After asking directions to Bickersham Hall, he left his new tailor-made suit and shirt to have the wrinkles taken out—he wasn’t sure how, nor did he care—ordered a meal to be ready at four o’clock, then went upstairs to his tiny loft room, washed as best he could in his tiny copper tub, then collapsed onto his tiny, lumpy bed, where he slept three hours straight without rolling over.
He awoke to a knock on the door and a growling stomach.
“Your suit, sir,” the fawning innkeeper said. “And if I may say so, a very handsome one, indeed.” After hanging it in the empty wardrobe and reminding Brady that his meal awaited him in the taproom, he backed out of the room, bobbing and bowing with every step.
Brady dressed. It took him three tries to get the fluffy bowtie right, and although it looked a bit mangled by the time he finished, he decided it would have to do. He checked himself in the mirror on the back of the door. Then, regretfully, he discarded the Stetson and gunbelt and checked again. Better. In fact, he looked so English, Jessica might not even recognize him. His brothers sure as hell wouldn’t.
Down in the taproom, he downed three plates of tasteless food and two shots of the best sipping whiskey he’d ever enjoyed, then climbed back in the saddle and headed to Bickersham Hall and Jessica. By his calculations, he’d arrive in time for tea and three days short of his deadline.
“YOU SEEM RESTLESS.”
Jessica turned from her study of the wide pebbled drive beyond the front terrace and gave her sister a strained smile. “Do I?”
“You’ve paced before that window every day for weeks.” Annie eyed her over the tatting she sewed along the edge of the bridal veil. “Do you expect someone?”
Jessica laughed. “Someone other than the seventy-five guests arriving this evening?”
“You know precisely who I mean. You expect
him,
don’t you?”
Not anymore. Not after months of watching and waiting without even a single word to let her know he was alive and well and still remembered her. “Not at all,” she said with false brightness as she moved to sit beside Annie on the newly upholstered damask settee.
She glanced around at other new pieces, expensive drapes and imported rugs, crystal decanters, the refurbished marble work on the fireplace. So many changes since she and Adrian arrived nearly a year ago to find the Hall shabby and worn, the grounds unkempt, her sister prostrate with grief and worry. Now they were solvent. More than solvent. Thanks to the coal beneath her land and Percy’s able management of it, they could have anything they wanted.
Well, almost anything. What she truly wanted was beyond price.
And she was weary of waiting for it—and him. She couldn’t live on hope forever.
“Perhaps the preparations for the ball have put you out of sorts,” Annie suggested.
“Don’t be a goose.” Seeing the worry in her sister’s soft hazel eyes, Jessica donned her cheeriest smile. “I’m excited. Truly I am. I can scarcely wait.” This was the first time in years Bickersham Hall had hosted such a gala, and Jessica was determined it be everything her sister had dreamed. She owed her that.
It had been an awkward homecoming with Adrian to explain and creditors circling them like scavengers. She didn’t know how they would have managed without Percy Bothingham’s help. He had been a godsend. In more ways than she could count. “Is all in readiness?”
Annie nodded. “The orchestra has arrived, the flowers are in their vases, Cook seems to have everything under control, and Dougal is guarding the champagne.”
“Dougal?” Jessica gave a wry smile. “I hope there will be enough left for the engagement toast. Are the guns safely locked away?”
“Those that still work.” Annie let the veil fall into her lap. “Oh, Jessica. I cannot believe you’re truly leaving in less than a fortnight. I shall miss you terribly.”
“And I shall miss you.” She gave her sister a quick hug, glad they had found their way past the pain and distrust that was John Crawford’s legacy. They were thriving. The children were thriving. Things couldn’t be better.
And yet . . .
Jessica studied her sister, hearing the last-time bell echoing through her mind and wondering what changes another separation might bring.
Even though she still saw her baby sister in the shy smile and tousled auburn hair, they were both grown women now with children of their own. It was time they moved beyond what was, toward what could be. But it still hurt to think of a future without her little sister near. “Am I doing the right thing, Annie?” she blurted out.
“Now who’s the goose?” Annie set aside the tatting and rose. “You said this is what you wanted. Have you changed your mind?”
“No. Of course not.”
“You don’t have to go through with this. Percy can—”
“Yes—No. I’m sure.” Resolved, Jessica sent one last glance at the empty road, then turned to her sister with a smile. “Hurry along, Miss Priss. Or we’ll both be late for the ball.”
ALL DURING THE LONG TRIP FROM HOME, BRADY HAD PICTURED Jessica in the sprawling log and stone house he’d designed with her in mind—sitting in her new rocker on the wraparound porch, stirring a pot of something other than chili on the combination stove he was having shipped from Philadelphia, smiling up at him from their oversized bed.
But those images turned to dust when he rode up the long pebbled drive to Bickersham Hall.
Pillared gate, shaded lawns, a huge stone manor house with tall mullioned windows, massive arched entry, side porticos, and wide stone terraces. It wasn’t a house, it was a mansion, and one that had been in her family for hundreds of years. How could he expect her to leave that?
Fancy carriages lined the drive. Uniformed servants moved past the windows, holding trays laden with food and tall goblets. Music never heard in a Western saloon wafted onto the terrace as dark-suited men and bejeweled women waltzed gracefully past.
That wasn’t
cabrito
they were serving. And this wasn’t a fandango. And he didn’t belong here any more than a calf at a christening.
But Jessica did.
A hopeless feeling swept through him. And at that moment, as he sat on his horse staring at Jessica’s ancestral home, he understood in a way he never had before how truly different he and Jessica were. It wasn’t a matter of money or possessions but a difference in perception and expectation.
She looked at land and thought flowers. He looked at land and thought cattle. She was liveried servants and ivy-covered stone. He was hard-living cowboys and rough-hewn timbers. Champagne and Forty Rod. The two didn’t mix.
But there was still something . . . something he couldn’t name or define . . . that drew them together, despite all those differences that threatened to pull them apart.
He left the Thoroughbred munching flowers in a big stone urn by the drive, and, with both anticipation and dread, mounted the worn stone steps.
The door flew open before he reached it. A wild-eyed old man stepped out, glaring up at him from beneath white wooly eyebrows. “What do ye want?” His boozy breath almost singed Brady’s mustache.
When Brady didn’t answer, the old man poked him in the chest with the octagonal barrel of an ancient flintlock dueling pistol. “State yer business. And if I dinna like yer answer, laddie, I’ll be having yer wee bollocks for breakfast.”
Brady looked down at the pistol and was relieved to see the flint was missing. “Jessica,” he said, gently pushing the barrel aside with his index finger.
The barrel swung back. The old man’s gaze narrowed. “Is that yer horse eating the shrubbery?”
Brady nodded.
“She’ll no’ like it.”
“It’s a he.”
“What?”
“The horse. It’s a he.”
“I can see that, ye great bluidy fool. What do ye want?”
Feeling a headache build, Brady squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. How was he ever going to live in this mist-shrouded land surrounded by odd-talking Scotsmen and tippy-toeing Englishmen? And where the hell was the sun? Lowering his hand, he nudged the pistol aside again. “I’ve come to see Jessica Thornton. Is she here?”
“O’course she is. It’s the engagement ball, ye daft foreigner. Be gone wie ye.”
Engagement ball?
The old man turned toward the door.
Brady yanked him back with enough force to lift the Scotsman off his feet and send the pistol spinning across the flagstones. “Whose engagement ball?”
He must have shouted it, judging by the old man’s flinch. “The lassie’s.”
Brady felt like he’d been hit.
The lassie? Jessica? Engaged?
“Who’s she marrying? Bothingham?”
“A-Aye.”
“That sonofabitch!” Thrusting the old man away, he looked around for something to hit. Couldn’t she even wait a year?
“It’s you!”
He turned back to see the old man regarding him with stunned disbelief.
“Aboot time ye got yer bluidy arse over here!” The Scotsman rushed over and began pounding his back. “It’s me, Dougal. Dougal McRae. Of the Killiecrankie McRaes, no’ the Inverness.” He gave a belly laugh, which turned into a choking fit that felled insects within ten feet of his vaporous breath. “Come in, laddie,” he said, wiping tears from his red-rimmed eyes. “Ye’re just in time for the toast to a long and happy marriage.” Then he was off again, choking and hacking and laughing.
Afraid he might puke, Brady turned and walked down the steps toward his horse.
“LASS,” DOUGAL CALLED LOUDLY AS JESSICA SWEPT THROUGH the entry toward the kitchen. “There’s a man out front needs a word. Seems upset.”
Lovely.
Cook having conniptions over some missing champagne, Sir Henry propositioning the footmen, Adrian throwing frogs on the Ellerton twins—where did a fifteen-month-old get frogs?—and now an irate tradesman. “Can’t it wait?”
“Best not. The puir lad’s come a long way.”
She sighed. “Very well.” She crossed to the front door, speaking over her shoulder as she went. “Take the frog away from Adrian and put it back where it belongs.”
“What frog?”
“The one you gave him. And return the champagne to Cook.”
Ignoring Dougal’s mutterings, she opened the door and stepped onto the terrace.
A man stood at the bottom of the steps talking to his horse. A tall man with dark hair and mustache and shoulders so wide they looked padded.
Her breath caught. She took a hesitant step forward then another, until she was close enough to grasp the stone balustrade for support. “Brady . . . ?”
He turned. Eyes the color of a hot summer sky swept over her.
“Oh, God . . .” Her heart stuttered in her chest. Air rushed from her lungs. She swayed as her legs lost strength. Why now? After all her plans were in motion, why did he come now?
Brady saw her teetering and took the stairs in two strides. As he steadied her on her feet, she clutched at him, eyes wide and round in her ashen face, her mouth open and closing as she tried to speak. “Are you real? Is it really you?”
His gaze moved hungrily over her. She wore a gauzy green dress that showed off the curves that had kept him awake for a year. Her skin was paler without the freckles, her hair had lost the golden streaks left by last year’s sun, and she looked more like a china doll than the flesh-and-blood woman who had left him a year ago. But he remembered that flowery scent and the way she fit so perfectly in his arms. “It’s me.”
She pressed a trembling hand against his cheek. “You’re here? Truly?”
Her touch made his skin feel tight and his knees weak. How had he managed a year without this woman? “I’m here. Truly.” Blinking hard, he smiled.
Tears flooded her eyes. “I—I can’t believe you came.” She stared up at him a moment longer, then gently pulled out of his grip and wiped at her eyes. “I had given up . . . I didn’t expect . . .” She busied herself brushing at her skirts, patting her hair, checking the jewelry dangling from her earlobes. “You never wrote.”
When she finally quit fussing, he said, “You’re not marrying Bothingham.”
She looked up at him, a small frown forming between her auburn brows.
That sinking, hopeless feeling gripped him again. Where was the lively, headstrong Jessica he remembered? This woman was a stranger to him. She looked nearly the same and sounded the same, but the fire was gone. Even her riotous curls had been tamed, and those whiskey-colored eyes had lost their luster and just looked . . . brown.
“Who said I was marrying Bothingham?”
“Your doorman. About the time he pulled a gun on me.”
“Dougal.” She made a dismissive gesture with one shaky hand. “He’s Scottish. He pulls a gun on everyone.” Her eyes darted to the faces grinning at them through the windows. “We’re making spectacles of ourselves.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.” She started fussing with her skirts again. “It’s unseemly.”
And just like that, Her Ladyship was back—the starchy tone, the pinched expression, the rigid posture. It sickened him. He’d come too late. He’d lost her. Turning, he started down the steps. “Good-bye, Jessica.”
“W-What? Where are you going?” When he didn’t answer, she moved to the top of the stairs. “You’re right, I’m not marrying Percy,” she called in a rush.
He stopped.
“Annie is.”
When he looked back, she burst into tears. “Why didn’t you write, Brady? I waited and waited, but you didn’t even send a single letter and I thought . . . I thought . . .”
This was the Jessica he remembered, the emotional, babbling, vulnerable woman who needed him almost as much as he needed her. He bounded back up the steps. Grabbing her hand, he pulled her away from prying eyes, down the stairs, and around the house to the privacy of the torch-lit side gardens.
Not too late. Still his.
Relief roared in his head, sent such a charge of energy through his body it was all he could do not to break into a run.