A Secret Scottish Christmas by Regan Walker

Author:Regan Walker
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: 0
Published: 2017-11-05T16:00:00+00:00

Slowly picking himself up off the ice, Robbie reached for his hat that had tumbled from his head in the fall. He rubbed his throbbing hip. Damn ice is hard on a man’s constitution.

Aboard ship, Robbie stayed out of the rigging. Amazingly, he had no trouble walking on a rolling deck. He was a fairly good shipmaster and an adroit navigator. His talent lay with charts and steering clear of rocks and shoals.

In London, he favored the gentlemen’s clubs where his game was brag, at which he succeeded more often than not. Ice-skating, on the other hand, he considered a trial by freezing cold and slippery terrain. That his younger brother, as he liked to think of Nash, was at this very moment adroitly skimming over the ice with the Mistress of the Setters came as a mortifying set down.

His sister-in-law, Tara, came to a perfectly executed stop in front of him. “Can I help?” In her scarlet pelisse and hat, she was a lovely sight for a wounded man.

“Ah, the Queen of the Rigging.” He rose to his full height, placing his top hat back on his head. “I might have known ’twould be you who offered a hand. Very gracious. May I propose we skate together to that bench over there at the edge of the pond where sits the countess and Kit?” After meeting Ailie, Robbie had begun to think of Martin’s wife as The Other Redhead.

Tara laughed. “I’d be happy to escort you.” She took his arm, for which he was most grateful, and they began to skate together. “In Baltimore, I practically grew up on the ice in our cold winters. Deep in the woods there were many ponds like this one. If you hadn’t been seeking to be the fastest man on the ice, Robbie, you would have done just fine.”

“You recognize me?”

“Nash does not move nearly so fast. But like the tortoise, he generally gets where he wants to go in the end.”

“Hmm…” he muttered, for the first time thinking of Ailie as the place Nash intended to go. Unsurprisingly, Robbie’s skating improved mightily in Tara’s company. Glancing at her blue-green eyes, he said, “’Tis hard for some of us hares to slow down, you know.”

“I do understand since I am married to one. But no matter. You will change with the right woman, just as Nick did.”

“Slow down, you mean?”

She laughed. “Hardly. That would be asking too much. But the right woman will make you less reckless. It will be important for you to survive for her, for your children.”

“Ah,” he murmured, as they arrived at the bench. To the countess and her companion, he asked, “Might I join you?”

“Yes, please do,” said The Grand Countess. Muriel smiled, reminding Robbie that while she might have the demeanor of a queen, she had the heart of a grandmother. “A charming rogue is just what we need to entertain us, isn’t it, Kit?”

Kit moved over to allow Robbie room to take the space between them.

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