The Highlander’s English Bride: The Lairds Most Likely Book 6

by Anna Campbell

  "Do I smell the stink of a Sassenach?" the man asked, weaving on his feet.

  "No, it’s the stink of a man who can’t hold his liquor or mind his manners." Hamish glared around the crowd, but this time nobody shifted away. Emily couldn’t blame them. This was turning into the sort of evening that enlivened fireside tales for years.

  Her husband released her and strode down the room to confront the drunken lout. "You will apologize to my wife for your rudeness. You call yourself a true Highlander, Rory Douglas, yet you treat a guest, and a lady at that, with rank discourtesy. I’m ashamed to call myself your kinsman."

  "Aye, I’m a true Highlander, Glen Lyon. Truer than you’ll ever be, with your London ways and your braying English tongue."

  Big Billy bunched his fists. "Do ye want a beating, man?"

  "Leave it, Billy," Hamish said with unexpected composure. "I can handle him."

  "Och, no’ from where I’m standing. It takes an army of Sassenachs to best a good Highlander, ye great fannybaws."

  The crowd reacted with horror. Emily realized that the unfamiliar insult must be excessively offensive.

  It might be funny to watch diminutive Rory facing down her powerful husband. Except Emily was sure that Rory was only saying what the other people in this room felt but kept to themselves. Now there was the added danger of Hamish losing his formidable temper. If he did, violence would follow. She couldn’t bear to think of anyone getting hurt on her account.

  "In that case, it’s lucky I’m a good Highlander. Apologize to my wife, then go home and sleep off the whisky."

  "I’ll never humble myself to that English bitch. The besom can go to hell, or she can go back across the border where she belongs. No’ that I can see much difference between hell and England."

  There was an appalled gasp from the crowd, and all eyes fixed on Hamish. Even from behind him, Emily saw his muscles bunch ready for mayhem.

  It was too much. First Fergus, and now this. For one wretched moment, she stared at her husband’s broad back, then with a broken cry, she picked up her skirts and fled the ballroom. Nobody tried to stop her. Everyone was too focused on the clash between Rory and Hamish.

  Chapter 28

  "You will speak of my wife with respect, or you will find somewhere new to practice your carpentry, Rory," Hamish said in an implacable voice.

  All the guests turned to him aghast. Banishment from the clan was the worst punishment a laird could inflict.

  "You think you’re such a big man in the glens, Glen Lyon," Rory said, clearly too intoxicated to realize the dangerous line he crossed.

  "Aye, I’m a big man, Rory. Big enough to know you’ve had too much to drink and there’s no good to be had from you tonight." He glanced at Billy. "Take him home, and make sure he stays there. He’ll have a devil of a head tomorrow and hopefully a pennyworth of the sense he was born with."

  "I’m no’ a bairn to be sent to bed with a smack on the bum and no supper. I willnae gae home, and I willnae apologize," Rory said, swinging at Hamish and missing by a mile.

  "Glen Lyon, he’ll think better of his temper in the morning," Big Billy said, grabbing Rory in one brawny hand and keeping him a safe distance from Hamish.

  "Aye, he will. And we can decide his future when he’s not half-pickled."

  "You might get someone else to do your dirty work for ye, you bloody English bastard, but I willnae be silenced."

  Hamish scowled at his troublesome kinsman. "Once you’re no longer in my house, you can make as much noise as you want." His voice hardened. "But you will apologize to Lady Glen Lyon, and you will swear your loyalty to my wife and to me, or I’ll have you off this estate faster than a hawk flies at a rabbit. On that you have my word as a proud Scotsman."

  At last, his deadly serious tone penetrated Rory’s alcoholic haze, and the man drooped in Billy’s hold. "Glen Lyon…"

  "Take him away," Hamish said wearily.

  He faced the packed room and summoned a cheerful tone. "The surprise entertainment has come to an end. Apologies for the interruption to our revels." He waved to the band, who lifted their instruments and began to play. "Now let’s get back to having a good time. It’s not a real party at Lyon House unless the guests dance until dawn."

  The jolly reel the musicians chose helped to ease the fraught atmosphere. With surprising speed, the chatter and laughter rose again. Rory’s tantrum mightn’t be forgotten, but it wasn’t going to ruin the rest of the night.

  Hamish looked around for Emily. Last he’d seen her, she’d been with Fergus and Marina and he’d been all set to knock his best friend’s block off. He caught sight of rich red hair over the dancers and made his way through the crowd.

  Marina came forward with a concerned expression. Hamish summoned a smile. "Don’t worry. I’m not going to challenge Fergus to pistols at ten paces."

  "Porca miseria, I’m so cross with him, I don’t think I’d mind if you shot him. But that’s not it. It’s Emily."

  Hamish stopped stone still. Foreboding as sharp and heavy as an ax crashed down upon him. "What is it?" He looked past Marina to where Fergus stood watching them with a stern expression. "If Fergus said anything more to upset her, I will damn well shoot him."

  Fergus stepped closer, and Hamish realized that the sternness was worry. "She’s no’ here, Hamish."

  "Where is she?"

  Marina made a helpless gesture. "When Rory started that stupid outburst, she ran out. I wanted to follow her, but Fergus said—"

  Now he wished he’d given Rory the beating he deserved. "I think Fergus has said quite enough for one night," Hamish retorted, his resentment stirring anew. "Which way did she go?"

  Marina pointed to the door leading back into the rest of the house. At least Emily wasn’t out in the cold. With October’s arrival, the mild weather had become a memory, and now it had started to rain. "That way." She paused. "She looked upset."

  "Thank you."

  "Hamish, I probably havenae helped," Fergus began, looking uncomfortable. Apologies never came easily from the managing ass, although since his marriage, at least he was prepared to make amends now and again.

  Hamish shot him an angry look. "Probably?"

  "Hamish, he meant well," Marina said.

  "What does that matter?" Hamish sighed. He was too worried about Emily to hang about arguing with this arrogant bastard he used to call a friend. "Hell, what do I care? Right now, you and your unsolicited and uninformed opinions can go to blazes, Fergus. I need to find my wife."

  Without another word, he strode out of the ballroom and entered the hall. He brushed off the guests who approached him and collected a lamp. He cursed the fact that Lyon House was so large. It would be quicker if he asked Diarmid and Fergus to help. They knew the house almost as well as he did. But he had no idea where the Mactavishes were, and he didn’t trust himself to be civil to Fergus.

  Hamish conducted a swift search of the ground floor, interrupting a couple of lovers’ trysts but finding no trace of Emily. He checked down in the kitchens, but nobody in that hive of activity had seen the lady of the house.

  Unless Emily had run outside, and as it had started raining, he doubted that she had, she must be upstairs. Their rooms were the most obvious place for her to take a wounded heart.

  But when he went up, she wasn’t in their suite. Guests staying over for the ceilidh were using the other bedrooms. She wouldn’t seek refuge where she might be interrupted.

  Would she venture as far as the servants’ rooms in the attic? Surely not.

  With every moment, his turmoil worsened. He was sickly aware that this latest mess was all his fault. He should have let Emily find her feet as Lady Glen Lyon, before he threw her to the wolves that were his friends and neighbors and kinfolk. How he cursed his impulse to show his lovely wife off to the world. He’d have been better off keeping her to himself.

  What the devil would he do if Emily decided to go back to London? What if she decided that she didn’t like Scotland and
the Scots – and one Scot in particular, the boneheaded dolt she’d so reluctantly married?

  Nausea soured his stomach at the thought of losing her now, after these golden, glorious days. If she went, he’d follow her south. He wouldn’t stay here without her. But if she decided that she’d had enough of him as well as his country, she’d break his heart.

  His mood growing grimmer by the minute, he kept searching. Finally he reached the gallery, stretching ahead dark and silent.

  "Emily?" he called as he started down the long room.

  He advanced a few more steps, but he already knew she wasn’t here. The painted eyes of his ancestors stared down at him in disapproval. He’d brought the world’s most marvelous woman into the Douglas family, and now it looked like he was about to lose her.

  Perhaps Rory was right, and he was a disgrace to the clan.

  His shoulders slumping, he turned to go back downstairs. Then he stopped.

  What a fool he was. He knew just where Emily was. Confound it, he should have guessed from the first.

  If she was as upset as he feared she was, she’d want to be alone. There was one place in all this huge house where that was guaranteed.

  Sure of himself at last, Hamish strode down the length of the gallery until he reached Granny Phyllis’s cabinet of curiosities. There he paused, sucked in a deep breath, told himself not to muck this up, and opened the door.

  "Emily?" he asked softly, as he stepped into the dark, confined space. He told himself he had to prevail, because the alternative to prevailing didn’t bear thinking about.

  There was no answer, but he knew in his bones she was here. He’d reached such a state of intimacy with his wife that he could feel her presence.

  When he raised the lamp, golden light reached every corner. His wife was sitting hunched on the chaise longue.

  "This is where you are." Relief flooded Hamish, made his knees wobble. His voice cracked with the force of his emotion. His shaking hand made the light waver eerily across the shelves of treasures. "I’ve been searching the whole house for you."

  She cringed away, and her response emerged thick with tears. "Well, now you’ve found me, you can go away again."

  He struggled to control his urge to grab her up in his arms and kiss her. It was an effort to stay where he was, but everything about her screamed not to touch her. "No gentleman worth his salt would leave a lady crying and all alone."

  "I’m not crying. I never cry."

  "Not often, anyway." He ventured closer and set the lamp on the floor. "I was worried sick about you when your father died. It was as if you were frozen."

  "Leave me alone, Hamish," she said, keeping her head down. The pearls in her rich dark hair glinted in the lamplight, and her slender hands twined in her lap.

  "I can’t do that." Carefully, as if she were a wild bird and his slightest move could frighten her into flight, he sat beside her. "I hate to see you so unhappy. What in Hades did Fergus say to you?"

  With a trembling hand, she raised a crumpled handkerchief to wipe her cheeks. "Just a few home truths that I should have kept in mind."

  "I’ll kill him," Hamish said grimly, his hands fisting on his knees. "I’ll cut out his liver and roast it over a campfire."

  "No, he was right." At last, she raised her gaze to meet his. His heart clenched in guilt and misery and pity. His stalwart Emily had been crying her eyes out. "And I was wrong. Because I forgot."

  For pity’s sake, he was only human. He couldn’t keep his distance any longer. He dared to catch her hand in his. "Forgot what, sweetheart?"

  She tried to pull away but gave up before it turned into a genuine effort. "Don’t call me that."

  Just the touch of her hand was enough to soothe his burgeoning alarm, but he wasn’t sanguine enough to think that he’d even started to solve this problem. "Why not? You are my sweetheart."

  "No, I’m not."

  He gave a dismissive grunt. "What the devil do you think you are, then?"

  "I’m…" She sucked in an audible breath then spoke in a broken rush. "I’m the woman you had to marry. The woman who can never be what you want, no matter how hard I try."

  What the hell? How on earth could a smart woman believe that was true? He was appalled that she still felt so insecure. Didn’t she know yet what she meant to him?

  His gut knotted with regret and apprehension, as he struggled to keep his voice even. "If you think back over the last three weeks, you’ll know that’s arrant nonsense."

  She went back to staring into her lap. "You’re making the best of a bad bargain."

  "That’s rubbish, Emily. I couldn’t want you more than I do."

  When she looked at him, the despair in her eyes stabbed him to the soul. "You’re a kind man, Hamish. It took me far too long to see that. You were kind to Papa. You’ve been kind to me."

  He frowned in confusion. That should be a compliment, but it didn’t sound like one. More was going on here than hurt feelings after a few rude remarks from Fergus and Rory. Much more. Hamish had a hideous inkling that if he mishandled the next few minutes, the consequences would be disastrous. "There’s nothing wrong with being kind."

  Her smile threatened to break his heart. It was so utterly without hope. "No, it’s wonderful. You’re wonderful."

  "What…" Amazement stole his ability to put words together. He’d never imagined her saying that to him. She’d told him the things he did to her were wonderful, but she’d never extended the praise to him in general.

  "But kindness isn’t enough. Especially when I’ll always be the wrong woman for you."

  "Emily?" He’d been worried when she ran from the ballroom, and that worry had deepened as he searched the house. But hearing those words, panic welled up to choke him. She couldn’t mean it. She couldn’t. He wouldn’t let it be true. "You’re talking as if you’re going to leave me."

  A fraught pause. "It might be easier."

  The devil it would.

  "By God, I won’t let you go." He surged to his feet and glared down at her. Fear such as he’d never felt in his entire life chilled his blood to ice. "Why would you want to leave me? That makes no sense. You’ve been happy these last few weeks. I know you have. Stop speaking in riddles. Whatever Fergus said to you, it isn’t true. Pay no attention. I’ll ban him from the house."

  She stared up at him in astonishment. "He’s your best friend."

  "If he’s turned you against me, he can go to blazes."

  "You’d do that for me?"

  He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. "Don’t you know I’d shift every star in the heavens for you, woman? I love you."

  For too fleeting a moment, her eyes turned brilliant with happiness. Then before he could be sure of what he saw, the skin tightened over the bones of her face and she went back to looking like something out of a Greek tragedy.

  With an incoherent cry, she staggered to her feet and retreated behind the chaise longue. "But I’m not Scottish."

  He set out after her, but stopped bewildered when he registered what she’d said. "What the deuce did you say?"

  She wrung her hands in distress, and fresh tears glittered on her pale cheeks. "I’m not Scottish."

  God give him strength. He growled deep in his throat. "Was that what Fergus told you? That you don’t belong here? That you don’t belong with me?"

  One trembling hand made a despondent gesture, and her tone turned dull and flat. "It’s not just Fergus. You told me about feeling like an outsider here because people think you’re English. When you proposed, you said you’d prefer a Scottish bride, and—"

  "I don’t want a Scottish bride. I want the bloody bride I’ve got – even if right now I fear for her wits."

  "And Rory—"

  "Rory is a blasted raving idiot. What he says isn’t worth a tinker’s damn, even when he’s sober." Impatience churned in Hamish’s stomach. Impatience and powerful, overwhelming love for this confused, brilliant, magnificent woman. Right now, he wasn’t sure whe
ther he wanted to shake his wife or kiss her. Probably both. He came around the chaise longue and caught her wrist in an implacable grasp. "If you hate living in Scotland, we’ll move back to London."

  She stood shaking in his grasp, as her great hazel eyes searched his face. "But you love Scotland."

  "Not as much as I love you."

  He saw the precise moment she believed him. Thank the Lord for that, at least.

  "You mean that?"

  He slid his arms around her waist and pulled her against him. The scents of smoky jasmine and Emily filled his head, the fragrance of paradise. "Of course I damn well mean that."

  He kissed her, expecting to meet resistance, but she responded with immediate ardor. Her lips were voracious, and she made that soft hum of pleasure that always got him stirred up.

  She flung her arms around his neck, pressing so close that he thought she was trying to climb inside his skin. Hamish didn’t mind. He liked her frantic response. It soothed the terror that had struck him down when he found her, the even worse terror when she’d talked about leaving him. For a few horrendous seconds tonight, he’d feared he might lose her. He never wanted to go through that again as long as he lived.

  When they finally drew apart, his head was swimming. He stared down into her face. She didn’t look nearly so woebegone. In fact, if he took the optimistic view, he might say she looked transported with happiness, despite the tearstains marking her cheeks.

  "You used to think I was the greatest pest in the world," Emily said, regarding him with such wonder in her eyes that he felt like a hero.

  He settled his hands at her waist and kissed her again, fast and possessive. "Now you just drive me mad with lust."

  A shaky but gloriously joyful smile curved her lips. "I had no idea you loved me."

  He frowned. "How could I help loving you? You’ve had me in a spin for years. I was at least half in love with you when we got married. I’ve most definitely been head over heels since you turned up on my doorstep and lost your mind in that fit of jealousy. It turns out that I’ve lost my mind, too."