Lost in Your Arms
Page 30
In a daze Enid wandered toward Hyde Park. She would sit on a bench and read it there, and then all would become clear. Surely then she would know what to do.
“My lord. My lord!”
The afternoon sun shone down on MacLean’s bare shoulders as he stuck his shovel in the earth of the newly plowed herb garden and waited until a panting Graeme reached him. “What?”
“She’s back.” Graeme leaned his hands on his knees and gasped for air. “Enid has returned to Castle MacLean and—”
MacLean dropped the shovel handle and started toward the castle at a run.
“She’s bargaining wi’ yer mother for yer hand in marriage,” Graeme called. “I thought ye’d be interested!”
MacLean was interested. He was more than interested. He burst through the front door of the castle and saw Donaldina.
“They’re in th’ east library,” she informed. “An’ my, doesn’t Mrs. MacLean look elegant!”
Elegant? Why did Enid look elegant? Better she should look haggard, as he did, from waiting a whole month to hear if the woman of his heart would wed him. Elegant, indeed. Better she should look hot and dirty from planting an herb garden as an enticement to a woman who’d been off to London buying clothing so she could look elegant. He strode up a flight of stairs and into his mother’s study—and saw Enid.
She did look elegant. She wore the newest, most fashionable travel costume made of dark purple satin with a matching hat and a silly feather that bobbed when she turned her head. He was ready to go over and shake her, but she smiled at him with such warmth that he stopped in his tracks. She smiled at him, and he would have sworn his broken heart played a bagpipe tune.
“We were just talking about you, son.” Lady Bess sat behind her desk, her book of household accounts open before her, twirling her pen. “Enid has made an offer for your hand.”
When her words finally penetrated his daze, he stared at his mother with her wrinkled brows and somber mien. “What?”
“She has made an offer for your hand,” Lady Bess repeated. “I think I speak true when I told her you would be happy to wed her . . .”
“Aye.” As a gender, women were stark, raving mad.
“Enid is offering us a dowry.”
“A dowry.” He turned back toward Enid. “Damn, woman, I don’t care about a dowry. I just want you!”
Lady Bess cleared her throat and frowned. “Nevertheless, we’re getting a dowry. She has offered two thousand pounds. I won’t allow you to wed for less than twenty.”
“Twenty thousand pounds!” MacLean shouted. Stark, raving mad. “Where would she get twenty thousand pounds?” He gestured toward Enid. “Where would she get two thousand pounds? She’s a nurse-companion.”
In an insulted tone, Enid said, “I’m offering two thousand pounds for you.”
Two thousand pounds! What had Enid been doing? Concerned, he demanded, “You didn’t rob the Bank of England, did you, lass?”
Enid laid her arm across the back of the sofa in an elegant arch. “Not at all.”
“She seems to have come into some money,” Lady Bess said. “She has offered a dowry, and we’re going to take it.”
“We don’t need a dowry.” This smacked of buying a husband. Of buying him.
“Don’t tell me what we need and what we don’t need.” Lady Bess tapped the book of accounts. “Twenty thousand pounds would buy us that strip of land the MacLeans had to sell off after the Forty-Five.”
Enid shrugged with fine disdain. “That’s too bad, because I can’t afford more than three thousand pounds.”
MacLean stood, staring at Enid, hands dangling at his side. The first words he’d heard her say in over a month, and they were about money?
Lady Bess seemed to find nothing unusual in the scene. “Kiernan is the laird of a powerful Scottish clan. He’s worth twice twenty thousand.”
Enid looked him over, at the dirt on his kilt and his bare, sweaty chest, and her lascivious appreciation made him flush. “He is that, and not because of his clan.”
“Aye, he’s a handsome lad,” Lady Bess agreed. “In good health, with all his teeth, but a few scars from his recent ordeal. So you’ll pay twenty thousand?”
“Mother!”
Enid shook her head. “Four.”
“Fifteen.”
“Seven.”
MacLean wanted to punch his fist through the wall. “Why are you two doing this?”
Lady Bess glared at him meaningfully. “Don’t interrupt the negotiations. Enid will not wed you any other way.”
Once more, he gazed on the woman he loved. He was, as his mother said, the laird of a powerful clan. Enid was an illegitimate orphan, and when he’d discovered his true identity, in his rage he had accused her of being a liar. Of being mercenary. Of being a bastard and a whore, and he had hurt her so much that he would spend the rest of his life trying to make it up to her.
Now, somehow, she had discovered a way to bring something besides her own self to their marriage—and he would let her.
He needed only her.
She needed her pride. “Go on,” he said tersely.
“Twelve thousand pounds,” his mother said.
“Ten,” Enid countered.
Lady Bess stood and smiled. “I believe we have an agreement.”
MacLean gave a gusty sigh of relief.
Enid did not stand. “Ten thousand over the next ten years.”
Lady Bess’s smile faded, and she sat back down.
His frustration came out in a roar. “For God’s sake, women, by the time you get done with these negotiations, I’ll be too old to consummate the marriage!”
Lady Bess struggled against a grin. “Perhaps, son, it would be better if you went to your room and bathed while we finish.”
Patient. He had to be patient. Crossing his arms across his chest, he leaned against the cabinet. “You can just put up with the smell. I’m staying right here.”
By the time they finished negotiations the tension had put him into a state of exhaustion.
Lady Bess and Enid stood and shook hands.
Lady Bess left and closed the door behind her.
He straightened. “Are you happy now?”
Enid didn’t look happy. She looked a little like a female uncertain of her welcome. “Are you?”
“You’re going to marry me?”
“Yes.”
He allowed a grin to break over his face. He strode over to her and without a care to her elegant travel costume, he pulled her against him. “Then I’m happy.” He kissed her, and when he finished she no longer looked uncertain, and that damned silly hat had fallen to the floor.
“Let me show you something.” Enid eased herself out of his arms, went to the sofa, and got her reticule. “Do you remember that I received the bequest from Lady Halifax?”
“Indeed I do.” He began to understand.
She pulled a paper covered with shaky, spidery writing from her reticule. “This is the letter she wrote to accompany it.”
He pushed it aside and pulled her into his arms. “Tell me what it says.”
She didn’t protest. Indeed, she snuggled close as if she liked half-naked, dirty men. “Lady Halifax said she liked me. Admired me. She left me five thousand pounds, and told me to conceal it from Stephen, to save it for the moment when I could achieve my heart’s desire. But when I received it, I had just come back from Castle MacLean, Stephen was gone, and I no longer knew my heart’s desire. I had thought I wanted to grow herbs on my own land, but in the last months that dream had grown acrid and unappealing. I tried to think where I would go, what I would do, now that I had the resources to make myself happy. I didn’t know. I thought maybe I should buy a home, but where? And a family, but I couldn’t buy one of those. Friends? I have friends, but while I have a fortune, they must still work for their living. I spent a fortnight wandering about London, looking for the truth in every park, on every street, in every garden.”
“What made you c
ome for me?”
“I read the letter again. Lady Halifax said to seize my heart’s desire, and I realized—I could not see inside my own heart by looking about London. I had to . . . look inside myself.”
“And what did you see?”
Looking up at him, she placed her palms on either side of his head. “You. And you. And you. There is nothing that I want except you.”
He slid his hands over hers. “If you hadn’t come soon . . .”
“What? You would have come to get me?”
“Aye. A handfast marriage would do for us—until you agreed to take vows in our chapel with all my people as witnesses.”
She laughed a little. “I wondered. I kept looking behind me, thinking I would see you.”
Clasping her hands, he pulled one to his mouth and kissed the palm. She tasted like woman. His woman. “There is one thing I don’t understand.”
Her eyes half closed with pleasure. “Yes?”
“You said you inherited five thousand pounds.”
Opening her eyes wide, she smiled with excessive innocence.
“But you promised a dowry of ten thousand.”
“Over a period of ten years.”
“So you really are a liar.”
“And I’m a mercenary.”
“Who spent every pound of your fortune on me.”
“A wise investment, for you could do your part and make a family with me, and your mother would consider our child as part of my payment.”
“My wife is a beautiful, wanton trickster.” Laughing slightly, he slid his arm around her waist, bent her back and kissed her with all the pent-up passion of the last month. “A beautiful, wanton, mercenary liar who would do anything to get me.”
“Anything,” she vowed. “I would do anything.”
Looking into her brilliant blue eyes, he repeated his vow, the vow he had made that day in the mountains in the sunshine. “I am the blood in your veins, the marrow in your bones. You’ll never go anywhere without knowing I’m inside you, supporting you, keeping you alive. I am a part of you. You are a part of me. We are forever.”
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Forever.”
About the Author
CHRISTINA DODD is the author of over twenty romances that have made regular appearances on the national bestseller lists, including the New York Times. She has won numerous awards, including Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart and RITA awards.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
RESOUNDING PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF
CHRISTINA DODD
“Christina Dodd is everything I’m looking for in an author. . . . She’s one of my all-time favorites!”
Teresa Medeiros
“Bawdy, brainy, and ultimately beguiling . . . thoroughly delightful and decidedly erotic.”
Publishers Weekly
“Memorable characters, witty dialogue, steaming sensuality. The perfect combination for sheer enjoyment.”
Jill Marie Landis
“Blazing passion . . . humor and intrigue . . . Ms. Dodd takes us on a grand adventure.”
Romantic Times
“Highly sensual.”
Library Journal
“Leaves a well satisfied reader. Christina Dodd keeps getting better and better!”
Debbie Macomber
Also by Christina Dodd
CANDLE IN THE WINDOW
CASTLES IN THE AIR
THE GREATEST LOVER IN ALL ENGLAND
IN MY WILDEST DREAMS
A KNIGHT TO REMEMBER
MOVE HEAVEN AND EARTH
ONCE A KNIGHT
OUTRAGEOUS
PRICELESS
RULES OF ATTRACTION
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
RULES OF SURRENDER
RUNAWAY PRINCESS
SCOTTISH BRIDES
SOMEDAY MY PRINCE
TALL, DARK, AND DANGEROUS
TEMPTED
THAT SCANDALOUS EVENING
TREASURE OF THE SUN
A WELL FAVORED GENTLEMAN
A WELL PLEASURED LADY
COMING SOON
MY FAVORITE BRIDE
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
LOST IN YOUR ARMS. Copyright © 2002 by Christina Dodd. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ePub Edition © March 2003 ISBN: 9780061795985
First Avon Books paperback printing: March 2002
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900
Toronto, ON, M5R, 3L2, Canada
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com