Finally, he sought out an uncluttered strip of floor, where he rehearsed the whole sequence of movements. So many paces, followed by a smooth turn while raising the pistol. Then aim and pretend to shoot.
“Lairds’ business, this,” Fergus muttered as he tamped a bit of oiled rag down the barrel of the pistol he was cleaning. “Ye reckon ye’re one of them, now, do ye?”
“I reckon I’m the same fellow who left here ten years ago, only with a sight more brass to his name.” Ewan lowered his pistol and turned to face the gamekeeper. “This duel wasn’t my idea, Fergus. I’d far rather shoot a grouse. Do ye think I should have backed down when the Englishman challenged me? When he called me a scoundrel and a blackguard?”
Fergus made a vague rumbling noise deep in his throat. His scowl darkened further as he polished the pistol with fierce energy.
“It wasn’t my choice to leave Strathandrew ten years ago, either.” Ewan returned to his practicing … pace, stop, turn, aim, fire. All the while he continued speaking, as if to himself. “It was forced on me because I didn’t have the power to stand up to them. Now that I do, I won’t give it up.”
“Humph!” Fergus held out the second pistol to Ewan. “See which balance ye like the best. And mind how ye hold the thing when ye fire. It’ll buck like a bad-tempered pony.”
“It wasn’t my choice to go,” Ewan repeated. “But I’m not sorry I went, and I’m not sorry I made something of myself.”
The gamekeeper gave no sign he’d heard … or cared. But while Ewan compared the two pistols for balance and grip, he muttered, “I reckon ye’ll need somebody to see that this duel business is all done proper?”
“Aye. I hadn’t thought of that. A
second
it’s called. Are ye willing to be mine?”
Fergus gave a curt nod. “If ye’ll have me.”
“Oh, aye.” Ewan set down the pistols and extended his hand to the gamekeeper. “If I’m still here next week, do ye reckon we could scare up some grouse?”
Fergus mulled over the question, then nodded again.
A few hours later, on a level bit of ground overlooking the loch, Ewan faced Spencer Stanton, while the Talbot women watched from a distance.
Lady Lydiard looked altogether shocked and offended by the whole proceedings, for which she clearly blamed Ewan. Tessa appeared stirred by the drama of it all, with little regard for the possibility that one or both men might be injured. Pale and hollow-eyed, Claire looked worried enough for both of them.
“It’ll be all right.” Ewan nudged her cheek with his knuckle, trying to coax a smile from her. “Ye’ll see.”
“I know. I trust you.” She spoke in a flat tone, as if reciting a difficult passage of scripture she’d taken great pains to memorize.
Suddenly she lunged toward him, pressing her lips to his in a fierce kiss. “But
do
be careful!”
Was he daft? Ewan asked himself as he and Stanton met in the middle of the field to choose their weapons. Risking everything he’d worked so hard to build, as well as something precious that had come to him by good fortune? All over a few words spoken in anger by a man he had wronged? Was there no way to satisfy honor without spilling blood?
Perhaps … but did he dare risk it?
The pistol was in his hand as he stood back-to-back with the Englishman. Captain MacLeod gave the signal to begin, then counted their paces.
… Eight … nine … ten.
Ewan stopped. He turned. He took aim. Then he raised the barrel of his pistol toward the sky and fired. Honor would be satisfied and conscience, too.
His shot rang out, echoed by another. Then a burst of pain knocked him to the ground. The next thing he knew, Claire was hovering over him, the moist warmth of her tears anointing his cheek and her slender fingers trembling as they caressed his face.
“Ewan, can you hear me? Please don’t die, dearest! I’ve never loved any man but you and I can’t bear to lose you again! If you live, I promise I’ll marry you or do anything you want. Only please, please don’t leave me!”
He knew how frightened she must be, and how desperately she must love him, to abandon the cultivated restraint of a lifetime and make such reckless promises.
“Hush, now, I’m not going to die.” He forced the words through teeth clenched against the pain as he pulled Claire into a reassuring embrace. “Stanton only nicked me in the leg.”
“Ye were a lucky young fool,” muttered Fergus, pressing a flask into Ewan’s hand. “It’s bleeding some, but that’s about all. Hold still while I wrap it.”
As Claire clung to him, her tears mixed with frenzied laughter, Ewan choked down several swigs from Fergus’s flask. By the time they’d carried him back to the house and settled him in bed, the pain in his leg felt dull and distant.
He gave a befuddled chuckle when Claire tried to wrestle him out of his coat. “Why, Miss Talbot, are ye taking my clothes off?”
“I am.” She sounded like her brisk, capable self again, but her swollen eyes betrayed her recent anguish. “You’re in no condition to do it, and you need to be comfortable to rest.”
“Are ye going to ravish me?” He tried to mimic the innocent tone in which she’d asked him that question, not so long ago.
“I am not.” She tried to look severe, but he could tell she was fighting to keep from laughing. “You don’t deserve it, after the scare you gave me just now. Besides, don’t you want to save yourself for our wedding night?”
Wedding? Her tearful pleas and promise came back to him.
“Hang on a minute, lass.” There was something he needed to say, while he still had a few of his wits about him. He patted the bed beside him. “Sit down and let’s talk.”
“Very well.” She perched beside him and began to untie his neckcloth. “What do you want to talk about? The wedding? You know Tessa is trying to persuade Spencer to marry her before we leave Scotland. After he chased her the length of England, then challenged you to a duel, she saw that his feelings for her were more passionate than she’d ever guessed.”
“Aye, well, that’s nice.” Ewan struggled to marshal his skittish thoughts. “But about ye and me—I’m not going to hold ye to a promise ye made in the heat of the moment. Marriage is an important, lifelong enterprise. I want ye to consider it as long and as carefully as ye would any business decision. There are a lot of factors against us, ye know.”
He started to list them off, but Claire leaned forward to hush him with a kiss. By the time she drew back, his head was spinning … and not just from the whiskey.
“We are two strong, determined people,” she reminded him, gazing deep into his eyes. “We have thrived on challenges all our lives. Think what a brilliantly successful marriage we can forge, if we pool our forces in the enterprise of love.”
“Since ye put it like that …” Ewan puckered his lips, inviting another kiss. “Are ye sure I can’t change yer mind about ravishing me?”
“Are they ready for us, Mr. Catchpole?” Claire glanced up from adjusting the tartan sash Tessa wore over her wedding gown.
With their holiday at Strathandrew coming to a close, the sisters had decided upon a double wedding in Scotland. Lady Lydiard’s brother would escort Tessa down the aisle, but since Claire had no near male relations, she’d wired Brancasters’ head office, summoning her secretary to do the honors.
Now, Mr. Catchpole consulted his pocket watch, then cast a wary glance at the sky. “The last of the guests has just been ferried across from the estate, miss. I believe Mr. Geddes and the Honorable Mr. Stanton are anxious to begin … while the weather holds.”
Claire rolled her eyes at her sister. “I still say we should have held the wedding at the village kirk. Then we wouldn’t be fretting over every cloud and breeze.”
“But the ruins of a Highland castle make a far more romantic setting for a wedding.” Tessa adjusted the circlet of late summer flowers in her sister’s hair. “And there wasn’t room in the poor little kirk to hold all the guests for one wedding, let alone
two.”
Under her breath, Claire muttered, “There might have been if your mother hadn’t invited half the peerage.”
Tessa picked up their bridal nosegays from a tumbled bit of castle wall and handed Claire hers. “As Mama says, at this time of year, half the peers of the realm are in the Highlands.”
Catchpole removed his pince-nez, then immediately replaced it, as he was apt to do when flustered. The presence of so many titled wedding guests had taxed his composure to the limit.
Despite her show of impatience with Lady Lydiard’s elaborate wedding plans, Claire was secretly delighted with the arrangements. In addition to thrilling Tessa’s romantic heart, a ceremony held on Eilean Tioran also celebrated Ewan’s Highland ancestry and demonstrated how proud Claire was to become his wife.
“Let’s not keep everyone waiting, then,” she said. “I can smell the wedding feast Mrs. McMurdo and Monsieur Anton have prepared for us. I expect our guests are anxious to sample it.”
She took Mr. Catchpole’s arm and thanked him once again for coming all the way to Strathandrew to give her away.
“It is an honor, Miss Brancaster Talbot. Your Mr. Geddes is a very lucky man to acquire such a bride. I told him so at the bachelor dinner last evening and he was quick to agree with me.”
Claire chuckled. “I’m glad you approve of him.”
The two men had immediately taken one another’s measure upon Mr. Catchpole’s arrival. Their obvious mutual respect had pleased Claire very much.
“And I suppose that’s the last time you’ll call me by those names. In a very short while I shall be Mrs. Geddes.”
As the two fell in step behind Tessa and her uncle, Claire juggled her nosegay for a moment to smooth down her skirts. Lady Lydiard had been appalled when she’d announced her resolute intention not to wear a corset beneath her wedding gown. Claire could only imagine how scandalized her ladyship would be if informed of Ewan’s threat regarding any future corset wearing.
A grin tugged at Claire’s lips as she thought of it. But when the bridal party entered a large open area that must once have been the castle courtyard, and a distant piper began to play a stirring, majestic march, her eyes misted with tears of sweet, hopeful happiness.
In front of a great vaulted archway, Ewan and Spencer stood waiting with the minister—both wearing splendid dress kilts. In the past weeks the two had become better friends than Claire had ever thought possible for men who had faced one another on a field of honor. Perhaps the fact that they had
both
emerged victorious, each in his own way, contributed to their mutual respect.
The ceremony was short and simple, but very proper and dignified. And when Ewan fixed her with an adoring gaze and repeated his vows, Claire knew with wondrous certainty that in spite of her plain features, flat figure and tart tongue, she was his ideal of beauty.
After the wedding, the bridal couples were aboard the first boats heading back to Strathandrew for a gillie’s ball to celebrate their nuptials.
“Toss your flowers!” a clutch of debutantes called to the Talbot sisters.
Tessa’s nosegay sailed in a high arc, followed by Claire’s.
Cries of disappointment rose from the young ladies when one bouquet landed in the hands of Glenna McMurdo, while the other came to roost upon Lady Lydiard’s very elaborate hat!
As Jock McMurdo rowed them back across the loch, Ewan slipped his arms around his bride and whispered in her ear, “I stocked up on plenty of hard cider for the ball tonight. If all these lairds and ladies enjoy it as much as ye did, they’ll be crying for it in London when the Season starts.”
“Why, Mr. Geddes,” cried Claire, throwing her arms around his neck, “you are a born businessman!”
He chuckled and pointed to the water. “I reckon it’s not so different from being a gillie. Ye bait yer hook and keep casting it until ye land yer catch.”
“Love is a little like that, too, isn’t it?” Claire relished the warmth and constancy of his embrace. “It takes patience … and strength … and perhaps a little luck?”
“Aye.” Ewan’s eyes shone with affection and pride in her. “And I reckon I’ve made a fine catch, Mrs. Geddes!”
In the instant before he kissed her, Claire whispered, “I would say we both have …
muirneach.”