“What was?”
Slipping his arm beneath her neck, he hugged her head to his chest. “The marriage kilt was just an excuse to come to you.” He heard her draw breath, but he continued without pause. “I’m grateful to Lady Valéry for that, although I imagine she sent me off for no other reason than the fact she was heartily sick of having me stomp around her home. You see, the recording of Scottish traditions is the only thing that moves me to passion.” With his hand on her back, he urged her closer. “Or, shall I say, the only thing that had formerly moved me to passion.”
Andra cleared her throat before she spoke, and she sounded tremulous and unsure. “I haven’t said, but I think it’s a noble thing you do.”
It didn’t surprise him that she avoided any mention of his ardor for her, and it much pleased him that she snuggled against him without a struggle. Her mind had not accepted the truth of her new circumstances, but her body understood very well. “I don’t know that loving you is noble, since I have no choice, but it is challenging.”
Her hand hovered over his chest, touching down several times before settling on the place over his heart. “I didn’t mean—”
“The thing is, I couldn’t comprehend why you had rejected me in such a callous manner, but now that you’ve explained, I see the problem.”
“I explained?” Her fingers clutched the hair on his chest.
Gently, he loosened them. “So—references. I’m willing to get you references.”
“For what?” Her voice rose a pitch.
“To say that I am a steady man, not given to flights of fancy nor fits of infatuation.” The darkness of a Scottish night in the midst of the Highlands was blacker than any Hadden had ever encountered, and that darkness cloaked the tower now. He could see nothing but the square of star-bespeckled night sky through the window, but he read Andra’s confusion and fear without difficulty. “Lady Valéry, who has known me since I came into her household at the age of nine, would give me such a reference.”
“Lady Valéry.”
Andra’s parrotlike performance made him grin. He’d turned her upside down. Now he was shaking her, and if he were lucky, when she regained her balance she would see their future as he saw it. Discreetly keeping all amusement out of his tone, he said, “You’ve met Lady Valéry, I believe, on one of her jaunts through the Highlands, and would admit that she is a woman of honor.”
She squirmed. “Of course, but I don’t understand why you think these references would be important to me.”
He ignored that. She did know, and if she wanted to play the dunce, then he could do the same. “I can also offer Sebastian Durant, Viscount Whitfield. Now you might not know him, but I assure you—”
“I met him at the christening of the MacLeod son.”
“Ah.” She knew Ian and Alanna. Another link between them. “Ian MacLeod is my cousin.”
“He’s charming.”
Hadden could hear the smile in her voice, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one bit. “Only if you like dark-haired, handsome men with a shade too much seductiveness.”
She slid one leg across and nestled her calf between his. “I didn’t think he was too seductive.”
“I had to thrash Ian once when he tried to take advantage of my sister.” Hadden caught her thigh and pulled her tightly against him. “I can do it again.”
“So you’re given to violence.”
She still wore her garters, he realized, and he untied the one. “I defend my own.”
She gave a funny little trill, and he realized she was giggling. “He’s married, Hadden, and he can’t take his gaze off his wife. If you trounce him, he’d likely wonder why.”
“Humph.” He knew she was right. Ian didn’t give a damn about anything except Alanna and their children and Fionn-away Manor. But, damn it . . .
“Viscount Whitfield?” she prompted.
He couldn’t allow himself to be distracted by an absurd surge of jealousy. Not when his goal loomed so close. “Sebastian.” He rubbed his chin on the top of her head and tried hard to focus. “One introduction to Sebastian, that’s all it takes, and you know he is a hard man with very little tolerance for injustice.”
“He scared me,” she admitted. “He’s too intense, and he watches his wife—”
“My sister.”
Andra’s head came up so fast, she cracked his jaw with her skull. “She’s your sister?” She rubbed her head. “Ow.”
“Yes. Ow.” He rubbed his chin. She was communicating, talking about his family, his friends, and not resisting him with every fiber of her being. A cracked jaw was a small price to pay.
“Of course.” She sounded excited. “You look like her! The hair and the eyes and the . . . you’re both handsome.”
“Well-formed?”
“Extremely,” she answered. “But unlike you, your sister is not conceited.”
“Ow,” he said again, although he wasn’t offended. She was teasing, treating him as normally as she had before he’d uttered those fatal words—marry me. It was another breakdown in her defenses, and he began to think that perhaps, just perhaps, his plan would succeed. “So Sebastian is my brother-in-law, and you might think he is prejudiced in my favor. But I assure you, he detests the Fairchilds—remember, I told you the family is the most dissolute bunch of blackguards you’ll find this side of Hell—and if I were like them, he would have no compassion for my suit. He would tell you I was unworthy and blast me for daring to court a lady of integrity. But he helped me go to university, and since then I’ve worked with him and for him, and you can trust him to tell you the truth.”
He paused and waited until she acknowledged, “I’m sure that he would tell nothing but the truth.”
“Exactly. And finally, I must offer my sister. There is no one else alive who has known me my whole life, so it has to be her.”
“For what reason?”
“Mary will gladly testify that I have never proposed to a woman before, not even when I was five and fancied myself quite a ladies’ man.”
“Oh.”
It was a tiny sound, and one he found infinitely fulfilling. “There’s Ian and Alanna I can call on to write me a reference. And the men and women I met and worked with in India, although those letters will take time to reach us, but all of them will say much the same thing.”
“That you’re not flighty in matters of the heart, and that you can be depended upon?”
“Very good.” He cradled her in both his arms, holding her as close as he could in the hope that, if the words did not reach her, the closeness would. “I will not leave you, no matter how you try to drive me away. I’m not your father or your brother or your uncle; I’m Hadden Fairchild, and I’ve never loved another woman, Andra, and I never will.”
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t return his vow of love, or say that she would read his references, or that she believed that he would remain with her always.
Yet neither did she protest his insight that the abandonment of her menfolk had created her terror of the bonds of affection.
He wasn’t satisfied, of course. What he sought was her absolute surrender. But he couldn’t force that, and he knew that he’d planted a new thought inside her head. That he was the man she could depend on.
Andra heard Hadden’s breath deepen as he slid into sleep. She noted that his grip on her did not loosen, and she was reminded of that other night they had shared. Even in the depths of sleep, the man held what he cherished. Did she believe he would do the same in the light of day when faced with the hardships of the life she led? He was a fine, well-traveled English gentleman, used to amenities. Even if he were to throw his fortune into Castle MacNachtan, it would be years before the conditions would be more than just tolerable. Did she believe he would remain with her regardless of the rugged living conditions? More important, could he shoulder the responsibilities of being her husband without shirking? And when they fought, as all married folk must, would he not flee back to Lond
on, but still come to her bed and kiss her good night?
She didn’t know the answers. Not really. Not even if she accepted the references he urged on her. Not even if she considered the man himself and all she knew of him. No matter what decision she made, she might lose.
Could she bear that? To perhaps once again see the back of a man she loved as he rode down the road away from her?
But one thing was certain: if she rejected his suit, she would see the back of him anyway.
With a sigh, she eased herself out of his embrace and slid over the top of him.
He came awake immediately and grabbed at her. “What are you doing?”
It might not be that easy to reject him, she realized. In fact—she bit her lip against a laugh—he’d even taken the extreme measure of spreading those fertility goddesses throughout the tower. If they worked . . .
“Andra,” he snapped, “where are you going?”
“I’m cold. I’m going to get another cover.”
He still held her as he debated, but he must have decided she couldn’t escape, for his fingers slid away and he grudgingly gave permission. “Don’t be long.”
“Gracious,” she muttered as she made her way across the room, and when she came back, tartan in hand, she wasn’t surprised when his hands came up to meet her.
* * *
Morning sunshine and the babble of voices assaulted Hadden, and he lay with his eyes and ears closed tightly against them. He didn’t care to be assaulted after a night spent on the floor on a makeshift bed trying to sleep with one eye open in case Andra made a dash for it.
She hadn’t. After that one trip after an extra blanket, she had curled up at his side and slept the sleep of the innocent.
Blasted woman. After waking up a few dozen times, he would have welcomed a wrestling match.
Now he was hungry and grumpy. Andra still warmed his side, so who the hell was running up and down the stairs and talking in those loud tones?
He opened his eyes—and made a grab for the tartans. “Mary, what are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” his loving sister answered.
Her critical blue gaze made him aware of his expanse of bare chest, and he glared at her as he pulled up the blankets. Then his gaze shifted to encompass Sebastian and Ian, and he prudently arranged the tartans over the already-covered Andra, adjusting them to her chin. “Where did everyone come from?” His mind leaped from suspicion to suspicion. “Is this Lady Valéry’s doing?”
“A woman of her age can’t climb the stairs.” Alanna held Ian’s arm and stroked the mound of her belly. “But she sent you her regards, and she invites you to bring your complaints to her.”
“If I were the lady Andra’s brother, I’d be forced to beat you for debauching so gentle a maid.” Sebastian rubbed his chin as if remembering a former trouncing.
“I’d help.” Ian rubbed his fist into his palm as if the thought pleased him.
Both the men owed him a drubbing, but Andra was tapping his shoulder, and Hadden didn’t have time for silly, manly challenges.
“Hadden,” Andra whispered, “what are all these people doing here?”
He almost groaned. How was he going to explain this to her when he couldn’t explain it to himself? The tower could scarcely contain the crowd; his relatives, some Scottish dignitaries he barely recognized, and Sima, Douglas, and the house servants.
“I couldn’t venture to say,” he mumured.
Taking in the scene, she decreed, “We need some privacy.” With, careful deliberation, she reached out, grasped the edge of one of the tartans, and pulled it over their heads.
The plaid was so thin that the light leaked through, and he could see Andra on the bolster beside him—Andra with her wild-woman hair and sleepy eyes and puckish smile.
“There it is,” he said inconsequentially.
She looked puzzled. “What?”
“Your smile. I was afraid you’d lost it.”
Her smile trembled and grew, and her eyes began to shine with the kind of light that gave him a smidgen of hope. “Are they here for the wedding?” she whispered.
My God, was she talking about what he thought she was talking about?
“Our wedding,” she clarified. “A wedding is usually the only reason you’ll see my cousin Malcolm anywhere near Castle MacNachtan. He’s afraid I’ll ask for money. And a wedding is free food and drink.” Hadden was still too dumb-founded to speak, so she added, “I saw his whole family out there. He’s very thrifty, you ken.”
Hadden caught her hand in his. “Andra, I swear I never planned this.”
“I’ll acquit you.”
“I seized the chance I was offered, and without regret, too, to tell you—”
She put her finger over his lips. “And tell me you did, in more ways than one. It’s a lot of sense you made, Hadden
Fairchild, and while I am still afraid, I love you enough to take the gamble.”
His heart, frozen and constricted for too long, expanded with joy. Taking her wrists, he reeled her in. “Andra . . .”
“If you’d look, you’d see that I’ve already accepted your proposal.”
He glanced around but could see nothing. Nothing except—he laughed aloud—over his head, the black and red and blue MacNachtan marriage kilt.
A Note from Christina Dodd
On a recent trip to Scotland, my family and I went looking for Brigadoon.
We didn’t find it. The mythical village that appears out of the mist only one day out of every hundred years proved elusive to us, but Scotland holds many treasures. In the Low-lands we found Lady Valéry’s eighteenth-century manor (or one much like I imagined), the original setting of Mary Fairchild’s story in A Well Pleasured Lady. On the wild west coast we explored an estate much like the one Ian Fairchild won—along with his wife—in A Well Favored Gentleman. Finally, in the midst of the Highlands, we discovered a moldering castle, and I remembered, Mary’s brother Hadden, a man badly in need of a story. When I came home to Texas, the stones of that castle rose in my mind, and I created Andra to be a mate to the incomparable Hadden.
I hope you enjoyed this tale, and as well as the Fairchild tales.
And I’ll see you in Brigadoon.
Rose in Bloom
Stephanie Laurens
One
Ballynashiels, Argyllshire
June 17, 1826
“What the devil are you doing here?”
Duncan Roderick Macintyre, third earl of Strathyre, stared, stupefied, at the willowy form bent over the piano stool in his drawing room. Sheer shock, liberally laced with disbelief, held him frozen on the threshold. A lesser man would have goggled.
Rose Millicent Mackenzie-Craddock, bane of his life, most insistent, persistent thorn in his flesh, lifted her head and looked up—and smiled at him, with the same, slightly lopsided smile with which she’d taunted him for decades. Her large, light-brown eyes twinkled.
“Good morning, Duncan. I’d heard you’d arrived.”
Her soft, lilting brogue washed over him, a warm caress beneath his skin. His gaze locked on the expanse of creamy breasts now on display, Duncan stiffened—all over. The reaction was as much a surprise as finding Rose here—and every bit as unwelcome. His jaw locked. Fingers clenched about the doorknob, he hesitated, then frowned, stepped into the room and shut the door.
And advanced on his nemesis with a prowling gait.
Holding the sheets of music she’d been sorting, Rose straightened as he neared—and wondered why the devil she couldn’t breathe. Why she felt as if she did not dare take her eyes from Duncan’s face, shift her gaze from his eyes. It was as if they were playing tag and she needed to read his intent in the cool blue, still as chilly as the waters of the loch rippling beyond the drawing-room windows.
They weren’t children any longer, but she sensed, quite definitely, that they were still playing some game.
Excitement flashed down her nerves; anticipation pulled t
hem taut. The room was large and long; even with her gaze fixed on Duncan’s face, she had ample time to appreciate the changes the last twelve years had wrought. He was larger, for a start—much larger. His shoulders were wider; he was at least two inches taller. And he was harder—all over—from his face to the long muscles of his legs. He looked dangerous—he felt dangerous. An aura of male aggression lapped about him, tangible in his stride, in the tension investing his long frame.
The lock of black hair lying rakishly across his forehead, the harsh angularity of his features and his stubbornly square chin—and the male arrogance in his blue eyes—were the same, yet much sharper, more clearly defined. As if the years had stripped away the superficial softness and exposed the granite core beneath.
He halted a mere two feet away. His black brows were drawn down in a scowl.
Forced to look up, Rose tilted her head—and let her lips curve, again.
His scowl grew blacker. “I repeat”—he bit off the words—“what the devil are you doing here?”
Rose let her smile deepen, let laughter ripple through her voice. “I’m here for Midsummer, of course.”
His eyes remained locked on hers; his scowl eased to a frown. “Mama invited you.”
It wasn’t a question; she answered nevertheless. “Yes. But I always visit every summer.”
“You do?”
“Hmm.” Looking down, she dropped the lid of the piano stool, then shuffled the music sheets together and stacked them on the piano.
“I must have missed you.”
She looked up. “You haven’t been here all that much these last years.”
“I’ve been tending to business.”
Rose nodded and quelled a craven impulse to edge toward the windows, to put some space between them. She had never been frightened of Duncan before; this couldn’t be fright she felt now. She tossed her head back and looked him in the eye. “So I’ve heard. Away in London, resurrecting the Macintyre fortunes.”
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