Free A Dark and Brooding Gentleman by Margaret McPhee

place was exhaustion and a fragility that Phoebe had never before seen there. Her face was pale and peaked and as Phoebe looked she realised Mrs Hunter looked old and ill.
    ‘Do you wish to speak of it?’
    There was silence and for a moment, a very small moment, Phoebe thought she would. And then Mrs Hunter shook her head and closed her eyes. ‘I cannot.’ And then she pressed a hand to her forehead, half-shielding one eye as if she might weep.
    Phoebe moved to take Mrs Hunter’s arm and guided her to sit in an armchair. She knelt by her side and took one of the lady’s hands within her own. ‘Is there anything that I might do to help?’
    Mrs Hunter gave a little shake of the head and a weak smile. ‘You are a good and honest girl, Phoebe.’
    Phoebe felt the guilt stain her cheeks. She glanced down uneasily, knowing that she had been less than honest and that thieving made her very bad.
    Mrs Hunter sighed as her hand moved to her breastbone and she rubbed her fingers against the silk of her dress, feeling the golden locket that Phoebe knew lay hidden beneath. ‘My head aches almost as much as my heart.’ Her voice was unsteady and there was such an underlying pain there that Phoebe felt the ache of it in her own chest.
    ‘I could make you a feverfew tisane. It should relieve the pain a little.’
    ‘Yes. I would like that.’ Mrs Hunter patted Phoebe’s hand, then she rose and walked from the little sitting room towards her bedchamber. ‘And send Polly up. I wish to lie down for a while.’
    Phoebe nodded and quietly left. Yet she could not stop wondering at the terrible deed in Hunter’s past that had made his mother hate him so.
    McEwan came to him that evening with the information he had discovered.
    ‘Are you certain?’ Hunter demanded.
    McEwan glanced up at him. ‘Absolutely. Sir Henry Allardyce was sent to gaol for an unpaid debt of fifteen hundred pounds some six months ago. He has been imprisoned in the Tolbooth ever since.’ McEwan tasted the brandy. ‘It seems that your instincts concerning Miss Allardyce were right, Hunter.’
    Hunter said nothing, just toyed with the glass of brandy in his hand.
    McEwan lounged back in the wing chair by the unlit fire. ‘I suppose it is understandable that she would lieover the matter. She is unlikely to have found a decent position otherwise.’
    ‘Indeed.’ Hunter took a small sip of brandy.
    ‘Will you tell Mrs Hunter?’
    ‘My mother will not thank me for the knowledge.’
    ‘Then we will leave Miss Allardyce to her secret.’
    ‘Not quite,’ said Hunter and set his glass down on the drum table between him and McEwan. He thought of Miss Allardyce in his study and of the lies she had spun, and he could not rid himself of the notion that there was more to the mystery surrounding the girl than simply hiding her father’s fate.
    McEwan listened while Hunter told him his plan and then left to rush back to his Mairi. Hunter lifted his glass and stood by the window, looking out over the moor. In all these months not once had he even looked at a woman. He was the man his father had wanted him to be. And yet it was all too little, too late. The past could not be undone. Some sins could never be washed clean. And Hunter would have to live with that knowledge for the rest of his life. All he had were the vows he had sworn and his determination to honour them. And now it seemed even they were to be tried.
    Fate was taunting him, testing him. Throwing temptation in his path, and such a temptation that Hunter could never have imagined, wrapped in the guise of a plain and ordinary girl, except there was nothing plain or ordinary about Phoebe Allardyce. For the sake of his mother there could be no more thought of avoiding Miss Allardyce. He sipped at the brandy and knew he would have to take an interest in the girl, whether he liked it or not. And in him burned a cold steady anger and a determination to honour the promises he had sworn.
    Mrs Hunter was still in