Page 10 of Beguiled

Euan MacLennan.

David abruptly halted where he stood. “Euan.”

Euan met his gaze and smiled apologetically. “Hello, Davy. I’m sorry to call on you without warning. It’s obviously not the best time.”

It was two years since they’d last come face-to-face, on the night that David had stepped between Euan’s pistol and Hugh Swinburne—or Lees, as he’d been known then—to prevent Euan becoming a murderer.

Despite confidently telling Balfour that Euan would never have shot him, he would probably never know how close Euan had come to it. Euan had desperately wanted to kill Swinburne, a government agent instrumental in having Euan’s brother, Peter, transported for treason, but in the end, Euan had walked away.

Looking at him now, David had to wonder whether Euan was still angry at him for depriving him of his opportunity. The man’s politely smiling face gave nothing away.

He’d changed over the last two years—filled out. Now he was positively brawny. Tall and burly, more like Peter now. Less a boy and more a man.

David made himself move forward, taking the hand the other man offered in a brief grasp. “It’s been a long time,” David said, his expression carefully neutral.

Euan opened his mouth to speak, but before he could do so, Elizabeth interrupted.

“I was just saying to Mr. MacLennan that he looked familiar. I take it he’s a friend of yours, Mr. Lauriston?”

So, Euan had introduced himself already.

“And I was about to answer Lady Kinnell that she and I saw one another at an assembly I attended a few years ago in the Assembly Rooms. I was with you, Davy. Do you remember?” Euan turned his head to smile down at Elizabeth. “We were not formally introduced that evening. I was too embarrassed to dance or speak with any ladies. Davy spent most of the night trying to persuade me to do so, to no avail.”

It bore a passing resemblance to the truth, David supposed, though his only reason for suggesting Euan dance had been to enable the lad to ask the questions that might lead him to Hugh Swinburne.

“How foolish,” Elizabeth said, laughing somewhat nervously. “Well, you can make up for your past misdemeanours by joining this party and speaking with all the ladies. What do you think, Mr. Lauriston?” She glanced at David, a question in her dark gaze. For that moment, she was almost the old Elizabeth, though there was something a little withdrawn about her still.

That rare and welcome glimpse of the girl he remembered, however fleeting, distracted David, and he smiled at her, even as Balfour’s warnings about being seen with Euan MacLennan resonated in his mind. Giving no hint of those thoughts, he told her, “I think it’s an excellent idea.” Then he turned his attention back to Euan and added, “Well, don’t hover there in the doorway, come in.”

Waving Elizabeth ahead, then Euan, David took up the rear himself.

“You can leave your hat on the table there,” he told Euan, waving at the hall table. “Everyone’s in the parlour.”

“I don’t want to intrude,” Euan protested, though he took his hat off and set it on the table as directed.

“You’re not intruding,” David murmured with automatic politeness. “We’re only waiting to see the procession.” Even as he spoke the words, it occurred to him to wonder whether Euan was being followed, if someone, one of Peel’s men, was watching them now, noting David’s address down and marking him as a possible sympathiser to radical causes.

“So, how did you find me?” David asked as he led the way to the front room where the other guests were.

“I called at your old rooms, and a woman there gave me your direction,” Euan explained. “These rooms are much nicer. You must be doing well, Davy.”

David glanced at the younger man, but there appeared to be no sarcasm in his tone or expression.

“I’ve been working hard.”

“You always did,” Euan replied with a smile.

David wasn’t sure how to take that. “Ale?” he offered shortly.

“Ah, yes, thank you.”

“Let’s get you something to eat, Mr. MacLennan,” Elizabeth suggested on Euan’s other side. “Mr. Lauriston’s table has something to tempt everyone, I’m sure.”

While David fetched Euan’s ale, Elizabeth led him to the sideboard where the food lay to help him select some repast. When David joined them there, he was just in time to hear Elizabeth ask, “And what is it you do, Mr. MacLennan?”

Euan put down the little meat pie he’d been about to bite into.

“I’m a journalist,” he said, taking the cup David proffered with a murmur of thanks.