Page 118 of The Texan Duke
No.
She couldn’t have left him.
He’d never needed anyone before. Not the way he needed her. Not the way he wanted her. He’d imagined her in Texas, in his home, being friends with his mother, his sisters.
He’d thought about her carrying his child, being the mother of his children, standing with him during good times and bad.
She couldn’t have left him.
This past week they’d talked about myriad subjects. He’d asked her opinion, had begun to tell her things he’d never divulged to anyone else.
When he wasn’t with her, he was with Glassey or Sam, signing endless reams of papers, delegating tasks, arranging for extra wagons and carriages, making arrangements to leave Scotland.
Perhaps he should have explained everything to her. Perhaps he should have laid it out for her, bare and unadorned, but he had wanted everything finished before he did.
She’d left him.
He was just going to have to find her.
All Douglas knew was that she’d taken one of Bealadair’s carriages and gone to Inverness. Where, the man didn’t know. Nor did Addy. Glassey turned out to be the only person with that information and the man was stubbornly refusing to share it.
“I don’t believe that Miss Carew would be pleased if I gave you her whereabouts,” the solicitor said.
Connor was close to pummeling the man when Glassey looked at him with pity in his eyes.
“Do I have your word that you’ll not upset her in any way? Leaving Bealadair was difficult for her.”
“She didn’t need to leave,” Connor said, each word feeling as if it had the weight of a millstone.
“She gave word for her trunks to be sent to this address,” Glassey said, scrawling something on a piece of paper. “It’s a solicitor friend who’s handled a few matters for us in the past.”
Armed with the address, Connor returned to the stables. After speaking with Douglas and getting directions to Inverness, he made the decision to take Samson instead of a carriage.
The stallion acted as if it was a treat to be out and about on the frigid day. What was it about a Highland winter that made it colder than anything he’d ever experienced? He wasn’t going to stay here long enough to figure it out.
They reached Inverness in less than an hour, the journey made faster because of the cleared macadam road.
Connor had never been to the city and didn’t know his way around, but he discovered that Scots were nearly as friendly as Texans. He got good directions from one man, with a second directing him to a livery in case he wanted to stable Samson for a while.
He declined, seeing one of the Bealadair carriages in front of the solicitor’s office. He told the driver that he was going to tie Samson’s reins to the back of the vehicle. The man nodded and offered to help, but Connor waved him back to his seat. The rider who couldn’t handle his own mount shouldn’t be on a horse.
As he started up the steps, Elsbeth opened the door of the office. She saw him and hesitated, the two of them staring at each other.
She was wearing gray, a dress and coat he’d never seen before, an outfit that emphasized the color of her eyes and made her even more beautiful.
Now that he was here, now that he was standing just a few feet away, he didn’t know what to say.
He shouldn’t have worried. Elsbeth didn’t give him a chance to talk.
“Did you buy my house?” she asked, slowly descending the steps. “Why did you buy my house?”
“What?” he asked, taken aback by her attack.
She stopped two steps above him and pointed one gloved finger in his direction.
“Why would you do such a thing? The solicitor said that the house I was going to buy was already purchased by the Duke of Lothian. You’re the Duke of Lothian. Why did you buy my house?”
“I boughtahouse,” he said. “But I didn’t know it wasyourhouse. Glassey arranged the purchase.”
