Книга - The Scottish Lord’s Secret Bride

The Scottish Lord’s Secret Bride
Raven McAllan


The next exquisite Regency romance from Raven McAllan, The Scottish Lord’s Secret Bride will whisk you off your feet and sweep you into an opulent world of scandal, secrets and desire!Secrets never stay buried for long…Reluctant heiress Lady Morven Weston is tired of her mother interfering in her love affairs. At twenty-six there’s only so many more society balls she can attend before resigning herself to life as an unmarried maid.But when Lord Fraser Napier, the man Morven ran wild with one long, hot summer, returns to Scotland, his shocking revelations change everything. Fraser never annulled their whirlwind marriage all those years ago!Preparing to take up his ancestral seat, Fraser’s not letting go of his secret bride that easily – he needs an heir. It’s only a matter of time before Morven surrenders to Fraser’s seductive touch and finds herself in his bed…Praise for Raven McAllan:‘McAllan has written another winning historical.’ – Too Many Romances‘Lies, deception, secrets, scandal and passion brings this story to an interesting end.’ – My Book Addiction and More’Wonderfully written and easy to sink into – I’ll definitely look to read more from Raven McAllan!’ – Paris Baker Book Nook Reviews‘A truly delicious step back in time that has left me hungry for more. If you're a regency fan, then I suggest you delve into this, it will tease and tantalise until the very last page!’ – Becca’s Books







Secrets never stay buried for long…

Reluctant heiress Lady Morven Weston is tired of her mother interfering in her love affairs. At almost twenty-six there’s only so many more society balls she can attend before resigning herself to life as an unmarried maid.

But when Lord Fraser Napier, the man Morven ran wild with one long, hot summer, returns to Scotland, his shocking revelations change everything. Fraser never annulled their whirlwind marriage all those years ago!

Preparing to take up his ancestral seat, Fraser’s not letting go of his secret bride that easily—he needs an heir. It’s only a matter of time before Morven surrenders to Fraser’s seductive touch and finds herself in his bed…

The next exquisite Regency romance from Raven McAllan, The Scottish Lord’s Secret Bride will whisk you off your feet and sweep you into an opulent world of scandal, secrets and desire!


Also by Raven McAllan (#ulink_d8f9eb30-8cb8-5df0-a3ce-5838f494874c):

The Scandalous Proposal of Lord Bennett

The Rake’s Unveiling of Lady Belle

The Duke’s Seduction of Lady M


The Scottish Lord’s Secret Bride

Raven McAllan






www.CarinaUK.com (http://www.CarinaUK.com)


RAVEN MCALLAN

lives in Scotland, the land of lochs, glens, mountains, haggis, men in kilts (sometimes) and midges. She enjoys all of them—except midges. They’re not known as the scourge of Scotland for nothing. Her long-suffering husband has learned how to work the Aga, ignore the dust bunnies who share their lives, and pour the wine when necessary. Raven loves history, which is just as well, considering she writes Regency romance, and often gets so involved in her research she forgets the time. She loves to travel, and says she and her hubby are doing their gap year in three-week stints. All in the name of research of course.

She loves to hear from her readers and you can contact her on Twitter: @RavenMcAllan (http://www.twitter.com/RavenMcAllan) or via her website: ravenmcallan.com (http://ravenmcallan.com)


Charlotte and the team at Carina, thank you for all your hard work. I really appreciate it.

Doris my beta reader and the RavDor chicks for their support.

And Paul for ignoring the dust bunnies, and accepting a wife who forgets she's put the dinner in the Aga three hours earlier.


To Marguerite Kaye for pushing me, (and sharing the wine.)


Contents

Cover (#uecbb22b6-63d4-5b29-8155-bced21235539)

Blurb (#uccbb8331-2158-5e9d-b834-8afd5942bdbf)

Book List (#ulink_34bfeece-2695-5a19-b21d-b7cb3ed0e9b7)

Title Page (#u3b45f9d9-54d6-59e6-9a9e-5625a42a527c)

Author Bio (#u1e21944c-75f7-5cec-98ae-a769108d474e)

Acknowledgements (#u0018f21c-42a5-5e04-a42a-43888521a9be)

Dedication (#ub92f8b05-9b79-56c2-94db-2fe097bf348e)

Chapter One (#ulink_17b0716b-ab0f-5746-acb9-054e2faff662)

Chapter Two (#ulink_3fb0df3a-9491-514e-a5f3-424404e6797b)

Chapter Three (#ulink_f7670a62-7035-5c6e-acf4-7ed9c28024da)

Chapter Four (#ulink_4def2138-6c2d-5bc7-b399-a69722ad70de)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Excerpt (#litres_trial_promo)

Endpages (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


At eighteen Morven thought herself in love.

At twenty she knew it had been no such thing.

At twenty-one she wondered if such a thing as love existed.

At twenty-five she got the chance to find out.


Chapter One (#ulink_832a6281-38cf-5e78-b347-8d79c9eeedc0)

“Kintrain

September 1810

My dearest love,

I miss you with an intensity I have never felt before. Why did we allow ourselves to be separated like this? Why did I meekly wave goodbye when it was time for you to go? Am I that weak? Lord I hope not.

I know my own mind, know I do not want to be apart from you. You said on that last magical day together that you would be with me wherever. We promised each other that our love would last, and here I am alone and wondering why I could not put us first. Why I accepted that I have to do what is best for the estate and the people it supports. I never thought myself weak, but now I wonder.

It’s hard, nigh impossible to imagine life without you. I feel I have lost half of myself—the better half.

Will you come with me? Or follow me if not?

I have to go to Barbados and take over the plantation for the next few years—we know that. The livelihood of too many people is dependent on that.

I leave from Edinburgh on the Arabella, and we dock on 15th, God willing in London Docks, and leave three tides later. I have reserved a cabin. A cabin for two.

Go to Messrs Banks and Bullimore in Lincoln’s Inn and ask for the letter left there for you. It has the details of how we can be together again.

I pray it is soon,

Your love,

for ever,

Fraser.”

One month earlier

It was one of those days you rarely get in Scotland. Soft warm sunshine, clear blue skies and no midges.

The estate was in festive mode, the games well underway and the ale and whisky going down well. Children milled around, dressed in their Sunday best, and getting in everyone’s way. Prizes were handed out for tossing the caber, putting the shot, tidiest croft and prettiest goat. Emotions were high and happy and more than one couple slipped away to see Tam Curtin the Romany, who for a few shillings would conduct a hand fasting, or a wedding over the brush. As Fraser told Morven both were considered legally binding and a lot simpler than having the bans read.

Morven wandered hand in hand with Fraser, laughing at the children, admiring the goats and enjoying the day.

Until the tall swarthy man with a body like a tree trunk, long, dark hair and even darker, flashing eyes stood in front of them and raised one eyebrow. ‘Master, will ye no come and let Tam give you a blessing?’ His deep voice with its soft dialect was melodious and welcoming. ‘It’s part of today.’

Fraser turned to Morven and smiled. ‘Are you ready to seal our friendship? Tell Tam how important it is?’

‘Of course?’ What reason was there to hesitate? ‘Where?’

The man pointed. ‘Over yonder by the rowan tree.’

Morven glanced at Fraser as they followed the giant. ‘Why there?’

‘The tree is said to have magical properties,’ Fraser said with a certainty she hadn’t heard in his voice before. ‘To seal a friendship under its boughs is supposed to bring better fortune.’

She liked the idea of that. ‘We need all the good fortune we can get.’ This magical interlude was coming to a close. All too soon she would be back in Rutland to gather her clothes and then London for the coming season, both hundreds of miles distant from the castle set high on a pass in the Trossachs and the people who lived and worked there.

And one special occupant. The man who filled her dreams and held her happiness in his hands.

The man who stood beside her.

‘Barbados is so far away,’ she said sadly and choked back her tears. ‘Why must you go?’

‘For the clan’s sake. I have no option for it’s my duty to all my people both here and there. However, that’s not today.’ Fraser kissed her tenderly. ‘Let’s go and stand in front of Tam, and say what we really feel for each other. I’m yours for ever.’

Her eyes misted over. ‘And I yours.’ In the glade, under the trees, all the sounds and sights of the games faded into the background. It could have been only her, Fraser and Tam, or there could have been thousands around. It was not important. All that mattered was telling the man by her side what he meant to her.

‘I, Morven, do…’

Welland Castle, Rutlandshire

Eight years later…

The earth moved and she shuddered. ‘Whaaaa…’

‘Miss Morven, wake up. Here’s your washing water.’

She rocked from side to side once more and grabbed on to something solid.

A pillow?

Morven opened one eye and groaned. It was that dream again. For four nights running now, she’d woken hot, disturbed and grasping for something that was no longer there. For something over and done with eight years earlier. Why?

Because it isn’t over and done with and never will be. Oh why did he leave me?

‘I’m awake.’

‘Good. Your mama wants you downstairs and in her sitting room as soon as possible.’

Oh grief, what bee had her mama got in her bonnet now? Morven pushed her hair out of her eyes and got out of bed. Her tummy churned. Why did she have that horrible feeling of disquiet?

She soon found out.

‘Scotland in July? Are you mad? Midges…’ Morven shuddered in what even she would admit was a ridiculous and exaggerated manner and tried to slow her racing pulse. ‘Minuscule, nigh on invisible, blood-sucking, nasty…and lots of the bloody things.’ Swearing was to risk the wrath of her mama, but at that moment, Morven couldn’t care less. The Trossachs in Scotland had an excess of midges during the summer months, and they loved her with a vengeance. Many years ago, they had not been the only things that loved her—but she wouldn’t think of that. Not now.

He loved me once, or so he said. We told each other what we felt, how we… Stop it now. If he truly loved me why did he not ask me to go with him?

‘Language, my dear. You’ll never get a husband with a mouth like the bottom of a sewer.’ Her mama, Lucretia, The Duchess of Welland, tutted and waved a finger at Morven with disapproval. Her aquiline nose turned up with disapproval and her tight lips firmed into a thin straight line. Morven sighed and twisted one almost black curl around her finger. She’d never live up to her mother’s standards and to be honest had given up trying. Mama could take her as she was or not. Morven was past worrying. She liked herself as she was—most of the time. And if on occasion she wondered, “what if”, she tried not to dwell on it. Even so, sometimes she couldn’t help but wonder… Had he meant it?

‘Decorum at all times,’ the duchess said firmly. ‘As befitting a young lady such as yourself.’

Decorum had never been high on Lady Morven’s list of priorities. Furthermore, if cussing kept proposals at bay, she thought it all the more reason to swear. Nevertheless Morven nodded dutifully, and didn’t point out that to all intents and purposes she was, at almost twenty-six, no young lady, and nigh well on the shelf. There was no reason to argue when she knew the outcome was never going to be in her favour. Her mama had a one-track mind where the propriety within the ton was concerned, and lived in hope that one day Morven would conform. Morven knew she wouldn’t.

Morven wished her mother didn’t set her sights so high. Marriage might be on the duchess’s wish list for her children, but it was not on Morven’s.

Not now. Not any more. Her thoughts drifted… Do not go there. Not now, not ever. Those words, I’ll love you for ever…

‘Why now?’ she asked her parent, instead. ‘At this time of the year? It is sheer madness.’

A visit to Kintrain in the Trossachs, the home of her godmother Lady Senga Napier, who was a bosom bow of her mama’s, was the last thing Morven needed.

What will I find there?

‘Seriously, Mama, why on earth would you want to go north in the middle of the summer when we could stay here?’ It made no sense to Morven. ‘It seems ridiculous. And I’ll get bitten. You have to chew garlic and rub an onion over the bites. We will smell. Disagreeably so. That’s not a pleasant thought.’

‘I do not believe that antidote for one minute,’ the duchess snapped waspishly. ‘No one wants to go around smelling like a marinade for the Sunday roast. You are overreacting and now, enough. Your godmother wishes to spend some time with us. After all she sees little enough of you, and she is devoted to you,’ her mama said with a note of finality in her voice. ‘It has been so long since any of us visited. Plus…’ she added in a tone that brooked no argument, ‘as you know from your previous visit, her herbalist will have a local remedy to keep away nasty insects and unpleasant things.’

Not all of them.

It was no wonder she dreamed. Of a red-haired man, who held her hand, who looked at her closely and spoke with sincerity. “Morven, you are mine…”

That dream woke her up, hot, bothered and wondering “what if” on more than one occasion, and each time the feelings, the emotions intensified. Then she had to be alert and unconcerned each morning when it was an effort to keep her eyes open.

‘After all, you keep insisting you aren’t interested in any of the men who want to marry you, so this is an ideal opportunity.’ Her mama paused and looked at both Morven and her younger sister, Murren. ‘Has no one ever interested you, Morven?’

Dare she say “not recently, and the only one who did didn’t care enough to take me with him”? Perhaps not. Morven shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but it is a fact of life, Mama. I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment to you.’

Her mama patted her cheek. ‘That is perhaps doing it too brown, my dear. But sometimes I did wonder if…’ Her voice trailed off and she sighed. ‘Ah well perhaps things will…’ She coughed. ‘Anyway enough of that.’ She once more looked hard at Morven. ‘It is the ideal time to go.’

Morven wondered why she felt like a specimen about to be dissected.

‘So we will travel north before Murren comes out,’ the duchess finished emphatically.

Murren groaned. ‘I’m not old enough.’

‘Perhaps not, but you will be soon.’

No more was said by her mama, but even so, Morven was still somewhat surprised, when, three weeks later, she, Murren and her mama were in her late father’s best carriage, and moving steadily northwards. She’d voiced her objections and had been overruled. Now all she could do was make the best of things.

It was a scary thought.

****

After a brief sojourn in Edinburgh, that satisfied his banker and his body, but sadly not his mind, Fraser Napier, Laird of Kintrain to his people, the Lord of Kintrain to those south of the border, rode up the pass that led to his beloved Castle Kintrain. Highland cows grazed in the fields and ignored the lone rider. Workers near the track he rode on—a shortcut not available to coaches—did the opposite. They waved as he passed by.

Each salutation he returned. This was his land, his people, and his future. Now his father was gone Fraser was the laird and all it entailed. The laird was home again, and all was well in the world. At least he hoped so.

If he thought of glittering dark blue eyes and long hair, the colour of a raven’s wing, he did his best to banish it. Now was not the time or the place. It probably never would be again.

’Tis better to have loved than never felt those heady delights… Fanciful, but oh so true.

If she truly loved me why did she not come to me?

Fraser rode over the drawbridge—that didn’t move and hadn’t in living memory—and into the courtyard. As he dismounted, the large wooden doors of the castle opened and dogs and people spilled out.

Immediately there was mayhem and the cacophony was overwhelming. His mama, Lady Senga Napier, the Mistress of Kintrain, hugged him, and bombarded him with questions. The dogs jumped up yelping with excitement and a large long-haired cat wound between his legs and purred loud enough to be heard over the racket.

Servants beamed and a footman undid his saddlebags and took them into the castle. Two dogs began to fight and one of the kennel men separated them.

Home.

Fraser counted to ten, prised his mama off him, picked up the cat and scratched it behind its ears. ‘Enough now. Let me draw breath, wash and eat, and then we can talk.’ He turned to the groom standing patiently next to Misneachail, Fraser’s horse. He gave it a stroke and turned to the groom. ‘If you’d do the honours for me this time, Rabbie, I’d be thankful.’

Rabbie nodded and led the weary horse away. Fraser watched for a second—he was loath to pass what he should do himself over to anyone else, but this time, needs must. Then he turned to his parent. ‘Now, Mama, give me half an hour and I’ll join you in the wee parlour.’

His mother smiled. ‘Tea and sandwiches?’

Fraser grimaced. ‘I’d thought more like some whisky and shortbread. Oh and black bun if Effie’s made any.’

Senga shook her head and laughed. ‘There’s some whisky waiting. The new batch is exceptional. Since the news came from down the glen you were on the last leg of your journey, Effie’s been baking like there was no tomorrow. The black bun is warm from the oven.’ She sighed and patted his cheek. ‘Ah, Fraser, will I ever get you to drink tea?’

‘Probably not.’ Fraser kissed her warmly, turned on his heels and took the stairs two at a time.

His room was the same as when he’d left it. Well why should it not be? This time he’d only been gone a few weeks—not several years. In fact, he mused as he stripped and washed briskly in the warm water someone had left for him, he could probably be away half a lifetime and come back to everything in the same place. It was a sobering thought. Why couldn’t things move on? Each time he opened the door memories flooded into him.

Of a raven-haired lady, her soft moans and sighs. The way she stretched out and looked at him as if he were her holy grail. Her soft voice, as she lifted her arms and murmured, “Come to me.” The way… Stop it now. No more. Not if he wanted to get through these next weeks sane.

If she truly loved me why did she not come to me?

Fraser understood he needed not to look back, not to remember. And that was going to be as easy as persuading the Prince Regent not to spend money.

The only way he could possibly do that—move forward, he could do nothing about the prince—was to change rooms. Even then he had no control over his dreams. Dreams that had kept him warm at nights all these years. Dreams that had him penning letters—why did you ignore my letter? Was it not all true?—only to burn them. Sometimes he thought all that he had to keep him going was his pride. He daren’t dissect his hopes and thoughts and stay sane. However, move rooms he would. To the other tower. He made a note to see to it immediately. After the black bun.

Why did he have to come back just because his father died? Stupid question. He was no longer the Master of Kintrain, but the laird, and responsible for everything, not just a tobacco plantation.

Fraser had loved Barbados. The people, the climate, his work. Everything. After… Do not go there. Sufficient to say, he rather thought Barbados had saved him.

****

‘This journey seems to have gone on for ever,’ Morven muttered out of the corner of her mouth as she shut the door on their mama and sagged against its wooden panels. It was their last stop before they reached Kintrain, and even though she wasn’t sure what waited for them at the castle Morven was heartily pleased. ‘My rear is flattened in all the wrong places, and aches accordingly.’ She rolled her eyes and rubbed the afflicted part of her body.

The duchess had never been renowned for travelling with speed, but the snail’s pace she had chosen for their journey north had tried Morven severely. ‘I swear if I’m told one more time that no man wants a bluestocking as a wife, put the book away, I might go shout hallelujah and go and live in a study.’

Murren giggled, and then sobered immediately. ‘You know, Morven, I’m not looking forward to this visit at all. Mama…’ She hesitated and nibbled her lip. ‘Mama seems to think I should be thinking about getting married once I am eighteen. My birthday is not for another month. You’re in your twenties. She doesn’t plague you over marriage. Why me?’

Why indeed?

Morven shrugged. ‘I think perhaps that at last she realises I am a lost cause. Too many gentlemen have been sent on their way before they have had a chance to declare themselves. I’ve reiterated that marriage is not for me.’ Little does she know. ‘Although I’m sure she doesn’t mean you should be married just yet. Does she have anyone in mind for you to get to know?’

‘She says the laird is now home and his mother insists he needs a wife.’ Murren gave Morven a glance which, when she thought about it later, was calculating and even sly. ‘He needs someone who according to mama will stand behind him.’

What? No, she can not say such a thing. Morven’s skin became clammy, and dark spots hovered behind her eyelids. Lord, she couldn’t pass out. She could imagine the questions that would bring about. We might not be truly married, but we plighted our troth.

‘She does?’ What an inane response, but for the life of her, nothing else came to mind.

Murren nodded feverishly. ‘What do you think? You know him?’

‘Knew him.’

Morven thought her sister’s face was flushed and her eyes clouded, but as Murren wouldn’t look Morven in the eye it was difficult to tell. She’s hiding something. It gave Morven a jolt. The sisters had always been open and honest with each other. A nasty niggle of unease hit her. Not always on her side and now inexplicably it seemed neither on Murren’s. A pang of sadness threatened to engulf her. Times were changing.

‘Morven, he’s old.’ Murren stared at Morven intently. Almost as if she were intent on divining Morven’s reaction. ‘Almost twenty years older than me. And they want me to marry him. Oh she said so sweetly, that it could wait a year or so. She accepts that I’m still young, but he has to have a wife.’ She burst into tears. ‘Why me?’

Morven cuddled her sister close. If only she could reassure her, but really what grounds did she have? She couldn’t say he was hers, because she had no idea where she stood in his affections. Nowhere probably, but even so… He would crucify Murren, break any spirit she had without even realising it. She couldn’t say she thought it all a sham, because what grounds did she have for that suspicion except Murren’s behaviour, and that might have nothing to do with it. Even so…

‘I wonder if he knows about this?’ Morven mused. He better not. ‘From what I remember the laird is not one to be forced into anything he doesn’t want to do, and he’s…he’s a person who needs someone to stand up to him.’

‘I couldn’t do that.’ Murren gulped. ‘I’m not strong-willed like you, Morven. If I marry I need it to be to someone kind and gentle, who will not try to change me. From all Mama said, I hardly think the laird is that man.’

All of that statement rang true and Morven agreed with it wholeheartedly. ‘Well then don’t worry. We’ll sort it. No one will make you marry if you don’t want to. Especially not to him.’

Especially.

****

‘I’ve told you, Mama, I have too much to think about and do, to play host to your friends,’ Fraser said for at least the sixth time. ‘I won’t actively ignore them, I promise you. I will do all that is proper. However, I need to catch up on what’s been happening on the estate. Papa had lost his grip towards the end—you know that.’

‘He couldn’t help it,’ his mama said defensively. ‘He had lost his capability to see things straight.’

‘Mama, I know and it was not a criticism, merely a statement of fact. It is also fact that I have to straighten things out. We were lucky to have such loyal staff to hold on to the reins but, ultimately, I am the person to decide what, when, and how. I came home after five years, as soon as I was able, had hardly drawn breath here before I went to Edinburgh on behalf of the estate.’ And I have other people I want to find. To discover why I heard nothing, to…

‘Fraser, are you well?’ His mama stared at him intently. ‘You look white and dyspeptic.’

‘Not at all, as I said, I’m just trying to think of everything that needs to be done,’ he replied urbanely.

Interestingly his mother flushed and bit her lip before she blinked and smiled. ‘You will do so well.’

He hoped so. ‘Now, I have to stamp my authority on what goes on at Kintrain before I do anything else. Anything,’ he emphasised. ‘And that includes considering marriage.’ And I need to find out if I am wed or not. That was not going to be easy. Fraser made a mental note to go to Stirling the following day and make some enquiries.

To whit was a ceremony such as he had entered into considered valid? Plus, why was he not told about the possible ramifications at the time? That he could hazard a good guess about. It has suited others not to mention it.

‘You still haven’t said who your guests are,’ he continued as his mother handed him a glass of their duty unpaid, made on the estate, finest malt whisky. He held the glass to the light to watch the amber contents glisten. ‘All I’ve had is vague, oh an old friend and some of her children. Even when I thought I might have to play nursemaid on part of their journey, I still didn’t know for whom I might be caring. Lord, Mama, do you know if I need to hire nannies or extra staff to keep the bairns occupied?’

‘Well it was all irrelevant once you didn’t,’ his mama said evasively. ‘You went to Edinburgh, they travelled via Carlisle, and we need no more staff.’

Why couldn’t she look him in the eye again?

‘So, now I do need to know,’ he said forcefully. ‘How many is some? Is that why you’re so vague about these people?’ Fraser added the optimum amount of soft spring water that came from high in the hills, to make the whisky taste as the makers intended. ‘You’re not sure just how many of your guests I have to be hospitable to?’

‘Our guests,’ his mother said emphatically. ‘I thought you were too busy to want to know the details. I’m trying not to burden you with minutiae.’

Fraser smiled. He wasn’t going to be tricked like that. ‘No, Mama, your guests, using my hospitality. Who are…?’

‘Fraser.’ She pouted, which in itself was enough to make him wary. ‘Surely it is immaterial.’

He raised one eyebrow and noted how his mama still couldn’t meet his eyes. As he thought, she was up to something. Something she thought he wouldn’t approve of. ‘How can the names of people stopping in my house, sharing my hospitality, not be important?’ he asked sardonically. ‘With one breath you are exhorting me to be a proper host, with the other you choose not to tell me to whom…’ He stopped speaking and simply waited.

His mother sighed. ‘I feared if I told you, you would delay your return home, and not be here for their stay.’

Why?

‘If I had my way I wouldn’t have left at all,’ Fraser said deliberately. ‘You were the one who insisted only I could go to Edinburgh.’

Lady Napier reddened. ‘I thought it necessary. As a woman no one would listen to me.’

Fraser knew he looked sceptical, because she burst into speech.

‘Fraser, it’s true. When your papa died, I did my best. But I could have screamed at times. No one listened to me. In fact one or two so-called advisors went to the Laird of Lassgoil and asked him to step in on my behalf.’ Senga growled, actually growled. ‘How dare they.’

‘What? Geordie Lassgoil?’ Surely not? ‘He’s doddery.’

‘That’s as may be, and luckily he refused. But to some he was more worth listening to than I—one reason I was glad you came home when you did. And why I thought it best you go south on the clan’s behalf. Sometimes it is so…so bloody hard to be a woman,’ she finished impassionedly. ‘Damned bloody hard.’

He’d never heard his mother blaspheme before. His shock must have showed on his face because she smiled somewhat shamefaced. ‘Bloody hard,’ she reiterated once more.

All right, that sounded half believable. ‘Even so, as it happened nothing, nothing,’ he stressed, ‘needed to be done there. The estate manager and I could have dealt with it all with from here. A wasted journey. Why I wonder? What are you not telling me?’

Lady Napier shifted on her seat and opened her eyes wide. Fraser snorted. ‘That allegedly innocent look will not deter me, Mama. Why are you being so secretive? What do you know I will not like?’ It seemed the itches up his spine were there for a purpose.

‘Mother?’ He emphasised the sobriquet she hated. According to Senga Napier it made her sound a harridan, something she insisted she was not.

Not generally.

Lady Napier sighed. ‘Nothing to do with the estate or your journey, I promise you. It’s just that our visitors are The Duchess of Welland and her daughters.’

His instincts were correct. He didn’t like it. ‘Both of them?’ he asked with a sinking feeling. ‘Both daughters?’

‘Well yes.’

His heart plummeted. Dammit that was not what he needed. Not now, not yet. ‘So you chose to keep me in the dark, because…?’ How he kept a snap out of his tone he had no idea.

She didn’t want me. He remembered his words in his letter. “I love you, come to me. Why did we let ourselves be parted?” She didn’t want me.

‘I thought you might not be happy,’ his mama admitted. ‘After all you had no interest in Morven when she was here.’

Little she knew.

‘She was eighteen, to my thirty,’ he said patiently and hoped the pulse in his neck did not show just how erratic it was. If she thought that, he had no intention of disabusing her of that idea. ‘Too big a gap. Much too young.’

Not for what we did. Not for what we could have had.

“Leith 1810,

My love, I will soon be on board and ready to set sail. I pray I find you waiting.”

‘Much too young,’ he said again.

‘Not at all, it’s a good age to mould a wife,’ Senga insisted. ‘That was the age gap between your papa and me.’

‘What era are you from, Mama?’ Fraser shook his head. ‘All right, yes it worked for you and Papa, but you were one of the few couples I saw content and happy with each other. But generally? An eighteen-year-old innocent?’ Well she was. ‘I was thirty and had explored everything all young men do. I just did my duty and escorted her when I had to.’ He had to pretend it was just a holiday friendship and no more to save his sanity.

His mother blushed. ‘Fraser, consider my sensibilities.’

‘Mama, if you’ve pulled a stunt like this, I’m not sure you have any.’ Fraser began to pace the room. Really, could things get any worse? ‘Now I’m seven years older with all that entails.’ Not a lot considering He’s worked hard, and played very little. ‘That apart, think of a lamb and a wolf. If and when I decide to wed, my wife would need to be my equal, not a chit hardly out. I do not want to mould anyone.’

‘Well you should,’ Lady Napier said resolutely. ‘How else can they be what is needed for Kintrain?’

Natural talent? Sense?

He didn’t answer her out loud. If he opened his mouth he might say something he regretted later. No might about it, it was a given. Fraser counted to ten. Twice.

‘And I do think the younger sister, Murren, is a lovely…’

‘Enough,’ he ground out and held his hand up in the air.

His mama blinked and took a step backwards to sit heavily in a nearby chair.

‘That age gap is nigh on twenty years,’ Fraser went on. ‘No more, Mama. No matchmaking and if you want me here whilst they are, you’ll be wise to remember it. They are your guests, this is your home, but I’m its master. And if I choose not to be part of your, your visitors’ entertainment, I won’t. Plus, if I hear one word, just one word,’ he emphasised, ‘that makes me think that child assumes I will make her an offer, you will wish I hadn’t. This is my home, I’m the laird and remember if I choose to decide that only I and no one else lives here, you will be in the dower house before you can say I do.’

Lady Napier opened her mouth and shut it again immediately.

Fraser nodded. ‘Very wise. Plus you would be sensible to remember I have other estates to visit soon. It can be now as easily as next week or month. When I go is my decision, but you and your behaviour can influence it. I hope nothing, and I mean nothing at all, has been said to that young lady to make her think that I might consider her suitable as the Lady of Kintrain.’

‘Ah, er no.’ But his mother didn’t sound too sure. ‘After all why would there have been?’

Oh for the Lord’s sake. ‘Exactly.’ He deliberately spoke harshly and felt bad when his mama blanched. He understood that in her own way she was only trying to help him. ‘Now if you will excuse me, I need to see the factor.’

He didn’t; he’d already spoken to him earlier that day, but as an excuse it sounded plausible.

Now my need to go to Stirling is even more imperative.


Chapter Two (#ulink_92027696-8b91-526f-b81e-a0938de0f94a)

‘At the risk of sounding a moaning monster, Mama, are we there yet?’ Murren winked at Morven who hid her smile. She of course knew exactly where they were, and that there had been no need to stop for lunch. It was but five miles to the castle. They’d just passed The Lake of Menteith, the only proper lake in Scotland. As she’d been told on her previous visit, the other so-called lakes were all artificially made. An early cartographer who translated the Gaelic for low-lying land as “lake” only called this loch a lake due to a mistake. It had fascinated Morven, especially when Fraser had explained it was shallow enough for it to freeze over on occasion, and curling matches—a Bonspiel—would be held on the ice.

‘It’s so romantic,’ Murren went on in a dreamy voice that made Morven choke with laughter. Their mama looked at each of them in suspicion but didn’t comment. ‘You know that Mary Queen of Scots stopped in the priory for a few weeks when she was tiny? It was a safe haven for her after a horrible battle. Then they smuggled her out of the country to France.’

‘Murren, enough,’ the duchess said sternly. ‘You don’t want to be seen as a bluestocking; your sister is bad enough, and look where that left her.’

‘On the shelf,’ Morven said cheerfully. ‘It suits me.’ She hoped her voice didn’t sound as hollow as she knew her words were. It had to until she discovered what she was.

Why didn’t he ask me to go with him?

‘You’ll never get a man like that, either of you,’ the duchess said huffily. ‘I swear, I despair of you, Morven, but I beg of you do not put such ideas into your sister’s mind.’

Morven swore she heard her sister mutter under her breath something along the lines of ‘you almost tempt me’. Perhaps she did have a backbone after all.

‘It’s not long now.’ Morven decided it was time to butt in and do her best to restore harmony. It would never do to arrive at their destination with them out of sorts with each other. ‘An hour I would say, seeing as we have to go up the pass to the castle. Then we can relax.’ And if she believed that, she would also believe kelpies lived under the brig.

Her mother frowned. ‘Is it so close? I, ah, thought it further,’ she said unconvincingly.

‘It’s not,’ Morven replied and smiled as her mama coloured a little. ‘I’m sure you’ll be relieved, Mama, to know we are almost there. After all, this journey has been long and tedious has it not? I know you’ve suffered.’ As have we all.

‘Ah yes.’ Her mama’s redness increased. ‘Well as you say, almost there now and then we can unwind.’

You might be able to; I fear I’ll be as tense as a wound-up spring. Why on earth had she agreed to accompany her mother and sister? The castle held mixed memories. It was simple. Her mama had given her no choice, and with her brother busy elsewhere she had no one to agree with her plea to stay in Rutland.

He handed me into the carriage and bade me have a good journey. I never thought I’d be happy again. I was not too young to know my mind.

‘So,’ Morven said in an attempt to deflect her mind from things best not thought about at that time. After all, perhaps a face-to-face meeting would help her to know her own mind? ‘How long is it since you have seen Lady Napier? I forget.’

‘Senga? Oh a year perhaps, just under. She was in London just before her husband died and I came up for the funeral.’ The duchess sighed dramatically. ‘Poor Senga. Her son, the heir, was in Barbados and she was all alone.’

‘Apart from her younger children?’ Morven asked mildly. ‘I thought there were several?’

‘Ah, yes, but young,’ her mother blustered. ‘Such a hard time. Of course Fraser was not able to return in time to see his father buried.’

Morven remembered that. She’d thought she might get a letter or a note but had received nothing. It was as if she no longer mattered.

Perhaps just as well.

‘Then it will be good for you to be together again,’ Morven said in a composed voice. ‘I suppose the laird is away? The new laird.’

‘What?’ Her mother blushed and didn’t make eye contact with either of her daughters. ‘No, I believe he is now home.’

‘Was he away again?’ Morven asked straight-faced. ‘Or has he not returned since his…’ She hesitated. Banishment sounded much too harsh, and it hadn’t been that. She just felt it was. ‘Sojourn in the Indies,’ she said finally.

‘Er, I think he returned, went to do some estate business elsewhere and now is home. Tell me, do we need to stop in the village to freshen up?’

‘No,’ both her daughters chorused together.

‘Let’s just arrive and then freshen up, Mama,’ Morven said. I need to get it over and done with. ‘I assume we are expected today?’

Their mama blinked. ‘Ah, yes of course we are. Very well, let’s just head to the castle.’

‘As we have for the last goodness knows how many days?’ Murren said sotto voce to Morven. ‘On and off.’

Morven nodded. There wasn’t really anything else to add on the subject. She was on edge and worried that if anyone said anything even slightly controversial she would break down and scream.

The coach trundled along the tiny village street linked to the castle and the estate. A few locals watched as they drove past and one urchin whistled and shouted. ‘Aww, bonnie horses, fair braw.’

Morven chuckled. ‘That child has sense.’

‘I’ll never get the hang of the dialect,’ Murren said, despairingly. ‘Did it take you long?’

Morven shook her head. ‘No, but I have an ear for voices. And you won’t be here long enough to need to understand everyone, will you. After all Mama will want to be back in London in time for your coming out.’

‘Oh but…’ The duchess took one look at Morven and stopped speaking abruptly. ‘Ah yes, but who knows what will happen by then?’

‘We’ll be eaten by midges and smell of garlic,’ Morven said sweetly. ‘And hope to lose the marks and bites before Murren’s ball. She is having one, isn’t she? I’m sure Brody agreed. At the town house no less.’

‘I haven’t asked your brother yet, but…’

‘That’s fine,’ Morven said firmly. ‘I did and he said of course.’

Her mother opened and closed her mouth like a codfish. ‘Are we there yet?’

Morven couldn’t help it. She began to laugh. ‘Almost, Mama, almost.’

It wasn’t much more than half an hour later that the horses began the final pull up the pass, their hooves thudding in a steady rhythm on the dusty road. Ahead of them, the castle showed starkly on the skyline. Morven leaned forward to see it better, and even though her heart beat over-fast and her skin crawled with tension, she couldn’t help but be awed by the sight.

It had been the same all those years ago. Although then a red-haired giant had thundered down the hill on a black horse to greet her. This time there was no such welcoming committee. However, the wrought-iron gates were open and the coachman turned the equipage through the gap and past the crested gateposts, and urged the tired animals on.

‘It’s big,’ Murren said in an awed voice. ‘I never thought it would be so enormous. It rather scares me. I hope I’m not in one of those towers or turrets or whatever they are called. I wouldn’t sleep a wink if I was.’

Her mama stared at her and frowned. ‘Really, Murren, do not be silly.’

‘I’m not,’ Murren replied peevishly. ‘But nor will I be at ease in a place like that. Why did we have to come?’ She sounded close to tears. Morven frowned. Murren might be timid but this display seemed somewhat affected to her. However, evidently not to their mama, who sighed.

‘As you wish. I’m sure the castle has a basic room for you in a part of it you do appreciate. However, remember, the laird is a prominent person around here, to be…’ she coughed and cleared her throat ‘…to be looked up to.’

And if that is what she was going to say I’ll eat my hat.

‘I can look up to him from a basic room as well as a prison,’ Murren said stubbornly, and shot a sideways glance at Morven. Did she wink? ‘After all, he is a passing acquaintance, no more.’

‘Well of course he must be revered,’ Morven said as their mama took a deep breath, presumably to prepare herself to upbraid Murren. ‘Just like Brody at home.’ Something caught her eye and she leaned even closer to the window aperture to look out. ‘And as hands-on as Brody as well.’ She sat back and waited for her mother to twig.

‘Hands-on? How?’

Morven nodded towards a barn a few fields away. ‘Unless he is no longer red-haired and over six feet tall, I believe by helping to put a new roof on a barn.’

The figure she thought to be Fraser was standing, bare-chested on a cross-beam and helping another man lower a long heavy piece of wood into its allotted place. Her mouth went dry and her inside muscles clenched as she feasted her eyes on the one man who had ever mattered to her. The man she had given herself to gladly, and who had forgotten her.

‘Good Lord he might kill himself,’ the duchess gasped. ‘What on earth is he thinking?’

‘That he is more likely to die of boredom if he’s not allowed to help,’ Morven said percipient as ever. The Fraser she had known would have always been in the thick of it, and she was sure seven years on his family’s tobacco plantation wouldn’t have changed that.

And good Lord even at this distance I can feel him. As all those years ago, her body had clenched at the thought of Fraser. Of him next to her, holding hands, of saying to her in his deep gravelly Scottish voice, “My Morven, will you plight your troth?”

****

Fraser’s plan for a ride into Stirling had been thrown to the wind, when, not long after he’d got up and broken his fast—alone as he preferred these days—a message had arrived about the roof on one of the barns used to store fodder. Somehow the thatch had come loose and it needed to be repaired there and then with new hazel rods to secure it. Could he give the thatcher the go-ahead once the men had secured the beams?

Fraser told his factor that he’d be at the barn within the hour, changed into clothes more suited for a day in the fields—or clambering around on a roof—left a message for his mama to say where he was, and exited the castle. This had to be dealt with. He’d let the problem of his marriage or non-marriage slide for seven years. A few more days wasn’t going to make any difference.

Less than an hour after he’d discarded his jacket, he was shirtless and sweating. With his neckerchief around his forehead like a bandana he clambered around and over the building along with the workmen of the estate. Fraser believed in being hands-on whenever possible. How could he ask someone to do something he himself wasn’t prepared to try?

Oh he knew certain things—like thatching—had to be left to the experts, but others? He had no intention of standing back and keeping his hands clean.

Hence his present position—doing the mucky jobs—whilst his more experienced staff did the important ones. Fraser carried timber and chocks, nails and hammers and did as he was told, before he sat with his back resting on the wall, bandied words, laughed at sallies levelled at his lack of fitness and enjoyed a glass of ale and a thick cheese and onion sandwich.

Half an hour of food, drink and banter later, they stood up and clambered onto the roof once more.

God he ached, although he would never admit it, especially to his men who worked twice as hard. No doubt by the end of a few months he’d be used to manual labour once more. After all in Barbados he’d been very hands-on, but since returning to Scotland his lifestyle had become considerably more sedentary. That needed to change. He winced as his back protested at the angle he insisted it hold, and thought longingly of a hot deep bath.

Soon. Fraser stretched and prepared to work again.

‘There’s a carriage coming up the drive, my lord,’ Archie Retson, his factor, exclaimed some half an hour later, as they both balanced on a cross-beam. ‘Posh equipage and all.’

Fraser looked towards the drive and swore under his breath when he saw the smart carriage. So it was all about to kick off? That phrase, he thought, suited this situation perfectly. Whatever he discovered when he finally got to Stirling, life was not going to be plain sailing from now on.

‘Friends of my mother’s, up for a visit,’ he said to Archie insouciantly. ‘It will do Mama good. She is still a little down.’

Liar, she is more than a little meddling. Down has nothing to do with it.

‘Aye, it was a hard blow to her, the old laird going so suddenly, and not a sign he wasn’t good for another ten or twenty years,’ Archie replied sombrely. ‘Not that you aren’t filling his shoes proper like, but well. He was a one was the old laird, and he and your mama fit together.’

Fraser understood what the other man meant. He nodded and checked the last hazel rod they had secured. ‘He is a hard act to follow. If I manage half as well, I’ll be happy. There, do you think that will do for the winter?’

Archie studied their handiwork with a professional and critical eye. ‘I reckon so.’ He picked up the tools they’d been using. ‘And for your information, just one more thing…’

Fraser stared at him as he reached the top rung of the ladder to take him to the ground. ‘Yes?’ What now? Please not more roofs to fix. As much as he liked manual work, the weeks since he’d returned to Britain had seen little of it in his immediate orbit, and his muscles told him so in no uncertain terms.

‘You’ve got more than halfway there already,’ Archie told Fraser roughly. ‘He’d be proud.’

Those simple words put a lump into Fraser’s throat. It took several seconds before he felt able to reply. Even then it was only with the most mundane: ‘Archie, thank you.’ Fraser swallowed several times. ‘That is a compliment I’m proud of. Now I best get on. I want to go back via the village and check if old Russell has sorted that well out properly. If he isn’t bothered about clean water, the rest of his family is. He’s a lazy so and so.’ Not only that, as a former traveller, he’d know when the gypsies would be back to sell their wares.

And I can ask that all-important question.

‘Best catch him before he wanders to the inn, then,’ Archie suggested. ‘Now his gout isn’t as scuppered by the weather as it has been lately, he’ll pop along after lunch for an hour or so.’

And no doubt whilst Jessie—his daughter, who kept an eye on him—was busy elsewhere. ‘At least I’ll know where to find him if he’s not there,’ Fraser said once he’d ducked his head and torso in the nearby stream and dried as best he could on a scrap of material Archie gave him.

‘He’s a chancer, and I’d bet a lot of pheasant poults somehow make their way into his larder, but I canna help but like the rapscallion.’

Fraser pulled his shirt over his head and sniffed his sweaty and odorous neckerchief before he shoved it in his saddlebag. ‘Best not to produce that anywhere near a female until it is washed and ironed.’ He slid his arms into his jacket and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘That’ll do.’

Archie grinned as he donned his own serviceable tweed jacket. ‘Aye, I reckon so.’

Fraser saluted him with a wave of one hand and saddled his horse once more. He really ought to go and greet his visitors, for whatever he said to the contrary they were as much his as his mama’s, but he needed time to decide what to do and how to react. He didn’t want to face Morven without an idea of how they stood. A visit to Russell might help him plan. With a mental wince at the look his mother would bestow on him, not to mention the dressing-down she would ring over his head given the opportunity, he turned his horse away from the direction of the castle and headed down the pass towards the village.

Whilst he was there he might just check if the dower house was ready for occupation. It might be time to take his castle back and arrange it as he wanted it. Married or not.

Married or not.

‘Ah well I’ve seen the signs that the tribe will be back.’ Russell nodded his head sagely and shifted his empty tankard across the scarred wooden table. The screech put Fraser’s teeth on end, as it was undoubtedly intended to. He ignored the silent blackmail hint and raised one eyebrow.

‘And, what does Wullie say?’

Russell coughed. ‘I dinnae ken. Och, I’m awfy dry.’

Fraser said nothing. The silence lengthened until at last Russell spat into the fire and sighed.

‘You’re awfy hard, laddie—m’laird, ye ken. Like thon faither o’ yours.’

‘A compliment indeed,’ Fraser said emotionlessly. ‘Better you remember it than not. So?’ He deliberately raised one eyebrow in his best aristocratic manner.

Russell scowled. ‘Jessie’s Wullie said they’ll be back for the games,’ Russell said, his dialect so thick even Fraser had difficulty understanding it. ‘They’ll do the usual. Expect the normal site and so on, not to mention the handouts and your housekeeper buying the dolly pegs and the heather.’

Fraser nodded even as his heart sank. The games were weeks away. Plus, his largesse would be expected to go above and beyond the clothes, food and purchases. Madame Beshlie would expect to read everyone’s palms. His own palms itched as he remembered the last time she did that. Look how that had ended up.

His body tightened as he thought of one golden afternoon, and the three special weeks that followed.

How his love had looked up at him, how they’d slipped away from the games and held hands whilst Tam Curtin, gnarled and aged, had spoken those portentous words… “Do you…”

They had.

Misneachail, his horse, shied at an unseen something on a nearby bush, and Fraser pulled himself out of his introspective memories and concentrated on what he was doing. He might not be in any mad hurry to get home, but nor did he want to arrive on Shanks’s pony.

Plus for his own peace of mind, he wanted to look over the dower house. Whether he chose to be married or not, it was time for his mama to take a step back. He wouldn’t tell her she was meddlesome to her face, well not in so many words, but Fraser had long decided it was hard enough for any new laird, with or without a wife, to take control of what was in effect his destiny, when part of the old brigade was so closely involved.

He’d coped, and coped well in Barbados, and left what had been an ailing tobacco plantation when he arrived as a flourishing one. Although the Kintrain estate was well maintained, Fraser was damned sure he could make it better and ever more prosperous. He didn’t want any interference as he did so. Therefore, the dower house had to be next on his agenda. He’d have to be subtle to ascertain whether his mama thought it a good idea, or even better whether she would suggest it herself.

Twenty minutes later he was glad he’d made that decision. The couple that looked after the house were overjoyed to see him.

‘For you know, m’lord, your mama has held everything together until you got back, but I know she’s ready to come here,’ Mrs Black said earnestly. ‘She’s often said the day can’t come soon enough when you manage your own household and she lives here instead. Cosier and more homely.’

‘She said that?’ Fraser asked in a surprised voice. It wasn’t the impression she’d given him.

Mrs Black coloured. ‘Oh, milord, I hope I wasn’t speaking out of turn. But she did mention you were ready to settle down and she and your siblings wouldn’t want to encroach on your wife’s territories.’

Really? How bloody dare she? Fraser was ready to explode, except it wasn’t Mrs Black’s fault. Oh he knew how his mama would say such a thing. Anything to further her goal, whatever that may be. In this case, he assumed, in the hope of pushing him towards a bride.

I have one, maybe. Which is for me to discover and her not to, yet.

‘Ah, well she’s a bit ahead of me I’m afraid,’ Fraser said in as pleasant a tone as he could manage. ‘I’ve not found a bride let alone announced my marriage yet, nor have any intention of doing so, therefore there is nothing to worry about for a while. I’ll get her to decide on how she wants the house furnished, and advise her she is welcome to move as soon as she likes—be I alone or not. Meanwhile, let me know if there is anything you need. Your comfort is as important as hers. Without you the house would grind to a halt.’

Mrs Black blushed and beamed as she stuttered a disclaimer. Fraser kept a pleasant smile on his face until all the necessary platitudes had been exchanged and then he thankfully made his farewells.

Bloody, interfering, annoying, meddlesome… Fraser seethed as he rode back up the pass towards Kintrain Castle. His mother should be pleased she had guests, or she might well have found herself out on her ear. To how many other people had she spread scurrilous and totally untrue gossip?

Well—untrue as far as he’d intimated to her.

Fraser checked his horse. He hadn’t seen Brogan Gillies—the laird from up the glen and probably his closest friend—since he got back from Barbados. Blow his mama and her guests; he needed to meet his friend. He’d go and talk to Brogan and get the local gossip. He turned Misneachail in the direction of Ballancrain, Brogan’s estate.

‘Honestly? I’ve heard very little,’ Brogan said as pleasantries in the typical way of males—a thump on the back and a few derogatory remarks—were exchanged. ‘I got the news you were due home when we were at the kirk one Sunday, and before I’d had a chance to find out when, your mama said you were away on estate business. I didn’t even know you were back.’

‘The day before yesterday.’ Fraser took a long swig of ale. ‘Just in time to be poleaxed by the news of impending visitors.’

‘Really? Who’s that then?’ Brogan asked in a disinterested voice. ‘That’s not generally know in the glen.’

‘The Duchess of Welland and her daughters.’

‘Ah.’ Brogan laughed. ‘As in daughters plural? Which one is earmarked for you?’

Fraser nodded. ‘Plural definitely. Morven and Murren. Which one is earmarked for me? I have a niggling suspicion it might have been the younger if I hadn’t intervened.’

Brogan’s eyes widened and he whistled. ‘Not the Morven you spent all that summer with?’

‘The very one.’

‘And you think she’d intended the other one for you?’ Brogan grinned and shook his head. ‘No, never. Anyone with half a brain could tell you and Lady Morven were made for each other. What happened, about all that?’

Fraser bit back the surge of anger and hurt that swept through him. ‘Barbados happened.’

Brogan blinked and put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. The heavy, warm weight comforted Fraser like no words could have. ‘I thought you realised once she’d gone you should have asked her to stay?’

Fraser shrugged. ‘Yes, well she never answered my letters.’

‘Ah.’ Brogan seemed lost for words for a moment. ‘That’s just not right.’

‘Right or not it happened. So off I went and here I am. Eight years later about to once again meet the one woman who could have broken my heart.’

‘Could? Only could?’

‘Yes well, that’s a closed subject,’ Fraser said in a flat tone. ‘But hell, Bro, what a bloody coil.’

Having spent an hour or so with Brogan was the best thing he could have done, Fraser realised as he once more headed for home. He’d missed having a close friend to talk to, someone to mull over problems and put the world to rights with. Brogan and he had spent many a night with a dram or two exchanging ideas and generally egging on, or restraining each other from excess when need be. Now hopefully their friendship could be resumed. After all, no one knew as much about each other as they did.

When he’d told Brogan how Morven had ignored his heartfelt pleas in his letter—tell me I’m not mistaken, tell me I was a fool to let you go, tell me you want me as much as I want you—Brogan had snorted and looked bewildered. ‘That’s not like the lass you knew,’ he’d said emphatically. ‘You’ll need to ask her why.’

Easier said than done, but at least he felt comforted in knowing Brogan was there to talk to. And talk they had. Brogan was in a similar situation to Fraser in that he needed to wed, but for him, there wasn’t the problem of a maybe wife.

Fraser’s head still swam when he thought of all the ramifications involved in that scenario. One thing that bothered him as much as anything else was the awful thought that they might be married in Scotland, and she unaware. If she went ahead and got married in England, where it might or might not be legal, she could commit bigamy and not know it. She’s mine. That thought popped into his mind and lodged there. The more he let himself dwell on it the more determined he became.

Never mind law, Tam Curtin or a day of folly. Fraser let that one thought linger.

She is mine.


Chapter Three (#ulink_3a6876e9-e9cc-5b88-a1f2-525742b30b18)

‘And of course as you are the elder I thought you’d like this suite,’ Lady Napier burbled to Morven. She flung open shutters and the door, which lead into a pretty enclosed garden with a stepping-stone path that meandered from the terrace and across the lawn to a rose-clad wall several yards away. The gate in the corner was of heavy wooden panels and the latch and snick looked as old as the castle itself. Presumably it didn’t open, or if it did was not a security threat.

Grow up; this is the nineteenth century not the seventeenth.

‘Oh how pretty,’ Morven exclaimed without having to choose her words. ‘It’s a piece of heaven.’ But, I’d wager my next month’s pin money you were not originally going to house me here.

‘I thought you would like it,’ Lady Napier said complacently. ‘Traditionally, it has always been the eldest daughter of the family’s quarters. Otherwise…’ She coloured slightly and coughed.

‘Otherwise?’ Morven prompted.

‘Pardon…oh otherwise I’m sure one of the children would have demanded it. My two younger girls and their brother. They will be sad to miss you, but this journey to my parents was long overdue. They are old, you understand. My parents not the children.’

Now why didn’t Morven think any of that was what Senga had originally intended to say? She knew how old the children were. However, as she couldn’t force the older woman to say what she meant, Morven smiled dutifully. ‘I dare say.’

‘As you see, the sitting room is down here and your bedchamber and bathing chamber are on the floor above. Now, your maid is contactable by this bell, and…’

Morven stopped listening. Why was she in a totally different wing to Murren and her mama? One she’d never been near all those years ago? Then she’d been housed somewhere near where she thought her mama and sibling now were. Was this the room her mama and Senga had thought of for Murren until she had declared it not to be thought of?

They—the duchess and Murren—were quartered near to each other, and she was sure she heard her mother speak to Lady Napier under her breath about exasperating and silly chits and then Senga mutter something to her mother about changes and convention.

Lady Napier had excused herself for a moment and returned to say their rooms were ready.

Whatever conventions the older women had been discussing, evidently they considered she, Morven, was too old to bother about such things. Or did they? Was this yet another ploy of theirs? Whatever, she would cope with anything life or parents threw at her when coping was needed. Until then she would enjoy the peace and solitude.

Morven waited until she was alone and began to explore her new quarters. So very pretty, even if she was probably the only person in the turret. This area seemed quiet, with only the birdsong outside in the tiny walled garden to break the silence of the somnolent sunny afternoon.

Was she all alone? Like the princess in the tower, she thought with a grin. Except she was on the ground floor, and her hair, although waist length, wouldn’t reach down to the ground.

Somewhere a door banged and she jumped, as her heart missed a beat and prickles of apprehension dotted her skin. She stared at the door through which Lady Napier had departed. Had it creaked when she left? Not in the slightest. The only noise had been when the latch dropped onto its mooring.

Fraser had slept in a tower like this. Although it had, she thought, been on the far side of the castle, where he could look down the glen and over towards Ben Lomond. Fraser had been master of all he surveyed. It had, he told her, in times past been the chambers where the laird’s heir lived to keep a watchful eye over his lands and his people and to look out for marauders.

A shriek like a banshee’s sounded from beyond the garden wall, and Morven whirled around from contemplating the metal door fastening to stare outside. Three crows and some sort of bird of prey flew overhead arguing. A robin sat on a branch and observed her with interest and chirruped its annoyance. That had been the noise then. Convention or not, Murren would have hated it here. Her sister readily admitted that she preferred the noise of pie sellers to magpies, and the known to the unknown.

The next scream sounded as if something was trying to enter the room via the chimney.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Morven said out loud, somewhat disgusted at her pathetic attitude. ‘Get a backbone. This is an old building. It creaks and talks to the world. Stop it. Selkies, kelpies and Ghillie Dhu do not exist…’ she broke off and bit her lips, before she swallowed heavily ‘…around here,’ she finished defiantly, and then groaned at the knowledge she was talking to herself out loud. Next I will be seeing those wee creatures, if I’m not careful. She picked up a cushion from the chaise and plumped it up for no reason.

Either the same door or one nearby slammed again and she could swear she heard footsteps. Morven dropped the cushion as if it was on fire and looked around for something—anything—she could use as a weapon to defend herself, then laughed, shamefaced. It was probably a servant, and Fraser wouldn’t take too kindly to one of his staff being attacked with a Sèvres vase, the only likely weapon she could see.

Now she wished she’d asked who used the top four floors.

However, it didn’t really matter. She had a lock on her door, on all doors in fact, and the idea of having somewhere private to slip away to was an unthought-of joy. Morven decided she might frequently develop a headache if it meant she could retreat here and enjoy such gorgeous surroundings. More and more she had begun to appreciate her own company. The chance to speak or not, to enjoy the world around her without interference or banalities was her idea of perfection.

Morven chuckled as she stepped into the garden. All she needed now was a cat or two and to start wearing lacy caps and she would be written off by all and sundry as an eccentric and on the shelf. It was almost enough to have her go on a hunt for several felines and a seamstress to make said caps. The idiotic scenario—as if she’d be allowed to do such things at almost quite six and twenty—cheered her up and she thought this sojourn in Scotland could work and be enjoyable. After all she’d loved her previous visit. All of it.

Good Lord, how pathetic. The only fly in the ointment was she had yet to meet Fraser again and it would no doubt be when they gathered for dinner. It would have been so much better if this first meeting after almost eight years could have been private. She had rather a lot to say to him and she wasn’t sure it was all going to be pleasant.

Morven knew she had agreed they should indulge in a summer fling and nothing more would come of it, and she had enjoyed every second of it. At eighteen, away from her family and with such an attentive escort, what was there not to love? She shied away from their last meeting. The one where he said he’d never forget her but he had to do what the clan dictated. That she would forget him, but he would never… Stop it now.

Now though? Not to be warned he would be at the castle when they were went beyond all comprehension. Did it have something to do with her mama’s uncommunicative behaviour on the journey north? And Murren’s worries, if that was what they were? Well of course it had, and there was precious little she could do about that, except when she once again met Fraser, she could be courteous, serene and polite and treat him as if they had been mere acquaintances.

And ask why?

However, she had to get over the meeting first. Project a persona that was cool, calm and collected and see if he was privy or agreed with this stupid idea of their mamas—if that is what it was. More and more the whole affair had a smoky feel to it and Morven felt as if she was looking at a farce being played out. One where they were all in the know and she wasn’t. But if, just if there were plans afoot for Murren and Fraser it would never do. Lord, he would eat her gentle sister for breakfast and spit her out in little bits without even thinking about it.

That could not be allowed. And how will I stop him? Seduce him? As if that would work; he is a man. Why stop at one if you can have two? Morven accepted she was not being fair. When had Fraser ever showed he would behave in that manner? She’d seen enough of him during that summer all those years ago to understand that was not his way. He had honour and a sense of right that she’d seen missing in many a man.

Dare she appeal to his better nature? Could she? Would she be honest and tell him she’d never forgotten those golden months? That even though she accepted their hand fasting and vows were private and meant nothing to anyone else, they meant a lot to her? Would he agree he had felt the same? Morven shook her head at her idiotic thoughts. Why would he? She knew he hadn’t. His subsequent actions told her that. Perhaps he would laugh at her childishness? However, there was a chance he wouldn’t.

What should she do?

It was a conundrum she had no answer to. Morven wandered across the manicured lawn of her garden and lowered her head to smell the rose that rambled up the castle wall.

‘Such a pretty sight.’

****

‘Argh…’ Three floors below his vantage point, Morven, at least he thought it was she, spun around so fast she lost her footing, and grabbed onto a grinning stone Adonis to save herself from falling.

Fraser chuckled. Did she know which part of the statue’s anatomy she now held in a death grip?

I could get used to that again.

‘Careful, he might get flustered…or something,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Lucky thing.’

She looked around, as if to try and figure out who spoke, and Fraser’s cock hardened to the point of pain, and his skin became taut and prickly as he realised it was indeed Morven. A beautiful, more mature Morven, who had grown into her skin and her loveliness.

‘Wait there,’ he called abruptly as she looked upwards and her expression changed from puzzled to annoyed. ‘Please,’ he added. ‘I won’t be a second.’ Fraser didn’t wait to see if she replied or agreed, but left his room rapidly, not even bothering to put on a cravat or jacket. House shoes, a shirt and his pantaloons would do. At least he had those on and wasn’t in his birthday suit. Now he knew that his mother had indeed housed one of her guests in his sister Flora’s old rooms. Senga had omitted to tell him that tiny fact when he had changed rooms and towers.

Fraser used the servants’ stair that led down the turret from his bathing chamber to the ground floor, passed the door into Flora’s—now Morven’s—bathing chamber and instead of going along the corridor to the outside of the castle and the waste area for slops, turned to a little-used door into the sitting room of the suite Morven occupied. He doubted Morven had noticed it. From memory the door was usually locked and he rather thought it might now be papered or panelled so it didn’t stand out. None of which was material. Fraser had learned how to pick locks at an early age, even if the key was in them. Which he’d bet in this case it wasn’t.

He was correct. It wasn’t.

Fraser used his lock pick, and prayed the door didn’t squeak. He should have known it wouldn’t. Flora had led quite an exciting life before she settled down and married Shettleston, and he knew she favoured the less than conventional side of life. He doubted much had been done to these rooms since she married, except the occasional dusting. After all before he had decided to move from the rooms he associated with that golden summer, to this side of the castle, this tower had been reserved for his sister and her now husband and no one else. Separately housed of course: Shettleston in the rooms Fraser now used, Flora below.

Now he was home, it was theirs no more and Flora could like it or lump it on the few occasions she visited. He had told his mother in no uncertain terms this was now the laird’s tower and tradition be damned.

But if she was trying to tell him to consider Murren as a bride, what on earth was Morven doing here?

“My love, I’m waiting…” Stop thinking about those letters. It was hard. He wanted to know one thing. Why?

Fraser let himself into the sitting room and walked over the carpet to lock the doors into the hall and the main staircase that led to the upper floors of the suite, and then made his way into the garden. Morven was still where he had last seen her. Almost. She no longer glanced around for him, or whoever she thought had addressed her, but looked at the climbing roses on the garden wall instead. Her hand no longer enclosed Adonis’s staff and instead of leaning on the statue’s groin, she sat on the plinth, and to all intents and purposes appeared like a lady enjoying the sunshine. Until you stared closely and saw how her fingers twitched and her breathing was erratic.

Fraser cleared his throat and Morven moved her head and looked him in the eyes.

The world stood still.

Oh Lord. I do still love her. That visit to Stirling was becoming more imperative by the minute. Not because he didn’t want to be tied to her officially, he was becoming more and more certain he did. But so he could regularise the situation if need be. He went cold at the thought that Morven could perhaps marry someone in England, come to Scotland, be legally married there and be found to have committed bigamy. That scenario would be unthinkable.

‘Well, well, if it isn’t the laird. Do I curtsey?’ She raised her eyebrows but otherwise didn’t move.

Grief, how he hated her indifferent tone. ‘If you wish,’ Fraser said pleasantly and was pleased to see her eyes narrow and her skin colour. ‘I’d prefer a kiss but a curtsey is a start.’ If she could snipe so could he.

‘Oh certainly, your highandmightyness.’ Morven stood up and swept him a very elaborate curtsey. ‘The kiss you can sing for; the curtsey is yours. Although I need to ask you, do you always invade the private quarters of your guests?’

Fraser laughed. He had forgotten how often they scored points off each other. However, all those years ago they had always ended in each other’s arms. Somehow he didn’t think it would be the outcome this time. ‘Your lordship or my lord will do. And you are my mama’s guests, not mine.’ He could have bitten his tongue when she went white and closed her eyes. How terrible did that sound?

‘Morven, love…’

‘I am not your love,’ she said fiercely. ‘You left.’ She folded her arms, sat back on the plinth and turned her back on him. Adonis stared down at him, indifferent to Fraser’s plight.

It’s all right for you; you’re made of stone. I’m bloody not. As his cock was telling him.

‘I had to leave,’ Fraser said in a tight, hard voice. ‘You knew that. But you had the chance to come with me. You didn’t.’ God, the anguish he’d felt all those years ago as he waited for an answer to his letter flooded through him again.

“My love, I am waiting…”

Morven snorted and once more stood up and walked so they were only a few inches apart. That close she had to crane to look him in the eyes. Were those tears he saw? Surely not?

He had no chance to ask before Morven poked him hard in the stomach. ‘Says who? Defective memory, my lord. You told me we’d had fun… fun…’

A definite sob escaped. Fraser lifted his hand to touch her cheek and dropped it again as she glared at him fiercely.

‘Was that all it meant to you? Fun. A quick flick of my skirts and a fumble or three? Really? Fraser, I gave myself to you, heart, body and soul. I worshipped you and would have gone with you at the drop of a coin. We exchanged vows for heaven’s sake. It might have been done in a fun manner, but I meant every word. I begged you to take me with you. I stood not far from here and begged you not to let me leave. I asked you to explain, that we were meant for each other.’

She sniffed somewhat inelegantly. ‘You told me I was too young to make such a momentous decision. That I needed to learn the ways of the world. You intimated I was too young to know my own mind.’ She shook her head and dashed her hand over her eyes. ‘Ha, but evidently not too young to sleep with you. No.’ This time she held her hand in the air. ‘One moment, I err. There was not a lot of sleep involved was there. Let us call a spade a spade. To f…fuck,’ she stumbled over the word, ‘with you.’

‘If you felt like that why did you ignore my letters?’ Fraser demanded. ‘I waited and waited for your reply.’

Morven harrumphed and stamped her slipper-shod foot on his boot-clad one. As a pain it hardly registered but he understood she meant it to indicate her annoyance. Why? What right had she to be annoyed? That surely was his privilege?

‘Oh do not try that old chestnut, Fraser.’ In her agitation it seemed she had forgotten his title and reverted to the way they had spoken before. ‘I got no letters.’

What?

‘Morven, I assure you I sent one.’ Surely his serious tone would intimate how sincere he was? ‘In fact just to be on the safe side I sent two,’ Fraser continued, as he remembered how he’d laboured over those letters to show how serious he was. ‘One with Lachy McRae to Welland and one by the mail to London. Both before I left for Barbados. I even told you where I had left money for your journey.’

Morven paled and swayed. Fraser grasped her arm as she leaned into him and looked up at him, her eyes large and worried in her pale face. ‘I got nothing, Fraser, I promise you. Not one word.’

They stared at each other and he was sure her annoyance and despair was mirrored in his own expression. Why were those missives not received?

‘I cried. I wanted no one and nothing except you. Lord, I even railed at the fate that had ensured I was not with child. It would have been hard, but I would have had part of you. As it was I had almost nothing.’ She put her hand to her neck and then let it fall to her side. He contemplated what made her clutch her throat in such a way. Was that a silver chain he could see under the lace of her gown?

‘Then it makes me wonder, who interfered?’ Fraser said slowly. There was silence for three heartbeats. ‘And why.’

‘Mama,’ they both said at the same time.

‘How dare they!’ Morven exclaimed, her worry replaced by anger. The eyes that a few moments earlier had appeared pale and anguished were now dark as coal and seemed to be spitting fire. ‘How could my mama do such a thing? Or yours. It was my life. Our life. Mama sent me up here and left me alone all those months, happily enough. Was there any concern on her behalf then? Oh no, not at all.’

She shook her head and strands of hair the colour of midnight danced around her face. She blew out a puff of air to remove them from her cheeks and brushed those that hung over her eyes behind her ears with an impatient gesture. ‘Just off you go—Lady Napier is desirous of getting to know you better. You will enjoy yourself. And not once did she enquire if indeed I was happy. Out of sight out of mind, no doubt. One less to think about. Oh she… Argh…words fail me.’

Fraser laughed. ‘Actually, they don’t,’ he pointed out. ‘You are ranting most eloquently.’

Morven scowled. ‘Do not diminish this,’ she said fiercely. ‘I am not amused.’

He held his hands in the air in supplication. ‘I’m not making light of anything, love, I assure you. I am as unamused as you are. However, I did see the contradiction in your speech.’

‘Yes, well, even so…’ She broke off and smiled ruefully. ‘I accept I am somewhat agitated and tend to rant on. But really, Fraser, it beggars belief. Why, when I went back like a dutiful daughter, did she stop me hearing from you? Lord, did she open the letters? What was she thinking?’

‘The same as mine perhaps?’ Fraser said wryly. ‘That they had other plans for us. As in, me to Barbados—alone—and you…?’

Morven laughed, but there was no humour in it. ‘Me to be the Duchess of Plumpton perhaps? However, I spoiled her plans. Marry Frederick Laker when I was in love with you?’

She loved me? Maybe she still does.

‘You didn’t want to?’ he asked cautiously. ‘Marry someone else?’ It would not be the best plan to spin her around in a circle and kiss her senseless saying thank goodness. Not yet.

‘Not a chance. He is amiable to a fault and has no original thoughts. Plus what we had was…’ she hesitated, ran her tongue over her lips and swallowed ‘…special. So even though I thought you’d forgotten me, I declined.’

All those years for what? Heartache and worry. Fraser kissed her cheek, and Morven sighed.

‘Where does that leave us now, I wonder?’

‘Well…’ Fraser hesitated. ‘I need to go to Stirling to discover that for sure.’

‘You do? Why, what do you need to find out?’

‘Whether we are really married or not.’


Chapter Four (#ulink_3e5b2906-8724-59fc-a39c-0d014398e1bd)

‘Pardon?’ Morven saw stars in front of her eyes and there was a horrible buzzing noise in her ears. Louder than a wasp that flew around her head it gave her a hazy, out of the world feeling. Had Scotland got a new insect she knew nothing of? One that addled her brains?

‘Did you…’ It was ridiculous. Her hearing had to be defective. Fraser couldn’t have said he needed to discover if they were husband and wife, surely? She shook her head to try and focus. It didn’t help. Her skin prickled and goosebumps appeared.

Get a grip.

‘You…what?’ Lord she sounded a pitiful specimen. ‘I…’ Her ability to speak deserted her.

‘Put your head between your knees,’ Fraser said peremptorily as she experienced the sensation of being in his arms once more, and then deposited indoors, on one end of the soft-cushioned chaise next to the cushion she had so recently dropped. ‘I’ll get the brandy.’

Bile rose in Morven’s throat and she swallowed and grimaced. ‘Not brandy, water please. Brandy will send me to be sick,’ she said as Fraser pressed her head down, his fingers cold on her nape. She gladly let him take charge. The way she felt at that moment, she would be hard-pressed to dictate anything. ‘I never drink brandy these days.’ Brandy had, she surmised, been her downfall. One glass at the games, when the whisky had run out, and she’d eagerly followed Fraser’s lead. Look where that had left her? Nowadays she rarely drank at all, unless you counted holding and twirling a half full wine glass at balls and soirees.

Vaguely Morven heard the sound of liquid poured, and then a glass was pressed into her hand and said hand lifted to her mouth.

‘Drink this then. It’s only good, soft, Scottish water.’ Fraser didn’t let go of her hand or the glass as she let the welcome cool liquid slide down her dry throat. ‘Sip it slowly, don’t rush.’

Morven had no intention of rushing. The longer she took to compose herself the longer she had to come to terms with his words and think of a reply.

The seat of the chaise next to her dipped as Fraser sat and waited for her to look at him. Eventually, Morven decided she could shilly-shally no longer and held the empty glass out. ‘Thank you, I needed that. I’m sorry for my momentary weakness.’

‘Ah, love.’ Fraser took the glass and set it on the table. ‘Believe me, there is no need to apologise for anything. I imagine my news was not what you expected to hear.’ He leaned against the mantelpiece and looked down at her. Worry clouded his expression.

‘That, my lord, is the understatement of the year if not the decade,’ Morven said sarcastically. ‘And do not call me love.’ That sobriquet was more than one step too far at that moment. All those years ago she had thought it meant something, only to be disabused of that idea when she heard nothing from him.

But he says he wrote. That thought made her move uneasily. Was she being too hard on him? Perhaps, but Morven didn’t want him to call her love unless it was heartfelt and meaningful. At the moment she wasn’t sure that was the case. How could it be after no contact for so long?

‘You are my love, whether you like it or not,’ Fraser said earnestly. ‘Get used to it.’

‘You are talking twaddle,’ Morven said crossly. ‘You don’t know me any more, if you ever did.’

The look he gave her could only be described as devilish. ‘I will soon, one way or another.’

The man had an answer for everything.

‘Oh stop it. Can you imagine the furore it would cause if you addressed me so in front of either of our parents?’ she retorted, waspishly. ‘Not to be thought of. They would have so many plots and machinations we wouldn’t know where we were.’

‘We can outwit them at any time. They’ll get used to it,’ he paused and said very emphatically, ‘love.’

Morven was having none of it. How dare he assume such a thing? Very easily she suspected. Also she knew that if she did not strengthen her resolve it would happen just as he said. She must not be so lily-livered. ‘Also balderdash. Do you want to be forced to the altar?’

‘If we are married it won’t matter,’ Fraser pointed out sardonically. ‘What would be the point?’ He raised one eyebrow. ‘Which is why I need to go to the minister at the presbytery in Stirling and ask for advice. If I asked the local minister it would be all around Kintrain before you could say “amen”. Old Scott is not renowned for his discretion.’

Morven scarcely heard him. Her mind was full of such scenarios of wedded, bedded, how her mama would react, how she herself would react, what on earth might be the truth that nothing registered except one thing. None of it made sense.

‘How can we be married?’ That was the most important point. ‘We didn’t exchange wedding vows in front of a cleric. No mamas wept into lacy handkerchiefs and no raucous males took bets on the birth of…ahhh…’ She broke off and bit her lip. That was going down a route she didn’t want to think about. ‘It, whatever it was, happened in a field at the games in between tossing the caber and the Highland fling.’ And it mattered to me. It had, she had thought on several occasions, been one of the most momentous happenings in her life. A golden moment of youth to look back on and savour. Even if for all these years she had decided it meant nothing to Fraser, it had still been something she cherished. Now though, she wondered exactly what it all meant.

‘No minister, I agree, but we did exchange vows,’ Fraser said, quietly. ‘Morven, I…’

‘Hold on.’ Her temper began to spike. ‘What vows? Marriage vows? We held hands and said…said…’ What exactly had they said? ‘We exchanged vows?’ Surely she would have remembered that, inferior brandy or not.

Fraser smiled wryly. He seemed to do that a lot at the moment, and it was new to Morven. He was older, more serious, and she mourned the spark he seemed to have lost. Then he grinned. His eyes crinkled up at the corners and for one brief second she saw the man she had fallen in love with.

‘Vows?’ Morven prompted. ‘You, me and whoever?’

‘So it may seem.’

Morven racked her brain, but other than enjoying the day, and holding hands, she only had the haziest of recollections of the exact proceedings of the day. ‘When do you mean? When we were at the games?’ After the brandy?

He nodded. ‘Exactly then.’

It didn’t make sense to Morven. ‘But that was fun surely?’ she asked in a puzzled voice. ‘That gypsy saying why not tell me your vows, and we did. Not to be taken seriously. It was all part of the atmosphere.’

Fraser reddened. ‘So we thought.’ He didn’t look her in the eyes, but it seemed his gaze was fixed on the wall above her head.

‘Fraser?’ The strong, determined voice Morven had hoped for wavered and she bit her lip. That would never do. ‘Fraser Napier, what are you not telling me?’

‘Oh Lord.’ He pushed himself off the mantelpiece and gestured to the chair next to her. ‘Do you mind?’

‘Mind? Oh you sitting down? Of course not.’ She waited until he did so and resumed their previous conversation. ‘You were saying about vows.’

‘I’m an idiot.’

Morven inclined her head and his breath came out in a long hiss. Well what did he expect? ‘I will reserve judgement until you tell me what, so far, you have been reluctant to share.’

‘That there was more to it than there seemed. I should have realised that. Hell, I’ve lived here all my life. I know the people, including the gypsies, and I know a fair bit about their lives, but please believe me, I also never thought it was more than a bit of fun.’ Fraser shook his head. ‘You know, let’s entertain the villagers who don’t want their fortunes told. Involve the Master of Kintrain. More fool me.’ He stroked her cheek. That tiny connection sent tingles down her spine, and Morven forced herself not to lean into his touch. She needed her wits about her, not addled by arousal.

‘However, fun or not,’ Fraser continued with a whimsical smile, ‘I should have paid more attention to what we did. I discovered later that in Scotland as long as you are of age and exchange vows in front of two witnesses it is considered to be a valid marriage. In honesty, I as laird in waiting should have known that.’ His disgusted tone told her what he thought of that omission to his education. ‘I thought it needed to be two witnesses chosen by the couple, not just any two people.’

What? Morven’s jaw dropped and she pressed her fingers to her ears. He must be joking, surely? However, one look at Fraser’s set expression told her he was serious. She went over his words in her mind and grasped one salient point.

‘Oh… Well we have a reason this could not be valid,’ Morven said thankfully. If she ever got married it would be because she and the so far unknown man would love each other. Rules of the ton be blowed. Deliver the heir and play away was one trend she would have nothing to do with. ‘I was underage.’ Although she knew she had strong feelings for Fraser, whatever he protested, he needed to show his emotions were as engaged as hers.

Fraser laughed. ‘Good try but not any use to us here. You were not underage in Scotland.’

‘But we didn’t have any witnesses,’ Morven said desperately. This was becoming more like a nightmare with every passing second. First the blow that he had written to her twice and she had received neither missive. Now she may or may not be wed. Did he want to be? Did she want to be? Not like this she didn’t. Could they get out of such an arrangement?

‘Fraser, you know we didn’t,’ she said in a rush, and ignored the tiny idea that told her that perhaps she might need to think very carefully over what she wanted with regards to getting out or staying in a marriage—if it was legal. ‘There was only that gypsy, and I don’t remember him saying he pronounced us man and wife or anything. He just muttered something under his breath and then told us to remember the day.’

‘I have a suspicion the muttering was the man and wife bit,’ Fraser said flatly. ‘The conniving devil. His wife, Beshlie, told me a week previous she knew what my future held. I dismissed it as a plea for more victuals and told her she didn’t have to pretend and I promised her a sheep without any mumbo jumbo. Beshlie laughed and said it was written in my palm. She wouldn’t say what the “it” was, just it was preordained and that was it, and to remember she had second sight. I heard when I got back from Barbados, that Tam Curtin, that’s his name, hopes all went well for us.’

‘You what?’ Morven stood up and faced him. This was a disaster. But you might want to think about it before you dismiss the idea out of hand. A thought hit her. ‘Oh Lord pray my mama doesn’t hear that snippet. She won’t know whether to crow or rant.’

Fraser laughed as he pulled her down and onto his knee, and she wriggled. Was that his staff that teased her rear?

‘No, for the love of God, don’t jiggle about,’ he said in a strained voice. ‘Just sit as you used to for a second. No one can see us, and I need that contact.’

‘Anyone could enter and come across us,’ Morven pointed out prosaically and ignored the hard length trying to imprint itself onto her body. Otherwise she might roll over and accept the unspoken, and she assumed, unwitting, invitation. ‘The door isn’t locked.’

‘It is you know. I locked it.’

‘Don’t sound so smug,’ she said crossly, although she couldn’t put any heat into her words. Five minutes of being so close to him and she was a hopeless case. ‘How did you lock it? I looked earlier and there is no key.’

‘I don’t need one.’ Fraser grinned and looked like the carefree man he had been the day they had spent at the games. ‘Tricks of a wild Highland youth.’

She tried to raise one eyebrow in disbelief, failed miserably and giggled. What was the point of expending energy on staying annoyed? ‘Highland?’

Fraser nodded and rubbed his chin over her cheek.

‘Ouch, stubble.’ Morven rubbed her cheek theatrically.

‘I’ll kiss it better.’

He suited his actions to his words and his breath feathered over her skin before his lips touched the place he’d scraped.

‘I notice you didn’t question the wild bit.’ Fraser tightened his hold on her, and Morven relaxed until their bodies were plastered together.

‘Naturally.’ Morven slid her arm out of his embrace and patted the top of his head. ‘The wildness I can well believe. Therefore?’

‘The castle straddles the line between the Highlands and the rest of the country. Papa was a Highlander, Mama a southerner. I therefore have the best and worst of both peoples in my make-up.’

Morven nodded. ‘I’d forgotten you told me that. Well then. Continue.’ She winced at her peremptory tone, but accepted it stemmed from nervousness, and hoped he would realise and accept it as such. ‘Our alleged nuptials.’

‘Witnesses,’ Fraser said slowly. ‘We think we didn’t have any, but in hindsight, I seem to remember seeing a couple of other people nearby, although I have no idea who. My eyes were on you. They were, I assume, waiting to do just as we did.’

Morven’s eyes were wide and puzzled. ‘But surely they don’t count? They weren’t there for us.’

He shrugged. ‘Perhaps not, but if they heard us…I believe it matters not. Even if it is considered we only did a hand fasting it is legal here.’

‘Hand fasting?’ That was something she didn’t understand. ‘Holding hands?’

‘In effect, yes. Holding hands and committing to each other in some way. As I always assumed I would have a traditional marriage, I’m afraid I don’t know when merely holding hands turns into a hand fasting that is considered as binding as a marriage. Strangely, I was never asked to witness or conduct a marriage before I went abroad. I imagine my father was and did so, but never me.’

‘It sounds so unbelievable doesn’t it?’ Morven said quietly. Nothing she could say would help their situation. ‘But then I am from England and only know what happens there. Naught that appeals to be honest.’ Not even to enjoy the rapture she had experienced with Fraser.

Fraser sighed. ‘So, I need to go to Stirling to find out the ramifications, not only of them, but the words we and Tam spoke. Plus if that was not enough to get straightened out, there is the added problem that if we are legally married here, would it hold up in England? What if your mama insisted you marry someone in England, and it was legal there, but if you came up here you would be a bigamist. If we went to England you would be seen as a fallen woman and scorned and banished from the ton.’

Morven gulped. ‘What? So let me see. I have no intentions of marrying anyone, but as it stands we might be legally wed. It could or could not be legal in England. I have no way of proving it either way. And that gypsy tricked us? Kill him slowly. Let him be pecked to death by those noisy crows. Show him the end of a hard stick up…oomptft.’

Fraser put his hand over her mouth. ‘Never curse a Romany.’ He burst out laughing at the disgusted expression on what part of her face he could see and kissed her cheek in the manner he seemed partial to. ‘Morven, hold fast. We don’t know anything for sure. Would it be so bad to be my wife?’

She sighed. ‘It could be. I have always held to my conviction about what a marriage should be, and would ours be that? Who knows.’

He would have to ask her about that conviction as soon as they had time to sit and discuss everything in depth. That moment was not the time to tell her that if the marriage were legal they would have to just make the best of it. ‘I’ll see what happens tomorrow and if necessary will have to approach Tam or Beshlie. That will not be fun, well not for me anyway.’

Morven bit his palm and when he moved his hand she flicked her tongue out to soothe the spot. His skin was salty and bore the scars and calluses of hard work. No soft landlord. But oh what a tangle.

‘Enough that if we are wed life could be very, very complicated, without upsetting a Romany, eh?’ She began to laugh. It was that or cry. ‘If we are wed only north of the border even more so. Oh Lord what now?’ We could make love perhaps? Morven did her best to banish that thought immediately. Now couldn’t possibly be the time. ‘I best laugh or I will cry.’

‘Well,’ Fraser said cautiously, obviously—luckily—oblivious to the direction of her thoughts, ‘I’d heard to be married over the bush could be legal but I honestly didn’t think it would apply to us at the games. I should have paid more attention to all those tales I heard when I was a youngster. It was only when I came home that I heard rumours that several couples had been married on that day, and were still together, that I began to wonder.’

‘It is amazing no one said that one half of one of the couples was the master of Kintrain then,’ Morven said thoughtfully. ‘Local gossip like that at Welland would be around the village in no time.’

‘Yes, but I went away so I suppose it was a case of out of sight out of mind. Or don’t upset the laird.’

‘Can’t it stay that way?’ Morven asked plaintively.

‘Well I am no longer out of sight and nor are you,’ Fraser pointed out, ‘So I would say not.’

****

How he hated to brush aside everything she said, but Fraser reasoned he had no option at that moment. ‘The one thing we do is make sure neither parent gets wind of this until we find out the truth,’ he said emphatically.

He had never seen anyone change colour so rapidly. Morven went white, red and then white again, her face the colour of the old climbing roses that clung to the wall, which enclosed the garden. ‘Oh Lord, yes, I never thought of that.’

‘Then we can go from there, for after all it seems that they…’ He hesitated and decided to take the bull by the horns. ‘It seems they think we would not suit.’

Morven nodded, her colour once more restored to its usual healthy glow, and chewed her lip thoughtfully. ‘I understood that as well. My poor sister is beside herself with worry. She is too young and the thought of you anywhere near her scares her witless. I have a feeling they meant to house her in a tower somewhere but she threw a fit and that idea, if indeed it was one, was shelved.’ She let her breath out in a long hiss. ‘Or so it seems everyone is trying to make me believe.’

Fraser hit one fist into the other palm. ‘I should have realised. I moved into this tower recently.’ He didn’t say how recently. ‘Here then, they meant to house her in these rooms. I did wonder when I saw them being aired in a hurry that mama was possibly up to some trick or another. She can be ruthless in her deviousness when she thinks it is warranted.’

Morven looked at him in query. ‘You have lost me there.’

‘There is a staircase from my rooms upstairs to these here,’ Fraser explained. ‘Ostensibly for servants, but used by the occupants when they needed to see each other without the knowledge of others. The castle is riddled with such passages.’

‘Secret trysts and so on?’ Morven asked with interest obvious in her voice. ‘How intriguing.’

‘Hmm.’ He might have known she would see it that way. To him it could be a nuisance. Or, he corrected himself, in the past it could. Now it could work to his advantage. ‘They have housed you here. Ulterior motive or expediency I wonder?’

‘Who knows, except it is as well it isn’t my sister. Murren is very young and as the baby of the family hasn’t developed the spine she needs to stand up to people. If you had appeared to her like you did to me, she’d run screaming like a banshee.’

‘Am I that much of an ogre?’ Surely he didn’t have a fearful reputation? ‘What do you mean they are trying to make you assume things?’

Fraser flicked her skirts up and swivelled Morven until she sat facing him, her legs either side of his, her breast touching his chest, and her quim resting next to his staff.

She raised her eyebrows but didn’t question his actions. ‘Mama intimating you would, I imagine, be enough to put fear into a young and impressionable girl. Murren needs someone to coddle her, not be bracing and ride roughshod over her. She isn’t like me. I would stand up to anyone who treated me so. Hopefully as she gets older she will learn to do so—but now? Not a chance. But then sometimes I see a look in her eyes and another one in my mama’s and wonder what they are up to. Ah well, hopefully I’ll find out soon. But that apart, Murren is likely to be in too deep, and would not be able to hold her own if challenged.’

‘I wouldn’t treat anyone like that.’ On reflection, he wasn’t too sure.

Evidently, Morven was. ‘Oh yes you would. You need someone strong to stand up to you when you think only your way is the right way. Otherwise you would bully them. Oh I’m sure you wouldn’t mean to but you would, believe me. Any recipient needs plenty of determination to defy you.’

‘As you did,’ Fraser said. ‘Therefore?’

‘Why yes…’

He winked and she shook her head—and her finger—at him. ‘Oh no, My Lord Fraser, not me.’

Fraser pulled her down a little and tightened his arms around her so her head was scant inches away from his chest. ‘Why not?’

‘We would not suit.’ Her voice was muffled as she spoke into his shirt. ‘I am too set in my ways.’

He wondered why she was so definite. In one way they were very suitable, both their bodies demonstrated that. His cock was painfully hard and pulsed against its confines. Her nipples stood out and demanded attention. ‘You think so?’ he asked mildly. Dare he ask why, if that were the case, her breathing was uneven and her skin sheened with arousal?

‘I know so, now change the subject,’ Morven said in a tone that indicated the subject was closed as far as she was concerned.

He’d allow her to think that for the moment. ‘As you wish, love.’

Morven glowered at him and he hid his smile. She’d get used to it, eventually. He hoped. He had no intention of changing tack now.

‘So.’ She tapped her lips and stared at him intently. ‘Tell me when you intend to go to Stirling.’

Fraser sighed. Truly Morven was like a terrier with a rat. Although in the circumstances, he supposed it was reasonable. It was her life as well as his they were trying to sort out. ‘Tomorrow. I’ll set off before breakfast, because it is a good three hours’ ride each way.’ Although it didn’t seem as important to him now. He was determined they would be wed, in church with everyone who wanted to be there around them. ‘Then of course I need to find the minister I seek.’

Morven nodded her understanding. ‘I’m coming with you.’

‘And how do you propose to do that? I’ll be away all day.’ He admired her intention, after all it was as much about Morven as him, but he didn’t think she would find a way of achieving her goal.

‘I don’t know yet but I will discover a way,’ she said stubbornly.

He really didn’t think she had a chance, but it was Murren who unwittingly helped. As they all sat around the dinner table, before the ladies left Fraser to his whisky—they didn’t pass port in Kintrain unless they had gentlemen visitors who were sticklers for etiquette or strangely didn’t like whisky—Lady Napier coughed delicately. ‘I thought tomorrow Fraser that you wouldn’t mind showing Murren around the estate. There are some pretty rides.’

Fraser cleared his throat, but before he had time to formulate his thoughts Murren rushed into speech. ‘Oh no, please, you’re too kind but no more riding, I beg of you. In fact I would like to spend the day doing nothing, alone. I’m tired, my headaches and I can think of nothing worse than jolting around. I am afraid the journey took more out of me than I thought possible.’

Fraser didn’t think she looked that fatigued, but then he didn’t know her strengths and weaknesses. He bowed. ‘Another time perhaps?’

‘Thank you, yes, as long as the horse isn’t too strong or the path too bumpy for a carriage or… Oh I’m such a weakling.’ She rubbed her hands together. ‘Although, I wonder, my lord, do you think you could take Morven instead? There will be plenty of time for me to see around when I am more likely to be alert.’





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