Wild (Regency Scandal 2) by Carole Mortimer (best novels to read for students txt) 📗

She was still angry with herself for having reacted to him on such a visceral level.

Entertainments were few and far between in the Highlands. But since reaching the age of sixteen, Cat had been allowed to attend the dances and musical evenings which took place in the homes of their neighbors and local assembly halls during the year. There she was able to enjoy the company of all the eligible young men of the area, even though there had never been any doubt in her mind which young man she would marry. Luckily, Hugh, softened in his approach by Elena, had not objected to the match.

Those were the happy years, before fate had dealt several lethal blows and left Cat alone in the world with only her darling Malcolm to love and care for.

If Andrew Belgrade thought she was going to allow him to take Malcolm from her too, then he was going to be decisively disabused of that hope.

Cat calmly took a sip of hot tea before continuing the conversation. “Your comment just now seemed to imply you are under a misapprehension regarding where Malcolm will be spending his future,” she stated evenly.

Dark brows rose over pale and icy eyes. “Indeed?”

“Oh yes.” She remained outwardly calm as she placed her cup and saucer down on the table. “It is true that Malcolm was named as your ward.” She paused to allow for the look of satisfaction to blaze in those normally emotionless green eyes. “But I was named as joint guardian and sole overseer of the McGregor lands and fortune until Malcolm reaches his majority.”

Essex surged to his feet. “That is preposterous! A woman cannot—”

“This is Scotland, Your Grace.” Her tone deliberately retained that unemotional calm. “We have a different way of doing things here. A widowed woman may act as caretaker of land and fortune for her own children. Or that of her orphaned nephew,” she added pointedly.

“You are not a widow—”

“Oh, but I am, Your Grace.” Cat’s emotions were torn between the pleasure of being able to correct this haughty man and the sadness of having lost Ewan so soon into their marriage. “My husband of only one week was recalled to his Scottish regiment in the king’s army when Napoleon escaped Elba and once again swept across France. Ewan later died at the Battle of Waterloo.”

A scowl darkened the duke’s brow. “You do not wear a ring.”

She shrugged. “It was a Munro family heirloom and always worn by the wife of the male heir of the Munro family. I duly returned the ring to my mother-in-law after Ewan died so that she might give it to her second son, Alec, as he is now the next heir, and so that he might one day present it to his wife.”

The McGregor and Munro lands adjoined, and so members of the two families had often married. But Fiona Munro was a formidable woman. Mother of five sons and three daughters, she was someone whom Cat respected and would never dare to cross. Cat’s wedding ring had only ever been on loan and rightfully belonged to the Munro family.

“Your name is McGregor still.”

Cat gave an acknowledging nod. “Another difference between your country and mine, Your Grace, in that married women in Scotland often choose to retain the name of their own clan rather than that of their husband. My husband was a Munro.”

“Like the housekeeper.”

Cat nodded. “She was married to Ewan’s cousin twice removed.”

Andrew did not enjoy being made a fool of, and the triumphant expression in Catriona McGregor’s deep blue eyes said that she had very much enjoyed putting him at the disadvantage in this present situation.

Because of his past treatment of Elena?

As he and Catriona hadn’t met before today, he couldn’t imagine he had done anything in that brief acquaintance to warrant her expression of scathing triumph. No, it must be because of Elena.

Catriona McGregor had demonstrated earlier, with the warmth of her relationship and behavior with Malcolm in waylaying travelers, that she possessed an impish sense of fun. Elena had possessed that same sense of humor. Andrew had no doubt the two women would have become close friends.

Close enough that Elena would have persuaded her husband into leaving the future of their beloved son to both Catriona and Andrew?

The one for the love and nurturing and the other so that Malcolm might one day take his place in Society, Scottish and English, as the Laird of Invergorden?

That Catriona had also revealed herself as a widow had, he admitted, come as something of a shock. Admittedly, she possessed a self-confidence not often found in young and unmarried ladies, but he had believed that was because she had taken over the running of the estate upon her brother’s death.

Had she noticed the frisson of awareness which had run the length of his body, merely from unintentionally touching her fingers as he took the saucer and cup from her?

The same awareness which had settled so hot and heavy in his balls and caused his cock to now be half hard inside his pantaloons?

Andrew shut down the knowledge of his aroused state to draw himself up to his full height. “I need to speak with the advocate who is the executor of your brother’s will.”

“Of course.” She nodded. “My great-uncle, Simon McGregor, keeps an office in Inverness. But he is currently at his home outside that city due to having been attacked and severely beaten two months ago. It is the reason there was a delay between my two letters to you, one to inform you of Hugh and Elena’s deaths, the other regarding the guardianship of Malcolm. Uncle Simon was unconscious for several days following the attack.”

“He is better now?”

“Not fully recovered as yet, but he is much better than he was.”

“But well enough to see me if I travel to Inverness?”

“I believe so, yes.”

Andrew nodded. “So, your uncle is executor of your brother’s will.” Somehow, in view of the conversation preceding this, Andrew was not