Wild (Regency Scandal 2), Carole Mortimer [novels for teenagers .TXT] 📗

McGregor household were addressed as Mrs. out of courtesy for their position, but only one of them was actually widowed.

The housekeeper, Esme Munro, had come to work for Elena and Hugh after her husband, Fergus, was killed fighting against Napoleon’s army.

As Cat had no wish for the gentleman to see her dressed in this way, she was already plotting a route inside her head where she might enter the house without coming anywhere near the parlor where their guest waited for his refreshment. “Please tell Mrs. Munro I shall join my guest shortly.”

“Yes, miss.” The girl gave another flustered half curtsey before hurrying away to pass the message to the housekeeper.

Malcolm looked up at her with trusting eyes as blue as the sky. “Who do you suppose it is?”

Cat was starting to feel a heaviness in her chest that warned of an impending doom.

Chapter Two

Andrew had to say he was pleasantly surprised by the inside of this manor house perched beside the loch. It wasn’t as richly furnished as his own homes were in London and on his country estates, but the parlor in which he was to be served tea was very pleasant nonetheless.

The warm wooden flooring had occasional rugs on it; the couch and chairs looked well-worn but comfortable. The paintings upon the walls were not ones he would have chosen for himself, but they fit with their surroundings in that they depicted the local flora and fauna.

Except for the painting above the unlit fireplace.

That one was of a lady wearing a deep blue gown and seated on what looked to be the same couch as was in this room. Her hair was the deepest auburn Andrew had ever seen and gathered in loose curls and secured at her nape with a pretty blue ribbon. Her eyes were that same deep blue as her gown and filled with a happiness that literally glowed from within those depths. The off-the-shoulder gown revealed her shoulders and the tops of her breasts as being that milk-white color so common to redheads.

Andrew’s gaze returned to her face and the mischief gleaming in those dark blue eyes. Mischief and a love of life so tangible, it could not be contained.

She was, without a doubt, the most stunningly beautiful woman Andrew had ever seen.

“That is Margaret.”

Andrew turned at what sounded like a vaguely familiar and attractive voice. Only for every thought to leave his head, his heart to cease beating, his breath to arrest in his lungs, and his mouth to become so dry, it felt as if his tongue were stuck to the roof of his mouth as he stared at a young woman so like the one in the painting, she might have sat for the artist. Only the dated style of the gown worn by Margaret said otherwise.

“My mother.” The young lady confirmed his thoughts.

As was usual when he was unsure of anything, Andrew grasped and then raised his eyeglass to peer down his nose at the young woman.

Now that his heart had begun to beat again and the breath to once again leave and then refill his lungs, he could see this was indeed a different young woman than the one in the portrait.

This young lady was far younger, possibly twenty, or a year or so either way. Her dark auburn curls were secured at her crown, in keeping with the fashion of today. Likewise, she wore a high-waisted gown of pale blue. Her features were also more finely drawn, with faint shadows visible beneath those deep blue eyes against her milky-white skin, as if she had recently suffered great sadness. The expression in her beautiful blue eyes was wary rather than glowing.

He lowered the eyeglass before giving a brief bow. “Forgive me for not having immediately introduced myself. I am Andrew Belgrade, the Duke of Essex.”

Exactly who Cat had begun to suspect he might be!

Elena had told them of her only brother, fourteen years her senior. How kind he had been to her when she was a child, and how much he had changed after the scandals involving their parents, followed by the death of his father under less than acceptable circumstances. Their mother, Elena had said, was believed to be on the Continent somewhere, living with the man who had been the family butler.

Elena claimed her brother had been different following those events, having become cold and distant and so very prim and proper. Elena had chafed against the rules her brother had put in place and expected her to follow, in private as well as in public.

Her brother was not a hypocrite, Elena had defended, in that he had also rigidly followed those strict dictates of decorum and behavior.

Upon hearing this, Cat had promptly dismissed even the existence of the stiff and unyielding Andrew Belgrade. But when Elena and Hugh had died so suddenly two months ago, she’d had no choice but to immediately write to the haughty duke to inform him of his sister’s passing.

Learning the contents of her brother’s will some days later had required Cat write Essex another letter.

When she had received no reply to either missive, Cat had assumed—foolishly, as it now turned out—that the cold and arrogant duke had no interest in the fate of his young nephew.

Because here Andrew Belgrade was, and appearing twice as formidable as Elena had described him as being. He also wielded that eyeglass as a shield between himself and others.

Cat was predisposed to dislike the man who had been so unyielding in his dealings with the warm and lovely Elena that she had rebelled against those strictures, so much so that within a week of meeting Hugh, the two of them had eloped to Gretna Green. Not that Cat was complaining as to that outcome. She had loved Elena dearly, the two women having become as close as real sisters within days of meeting each other.

Elena had been full of joie de vivre and had instantly fallen in love with everything about her new