Page 83 of The Texan Duke
“I’m sure he was heard, Your Grace,” Addy finally said. “He’s always heard.”
A great many things about Scotland, he was discovering, were rooted in lore. It’s because his ancestors, people he’d never before considered, had lived and breathed and dreamed in this house or Castle McCraight for five hundred years.
Texas, in comparison, was almost raw and new. Not much was older than a hundred years, unless you counted the missions dotting the land.
The second ghost was an older one, a haunt from the original Castle McCraight. This ghost, the White Lady, according to Addy, was sent to a McCraight as a warning of danger.
Elsbeth might be a ghost as well.
She’d disappeared after her startling announcement that one morning and he hadn’t seen her since.
Every morning he’d come to the kitchen, expecting her to be there. She wasn’t. Addy had apologized to him, stating that Elsbeth had wanted a tray in her room. He hadn’t said anything further, not that morning or the next, or for the past damn week.
She couldn’t say something like that, and then vanish as if her words hadn’t meant anything.
Seduce him? She was supposed to seduce him?
He’d almost gone to his aunt and demanded to know what was going on, but he’d stopped himself at the last moment. Of the two women, he trusted Elsbeth more than the duchess, a fact he didn’t examine too deeply. He wouldn’t have been surprised if Rhona had suggested the ploy to Elsbeth.
Have you ever heard anything more ridiculous?
He’d been so startled that he’d told her the truth: no, he didn’t think it was ridiculous at all. It might well have worked, too. At least he hadn’t said that.
Didn’t she realize how beautiful she was? Or that he thought she was one of the most fascinating women he’d ever met? She played with puppies and inspected cattle, handled domestic crises and lectured him on history, all with the same grace.
He could see himself being with her, images that had warmed him ever since that morning.
Why was she avoiding him?
Had he misinterpreted her question? Had the idea of being with him appalled her? Was that why she’d been a living ghost of Bealadair?
He wasn’t going to chase after a woman who evidently didn’t want to be around him. If he visited Daniel to inquire after the Scottish collies, that’s just because he wanted to go. If he’d gone to the stables at least twice a day, it wasn’t to catch sight of her on her mare, but merely to ask a few questions of the stablemaster. Nor was he acquainting himself with the whole of Bealadair, sprawling as it was, to catch sight of her.
He’d drawn Elsbeth and he rarely drew portraits. When he sketched something, it was to explain it to another person who hadn’t been able to see it, or to remind himself of something that needed to be done. Yet he found himself capturing her smile of delight, her annoyed frown, and the look on her face as she patted the flank of one of the cows.
He was an idiot. He had a hundred other things he could be doing rather than think about a woman who was so obviously avoiding him.
Elsbeth worked as hard as the most diligent servant. He heard her name constantly throughout the day, since she seemed to be the source of all knowledge about Bealadair from the old wing to the original castle.
He missed her, and that both annoyed and concerned him. He’d spent too much time thinking about a woman he barely knew. But she really couldn’t mention seduction, and then disappear for days.
He didn’t have all that much experience with women, but that didn’t seem to stop his imagination. He was all for taking things he’d learned and practicing on Elsbeth, and if that wasn’t the height of idiocy as far as thoughts went, what was?
“You’re spending entirely too much time with the American, Mother,” Lara said.
Rhona looked over at the settee in front of the fire. Her stepdaughter half reclined there, as if she’d invited Lara into her sitting room. Lara and Felix had both gotten too lax in their courtesies and too bold in their demands.
When Connor sold Bealadair—and Rhona was almost certain that terrible event would indeed happen—she had no intention of taking Lara and her husband under her wing. Gavin had been extraordinarily generous to all his daughters. It was not her concern if Felix was doing his utmost to spend his wife’s legacy instead of investing it for his future.
He was going to have to provide for Lara sometime. Rhona was not going to do it.
“I’m assuming you are speaking of Mr. Kirby,” she said. “Although I don’t know why you would think it any of your concern how much time I’m spending with the man.”
“He’s from Texas, Mother. He isn’t your type at all.”
Rhona drew herself up, frowning down at Lara, who was sprawled in the corner of the sofa. The girl looked as if she wasn’t going to move, short of being shouted out of the room.
She finished fixing her bracelet and came and sat on the matching chair, facing the younger woman.
