Once Again, My Laird

by Angeline Fortin

  For her own good, if not Mal’s.

  * * *

  “There you are, Malcolm.”

  Mal roused himself out of the haze of bewilderment and consternation that suffused him long enough to murmur a greeting to his mother, Margaret, or as she preferred, Margo.

  “I was puzzled when the footman you sent to fetch me said you were ready to leave so soon. One of the ladies in there had a nip or two more than advisable in this heat and was wading in the fountain. Barefoot. It was just getting interes…” She paused and patted his cheek with a moue of concern. “I can see there’s good reason you didn’t come get me yourself. You look pale. Are you ill?”

  Forcing a faint smile for her benefit, Mal took her arm and led her toward his waiting carriage. He felt unbalanced. Nauseated. The shock and disbelief, most likely.

  Nothing less and nothing more.

  If Georgie had truly come to Scotland expecting his rejection and sure there was no chance of reconciliation between them, why come at all? He didn’t for one moment trust her explanation. She might have become a better fibber over the years, but she still wasn’t especially good at it. His well-being might have been ascertained with a simple post. The past more expeditiously set aside rather than a long journey to see it done in person. Why then?

  “Malcolm?”

  Mal glanced down at his mother. Caring creased the delicate wrinkles fanning from the corners of her brown eyes and deepened the parallel lines between her brows. The worry didn’t sit well on her, making her seem more frail than normal despite her almost seventy years on earth. This entire journey—and the reason for it—had worn her down.

  “Apologies, Maw. I was lost in thought.”

  “Did you not see her then?” she asked, taking his hand and allowing him to help her into the open carriage he’d rented to carry them about town. “I thought she was supposed to be here?”

  He waited while she settled herself and arranged her skirts. “Aye, she was.”

  Margo’s lips puckered in misunderstanding. “I wonder why she wasn’t then.”

  “Och, Maw,” Mal sighed in exasperation, for his mother was neither senile nor simpleminded. “I meant she was here. I spoke with her.”

  She waited expectantly for something more. “And?”

  Mal didn’t answer, his attention nagged by the sight of Georgie emerging from the botanical society building on the arm of the young man he’d seen with her daughter earlier. Her bonnet was firmly in place, hiding her vivid red hair, though her parasol was absent. Was she limping slightly? His lips tugged down, trying to ascertain how she might have been injured in the short time since they’d been together.

  A footman handed her up into the third carriage ahead of them on the curb. Not the extravagant ducal traveling coach she’d had in Scotland but a simple, open black landau.

  “Is that her?” his mother asked, tracking his gaze.

  “Aye.”

  “She is rather striking. I can see how she might catch yer fancy.”

  Georgie was stunning. She always had been, and in approaching her fortieth year, was even more lovely than ever, with maturity and confidence. Beauty wasn’t what held him in her thrall though. It never had been. It’d been her intelligence, free spirit and joie de vive. He didn’t appreciate this aristocratic veneer that veiled her these days. It reminded him too much of her father.

  “What did she say when you talked to her?”

  Georgie leaned over the edge of the carriage to speak to the man who’d escorted her, but hadn’t gotten into the carriage yet.

  “Malcolm? Was she happy to see you?” Margo pressed.

  “I’m no’ sure exactly.”

  Her brows soared upward. “Son, what have you done?” she asked, suspecting the worst as only a mother of a passel of lads could.

  “I dinnae do anything,” he retorted and climbed into the carriage next to her, scolding himself for sounding like an errant child. “I heard her out and offered me apologies.”

  “Kindly?”

  “My mother would say she bred gentlemen not savages,” he said sourly.

  His mother sighed. “Did she at least forgive your idiocy?”

  “I think so.”

  “What kind of answer is that?”

  “The only one I ha’,” he snapped. “Look, Maw, I dinnae ken what happened. She seemed to forgi’ me but then said she had nae intention of seeing me again.”

  Margo sniffed and patted his knee. “She could be upset you held a grudge for so long. I cannot comprehend why you withheld the truth from me all this time. I might have been able to offer a bit of advice.”

  “Aye, like the advice ye and Rabbie spouted to get me to come here? Where’s that gotten me?”

  “Och, laddie,” she scolded, her light burr growing thicker as it tended to when she was angry. The faintest hint of it had sent him and his brothers scurrying for cover as young lads. “Dinnae ye use that tone…”

  Her dressing-down trailed off and she was frowning again. Not at him this time. Her scrutiny was focused ahead. Mal followed her gaze and saw Georgie’s daughter approaching the carriage ahead with Georgie’s parasol in hand.

  “Why ye…” Margo gasped and cuffed him on the shoulder. “Of all the…” She smacked him again and again until Mal caught her hands to hold her off. “How could ye?”

  “Gaw, Maw. What the hell’s gotten into ye?”

  She glared up at him, her eyes ablaze with indignation. “How dare ye no’ tell me ye had a daughter?”

  “A daughter?” He gaped down at her. “I dinnae ha’ a…”

  Mal looked back toward Georgie’s carriage. Her daughter being handed up by the young man. Her daughter…her petite, dark-haired daughter…

  Bugger it. He was going to fooking kill her.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  No. 3 The Royal Crescent

  Bath, England

  Later that night

  A cool breeze stirred Georgiana from her troubled sleep. Yanking her blankets to her chin, she shivered and curled into a ball. Autumn days, while often warm, could still evolve into the coldest of nights. A draft wafted over her again, lifting the hair and spreading a chill down the back of her neck. With a grimace, she opened one eye to see her bedchamber window was ajar.

  Grumbling, she pushed back the bedclothes thinking to close it when a shadowed figure moved across the dimly lit opening. A scream built in her throat. A large masculine hand muffled the sound before it could break the silence.

  “None of that, lass,” came a low growl.

  “Mal,” she gasped, her heartbeat galloping from more than simple fear. She grasped his hand and tugged it away. “Whatever are you doing here? Get out. Get out now.”

  He let her go and rounded the bed. “I willnae.”

  His sharp refusal spurred Georgiana into action. She scooted up against the headboard, clutching the bedcovers against her chest. “If you think to repeat what happened in Scotland, you’re wasting your time.”

  “I’m no’ here for that.”

  What might have been disappointment shot through her at his bitter retort. Georgiana refused to acknowledge it. She knew what she wanted and expected from Mal.

  Namely, nothing at all and his quick departure from Bath.

  It’d taken most of the evening to convince herself of those facts.

  “Then why are you here?”

  “I came to have a word wi’ ye. Nothing more.”

  “You couldn’t have waited and called tomorrow?”

  “This is no’ a topic for polite drawing room conversation.” A match flared and illuminated Mal as he lit a candle. The veiled anger that’d she’d sensed in his voice shone on his face. “I dinnae think ye’d want our daughter about to hear it.”

  The phrasing froze her in place. Surely he’d not just said what she thought she’d heard.

  “She’s no—”

  “Shut it, lass. Yer no’ that good a liar.”

  She closed her mouth, scrambling
for something to say. How had he known? No one alive today other than she and Bernie knew and Georgiana was confident Bernie would never say a word. Panic racked her. She should have shut Maisie down from the start and refused to allow the nonsense that’d led to this moment. If she’d stood her ground, she wouldn’t have gone to Scotland. Mal would not be here.

  Everything she’d sought to protect over months, years would not be hanging precariously in the balance.

  “Ye kept my bluidy daughter from me,” he stormed. Baird growled at him but Mal snapped his fingers and the dog lay down with a baleful glare. “Why the fook did ye no’ tell me ye were wi’ child?”

  The fury in his voice drowned out her fear and put her on the defensive. Georgiana climbed out of the bed and retrieved her dressing gown from the foot. She slipped it on, knotting it tight. A suit of armor, a shield for the battle to come.

  “Well?” he barked.

  “By the time I found out, you were gone.”

  “Why didn’t you come to me then? Find me?”

  “I tried,” she struggled to remain calm in the face of his anger, knowing she deserved every bit of it. Sitting on the edge of the window seat, she called Baird to her. He dropped to his haunches, his rear possessively on her feet. A fine barrier between her and Mal.

  He scoffed at her explanation but she continued, “Honestly, I didn’t know how to search you out. You’d gone to Malta. Even if you hadn’t, I never knew how to find you. Where you lived. If you lived.”

  The admission stung yet Mal was either too enraged to sense it or he didn’t care. He paced around the room, each step bursting with frustration.

  “You found me easily enough this time.”

  She shrugged under the implied accusation and stroked the dog’s head, praying for calm. “Now I’m a duchess with wealth and unlimited resources. I’m independent and answer to no one. Then, I was an unwed eighteen-year-old girl with a babe in my belly. I was alone. Terrified. Practically a prisoner in my own home. My father forced me to wed Bridgewater to save my reputation. His reputation. Despite what you believe, I never cared about scandal or social standing, however I had no choice. I would have waited for you to come back if I had.”

  “Did he know?” he asked a heartbeat later. She blinked, befuddled by the question but he clarified fast enough. “Bridgewater. Did he know?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he accepted yer bastard wi’out question?”

  The question resounded with disbelief. Clearly, he was determined to be as cruel as he could. Georgiana refused to rise to his bait. Everything she’d sought to hide was out in the open. There was no reason to be angry and every reason to allow Mal his ire. Because he was right, she had intended for him to never know the truth, however wrong that might have been.

  “He had no surviving children from his first marriage.” She tracked his progress back and forth before her. “If she’d been a boy, he was prepared to accept Maisie as his heir.” Mal lifted his brow with obvious skepticism. “If not, my duty was to provide him one.”

  She’d spent the first several years of her marriage to Bridgewater sequestered in the farthest reaches of Somerset, about as far away from Mal and Scotland as she could possibly be. And spent many more there of her own accord, determined never to portray the political hostess her father and Bridgewater expected her to be. They would find no satisfaction from the marriage when there was none for her.

  “I resented his part in it all,” she confessed. The first time she’d ever vocalized the bitterness she’d initially harbored for her husband. “In the end, he loved Maisie as if she were his own. Doted on her even more than David. He won me over with his generosity.”

  Mal stopped in front of her, glaring down at her. “So, you loved him, too. How easily your fickle affections were given.”

  Georgiana swallowed hard, forcing back the hurt his bitter words and mocking laugh roused. “I respected him.” Her voice shook with indignation. Tears burned unshed. “Bridgewater tolerated my childish moaning and wailing over my broken heart with far more patience than I deserved. Yes, over time, I came to love him for his friendship and kindness because he was a damned good man. A far sight better than you’ve turned out to be.”

  He flinched but held on to his anger. “Ye said I’m no’ the man ye once loved, and ye’re right. I’m the man ye made me, lass. A part of me died each night ye dinnae come to me. If I’m a shell of the man I was, ’tis because there was precious little left after that. Then to deny me my only bairn?”

  “I already told yo—”

  “Haud yer wheesht,” he snapped. “That might excuse why ye dinnae tell me before but what about now? Did ye think to heap on revenge?”

  “I didn’t do it to spite you,” Georgiana shot back, rising to her feet. Beside her, Baird stood at attention. “I did it for her.”

  “Denying the truth?”

  Baird growled low in his throat at his threatening tone. She set a restraining hand on his head. “No, Mal, not making a bastard of her.”

  “Or a whore of yerself.”

  Silence fell.

  The word pierced her to the core. What they’d done had been an act of love, of giving. Sharing. Reminding herself it was anger that had prompted the accusation and nothing more, Georgiana went on quietly. “Think what you will, Mal, but it has never been for myself that the truth was withheld. Everything I’ve done, everything I do is for my children.”

  Again, there was silence as Mal glared at her. Possibly he was waiting for a confession or for her to fall weeping at his feet. Georgiana held her ground.

  Finally, he looked away. “I want to meet her.”

  “No.”

  He whipped back to face her. “Dinnae tell me nay. Ye kept her existence from me for twenty years. I want to see her.”

  “No, Mal.” She wrapped her arms around her waist, praying for strength. Conviction. “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you about her when I was in Scotland or today. And why I didn’t want you here. I will not have you ruin her life.”

  “Yet ruining mine is acceptable.”

  “In comparison, yes.” He lifted a brow at her resounding agreement, but Georgiana wasn’t finished. “As far as the world knows, Maisie is the legitimate daughter of the Duke of Bridgewater. If word got out, it would ruin her.” She paused a moment to let it sink in. “Do you understand? We may have toyed with the idea of scandal when we were young and stupid, but this…she might not ever recover from it. On top of that, it would cast speculation upon my son’s legitimacy. It would make a cuckold of my husband, when we both know that it not the case.”

  Mal fell silent, moving quietly around her chamber as he mulled the situation over. When he spoke again, his voice was softer, perhaps kinder. “Does she know?”

  She shook her head. “Maisie is a charming, bright young lady, however her emotions tend to run high. I don’t think she could keep a secret even if her own reputation relied upon it and this time it does.”

  “Flighty, is she?”

  “Passionate about life,” she corrected, relaxing. “Something I think she got from you.”

  A hint of a smile played at the corner of his mouth and for the first time since seeing him again, Georgiana caught a fleeting trace of the young man she’d fallen in love with. She sat once more and petted Baird, merely for the opportunity to look away.

  “This is why ye said ye dinnae love me anymore? That ye want to put the past in the past?” he asked. “Ye were protecting her?”

  “No!” Her head jerked up, and she knew fire flamed her cheeks. “I mean, yes. I want to shield my daughter—”

  “Our daughter.”

  She rolled her eyes but carried on as if he hadn’t spoken, “—from any unnecessary distress. That is all I want.”

  Mal crossed his arms over his chest and smirked cockily. “Nay, lass. Ye want me, too.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Liar. What’s more, ye love me still.”

  “I don�
�t,” she insisted, standing again. It was difficult to defend one’s self when sitting. And she needed every advantage available. It didn’t help at all that he looked like he’d climbed from his own bed when there was one conveniently close by. His dark hair was ruffled, his shirt askew, open at the collar and loosely tucked into his breeches. The sight roused all sorts of unwanted memories and desires. “I told you. I’ve put it behind me.”

  A reminder to him and to herself.

  “I wish I’d been as lucky then,” he surprised her by admitting. “I’ve spent my life in love wi’ ye.”

  The admission sent a crack through her heart, and Georgiana struggled to stand firm. “Ha, you did a good job of hiding it in Scotland.”

  He waved his hand dismissively. “Och, lass, I was so pissed wi’ myself for acting as if nothing ever happened when I kissed ye. I resented ye showing up, looking so bright and bonny. As if no’ even a day had passed from one meeting to the next. I wanted to punish ye but I ended up punishing myself. Life was never the same wi’out ye. Just that taste more of ye and I knew I’d never be right again.”

  “Mal…”

  He drew closer, cupping her cheeks in his cool hands. “I’ve missed ye for so long, my sweet Georgie. I think I’d ha’ missed ye even if we never met.”

  She closed her eyes against the caring evident on his face. “I don’t want to do this again.”

  “How can ye say that? We’re so good together.”

  She pulled away, turning her back to him. “Bed sport is not love.”

  “I wisnae talking about sex, lass. I’m talking about us. Ye and me.” He took her by the hand and tugged her around. “Do ye no’ recall the days we spent together?” He kissed her forefinger, grinning boyishly at her. “Discussing politics?” His lips brushed her middle finger. “Riding together? Walking?” Her ring finger received the same treatment. “Reading Burns together?” He moved on to her pinky finger, swirling his tongue around the tip. With a start, she tried to yank her hand back but he wouldn’t allow it. “We could talk for hours about nothing at all. Do ye remember?” He raked his teeth over the pad of her thumb, biting gently when she stubbornly shook her head, despite the slow melting low in her belly. “And let’s no’ forget all the time we spent debating that ridiculous book ye made me read. What was it? A Vindica—”