Gentle Rogue by Johanna Lindsey Read Free Book Online Page A

was converted through marriage!”
    “Aye, that’s possible. Possible, too, was he sawwhat he liked and had some, and wasna caught fer it until his second docking.”
    “What’s it matter when or why? All this time I’ve been sitting at home pining over him, he’s been married and making children, having just a swell-dandy time!”
    Mac snorted. “Ye’ve wasted time, all right, but ye were never pining away.”
    She sniffed at his lack of understanding. “I loved him, Mac.”
    “Ye loved the idea of having him fer yer own, bonny lad that he was, a child’s fancy ye should’ve outgrown. Were ye less loyal, and less stubborn, ye’d have let go of yer fool’s dream long ago.”
    “That’s not—”
    “Dinna interrupt me till I’ve finished. Did ye love him true, ye’d be crying now and angry after, no’ the other way around.”
    “I’m crying inside,” she said stiffly. “You just can’t see it.”
    “Well, I thank ye fer sparing me, I surely do. Never could abide a female’s tears.”
    She gave him a fulminating glare. “You men are all alike. You’re about as sensitive as a…a brick wall!”
    “If ye’re looking fer sympathy, ye willna get it from me, lass. If ye’ll recall, I advised ye tae forget about that mon more’n four years ago. I also recall telling ye that ye’d be regretting coming here, and no’ just when yer brothers get ahold of ye. So what has yer stubbornness got ye this time?”
    “Disillusionment, humiliation, heartache—”
    “Delusion—”

    “ Why are you determined to make me madder than I am?” she snapped hotly.
    “Self-preservation, hinny. I told ye, I canna abide tears. And as long as ye’re yelling at me, ye willna be weeping on my shoulder…Och, now, dinna do that, Georgie lass,” he said as her face began to crumble. But the tears started in earnest, and all Mac could do was stop their horses and hold out his arms to her.
    Georgina leaped across the short space and curled into his lap. But she wasn’t content to just have a good cry on a caring shoulder. There was still a lot of anger inside that came out in a lot of wailing.
    “Those beautiful children should have been mine, Mac!”
    “Ye’ll have yer own bairns, lots of them.”
    “No I won’t. I’m getting too old.”
    “Aye, all of twenty-two.” He nodded sagely, fighting to keep from snorting. “That’s mighty auld.”
    She paused to scowl at him. “You picked a fine time to start agreeing with me.”
    Both red brows went up in feigned surprise. “Did I now?”
    Georgina sniffed, and then wailed again, “Oh, why couldn’t that woman have come in a mere minute sooner, before I made such a double-damned fool of myself telling that cur I’d still have him?”
    “Sae he’s a cur now, is he?”
    “The lowest, vilest—”
    “I get yer drift, hinny, but it’s glad ye should be ye said all ye did tae him, a fine revenge, I’m thinking, if ye wanted revenge.”
    “Is that some kind of male logic too complicatedfor the female mind? I didn’t get revenge, I got humiliated.”
    “Nae, ye showed the mon what he lost in forsaking ye, a lass he dinna recognize, she’s sae bonny now, and his own ship tae command, which he’s long wanted. He’s likely kicking his own arse right about now, and it’s sure as he did wrong by ye that he’ll be regretting what he lost fer many a year.”
    “The ship maybe, but not me. He’s got a job he’s proud of, beautiful children, a lovely wife—”
    “Lovely, aye, but she’s no’ Georgina Anderson, owner of the Amphitrite , part owner of the Skylark Line, though the puir lass has nae say in the running of that, just an equal share in the profits, and they say she’s the bonniest lass on the eastern seaboard.”
    “Is that all?”
    “Ye dinna sound verra impressed.”
    “I’m not. That girl might be a bonny lass now, but she wasn’t always, and what good are her fair looks when she’s wasted the best years of her life.” A rude sound