“What happened in Edinburgh?”
“What didn’t happen in Edinburgh?” Townsend sighed. “Suffice it to say, my sister Eleanor got into some rather scandalous activity—not of that sort—” he said at Ian’s questioning look, “but something I should have stopped her from doing. I didn’t stop her. When I realized she was set on her course, I actually helped her. And then she was on the knife’s edge of ruin, and somehow, miraculously, everything worked out as well as it could have. But it wasn’t through anything I did.”
“There’s no use dwelling on things that can’t be changed,” Ian said.
“And it’s a selfish attitude to take,” Townsend said.
“I didna say that.”
“You mean you weren’t thinking it? Come now.” He smiled slightly.
Ian looked down at his glass—he had been thinking something along those lines—he just hadn’t realized it showed on his face. He was usually better at hiding his thoughts than this. Maybe it was the whisky.
“Everyone is a little selfish,” Ian finally said. “There are worse things to be.”
After a few beats of silence, he looked up. Townsend was staring down at his glass, and Ian took the moment to watch him, unseen. He was a bit too handsome for Ian’s liking. Ian was always tempted to look at him but didn’t often let himself.
Townsend, sable haired and tall, had deep-set brown eyes, a straight nose, and sharp cheekbones that slipped down to a firm jaw. This perusal led Ian to his mouth, which was often curved slightly, as though there was always something in the world to be amused by and Townsend would always find it.
Now, though, he wasn’t smiling. His mouth was wide, his lips slightly full for a man, but they fit his face perfectly.
Heat tickled Ian’s abdomen.
As though he sensed the change, Townsend glanced up, eyes nearly black in the shadow. For a second, Ian thought…he wondered…but then Townsend tossed back the last of his drink and set the glass down with a loud thump.
“I daresay you’ll be happy when the clouds clear and you’ll be able to star—” Townsend broke off, quite abruptly. But it was too late.
Underneath the table, Ian’s hand curled into a fist. It felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach. He was an idiot for letting his guard down, even for an instant. “You went through my things.”
Townsend grimaced. “You knew I went through your things. I had no other choice.”
“You looked at my things.”
Only a slight hesitation. “Yes.”
Ian pushed back from the table. He didn’t have many personal possessions—he didn’t want to be burdened by too many things—but the ones he did keep were the ones closest to his heart, and he kept them safe. He’d never shown them to anyone before.
And then Townsend came along, head full of his overblown sense of authority, thinking he could do whatever he wanted, see whatever he wanted, pawing through Ian’s life as though he wasn’t crossing a boundary.
Maybe he didn’t realize he was. He was an aristocrat’s brother, after all. They all thought they were entitled to something.
“Cameron—”
But Ian was already striding from the room.
Chapter Six
If it meant he could make a quick escape from the library, Ian was tempted to shoot himself in the foot. He glanced out the window longingly as Miss Hale chattered on—the rain had stopped, but the clouds still hung low and heavy, as if they might unleash another torrent at any second and drown unsuspecting travelers.
If it were any other day, he would have risked getting caught in a downpour to feel cool air on his skin after being stuck inside for so long. But this wasn’t any other day. His life was at stake—his reputation, his freedom. His grip tightened on the dainty teacup in his hand.
“Do you speak it, then?”
He looked down at the exuberant Miss Hale. The damp, diffused light from outside was offset by the high blaze in the library’s hearth and pools of yellow candlelight from two gilded chandeliers. In the background, the others’ voices and laughter ebbed and flowed like water, punctuated by the occasional click of balls colliding at the billiards table.
It might have been cozy, if he wouldn’t have rather been anywhere else. If he wasn’t with people who would as soon accuse him of stealing as talk to him.
Miss Hale was still smiling at him expectantly.
“Eh?”
“Gaelic!” she said, as though he was being delightfully silly. She flicked her fan shut and swatted his arm. He wasn’t sure why she’d brought a fan on a tour of the Highlands.
And was she flirting with him? Christ, the girl couldn’t be more than sixteen. He was over ten years her senior in age and probably more like twenty in life experience. He had to give her credit, though—she didn’t falter in the face of his monotone answers and impassive stares. She was either remarkably inobservant or remarkably confident.
“Aye.”
“Do speak a little for me?”
Ian wasn’t a trick horse at a fair. But he hadn’t made it this far in life by losing his temper easily. He hated letting his anger show. It was a weakness to let someone else know they’d affected him enough to make him angry.
Once, cold, hard determination had been the only way he’d survived. If he’d let himself be angry, if he’d let himself give in to any of the emotions he’d felt at the time (and there’d been so many swirling inside him—dread, betrayal, fear, fury, sorrow) he would have ended up dead.
And still, he’d nearly lost his temper when he’d found Townsend in his room. It bothered him, because he didn’t know if he would have had the same reaction if it was someone else there. But the idea of Townsend touching his things, of Townsend seeing the constellations he’d painstakingly drawn, a hobby he kept only for himself—it made his stomach turn.
It made him feel like Townsend had taken a knife and sliced him wide-open.
It made him wonder if the other man had been laughing at him, secretly.
But what did it matter? They’d barely spoken to each other before the fire and this mess with the Worthingtons—once it was over, they could go back to barely speaking to each other.
He forced himself to unclench his jaw, to pull that cool resolve around him, the thing that had saved him again and again.
“Abair ach beagan agus abair gu math e.” The Gaelic rolled from his tongue smoothly, his first language. He’d learned it before he’d learned English. And he liked speaking it, usually. But usually he spoke it to the tenants who knew it, not to English travelers who wanted a performance.
When Ian didn’t offer anything more, she touched his elbow. “What does it mean?”
He looked down at her. Her face was curious, eyes wide with interest. Maybe he was being too harsh. She reminded him a little of his younger sister. She’d had the same kind of exuberance… He wondered if she’d been like this at sixteen, too. He’d been long gone by that point.
“Say but little and say it well,” he translated, ignoring the pang in his chest.
She blinked up at him, and then her smile widened to the point where light glinted off her teeth and nearly blinded him. “But that is just like you, Mr. Cameron. How delightful!”
He stifled a sigh. “Shall we watch the game?” He’d been on his way across the room when Miss Hale had stopped him.
She wrinkled her nose. “Truthfully, I find billiards a bit boring, but I suppose watching with you would be enjoyable.”
He decided not to comment on that. They walked toward the table, where Townsend was playing against Miss Worthington, and stopped a few feet away. Ian and Miss Hale were just in time to see Townsend lean across the table with a leather-tipped cue stick and take aim at the ivory cue ball. He glanced up and met Ian’s gaze. Paused for just a second, grip tightening on the wooden stick.