Hero in the Highlands Read Online Free PDF

admit that he had no idea where in London she resided.
    â€œI would, Major. She’s in South Kensington.”
    â€œWell, aren’t you efficient?” Gabriel returned dryly, trying to decide if that was censure he heard in Adam’s voice. If it was, he deserved it.
    â€œI thought you might wish to send her a note and then call on her this evening. You haven’t seen her for some time.”
    â€œNo, I haven’t,” he agreed. “But we’re heading north in the morning. I’ll see her now, or I’ll have to send one of those paper men to talk to her until her ears bleed. I wouldn’t wish that on Bonaparte.” He blew out his breath. “I had Wellington tell me. I have a signet ring the size of a cannonball. Perhaps she’ll appreciate it more than I do.”
    As they headed south toward the bank of the Thames the crowds of carts and pedestrians seemed endless, and his shoulders stiffened. Chaos and noise and bustle were nothing new, but in the army it carried with it an overall purpose and direction. On the main thoroughfares of London, with hundreds of people each concerned only with their own needs, chaos became a completely inadequate word.
    â€œThere, Major.”
    Kelgrove indicated a small, narrow town house on the right, sharing common walls with the dwellings on either side. A rose trellis crawled up the left side of the door and up around the window, while a low hedge of some kind of pink flowers ran along the bottom of the walls on either side of the front trio of steps. “It looks … quaint,” he said, swinging down from Union Jack and somewhat surprised she could afford the rental of such a house with what he sent her, but she evidently spent wisely.
    â€œIt does,” the sergeant agreed. “Shall I wait for you?”
    â€œCome with me. You’re more pleasant than I am.” Taking a deep breath, he swung the brass boar’s-head knocker against the dark green door. The French cavalry didn’t unsettle him. Talking to a young lady with whom he had nothing in common but a set of parents—that was something else entirely.
    A moment later the door opened, and he found himself looking at an older, round woman with her hair tucked into a maid’s cap. “May I help you?” she asked, looking his red and white uniform up and down. “Sir?”
    Marjorie had a maid ? Gabriel cleared his throat. He needed to remember to be polite and civilized. This wasn’t a battlefield. “Is Miss Forrester in?”
    The maid held out her hand, palm up. “Your card, sir, and I shall inquire.”
    His card? “I don’t have a card.” If he did, he would only have to reprint it after today, anyway. “I’m Major Gabriel Forrester. Her brother.”
    Her small eyes narrowed a little. “Wait here, then. I shall inquire, Major.” The door closed on his face.
    â€œRude woman,” Kelgrove commented from behind him. “She would have been falling all over herself if you’d told her you were the Duke of Lattimer.”
    â€œBut then Marjorie wouldn’t know who the devil was calling on her.” He didn’t give a damn what some maid thought of him in the meantime.
    The door opened again. “This way, Major Forrester. Miss Forrester will be down in a moment.” Without waiting for a response the maid motioned him into the room directly off the foyer. Two chairs, a couch, and an end table sat in the center of the small, spare room, with a writing desk shoved against the near wall, a few shelves above it, and nearly every available space covered with bouquets of large, yellow daisies. Even with the fresh flowers, though, the room smelled musty, the closed-in sensation somehow made worse by the pervading scent of lemon verbena.
    â€œThis is very … cozy,” Kelgrove muttered under his breath. “Smells like a funeral, though.”
    Gabriel nodded. The flowers,