Falling for the Highland Rogue. Ann Lethbridge

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      Chapter Three

      Mr Gilvry had been just as easy to manipulate as any other man. He had done just as she wanted and Jack had been pleased. She still didn’t understand her own sense of disappointment. Since when had she cared what sort of man she put her hooks into? Usually she felt nothing but the satisfaction of a job well done. Satisfaction that she had made a little more money to add to her hoard, which was growing, but nowhere near as much as she needed.

      The leer on Fergus McKenzie’s red-bearded face brought her wandering thoughts back to the present with a lurch. She let a small smile play across her mouth and separated the grapes on her plate with the scissors. Thank goodness they had finally reached the dessert course.

      Dinner in their private parlour with a lout like McKenzie had been as pleasant as watching a pig at the trough. Thoughts well hidden, she delicately popped the plump red globe into her mouth and cast him a come-hither glance from beneath her lashes. The crude Scot licked already too-moist lips surrounded by all that untrimmed wiry red hair.

      A small secret shudder ran down her spine at what she knew he was thinking. It shocked her, that sudden flash of fear. If Jack ordered her to his bed, she would do it. If she didn’t, she would face his wrath. A swift incapacitating punch which would keep her from the table for a week or more and no money coming in. Or a return to the brothel as a reminder of what her life would be without his support. She preferred the former. As Jack knew only too well.

      ‘Shall we get down to business?’ Jack said, drawing the man’s attention back to him with the signal she should go.

      She breathed a silent sigh of relief. ‘If you gentlemen will excuse me,’ she said, smiling at McKenzie, ‘I will leave you to your port and your discussions.’

      Jack rose with her. Clearly startled by the courtesy, the lowland Scot followed suit.

      ‘It has been a pleasure to meet you, Mr McKenzie,’ she said with a graceful inclination of her head he didn’t notice, so busy was he eyeing her barely covered breasts. Men. They were just so predictable.

      Most of them.

      Knock his eyes out, Jack had requested. So she’d chosen a gown even more revealing that the one she had worn the previous evening. A celestial blue that skimmed her nipples.

      McKenzie inhaled a rasping breath as he stared at what he hoped was on offer. ‘Goo’ night, then, Mrs—er—Mrs...’

      ‘West,’ Jack supplied. ‘I’ll see you later, darlin’,’ Jack said with a leer of his own. Staking his prior claim, though he was not beyond serving her up to any man for the sake of business.

      He’d served her up to Logan Gilvry. In a manner of speaking.

      The difference, the small difference, was that Mr Gilvry was a gentleman. The squat man now lusting for her favours was as far away from a gentleman as the pig he resembled. She gave him her warmest, most seductive smile and batted her lashes. ‘I hope we meet again soon.’

      She swept out.

      ‘Now,’ Jack said as she closed the door. ‘Tell me about this trouble you are having with the Gilvry brothers and what you intend to do about it.’

      ‘Logan is the worst. He’s a thorn in my side.’

      ‘Is he, now?’ Jack replied musingly.

      She would have lingered to hear more, but the maid, a little mousy thing assigned to her by the hotel, trundled in from the bedroom next door. ‘Is there anything I can be getting you, Mrs West?’

      She wouldn’t put it past Jack to have the girl in his pay. Watching her. ‘Brandy, please, Muira.’ She needed something to take the edge off the revulsion she’d been feeling all night.

      Logan Gilvry’s innocent smile with a touch of wickedness floated across her mind. A smile she would be resisting tomorrow. Or not. She inhaled a quick breath. She’d have no difficulty keeping him at a distance, lovely as he was. Giving in to passion had served her ill in the past. A mistake she had never made again. Compared to some of the men she had dealt with, handling this young Scot should be a simple matter.

      Muira handed her the brandy and she took a sip, let the warmth slide down her throat. It did nothing for the coldness inside her. A good thing, too. It was a coldness she had cultivated and now carefully nurtured. ‘That will be all, thank you.’

      The girl bobbed a curtsy and left.

      She took another sip. And if she refused to drive out with Jack and Gilvry on the morrow? If she sent her regrets? She leaned her head back against the chair cushions, plush and soft against her head. Jack paid her because she was useful. The world was a cold hard place for women alone without family support. Unless she had money.

      She drained her glass. As usual, she would do what must be done. And to hell with green-eyed panthers.

      * * *

      An hour or so later, Jack entered without knocking, rubbing his hands together, his eyes glinting with pleasure.

      ‘What did you think?’ he asked, crossing to the console to pour a drink.

      A chance to nudge things in the direction she preferred? Perhaps. She put her book aside. ‘A man who gets the job done.’

      ‘Aye.’ Jack brought his drink and stood with one foot on the hearth. ‘But I wouldn’t trust him with a farthing.’

      True. ‘You don’t have to trust a man, if you understand him.’

      He cast her a sharp glance. ‘Throwing your weight in his direction, are ye?’

      She shrugged non-committally. ‘He’s a known quantity. He can deliver. He holds Edinburgh in his palm.’

      Jack narrowed his eyes at her. ‘Almost. We drank Gilvry’s whisky at the alehouse, don’t forget.’

      Daring. Jack was always drawn by anyone who beat the odds. His one weakness. The reason he had taken her on. She let her opposition fill the silence.

      ‘For all that McKenzie brags, the Gilvrys have him worried.’ He drained his glass in one swift swallow. ‘I don’t understand what makes them such a threat to a man like McKenzie.’

      Intelligence. ‘Ask Gilvry. He’ll probably tell you.’

      ‘Aye.’ He kicked at the grate. ‘But does he have the courage to take what he wants, no matter the cost?’

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