To Wed A Wild Scot

by Bradley, Anna

  His smile disappeared. “I, ah…I need to speak with you alone, Lady Juliana.”

  Oh, no. Juliana’s heart twisted with dread. There was only one thing he could possibly need to say to her privately, and he didn’t look like a delighted prospective bridegroom. No, he looked like a man about to disappoint a lady—to crush her last hope, shatter her fondest dream.

  Logan Blair had made up his mind. He was going to refuse to marry her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Logan’s palms were sweating, and a bead of moisture dotted his forehead.

  He hadn’t thought he’d be nervous. It wasn’t as if he were a lovestruck suitor, offering for his beloved’s hand. That is, he was offering, but only because she’d offered hers first. He wasn’t about to bare his heart, or fall to his knees with desperate protestations of love and devotion on his lips. Their marriage was a necessity, not the passionate conclusion of a budding romance. He hadn’t any reason at all to be nervous.

  “Mr. Blair? What do you wish speak to me about?”

  Her eyes were greener than usual today. She was wearing a pale green dress made of some sort of light, floating material, and a wide green ribbon nestled amongst the shining tendrils of her hair. No dusty riding habit today. No soiled boots. Not a whiff of vomit or Ruthven Burn about her.

  Somehow, she’d emerged from the musty passageway looking as if she’d just climbed out of the bath. He leaned toward her and took a cautious sniff, and his stomach tightened.

  She smells like springtime.

  He’d never seen her look more beautiful, and all at once he became painfully aware his coat was rumpled, his hair was damp with sweat from his ride, and his boots were streaked with mud.

  She looked like a breath of fresh air, a warm spring day, and he…he looked like he’d spent the morning mucking out the stables. Likely smelled like it, too.

  Logan blew out a breath. Damn it, this wasn’t even a real proposal, but it was already turning out to be a devil of a business. He hadn’t the first idea how to go about it. If he hadn’t already known she’d say yes, he’d probably have fallen into a swoon by now. He huffed out a breath, disgusted with himself.

  “You seem distressed, Mr. Blair. Perhaps now isn’t the best time to talk.”

  She tried to dart past him, but Logan caught her by the elbow. “No, no, I’m…will you take a walk in the gardens with me, Lady Juliana?” It had rained all morning, but now the sun was peeking through the clouds.

  To his surprise, her face paled. “The gardens? You chased me down a tunnel to ask if I’d walk in the gardens with you?”

  Another bead of sweat trickled down Logan’s neck. He had a vague idea the gardens might be the right setting for a proposal, but she looked faintly ill, much as she had when she’d seen the rats in the secret passageway.

  Still, he couldn’t propose to her here. For all he knew, Finlay and Brodie Munro could be hiding behind the library shelf right now, listening to every word he said and laughing themselves sick. “A short walk only, my lady.”

  Her shoulders slumped. She took the arm he offered and let him lead her out into the formal gardens, but she looked like a prisoner being led to her execution rather than a lady out for a stroll among the roses.

  Once they were outside and Logan could drag in a few breaths of fresh air, his confidence returned. It was a simple enough thing, really. All he had to do was tell Lady Juliana he agreed to the marriage, wave off her gratitude, and then they could go on much as they’d done before.

  Except hopefully there’d be more kissing…

  He turned to her, determined to have the thing done, but as soon as he got a close look at her, the words died on his tongue. Her eyes were downcast, her lips turned down, and an anxious furrow rested between her brows. She’d hardly spared the garden a glance, and she’d gone suddenly quiet once they left the library.

  This wasn’t a promising start, and Logan’s nerves came rushing back. Should they have remained in the library? He thought she’d find the masses of rosebuds spilling from the neat rows of arbors romantic, but she didn’t even seem to notice them. “Don’t you like the gardens, Lady Juliana?”

  She started, and glanced up at him. “They’re lovely, of course. I especially like the, ah…the lavender.”

  Logan didn’t think she could be that impressed with the lavender, given every garden from Exeter to Perth was smothered in it. “Aye, the lavender is…” Damn it, he didn’t care about the cursed lavender. He couldn’t think of a single word to say about it. “I wanted to speak to you about our—”

  “Wait, Mr. Blair! I mean, these gardens don’t interest me. Will you take me to the wild gardens, instead? I’ve been longing to see the blue poppies the Highlands are famous for, and I believe they’re in bloom now.”

  “Aye, if you’d rather—”

  Logan didn’t get a chance to finish before she snatched his arm and dragged him through the formal gardens and onto a graveled path that wound toward the back of the castle. They crossed through the thick hedge that separated the wild gardens from the pathway. When she caught sight of the rough trails and riotous profusion of flowers, she let out a forlorn little sigh.

  “It’s lovely here, isn’t it?” She wandered ahead, heedless of the unevenness of the ground at her feet, and approached a patch of overgrown azaleas and rhododendron spilling onto the walkway. “What rich colors. This garden reminds me a bit of Rosemount. The gardens at Graystone Court are very grand, but the formal arrangement is off-putting, somehow, with rows upon rows of roses, all of them perfectly aligned. They’re beautiful in their way, of course, but I never much admired them.”

  Logan didn’t care about the roses at Graystone Court, but this was the longest speech she’d made since they left the house, so he pasted on an encouraging smile. “I thought all English ladies loved roses.”

  She shrugged. “Roses are fine, really. It’s not the flowers, but the rigid lines and fussy, manicured look of them I don’t care for. Flowers should grow in wild profusion, just like this. Don’t you think so?”

  “Aye. I like this garden better than any of the others at Castle Kinross. Here are the blue poppies.” Logan took her arm again and guided her carefully over the rutted pathway toward a blur of vibrant blue flower heads rising above a carpet of glossy green leaves. “The shade of blue varies. Some poppies are much paler, but we tend to get the deeper blue color in this garden.”

  Lady Juliana ran her fingertips gently over the delicate blooms. “I can’t imagine a prettier blue than this.”

  That pleased Logan, but she lapsed back into a pensive silence after that, and his smile gradually faded. He watched her as she wandered down the paths, stopping here and there to study a plant or caress a flower she particularly admired.

  The grim line of her mouth had relaxed, but she wasn’t smiling. Her lips were turned down, and her eyes were dull. She looked…sad.

  He’d seen Lady Juliana in a temper, her green eyes flashing. He’d seen her smile and scowl, and he’d watched her face as she drifted off to sleep. He’d seen her dirty, creased, and covered with dust, and he’d seen her soaked to the skin.

  But he’d never seen her sad before.

  It was…oddly unbearable.

  It shouldn’t matter to him. If he’d been asked to explain why it did, he couldn’t have. He only knew he couldn’t offer her his hand while she looked so melancholy. It didn’t mean anything, of course. Really, his hesitation had nothing to do with Lady Juliana at all. It was just…well, what man wanted to propose to such a dejected-looking lady?

  He drew in a deep breath. Perhaps she’d smile again, once they’d settled this marriage business. “You’ve been patient these last few days, Lady Juliana. I’ve made a decision, and I want to speak to you about—”

  “Ruthven Burn!” she shouted suddenly.

  Logan’s head jerked back. “Ru
thven Burn? I don’t…what about it?”

  “Doesn’t a section of it flow just beyond the walled garden? I long to see it again! Won’t you take me?”

  Logan stared down at her, baffled. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. The bank is slippery, and neither of us wants to take another swim in the burn.”

  She waved this away. “You needn’t worry about that. I’m very sure-footed, Mr. Blair. You’ve seen so yourself.”

  “Sure-footed, yes—right up until you tumbled into the burn.” He’d never get this damned proposal out if she fell into the burn again. He couldn’t ask for her hand when she was soaked and shivering. It wasn’t gentlemanly.

  “Nonsense. I wouldn’t have fallen at all if Fiona hadn’t jumped.” She tugged on his hand. “Come now, Mr. Blair. Take me to the burn.”

  This proposal was turning decidedly odd. Logan had a vague idea it wasn’t meant to go this way, but he allowed her to drag him through the wild garden to an old stone wall covered with moss and climbing ivy. A thick wooden door was set into a shallow recess in the wall, and he pulled back the sharp branches to clear a pathway for her.

  This section of the burn wasn’t as deep or as fast as the one by the Robertsons’ farm, but Lady Juliana seemed to be delighted with it. They wandered at the edge of it for some time, and she exclaimed over the enormous trees and lush greenery growing alongside the bank. She seemed happy enough to duck under branches and crawl over roots, no matter if her hems grew wet, and her shoes muddier with every step.

  She was interested in everything around her, and asked a number of questions, but she didn’t chatter at him, and she didn’t insist on foolish points of propriety. She never blinked when she was obliged to hike up her skirts and clamber over a branch or root. Logan, who was walking behind her, caught more than one breathless glimpse of a pretty ankle and calf.

  He had no idea how they’d ended up mucking about out here, but despite his confusion, he couldn’t prevent the smile that curved his lips as he studied her. Her dainty, pale-green dress was spoiled by a streak of dirt across the front of the bodice from an errant tree branch, and there was a tiny tear in one of her sleeves. She hadn’t been wearing a bonnet when they left the library, and now…he peered more closely at her, and his grin widened. Long tendrils of hair were tumbling over her shoulders, and several leaves had gotten tangled in the silky strands.

  Lady Juliana seemed reluctant to leave, so they wandered for a while, until at last she agreed to leave the burn behind, and they made their way from the woods back into the walled garden at one side of the castle. Logan had intended to take her back to the formal gardens and force his proposal out, but then he hesitated, recalling something.

  There was a place in the garden—a special place, enough out of the way he was sure Juliana hadn’t seen it before—and all at once it struck him as the only place in the world he could ask for her hand. It was a foolish, romantic notion, so much so he was surprised at himself, but once the idea was there he couldn’t shake it free. “I have something else to show you I think you’ll like, if you’re not fatigued.”

  Her gaze met his. He thought he caught a flash of apprehension in the green depths, but she looked away before he could be certain. “I’m not fatigued,” she said in a small voice.

  “All right, then. Follow me.” He led her back toward the wild garden and down a path they hadn’t explored the first time. When they neared the end, he took her arm. They were coming up on the arch, and he wanted to see her face when she first caught sight of it.

  She paused at the end of the pathway, and a soft gasp escaped her lips.

  Logan hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until he saw her reaction, and it left his lungs in a quick burst. “Do you like it?” He could see she did, but he wanted to hear her say it.

  “Like it? It’s beautiful.” She gazed up in wonder at the mass of bright yellow flowers dangling in clusters over her head. “My goodness. I’ve never seen anything like it before. What sort of flowers are these?”

  “Laburnum. This is the Laburnum Arch. The trees are trained to grow over the arched frame underneath. See?” Logan brushed a few flowers aside to show her. “When the flowers bloom they fall in a cascade, and it creates a tunnel effect.”

  She reached up and dragged a finger across one of the lacy golden blooms. “They’re so pretty.”

  “They are. You’d never guess they’re poisonous, would you?”

  She snatched her hand back. “Poisonous! Are they, indeed?”

  “Very, but only if you eat them. Poisonous enough to kill a small child.”

  She gasped. “Surely that’s never happened? No child ever died, did they?”

  “No, but there was one child foolish enough to defy his father’s orders to never put any part of the tree near his mouth.”

  She cast a sidelong glance at him, and a small smile crossed her lips. “Well, he sounds like a very naughty little boy. How old was he at the time?”

  “About eight. Old enough to know better.”

  “Hmmm. Why do you suppose he’d do something so foolish?”

  Logan reached up, plucked one of the clusters of yellow blooms and held it in his palm. “Because he’d been warned against it, of course. He was the sort of stubborn lad who’d do a thing for no other reason than he’d been told not to.”

  Her smile faded. “Was he also the sort of child who’d refuse to do a thing, simply because someone asked him to?”

  Logan shrugged. “Sometimes, yes.”

  “A child as obstinate as that must have grown into an equally obstinate man,” she said, watching him intently.

  “Some say so. I think you would.”

  Her face fell, and she looked away from him. “I see. Well, what happened to him after he ate the flowers? Did he become very ill?”

  “He spent the next few days frothing at the mouth and casting up his accounts, but that was nothing to the thrashing his father gave him when he recovered at last.”

  “Ah. Did he learn his lesson? I hope he wasn’t so foolish again.”

  He crushed the flowers in his palm, then tossed them to the ground. “No, he generally stays far away from this tree.”

  She titled her head back to gaze at the flowers and let out a little sigh. “Well, aside from the poisoning, I think it must have been wonderful to have been a child here. I suppose there were always a great many of you running about?”

  There had been. Logan had never been lonely, despite having grown up without his twin brother, and without any other siblings. The children he’d played with had grown into adults, and now they had children of their own, all of whom romped in this garden just as he had when he was a boy. It was the reason the people of Clan Kinross were so connected to each other, and to this land. They were bound together by generations and centuries of shared history, with the land bred into their very bones.

  Whether Fitz could become a part of that shared history remained to be seen. For the clan’s sake Logan prayed he would, because soon he wasn’t going to be here to act as their laird.

  He glanced down at Lady Juliana. Her face was turned up to his, her expression oddly wistful. “Yes, there were always children running about. But you look sad, bòcan. Were you a lonely child?”

  “Lonely? No. I had my brother Jonathan. I was very fond of him, and of course I also had Fitzwilliam. But mine wasn’t a carefree childhood, either. My father is a stern man, Mr. Blair. A good man, but stern, and conscious of propriety. We weren’t permitted to run free.”

  An unfamiliar tightness seized his chest at the forlorn look on her face. Without thinking, he impulsively reached up, plucked another yellow bloom from the tree and offered it to her. “Here. Will you have a taste? It’s never too late to behave like a wicked child, Lady Juliana.”

  She accepted the flower from his hand, but she didn’t smile. “No, thank you.
I prefer to confine my wickedness to something that won’t poison me.” She twirled the flower between her fingers, staring down at it as if lost in thought. “I do worry about Grace, though,” she murmured after a moment.

  Her voice was so soft Logan had to lean closer to hear her. “What do you worry about?”

  “That she’ll be lonely. I love Rosemount above all other places, but it’s quiet there. Nothing like Castle Kinross. There aren’t dozens of children running about, and it’s unlikely Grace will ever have a sibling.” A blush rose in her cheeks.

  “You can’t know that.” Neither of them could. The thought should have terrified him, but instead some unexpected emotion swelled in his chest. He couldn’t name it, precisely, but it felt like…hope.

  She drew a deep breath, tossed the flower aside and met his gaze. “I don’t think you came looking for me today to take me for a walk in the garden, Mr. Blair. I think you brought me here to tell me you won’t marry me. I suppose you’d better get on with it.”

  Logan went still. She thought he was going to refuse her? Was that what had put the shadows in her eyes? It had never occurred to him she’d think so, but now, looking back over the past few days he realized she couldn’t have believed anything else.

  Being near Juliana muddled his thoughts. He’d been avoiding her so he could untangle them, but she didn’t know that. All this time he’d been sorting himself out, she’d been giving way to despair.

  He placed two fingers under her chin and tipped her face up to his. “I didn’t ask you to walk with me today so I could refuse you, Juliana.”

  She swallowed. “You didn’t?”

  “No. I came looking for you to tell you…to ask you to be my wife.”

  For a moment she seemed not even to breathe, but then a soft sob escaped her lips. “I don’t…I don’t know what to say.”

  He smiled, but his heart was threatening to leap from his chest. “Say yes, lass.”