“Is he your butler?” she asked, winded and her fur-bound feet clumsy now on the precise stone stairs.
“He organizes the house, so I suppose so. Dunnae call him that, though, or he’ll be putting on airs.”
Duncan was glad that Julia could still take a moment here and there and notice what lay around her; most women in her position would likely be in a dead faint by now. But then he’d already realized that she wasn’t like most women. Or any woman he’d ever met, truly.
With Bellamy giving them until three o’clock, he had somewhere around three hours to prepare for a fight. Until yesterday he would have spent a great deal of effort to avoid just this sort of conflict, because the last thing he wanted was to have neighbors who preferred him dead. Unfriendly was one thing, and the lot of them were accustomed to that. But this was different.
He stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to the right, heading for the westernmost bedchamber on the floor. Belatedly it dawned on him that perhaps his first priority shouldn’t be introducing Julia Prentiss to his loved ones, but that was what he meant to do. He wasn’t going to leave her sitting in the morning room while he made plans to protect her.
Aside from that, his lasses needed to like her—not because he would surrender her if they didn’t, but because it felt … vital that they view her the same way he did. So he could know that this wasn’t some faerie tale, but a real woman and a real … chance at something wondrous and unexpected.
“Grandmama Maevis?”
“Are ye alone, Duncan?”
“Nae. I’ve a lass with me.”
“The Sasannach lass Bellamy’s foaming over?”
He squeezed Julia’s fingers in his. “Aye.”
“Well, let’s have a look at her, then. Open the door slow, lad.”
Doing as she suggested, he lowered the handle and eased open the narrow door. His grandmother sat in the center of the room, her white hair piled high and a blunderbuss comfortably across her lap. He was well aware that she knew just how to use the big musket.
“Ye havenae stashed my sisters in the wardrobe, have ye?” he asked, drawing Julia in behind him.
“We’re behind the sofa,” his youngest sister, Keavy said, straightening.
The other two joined her in standing, then came around the furniture to hug him. All of them talking at once, they regaled him with the tale of how Bellamy had come calling and demanded to look through their house, and how Keavy had wanted to bloody his nose for being a Campbell and daring to set foot on Lenox property.
“Ye’ve had quite the adventure then, aye?” he broke in. “So have I. Ladies, this is Miss Julia Prentiss. Julia, Sorcha, Bethia, and Keavy. And Grandmama Maevis.”
His sisters curtsied in a ragged wave then dragged Julia into the conversation. Duncan relinquished her, grinning at her expression, before he went to squat down beside his grandmother’s chair.
“Bellamy means to come back for her at three o’clock,” he said in a low voice. “He’ll have more men and more weapons with him.”
“Why did she run from him? He’s no Adonis, but a marriage is a ma—”
“He didnae marry her. He dragged her oot of a ball in Aberdeen, intending to bully her into marriage to save her reputation. She’s an heiress, with a cartful of money going to her husband on her marriage.”
“And she ran oot from under Hugh Fersen’s beady little eyes?”
Duncan grinned. “Aye. That she did. She stumbled across me, and I hid her in the old cottage.”
His grandmother eyed him. “And?” she prompted.
“And what? We waited oot the rain and made our way here. Bellamy crossed our trail aboot half a mile from the house.”
“Ye were holding her hand, lad,” Maevis said in a lower voice.
He could dissemble, he supposed, but that would only make explaining things more difficult later. “Aye. That I was. She … It’s odd, I suppose, since I’ve only known her one day, but she’s … dear to me.” Duncan sent a glance in Julia’s direction, to find her seated on the couch, smiling, with Sorcha holding one of her hands, and Keavy the other.
“How dear?”
“Very dear.”
“Enough fer ye to risk yer sisters and Lenox House?”
“I’ll attempt to avoid that, but I’ll nae hand her over. Bear MacLawry’s still at Glengask. I’ll send the four of ye there to keep ye safe.”
“By the time we arrived and Bear decided to charge to yer rescue, it’d be too late, Duncan. Ye think Bellamy would lose a minute of sleep over burning this house to the ground because of pride and money?”
“I dunnae mean to lose, Grandmama.” He took a breath. “Father Ross is here. I’ll send him with y…” Duncan trailed off. Father Ross was in the house.
Maevis narrowed her eyes. “Duncan, what in St. Bridget’s name are ye thinking?”
“Excuse me for a moment, Grandmama.”
She grabbed his wrist as he stood. “Ye mean to marry her? Bellamy can make her a widow and still marry her.”
“Aye,” he whispered back. “But he wouldnae get her dowry. That would go to me and mine. And that might just stop him.”
“Just to save her from a beau she doesnae favor? Ye’re more cautious than that, lad.”
He shook his arm free. “It’s more than that, and ye know it. I … I know I’m a cautious man. But when I see her, I want to beat my chest and roar.”
“Duncan…”
With a forced smile, he backed away. “She may say nae, and this will all be moot, seanmhair.” Ignoring the scowl she sent after him, Duncan made his way to the sofa. “I need a word with ye, Julia,” he said, holding out his right hand.
She curled her fingers into his and stood. “Your sister, Keavy, was just telling me that she can shoot a musket. She’s volunteered to take a window in the attic and shoot any Fersens or Campbells who dare show their faces.”
“Aye. She’s bloodthirsty,” he agreed, glancing at his nine-year-old sister. Still holding Julia’s hand, he led the way out of the room and down the hallway to the north-facing conservatory, the one with a view overlooking the mountains and the endless rolling Highlands. His favorite view. “What did ye think of them? My sisters, I mean?”
“They’re delightful. And I think they liked me.”
“As do I. They generally dunnae hang onto guests. Especially a Sasannach.” He took a moment to look out the window. She’d come here on a lark. Could she—would she—wish to remain?
“What is it?” she asked, furrowing her brow.
“I’ve an idea. If we spent the next six months as we intended, I’d call on ye in London, and I’d woo ye, and then I’d sink on one knee and ask ye to marry me.”
Her eyes searched his. “I think you’ve already wooed me, Duncan. Unless you’ve decided this is too much of a risk. I can’t—I won’t—I won’t go with him, but I can flee here. If you give me a horse, then perhaps I—”
“Do ye want to flee here? Because I dunnae want that.”
“Well, I don’t want it, either. But I’m trying to figure out what you’re saying, and it’s rather aggravating.”
Taking her other hand as well, he sank down on one knee. “What I’m saying is, if I already know that I’ll ask ye fer yer hand in six months, why cannae I ask fer it today? I’ve known ye fer a day, lass, and at the same time I feel like I’ve known ye forever.”
Her face had grown pale, but her grip on his hands was hard and firm. “Duncan, you don’t have to do this to protect me.”
“Nae. It has the added benefit of protecting ye, but it’s nae why I’m doing it.”
“But Bellamy might murder you, just to get hold of me again. That won’t help anything, and it would … it would kill me if something happened to you.”
“I happen to have a priest under my roof today. And a cartful of witnesses. If I’m yer husband, then yer dowry is mine, isnae?”
She nodded, frowning. “Yes.”
“And if he kills me, yer dowry go
es to my heirs, doesnae? It would be oot of yer hands?”
“Yes.”
“Then it would go to our child, if we made one last night,” he murmured. “And if we didnae, my nearest male relation is Lord Glengask. He’d return the money to ye. I’ll write it all oot, just to make it clear that Bellamy has nothing to gain here.”
Now her hands were shaking in his. He hoped that was a good sign, and it didn’t mean she was about to wallop him. Perhaps he was being mad, but once he had the thought, it made more sense than quite possibly anything he’d ever done before. All he needed was her agreement. If she wanted him.
“You think I might be with child?” she whispered.
“We didnae … That is to say, I didnae take precautions. I didnae expect to meet ye, Julia. I didnae think I’d want ye so. I—”
She pulled one of her hands free and put it gently over his lips. “Is this what you want, Duncan? Tell me you’re not simply being the generous, heroic man I know you to be.”
He smiled up at her. “Fer God’s sake, lass, I feel like a scoundrel, using Bellamy to get ye bound to me. If it didnae sound foolish fer me to say it, I’d tell ye that I love ye. I will tell ye that this is the beginning of love, that what I feel fer ye will only become more and more. But ye should know, I mean to live here, with my sisters. Ye’ll be far from London most of the year, and—”
“Yes.”
He swallowed. “Yes, ye’ll be far from London, or yes ye’ll—”
“Yes, I will marry you. Today. Now. And I will hurt anyone who tries to come between us.”
Slowly he stood again, pulling her into his arms and kissing her warm, soft mouth. “No one’s allowed to come between us,” he murmured.
When he considered all of the chance moments that might have gone differently, the number of things that had to go just as they did in order for them even to meet, he had to become a believer in … something. In God, in Providence, in Magic, in Love. Or all of them, just to be certain he gave the correct entity its due.
“Shall we tell my family then, lass?”
She grinned up at him. “This should be interesting.”
* * *
A little better than two hours later, Julia Prentiss wasn’t Julia Prentiss any longer. She was Julia Lenox. The priest had hesitated, but clearly he knew who buttered his bread. And just as plain was the respect he had for Duncan, the way he’d known that Mr. Lenox didn’t do things frivolously.
Before she said her vows she’d attempted to trace the route of her money, tried to discern once and for all if this had somehow been Duncan’s way of manipulating circumstances in order to gain her dowry. It wasn’t logical, though. Aside from the grand state of Lenox House, his lands were green, his gardens well-kept—every sign that he had a fair amount of wealth all on his own. He hadn’t known who she was in the world, and the papers he had written up by the solicitor Mr. Finchey, who’d accompanied Father Ross to the house, clearly stated that her income was to go to their mutual child. If that turned out to be impossible, it would be inherited by Lord Glengask, and no one there seemed to doubt for a second that the marquis would see the money returned to her—not as a conditional dowry, but as an actual cash sum to her and for her.
It was actually a better arrangement than she could have hoped for even in a love match. Because anyone who wooed her would do so knowing she had a purse worth forty thousand pounds attached to her wrist. She had hesitated to even believe any of the sweet words her potential beaux had spoken to her for that very reason. But Duncan … Duncan had found a way to give the money back to her, or at least for the benefit of her children.
She looked at him as he leaned over the table and signed the last of the hastily written agreements. Duncan. Her Duncan, now. It wasn’t at all how she’d imagined her marriage, because her parents would have seen to it that she had a huge, grand cathedral wedding as befitted an heiress and daughter of a viscount. As he’d said, though, today or six months or a year from today, it would have been him and her. The setting was secondary.
As if sensing her gaze, Duncan glanced up at her and flashed a grin. “Ye’ll have quite the note to send yer mother now, won’t ye, lass?” he said, handing the pen back to Mr. Finchey.
“I imagine she’ll be relieved, once I explain.”
Walking up, he cupped her face in his broad hands and leaned down to kiss her. “Are ye certain ye won’t stay inside with Grandmama and her blunderbuss?” he asked in his deep, rolling brogue.
She shook her head. “If you and Father Ross and Mr. Finchey are going to be standing there facing him, then so am I. Otherwise he might think it’s a ruse, that I’ve escaped and you’re trying to mislead him or something.”
“Ye’ve already proven yerself, ye know. If ye dunnae wish to see him face-to-face, I’ll nae ask it of ye.”
“Master Duncan, they’re coming up the road!”
He turned at Murdoch’s bellow. “They’re early. I’m nae surprised, but it’s a wee bit rude, dunnae ye think?”
“Don’t jest. He’s a dangerous man.” And she was very, very nervous. If any little thing went wrong, she could well lose Duncan. And she’d only just found him. She wanted a forever to get acquainted with her husband.
“I’m a dangerous man as well, leannan.”
As she saw the expression in his light green eyes, she believed him. He’d already defied the earl twice, at gunpoint, and he’d stood practically on his own against Fersens and Campbells all around him for his entire life. Warmth flitted down her spine. When this was finished—and she had to believe that it would go as planned, because anything else was intolerable—it would be him, and it would be her. Together.
He held out his hand to her. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”
“I’m ready.”
Outside the house five horsemen had arranged themselves in a semicircle facing the front door. Behind them another two or three dozen men on foot and on horseback trudged onto the wide, stone-covered drive. According to Father Ross’ whispering, they were mostly Campbells.
“So you’ve decided to hand her over to me, then?” Bellamy asked, his steel-gray gaze pinning her in a way that made her feel like an insect beneath his heel. “It’s almost a shame you’ve come to your senses.”
“Why is that?” Duncan asked coolly, his face expressionless.
“Well, here you are, alone, and here I am, with nearly thirty men. And you can see who I happened across at my house.” He gestured at the tall, lean man beside him. The fellow had reddish brown hair nearly as long as Duncan’s and a faint scar that ran across the right side of his face from his chin up beneath his ear. “Or are you not acquainted with Mr. Gerdens-Daily?”
Duncan inclined his head, a muscle in his jaw clenching. “George.”
“Lenox. I hear ye’ve stolen my cousin’s wife.”
“Nae. I aided a lady yer cousin kidnaped.”
The scarred man tilted his head. “I havenae heard that version of the tale.”
“Because it’s a lie. Julia Prentiss agreed to marry me, and then she fled. I want her back. Now.”
Light brown eyes, almost amber, turned to look at her. Dangerous eyes, in a different way than Bellamy was dangerous. The eyes of someone who might slip up behind a man in the night with a knife. She shuddered.
“Miss Prentiss,” he said, his tone level, “why dunnae ye tell us what happened to ye, and why ye fled my cousin on the day ye agreed to marry him?”
“I did no such thing!” she snapped.
“What do you care what she says, George? Duncan Lenox lied to me. He’s been harboring my property, and he threatened to blow my head off. He’s the MacLawrys’ cousin. And we all know what you’ve said about the MacLawrys, how they all belong in the ground.”
Duncan took a step forward. “My argument’s nae with ye, George.”
Gerdens-Daily lifted a hand. “Tell me yer story, lass.”
Taking a breath, her gaze never wavering from the scarred man’s fac
e, she told him. Everything from agreeing to dance with a familiar face to waking up in the carriage to stealing the horse from Bellamy Park and fleeing, to meeting Duncan—although she didn’t mention that he’d been naked—and hiding from Bellamy when the earl came to the shack looking for her.
“None of it matters now anyway,” Duncan broke in. “I’ve taken steps to see that ye cannae get what ye want from her, Bellamy.”
The earl’s eyes narrowed. “What steps?” he asked succinctly.
“I’ve married her.”
Bellamy’s face turned a blotchy gray. “You what?”
“Aye. Father Ross married us. Mr. Finchey and a dozen of my men witnessed it. Her dowry is now mine. Ye’ll never have it, no matter what ye do. So turn around and go home, and be grateful I don’t pull ye off that horse and have ye arrested fer what ye did to my wife.”
For several moments Bellamy sputtered and spat, until Julia thought he might suffer an apoplexy and drop dead on the Lenox House front drive. The thought didn’t trouble her at all.
Finally, the earl jabbed his finger at Mr. Gerdens-Dailey. “You’re a Campbell, George, just as I am. I demand that you and Orville destroy Lenox for what he’s done to me. Burn his damned house to the ground and all his family with it.”
Gerdens-Dailey crossed his wrists over the cantle of his saddle. “Do ye, now, Hugh? Ye demand that I do yer dirty work?”
“He’s a bloody MacLawry! Put him beneath the ground!”
Behind them the sound of muskets and rifles cocking in the windows was quite possibly the most frightening thing Julia had ever heard. Even though he’d told her to stay clear of him, she edged a step closer to Duncan. Her Duncan.
“Ah,” George drawled. “Well, it just so happens that I stopped by yer house today on my way back from London. I had someaught to tell ye. While I was there staying with Berling, I had a wee conversation with Ranulf MacLawry.” He glanced over at Julia. “That’s Lord Glengask, if ye were wondering.”
“You did? Is he dead?” Bellamy looked like a rat who’d just scented cheese.
Duncan, on the other hand, paled. “And how did this conversation end?” he asked slowly, taking a half step away from her, putting distance between them again.
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