The Pursuit Read Online Free

completely gray now, though it had shown signs of turning the last time he’d seen her, when she was only thirty-nine. She looked tired. She looked as if life was a burden to her, rather than a joy to be savored.
    She wore black, as though she were in mourning. She was rich, could have traveled while she was still young, could have remarried, could have done anything she liked. Instead she had elected to stay here and live her life alone, and perhaps she was now regretting it.
    Lincoln felt no sympathy for her. No kinder emotion would get through his rage, and, in fact, it took all the willpower he could muster not to get back into the coach and drive away. He knew he wouldn’t be able to contain his rage for very long. They had planned to stay at least a weekhere before the start of the London season. He’d be lucky if he could last a few days in her company without the bile’s spilling forth.
    Henriette had had to prod him into the house. He’d merely nodded at Eleanor in passing, spoken the single word “Mother,” and moved on into the parlor without glancing her way again. He was amazed he’d been able to do even that. His aunt, with her usual prattle, had filled in the awful silence that had followed his cold greeting.
    And he couldn’t get his anger to calm down. He stood now at the window in the parlor that faced north, the direction where they lived, and his rage just got worse, thinking of the savages as well. Thirty minutes passed with him standing there alone, while his aunt and cousin were being settled in upstairs. He honestly didn’t know what he was going to do if Eleanor joined him in the parlor without either his aunt or his cousin present as a buffer between them.
    It wasn’t her voice, though, that disturbed him finally. “’Tis grand indeed, tae be seeing ye again after all these years, young master. D’ye remember me, then?”
    Lincoln glanced around. It was Mr. Morrison, offering him a cup of tea. Out of all the servants in the house, only Eleanor’s maid was English, brought with her when she married Donald. She’d brought with her also her English habits, and having tea served every afternoon was one of them. Morrison had been the butler there even before she arrived, and apparently he still was.
    Lincoln didn’t recall the man as being so little, though. Of course, Lincoln hadn’t reached his full height of six feet four before he’d been sent off to England, had been missing a good seven of those inches at ten, so Morrison had seemed much taller then.
    “Indeed, Mr. Morrison. You haven’t changed all that much.”
    The little old Scot laughed—actually, it was more like a cackle. “Och, but ye hae, and aplenty. I wouldna be recognizing ye if I didna ken ye were expected.”
    Lincoln didn’t think he’d changed all that much in appearance, other than adding the extra height. Of course, living with his face every day of those years made a difference, he supposed, different than not seeing someone for nineteen years. His hair had been just as black when he was younger, his eyes just as common a brown. His face had filled out some, was more defined. Women found him handsome, though he imagined his title was just as attractive to them as his looks.
    Lincoln took the cup, but he didn’t drink from it, set it on the window ledge. He would have much preferred something more mind-numbing than tea at the moment.
    He nodded out the window. “Do the savages still live there?”
    “’Tis doubtful, since they’re all as grown as ye are. But they dinna exactly socialize, so nae gossip comes oot o’ there tae say one way or t’other.”
    Lincoln hadn’t had to explain whom he was referring to. He wasn’t the only one who called those particular Scots “savages.” They’d made that distinction for themselves on a grand scale, even when they were children. They lived nearly four miles north, far enough away that he might never have met them, if he hadn’t wandered far and wide as a