Chapter 21

Disappointment.

That was what Drew felt as he turned his back on Jossy and walked across the green to meet his opponent.

’Twas foolish. How could he be disappointed when he had no right to expect anything of the lass? She didn’t belong to him. She didn’t owe him anything. In fact, she didn’t particularly care for him. At least that was what her words said. Her lips, however…

Curse the Fates, he thought, kicking at a loose chunk of sod. He was bewitched by the wee willful wench. And, according to the letter she’d just tucked into that lovely crevice betwixt her breasts, so was someone else.

He’d only skimmed the thing. But it had begun with “My dearest Josselin” and ended with “Your worshipful Duncan.” Scattered between were words like “kisses,” “heaven,” “yearning,” and “quench.”

’Twas sickening, such flowery, sugar-sweet language. Indeed, it surprised him that a woman as forthright as Jossy would lap up such honey. But he’d seen her place the sappy declaration next to her heart.

He told himself ’twas no matter. If the lass was so shallow she’d succumb to such empty flattery and overwrought promises, then perhaps the fawning Duncan deserved her.

But that wasn’t how he felt. He felt disappointed.

He’d never met anyone quite like Jossy.

She seemed, in a word, genuine.

She had a wild spirit and a startling frankness, an unwavering loyalty and audacious ambition. He liked her strength—the way she’d stood up to the drunk on The Royal Mile, scolded the gossips in the alley, and challenged him.

Even her weaknesses were honest—blushing when he touched her, gasping when he said something to shock her, melting in his arms when he kissed her.

Jossy’s every response—whether ’twas anger or pride, fear or satisfaction, shame or desire—was genuine.

The fact that she had a secret lover was contrary to everything he’d believed about her.

Drew crouched to scoop sand into a tee and placed his ball on the small mound. As he lined up the shot, the crowd waved their arms and shouted, but he neither saw nor heard them. His thoughts were still on the lass from Selkirk who’d betrayed him.

Betrayed him?

The word had popped into his mind unbidden just as he swung his longnose club, and the ball hooked, going completely off target.

The crowd let him know in no uncertain terms just how bad his shot was, and he grumbled a curse under his breath.

Betrayed? Where the hell had that come from? There was nothing between them to betray. He had offered Jossy an escort to a tavern. She had accepted. That was all.

Everything else had happened because Drew hadn’t been able to keep his nose out of her affairs and his mind out of the bedchamber.

He scowled. His ball had landed in the rough. The match had only started, and already he was falling behind young Colin Barrie, the novice from Dunbar.

He slogged through the thick marram and flattened the grass as best he could for the difficult shot, choosing a niblick from among his clubs for the task.

Who was this Duncan anyway? Drew had expected the note Josselin had dropped to come from Philipe. Was Duncan a golfer? Someone from The White Hart? One of Philipe’s friends?

He placed the head of the club behind the ball and swung back.

’Twasn’t that he was jealous, but…

When he swung forward, his club jammed into the sod just behind the ball, chipping it almost straight up. When it landed, it rolled meekly onto the green, a few inches from the edge of the rough and no nearer the hole.

“Shite.”

The crowd concurred.

Jealous? Had he actually thought that? Whatever Drew was feeling, ’twasn’t jealousy. How could he be jealous of someone he’d never met?

Or had he?

While young Barrie was busy eyeing up his shot, Drew scanned the men jostling each other for a good vantage point. One of them might be Jossy’s sly suitor. One of them might have slipped the love letter to her at the beer wagon this morn. But which one?

There were half a dozen nobles among the onlookers, a number of the merchant class, and a few students. ’Twas unlikely the rest of the bunch could read or write. He sized up the possible candidates, one by one.

The nobleman with the fur-trimmed collar was old enough to be Jossy’s grandfather.

The scowling merchant with the black beard looked too cynical to write a love letter.

Students were impulsive and romantic. Could one of them be Duncan? Perhaps the tall one with the broad shoulders? Or the one with the laughing eyes and the straight white teeth? Or the fellow with the head full of golden curls?

Drew ground his teeth. ’Twas probably that golden-headed one. Women adored blond curls.

Somebody jostled him.

“Are ye goin’ to play or not?” the scowling merchant asked.

“Aye. Aye.”

Faith, he had to get his mind back on the game. There were men counting on him to win.

He chose his fairway club and settled it behind the ball, eyeing the distant hole. He wondered if the silver-tongued Duncan had bet for or against him.

Silently cursing his stupid jealousy of a man he didn’t know over a woman he didn’t possess, Drew cocked his arm and swung forward with surprising force. The club hit the ball with a loud crack, and it shot like an arrow across the green, bypassing the hole completely and eventually rolling to a stop in the middle of the marshy spot on the far side of the course.

“Oh, that’s bloody brilliant,” he muttered, shaking his head.

A shoving match broke out then between Barrie’s cocky supporters and Drew’s disappointed ones. By the time they reached the seventh hole, the violence had escalated into a full-scale brawl, Barrie was winning by five strokes, and Drew was no closer to identifying the elusive Duncan.