Page 18 of The Scot's Perfect Match
“Oh no,” Ava said quickly, shaking her head, ignoring the cold tremor up her spine. “No’ yet. I’m quite busy helping my father take care of the estate, and himself.”
Moira nodded. “Family first.”
“Quite right,” Ava agreed.
But even as she said it, a little pain in her chest started, sudden and unexpected. Where did that come from?
She thought back to last night, dancing with Lachlan and Gavan, the flirtation, the laughter, watching all of the other people enjoy their evening and their partnerships. Was she missing out on something?
She suppressed a shudder at the idea of being vulnerable in front of someone, the idea that she might end up rejected for her own feelings. She knew too well what that sting felt like, and she had no interest in feeling it again. It was much easier to manage other people’s love lives than her own, and much safer to boot. Besides, she valued her freedom as a noblewoman in Scotland versus England and didn’t need to marry. If she’d been an English born lady, her father’s lands and coin would have gone to the next male kin, but in Scotland, her father had been able to parse out his estates equally to his daughters. Even if there seemed to be some sort of pain happening in her chest at the moment that she did not appreciate.
She smiled at Moira, masking the twinge of emotion. “Now, let’s talk about colors for this garden party. Ye’ll need a gown that will make Mr. Ferguson stop in his tracks.”
Moira blushed again. But even as Ava basked in her small triumph, that strange little ache tugged at her again. The same one she’d felt watching the dancers last night. She pushed it down, the way she always did. Matches were easier to make for other people. Safer, too.
Gavan paced the length of his study, the old boards creaking under his boots with every turn. He’d walked the same path so many times in the last hour that the rug beneath his feet had a faint track worn into it. By the end of the season, he wouldn’t be surprised if he was walking right through to the floorboards.
Every so often, he’d stop at the window, staring out over the land as the late-afternoon light bled into grey. The hills rolled away from the house in soft, deceptive calm, sheep grazing in distant clusters, their wool flashing pale against the darkening green. Beyond them, the crofts dotted the horizon, several lay empty, their windows like unblinking eyes. Gerald’s cottage among them.
It should have been peaceful. It wasn’t.
Four bouquets. Four suitors.
He stopped pacing long enough to picture the scene as he’d found it that morning: the entry table nearly buried beneath flowers. Roses, lilies, hothouse orchids in colors that didn’t belong to the Highlands, each one accompanied by a neatly embossed card. Lachlan Ferguson’s bold hand on one. McRae’s more restrained scrawl on another. And the other two, John Kinnaird, who spent more time in taverns than in church, and Alistair Boyd, whose debts in Edinburgh were whispered about as freely as his supposed charm.
Gavan knew them all.
Ferguson was easy enough to read: dazzling on the surface, all smiles and practiced compliments, but men like that rarely stayed long. He’d leave the same way he arrived, suddenly and with little thought for the wreckage he caused. Plus, Gavan knew something about Ferguson, something that would spoil any maiden’s interest.
McRae was steadier, quiet, the kind of man who’d rather read than lead a conversation. Dependable, perhaps, but dull. Moira would tire of him within the month.
Kinnaird was worse. He had charm, aye, but he also had a fondness for the bottle that soured his reputation faster than ale soured in the cask.
Boyd, though, Boyd was harder to dismiss. A good enough man, pleasant company, kind when it counted. But he was down on his luck, his finances as thin as his smile had been the last time Gavan saw him in Edinburgh. It wasn’t vice so much as circumstance that dragged him low, but Gavan couldn’t ignore what that would mean for Moira if she tied herself to him.
The display had been enough to make his jaw ache from clenching.
He’d asked her about them, trying to keep his tone level. “All these in one morning, Moira?”
She’d only laughed, her delight entirely untempered by his disapproval. “Is it no’ marvelous? Four callers in one day! It’s more than I could have ever dreamed for the entire season.”
Marvelous wasn’t the word he’d use.
The image of those cards, those flowers, a battlefield dressed up in ribbons and perfume, stayed with him now as he paced. This wasn’t harmless attention. It was the beginning of something, and if Moira couldn’t see that, he’d have to see it for her.
At breakfast Moira had been all bright-eyed delight and unguarded excitement. For her, it was thrilling. For him, it was a warning bell.
Lachlan Ferguson was trouble enough on his own, Gavan had seen the way Ferguson worked a room, how quickly people warmed to him. Men like that always wanted to be adored. He’d met a dozen of them in London, and none ended well for the women they left behind.
He turned from the window, running a hand over his face.
How was he meant to keep her safe when it seemed as if every bachelor in Scotland was determined to line up at her door?
His uncle had entrusted him with Moira’s care for the summer after her London season had left her without a proposal of marriage, and her mother had passed away leaving his uncle completely bereft. Her future, her happiness, her reputation, all of it sat on his shoulders. He couldn’t simply forbid her from entertaining these men. She’d only resent him for it. But neither could he allow her to free to fall for empty words and practiced smiles. He’d even gone so far as to instruct her lady’s maid in exactly what to look for while chaperoning.
His gaze shifted back to the crofts beyond the glass, to the place where Gerald should still be. The hollow ache of that loss tightened his chest.
He was losing ground, not just with Moira, but with his estate.
