One Night With the Laird Read Free Page A

you could tidy the bedroom—”
    “Of course, ma’am.” The steward’s voice was arctic.
    “The gentleman is still asleep,” Mairi said.
    “Would you like me to wake him? Give him a shave? Breakfast?” Mairi was sure she could detect sarcasm in Frazer’s voice now. She looked at him sharply. He looked blandly back at her.
    “Let him sleep,” Mairi said. She could feel herself blushing at the implication. “Then show him out. Oh, and, Frazer—” She hesitated. “If he asks any questions...”
    Frazer nodded. “Of course, ma’am. Not a word.”
    “Thank you.” Mairi’s throat felt rough. Tears pricked the back of her eyes. Frazer might disapprove of her behavior, but she still held his loyalty. Four years now since her husband, Archie, had gone and she could still feel the pain of his leaving squeeze her heart like a vise.
    Outside in Candlemaker Row the wind was sharp. A pearl-white sky was unfurling over the city of Edinburgh. Mairi drew the shawl more closely about her. By the time she reached the Royal Mile the carriage was waiting, one of Frazer’s handsome sons standing ready to open the door for her. She climbed in and set off for her house in Charlotte Square, for a bath and for clean clothes. She ached so much. Her body ached from the pleasure, but her heart ached more.
    She closed her eyes. Despite the extraordinary intimacy of the night, she felt lonelier than she had ever felt in her life.

CHAPTER TWO
    July 1815
    “Y OU LOOK BLUE - DEVILLED .” Robert, Marquis of Methven, threw down his cards and viewed his companion with amusement in his narrowed blue eyes. “Money troubles, is it?”
    “Why do you say that?” Jack Rutherford placed his own hand slowly on the table and reached for his cup of coffee. It was rich, warm and exceptionally good and it did nothing to soothe his spirits. What he really wanted was brandy but these days he never drank it. He had had an unhappy relationship with alcohol in his youth and he had no intention of ever letting his drinking get out of control again.
    “You’ve been playing as cagily as a spinster aunt betting a shilling at whist,” Methven said cheerfully. “Your mind is elsewhere. And it cannot be a woman who’s spoiling your game since you never let them get to you—”
    Jack shifted edgily. Some coffee spilled. He looked up to see his cousin laughing at him.
    “Damn you, Rob,” he said, without heat.
    “Never seen you like this before,” Methven said. “I suppose it had to happen sometime. Who is she?”
    Jack paused. The club was three-quarters empty and wreathed in silence, which was good since he did not fancy rehearsing his romantic disasters to an audience. It was a situation he seldom if ever found himself in. Usually he was fighting women off rather than pining for their company.
    “I don’t know,” he admitted, after a moment.
    Methven raised a quizzical brow. “No name?”
    “We didn’t talk much.”
    His cousin sighed with weary acceptance. Robert knew him well. “Description?” he said.
    “She was tall,” Jack said. “She was slender and she had long hair. I don’t know,” he repeated. “It was too dark to see.”
    Methven almost choked on his brandy. “Devil take it, Jack. Where did this...uh...encounter occur?”
    “At a masked ball,” Jack said. “At least that was where it started. It finished...” He shrugged. “Elsewhere. Somewhere in the Old Town.”
    Methven was laughing now. Jack supposed it was funny in a way; he had a reputation for leaving women before the sheets were cold, and here he was, craving a woman who had used him and discarded him with a ruthlessness that stole the breath. It had not happened to him before. He did not like it. He was always the one to walk away first.
    Yet that was not why he wanted to find her. He felt unsettled, distracted. Three months. It was ridiculous. He should have forgotten her two months and twenty-nine days ago. Yet her memory lingered. Only the previous day he