Here Burns My Candle by Liz Curtis Higgs Read Free Book Online Page B

soldiers. “Can the lad be old enough to bear arms?” he asked, incredulous.
    “Aye.” Tears filled her eyes. “Jamie is seventeen now.”
    Seventeen? Donald could not mask his surprise. Had it been so long as that?
    “You and I…” Susan bowed her head and began again, her voice strained. “That is, we’ve not…shared each other’s company…in some time.”
    Donald merely nodded. They both remembered what had transpired between them during the dark winter months after his father’s death. Susan McGill had been his first lover but hardly his last. From one season to the next, eager young widows had welcomed him into their beds. Jane Montgomerie of Geddes Close, with her azure eyes and graceful step. Red-haired Barbara Inglis of Libberton’s Wynd, whose late husband had worked in the tolbooth . And clever Maggie Hunter of Brown’s Land, who never failed to amuse him.
    None of them was a gentlewoman, of course, yet all were exceedingly discreet, with reputations of their own to protect. Susan in particular had a winsome air about her, as well as a charming face and figure. Even at five-and-thirty she was a bonny sight that morning in her watered silk gown.
    “’Tis good to see you again,” Donald finally said. He gently lifted her chin, relieved to find her tears had subsided. “If you intend to find the lad, you’ll need an escort.” When he offered his arm, she took it willingly. “Jamie, is it?”
    “Aye, after his father.” Susan pressed against Donald’s side, slowing the pace of their steady climb with her pattens and hoops.
    Even through his twilled woolen coat he felt the warmth of her body, the softness of her form. A whiff of lavender greeted him, stirring to life a vivid image of her, wrapped in his embrace…
    Nae . He forced himself to think of something else, anything else. Why did the fairer sex affect him so? No matter how firm his resolve, the women of Edinburgh proved impossible to resist. Only that morning he’d traded innuendos with Anna Hart in Milne Square. Nor was he above seeking a brief interlude with an accommodating maidservant.
    Peg Cargill had not been accommodating, though. Nae, she had not.
    His skin warmed, remembering the frightened look on her face. She’d avoided him all morning, and he’d done the same, consoling himself that he’d not said or done anything improper. Still, his intentions were clear enough.
    My sin is ever before me . Aye, so it was—morning, noontide, and night.
    Donald inched away from the beautiful widow on his arm and vowed to concentrate on delivering Susan to her son. “Tell me,” he said as they passed the Luckenbooths, where jewelers, mercers, and clothiers sold their wares. “How might I recognize the lad now that he’s grown?”
    “Jamie is tall and broad like his father but with my coloring.” Her shrug was dismissive. “Common as poppies in June.”
    There is nothing common about you, madam . He dared not confess his thoughts, but they prodded at him nonetheless. Her hair was the color of honey, her eyes like spring grass, and her generous mouth…
    Nae! Desperate to curb his imagination, he shifted their discussion to politics, a decidedly unromantic subject. “Mrs. McGill, it seems you are still a confirmed royalist.”
    “Oo aye,” she said emphatically. “You’ll find nary a Jacobite in my household.” She looked at him from beneath her long lashes, then continued with equal fervor. “If my brave son is willing to lay down his life for King George, so should every nobleman.”
    Donald wondered if her challenge was innocently spoken or a pointed barb. He had no interest in fighting the rebels, but Andrew would gladly bear arms for any worthy cause. Mother would not hear of it, of course, nor would their physician. Andrew had yet to resign himself to that sad truth.
    “Every nobleman who is able,” Donald amended firmly, then sought a fresh topic of conversation, though he was finding it difficult to be heard above