Highland Heiress - By Margaret Moore Page 0,3

he pulled her closer, she should have broken away at once…even if Gordon McHeath’s kiss was like something from a French novel, full of heat and desire and need and yearning.

Worse, she could only imagine what Robbie Mc Stuart would make of this encounter, for surely Gordon Mc Heath would tell him. Soon more gossip about her would spread through Dunbrachie—and this time, it would be all her fault.

As if that weren’t bad enough, it was even more distressing to imagine her father’s possible reaction when he found out what she’d done.

He’d kept his pledge to her for nearly six months now—the longest span yet—and it sickened her to think her thoughtless act might cause him to start drinking to excess again.

Perhaps Mr. McHeath wouldn’t tell Robbie. After all, he was just as guilty of an improper embrace as she.

“My lady, ye’re back! Did ye fall? Are ye hurt?” the gray-haired, stocky head groom cried.

Jem hurried toward her from the entrance to the stables as she entered the yard bordered by a tall stone wall that had once surrounded a castle during the time of Edward Longshanks and William Wallace.

“Yes, I fell, but I’m not hurt. Did Dougal come home?” she asked, speaking of her horse.

“Aye, he’s here, the rascal,” Jem replied. “We were about to start a search for ye. Your father’s going to be that relieved when he sees you.”

Cursing herself again for lingering with the handsome Mr. McHeath, even if he was a tall, tawny-haired, strong-jawed, brown-eyed young man who looked like one of those Greek statues she’d seen in London, she hoped she wasn’t already too late…until she remembered all the wine and spirits were locked away and she had the only key. It wasn’t like Glasgow, where her father had only to go down the street to a tavern.

Nevertheless, she walked quickly through the new part of the manor that had been built by the previous earl, past the kitchen and buttery, the laundry and the servants’ dining room.

The delightful, homey smells of fresh bread and roasted beef filled her nostrils, and she felt a pang of nostalgia for the old days, before her father had started to drink heavily and before he’d come into his title and inheritance.

She reached the main floor of the house and the corridor leading to the library, her father’s study and the drawing room. The drawing room was part of the new building; the entrance hall with its dark oak panelling, the study and the library were not. Other rooms had been added in the times between the construction of the castle and the renovation and additions to the manor, so that now the country seat of the Earl of Dunbrachie was an amalgam of every architectural style from the Middle Ages to the Georgian period. She’d spent many hours when they first arrived here exploring all the nooks and crannies, cellars and attics, discovering forgotten pictures and furniture, dust, cobwebs and the occasional dead mouse.

Pausing for a moment to check her reflection in one of the pier glasses that were intended to brighten the otherwise very dark hall, and taking some deep breaths to calm her nerves, Moira removed her bonnet and laid it on the marble-topped side table beneath the mirror, then patted down the smooth crown of her hair.

“Moira!”

She turned to find her father in the door of his study. He was obviously agitated and his dishevelled thick gray hair indicated that he’d run his hands through it repeatedly.

“What happened? Are you hurt?” he asked as she approached. He took hold of her hands as he studied her face and clothes.

She decided the least said about what had happened that day, the better. “I’m quite all right. I took a tumble and Dougal ran off, so I had to walk back.”

“I was about to go after you myself.”

That explained his riding clothes—which he rarely wore, because he was no horseman, having spent most of his life in offices, mills and warehouses. Thank heavens she’d arrived before he’d gotten on a horse.

“I’m fine, Papa, really,” she replied, taking his arm and steering him into his study, which was the one room in the vast hall that seemed most like their old home in Glasgow.

As always, her father’s massive mahogany desk was littered with various papers, contracts, ledgers, quills, ink bottles and account books, for although he’d inherited a title and estate, he continued to oversee his business interests back in Glasgow. It looked a mess, but no