Bridegroom Wore Plaid (32 page)

“I have money, Gus. Altsax scoffs and mutters about my dabbling in trade, but I’m good at it. You’re not to consider yourself on his charity any longer.”

She lifted her gaze from the board to regard a cousin she’d stopped seeing years ago. “Could you invest a sum for me?”

“If that’s all you’ll let me do, then yes. I should not have let him remove you to Oxford without making sure myself you were content to be removed. Allow me to make amends. I own properties as well, Gus. You need not rusticate in Oxford, not when I have handsome farms to let in Surrey and Hampshire.”

Augusta sat back, utterly flummoxed by the conversation. “I may have need of one of those farms, Matthew, at least for a time.”

He pursed his lips and studied the board for a long moment. “You’ll be careful, Gus. I don’t trust Altsax farther than I could throw him.” He put his hand on a pawn, withdrew it, then made the move.

“Neither do I, Matthew. Not any longer.”

She didn’t trounce him, but she did win. And all through the game, Augusta’s mind was in motion. The years in Oxford had not been wasted—she’d been wrong about that. In those years, she’d been learning to think for herself, to fend for herself, to manage life with the few tools available to a single woman of very limited means.

She’d been gathering strength so slowly, she hadn’t even noticed it herself. And now, she was willing to risk all she’d gained to make sure Ian had a chance at happiness.

She loved him. That was how strong she’d become.

***

“Were you spying on me?” Augusta stood in the doorway that led from the library to the terrace, the chess set in her hands, her expression disconcerted.

“I was enjoying the sight of you. You were very absorbed in the game, and I had the distinct impression you relished your victory.” They were alone. Ian didn’t castigate himself for the honesty when all too soon, there might be no further occasion for it. He took the chess set from her and set it up on its customary shelf. “Will you share a drink with me, Augusta?”

“Yes.”

Bless the woman, she hadn’t even glanced at the clock, and the first bell would soon sound for dinner.

“I’m warning you, what you’re about to taste is considered very fine potation.”

He went to the sideboard and she joined him. “Everything I’ve had here, food and drink, has tasted good to me, better than anything I’ve had in the South.”

Well.

“It’s the Highland air. Puts the appetite on a person.” He poured her a finger of the best they had to offer, then did the same for himself.

What would it be like to share a wee dram with her every night, to watch her mind working out the path to victory over a chessboard on a long winter evening?

“Shall we make a toast?” she asked, bringing the glass under her nose. “My goodness, that is strong.”

Strong, complex, and satisfying—like her. “To your happiness, Augusta Merrick.” He spoke softly, as sincere a toast as he’d ever offered. The coming days would likely bring a great deal of upheaval for them both, and inevitably, Augusta would return south, but this moment Ian took for himself.

“To yours.” She lowered her lashes and took a sip. “My, my…”

“Do you like it?”

He liked watching the emotions play across her features. Liked it too well.

“I do. I’m sure I do, but it’s complicated.” She assayed another taste. “It’s fruity, smoky, sweet… I could probably drain that whole bottle and not describe the contents to my satisfaction.”

“If you drained the whole bottle, you’d likely be unable to speak.” And the idea of Augusta Merrick tipsy was intoxicating in itself.

“You must not look at me like that, Ian.”

“How am I looking at you?” He tipped his glass to his lips but didn’t take his gaze from hers.

“With tender eyes. Your gorgeous green eyes are soft…” She glanced around, color staining her cheeks. “I suppose that’s the drink talking.”

“The drink doesn’t work quite that quickly, Augusta, not even on nice English ladies. Would you like more?”

She shook her head, but her words lingered in Ian’s mind: tender eyes. He knew what she meant. He hadn’t regarded anybody or anything with tender eyes for so long…

“Will I see you at dinner, Augusta?”

“You will.” She looked like she might say something more, like she might go up on her toes and grace him with one of those sweet, chaste kisses of hers, but she just put her empty glass on the sideboard and left Ian alone with his drink.

He finished his whisky in a single swallow and set the glass down solidly beside Augusta’s. They’d get through dinner, they’d get through whatever lay ahead, but Ian was more convinced than ever that his future would not include marriage to Augusta Merrick’s cousin.

Nor to any woman upon whom he did not gaze with tender eyes.

***

Waiting would make a lesser man unsure of himself, but as the week progressed, the baron became more confident of his plans. Friday was to be the grand ball—as grand as these rustic surrounds could produce—and an organized hunt was planned for Saturday.

The shoot was just too perfect an opportunity to pass up, and then, with Augusta laid out in the parlor, it would be simple to explain to the earl that time had just become of the essence. If he wanted to get his Scottish paws on good English coin in the foreseeable future, he’d quit his fool posturing and snooping, and get Genie wedded and bedded in short order.

And as for Genie… The hens were keeping her in a protective circle, clucking and fussing and being sure to order tea when the baron came around. No matter. In a few days, the Daniels family would be mourning, the MacGregors would be trying to explain how a guest had been killed by accident in their woods, the earl would take off running for a special license, and Altsax would rejoice.

***

“We need to talk.” Ian drew Genie’s arm through his and kept his expression friendly. When she would have pulled away, he smiled down at her as convincingly as he could, when he wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled. “Show a little faith, woman. I’m not your enemy.”

Her features smoothed out into that bland nonexpression at which English ladies forced to accept dubious company excelled, and she fell in step beside him. “I understand from Gilgallon there’s a litter of kittens in the stables. Perhaps you might show them to me, my lord?”

“Their eyes have been open for a few weeks,” Ian said, willing to work with any gambit. “They’re leaving the nest more and more, and if we’re patient, we’ll likely catch them playing.”

She made an effort thereafter at the small talk: Fiona was such a delightful child. Did he enjoy haggis?—haggis, for God’s sake—Did he have a favorite among all the flowers in his lovely gardens?

And all the while he was wending his way at a crawl toward the stables and filling the air with inanities, Ian couldn’t help but compare this lady with another.

Augusta would have marched along right beside him, arguing with him or grilling him on the follies of Scottish church politics. She would have spoken her piece; she would have delighted in his touch; she would have borne the faint scent of lilacs when he bent near…

“What do we need to discuss, my lord?” Genie’s blue eyes were full of trepidation by the time they reached the stables.

“You’re not sleeping much, are you?” He dropped her arm and wasn’t surprised when she moved off a good six feet down the barn aisle.

“I am not. The surroundings are unfamiliar, and the sun comes up quite early. I’m sure I’ll accustom myself to Balfour over time.”

Could
she
sound
any
more
dismal?
“Genie, do you want to marry me?”

She turned her back, and to Ian’s eye it looked as if she’d hunched in on herself. “I do not want to marry you, but I shall marry you.”

“For God’s sake, why?”

She faced him, the expression in her eyes appallingly bitter. “You’re the best of a bad lot, Ian MacGregor. I have to marry someone, I know this. Papa regards it as my purpose on earth to drag some impoverished title into the family, as if I were bringing down game with his rifle and shot. I haven’t any more Seasons. He’s made that plain. Hester is more than of age, and I must be safely wed before she can be paraded up to the altar. You are not only my best chance, I very much fear you’re my last chance.”

He advanced on her; she held her ground until they were just a foot apart then stepped back. “I was not asking why you’d condescend to accept my suit, madam. I was asking
why
you do not want to marry me. I know your position—the entire household knows your position—I do not know the reasons for it.”

She shook her head. “It’s not personal to you. I don’t care to marry any title my parents choose for me. The precedents don’t bode well for our union, and some genuine affection—not the manufactured kind—is not too much to ask of a man for whom I will give up every freedom.”

Her expression was not so much angry as it was… resolved. Determined.

“What precedents would those be? I personally know the man who married the highest title in the land, and the union prospers more shamelessly each year.”

Her chin came up. “I am not a queen, and I do not appreciate your making a jest out of what will likely turn into a petty tragedy.”

Oh, bloody damn. Her big blue eyes were aglitter with inchoate tears. Ian reached out a hand, intending to make some conciliatory contact with her shoulder or her arm, but she flinched away, her gaze wary.

Ian took a step back and considered the woman whom common sense said he was supposed to marry. “The precedent you refer to, Genie, would that be your parents?”

She gave a jerky nod, which caused tears to spill down her cheeks. After another considering silence, Ian held out his handkerchief, dangling it from his fingers like a white flag.

“Thank you.” She snatched it from him and blotted it against her face with both hands, reminding Ian of Fee weeping into the apron of her pinafore.

“Your parents’ union was arranged, then?”

Another nod, but she lifted her face from the white square of linen and aimed a look both accusatory and condemned at Ian. “Mama’s family was thrilled that she had landed a man in expectation of a title. They provided her an obscene dowry, and everybody thought it amusing when she would not come down to breakfast after her wedding night.”

The unease Ian lived with daily, the unease that had been gathering since this entire scheme with Altsax’s daughter had been hatched, congealed into dread. “She
could
not come down, is that it?”

Genie put more distance between them, walking off a few paces to stand outside Merlin’s stall. “I attend my mother at her bath, my lord, because she is too ashamed to let the maids see what my father does to her, what he has been doing to her for years. The bruises—”

Her voice broke, and her reserve, her damnably English, cool, impersonal reserve made him want to howl. “I’ll not raise my hand to you, Genie. I promise you that, but if we go through with this, our marriage could be very, very personal.”

She shuddered, making it plain she took his meaning. “I know you need heirs.
If
marriage becomes unavoidable, I’ll tolerate my duty if you insist.” She’d spoken so quietly she’d nearly whispered.

I’ll tolerate my duty if you insist.
Genie’s grudging capitulation to duty blew through Ian’s thoughts like a gust of frigid Highland air. She would lie unmoving, tolerating his rutting when she must, the candles snuffed along with any hope either of them had for happiness.

As if Ian could bring himself to join with any woman under circumstances such as those.

He was not going to marry her. He’d been working up to this realization even before joining Augusta in bed, but he knew it now with the same certainty he knew the sounds of his siblings’ voices and scent of the heather on the Balfour hillsides. For the sake of his children, his honor, his sanity, and even his obligation as a gentleman to the woman before him and to her cousin, he would not marry Genie Daniels.

Ian sorted courses of action in his mind while he regarded Genie standing just a few feet away. The best plan he’d been able to devise was desperate and fraught with risk, and while it might leave Ian free of Altsax’s marital schemes, it would also leave him with nothing to offer any other woman, much less a woman he loved.

He lopped off that thought for consideration another day. While
he
knew he could not marry Genie Daniels, Genie herself required convincing.

“Let’s try something.” Ian kept his voice down, glancing around to make sure they were still alone. “A little experiment.”
Before
he
lost
his
nerve.

“What sort of experiment?”

He gave up on the words that were getting them nowhere and moved close enough to kiss her, steadying her with his hands on her shoulders. She stiffened at the first touch of his lips on her cheek, stiffened more when he didn’t immediately remove himself, and then started trembling when he smoothed a hand over her back.