Duncan didn’t head straight home, when he knew his grandfathers would both pounce on him to hear if he was engaged again or not. He had no desire to discuss it. He went to the inn in Oxbow instead, or more exactly, to the tavern side of it, and bribing the innkeeper to stay open when the man tried to send him home, got quite thoroughly soused.

He did manage to find his way home eventually, though he fell off his horse twice, at least he was pretty sure it was twice, and might have stayed put on the cold ground if the animal didn’t repeatedly blow some very fetid hot air in his face. He suspected it might have been his own breath coming back at him, but that was neither here nor there, when he wasn’t in good enough condition to tell the difference.

Nor had he managed to avoid his grandfathers. They both still pounced on him the moment he stumbled through the front door. Mr. Jacobs had had sense enough to go to bed, but Neville and Archie, despite it being the middle of the night now, had both waited up for him.

Not together, though. Archie came out of the drawing room to help Duncan off the floor, where he managed somehow to land again. Neville was at the top of the stairs asking if he should fetch a footman to carry Duncan to bed.

“I can bluidy well heft the lad m’self,” Archie blustered indignantly.

“Then do it,” Neville called down.

Duncan, who would have much preferred to just sleep there on the floor in the hall, had a vague suspicion that Archie really was going to try to carry him up the stairs, stubborn Scot that he was, and no doubt break his back doing so. Which was why he drew on the last bit of steam in him and got up those stairs himself, pausing only long enough to raise a lopsided eyebrow at Neville, who was standing there in his bed robe holding a lamp aloft.

For the lifted eyebrow, he got back a very English sounding snort, which started him laughing. He hadn’t known that snorts could be differentiated by language, and found the knowledge quite amusing.

“Now tell me,” Neville was heard behind him as he careened down the upper hall in what he hoped was the direction of his bedroom. “Since you know him so well, is he foxed this time from celebrating or drowning his sorrows?”

“Shhh,” Archie hissed back. “Dinna be reminding him o’ what he’s tried tae forget in drink.”

“Not celebrating then.” Neville sighed.

Duncan, wondering why they thought drink had any effect at all upon hearing, propped himself up against the nearest wall and said, “She wouldna have me, flatly refused tae marry me. Yet she returns my kisses as if she’d drag me tae her bed if she could. I dinna understand, Archie,” he complained, but then he glanced accusingly at Neville, asking him, “Is that some English peculiarity in your lasses here?”

“That they might want to drag you off to bed? Or that they still won’t marry you after they get you there?”

“Aye, that.

Duncan suspected the old man wanted to laugh, but he managed to keep a straight face when he replied, “I wouldn’t know. Honestly haven’t had that many women who want to drag me off to their bed.”

Archie was less restrained, he did laugh—at Neville. “Now, why am I no’ surprised?”

Which got Archie a glare, another snort, and nearly lost them the lamp, since Neville marched off with it. But he did come back with it after a moment, set it on the nearest hall table, and stiffly said, “For the lad, so he doesn’t break his neck. And we’ll discuss in the morning what sounds like a misunderstanding.”

The last was said with yet another glare in Archie’s direction, which instead of further amusing the old Scot, caused him to wince this time. Duncan didn’t notice, demanded, “What misunderstanding?”

“The one you just complained about not understanding,” Neville replied.

That, of course, was much too cryptic for Duncan’s whisky-soaked brain to try to grasp, so he didn’t try. Instead he stumbled the last few feet to what looked like his bedroom, and pushing his way in, managed to do his falling this time on a soft bed. He’d worry tomorrow about whether it was his room. As long as no one was shouting at him to get out, his mind took the opportunity to stop functioning.

Waking the next afternoon—he managed to sleep that long—Duncan was treated to the reminiscent scene of finding someone sitting beside his bed again, waiting for him to awake. It was Archie this time, and although he was pretending to be asleep as well, Duncan knew better. The irony wasn’t lost on him, despite the wicked hammers pounding on his head. Both rimes had been after he’d drowned himself in drink.

Archie, cracking one eye at him, said pretty much the same thought. “Ye sloshed yerself when ye got engaged but didna want tae, now ye’ve done it again when ye did want tae, but couldna. Is the after pain worth it, lad, when the forgetting is only temporary?”

“Nae, no’ worth it at all. And you’ll be regretting sitting there all night just tae ask me that, when your auld bones creak now for a week.”

“Let me worry aboot m’auld bones,” Archie replied as he sat up and stretched. That they both heard a few creaks as he did so caused him to softly chuckle.

Duncan rolled to a sitting position on the side of the bed himself. He did so carefully, but it still didn’t help. Obviously he hadn’t slept quite long enough to get all the liquor out of his system yet. Next time he thought that drink would be the answer to his problems, he decided he’d just ask someone to shoot him instead.

Archie, watching him, said uncomfortably, ‘This should probably wait until yer feeling better, but m’conscience says otherwise.”

“If you mun scream at me, do it in a whisper,’ Duncan replied.

Archie winced. “Any screaming gets done will probably be coming from ye.”

That got Duncan’s undivided attention. “Conscience, eh? Verra well, what’s bothering you?”

“That yer taking the lass’s rejection sae hard.”

Duncan raised a brow, but that hurt. He tried a scowl instead, but that hurt, too. He finally just put his head back in his hands and mumbled, “Was I tae rejoice that she doesna love me in the way I love her?”

“Yer sure then, that ye love her that way?”

“Would I have asked her tae wed me if I still saw her just as a friend?”

“Aye, I was afraid ye’d do just that, just tae get the marrying o’er wi’.” Archie sighed. “But then the last word I had from ye on the matter was yer assurance that she was only a friend tae ye.”

“And so she was—then. The irony is, ‘twas your own insistence that men and women canna be true friends that started me looking at her differently. And I found I liked what I saw, verra much so. In fact, I had the devil’s own time, after that, keeping m’hands off o’ her.”

Archie closed his eyes with another sigh. “Then I hae some apologizing tae do. I’m afraid I may hae influenced her rejection o’ ye.”

“Dinna be absurd,” Duncan scoffed. “You canna change how she feels.”

“Nae, but from the talk I had wi’ her, I may hae convinced her tae no’ admit how she really feels.”

Duncan went very still as he stared at his grandfather. “What talk?”

“I thought I was doing the right thing—

“What talk?”

“Last week, when I saw her in Oxbow. I warned her that ye might be coming tae her for marriage, if ye could get oout o’ marrying the Reid lass, but that it’d be for the wrong reasons if ye did.”

“Bedamned, you told her I felt nothing more’n friendship for her?”

Archie cringed, though Duncan’s tone wasn’t as harsh as it sounded. “Aye, but then I was sure that is all it was, when ye had assured me o’ just that, and I didna want tae see the tae o’ ye making a serious mistake in thinking ye could base a marriage on it.”

Duncan’s scowl suddenly turned into a grin when he realized, “Do you ken this means she really loves me?”

“Aye, that is a possibility.”

“More’n that. I’m realizing what a fool I was no’ tae listen tae my heart, when I know she has more’n a tepid care for me. I let a few words o’ denial destroy my common sense last night.”

“I’ll talk tae her, lad,” Archie said gruffly. “And tell her my mistake.”

“Nae.” Duncan shook his head with a smile. “She needs convincing that I really love her, and if I canna do that m’self, then I dinna deserve her.”

“Ye can forgive me then, for interfering?”

“Dinna fash yourself, Archie, I know you meant well. But for this devil damned headaching that’s going tae keep me from going tae her right this minute, aye, you can wallow in guilt a bit longer for your part in that.”

Archibald snorted and headed for the door. “If I’m going tae do any undignified wallowing, then ye might as well suffer the full brunt o’ yer own foolishness,” he said, and slammed the door shut soundly, knowing full well he’d be leaving some serious groaning behind him, which he did.