Chapter 7 #2
He stopped pacing long enough to picture the scene as he’d found it that morning: the entry table nearly buried beneath flowers.
Roses, lilies, hothouse orchids in colors that didn’t belong to the Highlands, each one accompanied by a neatly embossed card.
Lachlan Ferguson’s bold hand on one. McRae’s more restrained scrawl on another.
And the other two, John Kinnaird, who spent more time in taverns than in church, and Alistair Boyd, whose debts in Edinburgh were whispered about as freely as his supposed charm.
Gavan knew them all.
Ferguson was easy enough to read: dazzling on the surface, all smiles and practiced compliments, but men like that rarely stayed long.
He’d leave the same way he arrived, suddenly and with little thought for the wreckage he caused.
Plus, Gavan knew something about Ferguson, something that would spoil any maiden’s interest.
McRae was steadier, quiet, the kind of man who’d rather read than lead a conversation. Dependable, perhaps, but dull. Moira would tire of him within the month.
Kinnaird was worse. He had charm, aye, but he also had a fondness for the bottle that soured his reputation faster than ale soured in the cask.
Boyd, though, Boyd was harder to dismiss.
A good enough man, pleasant company, kind when it counted.
But he was down on his luck, his finances as thin as his smile had been the last time Gavan saw him in Edinburgh.
It wasn’t vice so much as circumstance that dragged him low, but Gavan couldn’t ignore what that would mean for Moira if she tied herself to him.
The display had been enough to make his jaw ache from clenching.
He’d asked her about them, trying to keep his tone level. “All these in one morning, Moira?”
She’d only laughed, her delight entirely untempered by his disapproval. “Is it no’ marvelous? Four callers in one day! It’s more than I could have ever dreamed for the entire season.”
Marvelous wasn’t the word he’d use.
The image of those cards, those flowers, a battlefield dressed up in ribbons and perfume, stayed with him now as he paced. This wasn’t harmless attention. It was the beginning of something, and if Moira couldn’t see that, he’d have to see it for her.
At breakfast Moira had been all bright-eyed delight and unguarded excitement. For her, it was thrilling. For him, it was a warning bell.
Lachlan Ferguson was trouble enough on his own, Gavan had seen the way Ferguson worked a room, how quickly people warmed to him. Men like that always wanted to be adored. He’d met a dozen of them in London, and none ended well for the women they left behind.
He turned from the window, running a hand over his face.
How was he meant to keep her safe when it seemed as if every bachelor in Scotland was determined to line up at her door?
His uncle had entrusted him with Moira’s care for the summer after her London season had left her without a proposal of marriage, and her mother had passed away leaving his uncle completely bereft.
Her future, her happiness, her reputation, all of it sat on his shoulders.
He couldn’t simply forbid her from entertaining these men.
She’d only resent him for it. But neither could he allow her to free to fall for empty words and practiced smiles.
He’d even gone so far as to instruct her lady’s maid in exactly what to look for while chaperoning.
His gaze shifted back to the crofts beyond the glass, to the place where Gerald should still be. The hollow ache of that loss tightened his chest.
He was losing ground, not just with Moira, but with his estate.
Gerald’s departure had left one of his largest holdings unmanned, and the three other crofters who’d preceded him to Canada left behind fields that wouldn’t tend themselves.
Winter would be on them soon enough. He needed hands to keep the land running, coin to keep the people fed and the debts paid.
He needed stability, but all he had was uncertainty.
And Lady Ava.
Her name alone made his jaw tense. He could still see her at the ball last night, radiant and irritating in equal measure, introducing Moira to Ferguson like she was bestowing a favor upon the both of them. She’d orchestrated that moment, just as she orchestrated everything.
Worse than that, he could still feel her hand in his from their dance, the light pressure of her fingers flexing once against his before she’d caught herself.
The lilt in her voice when she teased him echoed in his ears, and the scent of lavender clinging to her hair when she’d leaned just a fraction too close still lingered in his nose.
She’d walked away smiling, while he’d been left unsteady, wondering why he couldn’t seem to keep his distance.
She thought herself a harmless matchmaker. But she didn’t see the cost of her games, not to the people who left, not to the land they abandoned, and not to the cousin she was parading in front of every eager young man in the county.
He pressed a hand to the cool glass of the window, staring out into the coming night.
He’d need to do something.
A plan began to form, unwelcome, but necessary.
He’d find out everything he could about these men: Ferguson first, then the others.
Their families, their finances, their intentions.
If they were unsuitable, they’d be discouraged from calling.
Quietly, discreetly, but effectively. Moira would be kept safe, even if she didn’t thank him for it. But her father would.
His pacing resumed, his boots thudding against the thinning carpet. He needed to speak with Ava again.
He’d tell her plainly, once and for all, that she was to leave Moira out of her little games.
He rehearsed the words in his mind, knowing full well how she’d turn them inside out.
She’d laugh, no doubt, call him overdramatic, maybe even flutter her lashes like she had at the ball. But this time, he wouldn’t let her win.
But wasn’t that the real problem? That no matter how hard he tried, Lady Ava had a way of making him forget which side he was on.