One Night with the Highlander (The Gilvrys of Dunross) Read Online Free Page A

brow. “No. Oh no. Please do not think it.” She caught her bottom lip in her teeth as if trying to hold back words. Or trying to decide how much to tell him. “Father made a terrible mistake with some investments. Mr. Jenkins had need of a wife and, well...they came to an agreement.” She paused, looking up at Gordon earnestly. “It seemed the perfect answer to our troubles.”
    As a second son with few prospects, he certainly would not have been the answer to anyone’s financial troubles. Nor, despite his very real longing to do so, had he made her any kind of promise. In the optimism of youth, he’d thought they would have more time. Perhaps even that she would wait for him. “You subsequently married Merton?”
    “He made a very generous offer.”
    Something Gordon could not have done then or now. “Jenkins did not leave you well settled?”
    “His money went to his heir.”
    Was he mistaken, or did she sound a little bitter? It really was not his business. He shouldn’t be asking such questions. And yet he couldn’t stop himself. “What will you do now?”
    Again she lowered her glance, looking at the ground as she walked, avoiding the worst of the ruts, giving him a view of the top of her bonnet. Pretty as it was, he preferred seeing her lovely face.
    “I have not yet decided,” she said finally, her voice low. “But I cannot stay here. Mama finds the gossip distressing.”
    A surge of protectiveness shot through him. His body tensed, as if preparing for battle. He fought the instinct to stand as her champion. Yet now that she had broached the subject, he could not let it lie there like a social faux pas everyone pretended not to notice. “What happened?”
    Her gaze shot to his face. There was a slightly bitter twist to her lips. “Why ask, when you already know?”
    “I know only what Mrs. Tracey related yesterday.” He gentled his voice. “I prefer my information from the source.”
    Annabelle lowered her gaze again. “Believe me, you do not want to know the truth.” She straightened her shoulders as if picking up a heavy burden, and met his eyes with a calm smile. “And here we are. It is time for me to bid you farewell and thank you for your escort.”
    The small stone cottage in front of them, with its white picket fence and carefully tended garden, was a far cry from the two-story manse beside the church her family used to occupy. Her mother had indeed come down in the world. But it looked well-maintained, and a profusion of yellow roses adorned a trellis around the front door. “If you will not stay here, where will you go?”
    She sighed. “Back to Edinburgh.”
    A return to the life she knew. “I see.”
    “Do you?”
    He looked down at that damned brim and its jaunty little flowers as once more she avoided his gaze. He had to admit he didn’t see anything. “I am not sure what to say,” he said stiffly, and she winced.
    “Pleased don’t be concerned,” she said softly. “I won’t presume on our acquaintance and trouble Lady Jenna when I am there.”
    “Annabelle,” he said, annoyed with her and surprised by the husky rasp in his voice. “I meant no such thing. And I for one would like to see you again.”
    Astonishment filled her expression. But slowly, very slowly, a smile dawned on her face. “You are not afraid for your life, then?” This was the old Annabelle, the one who liked to tease.
    He squashed the urge to laugh. “Should I be?”
    She tilted her head and looked him up and down, amusement in her clear grey eyes. “No. I think a man of your size would have no difficulty fending me off, should I decide to attack you.”
    He recalled the vague accusation of poison waved about by Mrs. Tracey, and pushed it aside. “Come for dinner. Tonight. Bring your mother.”
    The light in her face disappeared. “I must not. I should not have visited Lady Jenna today. I should have known the gossip would have reached the village. I would not have my problems tainting your