Free Highlander Undone by Connie Brockway Page A

over on the narrow bench. Jack dismounted and tied his horse to the back of the rig and then climbed up next to her. He moved with smoothly oiled economy.
    She pulled her skirts away and he took the seat, his thigh pressed intimately along hers. Her heart thudded dully and she was aware, even through heavy skirts, of the length of his leg and its hardness.
    “I feel obliged to warn you, you are undoubtedly vastly better at it than I.” He took the reins from her and clucked at the mare, starting her forward in a leisurely gait. Addie glanced over at Jack. His jaw was set and a small frown scored his high forehead. He was concentrating fiercely on his driving.
    They rode for a while in silence, only the birdsong from the hedgerows and the rustle of papery leaves beneath the carriage wheels accompanying the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves.
    “You must be looking forward to London after so long an absence,” Jack finally said.
    “I enjoy the atelier,” she returned, skirting the question.
    “Have you ever acted as your brother’s hostess before?”
    “Oh, yes. Brother, father, uncle . . .” She trailed off.
    He raised a questioning brow.
    “My family is rife with artists. My father, you know.”
    He shot her a questioning glance and she studied him in interest. Perhaps she was overly proud of her parent, but she was surprised he didn’t seem familiar with her father’s work. He was quite a well-known artist.
    But then, she decided, Jack was the sort of considerate gentleman who would pretend ignorance just to offer his companion a topic for polite conversation. So, she obliged.
    “My father was a member of the Pre-Raphaelites for a time. Before he turned to the Nabis.”
    “Ah. And your uncle?”
    “Another avant-garde .” She grinned. “Yes. I’m afraid the lot of them are bohemians. Along with myself, my mother is the sole practitioner of conventionality in our family, and she is not, I am afraid, very good at it. Which is why the hostess duties fell to me. Mother was always too . . . distracted.”
    “You are conventional?” His tone bespoke skepticism.
    “Relatively speaking,” she allowed laughingly. “Even when I was a child, Mother claimed I was always trying to bring order to our household. But it was like trying to bring order to a typhoon. People coming and going, showing up unannounced in the middle of the night and staying for weeks or months.”
    “People? What sort of people?”
    “Oh, every sort. Models and travelers, artisans and historians. They gravitated toward our house like iron to a magnet.”
    “You enjoyed it?” It was not a question.
    “More than I realized,” she replied softly. “I am afraid that like many young people I had scant appreciation for what I had and longed after that which I did not.”
    “Which was?”
    The flippant response she had been about to give faltered on her lips as she thought back to her girlhood aspirations. “Order, consistency, stability. A family that did all the normal things. You know. Tea with the vicar, servants one did not have to hush, decorous conversatio n”—she smiled—“decorous dinners.”
    “You did not have these things?”
    “Lord, no! Father hates the vicar. He keeps trying to have my father excommunicated.”
    “Your father is an atheist?”
    “No. The vicar just doesn’t like him. He created a stained glass for the church’s nave. Judgment Day.”
    “That hardly sounds like a reason for animosity.”
    “It does when the vicar’s face is plainly depicted next to Christ’s index finger,” Addie said and felt the corner of her mouth twitch. “His left index finger.”
    “Good Lord!” Jack broke out.
    “Exactly.”
    “What of the family dinners?”
    Addie shook her head. “They were more feeding time than dinners, always en buffet . Mother never knew how many would be sitting down, you see. Dinner parties were invariably forums for debate, people thumping their fists on the table, chattering,