Angus was quiet for a while. “You could stop this. You could tell them you’re not dead.”
“I don’t want to do that,” Trevelyan said. His mouth tightened. “And you bloody well know why. The old woman would make my life hell. She has what she wants. Her precious Harry is the duke and she’ll have the girl’s money. She’ll have everything she wants. Harry’s agreed to fund any expedition I go on, and that’s all I want.”
“And the girl?”
“She’s not my concern!” Trevelyan practically yelled.
Angus looked at him for a while. “I saw you with her. You could’na take your eyes from her. You watched her dance, you listened to her talk. You were…” He paused as he seemed to be searching for words. “You were proud of her.”
Trevelyan turned, put his hand on the mantel, and looked into the fire. “She has a brain. She’s been raised with every advantage and instead of dedicating her life to the next gown to wear, she’s chosen to read and study. She learned Latin just so she could read my books.”
“Oh, aye, the dirty parts.”
“What do you know of the dirty parts?”
“The old priest from the village used to read the Latin parts to me. I paid him in whisky to do so, but I think he would have read them without payment.”
“You vulgar little man,” Trevelyan said but there was no animosity in his voice.
“So you like this girl, yet you plan to let her marry your brother. You know about her grandfather’s will?”
“Yes, I know about it. And it serves her right if she marries a man who isn’t actually the duke. She wants to be a duchess so much that she’s willing to sell herself to a man she doesn’t—”
“Are you about to say she doesn’t love Harry? He’s a fine-looking young man. Looks better than you do, with your frowning face and your pinched look. He’s a mighty fine-lookin’ lad. Any lassie’d be proud to have him for her own. I’ll wager he’ll give her a bairn on their first night together, whenever that will be. I doubt that a fine, strapping lad like Harry will wait ’til the weddin’ night.”
“Quiet!” Trevelyan roared.
Angus looked at him with a sly, smug expression on his brown face. “She said you betrayed her, that you listened to her so you could write about her. You been drawin’ those wee pictures of yours again?”
At first Trevelyan didn’t know what he meant. Since Claire had left so abruptly a few days ago, he’d tried his best not to think of her, about her. He’d tried not to miss her. But he hadn’t been very successful. Twice he’d almost spoken to her. In a mere few days he had become almost accustomed to having her in the room with him. He’d wanted to read her a passage from what he’d written and ask her what she thought of it. He’d wanted to hear more of what she had to say about his writing, because she’d told him, before she knew who he was, that his writing was sometimes boring. Trevelyan told himself not to be vain, but his book sales weren’t what he thought they should have been, and maybe, possibly, she, looking at them as a reader, could help him improve them.
“I believe I made a few drawings, yes,” he said at last.
“They made her think you didn’t like her.”
Trevelyan could only stare at the old man. “Didn’t like her? What have a few drawings to do with whether I like her or not? I make drawings of everyone.”
“Maybe the girl ain’t heard of your abilities. Maybe she don’t know that them drawin’s of yours and that mouth of yours has made people so mad they’ve shot at you, beat you, and more than once tried to kill you, but it ain’t so much as dented your head a bit. Maybe she thinks it ain’t polite for people to laugh at others.”
Trevelyan shrugged, for he still didn’t understand. It couldn’t have been something as small as the drawings that made her so angry that day. Surely it was that she’d just found out he was Captain Baker. He thought that when she got over her fear of him, she’d return. “I shall tell her that the drawings meant nothing and she may return. I meant her no harm.”
“The girls always did want you, didn’t they?” Angus said. “No one else could see it. Not the men, that is. But the girls liked you better than they liked your older brother. He was a handsome devil and he was to be the duke, but it was always you the girls liked.”
“You know nothing of me. I haven’t been here since I was a child.”
“I know more of you than you think, and I’ll wager that that mother of yours knows a great deal too.” Angus lifted one eyebrow. “So now you plan to take Harry’s little American heiress away from him.”
“I have no such intention. I have not so much as touched her.”
“But you’ve spent more time with her than Harry has.”
“That’s his fault, not mine. If I were engaged to her I’d sure as hell not neglect her.”
“Aye, you’d woo her with all the things she likes: with books and words and wearin’ the laird’s plaid.”
“She didn’t know it was the laird’s plaid. She’d never seen it before.”
“But many of the crofters had. Many of them knew who you were that day you sat there and watched them dance. They were dancin’ for the new laird and his lady.”