Читать книгу Highland Rogue, London Miss - Margaret Moore, Paul Hammerness - Страница 11

On guard and ready for anything, Esme waited with bated breath.

Fortunately MacLachlann didn’t come any closer. He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and rocked on his heels as he surveyed the room. “I see Augustus hasn’t paid for any redecorating.”

Determined to act as if she were perfectly calm, Esme began to remove her gloves. “Was it really necessary to be quite so primitive? I’m not one of the Sabine women to be carried over the threshold.”

“It seemed appropriate,” MacLachlann absently replied as he strolled toward the cheval glass that was cracked in one corner. “Gad, this place is in worse condition than I imagined. Augustus should have sold it if he was going to let it fall into ruin.”

“Perhaps he expects to return and repair it someday.”

“Perhaps, but I doubt it,” MacLachlann said as he continued toward the barren dressing table, running a finger along the top as if checking for nonexistent dust. Despite the slight state of disrepair, the room had obviously been recently cleaned.

“Your solicitor seems to have hired a considerable staff.”

“Augustus always had a considerable staff.”

“For which, I assume, my brother is paying?” Esme asked as she began to pull the pins from her hair and set them one by one on the dressing table, making a tidy little pile.

“I certainly couldn’t afford it,” MacLachlann shamelessly admitted. “Jamie was well aware there were going to be considerable costs, no matter how much I try to economize.”

“And are you?” she asked.

“As much as possible. Everything will be accounted for.”

As she pursed her lips with disdain, for the money would still be gone, he strolled to the window and pulled back the draperies, peering into what must be the back garden.

“I don’t think I’d be quite so willing to pay so much to help a woman who jilted me,” he said under his breath, as if thinking aloud.

She wouldn’t be so willing to help a man who’d broken her heart, either, Esme silently agreed, but she wasn’t going to make any more confessions to MacLachlann. “My brother is a very kind and generous man.”

“Obviously,” MacLachlann replied, “or he would have left me on Tower Bridge.”

He turned back into the room, and she was sorry to see that the usual sardonic, mocking expression had returned to his features. “Makes me damn glad I’ve never been in love.”

He hadn’t?

“What about you, Miss McCallan? Has any young gentleman ever stirred your heart?”

As if she would ever tell him if one had! “No.”

“Thought not,” he said with another infuriating grin.

Then, without a word of warning or explanation, he suddenly launched himself at the bed and rolled around on it as if he were possessed.

“What on earth are you doing?”

“Making it look as if we’ve been engaged in intimate marital relations.”

“Whatever for?”

“I warned you that the men in my family are passionate.”

Passionate was not what she would call it. “How unfortunate for the women in your family, to be always put upon.”

“Put upon? There speaks a virgin.”

Esme wouldn’t let him make her feel ashamed or ignorant. “Of course I am, and so I shall stay until I’m married.”

He rolled off the bed and onto his feet in one fluid motion. “Until that day, should it ever come to pass—or, I should say, the day after that blessed event—I wouldn’t presume to comment on how other women feel about their husbands’ passionate attentions.”

As she flushed and tried to think of an appropriate response, he started toward a door in the wall to Esme’s right. “Now if you’ll excuse me, my little plum cake, I’m going to change.”

“Isn’t that my dressing room?”

“We have adjoining rooms. As I said, the men in my family are passionate,” he replied, giving her another mocking smile before he left the room.

That evening, delicate bone china sparkled upon the long table covered by fine linen, silver, crystal and lit by candles in silver holders in the earl’s enormous dining room papered in burgundy and with mahogany wainscoting. Footmen stood ready to wait upon the lord and lady, with the butler to oversee them.

Esme, however, was blind to the glories of the expensive setting and scarcely tasted the excellent meal. She was discovering it wasn’t nearly as easy to pretend to be ignorant and silly as she’d supposed. Not only did she have to guard her tongue constantly, but wearing costly clothes like this beautiful, low-cut gown of emerald green silk was also a nerve-wracking torment. She worried she was going to spill wine or soup, a piece of sauced fish or roast beef, on it and ruin it.

It didn’t help that MacLachlann was revelling in the role as lord of the manor, while she was so constrained by hers as his ignorant, vapid wife.

Or that he looked even more handsome in evening dress. The cut of his black evening jacket accentuated his broad shoulders, while his tight-fitting knee breeches and stockings emphasized his leanly muscular legs.

“Yes, the finest gelding I think I’ve ever seen,” he said, referring to the saddle horse he’d bought in London with Jamie’s money and had sent to Edinburgh, as if there weren’t any good horses in Scotland.

She mentally shuddered as she considered how much such an animal and its transportation must have cost.

“Should bring a tidy profit if I ever decide to sell it,” he noted.

Was he telling her that would be the horse’s fate when their task was complete? “You’d sell it?”

“Of course. If I could get the right price, I’d sell it tomorrow.”

So, he didn’t intend to keep it—thank goodness.

“I should be able to get a damn good price for it here. There’s no finer beast in Edinburgh—probably all of Scotland. I trust your mare will be just as fine.”

Esme nearly dropped her sterling silver fork. “You bought two horses?”

Then she remembered she was supposed to be dim, so she added a giggle and widened her eyes. “You don’t mean you bought a horse for me? I don’t ride.”

That was quite true. When she’d been growing up in the Highlands, they hadn’t been able to afford a horse. Jamie had learned to ride later; she never had.

MacLachlann laughed, and this time she did not find the sound of it nearly so appealing. “Well, now that we’re home, you’ll have to learn.”

If ever there was a time to be vapid … She clasped her hands together like a penitent supplicant. “But, Ducky, horses are so big and prancy, I’m sure I’ll fall. You wouldn’t want your dearest love to hurt herself, would you? And you wouldn’t make me do something I really don’t want to do, would you?”

He looked mildly annoyed. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s just a horse.”

Undeterred, Esme put her napkin to her eye and sniffled as if she were weeping. “Is Ducky going to be cruel to his dearest, sweetest love?”

MacLachlann scowled as he reached for his cut-crystal goblet of excellent red wine. “If you really don’t want to ride, very well, don’t.”

“And you’ll sell the mare?”

His frown deepened for a moment, then it was as if he’d suddenly seen an angelic vision. “I should be able to make an even better profit on it,” he declared with obvious satisfaction, “so yes, I’ll sell the mare.”

A predatory gleam came to MacLachlann’s blue eyes. “Dry your tears, my sweet, and come give your husband a kiss.”

With the servants in the room, what could she do except obey? So she did, keeping her eyes demurely lowered and sliding an apparently bashful glance at the nearest footman before she gave MacLachlann a peck on the cheek.