The Fairbairn Girls Read Free Page A

tomorrow.’ Laura quickly wiped away a tear. Their mother had instilled in them that it was bad to break down in front of the servants because it would embarrass them.
    Little Eleanor frowned anxiously. ‘Won’t the horses get tired?’
    ‘Don’t be such a goose,’ Georgie remonstrated robustly. ‘He’s going on the new train from Glasgow to London.’
    ‘But won’t the horses get tired before they reach Glasgow? It’s
miles
away.’
    ‘They’ll probably change the horses when they reach Fort William or Rannoch.’
    Eleanor’s mouth drooped. ‘But what will happen to the tired horses?’ she persisted. Eleanor worried about everything but most especially the welfare of animals.
    ‘They’ll sleep in nice warm stables,’ Beattie assured her, taking her hand. ‘And they’ll be fed and watered.’
    ‘And someone will tuck them up and read them a bedtime story,’ Georgie cut in with acerbity.
    Laura gave her a disapproving glance. ‘Don’t be so mean. Eleanor is sensitive and very caring. Unlike you.’
    ‘She’s a wimp!’ Georgie declared. ‘She needs toughening up.’
    Eleanor shrank inside her cotton shift, miserable at being picked on and the centre of attention.
    Beattie, always the calm peacemaker, led the way back into the castle. ‘Let’s have breakfast,’ she suggested brightly.
    ‘I’ll be with you in a minute,’ Laura said, hurrying away across the great hall. Up on the first floor she flew along the wide corridor with its family portraits and heavy Jacobean furniture smelling of beeswax polish until she came to the guest wing. A moment later she entered the room where Rory had slept for the past few nights. It was just as he had left it, with the bedding pushed back and the pillow indented where his head had rested.
    Lying down where he had lain and slipping her hand under the bedding which was still faintly warm, she caught a whiff of the sweet, clean smell of his skin. Breathing deeply, she sidled further down the bed, pulling the blankets up over herself while imagining him lying beside her. Then she closed her eyes and a deep wave of longing washed over her. His warmth and his scent was making her feel dizzy and she wished with all her heart that he was lying beside her now. Desire flowed through her like a heavy ache and she felt intoxicated by the thought of their love-making one day. But how was she going to bear the long wait before it was so?
    Alone in her own bed that night, she recalled the first time she’d met Rory, when he’d been brought to Lochlee by friends of her mother, who were interested in buying a nearby property. He was their lawyer and a trustee of a fortune they’d recently inherited, and the moment Laura saw him she’d realized there was something special about him. It was as if she already knew him, and he’d felt the same. That first meeting had been overshadowed by the business in hand, but then he’d written to her – this handsome, dynamic man who was ten years older than her. She still had the letter. And this time next year they would be man and wife. She could hardly wait.
    Downstairs in the breakfast room Lord Rothbury was chucking scraps of ham from his plate on to the floor as he laughed at the way the Highland terriers and poodles were quicker and more efficient at nabbing the titbits in mid-air than the Great Danes and Labradors who blundered clumsily around. Meanwhile, the basset hounds sat watching morosely, unable to compete in the chaos.
    ‘Here, Megan. Here, girl,’ he whispered softly. He fed her a special bit of ham and then stroked her as gently as if she’d been a human baby. Dark liquid eyes filled with devotion gazed back at him. His wife had never looked at him like that in the nineteen years they’d been married, he reflected sourly. Megan didn’t rattle on about money or domestic issues either.
    Lady Rothbury, sitting at the other end of the table, had long since learned to ignore what she considered to be her husband’s