“I’d like to hear the story.”
“Shouldn’t you be gettin’ inside the chapel?”
“I should be runnin’, screamin’ from the chapel,” she said, lightly mocking his accent, which made his lips quirk, and hers too, he thought, as it appeared the red slash beneath the veil had curved a little.
“Actually,” she said, gesturing to herself and their surroundings, “I guess, in a way, I have. Halfway, at least.”
“What’s keepin’ you from runnin’ the rest of the way? In, or out? Your fiancé, is he a bad sort? Are you two ill matched, then? Is that the worry?”
“Blaine?” She laughed as if the very thought was unfathomable. “No, far from it. He’s the perfect man. With the perfect pedigree, from the perfect family.”
Graham was heartened by the news that she wasn’t about to legally bind herself to a scoundrel. Though why it mattered to him at all, he couldn’t have said.
“Both our families came over on the Mayflower,” she continued. “And it seems we haven’t managed to get away from sailing ships or each other, ever since.” She smiled then. “Perhaps it’s like your clan law thing. Only, in my case, it’s more of a clan curse.”
“In what way?” he asked, curious to hear her take on arranged marriage, given that’s what it sounded like.
She waved a dismissive hand, and promptly got it tangled up in her veil. He helped her extricate her slender fingers but it took a bit longer to get the netting untangled from her diamond ring.
“That’s…quite a stone,” he said, trying to gently work the mesh free.
She held her hand up, as if to admire the setting. “It would have been unseemly to give me anything less obscene.”
He paused in his ministrations and glanced at her, but could only see the barest hint of her chin as she’d averted her gaze once again. “I dinnae understand your meaning. I thought women loved diamonds.”
“Yes, of course. Women are supposed to swoon over the three Cs.” When he merely stared at her, she went on. “Cut, carat, and clarity. Me, I could give a rat’s patootie.”
He grinned before he could check the reaction, but she waved off his impoliteness, which just tangled her hand all over again. She tugged it free from his grasp. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll…figure it out later.”
He rather liked having her hand in his, something he wasn’t aware of until his own were free and he couldn’t seem to figure out what to do with them. He thought about that, a slender hand, delicate fingers adorned in diamonds, clasped in his, then glanced up at the church, and thought about the unsuspecting woman who waited inside.
“You’re really just going to up and propose?” she asked, following his gaze.
He jerked his gaze back to her, then to the ground, then finally lifted a shoulder. “I’ll introduce myself, explain my reason for being here, but…in the end, yes. I mean, it’s more a business dealing, no’ a true life commitment. But a commitment all the same, for whatever duration. Of course, I’d make the sacrifice worth her while, in whatever way I possibly could. All things considered…” He drifted off. Talking about it made the whole mission sound all the more ridiculous and hopeless. But one thing hadn’t changed. He still had to try.
“How well do ye know her?” he asked, glancing sideways at his bench companion.
“Are you asking me to tell you how best to get her to agree to your…proposition?”
“Never mind. That’s no’ fair, and ye’ve certainly got more pressing issues to deal with.” He started to rise. “I should leave you to them. I’m sorry I intruded.”
She impulsively grabbed his arm and tugged him back down on the stone bench. “Don’t leave. Yet.”
He looked at that same pale hand, still tangled in her veil, clutching his arm, and felt something clutch inside him. Very likely it was his heart constricting at the thought of another woman’s hand, similarly garbed, doing the same thing forty days hence.
She pulled her hand away. “Sorry. I just…I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts quite yet.” She paused, then looked at him. “Do you mind?”
He looked up in time to see, more clearly than he had, the sparkling blue eyes hidden behind the layers of white tulle. They reminded him of the water on the sound off Kinloch west, on a cloud-free day. “No. I dinnae mind,” he said, and realized as he said it, that he spoke the truth. “Not a’tall.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” They stared at each other for a beat longer, then another one, before she finally turned her face away, and stared at some unknown point in the garden beyond. He turned his head, too, and gave himself a stern, silent lecture on getting his mind back on the matter at hand…and off the compelling woman sitting next to him. The woman who was about to be married. Unhappily, but that only made the strange, sudden attraction even more impossible. Not to mention he was there to coax another woman entirely into being his bride.
He made a small sound and she briefly rested her veil-wrapped hand on his wrist, before pulling it back again. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“For?”
“You’re clearly no more happy in your stated mission than I am in mine. Seems we’re both here for reasons having to do with duty, rather than heart.”
“Aye, ’tis true.” He covered her hand with his, and pressed before she could pull it away, though he couldn’t have said what, specifically, compelled him to do it. Perhaps it was simply the need to be in direct contact with the one person who could seemingly comprehend his fiendish dilemma.
“Is there any other way?” she asked.
He shook his head. “There is a time frame stipulated in the law.”
“How much time do you have?”
“To be lawfully wed? A little more than four weeks hence.”
He heard her slight intake of breath. “Wow.”
“Indeed.”
She slid her hand from beneath his as they sat quietly for a few moments. Then she said, “How long do you have to stay married? I mean, if you’re proposing as a business arrangement, you can’t mean to stay married.”
“I’ve a friend, back on the island—Kinloch, where I’m from—looking into that very thing. I wouldn’t tie anyone down longer than absolutely necessary. Of course.”
“Of course,” she echoed.
Silence once again descended between them—which he broke by abruptly announcing, “To make matters worse, there is another contender to take my place.”
She looked at him and he could see her eyes widen. “He’s coming here to ask the same thing?”
“No, no. He’s McAuley—the direct heir to the title from the other side. He’s back home, wooing any single MacLeod lass who might stray ’cross his path. Given his gene pool is quite favorable, as is his job title and the trust fund he landed at birth, not to mention there are far more available MacLeod lasses than there are McAuleys—of which there are none—I’m thinkin’ he willnae face much of a challenge.”
“Oh.”
“Indeed.”
“So…it’s something of a race, then, to the altar.”
Graham sighed. That sounded so…pathetic. “Aye. I suppose that’s the truth of it.” How in bloody hell had he found himself in that place? It was mortifying. He just wanted to go home. Back to his fields, his crops, his lab.
Her hand moved to his again, and she squeezed. “I’m rooting for you.”
For some reason, that depressed him further. “Thank you. I’ll take all the positive support I can get.” He covered her hand with his own again, and met her eyes as best as he could, given the layers of veil between them. “I’ll return the favor.”
“I don’t know what, exactly, I’d ask you to root for.”
“Well, I can either escort you inside and see you safely wed…or you could take my rented motor car and make your escape complete.”
She laughed. “Don’t tempt me.”
He glanced at the church again. “Will no one come to your aid? You’ve been out
here for a wee spell. Surely someone inside is concerned for your welfare.”
She lifted her gaze to the church and held it steadily. “I warned them not to, or I would bolt. I’m sure they’re watching from one of the windows, stunned I had the temerity to do this much.”
“Are you such a timid mouse then? Because you don’t seem it.”
He saw the red lips curve in earnest. “Thank you. I think that’s the nicest thing you could have said to me. I’m not a mouse. At least not in here.” She tapped her head. “Or here.” She laid her veil-wrapped hand against her chest. “I couldn’t do my job well if I was. And, heaven knows, I’m very good at my job.” She sighed, not sounding particularly thrilled about that fact.
“But ye don’t make a stand when it’s family. Is that it?”
She looked at him, though what she could see through all that netting, he had no idea. “No,” she said. “I don’t. Can’t. No, that’s not true. I could. But I don’t. It’s…complicated.” She continued holding his gaze. “But something tells me you, of all people, might understand where I’m coming from.”
“Aye,” he said quietly, thinking they were both idiots for allowing themselves to get into such a quandary. But what else was he to do? Perhaps she was facing the similar lack of options. “I believe I do.” He looked up toward the stained glass arched windows of the church that looked out over the garden. If there were family members inside, watching her…he wondered what they thought of him. His appearance. Not to mention their conversation, complete with hand-holding. Perhaps the fact that they were sitting and talking, which meant she wasn’t running away as yet, was enough to keep them at bay.
Very abruptly, she slipped her hand from his and stood. “This is silly. Sitting out here being ‘a petulant sulk’ as Cricket so kindly called me, is only delaying the inevitable.”
He stood. “Who is Cricket?” And why is it inevitable, he wanted to ask. But did not.
“Blaine’s mother.” The bride gave a small shudder. “Trust me when I say she’s not remotely chirpy, so I don’t know where the nickname came from. I’m just thankful I never got saddled with one. One that stuck.”
He tilted his head and folded his arms. “Now you have to tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Which ones didnae stick?” He held up one hand, briefly. “Before you accuse me of mockery, please be aware that we in the U.K. invented the hideously unfortunate nickname.”
She folded her arms, heedless of the veil she was crushing, her tone amused when she spoke. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”
“I don’t believe I mentioned that I had one. I was speaking on behalf of my countrymen, and all our forebears who bore the brunt of such names as Squibs, Blinker, Duckie. Those are merely in my immediate branch of the auld tree.”
She couldn’t entirely stifle the snicker.
“See?” he said. “Your turn.”
“Mine aren’t nearly so…auspicious. I have a number of names in addition to my surname, so plenty to play with. Among them Katherine and Georgina. Family names.”
“Both beautiful.”
She smiled. “Thank you. Could definitely have been worse. But the nicknames just didn’t suit.” She sighed, then said, “Mostly various forms of Gigi and Kiki, all trotted out early on during my childhood and tried on for size.”
“Hardly torturous, but how did you keep them from sticking?”
“I don’t recall, actually, but my grandfather told me I simply refused to answer to them.”
“Smart and confident, even as a child. Good for you.”
“Smart, perhaps.” She glanced at the church, and he could see a slight slump in her spine, even as she squared her shoulders. “As for the rest, well, I’m apparently still working on that part.” She looked back at him and he could see the red lips curving more broadly, though her eyes were in shadows behind the tulle. “I should get inside—before I’ve used up whatever leverage I have left. I’m sure I’ll need it just to get through the rest of today.”
“Are you certain?”
“I’ve never been less certain of anything in my life. But I am certain my life will be made exponentially more miserable if I don’t. And I don’t want to hurt Blaine. He’s counting on me. And, this way, I’m in some position of power.” She took a step away from him and fluffed out her skirts, then straightened her veil, finally managing to extricate her ring finger from the netting. “Even if it’s power I have absolutely zero interest in wielding,” she added, more to herself, than to him.
She took another step, shook out a few more folds, then turned back to him. The sun chose that moment to shift out from behind a small cloud and beam directly upon her. She was radiant, bathed in the soft yellow glow. “You’re a beautiful bride,” he said. Truly the most stunning vision he’d ever seen. He felt that odd clutch again. “I wish there was more I could offer.”
She stared at him. “You’ve offered more than you know.”
Before he could respond—not that he had any idea what that response would have been—she turned on her heel and fled. Toward the church, he noted. And wondered why her choice depressed him so.
Selfishly, it meant the service would go forward, and he’d have ample chance to meet up with Katie and at least beg a moment of her time. The fact that a complete stranger was about to tie herself to a man she clearly didn’t love, for reasons that had nothing to do with her own wishes…none of his business. Especially given he was there to embark on the very same business.
He’d never want anyone so unhappily bound to him. No matter the circumstance—which led him to decide, right then and there, that if Katie McAuley couldn’t wholeheartedly agree to the business deal he was prepared to offer, viewing it as only such, then that would be the end of that. He’d have to find another way to thwart Iain’s threat to his home, and his people.
He heard the loud reverberation of the chapel’s pipe organ ring out the beginning of Mendelssohn’s wedding march and he sprinted around to the front of the church. He slipped inside behind the bride, just as she began her walk down the aisle. His heart sank, but he shook off the disconcerting feeling and edged as quietly as possible into the end of the last pew once she’d made her way down the aisle. All eyes were on the bride. No one noticed the man in the kilt. He pulled the crumpled photo of Katie McAuley out of his sporran, and forced his gaze away from the bride and down to the picture in his hands. He needed to find her and start focusing on what he planned to do next.
He unfolded the photo…and frowned at the face smiling back at him. Blond tendrils were blowing wildly about her face, as were those of the brunette and redhead mates she was clutched between. All three women were laughing, smiling, as if enjoying a great lark. Or simply the company they were in, regardless of location or event. He couldn’t fathom feeling so utterly carefree. Or so happy, for that matter. It was both an unsettling discovery, and a rather depressing one. He enjoyed the challenge of his work, but…was he happy? The carefree smiling kind of happy? He knew the answer to that. What he wanted to know was when, exactly, had he stopped having fun? He could hear Roan’s voice ring through his consciousness, as if he were an angel—or more aptly, a devil—perched upon his tartaned shoulder. “When did you ever start?”
The pastor began intoning the marriage rites, and Graham’s gaze was pulled intractably back to the woman standing in front of the altar. She turned to her betrothed and he lifted the veil. Graham felt himself drawn physically forward, the crumpled photo in his hands forgotten, as he shifted on his feet and tried his best to—finally—see her face. It was only natural, he told himself, to want to see what she looked like, after talking with her in the garden.
But why he was holding his breath, he had no earthly idea.
She turned her head, just slightly, and he swore she looked directly at him. His heart squeezed. Hard. Then stuttered to a stop. Only this time he knew exactly why. He looked down at the picture in his hand, and forced himself to draw
in air past the tightness in his chest. He distantly heard the pastor urge everyone to be seated. One by one, everyone did.
Everyone, that was, except him.
He turned over the wedding program that had been handed to him as he’d entered the church. He looked at the lengthy name engraved on the front, then lifted his gaze to her. “It’s you,” he declared, his deep voice echoing loudly, reverberating around the soaring chapel ceiling. “Katherine Elizabeth Georgina Rosemary McAuley.” Katie. The nickname that had stuck. He held up the photo, as if that would explain everything, while he stood there, acutely dumbfounded. His mind raced as fast as his heart, as everything suddenly made perfect sense. And no sense at all.
He lifted the photo higher, stabbing it forward, as if making a claim. And perhaps he was. He felt driven by something unknown, a force he could neither put name nor logic to. If he were honest, it had begun outside, in the garden. It was something both primal and primeval, driven by what could only be utter lunacy. Because clearly, he’d lost whatever he’d had left of his mind. Yet that didn’t stop him from continuing. In fact, he barely paused to draw breath.
“You’re meant to be mine,” he declared, loudly, defiantly, to the collective gasp of every man, woman, and child lining each and every pew. He didn’t care. Because he’d never meant anything more in his entire life. And he hadn’t the remotest idea why. Yet it was truth; one he’d never been more certain of. It was as if all four hundred years of MacLeods willfully and intently binding themselves to McAuleys was pumping viscerally through his veins.
Clan curse, indeed.
Chapter 3
Graham’s declaration rang out inside the chapel, echoing and reverberating, then arrowing straight through her—as if the angels and cherubs painted inside each of the pocketed, celestial domes above their heads, and sculpted atop the pillars that lined the interior of the old church, had all taken up playing their trumpets and strumming their harps at the same time—creating a cacophony inside her head…and heart.
Some Like It Scot Page 4