A Scottish Love Read Free Page B

be a modern Highlander.
    The air was humid, the breeze from the river pausing to caress her cheek. With the back of her hand, she brushed back a tendril of hair that had come loose, but otherwise didn’t move, watching him enter his carriage.
    Gordon had brought the past with him, and the past was not her friend.
    Identify every part of a problem and handle each part separately. That’s how she’d survived Bruce’s illness. First, she had to address the issue of money.
    Slowly, she closed the door, unfolding the letter again. Good news, of a sort. The worst news, if she chose to be sentimental. But sentimentality was for fools and those who’d no need of wealthy Americans.
    Dear God, anyone with a fortune would do.
    Once, she’d had armoires filled with dresses and delicate lace undergarments. She’d worn jewels that sparkled in the gaslight. Her home had been a mansion set into a landscape so perfect it looked like a John Constable painting.
    Circumstances changed, however, a fact she’d learned only too well in the last two years.
    What a shock it had been to learn she was penniless.
    She’d known that Bruce’s estate was entailed, but she’d stupidly assumed that, upon her husband’s death, she’d have some income of her own. Both she and his great-nephew, Ranald Donegal, had been informed that neither was the recipient of any funds.
    Bruce had died insolvent.
    Her husband had never hinted at his penurious state. Nor had he told her that his great-nephew was an incredibly dislikable man. Ranald was twenty years her senior, but neither his status as a relative by marriage, nor the fact that he himself was married with seven children, had stopped him from groping her at every opportunity. She’d vacated the house she’d shared with Bruce as soon as she could, retreating here to Inverness to live out the duration of her mourning. Two weeks ago, her official mourning was over.
    Two weeks ago, she’d also learned that Ranald was coming to Inverness for the express purpose of occupying the house she’d made her home for the last two years.
    Her choices were narrowing by the minute.
    Did she stay here and attempt some sort of agreement with Ranald? Would he allow Fergus to stay as well? She was neither naïve nor unschooled. Sooner or later, the arrangement would lead to her becoming an unpaid servant or sharing his bed while his wife and her brother slept under the same roof. She doubted Fergus would agree to such a thing even if she allowed it.
    Or did she attempt to find other lodgings, with no funds, no likelihood of funds, and no foreseeable funds in the future?
    The jewels Bruce had given her had been sold to keep food in the house and coal in the grate for the first year. In the last several months, she’d sold anything, everything, of value.
    She took a deep breath before reading the letter once more.
    Her solicitor had done what she’d begged him to do a year ago. He’d found a solution for her financial woes, a solution that required selling Gairloch, the castle belonging to the Imrie Clan.
    To support the two people who’d come to depend on her, she was going to have to do something quickly.
    Helen entered the room and she folded the letter, tucking it into her dress pocket.
    “We’re going on an adventure, Helen,” she said with a smile.
    The other woman looked at her, head tilted. “What sort of adventure?” Helen asked cautiously.
    “We’re going to Gairloch.”
    When Fergus was settled, she’d go home, and back to the past for the very last time.
    G ordon had a hundred questions, all of them revolving around the Countess of Morton. None was likely to be answered anytime soon.
    Nonetheless, he couldn’t dismiss the thought that there was something he should have seen, known, or asked before being escorted from her home.
    The surge of nostalgia he was feeling was idiotic. So, too, his rage at seeing her calmly assess the half-naked men in her parlor.
    The girl he’d known had been