The Lord’s Highland Temptation. Diane Gaston

brother, then.’ Niven had seemed an energetic youth.

      ‘Niven is not at home. He is visiting a friend.’

      That seemed quite frivolous when there was so much to be done at home—most of it falling to Miss Wallace. Or, rather, most she took upon herself. It bothered Lucas to see her performing such hard labour. And it bothered him that her plight affected him at all.

      It was none of his affair, he told himself.

      ‘I will leave you to it, then.’ He turned away and walked a few steps, but turned back to her, inclining his head towards a pond he’d glimpsed in the distance. ‘I thought I might walk to that pond.’

      She stopped hoeing. ‘Are you certain you feel well enough?’

      ‘You need not worry about me, Miss Wallace.’

      She had enough worries on her shoulders.