Page 33 of Provoked

“Aye.”

“And?”

Euan paused. “It’s not him.”

Relief flooded David, making his legs feel suddenly weak and trembly. He wanted to find a chair and sink into it, put his head between his knees and just breathe for a moment. The strength of his own reaction stunned him speechless. He tried to use the same skills he’d just employed in conversation with Balfour to hide that reaction from Euan, but he couldn’t prevent himself visibly swallowing and felt sure Euan must notice.

“Are you certain?” he said at last.

“I think so.”

David glanced sharply at Euan, frowning as he took in Euan’s troubled expression. “Youthinkso?”

Euan shook his head unhappily. “He looks like him! But no.” He said the last word with what sounded like reluctance. “No, I’m sure it’s not him.”

“Then what? Do you think he’s related to Lees? Is the resemblance a family one?”

Euan nodded. “It must be. It’s uncanny, Davy.”

So it seemed Balfour was involved with Lees in some way, then, even if only as a kinsman. That knowledge made David wonder why Balfour was really in Scotland, why he’d been in Stirling on the very day of Baird and Hardie’s execution. Coincidence?

Or was he here because he took orders from the same masters as his kinsman?

That last thought made David feel as though he was falling, his gut spasming in sudden alarm. David had revealed his sympathies for the weavers’ cause to Balfour without much thought at all. Until this moment, when he was faced with the reality that Balfourhadto be connected to it all, he hadn’t considered how imprudent it was to be so frank. Now his unwise words, spoken into the anonymity of night as he walked at Balfour’s side, seemed arrogantly naïve, and he burned with regret.

He gave a sigh, forcing those unhelpful thoughts aside. There was nothing to be done about his foolishness.

“What now?” he asked.

“You dance with the Galbraith lass? See what you can find out from her?” Euan suggested.

“All right. You could come and meet her too, if you like,” David said.

Euan paused for a long moment, then shook his head. “I don’t want her to see me. I’m thinking that I could follow her after the assembly—watch her house for a bit. If Lees is that keen on her, hopefully he’ll turn up there at some point. It’s my best chance of finding him. He’s not going to turn up here tonight, not now.”

David nodded. “Agreed. All right, I’ll go back now. My set with Miss Galbraith is the one after this one. I’ll see what I can find out from her before we go.”

Isabella Galbraith was ten times more beautiful than her friend Elizabeth, and just as many times colder. When David arrived to claim her for their set, she stated baldly that she had a headache coming on and didn’t feel terribly like dancing. Undaunted by her rudeness—though Elizabeth looked mortified on his behalf—David proposed a stroll around the ballroom instead, suggesting it might help clear her head.

Miss Galbraith couldn’t say no to that without being even more obviously rude. She stood reluctantly, placed her hand on the arm David offered, and they began to slowly perambulate the room.

For a few minutes, David kept the conversation light and general. Miss Galbraith was coolly polite and almost monosyllabic in her responses. Eventually, he decided to take a more direct tack.

“Have you spent much time in London, Miss Galbraith? Your father is a politician, is he not?”

“I’ve spent some time there,” she replied. “But I prefer Edinburgh.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

She was very lovely, but her smile was like a little bit of winter. “The young ladies of London are chiefly concerned with fashion and entertainment, I find.”

It was the first chink he’d seen in her formidable armour. A slight, distant smile graced her pretty lips, and her gaze was aloof. She was proud, this one. Confident of her superiority to everyone around her.

“Perhaps that is the sort of lady London gentlemen prefer?” David offered.

“Not all of them,” she answered too quickly to have given the question any real thought.

“No?” He was used to reading people in court. And he sensed in Isabella Galbraith a desire to confide, to boast, one that possibly warred with a need to be discreet. It was perhaps no bad thing that she considered him so below her notice.