In those long two days, Rob began to see his wife in a different light. He’d only known her in her father’s London town house and at the earl’s seat, Norsey House in Kent, where they’d lived whenever he wasn’t in the service of his regiment.
    Those times, over the past few years, hadn’t been very often, granted. But in England, Claire was an earl’s daughter and hence treated with the utmost respect and deference. She rarely had the need to do anything for herself. She’d told him once that when she was a child with a cold, she wasn’t allowed to wipe her own nose—there was a servant to do that work for her. She’d found that highly annoying and secretly began wiping her nose as often as she could out of pure defiance.
    But in the carriages bound for Ostend and for the day on the ship, she had proven herself to be independent and resourceful. She had cleaned and bound wounds, turned Lieutenant Ross’s mind to lighter subjects when he began to grow dark and distant with the memories of the battles, comforted McLeod when he was overcome by violent seasickness, then helped her maid to clean his vomit.
    As she’d checked his head wound on the ship, Rob said, “I didna ken you’d