Highland Rogue Read Online Free PDF

Stanton abused. Not even by his own fiancée.
    “Delays that were your idea, may I remind you! Spencer has only wanted to give you time to be certain of your feelings. Would you rather he’d blustered and bullied you to get his own way, like some men?”
    “Of course not.” Tessa sighed. “Spencer’s been perfectly sensible and selfless, as always, and I feel ghastly about—” she hesitated over the word, then steeled herself and spat it out “—jilting the dear fellow. But I cannot go through with the wedding when I’m head over heels in love with another man, now, can I?”
    It made a sort of topsy-turvy sense, though not a kind Claire could have much sympathy with. If she had given her word, and the gentleman in question had done nothing to make her change her mind, she could not have brought herself to break her promise.
    “If you ask me, head over heels does not sound like a very balanced frame of mind in which to make such an important decision.” Claire reached across the low tea table to rest her hand on top of her sister’s. “For Spencer’s sake and especially for your own, please do not act in haste. How much do you really know about Ewan Geddes, after all?”
    His name came far too readily to her tongue, curse him! It gave her a ridiculous little rush of pleasure to wrap her lips around it. And to hear it spoken by her own voice … as if that granted her some secret sense of ownership.
    Worse yet, the sound of it conjured up a vivid image of the man, and a disturbingly intense memory of how it had felt to whirl around the dance floor in his arms, his voice beguiling her more deeply with every word. It was bad enough she hadn’t been able to get him out of her thoughts last night. If he was going to plague her during the day, as well, how would she get anything done?
    “Claire’s right, dear,” Lady Lydiard chimed in, speaking those words for the first time her stepdaughter could recall. “I disapproved of this man when I believed he was simply a stranger from America. But when Claire informed me he was one of our servants … Such an alliance would be out of the question, even if you weren’t already engaged! Really, you might have told me.”
    “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d fuss. And why should it be out of the question, Mama? You always say what marvelous servants we have.”
    Lady Lydiard’s patrician countenance took on a look of horror, like a fastidious clergyman listening to heresy. “Marvelous
in their proper places,
dear.”
    “Proper places—tush!” Tessa sprang from her spot on the settee and began to pace the morning room, her delicate hands gesturing wildly as she spoke. “You know I have no patience with that kind of thinking. People are people.”
    Where had Tessa picked up her egalitarian notions? Claire wondered. From reading Mrs. Trollope’s novels at an impressionable age? From the handsome but radical-minded tutor their father had dismissed after discovering just how revolutionary some of the young man’s views were? Or was it a natural expression of the rebellious streak her younger sister had displayed as far back as their nursery days?
    “Besides …” Tessa made a dramatic sweeping gesture that almost spelled disaster for an Oriental vase perched too close to the edge of the mantelpiece. “Ewan Geddes is nobody’s servant anymore. He is a perfectly respectable man of business in a place called Pittsburgh. And quite prosperous, I dare say. He was able to afford a holiday in London, after all, and his clothes are very well tailored.”
    The exchange between her sister and stepmother had given Claire a chance to rally her composure. Now Tessa’s words reminded her of something else.
    “I’ve made inquiries about Mr. Geddes, as it happens.”
    Tessa’s mouth fell open. “What gives you the right to pry—”
    Lady Lydiard interrupted her daughter. “Do be quiet, dear, and listen to what your sister has to say. What did you find out,