The Pursuit Read Online Free PDF Page B

children. Others simply didn’t care that they would bear the stigma of bearing a child out of wedlock.
    The mother of these two daughters was different still—she simply didn’t like Johnny any more than he did her. That they had produced a daughter between them was a matter of their both being too intoxicated at the time to remember that they couldn’t stand each other. That the same thing had happened again when he’d gone to visit the first daughter—and ended up producing another—was more of a surprise to them than to anyone else.
    But apparently the woman was getting more lenient with the passing of years. Allowing her girls to come to the Highlands for the first time was proof of that, even if she had stipulated it would be for only a week. And Johnny, upon finding out that his girls didn’t yet know how to swim, had suggested that he escort Melissahome so he could make use of the fine lake Kregora overlooked to rectify that fact.
    Melissa had already offered to help with the swimming lesson, but she was appalled that it be done at Kregora. Most of her uncles didn’t know of her fear of that lake. It really was a silly fear, but it was one she couldn’t seem to shake. She’d got it into her head when she was a child that something big and nasty made its home down there, and the lake was so deep that no one had ever been able to swim to the bottom of it to say otherwise.
    So she’d suggested they not wait and instead go to the little pond where she’d been taught to swim and had taken other of her cousins each summer. It might be a bit deep on the one end, but at least you could look down and see that there was only dirt and a few weeds on the bottom.
    But to meet a man like Lincoln Burnett on such a simple outing—it still amazed her, and her reaction to him amazed her even more.
    Johnny’s daughters had been quick to tell him about the stranger who’d stopped by while he was sleeping. He hadn’t been concerned.
    All he’d had to say was “No harm done, or ye’d hae waken me, aye?”
    Which was true enough. As for harm, Melissa couldn’t stop thinking about him. There was no harm in that, as long as she’d be seeing him again, but what if she never did? What if that one simple meeting was going to affect her husband shopping? Now she’d be comparing every manshe met to him. She knew she would. And they’d all be coming up short: not as handsome, not as tall, not as easy to talk to….
    But she’d spent only a moment on those worries, because she was sure she’d be seeing him again. He’d said as much. And he’d seemed as taken with her as she was with him, so she didn’t doubt it.
    In fact, she’d been wearing a silly grin ever since she met him. She was still wearing it as her oldest uncle, Ian One, drove her home the next morning.
    She had six uncles with the name of Ian. Some people might find that strange, but her family didn’t. Considering they all had different mothers, and with the mothers doing the naming, the man these six had been named after hadn’t had much say in it. The numbers had been added to the names by the brothers themselves, to lessen confusion when they were all together. Most of the family used just the name alone—no number—if only one of the Ians was present.
    “You’re verra quiet today,” Ian remarked halfway through the journey. “Worried aboot London?”
    “Nae, no’ a’tall,” she assured him.
    This Ian, being only one year younger than Melissa’s mother, was more like a father to her than an uncle. She wasn’t in the habit of confiding in him any more than she would her father, whereas her youngest uncle, Ian Six, who was only eight years older than her, was more like abrother to her than an uncle, and in him she did confide quite frequently. She would have told him all about her meeting with Lincoln—everything that had been said, everything she’d felt—if he’d been home last night to hear about it.
    But it occurred to her that this