Page 46 of My Highland Rogue
“Mrs. Thornton,” he said, inclining his head slightly.
“Would you like to join us?” Jennifer asked.
Gordon pulled out a chair between them. Ellen smiled as she took it, removing her gloves and hat.
“Indeed I should. I’m famished. I wanted to get here as quickly as possible, so we rarely stopped. Has Lauren had her baby?”
Jennifer rang the bell on the sideboard. Before the servants arrived, they spent the next few minutes in a conversation that Gordon would have avoided if he could. It consisted of talk about labor pains, the travails of women, and the mechanics of birth, none of which he wanted to know.
A few moments later Jennifer glanced at him.
“I think we’re scaring Gordon,” she said with a smile.
He wasn’t frightened, but he didn’t want to be privy to this particular conversation. Thankfully,Jennifer took pity on him and changed the subject.
They talked of London, the journey to Scotland accomplished by train as well as carriage, anything but childbirth.
It turned out that Ellen owned a home in London not far from his own town house. He wouldn’t be surprised if they had acquaintances in common as well.
“Are you related to the Adaire family?” he asked Ellen.
She thanked the maid for delivering her soup, then glanced at him.
“You and Jennifer have the same green eyes.”
“How odd. I was just thinking that you reminded me of Alex, but perhaps it’s just coloring.”
“How were you able to convince Harrison to come home?” Jennifer asked.
“It wasn’t me at all, I’m afraid,” Ellen responded. “But the woman who manages Harrison’s favorite club. She was instrumental in convincing him it was time to return home. I think she might’ve threatened him, actually. I’m not exactly sure how she accomplished it, but I’m grateful, nonetheless.”
He shared a glance with Jennifer before asking Ellen, “Are you talking about the Mayfair Club, Mrs. Thornton?”
“That’s it, exactly. How did you know?”
Jennifer looked at him again. “Gordon owns the Mayfair Club.”
Ellen looked startled. “Does he? How very strange. Talk about coincidence.”
Maggie had evidently cut Harrison off, whichmeant that he had no ready money with which to gamble. Gordon didn’t blame her for the decision. He would have done the same if Ellen had come to him.
“However it was accomplished,” Jennifer said, “I’m grateful, too. He should have been back a week ago.”
“London is a lure for men like Harrison,” Ellen said. “They’re young, titled, and wealthy.”
“He’s also married and has responsibilities. Do those simply vanish because he wants to spend his time gambling and even worse?”
Thank God for men who liked to gamble. Without them he wouldn’t be as wealthy as he was. However, there were actually few men as irresponsible as Harrison in his coterie of customers. Most men recalled their duties and performed them without being reminded.
The rest of the dinner conversation centered on people that Ellen and Jennifer knew in Edinburgh. When dinner was over, he excused himself, leaving the two women alone to discuss birth and Harrison’s peccadilloes.
Since it was late, Gordon decided not to go back to the cottage for fear of waking Sean. Instead, he stopped in front of the library, recalling the countess the moment he opened the door.
The myth of Adaire Hall was that it was a place of enchanted happiness. He’d known that was false when he was ten years old and realized how desperately unhappy the Countess of Burfield was. No one else seemed to realize how much she still missed her husband. Either that or she cloaked it well in front of everyone else.
She’d always been honest with him, and he’d reciprocated with telling her how he’d learned the basics of mathematics by playing cards with the footmen. He’d attended the village school, but only until he was nine. The education he’d received there had been considered adequate for his station in life. It was the countess who’d expanded his boundaries.
One day he’d confessed to her that he’d stolen into this library once, just to see all the books. He’d taken one, bound in burgundy leather, and sat with it between his hands, opening it to random pages and wondering at all the words. He hadn’t known many of them. To his surprise she asked him to fetch that same book one day. From then on, she spent at least an hour each day teaching him some of those words. He would say the letters aloud for her, and she would say the word, then they would practice sounding it out and spelling it.
