Bride Required

by Alison Fraser

  ‘I could do that,’ Dee claimed. ‘Well…if I wanted to.’

  It elicited a sceptical sound from Baxter Ross. ‘Yes, I can just imagine you playing the doting wife. The Home Office would have to be wearing rose-coloured spectacles if they were to detect any air of romance about you.’

  ‘Oh, and you’re a judge of that, are you?’ Dee was stung into retorting. ‘The last of the great romantics? Scotland’s answer to Don Juan. An expert on affairs of the heart as well as its internal workings—’

  ‘All right, all right.’ He raised a hand, accepting her point. ‘I wasn’t setting myself up as an authority. I wasn’t even criticising. I was just stating a fact—you’re not the type to be swept off her feet so you’re hardly likely to know how to act like that…

  And besides, you’d have to learn every detail of Joseph’s life—you’d have to spend long periods of time in his company and be seen to do so, you’d have to face any racial prejudice coming your way because he’s black—’

  ‘I don’t get you.’ She interrupted this list of negatives. ‘Why are you trying to put me off, when not three days ago you were willing to pay me megabucks for doing it?’

  ‘You changed your mind, remember?’ he threw back at her.

  ‘Actually, I didn’t,’ Dee finally admitted. ‘The truth is I slept in. By the time I got to the Continental, you’d left.’

  He looked unconvinced. ‘You didn’t tell me that when I saw you later.’

  ‘No, well, I was too busy nursing an injury,’ she reminded him in turn. ‘Having been rugby tackled.’

  He pulled a face. ‘How is it, by the way, your knee?’

  ‘Fine!’

  ‘I doubt it, after your escapade earlier,’ he said in disapproving tones.

  He was right, of course. Her knee was throbbing. But she wasn’t about to strip off to play doctors with him.

  She got in first, ‘I don’t want you looking at it.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to,’ he stated, ‘but you’ll need to see someone tomorrow. I’ll arrange for Cat to take you into Linlithgow, then you can catch a train to Edinburgh and beyond if you choose.’

  ‘Is that what you want?’ She challenged this sudden offer of helpful information.

  He shook his head. ‘You’re not fit for travelling or sleeping rough, and I have enough people on my conscience already.’

  Dee wondered what he meant, and dared to ask, ‘Is this Joseph one of them?’

  He hesitated, before replying, ‘His parents are. I owe them, so I owe Joseph.’

  ‘Cat said they died.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Of some kind of fever?’

  He nodded, then explained briefly, ‘I oversaw a hospital they ran. The water became contaminated with a new strain of virus.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like your fault,’ she commented. ‘Especially if you got ill, too.’

  ‘My fault? Maybe not,’ he conceded. ‘But I was still responsible… Looking after Joseph is the least I can do.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me the truth instead of letting me think you were after some legacy?’ To Dee’s mind the truth showed him in a much better light.

  He shrugged. ‘You seemed to like the legacy version—and it was actually your invention.’

  Was it? Dee supposed it might have been. But he’d been quite happy leaving her with the wrong conclusion. It was almost as if he liked people thinking the worst of him.

  She watched as he walked towards the dresser and began to open and shut drawers, moving the contents either onto the bed or into a drawer below the wardrobe.

  ‘You can use this dresser,’ he instructed when he’d finished. ‘And the tallboy, of course.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have bothered.’ She hadn’t realised he was clearing space for her. ‘I don’t have much.’

  ‘Your mother may send on the rest of your things,’ he relayed to her. ‘She asked for my address and I gave it.’

  ‘Oh,’ Dee murmured, but was still puzzled about something. ‘Yesterday, I thought you were taking me back to London.’

  ‘I was,’ he confirmed. ‘I changed my mind.’

  Dee’s frown deepened. When he didn’t volunteer more, she prompted, ‘Why?’

  He thought for a moment, then dryly admitted, ‘I have absolutely no idea.’

  Dee stared at him in surprise. He hadn’t struck her as the impulsive type—more cool and calculating.

  ‘Anyway, whether she sends them or not,’ he continued, ‘you’ll need more clothes if you intend staying for a while.’

  How can I stay after last night? she might have asked. But it seemed last night was no big deal to him.

  ‘I’ll make do,’ she shrugged.

  ‘If money’s the problem, I can let you have some.’ His attitude was casual, but Dee was still left feeling like a charity case.

  ‘I won’t take money from you.’ The stubborn note in her voice told him she was serious.

  ‘Okay, when your knee’s mended you can earn it,’ he countered.

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know… Can you cook?’

  The suggestion didn’t offend Dee, but she felt she should be honest. ‘Well, I could give it a stab.’

  ‘Ah, right…not such a clever idea,’ he concluded from her answer.

  ‘I could clean,’ she offered.

  He looked surprised. ‘You’d do that?’

  ‘Well, it’s hardly my life’s ambition,’ she remarked dryly. ‘But neither’s begging in tube stations.’

  ‘Busking,’ Baxter corrected for once, and drew a fleeting smile to her face, before asking, ‘So what is?’

  ‘What is what?’

  ‘Your life’s ambition?’

  Dee considered her reply. ‘I don’t think I had one. I just assumed it would be A levels, then university.’

  ‘That still must be possible,’ he commented. ‘Your mother said you were a high achiever at school.’

  Dee shrugged. It wasn’t exactly modesty. School just seemed a long time distant.

  ‘When I get settled.’ It was what she told herself.

  Maybe he saw it as an excuse, because he said, ‘Joseph commutes to college in Edinburgh on a daily basis.’

  ‘Yes, well, I’m not going to be around long enough, am I?’ she pointed out, resenting the comparison with his protégé.

  ‘No, probably not,’ he conceded, then seemed to grow tired of the conversation. He added, ‘I’m driving into the city now to return the hire-car. Is there anything I can get you? Soap? Toothbrush? Women’s things?’

  ‘A single to London?’ Dee added flippantly.

  He didn’t laugh. ‘Yes, if that’s what you want,’ he replied coldly. ‘You’re not a prisoner here.’

  He was making it easy for her. No need for any more abortive attempts to limp and hitch to the nearest town. He would drive her. He would buy her a ticket.

  So why did she say, ‘I’ll hang around for a day or two, if it’s all the same to you.’

  ‘It is.’ He was indifferent, able to walk away—as he did now, without a backward glance.

  He left the door ajar and she heard his footsteps ringing on the stone, the shutting and opening of doors and voices from the floor below.

  She went out to the keep window on her own landing, and looked below. She saw him emerge from the tower with his niece Morag hanging onto his arm, dancing to keep up with him and chattering nineteen to the dozen.

  Dee wondered if the adoration was one-sided, until she saw him bend to pick her up and swirl her around. Cries of ‘Again, again,’ followed each time he put her down, and the serious child of earlier was transformed into a giggler.

  The child climbed into his car with him as her mother fetched a booster seat from the back of her car. Then Cat got behind the driving wheel of her Volvo and followed Baxter down the drive. Presumably he was going to get a lift back from his sister after he’d disposed of the hire-vehicle.

  Alone now, Dee lay down on the be
d, tired once more, but sleep wouldn’t come. Instead she watched the pattern of light and shadow from the two great windows set high in the wall, and tried not to think of anything.

  It didn’t work. It was like a seed that had taken root and was now growing like a creeper. Every branch, every thought led back to him.

  He had done her no favours. Through him she had damaged her knee, lost her squat and almost given away what little she had left of her self-respect. In return he had offered her the chance of earning some dodgy money, doing something that was undoubtedly illegal and quite possibly carried with it a jail sentence.

  As Sir Galahads went, he was more a knight in tarnished armour.

  So why was she lying here, after barely three days’ acquaintance—much of it spent arguing and fighting—with an absolute conviction that she had met the man she wanted to be with for the rest of her life?

  It was crazy. She was mad. And he didn’t give a damn. Just perfect!

  CHAPTER NINE

  DEE drifted off to sleep and was woken early evening by Cat Macdonald. Dinner was being served in the great hall. Dee might have declined if she hadn’t been so hungry. Cat left her to dress.

  She washed first, then put back on her jeans and T-shirt. Her leg was better for being rested, but she still had to limp her way down the spiral staircase.

  The great hall, she remembered, was on the landing opposite the kitchen. It lived up to its name—an immense room with a huge fireplace at one end flanked by dark blue armchairs and a long tartan sofa. At the other end the Macdonald family and Baxter were already seated on studded leather seats at an antique oak table.

  She slipped into a vacant chair at the opposite end to Baxter. She felt a stranger in the midst of this family gathering, but the Macdonalds seemed perfectly at ease with her presence. Perhaps she was the latest in a long line of females to grace this table.

  Perhaps that was Baxter’s usual pattern—to come back home with some female in tow, enjoy a brief affair, no strings attached, then return abroad.

  Dee told herself it was none of her business, but spent much of the meal contemplating what kind of woman would be his normal companion. Mature? Sophisticated? Experienced? Probably all three, and beautiful and bright for good measure. What chance did she stand?

  None.

  He barely looked at her during the meal, and she trained herself not to look at him. She kept silent rather than draw attention to herself—which was easy enough, because Cat and Morag were great talkers, and even Ewan was too, when he got into his stride.

  Dinner was over and Morag asleep on a couch by the fire when Cat Macdonald finally observed, ‘You’re very quiet, Dee. Is your knee hurting?’

  ‘No, it’s fine…thank you,’ she responded politely.

  ‘Possibly she finds us all a bit overpowering,’ Ewan suggested.

  ‘A little, yes,’ Dee admitted.

  ‘What’s your own family like?’ asked Cat.

  Dee pulled a face. How did she describe her family? Non-existent?

  Baxter did it for her, saying, ‘Dysfunctional.’

  ‘Oh,’ Cat murmured sympathetically, then tried hard not to look curious, but didn’t quite manage it. ‘And have you been away from home long?’

  ‘A while.’ Dee really was reluctant to talk about this.

  Baxter didn’t share her reservations. ‘Dee ran away to London at Easter and has been more or less homeless since.’

  ‘Oh, dear.’

  ‘She’s been sleeping in doorways and squats.’

  ‘How dreadful!’

  Both Cat Macdonald and her husband turned pitying eyes on her.

  Resenting it, Dee scowled at Baxter. ‘Why don’t you tell them about the begging and the stealing, too? Not to mention my life of prostitution!’

  Two jaws dropped open while a third went rigid at her dramatics.

  Baxter prompted her with a hard look, but she ignored it.

  ‘Tell them the truth,’ he ordered tersely.

  ‘You’re the one with verbal diarrhoea—you tell them,’ she responded defiantly, unintimidated by his glower. ‘And while you’re at it why don’t you get out your violin as well?’

  Then she pushed herself away from the table and, in the deafening silence that followed, limped with as much dignity as she could muster to the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Baxter demanded, on his feet and oblivious to the shocked looks from his family. ‘If you think I’m going to run after you another time—’

  ‘I’m going to wash the dishes,’ she snapped back. ‘That’s what we said. Cleaning in return for my keep.’

  She didn’t wait for a reply, but limped towards the kitchen, intending to do just what she said.

  Buoyed up by temper and indignation, she was throwing plates and cutlery and glasses all in the same bowl when Cat Macdonald appeared.

  Dee had half expected her brother, and her look was unintentionally fierce. Cat raised her hands in mock defence.

  ‘Don’t shoot, I’m only the messenger. My brother says you can’t do the dishes, not with your bad knee.’

  ‘He can tell me himself, if that’s what he wants!’

  ‘I think he’s still counting to ten,’ confided Cat, picking up a cloth to dry the dishes Dee was stacking. ‘In fact, I haven’t seen my brother this mad in a long time.’

  ‘Good!’ Dee said, but losing some of her righteous fury at Cat’s amused manner. ‘I suppose you think I’m behaving badly.’

  ‘Well, if you are—’ Cat smiled back ‘—I imagine you have your reasons.’

  ‘It’s just that I don’t like him talking about me as if I’m some stray he’s picked up.’ Dee explained her indignation. ‘I didn’t ask for his help. I was doing perfectly all right. He practically kidnapped me.’

  This rather extravagant claim drew a frown from Cat’s face. ‘You didn’t agree to marry Joseph, then?’

  ‘No. Yes. Sort of…’ she answered in quick succession. ‘He never told me about Joseph. I thought it was him I was meant to be marrying.’

  ‘Him?’ Cat repeated. ‘Baxter, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you didn’t mind that?’

  ‘No,’ Dee replied.

  ‘Ri-ight.’ Catriona Macdonald nodded in a knowing manner.

  It took Dee a moment to realise what impression she’d given. ‘Not because I fancied him or anything,’ she denied quickly.

  The other woman looked unconvinced, and Dee decided it was time to tell the truth. So, out it came, the whole story, up to the point when they’d arrived at the tower in the early hours of that morning. Was it really less than a day?

  When Dee had finished, Cat stood, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘I can’t decide who’s crazier—you or my brother. Weren’t you worried, going off like that with a virtual stranger? I mean, I know Baxter would never take advantage, but you weren’t to know that.’

  Dee supposed it had been extremely foolish, but at no time had she really worried that she would come to physical harm with Baxter Ross. Even last night, when things had threatened to get out of hand, he had behaved honourably.

  ‘Right at the beginning, when we first met, I thought he was gay,’ she explained.

  This drew laughter. ‘Baxter? Gay? Well, as his sister, I’m not privy to the intimacies of his relationships, but there’s certainly been more than one woman sharing that four poster of his over the years.’

  ‘Okay, it seems silly now,’ Dee agreed. ‘But he made this big thing about not being interested in young girls, and I misunderstood.’

  ‘I imagine he was trying to reassure you,’ Cat Macdonald concluded.

  ‘Well, he could have been plainer,’ Dee insisted, ‘instead of letting me think what I liked.’

  ‘Oh, that’s just Baxter. He never discusses his private life.’

  ‘Just other people’s.’

  Dee was still smarting from the way he’d talked of her. As though she was a charity case, some homeless kid he�
�d picked off the streets.

  ‘He meant no offence, I’m sure, in giving us your background,’ his sister assuaged.

  ‘So you’d know who I was,’ Dee went on. ‘His good deed for the day!’

  She spoke in a hard, hurt voice that must have betrayed more than she’d intended, because Catriona Macdonald’s expression became contemplative rather than condemning.

  ‘Dee…you haven’t…well, fallen for my brother, have you?’ she asked in worried tones.

  Her kind eyes said more. They told Dee that such a falling promised only pain.

  ‘No, of course not,’ Dee denied, face hot. ‘Don’t be silly. It’s ridiculous. I mean… God, he’s ancient!’ she added with feeling, desperate to throw Cat Macdonald off the track.

  She obviously succeeded, as Cat smiled in relief and kept smiling, even when a throat was cleared in the background.

  ‘Baxter.’ His sister turned from the sink and acknowledged his presence in the open doorway. ‘We were just talking about you.’

  ‘So I heard.’ His eyes travelled from her to Dee and stayed there.

  ‘Cheer up, little brother.’ Cat Macdonald tried to make light of the situation. ‘Imagine how I feel. If you’re ancient, I must be positively antediluvian,’ she ran on, refusing to take insult. ‘Anyway, she simply means you’re too old for her, that’s all.’

  She laughed, expecting one or both to laugh with her, but they traded stares instead.

  ‘It’s what you said,’ Dee finally remarked, on the defensive.

  ‘Since when have you taken to listening to what I say?’ he countered, unsmiling. ‘She shouldn’t be on that leg,’ he directed at his sister. ‘Did you tell her?’

  ‘Come on, Baxter, lighten up—’ Cat cajoled in return.

  ‘Did you?’ he repeated in hard tones.

  ‘Yes, she did,’ Dee interceded. ‘So stop picking on her. Pick on me if you want to yell at someone.’

  ‘All right, I will,’ he responded, a nerve jumping at his temple. ‘If you insist on being wilful, careless and downright stupid,’ he threw at her, ‘then don’t blame me if your bloody leg swells up and drops off.’