The Bride Says No

by Cathy Maxwell

  “Sit, you bastards,” Laird Breccan said. The dogs immediately went down on their haunches, tongues hanging out.

  Noting Tara with a nod, Laird Breccan finished his instructions to the lad before giving him a leg up and sending him off to exercise with the others. He watched the rider a moment, then turned his full attention on Tara.

  She held her head high, pretending it was not unusual for her to be there.

  He approached.

  “My lady,” the laird said in greeting, “to what do I owe this pleasure?”

  He had a deep voice. He was also, she was surprised to note, younger than she had assumed. Of course, she’d never paid very close attention in the past, and with his shaggy dark hair and unshaven jaw, she wasn’t about to pay mind to him now.

  He wore work clothes, woolen tweeds locally sewn, and heavy boots that were good for marching through muck. He was brawny enough that he needn’t worry about padding or tailoring, although he would never be mistaken for a tulip of the ton or a Corinthian. Just the thought of him in a yellow waistcoat almost made Tara laugh.

  “I have a request from Father for Mr. Jamerson,” she said in her imperial voice, the lie coming easily to her.

  He laughed, the sound not pleasant. “Do you truly expect me to believe Tay sent his precious daughter, the one whose marriage portion will keep him gambling for life, on a mere errand? I’m no fool, lass. You’d be best to remember that.”

  “I needn’t remember anything, Laird,” Tara answered, “since it is not you I’m here to see.”

  He did not like her saucy response. Tara didn’t care.

  “You’d best mind your tongue,” he murmured.

  “Or the Campbells will be after me?” She laughed. “There is nothing you can do to me, Breccan Campbell, not if you want to give a pretense to being civilized.”

  Anger lit his eyes, and she was surprised to note they were gray, icy gray like Loch Tay on a winter’s day. Well, she didn’t care if he felt insulted. She had matters other than humoring him on her mind.

  And fortunately, Ruary came riding up on one of the exercise horses. He dismounted and said with some urgency, “My lady, what is it? Is there a problem at the stables?”

  She hadn’t thought he would equate her presence with being a matter for alarm, although it did work to her advantage, so she used it. “Yes, Mr. Jamerson. We need you. Can you leave with me right now?”

  Ruary looked to Laird Breccan. She couldn’t help but notice that Breccan was taller than Ruary by almost half a foot. “The lads are doing fine,” Ruary said. “May I leave?”

  “Will you be back later?” the laird said, his words clipped. He was obviously not happy.

  “If you wish, Laird.”

  “I do. I expect all that I’m due for the money I’m paying you.”

  “Are you not pleased with the results I have delivered, Laird?”

  Instead of answering, Laird Breccan glanced at Tara before he cautioned Ruary, “Be careful of that one.”

  Tara didn’t know whether to be offended or to laugh. She decided to ignore him. “Are you ready to leave, Mr. Jamerson?”

  “Aye, my lady.” He helped her mount Dirk, then gathered his own horse. Within minutes they were on the road.

  When they were out of sight of Campbell’s stables and alone on the road for Annefield, Ruary asked, “What is the problem? Why did you come fetch me?”

  In answer, Tara rode off the road into the shelter of trees beside a racing stream. She slid off Dirk.

  Ruary, too, dismounted. “What is it?” he asked again.

  She answered him by throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him with all she was worth.

  Chapter Thirteen

  For a good long moment, Ruary was distracted by the kiss. Tara had that much power over him.

  Tara Davidson was more than just a lovely woman. She was his first love, and she had returned for him. What man would not be flattered?

  Since yesterday afternoon, memories of her kisses had threatened his sanity.

  He wanted her; he didn’t trust her.

  She’d almost ruined him once and had left without a backward glance. And now? She felt good in his arms.

  Their kisses had always been deep and sweet. The driving force, the need to possess, beat in his loins.

  Ruary didn’t know where he found the power to break free of her kiss.

  “What is this about?” he managed to grind out, his voice harsh with his internal struggle.

  “Us,” she said, her eyes shining with happiness. “I am not going to marry Mr. Stephens.”

  Ruary took a step back, needing some distance from her warm, willing body so that he could think. “What do you mean?”

  “I caught my sister in his arms.” She said this with the joy of a child sharing a successful prank.

  But it didn’t make sense to Ruary. “Lady Aileen and your intended?”

  Everyone in the valley liked and respected Lady Aileen. She had shown herself to be a good and caring woman—and few who had met her husband, an English officer, had admired him. When word had reached Scotland of his death, a few had predicted darkly that his own men must have shot him.

  “I’m surprised,” Ruary said, his sense of honor offended. “Your intended has not wasted his time.”

  “Exactly. I’m so upset,” she confessed, tears welling in her eyes. He instinctively reached out to comfort her.

  She went to him willingly, wrapping her arms around his waist. She leaned her head against his chest. “I am thankful I have you.” She gave him a squeeze and said, “I will instruct Mr. Stephens to cry off. He will do as I wish, or I will tell all the world of what I saw.”

  “Why would you not end the betrothal?”

  Tara lifted her head to smile up at him. “Because it is better this way. People will think the worse of him and favor me. When we go to London and I introduce you, people will think well of you because you were my rescuer.”

  “Go to London?” Ruary wasn’t certain he understood her meaning.

  “Isn’t going to England something you always planned to do?” she asked.

  “Aye, to work horses. But I’ve been to London a time or two, and I’m not fond of it. I’d probably be in Newmarket when the races are.”

  “And I will be there with you,” she said eagerly. “I’ve thought this out. I have connections now, and your reputation is growing. We are no longer what we once were, too young to know of the world. People admire you, and I will see that all doors will be open to us. You will become famous. And I will be your happy wife.”

  She made it sound simple.

  It wasn’t.

  “What of Jane?”

  Tara shook her head. “Look at us. Look at how we are standing.” She leaned forward so that her breasts flattened against him. The tone of her voice warmed, silkened as she said, “Be honest, Ruary, you love me. And you are the only man I would sacrifice everything for. Haven’t I proven that? Would you be as happy with Jane?”

  The devil himself could not be more persuasive.

  Ruary was tempted to put his hands on her trim waist, to cover his lips and give in to the greedy hunger in his loins. She was an exciting woman. He could picture her in his bed, waking beside her every morning, seeing his bairn being held in her arms close to those luscious breasts she generously pressed into his chest—

  God help him. He couldn’t think.

  “I want you, Ruary,” she whispered. “You are my man. Do you ken? You are mine.”

  He wanted to be hers. He did.

  So it took a strength he never knew he had to place his hands on her arms and push her away while he took a step back.

  He needed the room to breathe and allow his brain a moment to think.

  “You would blackmail your sister for what you want?” he asked.

  Tara had been leaning toward him, held back by his hands. She had a dreamy expression on her face, and he knew she believed in the picture she’d been weaving for him .
. . so his question startled her.

  She frowned, annoyed. “Blackmail? That is an ugly word.”

  “It is an ugly thing you want to do,” he said.

  “How so?” she demanded, the spark of anger in her eye. Now she was the one to take a step back, shaking his hands off her arms.

  “You plan to make your intended cry off, a dishonorable action if ever there is one. The world will frown on him.”

  Her response was a shrug. “Is it better to say I caught him in my sister’s arms?”

  “I know the ways of the gentry. They would turn a blind eye—”

  “And you believe I should as well?”

  “Most wives in your class do,” he said.

  “Are you testing me? Are you wondering if my affections are true or not? Well, I’m not like most women, and I would think you would know that.”

  Her temper was rising. Tara could be as sweet as honey, but she had a sting as well.

  “I do, Tara. I know you very well, and what you are planning is not the action of the woman I know. Your sister would be destroyed if you tell people what you saw—”

  “What I saw is what happened. I didn’t ask her to kiss Mr. Stephens—”

  “She is not a light skirt, and well you know it.”

  “You are defending her?” Tara said.

  “Aye, I am. I like her. She’s a good woman. She has always been fair to me.”

  “Yes, she is a good woman, unless she is left alone with another woman’s man—”

  “Oh, please, Tara, you have no feeling for Stephens. You have been all over me since the day you arrived at Annefield.”

  “I love you—,” she started, but Ruary would have none of it.

  At last he had clarity. He understood. “You don’t love me.” Those words were surprisingly hard to say. They had been part of a fiction that he had wanted to believe and now realized was false.

  Tara reacted as if he had physically assaulted her. “How can you say that? Look at what I’ve done to prove my love to you.”

  “It would be so easy to believe you. Indeed, I think you believe yourself.”

  Her brows shot together. “How can you doubt me? Ruary, I don’t want to live without you.”

  He shook his head. “And do you think I am the sort of man who believes it is all right to threaten people to have my way? Especially family?”

  “I just want us to be together.”

  “Tara, there is no us.” The truth of those words rang through him. “Years ago, we were both too young and too naive.”

  “I’ve apologized. I didn’t realize what I was tossing aside—”

  “Yes, you did, Tara. You were the wise one. If we had run off the way I urged you to, then life would not be good for us. I would have given up everything I worked for and wouldn’t be able to support a dog, let alone a wife and bairns.”

  “You would be a wonderful husband.”

  “Aye, you are right—but not a wonderful one for you. The ‘what ifs’ would have destroyed what we felt for each other. And if I agreed to this scheme of yours, then maybe not now, but soon, what you’d done to your sister would play on you. I’ve watched you and Lady Aileen for many years. You are close. And take it from a man who doesn’t have family—blood is important.”

  Tara’s lips turned mutinous, but she did not challenge his words. She turned from him, staring off into the distance at what only she could see. He waited, caring enough about her to give her time.

  She swung her gaze back to him. “What was yesterday?”

  “The kissing? Wishful thinking.”

  Slowly, she lowered her head. For a moment, he thought she wept, but when she faced him, she was dry-eyed, and resigned. “What do I do now?”

  “Go back to Annefield and learn to be a good wife to Mr. Stephens. You’ve put the man through his paces, Tara. You owe him that.”

  “I don’t think he likes me overmuch.”

  “You have been a trial.”

  “I’m not talking about recently.” She shifted her weight. “He has never been particularly devoted to me. He certainly hasn’t kissed me in the manner he was holding Aileen.”

  “Then he is a fool.”

  She smiled as if agreeing with him. She was not a woman men said no to very often. He doubted if she’d ever heard the word until this last twenty-four-hour period. That would be hard on anyone.

  “Do you truly love Jane Sawyer?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he answered, realizing another truth. “I do. I didn’t at first. I still missed you, but as time passed, I’ve come to care for her very much.”

  A tear escaped the corner of Tara’s eye. She swiped at it with a gloved hand, looking away as if embarrassed, then said, “Well, then, you’d best be going.”

  “What of you? Can I escort you back to Annefield? Campbell expects me to go there with you, and he has demonstrated a shrewd ability to know everything that happens in the valley.”

  “I suppose we must then.” She walked over to her horse. “I don’t like him. He has no manners.”

  “Breccan doesn’t care what you think.”

  “He cares about having a better stable than Annefield’s. Do you think it loyal that you help him?”

  “I go where a man is willing to pay for my talent, Tara, nothing more, nothing less. Of course, it is always easier to deal with horses than it is men like Breccan and your father.”

  She nodded, and Ruary moved to help her mount. This was how it had begun for them. He’d been the stable lad who had held her horse. For a second, the poignancy of the moment gripped them both. She looked down at him, and he felt transported to that innocent time long ago when he’d first begun to dream of a life beyond his station.

  She broke the moment first. “Be good to Jane,” she whispered.

  “I will. You be kind to Mr. Stephens. He’ll have his hands full with you.”

  Tara laughed, the seriousness of the moment broken. “We shall see.”

  Ruary mounted, and they directed their horses out of the haven of the trees and back onto the road just as a rider came cantering from the direct of Laird Breccan’s estate. The rider pulled up at the sight of them.

  “Jane,” Ruary said in recognition and also in a moment of surprised guilt.

  Her horse pranced a step as she took in the sight of Ruary and Tara together. She’d seen them emerge from the trees.

  Indignation rose to her cheeks in two bright red spots, while the rest of her face turned pale. “Laird Breccan said I would find the two of you on this road.”

  “We are going to Annefield—,” Ruary started to explain, but she cut through his words.

  “Stop it. Don’t say another word. I’m done with it. You want her? Then have her. No more sneaking around and thinking folks don’t see. Well, I have pride, and I’ll not marry a man who is unfaithful.” She threw the words at him before putting heels to horse and galloping off.

  For a second, Ruary sat, stunned, then he charged after her.

  Ruary chased Jane all the way to her father’s smithy on the outskirts of Aberfeldy, but she would not see him. She went inside her house and refused to come out.

  Ruary pounded on the door. Finally her father came to him, iron tongs in his hands, and said, “You’d best leave, Jamerson. She’s done with you. Go back to your lover.”

  He spoke as if Ruary had been a stranger.

  Not only that, but Ruary’s shouting and beating on the door had gathered a crowd of villagers. He could tell by their expressions they had heard about his meetings with Tara.

  Too late he remembered there were no secrets in the valley.

  They had formed opinions and found him guilty. He’d lived amongst these people for a good twelve years of his life. They had treated him well. They had given him opportunities he would not have found anywhere else.

  But they now stared at him coldly.

  Their loyalties were to the smith and his daughter.

  Ruary left the doorstep, his heart heavy
.

  There is talk in town about your sister,” Sabrina said, entering the morning room, where Aileen was reading a book. Or rather, she was attempting to read it. She’d been studying the same book for the two days she had been at her cousin’s and had not made any progress. She had too much on her mind.

  Her uncle, Richard Davidson, was the local magistrate. His wife had just passed the year before. Her death had been hard on him and Sabrina. After the divorce, he’d not been accepting of Aileen’s friendship with his daughter. However, she was kin, and he would never completely turn her away.

  Besides his daughter, Richard had two sons, both serving in the military. Consequently, he relied on Sabrina as a hostess and housekeeper, since his portion was vastly inferior to his brother’s, the earl of Tay.

  Aileen had often suggested to the earl that he should increase his brother’s circumstances and offer him a living from the estate. However, the earl was not inclined to be generous. Not if he needed the money for his gambling.

  “Talk of Tara?” Aileen repeated, quickly forgetting the book.

  “I wasn’t certain whether to say something to you,” Sabrina said. She sat on the edge of the chair opposite Aileen. She had just returned from a walk into the village and still wore her wide-brimmed straw bonnet at a rakish angle.

  But right now, her manner was very serious.

  “Say something about what?” Aileen’s first thought was that Tara had denounced her. It was what she deserved. She should not have kissed Mr. Stephens, not in that manner.

  “They say she has been meeting the horse master. The one that works at Annefield.”

  “Oh.” Aileen couldn’t think of another word that was safe to say. Tara had been caught.

  Sabrina lowered her voice as if sharing a secret. “You know he and Jane Sawyer were having the banns read, but now she’ll have nothing to do with him. I saw Mr. Jamerson in the village. He was standing on the bridge. One can see Sawyer’s smithy from there, and they say Mr. Jamerson has been there day and night, just staring.” Sabrina focused her gaze, mimicking Mr. Jamerson’s expression. “They say he hasn’t moved.”

  “What does he want?”