“Well, Mr. Lauriston,” he said, “despite your foolishness, your leg continues to heal well. You can bear your weight readily and the bones have knit as neatly as any I’ve ever seen—you must have had a good bonesetter see to it at the first. It’s hard enough to get one fracture to set that well, never mind two.”
“What about the limp? I still get it at times, when my leg gets tired.”
“I hope it will disappear, in time, but I won’t lie to you. There’s a chance it will be permanent. Particularly if you don’t take care of yourself properly. You must ensure that you don’t damage the healing your leg’s already done by engaging in any more nonsense like strenuous hillwalking before you’ve had more time to repair. At this point in time, you should be keeping your exercise to a gentle stroll of no more than a mile or so at a time over flat ground, gradually building up the distance and strenuousness over time. Avoid stressing the limb at all costs.” He smiled then, his expression part sympathetic, part amused. “I’ve been a physician for twenty-seven years, Mr. Lauriston, and I’ve seen bodies repair from all sorts of injuries, but only if their owners allow themselves the chance to heal.”
“That’s what I told him,” Murdo growled from the corner.
The physician chuckled, apparently not one bit surprised by Murdo’s continued presence or oddly personal interest. “You should listen to His Lordship,” he told David gravely, though still with a glint of humour in his eyes.
David swallowed. He didn’t want to ask the question that was burning on his tongue, but he had to, even though he already suspected the answer.
“Am I—am I well enough to return to Edinburgh, Doctor? To my legal practice?”
Murdo spoke before Dr. Logan could say anything. “Back to sitting at your desk till all hours and forgetting to eat, you mean?” he snapped. “Back to walking up and down two long flights of stairs to your rooms?”
David’s face blazed with colour at the betraying intimacy of Murdo’s comments.
“I don’t have those rooms anymore,” he said quietly.
It was an effort to remain to calm, to hide his fury at Murdo for those imprudent words. Especially when Murdo knew very well David had given up his lease. He was the one who had persuaded David to do it, after all. To hand back his keys and allow his belongings to be taken away to be stored at Murdo’s townhouse.
“I can easily take a new lease with fewer stairs,” David added into the awkward, heavy silence.
Dr. Logan cleared his throat. “Well,” he said, addressing his remarks to David, “I would certainly recommend you seek rooms with as few stairs as possible. And sitting in the same chair for hours on end is not to be recommended. A gradual return to your old activities, with periods of rest and gentle exercise in between, would be best. But subject to those precautions, I would say that, yes, you are well enough to return to your practice.”
Somehow David managed the mechanics of a smile in response to the doctor’s verdict, though he suspected it was a wan thing.
“Good,” he said. “That’s good to hear.”
Murdo said nothing, just glowered at them both.
“Well,” the doctor said. He slapped his hands on his knees and stood up. “I’ll leave you to get dressed, Mr. Lauriston, and be on my way.” He quickly shrugged his coat on and packed up his bag before offering his hand to David for a hearty handshake. “Go easy on that leg,” he added.
David nodded. “I will,” he promised.
“I’ll show you out while Mr. Lauriston dresses,” Murdo said without looking at David.
For a few moments after they left, David sat there, perched on the edge of the chaise longue, his cheeks hot and his stomach in knots as he wondered what the doctor had made of this interview and the unusual interest the master of the house took in his man of business.
At last he rose and slowly dressed, though he took his time getting ready, far from eager to resume his conversation with Murdo.
It seemed, however, that Murdo was no more eager to speak than David. He didn’t come back to the sitting room at all, and when David finally ventured out, it was to discover that Murdo had asked for his horse to be saddled and was already on his way to Perth.
MURDO STAYED OUT ALL day, returning only shortly before dinner.
While they dined, Murdo talked pleasantly about the various errands he’d done that day, whom he’d met and whom he’d spoken with. It was an ordinary, everyday and entirely impersonal conversation, stiff with good manners. Murdo’s manners always became more pronounced when he was in a bad mood. It was one of those curiously contrary things about him.
It wasn’t until they’d retired to the sitting room, taking up their usual chairs on either side of the fire, that there was a silence long enough for David to finally give voice to the matter that had been weighing on his mind all day, ever since that mortifying scene in front of Dr. Logan.
“I need to think about going back home.”
He wasn’t prepared for how it would feel when he actually said it. The word home felt like grit in his mouth, wrong and unfamiliar.
Needing to clarify, if only for himself, he added, “To Edinburgh.”
Murdo said nothing, didn’t even look at David. His gaze was fixed on the rug on the floor, as though he was fascinated by the swirling pattern.
After a long silence, David added, “It’s been five months.”
“You’re not ready,” Murdo said without looking away from the rug.
“Yes I am,” David replied, although the truth was, he would never be ready when being ready meant packing up and leaving Laverock House, and Murdo, for good.
“You don’t take care of yourself,” Murdo added in a tone that brooked no denial.
That irritated David—perhaps more so because he knew that the accusation was not without justification.
“You’re worse than a bloody mother hen at times!” he snapped. “I am capable of taking care of myself, you know.”
Murdo looked up at that, and his eyes flashed black fire. “Oh yes, you demonstrated that amply on Monday. You could hardly walk up the three steps to the front door when you got back from McNally’s!”
“This is ridiculous,” David muttered. He rose abruptly from his chair and stalked to the sideboard, suppressing an urge to curse at the twinge in his knee that accompanied the sudden movement. Lifting the whisky decanter, he sloshed a large measure of amber spirit into a glass and raised it to his lips. But before the glass could touch his mouth, Murdo was at his side, seizing his wrist. The whisky spilled on the back of his hand, immediately evaporating in the air, leaving nothing behind but coolness on his skin and the smell of alcohol in the air.
“Whisky again?” Murdo bit out. “Whenever you’re confronted with something you don’t like, this is your answer, isn’t it?”
David stared at Murdo, stricken by the venom in his voice. The bite of Murdo’s fingers on his wrist wasn’t painful, but it demanded his attention.
“Other drunks talk too much,” Murdo went on. “But not you. You clam up. As soon as I see you reach for the whisky, I know I’ll not get another word out of you.”
“I’m not a drunk,” David said, hurt. He’d reduced his drinking substantially since coming to Perthshire. He thought Murdo knew that.
Wasn’t Murdo right, though, a sly little voice whispered in his head, that the times he did partake were when he was upset or worried about something, just as Murdo had said? David swallowed painfully over the sudden blockage that appeared in his throat at that thought.
Murdo sighed. The anger in his gaze faded, and he let go of David’s wrist. Turning away, he crossed the floor to the fireplace, where he took hold of the poker and nudged at the burnt-down logs.
After a long pause, David said quietly, “I’m not the only one who clams up about things. Every time I mention going back to Edinburgh, you shut down the conversation.”
“If you’re so eager to go—” Murdo began to mutter.
“I’m not,”
David interrupted, his voice thick with frustration. “These last few months have been the best I’ve—” He stopped when his voice threatened to break, and took a deep breath before continuing more calmly. “Look, we both know I have to return, sooner or later. I have to earn a living, Murdo! All those years of building up my practice... If I’m to have any kind of a chance of saving it, I have to get back to work. And you—well, you have your own plans.”
Plans like marriage. Murdo had always been clear about that. He wanted what he had with David, but he wanted the trappings of respectability too.
Murdo turned to face David again and his handsome face was grim and unhappy.
“I know we have to talk about this at some point. But you don’t have to make any decisions right now, do you? The fact is, your leg’s not right yet—you’ve admitted as much yourself—and I have to go to London in the next day or two to take care of some things. Can we just get that out of the way first? Please?”
Murdo had been mentioning this London trip on and off for weeks now. There was business he had to take care of in the capital, he’d said, business he’d been putting off that couldn’t wait much longer, though he was always vague about what that business was.
“Why is this London trip so important?”
As he expected, Murdo looked away. “It’s difficult. I can’t explain—not yet. Please try to understand.”
David stared at him, disappointed. He said nothing, lips pressed firmly together to stop himself wheedling, and Murdo’s unhappy look grew unhappier.
“Please, David, I just need you to”—he broke off with a sigh of frustration—“that is, I’m asking you. Will you please just wait here till I get back? I shan’t be gone above a fortnight, but I’d feel happier going if I knew you would be giving yourself a little longer to recuperate.” He paused, then added, “And if I knew you would be here when I return. We can talk about everything properly then.”
David couldn’t answer him straight away. A heavy weight in his chest was crushing all the words out of him, and he wasn’t entirely sure what that weight was made of.
He managed a nod, though, and eventually, a muttered, “All right.”
And then Murdo was reaching for him, and David tried to forget everything else as he lost himself in Murdo’s embrace.
Chapter Three
The day after Dr. Logan’s visit, David’s leg was greatly improved—almost as good as it had been before he’d embarked on his ill-fated trip to McNally’s. He noticed the improvement as he rose from Murdo’s bed early that morning. Levering himself carefully to his feet, he waited for the inevitable pain in his knee, but instead of the slicing agony of the past few days, all that came was the lesser twinge of before.
He glanced at Murdo, thinking to share the news, but the other man was sleeping still, his face boyish and easy in slumber. David paused, admiring the familiar, handsome lines of Murdo’s face, smiling at how sleep softened him. It was tempting to wake him but it was still early and the other man looked so peaceful.
Instead, David crossed the room, his bare feet nearly silent on the rug-strewn floor, to pull one of the heavy velvet drapes aside. The early morning sun streamed through the gap he’d made, illuminating the bedchamber, penetrating to the very back of the room to bathe Murdo’s sleeping form in gold. Murdo shifted, murmuring a complaint, and David quietly closed the drapes again, watching as Murdo turned over and settled back to sleep.
David glanced at the clock on the mantel—it was barely six, but there was no danger of him falling back to sleep. If he returned to bed, he’d only lie there, fidgeting, and probably wake Murdo. Better to go to his own bedchamber where he could read or deal with some correspondence.
Pulling on his drawers, he headed for the door to the study that connected Murdo’s bedchamber to his own. He turned the doorknob slowly so as to minimise the noise and closed it behind him just as quietly. Once, the study had been a shared dressing room for the lady and gentleman of the house, but when Murdo had first moved to Laverock House, he’d liked the morning light the room got so well that he’d decided it would be better used by him during his working hours. A serendipitous choice, it transpired. A study they both used was far more plausible as a conduit between their bedchambers than a dressing room that David could have no earthly reason to be in.
David padded past the two desks—his and Murdo’s—smiling at the tidy piles of correspondence and paperwork lined up to be dealt with, and opened the door on the other side of the room, the one that led to his own bedchamber. The drapes were drawn in his bedchamber too, the bedcovers carefully mussed, and the door that gave out to the main corridor was securely locked. All of it part of his nightly routine.
He crossed to the wardrobe and drew out a set of comfortable clothes, ones that he wouldn’t mind getting dirty. With his leg feeling so much better, he thought he might go fishing later, and the old-fashioned brown breeches he’d pulled out—once Murdo’s—would be perfect for that, soft and worn, the matching waistcoat a loose fit on his lean form.
After tying his neckcloth in a perfunctory knot, all that remained to be done was to bring some order to his too-long hair. A dab of pomade brought it under temporary control, and, fully dressed, he threw a glance at the mirror to check his appearance, concluding with satisfaction that he didn’t look too disreputable. He might not pass muster at Parliament House—he looked, in fact, quite the yokel in his country getup—but he would do well enough for the breakfast table at Laverock House.
Like Murdo’s bedchamber, David’s faced east. The early morning sunlight streamed into the room, gilding his dark-red hair with brighter flashes of copper and gold. In the instant that he turned away from the looking glass, David could have sworn he saw his brother Drew. Drew’s hair had always been more fiery than his own, and those country clothes were exactly the sort of thing that Drew wore every day.
The unsettling vision made him turn back to the mirror, thinking to—what? See his brother? Of course he saw only himself, with his paler, citified complexion and darker, fox-red hair. He turned away from the glass, shaking his head.
The odd moment set him to thinking about his family, and when he took his seat behind the little writing desk at the window that looked out over Laverock House’s kitchen garden, he found himself lifting a letter he’d had from his mother a few days before. He read it through once, then again, imagining her speaking the words she’d scribed in that spare way of hers.
More than half the letter was made up of questions and advice about his leg. How was his walking now? Had he used the comfrey poultice she’d recommended? He should still be using it once a week, even now that he was walking. Was there a plentiful supply of comfrey at Laverock House? And was he making sure to rub down the whole leg with her liniment every night before he retired?
His mother had been devastated to learn of David’s injuries months before. And she’d felt bewildered and slighted when he’d told her that he’d be staying at Laverock House, rather than coming home to recuperate from them. He’d had to tell her that Murdo had offered him a temporary position to explain it to her in a way she could just about accept.
Well, he could write to her now and set her mind at rest on a few matters at least—the comfrey grew like wildfire in Murdo’s garden, and David was positively religious about using the liniment daily—no need to admit that it was applied by his employer’s hand more often than his own.
While he was dealing with correspondence, he may as well answer the other letter he’d received this week—the one from Elizabeth Chalmers.
He’d been rather surprised when Elizabeth started writing to him, but he’d grown to look forward to her letters during his recuperation. When he’d last seen her in person, she’d been running into a crowd in an attempt to flee her violent husband, Sir Alasdair Kinnell. It was David’s part in her escape that had resulted in his broken leg, and a fractured skull besides. Elizabeth had got safely away, though, finding their coconspirator, Euan MacLen
nan, in the crowd and fleeing to London with him.
Elizabeth’s first letter to David was little more than a tearstained apology about the injuries he’d sustained on her account, but there’d been one sign of defiance. The looping signature at the end of it: Elizabeth Chalmers, her maiden name. Her subsequent letters had shown a woman growing in confidence and happiness. And David hadn’t missed the growing frequency of references to Euan. In her last few letters, Elizabeth had stopped referring to him as “Mr. MacLennan”; he was “Euan” now. And in this latest letter, he and Elizabeth had become an obvious “we”.
“We have moved again. To Blackfriars this time. It is closer to the press, which is better for Euan since he spends so much time there.”
David found himself hoping that those casual we’s meant that Euan’s love for Elizabeth was reciprocated now, or that it would be one day. They both deserved a little happiness in their lives.
He wrote steadily for an hour, first to his mother, then to Elizabeth. He was just sanding the second letter when the study door opened and Murdo appeared.
“There you are,” Murdo said, the last word stretching into a yawn. He had pulled on a pair of drawers to preserve his modesty, but otherwise he was naked. His big body filled the doorframe and David allowed himself a moment to admire the breadth of the man’s powerful shoulders, the soft, dark hair that covered his chest and arrowed down the flat belly he was now scratching.
“How long have you been up?” Murdo added, drawing David’s attention back up to his face. A knowing smile curved his lips upwards.
David smiled back, even as his cheeks warmed at being caught out staring. “Since six. I didn’t want to wake you. You were sleeping so peacefully.”
“I must’ve been tired after last night’s exertions.” Murdo grinned, and David chuckled. Their gazes met, warm with amusement and shared, secret pleasure.
Murdo leaned his head against the doorframe. “Have you had breakfast?”
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