Highland Rogue by Deborah Hale Read Free Book Online Page A

young!”
    Averting her face, so his sharp scrutiny would not catch a glimpse of the pain her eyes might betray, Claire set off on a leisurely turn around the deck. She heard Ewan’s brisk footsteps following her.
    “I can’t deny, Miss Talbot …” He gave a soft chuckle. “In those days, I only had eyes for yer sister.”
    “Whereas you now notice other women?” Hard as she tried, Claire could not resist baiting him.
    She braced for a sharp retort or a mocking return jab. His gust of laughter, as invigorating as a sea breeze, took her by surprise. “You find my remark amusing?” she asked.
    “Aye, in a way.” His eyes sparkled with impudent glee,F much better suited to a young Highland gillie than to a mature man of business in a well-tailored suit. “Ye took me back ten years, is all. To a time when the pair of us liked nothing better than going at each other hammer and tongs.”
    His infectious camaraderie could seduce her more easily than other men’s passionate or sentimental lovemaking … if she did not resist.
    “Are you saying there was something you liked better than making calves’ eyes at my sister, Ewan Geddes?”
    “I reckon ye have me there, lass.” He gave a bark of wry laughter at his own expense. “Likely I’m counting myself too high in yer regard, as well. There must have been plenty of other things ye fancied more than trading friendly insults with a hired boy.”
    He was wrong about that. There’d been
nothing
she liked better. At least when he’d answered her thinly veiled insults with comical quips that skirted the edge of outright insolence, she’d been assured of his attention, however fleeting. And she’d had a safe outlet for the futile fury that built up inside her when she’d watched the handsome young gillie showing off for the benefit of her sister.
    Claire ignored his question, in case her tone or expression somehow communicated the truth. “Dear me! I wonder where Tessa and her mother can have gotten to?”
    Where had Lady Lydiard’s
messenger
gotten to? Claire cast a nervous glance at the quayside. Someone should have been here by now. Timing was critical to her plan.
    Ewan leaned against the deck railing, turning his top hat around and around by its brim. “Do ye reckon Lady Lydiard might be dragging her feet?”
    His shrewd insight made Claire chuckle in spite of herself. “It
is
the sort of thing she might do to express her disapproval, I’ll grant you. In this case, I doubt it, though.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “Well …” She chose her words with care, so as not to rouse his suspicion. “I cannot pretend her ladyship is delighted with the prospect of having you as our guest at Strathandrew.”
    “Now there’s an understatement if ever I heard one!” Ewan twisted his features into an exaggerated look of disapproval that aped Lady Lydiard’s to perfection.
    Biting back a grin, Claire fought the false sense that he was on her side. “My stepmother may be toplofty, but she is no fool. The one thing she wants less than you wooing Tessa at Strathandrew is you wooing her here in London under the noses of all the gossips.”
    “So she’ll be here, come what may, looking all grim and disapproving and barely speaking a word.” Ewan tossed his hat in the air, then caught it again. “Would it be wicked of me to hope her ladyship might meet with a wee mishap that would prevent her from sailing with us?”
    His suggestion so closely echoed her plan, it took Claire’s breath away. She reached for the deck railing to steady herself. When Ewan’s large brown hand closed over hers, she felt even less steady.
    “Are ye all right, Miss Talbot?” The solicitous warmth of his voice and his touch wrapped around her. “I didn’t really mean any harm to yer stepmother, I swear!”
    “Of course not.” Claire struggled to rally her composure—something Ewan Geddes had always taxed more than any other man. How would she ever explain her excessive reaction to his