The Heir’s Chosen Bride

by Marion Lennox

  ‘Except I like my women self-contained, clever, cool and sassy.’

  ‘Susie’s clever and sassy.’

  ‘Four or nothing,’ he said, and drained his beer. ‘I’m engaged to Marcia. She’ll be here the day after tomorrow.’

  Jake raised an eyebrow. Sussing him. And grinning. ‘First I’ve heard of it. But it’s no business of mine, mate,’ he added, pushing himself to his size twenty feet. ‘I have two hundred more balloons to disperse before I’m off duty. One more beer and I’ll let the whole lot go skyward. Which might not be such a bad thing, if I didn’t have three womenfolk who’d give me a hard time for the rest of my life. They’d probably make me blow up two hundred more.’

  ‘Marcia would never give me a hard time over a balloon.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ Jake said. ‘Or unlucky you. Depending on which way you want to look at it, but I sure as hell know what way I’m looking at it. I’ll leave you to your very important phone call.’

  ‘My…?’

  ‘If Marcia’s coming in two days, hadn’t you better let her know?’ Jake suggested. ‘If you’re arming the battlements it’s always a good idea to let the armour know what’s required.’

  What was it about this place? He’d landed in some chaotic muddle of people who seemed to think they knew him because his name was Douglas. Who seemed to think they knew more about his life than he did.

  Which was clearly ridiculous.

  But Jake had said he needed to make a phone call-and Jake was right.

  Calculation. Midday here. Eight at night there. Fine.

  Marcia answered on the first ring. Still at her desk, then.

  ‘Hi,’ she said warmly. ‘How’s the valuation going?’

  ‘I’m a bit distracted,’ he told her. He’d emerged from the hubbub of noise within the beer tent, he’d retreated to the side of the marquee but he could still see the colourful chaos that was the fair. ‘Our pumpkin just won a major prize.’

  There was a moment’s silence. Then… ‘Well, hooray for our pumpkin. Hamish, are you feeling well?’

  ‘Are you absolutely imperatively busy at the moment?’

  ‘I’m always absolutely imperatively busy.’

  ‘And if you dropped everything and came here…’

  ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘The widow,’ he said, and his desperation must have sounded down the wire because there was laughter.

  ‘Oh, darling, I did wonder. You’re the heir and she’s the dowager. So there’s a bit of matchmaking?’

  ‘Not on our part. I mean…she doesn’t want it any more than I do. But the townspeople do, and it’d make it much easier to keep everything on a business footing if you appeared.’

  There was a moment’s silence. He could imagine her scrolling down the screen of her electronic diary, juggling appointments. Figuring out imperatives.

  ‘I can spare you three days,’ she said at last. ‘There’s a financial review in Hong Kong starting next Friday I was tempted to attend. Hong Kong’s almost your time zone so I could get over jet-lag with you. I have no intention of being in Hong Kong if my mind’s not totally focussed. There’s some heavy stuff going down. Oil futures. It could be really big.’

  ‘So that means…’

  ‘I’ll be with you Monday your time. I’ll fly out again on Thursday. Will that solve your problems?’

  He stared around him. Oil futures in Hong Kong.

  One of Jake’s twins-Alice?-was walking toward him carrying a hot dog. She was leaving a trail of ketchup in her wake. She was beaming and holding it out to him as if it was a truly amazing gift.

  Marcia here?

  She had to come. He needed grounding. Fast.

  ‘That’ll be great,’ he said weakly.

  ‘I’ll let you know the arrangements. Is there anything else you need now? I’m in a rush.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then ’bye.’ Click.

  ‘Marcia’s coming,’ he told Alice as he accepted her hot dog, and she gave him a dubious smile.

  ‘Is Marcia nice?’

  ‘Very nice.’

  ‘Does she like hot dogs?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘My Aunty Susie says you have to come,’ she said. ‘The wood chopping’s about to start and the laird always has first chop.’

  ‘He’s a bit of all right.’

  The woodchopping had seemed just what Hamish had needed. His hands were still a bit sore from digging but he put that aside. The sight of logs, waiting to be chopped, meant that he could vent his spleen in a way that didn’t hurt anyone (except him-pity about the blisters!), didn’t involve so much alcohol that he’d regret it the next day and got him away from Susie.

  The logs were propped as posts. The woodchoppers were given a truly excellent axe and told to go to it. Hamish did his first ceremonial chop, then watched the champion woodchoppers with something akin to envy. While he watched the woodchoppers, the inhabitants of Dolphin Bay were watching him, talking about him, clapping him on the back-and looking sideways at Susie.

  Things were starting to get desperate. His blisters hurt-but would a real earl be deflected by a few blisters? Of course not.

  As the novice events started, he stripped to the waist and proceeded to chop.

  ‘There’s something about a man in a kilt and nothing else,’ Kirsty murmured, and nudged her sister. ‘Ooh-er. A fine figure of a man, our new laird.’

  ‘He’s not our new laird,’ Susie retorted, a trifle breathlessly. ‘A new laird wouldn’t sell his castle and run.’

  ‘He hasn’t sold it yet. There’s many a slip…’

  ‘Cut it out, Kirsty.’

  ‘Susie, he’s gorgeous.’

  ‘Kirsty, he’s engaged to be married.’

  ‘So you have noticed he’s gorgeous.’

  ‘I’d have to be blind not to notice he’s gorgeous.’

  The logs had to be chopped into four. The way it was done was to chop a chunk out, ram a plank into the chunk, stand on the plank and lop the top off. Then lower the plank and start again with a lower chunk. Hamish was on his second level. Chunks of wood were flying everywhere-there was more enthusiasm than science in his technique. His body was glistening with sweat.

  ‘Kilts are yummy,’ Kirsty said thoughtfully. ‘I wonder if Jake’d wear one.’

  ‘I’m yummy enough without a kilt.’ Jake had come up behind them, and now he put his arms round his wife and hugged. ‘How do you improve on just plain irresistible?’

  ‘I liked you better when you were four feet taller,’ Susie told him, eyeing her brother-in-law with disfavour. ‘And I don’t know how it is but the red nose just doesn’t cut it.’

  ‘It turns Kirsty on, though,’ Jake said smugly, and Kirsty answered by pulling his plastic nose back to the full length of its elastic, holding it thoughtfully for a moment and then letting it go.

  ‘Yep, I like it better on,’ she said, and turned back to her sister. ‘Now, where were we?’

  ‘Hey.’ Jake clutched his nose in pain and Susie giggled. But there was a part of her…

  There was a part of her that was really, really jealous of her sister and her husband, she decided. She’d met and fallen for Rory, but she’d had him for such a short time and then he’d been gone. His loss still had the power to hurt so much that she almost couldn’t bear it. The sight of her sister and her husband so happy…

  Her eyes turned involuntarily back to Hamish. Hamish smashing through his third the level of wood. Hamish concentrating every ounce of energy in getting the log through, pitting his strength against the wood.

  She thought of how he’d been yesterday morning, digging her path with just such energy. What was driving him?

  What was this Marcia like?

  It wasn’t her business.

  ‘I’m going home,’ she said abruptly. ‘Harriet’s over under the trees with Rosie and Pup. I’ll go and collect them. I think it’d be better if I took Pup home now and settled her into her new home be
fore dinner. Even if that home is temporary,’ she added in an undertone but Kirsty heard and winced.

  ‘Susie, do you mind? About the puppy?’

  ‘I love Pup.’ She hugged her sister.

  ‘But Hamish…do you mind that he’s taking over?’

  ‘Well…’ She shrugged. ‘I can’t not mind, but it doesn’t make sense to care too much.’

  ‘If you two got on…’

  ‘We do get on. And no matter how much better we got on, he’d still sell the castle. It’s the only sensible thing to do. Can you give him a ride home?’

  ‘Sure,’ Jake told her. ‘If you really need to go.’

  ‘I really need to go.’

  He won.

  Hamish stood over his four pieces of chopped logs and gasped until he got his breath back. This was fantastic. Much better than any gym workout. He was standing bare backed, clad only in his kilt and footwear, the sun burning on his skin, the wash of the sea the background roar to the applause of the crowd. His hands were a bit painful-actually, very painful-but what was a bit of pain? It felt like he’d been transformed into another place, another time. Another life.

  He’d won.

  He turned to where Susie had been standing, and she wasn’t there.

  ‘Where…?’ he started, and Jake came toward him and wrung his hand.

  ‘Well done, mate.’

  ‘Ouch,’ Hamish muttered, and hauled his hand back. ‘Where’s Susie?’

  ‘Gone home.’

  Right. Suddenly his hands were really, really painful.

  This was dumb-but it didn’t feel fantastic any more.

  Hamish didn’t come home for dinner and Susie didn’t care. She didn’t, she didn’t, she didn’t. She’d eaten far too much rubbish at the fair to worry about dinner-a piece of the inevitable toast was fine. She fed the puppy the mix Adam’s mother had thoughtfully packed. She popped her to sleep in the wet room, and then as the puppy complained she carted her back to the kitchen, sat in the rocker in front of the fire and cuddled her.

  ‘I’m calling you Taffy,’ she said. ‘I know I had sixty-three other suggestions but they can’t tell me what to call my very own puppy.’

  Taffy looked up at her in sleepy agreement, curled into her lap and proceeded to go to sleep.

  Susie rocked on.

  ‘Me and a puppy and a baby,’ she whispered. ‘I have a houseful.’

  ‘Where will I go?’ she whispered back. ‘Where will I take my little family?’

  She’d go back to the house she’d shared with Rory. Of course. That was the best thing to do. The simplest.

  But the thought of going back to the house she’d shared with Rory…

  ‘It’ll be empty, Taf,’ she told the puppy, popping her down onto a cushion by the fire. ‘Even with you. It’s a gorgeous house on the coast. It looks out over the ocean. It’s really wild. Rory worked from home and it was great with the two of us there but…but I’m not sure you and Rosie are going to be good enough company.’

  As if in answer to her question, Taffy said nothing at all.

  Susie rocked on. She’d lit the range more for company than because she needed its warmth, but the gentle crackle and hiss of burning logs was comforting.

  Not comforting enough.

  ‘I have to go home.’

  ‘Isn’t talking to yourself the first sign of madness?’

  She jumped close on a foot. When she came down to earth she was breathless-and cross.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Coming home,’ Hamish said and it was so much an echo of what she’d been thinking that she almost jumped again.

  ‘You scared me.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s your kitchen,’ she said, but she sounded defensive. She took a grip and tried for a lighter note. ‘You’ve had supper?’

  But she was still flustered. He didn’t look nearly as together as he’d looked that morning. He was still in his kilt but he’d chopped wood; he’d been drinking beer with the men; he’d joined the tug-of-war teams. He looked dishevelled and tired and frayed, like a Scottish lord coming home after a hard day at battle.

  ‘You’ve got a splodge of toffee apple on your cheek,’ she managed, a trifle breathlessly, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand and grinned.

  ‘I’ve had a very good time.’

  ‘Not like Manhattan, huh?’

  ‘Not the least like Manhattan. I’ve never had a day like this in my life.’

  ‘Do you want supper?’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ He was standing in the doorway looking big and tousled. His long socks were down at his ankles, his legs were bare and there were grass stains on his kilt. And his hair had hay in it. He looked…he looked…

  Cut it out, she told herself desperately. Don’t look!

  ‘I’ve been judging the cooking,’ he told her, still with that grin that had her heart doing those crazy somersaulting things she didn’t understand at all. ‘They made me honorary adjudicator, which means I’ve tasted scones, plum cakes, sponge cakes…you name it, I’ve tasted it. Some of it was truly excellent.’

  ‘What makes you a judge?’

  ‘It’s the kilt,’ he told her wisely. ‘Anyone wearing a kilt like this has to know a lot about cooking. A lot about everything, really. That’s why they have the House of Lords in England.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘If you’re a lord then you get to be an automatic Member of Parliament,’ he told her. ‘I read it somewhere. I haven’t figured out whether it applies to me or not, but I guess inheriting earldomship must make me wise in some respects.’

  ‘Like in judging scones.’

  ‘That’d be it,’ he told her, and all of a sudden they were grinning at each other like fools. The atmosphere had changed and it was somehow…

  Different.

  She hadn’t felt like this since Rory had died, she thought, and suddenly she felt breathless. Traitorish?

  No. Free. It was like a great grey cloud, which had settled on top of her for the last two years, had lifted and she felt…extraordinary.

  ‘You don’t mind that Marcia’s coming?’ he said, and she caught herself and forced her stupid, floating mind back to earth with a snap.

  ‘Of course I don’t. This is your house.’

  ‘I should have told you.’

  ‘There was no need. There’s plenty of room. And as I said, I can always move out.’

  ‘I don’t want you to move out…yet.’

  Good. Great. She thought about it and wondered if she was being entirely sensible.

  ‘I need to go,’ she said a trifle uncertainly, rising and moving toward the door.

  ‘To America?’

  ‘Not tonight.’ She managed a smile but the frisson of something different was still in the air and she felt strange. This was crazy. This man was engaged to someone called Marcia and she’d have nothing to do with him after she left here. But today… Today he’d made her smile and he’d made everyone here smile, too. She was under no illusions as to how sad a day it would have been for everyone if Hamish hadn’t been here, but he’d bounced around the fair having fun, charming old ladies, eating too many scones and toffee apples, looking fabulous in his kilt. He’d given the locals something to talk about, something to smile over, and even when he left in a few weeks, even though he’d sell the castle, today had been a gift.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said simply.

  ‘Thank you?’

  ‘For today. Everyone loved having a laird for the day.’

  ‘It was my pleasure.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘It was,’ he said.

  And there it was again. Bang. Like in the comics, she thought a little bit helplessly. Wham, bang, zing, splat.

  ‘Good night, my lord,’ she said simply, and he put out a hand and took hers. And winced.

  The gesture had been a friendly good-night touch, but as she took his hand in hers and felt its warmth, touched his s
trength, she also felt something else.

  ‘Ouch,’ she said, turning his palm over. And then she saw his palm and she repeated the word with feeling. ‘Ouch!’

  ‘It is a bit,’ he confessed, but she was no longer listening.

  ‘Oh, Hamish, your hands. You dope. You blistered them with digging and then to use the axe…’

  ‘We earls aren’t wusses.’

  ‘You earls are dopes,’ she told him. ‘I might have known. Angus was just like you. You know, we had to dress his oxygen canister up in tartan so he could go to his last fair without feeling like a wuss.’

  ‘I don’t have an oxygen cylinder,’ he said, startled, and she shook her head in disgust.

  ‘Not for want of trying. Hamish, these are awful.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ she said uneasily. ‘I’ve been trying to ignore them all day.’

  ‘Right. Ignoring them why? Waiting for your hands to drop off?’

  ‘My hands are not going to drop off.’

  ‘There’s ten blisters on this hand,’ she said, hauling it closer to get a better look. ‘And there’s a splinter in this one. And another. You great dope. I’ll ring Kirsty.’

  ‘Kirsty?’

  ‘My sister,’ she said, exasperated. ‘This needs medical attention.’

  ‘I’ll wash it,’ he said, as if granting an enormous concession. ‘That’ll fix it.’

  ‘It won’t fix it.’

  ‘If you tell me how bad it is one more time, I’ll cry,’ he said, like it was a huge threat, and she blinked and stared up at him in astonishment.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Um…no.’

  ‘I wouldn’t blame you if you did.’

  ‘I won’t. I have an aversion to the pastime.’

  ‘Well, don’t stick near me, then,’ she told him. ‘I cry all the time. Just looking at these makes me teary. You great hulking hero.’

  ‘Hero?’

  ‘Axing away with all of these.’ She was examining each blister, searching for more splinters, and the thought of him chopping wood, doing it to make the old ladies smile… That’s why he’d done it, she thought. She’d thought he’d done it because it had seemed fun but now, looking at these hands, she thought he’d done it because that’s what she’d asked him to do. Create a diversion from Angus’s death. Give the locals something else to think about it. He’d eaten scones, he’d chopped wood, he’d placed every eye on him and he’d made people smile.