Free Sarah's Duke: and Ellie's Gentleman (The heir and the spare, book 1) by Fiona Miers Page B

his aching lungs and attempting to calm his thundering heart.
    “Sarah Collins you say?”
    “Yes, it seems she’s quite a beauty and with half a brain as well.”
    “She has more than half a brain,” Oliver yelled across the table, scowling at his friend.
    Rupert’s eyes flickered dangerously and Oliver swallowed the lump that rose in his throat. He had a wicked temper when roused.
    “You know her?” Rupert asked, flicking a piece of lint from his jacket sleeve in an obvious attempt to defuse the situation.
    “Yes I know her,” Oliver snapped again, unable to hold in the torrent of emotion pouring from him. His heart was galloping in his chest and a hot sweat had broken out on his forehead. He took a long drink of his whiskey and embraced the burn that slid down his throat, draining the glass before he could speak again, gasping against the alcohol’s effect on his mouth.
    How had she found someone so quickly? It had only been two weeks.
    “I met Sarah Collins a month ago at Lady Charlotte’s birthday ball. She was attacked by that animal Millington in the gardens, and I found her and helped her to get home unnoticed.” Oliver confided in his friend, eyes darting around the room quickly to make sure no one nearby heard him.
    “Are you serious? I hadn’t heard anything about that.” Rupert whistled low and his eyes widened in surprise.
    “No, we tried to keep it quiet for obvious reasons. She needs to marry this year.”
    “Well, she’s found her husband it seems. McTavish is working out a settlement before he talks to her father. Sounds like he’ll have to travel to Somerset, though. The father never leaves.”
    “Yes, she told me.” Oliver said absentmindedly, not concealing his knowledge of Sarah to his friend.
    So the beautiful little vicar’s daughter had found a decent husband all on her own. She could not have chosen better and pride fluttered in his chest. Jamie had a small but profitable estate and enough money to look after her brother and sister if he so chose. He was also not even thirty and a nice man. Yes, she’d done well indeed. His stomach was knotted, but he tried his best to ignore it.
    “How well do you know her?” Rupert twirled his glass between his fingers and stared into the golden liquid as though it contained the secrets of life.
    “Well enough to know she’ll be a wonderful wife,” Oliver admitted quietly. He couldn’t say that about any lad of his acquaintance.
    “She won’t care about being buried in Scotland for the rest of her life?” Rupert asked.
    Oliver shook his head. No, she would not. She would be happy as long as her family was set up. She would watch over McTavish’s tenants, give him children, share his bed . A sudden vision of the big Scot covering Sarah’s small but lush body with his own flashed before Oliver’s eyes and he saw red. He clenched his teeth and let out a small groan as jealousy ripped through him. Before he could control his wayward emotions the fragile crystal of the whiskey glass shattered in his hand.
    Gasping as pain sliced through his palm he jumped up and away from the fragments of glass. Rupert rushed over to him, wrapping Oliver’s palm quickly in his large white handkerchief.
    “You are having no luck with your whiskey today,” he joked, wrapping the wound tightly and tying it off. “I think that may need a few stitches,” he motioned towards the butler and in a few concise statements Oliver’s drinks were put on his account, and he was in his carriage, on his way home to be met there by the surgeon.
    As Oliver sat in his bedroom in his family’s town house getting his hand stitched up he marvelled over his response to Sarah’s upcoming betrothal. Did he really care that much who she married? He didn’t think he had gone a day without his thinking of her or a night without dreaming about her since the moment they’d met, but did that mean he had the right to interfere in her life?
    When he awoke the next morning in