The Bride Says No

by Cathy Maxwell

  Images rose in Aileen’s mind: Geoff’s shouts, the burst of pain, the anger of society, the moment when another man’s touch gave her hope—

  She opened her eyes with a start. Even her pulse had picked up its pace. She stared at the room’s comfortable furniture, torn between fear and desire. She need no longer be afraid. What had happened had been a long time ago.

  But what of her deepest yearnings and the craving for affection that were part of every woman’s soul? Those she fought by grounding herself in Annefield’s blessed peace and the daily list of duties that kept her occupied.

  And self-pity, her constant companion if she allowed it to linger, could only be staved off by a bit of exercise.

  Aileen rose from her chair and left the room, but her thoughts as she walked away were on Tara. Good, sweet Tara.

  Out of all that had happened over the last nine years, losing her half sister’s trust and affection had hurt Aileen the most because she knew her own culpability. She’d gone to London in search of love while turning her back on the one person who had loved her most of all. Why, she hadn’t even written Tara over all those years of separation. In the beginning, she’d been too preoccupied with her own life and then, later, too ashamed.

  Aileen fetched her gloves and a wide-brimmed straw hat from her room and went downstairs into the front hall.

  “Going for your walk, my lady?” Ingold asked. The butler was a huge, hulking man with a thatch of blondish gray hair on his head and a cold manner when he wished it.

  “I believe I shall,” she answered.

  And after I take my walk, then what? My life is empty.

  The cynicism of the thought threw her out the door. She needed to stop this nonsense. It was what it was. A Davidson never complained. That was one thing her father had taught his daughters—

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the sight of a lad wearing a misshapen hat pulled low over his eyes boldly striding across the front lawn straight for the front door.

  As she pulled on her gloves, Aileen frowned. Something about this boy caught her attention. He seemed familiar . . . but she couldn’t place how, since she was certain she didn’t recognize him.

  His clothes were a size too large and had seen better days. The shirt was filthy, and the jacket had tears at the sleeve seams. The boots were so tall they were well over the lad’s knees, but the leather was thin and worn in such a way that the height didn’t hamper his movement.

  The lad carried a huge portmanteau that appeared half his size. That was made out of good, expensive leather and was out of character with the way the boy dressed.

  Perhaps a neighbor was having him deliver something to Annefield?

  Aileen knew her neighbors and their servants. This boy was not one of them.

  And if he was and she was wrong, the lad should have better sense than to approach the front door. Annefield was one of the premier estates in the Tay Valley, and servants used the side entrance.

  Catching sight of Aileen watching him, the boy stopped at the edge of the front drive. He dropped the portmanteau on the ground with the finality of someone who had reached the end of a long journey and could not take a step more. A smile split his face, a smile that made Aileen’s heart stop in its familiarity—

  No, it couldn’t be.

  “Hello, Leenie,” the boy said. He spread his arms. “I’m home.”

  Aileen stared hard, her mind rejecting what her eyes were seeing.

  The lad realized her confusion and laughed as he came toward her. “I imagine I’ve surprised you. It has been almost three years. The bag is full of dresses. Who would have thought they could weigh so much? I almost tossed the whole lot a time or two before I reached Annefield. But I would have been sorry, as well you know.”

  He was no lad. He was her sister.

  Dressed as a boy.

  In smelly clothes. The wind carried a whiff of their odor right to Aileen. And she was more confused than before.

  Lady Tara Davidson, feted as the “Helen of London” because of the number of hearts she had broken, would not be strolling around the Scottish countryside carrying her own luggage and wearing clothes bearing someone else’s body odor. From everything Aileen had heard about her, Tara would just not countenance such a thing.

  And then Tara solved the matter once and for all by pulling the hat off her head. Her hair had been braided and coiled around her head, creating the odd shape. Now her braid fell past her shoulder in one long, thick rope of honey red hair.

  Aileen almost collapsed in shock.

  Tara had the grace to blush even as she moved forward to embrace her older sister, but Aileen held her off with a raised hand.

  “I believe you are to marry come Saturday?” Aileen said. “In London?”

  The smile vanished from Tara’s face. “I don’t believe I shall be there.”

  “Does the bridegroom know?” Aileen feared the answer.

  Tara’s vivid blue eyes shifted to the row of firs bordering Annefield’s lawn. A rook flew away and her gaze followed it a moment, the line between her brows deepening before she faced Aileen and said, “He should have an idea by now.”

  “You jilted him? And the earl?” Aileen asked, referring to their father. “Did you tell him?”

  Tara’s jaw hardened. “What do you think? Would you have told him?”

  “Oh. Dear.” Aileen found it hard to breathe. “Please, Tara, don’t tell me you have run away.”

  “Very well, I won’t.”

  Aileen didn’t know how to respond.

  At her shocked silence, Tara said, “I don’t know why you seem so put out. After all, you weren’t invited to attend.”

  “That has nothing to do with the matter,” Aileen said. “You are about to jilt the son of one of the most powerful dukes in England—”

  “His illegitimate son,” Tara emphasized. “There is a difference.”

  “Not much since Penevey has recognized him.”

  Tara made an impatient sound. “Recognize him? Yes, he did—as his bastard. And all the chats of society may flatter me to my face, but I know what they say behind my back. I’m Scottish, a gambling fortune hunter’s daughter. They are happy for this marriage because it saves their precious sons from me and their whey-faced daughters from Mr. Stephens. Not that I care. Not anymore.” She started to move into the house, but Aileen blocked her path.

  “There will be the devil to pay for this, Tara—and don’t think that because you are here you will escape it.”

  Tara’s shoulders straightened. A flash of fire came to her eyes, but in the next second, huge, luminous tears filled them. Aileen was caught off guard by the sudden change. “I thought if anyone should understand, you would,” Tara said. “I can see I was wrong—”

  The front door behind Aileen opened. Ingold said, “Lady Aileen, is there a difficulty? Is this lad giving you—”

  His voice broke off and his eyes widened as he had a good look at exactly whom Aileen had been speaking with. “Lady Tara?” he said in wonder. Tara had always been his favorite. Aileen was respected, but Tara had always been favored by all the servants at Annefield.

  Tara’s tears disappeared. “Yes, it is I, Ingold. I’m home. Home at last.” She bounded forward, moving past Aileen. “I need a bath. These clothes smell terrible. Tell Mrs. Watson to have one prepared for me. Oh, and the bag on the lawn is full of dresses. They must be aired and pressed. I’m heading for the kitchen, I’m famished.”

  She would have disappeared into the house except for Ingold filling the doorway. “Is the earl here as well?” the butler asked anxiously, looking around as if he expected their father with his coach and team to be hiding in the shrubbery by the side of the house. “And Mr. Stephens?”

  Tara hummed noncommittally before saying with great authority, “No, they are not here. They won’t be. I came alone.”

  That news surprised Ingold enough for her to slip by him, but Aileen was not about to let her off that easily. She set out af
ter her sister, pushing her own way past the butler.

  Tara was already down the hall. She seemed to quicken her step as she sensed Aileen behind her. Bullying and ordering her way might do the trick with the servants, but it would not work with her older sister. Still, Aileen didn’t catch up with Tara until she was down the back stairs and into the kitchen.

  “Fresh bread,” Tara said with delight as she reached for one of the loaves Cook had cooling on the wooden table in the center of the room. Without ceremony, she pulled it apart and stuffed it into her mouth.

  Cook and the scullery maid had turned at the entrance of a stranger. Cook raised the wooden spoon she had been using to stir the pot over the fire, ready to defend her loaves of bread, when she recognized Tara. Her manner changed in an instant. “My lady? Is that you? Oh, blessed beings, it is. You have been gone too long from us.”

  Her mouth full of bread, Tara smiled, as beatific as an angel. “This is delicious, Cook,” she said around chews. “Better than any I’ve ever tasted, even in London.”

  Cook preened. “You know my mother taught me how to bake that bread. Our family secret. Will carry it to my grave—”

  “Excuse us,” Aileen ordered, grabbing Tara’s arm and swinging her sister out the door toward the steps.

  Tara grunted her farewell to Cook, since her mouth was full.

  Aileen propelled Tara halfway up the stairs and stopped, so incensed with her sister that she could not go a step further. “What do you think you are doing?” she demanded.

  “Eating,” Tara said, and that flippant reply set Aileen’s temper off.

  “Listen, missy, enough of this. Why are you here? Why aren’t you in London preparing for your wedding? How did you even travel here?”

  Tara swallowed and drew a deep, satisfied breath before saying, “I’m here because I live here, and I rode the mail coach. That is how I traveled.”

  “Dressed in men’s clothing?” Aileen was incredulous when she imagined the dangers.

  “I didn’t want anyone to recognize me,” Tara said as if it was obvious. “And I must say, there is much freedom in being a man. But you are right. I need to remove these clothes.” She would have started up the stairs, but Aileen grabbed the hem of Tara’s jacket.

  “Why?” she demanded of her younger sister. “And don’t accuse me of wrongdoing for asking questions. I’m not someone you can twist around your finger.”

  For a second, Tara’s expression let her know she resented the challenge, but then the defensiveness left her. She leaned a shoulder against one wall, her hip resting on the bannister. With sober eyes, she said, “Because I started thinking.”

  “About what?” Aileen pressed.

  “About happiness.”

  “Go on.”

  Tara made a frustrated sound and then said, “Oh, be honest, Leenie, don’t you wish you’d questioned yourself more before you married Geoff?”

  At the mention of her divorced husband, Aileen took a step away. “I couldn’t have known what a terrible man he was before we wed. I didn’t know. But if I had, if I’d realized how cruel he was, yes, I would not have married him. Are you saying Mr. Stephens is as harsh?”

  A frown formed between Tara’s eyes. She picked at the bread, dropping crumbs to the floor. “He isn’t completely like Geoff. I mean, I don’t think he would hurt me.”

  Aileen didn’t realize she had been holding her breath, waiting for her sister’s answer, until she released it. Tara was a canny one. She knew exactly which approach to take to gain sympathy. Of course, Aileen would not wish for her sister the hell that her marriage had been, but now she wondered with concern about when her charming little sister had become so manipulative. Of course time and distance had played their tricks. The two of them, who had once been so close, were now practically strangers.

  Still, Aileen wanted to believe Tara had good reason to be here. “Tell me. Explain to me. You want me on your side, and I understand that what is done is done. You realize you are ruined, don’t you? Jilting the groom is the worst sort of offense, even if no one had liked him, which I understand is not the case with Mr. Stephens. He is respected. There is no way you can return to London.”

  Tara flicked a few more crumbs to the floor, the corners of her mouth tightening.

  Aileen placed her hands on her sister’s shoulders and leaned forward so that Tara had no choice but to face her. “You are fine with becoming an outcast?”

  “You’ve managed.”

  “Yes, I have. But it isn’t easy being the black sheep of the family.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tara whispered, sounding as if she truly meant the words. “I wish the whole matter, the divorce, Geoff, all of it, hadn’t been so terrible on you.”

  “The terrible part was being his wife,” Aileen said. “I can live with the rest as long as I have my freedom. And,” she added, “life is more pleasant here in the valley than it was in London. Our cousin Sabrina offered staunch support, and few are willing to cross her.”

  “That is good to know,” Tara said. “I worried.”

  Aileen didn’t know if she believed her.

  In Tara’s defense, her wisest course had been to distance herself as far as she could from Aileen. The scandal wasn’t just that Geoff had divorced her, an act that required a vote of Parliament. No, the worst part had been the Criminal Conversation trial—also called the Crim Con—that had preceded the divorce, during which he’d publically branded Aileen as an adulteress for her affair with Captain Peter Pollard, one of Geoff’s fellow military officers.

  And now, in one of life’s unexpected twists, here was Tara, running to the haven of Annefield just as Aileen once had.

  “Why, Tara? What drove you here?”

  For a long moment, Tara studied the remains of the bread in her hands, then she said, “The closer the time came for my wedding, the harder I found it to breathe.”

  “Do you not like Mr. Stephens?” Aileen asked.

  There was a beat of silence. Then Tara answered, “He is pleasant.”

  “That is not the strongest recommendation for a groom,” Aileen said. “But it is not a bad quality in a husband.” She knew. Geoff had not been pleasant.

  “I needed to come home.”

  “You could have come home after the wedding.”

  “It wouldn’t be the same.”

  “Tara, tell me your story,” Aileen said in a voice only an older sister could use. “You could have cried off. There would have been talk, but if you truly had no desire to wed, it is what should have been done. Instead, you have humiliated Mr. Stephens, and men don’t respond well to that.”

  Tara’s mouth took on a mutinous set. She was hiding something, keeping her true motives to herself and evading Aileen’s questions.

  “Did you even bother to leave a note for the earl?” Aileen asked. “Does he know where you have gone?”

  Before Tara could answer, there was a footstep on the stair below them. Two lads from the stable were starting up the stairs with buckets of hot water, probably for Tara’s bath.

  The women stepped aside and let the boys pass. If Tara felt any discomfiture at being seen by the servants in male attire, she was too stubborn to admit it.

  But the stable lads were embarrassed. Bright color flooded their faces, and Aileen could just imagine what they were thinking . . . and she wondered if Tara remembered, after the sophistication of London, how provincial life and morals were in the valley. If she didn’t, she would quickly receive a dose of reality.

  Alone again, Tara said to Aileen, “No, I didn’t leave a note. I didn’t want Father to stop me. Mr. Stephens is paying a fortune to marry me.”

  Aileen sighed. Geoff had done the same. The earl knew how to auction off his daughters.

  “So you ran away from the marriage to humiliate the earl?” Aileen asked, begging to understand.

  “I don’t wish to humiliate anyone. And don’t give a thought to Mr. Stephens. He didn’t want to marry me any more than I wanted
to marry him.” Tara unceremoniously shoved the bread in her pocket and yanked off her jacket. She started up the stairs.

  “Then why did he ask you?” Aileen said, following.

  “For the same reason they all do. They know they must marry. It is expected. And I—” Tara stopped, as if troubled by a thought. “And I am—or was—the prize. When one man wants a woman, they all want her. It is much like the bidding on Father’s horses. One buyer has a notion that he must possess one of our nags, and then they all want the exact same horse—even though Father has several in the stable just like it or even better. It is the way men think,” she decided, moving up the stairs again, saying as she went, “Mr. Stephens’s brother was one of my suitors. The marquis has such an affected manner I would never have married him.” She shook her head. “He always smelled of the worst cologne. He also gambled, and lost consistently.”

  “Like the earl.”

  “Exactly,” Tara agreed. “Except he had access to Penevey’s resources. Father favored the marquis until, all of a sudden, Mr. Stephens swooped in and offered more. You know how it is. Geoff’s father paid handsomely to marry him to you.”

  He had.

  “Besides,” Tara continued, “Mr. Stephens was a prize himself. So many women had set their caps for him that I was flattered he would pursue me. And he did chase me, Leenie. He was persistent.”

  “So you wanted to marry him?”

  “I told myself I did. But in truth, Father pressured me for the match, and it did appeal to my vanity.”

  Tara had not stopped at the ground floor but continued up the narrow winding back staircase to the family quarters. She opened the door and walked down the wide hall.

  “Then what changed?” Aileen asked.

  Facing her, Tara’s expression grew pensive. “Do you remember the conversation we had the day you left for London?”

  Aileen shook her head.

  “You spoke about love?” Tara reminded her softly. “You said you would only marry for love.”

  A hard weight settled in Aileen’s chest. “I remember the conversation. I was naive.” A silly Highland lass without much understanding of the world. “Please don’t tell me you shredded your reputation for my ridiculous notions.”