The Tartan Touch Read Online Free PDF

production and the whole way back to the hotel in the taxi. Mr. Fraser gave me a kindly look as we entered our suite .
    “Goodnight,” he said. “Sleep well.”
    I held the chocolates more tightly than ever. “Goodnight, Mr . Fraser,” I said.
    In the morning, he woke me himself. I had been dreaming of the manse and that my father was alive, far away from the luxury of the life I was living now.
    “ Ciamar a Tha ?” I asked him in Gaelic, forgetting where I was.
    “ Tha gu math ,” he answered easily. “I am well.”
    “Oh, Andrew,” I said, “I didn’t know you had the Gaelic!”
    “A few words,” he dismissed it lightly.
    I sat up and hugged my knees, well pleased with life, “Whoever would have thought it!” I remarked with pleasure.
    “With a name like Andrew Fraser?” he reminded me haughtily.
    “And with an accent such as yours!” I laughed at him.
    “While you speak the Queen’s English, I suppose,” he said, offended.
    “Well, so I do!” I claimed. “Don’t I?”
    ‘You speak Gaelic better!” He picked up the telephone beside my bed and ordered breakfast for us both.
    “Come on, Miss MacTaggart,” he said, “it’s time to get up!”
    Miss MacTaggart indeed! And he alone with me in my bedroom! I was getting to be the next best thing to a scarlet woman!
    “Yes, Mr. Fraser,” I said demurely .
    “It was Andrew earlier,” he reminded me quickly.
    “Och, that was a slip o f the tongue!”
    “Was it indeed, Mrs. Fraser?”
    I took fright. My sense of well-being depended entirely on Andrew Fraser’s goodness, I remembered uneasily. My position was more vulnerable than I cared to think about .
    “I—I’ ll; try to remember,” I promised.
    “See that you do,” he said.
    I was in a subdued mood as I packed my new clothes in the bag I had brought with me from the manse. They were beautiful garments, very much what Mrs. Fraser would wear as a matter of course. Perhaps it was that that added to my sense of disquiet, for I was only Mrs. Fraser by pretence, and Kirsty MacTaggart had never worn anything other than a simple dress, or a skirt, with my plaid, or my winter coat, to keep me warm .
    Even so, my luggage came to the half of Mr. Fraser’s. He had a matching set of leather cases, all of them bulging with clothes of one sort and another. He wasn’t one to deny himself when it came to his own comfort, but then he was a different man from the one my father had been. It was all part of the quandary I was in, for I had an eye for such things like any woman, but I could still be shocked at squandering money on fine raiment.
    The porter had to make two trips to our room. I thought we might well have carried some of the baggage down ourselves, but Mr. Fraser prevented me with a frown. Some friends of his had gathered in the foyer of the hotel to say goodbye to him and he put his hand on my elbow and introduced me to them as his wife. Not one of them showed by so much as a look that they were surprised, or even that they thought he might have done better.
    “ Good on yer, Andy!” one of them yelled across the muffled foyer suddenly.
    Mr. Fraser smiled at him. It was a shock to me, for I had never really seen him smile before. His face had been set by looking into the sun and long distances and he seldom saw the need to disarrange his expression for any reason.
    “ Good on yer, mate,” the man said again, pumping Mr. Fraser’s arm up and down. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to the missus?”
    “Too right I am!” Mr. Fraser agreed. He pushed me forward and the man ducked his head and gave me a smacking kiss on the cheek.
    “That’s for the lovely bride!” he grinned at me.
    I went scarlet, but I managed to mumble something suitable, and retreated closer to Mr. Fraser and, I hoped, his protection.
    “Kirsty,” Mr. Fraser said gravely, “this is Frank Connor, one of our nearest neighbours in the Murchison.”
    “I’ll be seeing you there!” the man assured me. “You