Bride

by Stella Cameron

  Her head began to pound. “Thank you for your assistance in my project. Be assured I’ll fulfill my promises to you and your children in return.”

  “Justine. I have decided—”

  “What you have decided is immaterial.”

  “I don’t believe this.”

  “Of course you don’t.” She swung away. “I’d appreciate your help in finding my way back to my apartments.”

  “I think we should go directly to Kirkcaldy and speak with the minister Arran—”

  “You simply cannot accept fact, can you?” Justine looked at him over her shoulder. “I am not a box of cigars to be purchased and used or discarded, depending upon how well my taste pleases you. I am a woman, an intelligent woman who can make up her mind what she wants.”

  “In most things, yes,” Struan said, as if she were a child and he a particularly patient parent. “But there are those areas where—”

  “Where men behave like peacocks and consider themselves supreme?”

  “Justine”—he came toward her—“forgive me. I forgot myself. Under other circumstances I should approach your father at such a time, but—”

  “But I’m too old and my father is dead.”

  “I intended to say that you are mature enough to make most of your own decisions. Anyway, it is Calum to whom I must speak, of course.”

  “No,” Justine told him archly. “No, you said it almost right. I am mature enough to make my own decisions. Not just most of them, but all of them.”

  “Well—”

  “And I have decided that marriage to you is out of the question. Thank you, but I refuse your offer, Struan.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Women are a damnable inconvenience,” Struan said, slamming shut the door of his brother’s study at Kirkcaldy. “Completely addlepated and incomprehensible. To be avoided at all costs. The audacity. The audacity, I tell you!”

  Arran, his chair pushed back, sat with his booted feet propped on the desk. Calum occupied a leather chair to Arran’s right.

  Tall, silent Caleb Murray stood behind his master’s chair with a large ledger open across his sinuous forearms.

  “The less we have to do with them, the better,” Struan continued when neither Arran nor Calum responded to his outburst. “Use them and ignore them. Only way to deal with the situation. And never—never ever allow them to think. Thinking is one of the greatest evils when it comes to women.” He dropped into a chair that matched the one Calum was using and steepled his fingers.

  “I think Struan’s out of sorts,” Arran said.

  Calum puffed up his cheeks. “Would seem so. What d’you suppose may have brought about that situation?”

  Arran frowned thoughtfully and motioned for dark-haired Murray to close the ledger. “Hard to say. Always been a difficult fellow to read, Struan. Pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes so many times in the past, we all tend to think he’s still at it”

  Caleb Murray bowed. “Is that all, your lordship?” The man’s bearing suggested a certain reserved arrogance. Struan liked the man well enough but had found himself wishing he knew more about the estate commissioner’s lineage.

  Arran looked up at Murray intently. “The poaching matter? Any developments there?”

  “We may never make ground there, your lordship.” The slender lines of Murray’s face showed little emotion, but he was a good-looking devil, Struan would give him that.

  “As you say.” Arran sighed. “That’ll do for now, then.”

  “There was the matter Mrs. Moggach and—”

  “Afraid settling the staff pudding issue will have to await the marchioness’s return,” Arran said, not unkindly.

  “Very well,” Murray said. His jacket and waistcoat were of good brown cloth and well cut. No expense had been spared on his linen or on his buff breeches and highly polished top boots. He continued, “Internal staff issues are no concern of mine, but Shanks is under the weather and asked me to bring the matter up. Evidently it was Mairi who used to come in and take care of the puddings, Moggach not being much of a hand in that department. Since Mairi became otherwise engaged there’s really been no one to take—”

  “Puddings,” Struan said when he could contain himself no longer. “Puddings? At a time like this? Grumpy should have been chucked out on her ear years ago. Old tyrant. You can tell her I said so, Caleb.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “I think I’d rather you didn’t,” Arran said mildly. “Why not go along and tell the staff their mistress will be home as soon as she can travel. They’ll like to hear that.”

  “Aye.” Caleb bowed his way to the door with every sign of wanting to be gone as quickly as possible. “Aye, I’ll do that.”

  “I say, Struan,” Calum said when the estate commissioner had left. “Having a struggle with things in general, are we?”

  “Look here.” Struan leaned forward. “This isn’t a joke.”

  “Never said it was, old man,” Calum said. “Certainly no joke to me, I can tell you. Quite a worry when I see the man who’s going to marry my sister behaving like a maniac.”

  Struan pointed a warning finger at Calum. “Marry your sister? Have you lost your mind? What in God’s name makes you think I’d marry that contrary, ranting female with her Sin’s warts? Unreasonable creature. Ungrateful creature. Totally irrational creature.”

  “Ears,” Calum remarked. “Mostly, anyway.”

  Struan clasped his knees. “What ears?”

  “Sin’s ears, old chap.” Calum smiled cheerfully. “she usually says sin’s ears, not warts.”

  “A pox on you, Calum, for the unfeeling rattle you are.”

  Arran uncrossed his feet and recrossed them in the opposite direction. “Sounds as if Struan’s a bit disenchanted with your sister, old chap,” he said to Calum. “Odd. Never would have said such unpleasant things about the lady meself. Seems a charming female. Charming and intelligent.”

  “Enough!” Struan shot from his chair to stride about the room. “You trifle with a man in a dangerous frame of mind, sir. A man already pressed beyond endurance.”

  “How so?”

  Struan hesitated to glance directly at Calum. Damn his own careless tongue. “You know well enough. There is the matter of Ella and Max. Not a simple matter and one which I am far from sorting out in a satisfactory manner.” Not for the first time, he wondered fleetingly if he should mention the letters and enlist help from these two. Just as rapidly the idea passed. A man had his pride, dammit.

  “Seems simple enough to me,” Calum said, his brow furrowed. “Why not revert to Philipa’s original idea and say they are illegitimate. You don’t have to shout about it, of course. Just state the fact without stating the fact exactly. They are illegitimate. No one has to know you aren’t the father. Much simpler. No awkward questions in the event that there should be future legitimate offspring.”

  “Never. Philipa did not know what she said when she said it. She wouldn’t have if she did.”

  “Riddles,” Arran said. “All riddles. Pour me a drink, Struan, there’s a good chap.”

  “Pour your own bloody drink, you bounder.”

  Arran clasped his hands behind his neck and looked wounded. “I can’t imagine what leads you to abuse me in this way, brother. I who have never been other than your most staunch supporter.”

  “Tripe.”

  “Nasty stuff,” Calum commented.

  “Not too bad with onions, so they tell me,” Arran said.

  Struan lost his temper entirely. “You two are driving me insane! I told Justine we must marry, and she refused. Do you understand? Justine told me she will not marry me!”

  A lengthy quiet followed before Arran swung his feet to the floor with a thud and said, “The devil, she did.”

  “The devil, she did,” Calum echoed.

  “Will some higher force help me?” Struan intoned to the vaulted wood ceiling. “Will some generous being come to my aid in my time of trial?”

>   “Naturally,” Arran told him. “Would Calum and I consider doing otherwise?”

  Calum nodded. “We certainly will help. First, I’d like to know how you came to be asking my sister for her hand without speaking to me first—and exactly what foul insult you threw at her to bring about such an outcome?”

  Blood pumped at Struan’s temples. “All right.” He raised his palms. “All right, you two. You’ve had a great deal of pleasure at my expense, but the fun is definitely over. I shall withdraw my offer from Justine forthwith, and from here on her welfare will mean less than nothing to me.”

  “I thought you said she’d already turned you down,” Arran said mildly.

  Calum got up and poured three large glasses of whiskey.

  “You did not answer my questions, however. How did you insult my sister?”

  “I did not insult her. I paid her the ultimate compliment—by asking her to become my wife. I paid her many compliments, in fact.”

  “When?”

  “Before I came here.”

  “Where?”

  “At the lodge. In Grandfather’s ballroom. I even played the piano for the woman, dammit. And she liked it. She liked everything I did, or I miss my mark.”

  Arran choked on the whiskey Calum had given him.

  “Everything?” Calum said slowly, making no attempt to hand a glass to Struan. “What exactly would everything be?”

  The rise of color in his face was an unfamiliar sensation. “Well”—he shrugged—“you know. A little of this and that. Very little.”

  Calum’s voice became silky. “I sincerely hope I don’t know in this instance. Didn’t I see Ella and Max in the green salon?”

  Struan snatched a glass from Calum and took a deep swallow. “They came to see the dowager duchess.”

  “But that maid is with Justine?”

  Struan drank again and sputtered as the fiery liquid rushed down his throat.

  “The maid—”

  “She came with the children, damn your eyes.”

  “Is Justine alone at the lodge? Were you there with her? Alone perchance? Alone, again?”

  Struan jutted his jaw. “Yes. What of it? She isn’t a child and neither am I.”

  “Would that you were,” Arran said, examining the fingernails of his left hand. “Clearly we’d better proceed with haste to make an honest woman of Justine.”

  “God have mercy!” Struan flung himself back into the chair near the fire and held the cool glass to his brow. “Do you not hear a word I tell you? I asked Justine to become my wife. No, actually, I begged her to become my wife. She says she will not have me.”

  “Come with me,” Arran said. He marched from the room, still carrying his whiskey, and stopping from time to time to sip.

  Struan quickly realized where they were heading and fought an urge to flee.

  They entered the corridor leading from the vestibule to the impressive curving staircase and climbed rapidly upward. Their boots thudded over priceless red Turkish carpets toward the green salon that had been their parents’ favorite room in the castle.

  Struan sent up more prayers. With good fortune, the dowager would yet be indisposed and the worst he might encounter would be his two fake offspring on their best behavior.

  “Oh, yes,” Arran said, halting abruptly. “There is something else I should do, of course. Calum, go for Justine, would you?”

  Calum appeared bemused. Then his face cleared and he handed Struan his glass. “Should have thought of it myself. I’ll fetch her at once. You deal with the preliminaries, Arran. Give me a chance to talk some sense into Justine.”

  “Quite.” Arran threw open the door to the drawing room and entered.

  For one wistful moment, Struan watched Calum’s retreating back. Running away really wasn’t an option. He followed Arran.

  “Hell’s teeth,” Arran muttered.

  Struan glanced at him with surprise before looking around the beautiful room he’d known all his life. Ella, a beguiling vision in her green habit, sat primly on a brocade chair. Max’s cheeks bulged with some delicacy that made his eyes appear unfocused with ecstasy. With a napkin tucked into his collar, he shared Ella’s couch.

  The Dowager Duchess of Franchot might have died and been propped, eyes wide open, in an ebony chair inset with gold ivy leaves. The woman don’t move a muscle and showed no sign of breathing.

  “I’ve had a great deal of experience in these matters, Your Grace,” a fourth occupant of the room said. “I know what it’s like to be unappreciated for one’s sacrifices. I ought to. After my Ichabod died and I was left with nothing more substantial than one opinionated, untalented, clumsy, and completely ungrateful daughter to comfort me, I learned quickly the pain of dealing with disappointing offspring.”

  Struan took in Arran’s hard glare and suppressed a grin.

  “And now,” the newcomer said with much wafting of a sequin-studded black feather fan, “and now I am forced by another unfortunate circumstance to throw myself upon that offspring’s doubtful generosity yet again.”

  “Good afternoon, Uncle Stonehaven,” Ella said to Arran. “Hello, Papa. We have been having a most interesting visit with Her Grace and Uncle Stonehaven’s mother-in-law.”

  The sound Arran made resembled a toad’s croak.

  “There you are, Stonehaven,” Blanche Wren Bastible said, as if suddenly realizing her son-in-law had entered the room.

  “Perhaps you will explain why no coach was sent to greet me in Dunkeld.”

  Arran’s face was devoid of either comprehension or expression.

  “Had it not been for the kindness of this fine fellow”—Blanche waved toward Caleb Murray, who had been hovering awkwardly near the door—“Come, come, now, Mr. Murray. Don’t be shy. Early this morning he rescued me from that wretched Fiddler’s Rest place. So common.”

  Caleb yanked his waistcoat even straighter over a flat stomach. “I came to check on Mrs. Bastible, my lord. I see you are well-settled, Madam. I’ll take my leave of you.”

  “I haven’t thanked you properly,” Blanche told him, a coquettish smile making dimples in her plump face. “I don’t know what I’d have done without you. The wretched inn was filled with low women and cardplayers.”

  “Should have felt exceeding comfortable to you,” Arran muttered, quietly enough that Struan knew he alone would hear. “We had no idea you were descending, Mother-in-law,” he said more loudly.

  Bedecked in voluminous flounces of black satin and lace, Blanche turned her round blue eyes dolefully upon Arran. “I shall have plenty to say to Grace when she dares to show her face, I can tell you. Imagine, my own daughter ensconced on holiday in Yorkshire and she didn’t even bother to tell her tormented mother of the event.”

  “Your arrival wasn’t announced,” Arran said.

  “I never like to make a fuss,” Blanche said, her fan fluttering rapidly. A profusion of chestnut ringlets bobbled about round shoulders and jet beads at the low neckline of her gown pressed into impressively mounded white breasts. “I had Mr. Murray here bring in my trunks quietly. Fortunately my old room was bearable, if exceeding cold—even after some silly maid deigned to be roused to light the fire.

  “When I arose this afternoon and heard the dowager duchess was in residence, I came to pay my respects at once. Isn’t that what I just told you I did, Mr. Murray?”

  “Er… aye.”

  Blanche pointed her fan at Arran. “And don’t you be cross with this dear man for not telling you I’d arrived. I told him I wanted to surprise you, didn’t I, Mr. Murray?”

  Behind his back, Caleb’s hands curled into fists. “Aye, Mrs. Bastible.”

  Struan forgot his own problems long enough to be sorry for Kirkcaldy’s quiet-mannered estate commissioner. “Did you talk to the landlord of the Rest about our problem, Caleb?” he asked. There was a likelihood that at least some of the poached Kirkcaldy game was being served at table in the Fiddler’s Rest.

  “I did mention—”

/>   “I wondered what you were discussing so—spiritedly over your cards,” Blanche said avidly. “I thought it was your fine winnings from that handsome monk that made the landlord shout so.”

  All eyes turned upon the woman, who showed no sign of discomfort. “I opened the wrong door, you see,” she said. “I didn’t realize that was the card room.”

  “We’ll speak later,” Arran told Caleb.

  “Thank you, Mr. Murray,” Blanche said. She lowered her lashes a fraction and peered through them at Caleb. “You may be certain I shall not forget that you alone have treated my arrival with kindness.”

  In his haste to escape the room Caleb all but tripped over Justine on her way in. Calum followed her. “I didn’t have far to go,” he said, appearing uncomfortable. “Justine was already on her way into the castle.”

  “Ah,” Blanche said when the door closed again. “This must be the wayward granddaughter.”

  Moving for the first time since Struan had entered, the dowager duchess closed her eyes and kept them closed.

  Max, steadily demolishing a plate of small cakes, spoke around a mouthful of ginger tart. “This is Lady Justine Girvin. The one we told ye about. She and our papa need t’be married on account o’ they’ve been …”

  “I think it’s time for us to leave,” Ella said. “We’ll see you at the lodge, Papa.”

  Struan smiled gratefully at her.

  “I’ve not finished m’tea,” Max mumbled. “Compromised. That’s the word.”

  Blanche Wren Bastible tutted and swayed and flapped her fan furiously.

  “The duke found them on their own, y’see,” Max said, waving a currant-filled biscuit in Calum’s direction. “He’s Lady Justine’s brother. Anyway, Papa and Lady Justine’ll have t’marry. Isn’t it a good thing we’re motherless at present?”

  Utter stillness followed.

  Struan saw Arran’s mouth twitch. The traitor should suffer for that.

  “I see I haven’t arrived a moment too soon,” Blanche announced. “Don’t worry about a thing, Your Grace. I have considerable experience in the matter of marriages. Since you’ll obviously want to accomplish this one with all haste, you may count me your faithful, knowledgeable, and absolutely circumspect helper.”