he finished with a laugh, his grip strong and firm. “Just a little too much of the juice of the grape last night.”
That would certainly explain his appearance. And Robbie had never been much of an eater. But it was his hearty handshake that convinced Gordon there was nothing seriously amiss with his health.
“Let’s have a drink. I’m sure you need one,” his friend continued as he went to a cabinet and poured some amber-colored liquid into two glasses. “The roads around here can make for a damned uncomfortable ride.”
Although Gordon suspected Robbie had already been drinking more than was good for him, he was tired and thirsty and accepted the whiskey. “Thank you.”
Robbie downed his neat. Still holding the glass, he ambled toward the ornately carved hearth. “I suppose you were surprised to get my invitation.”
“I was delighted,” Gordon truthfully replied. And very happy to have a good reason to be away from Edinburgh for a while.
Robbie fingered his glass and looked down at the empty interior. “Yes, well, I confess my motives weren’t completely selfless. I’ve had a bit of trouble, Gordo.”
Involving a beautiful young woman whose passion could send a man reeling? God, he hoped not!
Nevertheless, he managed to calmly reply. “I see. What sort of trouble?”
Robbie gestured toward the sofa closest to him. “Sit down and I’ll tell you all about it—or do you want a bite to eat first? I’ve got a new cook, a Frenchman. Can’t understand half of what he says, but the food’s wonderful.”
No doubt costly, too, but the McStuarts had been rich since the Jacobite Rebellion, when they’d switched churches and allegiances to their advantage as easily as most men changed trousers. Not the most honorable of heritages, Robbie used to say, but it had kept the family solvent ever since.
“No, thank you. I’d rather hear about you,” Gordon replied as he sat down.
Robbie poured himself another whiskey, while Gordon twisted his half-full glass in his hand and waited.
“Well, Gordo, I suppose it had to happen eventually,” Robbie began, sighing as he leaned against the cabinet, holding his glass loose in his fingers with the same casual ease he always displayed, even when called before the tyrannical headmaster at the school where they’d met when they were ten years old. “I’ve had my heart broken at last, old chum. Smashed. Shattered. Wrecked and ruined by a cold and stubborn woman.”
A romantic affair gone wrong then.
Even though there was still the chance that Robbie’s heart had been broken by a woman who didn’t wear a yellow velvet riding habit, Gordon wished he’d taken another route, so he’d never have had that passionate, disastrous encounter.
“Yes, Gordo, it’s true. I fell in love—deeply, completely in love. And I thought she loved me, too, so I asked her to marry me.”
That was even more shocking. Robbie had certainly professed to being in love before—many times, in fact—but as far as Gordon knew, he’d never gone so far as to propose.
What, then, had gone wrong?
“Yes, I was actually ready to put my neck into the matrimonial noose—and she accepted. Seemed only too happy, in fact. We announced it at a ball at her father’s house.”
“Her father being…?”
“The Earl of Dunbrachie.”
Gordon tried to keep his expression suitably sober, although his heart fairly leaped with relief. Her father was a merchant or manufacturer who owned warehouses, not a titled nobleman.
“A fine match for us both, and then barely a fortnight later, she tells me she won’t marry me after all.”
No wonder Robbie looked exhausted. He, too, had spent many a night these past few months tossing and turning, thinking about his feelings for Catriona McNare. What he’d done and not done, said or should have said. Although he would never have sought solace in a bottle as he feared Robbie had been doing, he could certainly appreciate the inclination to want to drown his sorrows and seek the comforting company of an old friend. “I’m very sorry, Robbie.”
“I knew I could count on you to be sympathetic,” Robbie said with a grin. “And in one way, I suppose I should count myself lucky. Do you know what her father was before he inherited the title? A wool merchant. A very rich wool merchant, but a wool merchant nonetheless.”
The ceiling collapsing on Gordon’s head couldn’t have shocked him more. A rich wool merchant would have warehouses, or access to them.
“He was so distantly related to the late earl,” Robbie continued without looking at his silent friend, “it came as a shock to everybody—including him, I gather. And Moira herself can be eccentric. She has a positive mania about educating the poor. Wants to build a school for the children of Dunbrachie, although what they’d do with an education I have no idea. It’s not like most of the men in Dunbrachie want a school, either.”
If it was the same woman—and Gordon clung to the fast-diminishing hope that he was still jumping to the wrong conclusion—why had she broken the engagement? To be sure, Robbie could be impulsive and wasn’t prone to planning, but he was handsome, rich and titled, loyal and good-natured. Many a nobleman’s daughter could, and did, do worse.
“It would have been upsetting if she’d refused when I’d asked her, but I daresay I would have gotten over it soon enough. After all, there are plenty of other attractive, rich and nobly born women who would welcome my attention.”
Whoever the woman was, Gordon could certainly understand Robbie’s bitterness. Still, there was an arrogance in his tone that made it more difficult to sympathize with his friend. On the other hand, would he not have sounded so bitter and defensive if someone had asked him what was troubling him lately, too?
Robbie walked to the French doors, turned on his heel and made a sweeping gesture with the hand holding his empty glass. “Who does Moira MacMurdaugh think she is, that she can make a fool out of Sir Robert McStuart? She’s the fool if she thinks I’m simply going to let her humiliate me. That’s why I need your help, Gordo.” He straightened his shoulders and a triumphant gleam came to his bloodshot eyes. “I want to sue Lady Moira MacMurdaugh for breach of promise.”
Now it was as if the floor had given way, too. “You want to sue this woman for breach of promise?” Gordon repeated.
“Exactly.”
Gordon forced himself to try to forget about the woman who might or might not be the one he’d kissed, and think like the solicitor he was. Robbie clearly hadn’t considered all the ramifications of starting a legal action that was generally the province of women. “I can appreciate that you’re upset—”
“Upset? I’m not upset,” Robbie snapped, setting his glass down on an ebony-inlaid side table so hard, Gordon expected it to break. “I simply want her to understand that she can’t go around accepting proposals and rejecting them out of hand. Or don’t you think I have a case?”
Now things were getting even more difficult. Robbie might have a case, but there were other considerations he should take into account, as Gordon proceeded to explain. “If the engagement was public knowledge, you do have some cause of action. However, there’s something else you might want to think about first, Robbie. Dunbrachie is a small village, but this sort of legal activity will likely come to the attention of a wider circle, and probably the press, at least in Scotland. Your—” he hesitated, and chose a word other than humiliation “personal concerns may well become gossip fodder, splashed about the papers and discussed by complete strangers.
“Would it not be better to simply forget what happened? After all, as you yourself said, there have always been women eager for your attention.
“I’m sure you’ll find love again,” he finished, voicing a wish he harbored for himself, a