To Claire’s surprise, Harry pulled her close to him, against his warm body, as he took her left forearm in his strong hands. She gritted her teeth against the pain as he applied pressure to it.
“It doesn’t seem to be broken. I think it’s just bruised.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “I would have gone with you if I’d known you wanted to ride.”
She snuggled against him and he held her tightly. “You’re so warm.” And so uncomplicated and so good, she thought. You’re so different from that other man, that Trevelyan.
He laughed at that. “I’ll take you back to the house, we’ll get a doctor to look at your arm, then you’re to spend the day in bed. I don’t want you catching cold.”
“May I have a fire in the fireplace?”
“I will see that you have a roaring fire. And we’ll put fifty pounds of blankets on the bed if that’s what it takes to keep you warm.”
“Harry, I do love you.”
He bent forward as though to kiss her, but Claire pulled away. As well as she knew anything in the world, she knew they were being watched.
Harry chuckled as he lifted her into the saddle of his horse and mounted behind her.
Neither of them heard Trevelyan walk away through the woods.
Chapter Three
Low moaning woke Harry from a very sound sleep. Reluctantly, he opened his eyes. There was an eerie red light in the room, and standing at the foot of his bed was a monster. The creature was at least eight feet tall, draped in black, and had the most hideous face ever seen.
Groggily, Harry half sat up and moved his head forward a bit to get a better look at the thing that was groaning as though it had been lately killed and had come back to haunt the living. He yawned. “Uncle Cammy, if that’s you, you’d better get back to bed. You’ll miss breakfast.”
At that the monster quit groaning, stepped down from the footstool, walked to the side of the bed, and removed its mask. What the disguise could not do the unveiling did: Harry came awake fully.
“Is that you?” he whispered. “Trevelyan?”
Trevelyan removed the black cloth that covered his body and grinned at his younger brother. “None other.”
Harry sat up then and leaned back against the padded head of the bed. “Pour me some whisky, will you? There, on that table.”
Trevelyan went to the table and poured out two glasses nearly full of single malt Scotch, handed one to his brother, then sat on a big carved oak chair near the bed. “Is that all I get? An ‘Is that you?’ No fatted calf? No welcome home parade?”
Harry took a deep drink of the whisky. “Does Mother know you’re here?”
Trevelyan drained the glass and poured himself more. “No.” He narrowed his eyes at Harry. Several people had written about the intensity of Trevelyan’s eyes. Whenever people met him, it was what they remembered the most and remarked upon. His eyes were black and intense and angry.
Harry finished his whisky. He hated scenes, hated controversy, and with the return of his brother from the dead, he knew there was going to be one hell of a fight. “She ought to know,” he said as he held out his glass for a refill.
Trevelyan didn’t answer, but looked at his half empty glass. “I don’t plan to stay long, only long enough to recover my strength, write a bit, then I’m off.”
Harry was beginning to fully understand what it meant that his older brother was not dead after all. He looked at Trevelyan in the pale red glow of the lamplight and he may as well have been looking at a stranger. He’d been two years old when Trevelyan was sent from home and he’d seen his brother only a few times in those intervening years. To say that Trevelyan was the family black sheep was an understatement.
“You know, of course,” Harry said slowly, “that this makes you the duke.”
Trevelyan snorted, telling what he thought of having a title. “You think I plan to settle down now and manage this monster of a place, as well as the others? How many of these places do you own now?”
“Four,” Harry said quickly, studying his glass rather than looking at his brother. Trevelyan always had a way of reading a person’s innermost thoughts. And if he couldn’t read them, he could usually ask so many questions that a person was worn down by him.
“Come on, what’s on that English mind of yours?” Trevelyan said amiably.
“You’re as English as I am, and, besides, I’m half Scots.”
“Is that why you’ve been running about in that damned kilt? Is your ass freezing?”
“As a matter of fact, it is,” Harry said, smiling, then made the mistake of glancing up at his brother.