Hero in the Highlands Read Online Free PDF Page A

be more respectful.”
    The sergeant snorted. “You do recall when they assigned me to your service? You ordered me to always give you an honest opinion, because firstly doing otherwise could get one of us killed, and secondly any flattery was wasted because you had no rich relations who could reward my bootlicking. You are the rich relation now, Your Grace, but I’m assuming your previous orders still stand.”
    After the sycophants of this morning, that seemed refreshing. “For God’s sake, yes. And ‘Major’ will do. I don’t intend to be ‘Your Graced’ enough to become accustomed to it.”
    â€œI know you said you meant to return to duty after you have this mess straightened out, but…” Kelgrove said, then let the sentence trail off. “You should do as you wish, of course.”
    â€œI’ve put a lifetime of sweat and blood into the army, Adam. I’m good at it. I’m too old and too stubborn to take on something this grand, and too plainspoken to want anything this frivolous. As you said, it was thrown at me. I should have ducked.”
    â€œI’ll second that. As I am four-and-thirty and four years your senior, however, I’m willing to go a few rounds arguing that you’re old.”
    Despite the quick change of subject, Gabriel heard the hesitation in his aide’s voice, and he damned well knew from whence it came. A duke in combat would be nearly unprecedented, at least in this century. But he would find a way. He couldn’t imagine any other alternative. “Damnation,” he muttered aloud. Every damned man who had a duke for a father should be obligated to marry and procreate well before he inherited, just to be certain the title had an heir. Otherwise, dirt-beneath-their-nails men like him found their own lives ruined for no damned bloody reason but that wealth needed an owner.
    â€œScotland, eh?” Kelgrove went on. “I’ve never been to Scotland. Been to India, Portugal, Spain, and bits of France, but not to Scotland.”
    â€œI’ve never been, either,” Gabriel replied, lifting his gaze but unable to see the horizon for all the buildings. “A few weeks there, and I’ll have Lattimer Castle set right and a new steward put in place to oversee it.”
    And then back to the Continent, the sooner the better. He’d asked for—and been given, with an absurd amount of ceremony—six weeks’ leave, which at least indicated that the army did want him back. Whatever plotting and planning his military superiors might be up to with regard to his new title, the thought of returning to Spain and the war was the only thing keeping him from pummeling everyone in his path and fleeing to the Colonies. At least they didn’t have dukes in America.
    â€œHave you thought about what you’ll tell your sister?” Kelgrove asked, pitching a shilling to an orange girl and catching one of the fruits in return.
    Devil take it . Gabriel drew Jack to an abrupt halt. He’d been sending half his salary to his sister since he’d joined the army at age seventeen. Nine years his junior, Marjorie had always seemed so … young, and far too delicate for a rough-hewn man like him to be raising. He’d seen her sent to the best boarding schools he could afford, because that had seemed far more helpful than his presence. That, though, was no excuse for not even thinking about her now. Neither was the unexpected timing of his trip to London. If his circumstances had altered, so had hers. And someone needed to tell her that.
    According to the papers he’d spent the past three days signing, she’d just become the sister of a duke. At the least she needed to know that her monthly income would be increasing by a number he couldn’t even fathom.
    â€œYou wouldn’t happen to have her address to hand, would you?” he asked, wheeling to face his aide and refusing to