Page 17 of A Highland Duke to Claim Her Heart

His coldness lingered in her mind for hours after, even as she sat in the drawing room, listening to her mother fret and worry about Lord Christopher’s absence. She could not understand why, but the look seemed to have burned through her, and she felt shaken now. Dizzy. Not herself.

“We will have to return to London if Lord Christopher remains absent,” she vaguely heard her mother say, as she pretended to embroider the cushion in front of her. “Your father needed this alliance, and if you cannot marry Lord Christopher, you will have to marry someone else!”

Cassandra looked down at the cushion, barely seeing it. She did not want to return. That was the one thing she knew already. Despite everything, she felt happier here in two days than she had for years in London. She had a new friend in Lillian. A new niece in Annabelle. And in the duke…

Well, she did not yet know what he was to her.

Chapter 7

Two days until the scheduled wedding.

That was the thought that chased Ewan across the Highlands as he rode east, toward Inverness.Two days.

Things had been tense at Calder Castle. Lady Pembury was furious—that much was clear. And she made her displeasure known at every possible chance. Every morning, afternoon, and evening, she asked if he’d had word from his brother, and he was forced to admit that he had not.

Nor could he blame her for her anger.

He was angry too. Lord and Lady Pembury were not the only ones his brother had betrayed and broken his promise to. He had also abandoned Ewan. And perhaps most importantly of all, he had abandoned Lady Cassandra Pembury.

Ewan felt an ache in his chest as he thought of Lady Cassandra, the quietness that had settled over her in the last few days as the date of her intended wedding approached. She was still lively enough when she spoke to Annabelle, but when it was only the adults in her presence, she was pale and withdrawn.

He had a duty to find his brother. For her sake.

When he did arrive in Inverness, the first thing that greeted him was the smell. Inverness was a port city, and the smell of the sea, of soot and burning furnaces, and of people wasstrong.Bodies and sweat and other, more foul scents, filled the narrow, winding streets where he directed his horse.

Overpowering it all was the smell of fish. He passed fishmonger after fishmonger as he wended through the streets, ducking sometimes to avoid the laundry hanging from the lines that had been strung between the houses.

Down at the harbor, the air was a bit clearer, away from the narrow streets and houses. Several ships were docked in the port, while seagulls circled above, calling out to one another and diving down for any scrap of bread that had been abandoned by the sailors on the docks.

Outside a low-sitting wooden shelter near where the ships were docked, Ewan found the harbormaster, sitting at a wooden table drinking a pint of ale, while several men played dice beside him.

As Ewan approached, the man looked up, and his expression changed as he registered the importance of the man in front of him.

“Good afternoon,” Ewan said, coming to a halt in front of the table. “I am looking for information about a ship that wouldhave left the port around three, four weeks ago, heading toward Edinburgh and then Amsterdam.”

The harbormaster, a gruff-looking man with a weather-beaten, leathery face and a full beard of black and gray, squinted at him.

“Ships like that leave every day, milord. Do you know the cargo the ship might have held?”

“I do not,” Ewan said. He pulled a coin purse from the inside of his jacket and let it jangle in his hands for a moment. “But I do know one of the passengers. His name is Lord Christopher Dunmore, and he is the heir to the Duke of Calder.”

The harbormaster sat up straighter, his eyes moving back and forth between Ewan and the coinpurse.

“The Duke of Calder’s younger brother?” the man said, surprise etching his voice. He looked at the men playing dice, who had all stopped their game to stare, open-mouthed, at Ewan. “I would remember if a man of that name had passed through the docks, milord. But I recall no one. Do any of ye?”

The men all shook their heads, except one, a balding man with a missing front tooth, who frowned.

“I do recall a lordling coming through the port,” he said gruffly. “At least, he seemed to be a lordling, from the accent on ‘im andthe coins ‘e was throwin’ around. He bid me find him passage to a ship heading to Amsterdam, and when there was none, I booked him passage instead on one to the Hague. But…”

The man trailed off, looking away from Ewan and at the harbormaster. “That was four weeks ago. He was on theHMS Charlotte.”

Ewan could tell at once that this name meant something to all the men present and that it was not something good. At once, all of them stiffened, and the harbormaster’s face darkened, like a storm cloud crossing suddenly in front of the sun.

He let out a long sigh. “I see,” he murmured.

“What does that mean?” Ewan demanded. His heart had begun to hammer in his chest, and he felt a prickling of sweat on his palms.

The harbormaster stood up, setting his pint aside, and looked Ewan dead in the eyes. The expression in them was one that Ewan knew well. He had seen it all those years ago when his father had died.