She affected a tone of breezy banter. “If you believe the past ten years have improved my looks, then you must have thought me very ill-favored when we were young!”
Averting her face, so his sharp scrutiny would not catch a glimpse of the pain her eyes might betray, Claire set off on a leisurely turn around the deck. She heard Ewan’s brisk footsteps following her.
“I can’t deny, Miss Talbot …” He gave a soft chuckle. “In those days, I only had eyes for yer sister.”
“Whereas you now notice other women?” Hard as she tried, Claire could not resist baiting him.
She braced for a sharp retort or a mocking return jab. His gust of laughter, as invigorating as a sea breeze, took her by surprise. “You find my remark amusing?” she asked.
“Aye, in a way.” His eyes sparkled with impudent glee,F much better suited to a young Highland gillie than to a mature man of business in a well-tailored suit. “Ye took me back ten years, is all. To a time when the pair of us liked nothing better than going at each other hammer and tongs.”
His infectious camaraderie could seduce her more easily than other men’s passionate or sentimental lovemaking … if she did not resist.
“Are you saying there was something you liked better than making calves’ eyes at my sister, Ewan Geddes?”
“I reckon ye have me there, lass.” He gave a bark of wry laughter at his own expense. “Likely I’m counting myself too high in yer regard, as well. There must have been plenty of other things ye fancied more than trading friendly insults with a hired boy.”
He was wrong about that. There’d been
nothing
she liked better. At least when he’d answered her thinly veiled insults with comical quips that skirted the edge of outright insolence, she’d been assured of his attention, however fleeting. And she’d had a safe outlet for the futile fury that built up inside her when she’d watched the handsome young gillie showing off for the benefit of her sister.
Claire ignored his question, in case her tone or expression somehow communicated the truth. “Dear me! I wonder where Tessa and her mother can have gotten to?”
Where had Lady Lydiard’s
messenger
gotten to? Claire cast a nervous glance at the quayside. Someone should have been here by now. Timing was critical to her plan.
Ewan leaned against the deck railing, turning his top hat around and around by its brim. “Do ye reckon Lady Lydiard might be dragging her feet?”
His shrewd insight made Claire chuckle in spite of herself. “It
is
the sort of thing she might do to express her disapproval, I’ll grant you. In this case, I doubt it, though.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well …” She chose her words with care, so as not to rouse his suspicion. “I cannot pretend her ladyship is delighted with the prospect of having you as our guest at Strathandrew.”
“Now there’s an understatement if ever I heard one!” Ewan twisted his features into an exaggerated look of disapproval that aped Lady Lydiard’s to perfection.
Biting back a grin, Claire fought the false sense that he was on her side. “My stepmother may be toplofty, but she is no fool. The one thing she wants less than you wooing Tessa at Strathandrew is you wooing her here in London under the noses of all the gossips.”
“So she’ll be here, come what may, looking all grim and disapproving and barely speaking a word.” Ewan tossed his hat in the air, then caught it again. “Would it be wicked of me to hope her ladyship might meet with a wee mishap that would prevent her from sailing with us?”
His suggestion so closely echoed her plan, it took Claire’s breath away. She reached for the deck railing to steady herself. When Ewan’s large brown hand closed over hers, she felt even less steady.
“Are ye all right, Miss Talbot?” The solicitous warmth of his voice and his touch wrapped around her. “I didn’t really mean any harm to yer stepmother, I swear!”
“Of course not.” Claire struggled to rally her composure—something Ewan Geddes had always taxed more than any other man. How would she ever explain her excessive reaction to his jest about Lady Lydiard?
Footsteps sounded behind her and a familiar masculine voice spoke. “Pardon me for interrupting, Miss Brancaster Talbot. I was told to bring you this.”
Claire spun around, barely resisting the urge to throw her arms around her secretary. She was so grateful for his well-timed interruption that she did not even remind him to call her by a single surname.
“Mr. Catchpole, what brings you here?” She took the paper he held out to her, as if she had no idea what message it might contain. “Some problem at Brancasters?”
She handed Catchpole her parasol to hold, so she would have both hands free to open the letter. “I told you, while I am on holiday in Scotland, Mr. Adams and Mr. Monteith will be in charge. If you encounter any serious difficulty … oh, dear!”
* * *
“What’s wrong, then?” Ewan leaned closer to read the note over Claire’s shoulder. Whatever it was, he didn’t much care for the sound of it.
When she glanced up at him, he backed away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to look at your note.”
What must she think of him? First that thoughtless remark about her stepmother, now trying to read her private mail. In the past five minutes, he’d done precious little to dispel the doubts she must have about him as a potential member of her family. He must do better if he hoped to enlist her as an ally in his fight to wed Tessa.
To his surprise, she did not look the least offended. She held out the paper to him. “This concerns you, too. By all means read it.”
If the note concerned him, it could only be about one thing. In his haste to read the message, Ewan fairly tore the paper out of Claire Talbot’s hand. Manners and a good impression be hanged!
He scarcely needed to glance at the closing salutation to know the message had come from Tessa’s mother. The florid, swooping script was everything he would have expected from Lady Lydiard.
“ ‘My dear Claire …’ ” He muttered the words under his breath as he read, squinting to decipher the words. “ ‘I fear Tessa and I will not be able to join you and Mr. Geddes on the voyage to Strathandrew, after all.’ ”
In his mind, he could hear her ladyship speaking those words in a tone of cool, malicious triumph. Gritting his teeth, Ewan struggled through the rest of the note.
“It says Tessa’s ill.” He crumpled the paper in his fist, no longer caring what sort of impression he made on Claire Talbot. “I have to go to her!”
For a moment, Miss Talbot looked as though she meant to prevent him. Something must have changed her mind, though.
“If you feel you must.” She shrugged. “Then by all means, fly to her side.”
For some reason, her willingness to let him go, and her tone of wry amusement, calmed his sense of urgency. “Ye think I shouldn’t?”
“That is for you to decide, of course.” Miss Talbot retrieved her parasol from the fussy-looking middle-aged man who had brought the note. “Thank you for delivering her ladyship’s message, Mr. Catchpole. We will not detain you any longer.”
“Always happy to oblige, miss.” Catchpole regarded his employer with a look that bordered on reverence. “If I may be so bold, I do hope you will enjoy your holiday in the north. You have driven yourself so hard these past three years. It’s about time you had a proper rest.”
Ewan’s clerk had said much the same thing to him on the day he’d made his whirlwind departure for London.
Claire Talbot acknowledged the good wishes with a warm smile. “I do feel the need for a change of scenery. I know I can count on you to keep Mr. Adams and Mr. Monteith up to scratch for me.”
Her shoulders slumped, just a trifle. Beneath her well turned out facade, Ewan thought he could make out subtle signs of fatigue.
Once Mr. Catchpole had departed, she turned to Ewan again. “The note does not say Tessa is deathly ill, only indisposed.” She lowered her voice. “A
feminine
indisposition, perhaps. I fear you would only embarrass her by making a great to-do about it.”
A scorching blush suffused Ewan’s face, right to the roots of his hair. “Of course … I should have thought …”
“Men seldom need to consider such things, Mr. Geddes.” Her brisk tone soothed his chagrin. “I often wish we women could be so fortunate.”
She nodded toward the note Ewan still clenched in his fist. “Lady Lydiard says she and Tessa will come north by train in a few days’ time. I can ask Captain MacLeod to delay our departure for them, but I doubt they would thank me for it, especially if the sea is rough at all.”
“Not good sailors, are they?” Ewan liked nothing better than the sway of the deck beneath his feet. He’d never been able to work up proper sympathy for poor souls who got seasick.
“The worst.” Claire pulled a face. “It was probably selfish of me not to arrange for us all to travel by rail in the first place. It wouldn’t be the same for me, though, going to Strathandrew without a lovely sail on the
Marlet
to get there.”
Ewan found himself nodding. He had been looking forward to the voyage over the Irish Sea and through the southern isles. But Tessa …
“I quite understand,” said Claire, “if you would prefer to wait and accompany Tessa and her mother.”
The prospect of a long journey in a tiny railway carriage with Lady Lydiard made Ewan shudder.
Claire strolled back toward the gangway. “Given the circumstances between you and Tessa, I understand perfectly if you would like to keep as close to her as possible until you are safely wed.”
Pride would not allow him to let that challenge pass. Hurrying to catch up with Claire Talbot, he stepped into her path. “Hold on a minute. Do ye think I’m afraid to let yer sister out of my sight for a few days in case she’ll change her mind about me?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Geddes.” She looked him up and down with a shrewd gaze.
“Are
you afraid?”
“Not in the least.” A faint qualm deep in his belly contradicted Ewan’s emphatic words.
“Sometimes a little fear can be prudent, you know. After all, look what happened when Tessa’s last beau had to be apart from her.”
“That was different,” Ewan insisted. “I came looking for her, to renew our … acquaintance. It wouldn’t have mattered if that Stanton fellow had been stuck to her like wallpaper paste.”
Claire Talbot arched one fine eyebrow. “Wouldn’t it?”
“No!” He felt like a lad again, chafing under her gibes. Only now he couldn’t make himself act as though it didn’t matter. “She cared something for me long ago and I for her. That never went away through all the years since. A few days apart now isn’t going to make any difference.”
Miss Talbot did not look as though she believed him. Perhaps because she sensed the doubts he tried so hard to hide from himself.
“I can prove it!” Ewan regretted those desperate words the instant they left his mouth. But pride would not let him take them back.
For he’d glimpsed a flicker of triumph in Claire Talbot’s cool eyes, mixed with vast relief. The kind he’d seen once or twice in the eyes of a gambler whose bluff had not been called. “You have nothing to prove to me, Mr. Geddes.”
But he did, though. To her. To himself. To Tessa’s mother. He had to prove the lass’s love for him was more than some whim that would go away as quickly as it had come, if he were not constantly by her side to fan the flames.
“I don’t want to impose upon yer sister while she’s feeling poorly.” Ewan dredged up every excuse he could think of to convince himself that Claire Talbot had not maneuvered him into doing what she wanted. “And I must admit, I was looking forward to sailing north on the
Marlet.
I’ve never much cared for trains.”
Claire’s lips twisted into a mocking grin. “Or the continuous society of Lady Lydiard in close quarters over several days?”
“Aye, perhaps.” Another worthwhile reason for making the voyage occurred to him. He would never have a better opportunity to win Claire Talbot over to the notion of him marrying her sister. “Anyway, it’s not fair ye should have to sail all the way up to Argyll without any company.”
“You needn’t feel sorry for me, Mr. Geddes.” She collapsed her parasol with swift, fierce movements. “I have never been a social creature like my sister. I enjoy my own company very well.”
“Strange, Miss Talbot. That’s the second time ye’ve told me not to take pity on ye. Is there some reason I should?”
“Don’t talk nonsense!” She looked half inclined to break her parasol over his head. “Of course there isn’t. It’s just that I get tired of hearing people say what a shame it is I’ve never found a husband. As if I couldn’t have such useless incumbrances by the hundredweight if I wanted them!”
Her vehement tone rocked Ewan back on his heels. And she wasn’t finished yet. “I run one of the most prosperous commercial enterprises in the kingdom, yet there are people who persist in thinking me a failure because I have not snared a husband to sire half-a-dozen children on me!”
Put in those terms, marriage and motherhood did not sound very appealing. Why, then, did Claire Talbot’s voice ache with longing?
What had triggered that preposterous outburst? Claire would rather have sunk beneath the deck or dived into the foul waters of the Thames than continue to face Ewan Geddes. For someone who insisted she did not wish to be pitied, she certainly sounded pitiful.
Fortunately, the captain of the
Marlet
came to her rescue before she expired of humiliation.
“Begging yer pardon, Miss Talbot,” he called, “but the tide’s turning. Do we sit tight or do we sail?”
For a moment, Claire hesitated, stealing a fleeting glance at Ewan Geddes.
It had all been going so well. She’d taken a calculated risk in urging him to stick close to Tessa, rather than trying to entice him to come with her. From their younger years, she recalled that he had often been contrary, doing things he was forbidden, while resisting what he was urged or ordered to do.
Fortunately for her purposes, he appeared not to have changed in that regard. She had challenged his trust in Tessa’s constancy and he had taken the bait. Or rather, he had been
about
to take the bait. Then her pride had reared up, putting her whole plan in jeopardy.