Highland Awakening Read Online Free PDF Page A

society whispered that he was a slovenly cur.
    However, unfortunate as it was, Cam was the son and heir of an earl, and tonight he needed to look the part.
    “Anyhow,” Fraser said, “your coat and pantaloons are too tight. There’s nowhere to put your pistol without it looking obvious.”
    Cam gave Fraser a “what the hell?” look. “How am I to be protecting Pinfield without a weapon?”
    “Bring your
sgian dubh,
” Fraser suggested.
    Cam crossed his arms, feeling the wool of the coat tighten over the backs of his shoulders in complaint. “I’m to fend off unknown numbers of murderous insurgents with a three-inch blade?” he asked archly. “I ken you have great respect for my prowess in battle, but—”
    “Take a pocket pistol,” Ross said.
    Fraser shook his head. “Even a wee pocket pistol will destroy the lines of the fab—”
    Cam narrowed his eyes. “Do you have yours?”
    The major’s dry voice came from behind the newspaper. “O’ course he does. You ken he never goes anywhere without it.”
    Cam held out his hand. “Hand it over, then. Consider it repayment for making me spend the evening with a group of pompous asses.”
    “Pompous
English
asses,” Ross agreed.
    “Aye. The worst kind,” Cam said.
    With a deep sigh, Fraser pulled the pocket pistol from his coat and handed it over. “Only for tonight, and only because I’ll be taking the night off. I want it back in the morning.”
    Cam’s lips twitched. “Canna stand to spend a night away from your beloved?”
    Fraser wasn’t amused. “That weapon has given me more comfort than any lass ever has. So treat her well.”
    Cam stroked the butt of the tiny pistol with his thumb. It couldn’t have been longer than four or five inches—it fit nicely in the palm of his hand. “Mmm, sleek as a lass’s arse…I can see why you derive such comfort from it. But satisfaction?”
    Giving the gun a dubious look, he turned it over in his hands. Because while he could understand how this weapon might provide comfort, it would offer none of the kind of comfort of the woman he’d held in his arms last night.
    Esme.
He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. All day, she had encroached on his every thought, his every conversation.
    Fraser raised a brow. “Satisfaction is purely physical, my friend. And I dinna need to seek it out; it comes to me.”
    “Tonight, hopefully, it’ll come to us both,” Ross said.
    “Oh?” Cam asked. “Where are you off to while I languish in purgatory with the dullest of the dull?”
    Ross flashed a grin. “Oscar Rohan’s opened a new gaming hell in Covent Garden.”
    Fraser nodded. “We’re going to go see what they have to offer.”
    “Gaming hells usually aren’t populated by lasses,” Cam reminded them.
    “This one is,” Ross told him. “Not only are the lasses allowed to play, but all the employees are female—selected by Rohan for their ‘beauty and grace.’ ”
    Cam whistled through his teeth. “Now there’s something I’d like to see.”
    Not as much as he’d like to see the mysterious Miss Esme again, though. And he
would
see her again. He’d find her, and he’d learn more about her.
    He wanted her, and Cam always found a way to get what he wanted.
Always.
    The major glanced over his newspaper again to give Cam a pointed look. “It’s almost eight o’clock. Time for you to go, McLeod.”
    Cam released a sigh. He wouldn’t be going to a gaming hell tonight. Nor would he be returning to Mrs. Trickelbank’s establishment to find Esme—that would have to wait for another day.
    Instead, he was going to play nursemaid to a pompous lord in a group of tedious aristocrats.
    He tucked the pocket pistol into his coat pocket. It produced the smallest of bulges, though it was large enough to make Fraser groan.
    Cam shrugged and clapped Fraser on the shoulder. “There’s naught to be done about it. I’ll not be going without a weapon.”
    “Right,” Fraser grumbled.
    Cam paused, an