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Logan propped a shoulder against one of the stone porch columns. “I’ve been wondering the same thing. You were working for Lord Riddick when Miss Haddon joined the convent, weren’t you?”
“That I was, sir.”
“That decision must have put the cat amongst the pigeons.”
“Aye, the family was fashed, I can tell ye. And then puir Miss Donella up and got—”
Davey suddenly caught himself, wincing a bit.
Logan had found everyone to be tight-lipped about the lass. There was obviously a bit of a mystery when it came to Miss Donella.
“You were saying?” he prompted.
“Nothin’, sir.”
They both turned at the sound of thumps from inside the guesthouse. It would appear the lady of the hour was finally about to make an appearance.
“Ah, at last. Have Foster bring the carriage around, Davey.”
“Aye, sir.”
The young man hightailed it out of the courtyard, as if relieved to escape further questioning.
Not that it had been much of an interrogation. Mostly it was just idle curiosity on Logan’s part. He’d every expectation that the next two days in the company of a spinsterish, pious lady would be utterly flat.
When the door to the guesthouse opened, Logan adopted a smile, ready to be as sympathetic as the situation demanded. The poor girl would be sadly pulled, no doubt. He could only hope she wouldn’t spend the entire trip weeping into her handkerchief and bemoaning her fate. If she did, he’d have to retrieve the flask of very fine whisky he’d stowed in his travel kit for a necessary fortification.
A tall young woman wearing a stunningly ugly bonnet stalked out to the porch and stopped short when she saw him. Her gaze scanned him from head to toe, and then her tight-lipped expression transformed into one of outright disapproval.
For his part, he could do nothing but stare back at her like a chucklehead.
Good God.
Miss Donella Haddon looked neither pale nor morose, and not particularly nunlike. In fact, she was the most beautiful girl Logan had seen in a long time.
“Excuse me,” she said. “Are you going to stand there gaping at me all afternoon? Will I have to go down to the inn and fetch the carriage myself?”
She had a bonny voice, as clear and musical as a rippling Highland stream. At the moment, it was as chilly as one, too.
Sister Margaret appeared from inside. “Gracious, Donella. Remember what Mother told you about intemperate language.”
“As if I could ever bloody forget,” Miss Haddon muttered.
When Logan choked back a laugh, she shot him a lethal stare, as if daring him to say a word.
“I’m sorry, my child,” Sister Margaret said in a long-suffering voice. “I do not believe I heard you correctly.”
Miss Haddon closed her spectacular green eyes and sucked in a deep breath. Naturally, that pulled Logan’s attention to her bosom, which seemed a little too large for her ill-fitting, drab pelisse.
Why was she so poorly dressed? As Riddick’s niece, she needn’t go into the world looking like a charity case.
Even with the deplorable outfit and her irate glower, Donella Haddon was a true Scottish beauty, with pale, perfect features, an enchanting spray of freckles across her nose, and bright auburn hair peeking out from under her bonnet. Her tall, elegant figure also possessed enough curves to satisfy the most exacting of men.
Why the hell hadn’t anyone told him the girl was so bloody gorgeous? He’d been expecting a dreary little miss, and instead he’d been saddled with a beauty, something he surely didn’t need.
Logan had sworn off women for some time now. He was too busy for one thing. For another, he had no intention of getting married again. Taken together, they meant avoiding any eligible lasses that wandered into his orbit.
Ineligible lasses were off-limits, too. Nick would murder him if he engaged in that sort of nonsense, especially in a city as small and gossipy as Glasgow.
