Enlightened by Joanna Chambers Page A

things, and the sauce boat overturned, upsetting its contents all over the white tablecloth.
    “Oh no!” she gasped. “Mr. Foster’ll have me guts for garters!”
    Flushing scarlet, she began trying to wipe up the mess with her apron.
    Murdo put a hand on her arm to still her. “What’s your name, girl?”
    “Peggy, m’lor’,” she said, looking at him obediently, though her anxious gaze flitted back to the table.
    “Right then, Peggy,” Murdo said firmly. “Go back to the kitchen and tell Mr. Foster that His Lordship overturned the gravy boat, and now he wants a fresh tablecloth brought and this one burned. And the cost is to be added to my bill, if you please.” He said it all in his most supercilious tone, giving the girl the right words to parrot to her master, then he smiled his most coaxing smile. “Do you have that?”
    She stared at him, eyes wide, and repeated what he said. Twice through, at Murdo’s insistence. When he was satisfied, he released her, and she scurried away.
    Once she was gone, Murdo turned to David. “What?” he said. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
    “That was kind,” David said simply, then he chuckled. “And not a little devious.”
    “Devious?” Murdo’s tone was outraged, but his expression was amused, the winsome dimple that David loved making a rare appearance.
    “I wouldn’t have approached it like that. I’d have spoken to Foster on her behalf instead.” David paused, then admitted, “I’d probably have made it worse for her.”
    Murdo chuckled. “Honest to a fault, that’s you.”
    David chuckled too, ruefully. “That’s what my mother’s always said about me.”
    “You’re direct,” Murdo said. “Uncompromising.”
    “You think me inflexible,” David accused without heat.
    Murdo inclined his head. “At times. Sometimes I hesitate to tell you things because—” He stopped, his gaze suddenly troubled.
    “Because what?”
    “You’re very black-and-white about everything. I’ve never met anyone who has such a strong sense of right and wrong.”
    David considered that echo of Chalmers’s words from a few days before. “I’m not sure that’s true,” he said, frowning. “I struggle more than anyone I know with what’s right and wrong.”
    “That’s just it, though,” Murdo said. “Most people don’t worry about it all that much. Most people are adept at convincing themselves that what they want—what suits them—is right. Or at least, that it isn’t really wrong.” He smiled. “ I’m adept at that.”
    David sipped his ale. “I really don’t think I’m as principled as you imagine,” he said at last. “Over the last year or two, my views on certain things have altered significantly—in ways that have suited me very well.”
    Murdo’s gaze gentled. “If you’re talking about us, I know you didn’t alter your view without a struggle. In fact, I know you still struggle with it, still question yourself.” He paused, then added, “I know that, even now, when you give yourself to me, you hold a part of yourself back.”
    David’s heart clenched at that, and at that bleak look in the other man’s eyes. What Murdo said was true, but he hadn’t realised Murdo knew it.
    “I feel as though—” Murdo began, then stopped, seeming to debate with himself whether to continue. When he started up again, his tone was careful. “I feel as though we’re fighting over that part of you. I want you to give it up, give it to me. But you’re still not convinced that what we have together is—right. And I don’t know what I can do to convince you.”
    “Murdo—”
    The knock at the door was different this time, harder, with a flourishing rhythm at the end, tat-tat-te-tat-tat .
    They glanced at one another, both frustrated by the interruption. “Come in,” Murdo called out.
    It was Foster this time, with Peggy trailing behind him, a clean tablecloth over her arm and a miserable expression on her plump face.
    “Your