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“The twins won’t mind walking, and Nick and Victoria can take a hackney.” He steered her to a chair tucked behind a column. “Wait here until I arrange to deliver a message to Nick, all right?”
She sank gratefully down onto the seat, feeling dizzy with distress.
Had Jeannie and Logan been lovers? His reaction suggested otherwise. More upsetting was Jeannie’s contention that Logan’s marriage proposal had been primarily financial in nature. In a terrible way, it made sense that it would be. Although they’d been discovered in a compromising position, all but sealing their fate, Logan had already been making a show of courting her. As much as she wanted to believe he cared for her, other interests had to be at play—specifically, his desire to gain her uncle’s considerable business influence.
Donella pressed a hand to her stomach, sick at the idea that she could have been such a dupe.
A gentle touch on her shoulder brought her out of her grim reverie.
“Lass, we can go,” Logan said.
He kept a protective arm around her shoulders as they hurried down the front steps and into the cold night air, where the Kendrick town coach waited at the curb. It took but a moment for Logan to hand her up and give instructions to the coachman before climbing inside.
As the carriage started forward, he sat and took one of her hands. “Tell me what she said to upset you.”
Donella sucked in a shaky breath. “I hardly know where to start.”
“Och, that woman has always been trouble.”
His disgusted tone was a relief, but she still felt battered by emotion.
“Donella,” he said, “whatever it is, we’ll handle it.”
It was difficult to say the words. “Were you and Jeannie . . . did you and Jeannie have . . .”
“Relations?” He shook his head. “Good God, no.”
“She said you were her first lover.”
“We were never lovers, Donella. Word of a Kendrickanda Highlander.”
In the flickering light of the carriage lamps, she read sincerity in his expression.
He cracked a rueful smile. “And as Angus would say, ‘If ye canna depend on the word of a Kendrick and a Highlander, what can ye depend on?’”
“In any case,” she said, “I have no business letting it bother me. You and Mrs. MacArthur loved each other and were to be married. It wouldn’t be entirely surprising if you had an intimate relationship.”
“I wouldn’t have done that. Not to a gently bred lass I hoped to marry.”
Donella lifted an ironic brow. “Really?”
Logan winced. “It’s different with us, and you know it. And looking back on that time,” he hastily added, “we both had a lucky escape.”
“Mrs. MacArthur obviously doesn’t feel that way now.”
“What else did she say?”
Too late, Donella realized she’d wandered into dangerous territory. “Ah, I sensed that she would still be happy to marry you.”
“She’d be happy to marry my money,” he said dryly.
His words hit her hard, but she bit back a sharp reply.
“Come, lass, what else did she say to upset you?” he quietly asked after a few moments of silence.
She sighed. Better to getherworst out of the way before she asked abouthisworst. “She referenced some rather unfortunate rumors circulating about me.”
“Having to do with the Murrays?”
