Highland Rogue

by Deborah Hale

  “Did ye never wonder why I left Strathandrew so sudden?” he asked. “Or were ye so glad to see the last of me that ye didn’t care?”

  “I wondered.” Claire could coax nothing more from her suddenly constricted throat.

  She had wondered, and hoped the timing of his going had been a coincidence. Now she feared she was about to find out otherwise.

  “It was bloody daft of me,” Ewan muttered. “She was so young and it would have ruined her reputation if anybody else had caught us.”

  Claire remembered every stinging word of the lecture she’d received from her father on the subject. Ewan must have got one, too. Her only regret, at the time, had been that someone other than her father had not discovered them, forcing Ewan to marry her.

  Later, she’d been grateful her rebellious wish had not been granted. He would have hated her for what she’d done, and they would have been miserable together.

  Ewan turned to her with a shamefaced grin. “I was young, too—that’s my only excuse. Lads that age, they don’t always think with their heads, if ye know what I mean.”

  Bobbing a hasty nod, Claire lowered her gaze to avoid his. She hoped he would attribute it to excessive modesty.

  “Ye probably wonder what I’m talking about.” He lowered his voice. “The night before ye were to sail back home, Tessa sent me a note, asking me to meet her down by the loch after dark. Yer father caught me kissing her and he sacked me.”

  “I had no idea!” Claire gasped. “When we came back the next summer and found you gone, I assumed you’d grown tired of service and decided for yourself to go to America.”

  Ewan’s large, deft hands clenched into fists and his voice rasped with long-nursed bitterness. “I reckon that’s what I hated most about the whole thing.”

  “My father?”

  “No. Well, besides him. I hated that none of it was my decision. I had no choice but to go.”

  “Were you lonely … at first?”

  “Oh, aye.” His voice ached with raw longing. “Back home, I was part of something. Part of Strathandrew. Part of a clan. Fishing the same beat and hunting the same hills as my father and his father and on back for who knows how long. Across the water, I felt like I had no place.”

  How bleak it sounded! Claire’s throat tightened and her eyes stung.

  “I swore I’d make him pay,” said Ewan in a savage whisper. “That no matter how hard it was or how long it took, I’d get a bit of my own back.”

  His words sent a chill through Claire.

  “I’m sorry.” She turned and stumbled toward the galley way.

  “Claire?” he called after her. “What about supper?”

  “Still full from tea,” she managed to choke out as she fled below deck.

  She did not stop until she was in her cabin, with the door closed and her back pressed against it. Then her trembling knees gave way and she sank to the floor.

  She had been wrong in supposing Ewan Geddes a common fortune hunter. Now she wondered if he might have even darker motives for wanting to infiltrate the Talbot family.

  He had admitted wanting revenge against her late father. How would he react if he found out that she was to blame for his bleak years of exile?

  Chapter Ten

  To think, all these years, that he had suspected Claire of tattling to her father about his tryst with Tessa!

  Ewan scowled at himself in the shaving mirror after another restless night. He had heard the sincere note of distress in her voice when she’d declared she knew nothing about it. He’d seen her features twist in genuine anguish when she’d expressed her regret over what had happened to him. When she’d fled to her cabin without supper, he’d felt a perfect lout for the second time that day.

  Perhaps he should have gone after her last evening, hammered on her cabin door until she came out, then told her the things that had repeated over and over in his dreams the previous night. But it had been the end of a long, exhausting day, and he’d been in the grip of his old grievance. Fearful that he would say the wrong thing and destroy the tenuous bond they’d begun to forge, he had decided to sleep on it instead, hoping he’d be more calm and philosophical in the morning.

  If only he could have slept on it, instead of tossing and turning all night! Now, surveying the dark circles under his eyes, his ham-fisted butchery of a shave and the hair that went every way except how it should, he worried he might scare the poor lass to death.

  When Jockie entered the cabin a few minutes later, he winced at the sight of his old mate. “Call that a shave? Ye look like ye tried to do away with yerself, but made a poor job of it!”

  “Get away with ye! It’s not that bad.” Ewan wetted a corner of the towel and wiped away a few drops of blood, then scooped up a palmful of water from the basin to slick his hair down. “Is Claire … I mean, Miss Talbot, up and about yet?”

  “Aye,” said Jock. “If ye’re quick, ye might catch her at breakfast.”

  “Thanks.” Ewan let Jock help him tie his neck linen. The way he was going this morning, he feared he might strangle himself with it.

  Jamming his arms into his coat sleeves, he hurried off and almost collided with Claire at the entrance to the dining room. He spied a few crumbs on the bodice of her dress, which made him wonder if she’d tried to eat quickly and get away before he came.

  “Good morning, Ewan.” Her tone sounded cordial enough, in a brittle sort of way, and she avoided his gaze as she tried to slip past him. “Enjoy your breakfast.”

  “Claire.” He reached out and caught her lightly by the wrist. “Will ye wait a minute? There’s something I’d like to say to ye … about last night.”

  “Must you?” Her gaze flitted to his face, eyes wide and wary. “Can we not just forget about it? The less said about some things, the better.”

  He did not loosen his firm but gentle grip on her wrist. “With all due respect, I don’t agree. It’s like dirt ye sweep under a rug. Nobody can see it anymore, but with no light or air, that bit of dirt can draw bugs or start to stink. Even rot the rug.”

  She did not like what he was saying. Ewan could see it in her eyes. But she knew he was right and she knew it would be useless to argue with him.

  “Very well, then.” She turned back toward the dining room, reluctant but resigned. “Though I cannot see what good it will do to stir up more painful memories. The past is best left behind.”

  “Aye, perhaps. If we could.” He let go of her wrist, wishing he didn’t have to. “But the past makes us what we are. So, in a way, it’s always with us.”

  Claire pulled a face, as if she were a child and some overzealous nursemaid had just administered a spoonful of foul-tasting but necessary medicine. “I cannot say I care for that notion.” She returned to the table and sat back down before the scarcely touched remnants of her breakfast.

  Then she drew a deep breath, as if to brace herself for what he would say.

  Ewan hauled out one of the other chairs and drew it close to hers. “Listen, I didn’t mean to upset ye yesterday evening. Something about going home again made it all feel so close.”

  He raked his fingers through his hair. “What I’m trying to say is, my past made me what I am today. I’m proud of that, even if I’m not proud of all the things I’ve done to get here.” Perhaps all those sleepless hours had not been wasted if they’d made him understand that. “If I’d stayed back at Strathandrew, where and what would I be today?”

  He didn’t wait for Claire to reply, but answered his own question. “I might have worked my way up to head gamekeeper by now. Married one of the housemaids and struggled to bring up a gang of wee ones on a gamekeeper’s pay. Never set foot more than twenty miles from home in my life. And nights when I had a pint too many down at the Claymore, I’d wonder if I could have made something of myself if only I’d dared go across the water when I was young.”

  “But that would have been different,” cried Claire. “As you said last evening, it wasn’t your choice to go!”<
br />
  “Not my choice to go, maybe.” Ewan shrugged. “But it was my choice what to do once I got there. I could have done what a lot of my workmates did—spent all my wages at the nearest tavern, trying to fill the hole that homesickness chewed in my heart.”

  “You were too clever for that.” Claire’s eyes glowed with such admiration it made him almost giddy.

  “Not clever.” He couldn’t lie to her. “Just proud and bloody-minded. I knew yer father reckoned I’d end up in the gutter … probably wanted me to after I laid hands on his precious daughter. I wouldn’t let him have that, even if he never knew.”

  “So you’re saying my father ended up doing you a good turn by sacking you and shipping you off to America?”

  “I reckon so.” Ewan reached out to pat the back of her hand as a gesture of reassurance. “And I don’t want ye to feel bad about something that was long ago and none of yer doing, because it all turned out for the best.”

  When he tried to retract his hand, it insisted upon lingering.

  “I wish my father were alive now, to see what you’ve made of yourself,” said Claire. “It would serve him right.”

  “Miss Talbot!” Ewan feigned outrage. “Are ye saying ye’d want to see yer own father squirm?”

  Her eyes narrowed and her lips drew tight, lifting a trifle at the corners to produce a cold smile. “Like a worm on a hook.”

  Watching her and hearing the chill in her voice, Ewan wondered if his resentment toward the late Lord Lydiard was a pale ghost compared to the fierce bitterness of his lordship’s daughter.

  She should be relieved that Ewan Geddes was no longer obsessed with revenge … or so he claimed. As another day flew by in congenial companionship, Claire chided herself for having any doubts in the matter. Why must she always be so suspicious?

  Ewan was likely right about the past shaping people’s present character and situation. That was all well and good if a person was pleased with those. And Claire had been.

  Perhaps not pleased, she admitted to herself, but at least content. Ewan’s return into her life had forced her to look a little more closely. She didn’t much like what she found.

  “So, have ye done anything besides work for the past ten years?” Ewan asked as they watched the distant coast of northern Wales drift by. “Was there anyone special in yer life?”

  No one whose company she’d enjoyed half as much as his, these past two days. Was it her fancy, or did Ewan sound more interested in the answer to his question than he should be?

  “What makes you ask?”

  He shrugged. “Ye asked me. I reckon turnabout’s fair play.”

  Though she told herself it was wishful folly, Claire could not help thinking he sounded as if he were trying hard to appear no more than casually interested.

  “Very well,” she said. “But I thought I told you all there was to tell the night of the Fortescues’ ball. I have not been without suitors. In fact, I was plagued with them when I first came out. One or two caught my fancy for a time, but it never took long to discover that the brilliant gleam in their eyes was not love, but greed.”

  “Are ye sure ye weren’t being too hard on some of them?” Ewan’s wide, dark brows drew together in an anxious frown.

  It should not have looked attractive, but it did. Far too attractive. Claire found herself wanting to kiss away that brooding pucker of flesh above the bridge of his nose. As if she had the ability!

  “I mean,” he continued, “maybe a fellow started off wanting to court ye for yer fortune. Like it or not, folks need money for all kinds of reasons, and marrying can be a pleasant enough way to get it.”

  Claire gave a bitter chuckle. “Pleasant for whom?”

  “Both, I hope.” Ewan laughed, too. “If the man does his best to give his bride good value for her money.”

  “Spoken like a true Scot!”

  “Never!” Ewan’s outrage did not look altogether feigned. “We’re a wild, romantic race, don’t ye know? Especially the Highlanders and the Islanders.”

  Dropping to one knee, he grasped the tips of her fingers and began to recite with passionate expression and theatrical gestures, “ ‘My love is like a red, red rose, that’s newly sprung in June. My love is like a melody—’ ”

  She could not bear to hear him speak to her that way, even in fun. He could too easily stir up feelings she was struggling to subdue.

  So she interrupted him in midquote. “Oh, get away with you!”

  A glimmer of wicked glee twinkled in Ewan’s gray eyes, making Claire wonder if she should have left well enough alone.

  “How about this then? ‘So sweet a kiss yester e’en from thee I reft, in bowing down thy body on the bed, that even my life within thy lips I left!’ ”

  A furious blush scorched Claire’s cheeks. It would have been better if he’d stayed with the Burns verse, which had been more sentimental than sensual.

  “Do get up before any more of the crew see you!” she pleaded. “I will admit that Highlanders are vastly romantic.”

  She had always thought so, but she was not prepared to admit that.

  Ewan scrambled up from the deck, still clinging to her hand. “Enough joking, now. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those suitors of yers started out interested in yer fortune. But if they were lucky enough to spend some time with ye, like I have the past two days, they’d soon be glad to have ye for a wife, supposing ye didn’t have two pennies to rub together.”

  Claire tried to compose her features into the superficial smile of someone who had received a flattering but meaningless compliment. Inside, though, her heart felt as if it were being stretched in too many directions at once, while her stomach seemed to have contracted into a hard little knot.

  When she mastered her voice sufficiently, she asked, “Are you telling me I might have let a good catch get away?”

  Ewan seemed not to notice the quaver in her voice, for he was too busy chuckling. “That’s the kind of advice a gillie would give in matters of the heart, isn’t it? And who knows, but it might be true. Didn’t ye tell me there was a man who once gave ye a run for yer money? What became of him?”

  How she wished she could go back to the night of the ball and unsay those words. She was surprised Ewan remembered. He hadn’t seemed to be able to keep his mind on anything but Tessa that evening.

  “The poor fellow had no idea I cared twopence for him.” It relieved the pressure building inside of her to tell Ewan the truth, even if he would never guess she was talking about him. “Not that it would have mattered, of course, because he was in love with someone else.”

  Ewan winced. “I’m sorry. I should have had better manners than to ask.”

  “No harm,” said Claire, trying to make herself believe it. “It’s water under the bridge now, and all for the best, perhaps. It might have turned out we weren’t the least bit suited for one another.”

  For years, that thought had brought her comfort. Now, the better she got to know Ewan Geddes, the more convinced she became that they were suited for one another.

  Ewan seemed to waver between discretion and candor. Candor won. “Don’t ye ever wish ye’d had the chance to find out for certain?”

  “I have quite enough regrets in my life without that one.” Gently, Claire detached his hand from hers, wondering if he’d realized he was still holding it.

  Late that night, Ewan made his way up to the deck of the Marlet, clad only in his nightshirt with a cloak thrown over his shoulders. Unlike the previous two nights, he’d slept well, at first. Later he had woken in the darkness as if stirred by some powerful, silent call.

  All was quiet on deck apart from the usual soothing sounds of the waves lapping against the hull, the soft creak of timbers and the flutter of canvas. The pale, mournful face of an almost full moon cast its ghostly light on the Irish Sea, glinting off the foam on the waves and imparting a soft glow to the billowing sails.

  The first mate had the wheel and he gave a start when Ewan approached h
im. “Not a time of the night I’d be out, sir, if I had any choice about it. Is there aught I can do for ye?”

  “We’ll be off the coast of Scotland soon, I reckon,” said Ewan.

  “Just coming into the North Channel, sir. If ye look off to the east, ye should see the light of Galloway Head before long.”

  “That sounds like a fine idea.” Ewan strode toward the port railing.

  Now he knew what had called him. Home.

  The wind ruffled his hair, as it had the day before. Tonight it felt different, somehow. Like the hand of the father he barely remembered, pulling off his cap when he came home at suppertime. Overhead, a lone gull screeched. The haunting sound rang in his ears like a cry of welcome.

  He gave a start when he heard Claire’s voice behind him.

  “Is everything all right, Ewan?” She sounded anxious for him. What a change three days had wrought between them!

  “Nothing wrong.” He turned toward her. “What are ye doing up this time of night?”

  The moonlight shone on her hair, pulled back in a loose braid. She wore a dressing gown over her nightgown.

  “I couldn’t sleep, so I went down to the dining room to fetch myself a wee dram.” She lifted a glass, as if to prove her story. “On the way back to my cabin, I caught a glimpse of you heading up on deck. Were you having trouble sleeping, too?”

  “Aye, a bit.” That was as good an explanation as any.

  Claire took a sip from her glass, then held it out to him. “There’s plenty here for both of us, if you’d care to share.”

  “I would, thank ye.” He savored the mellow fire of the whiskey on his tongue.

  It was just what the moment needed. So was her company.

  “I envy you this homecoming.” Her hoarse murmur was all but lost beneath the muted chorus of the waves and the wind. “I know you’ve been gone a long while and you’ve missed it terribly, but at least you had it to come back to.”

  Ewan didn’t understand. “You’ve got yer own place in London, don’t ye?”