My dear Mr. Wescott,
Your services (while every bit as impressive as rumored) are no longer required. Robert the
Bruce and I have decided to take the mail coach back to London. We’ll be able to travel twice
the distance in half the time. My uncle will be in touch with you as soon as the arrangements
for the dissolution of our marriage have been completed. Until then, I am…
Catriona Kincaid Wescott
Simon gently folded the letter and tucked it inside his waistcoat next to his heart, telling himself it was for the best. Catriona had spared them those awkward parting moments they might have endured in London. There would be no need to apologize for not making promises he could never hope to keep, no need to murmur endearments he would be whispering in another woman’s ear before the week was out, no need to touch his lips to hers in a kiss they both knew would be their last.
He ought to be grateful to her for behaving with such maturity and sophistication.
So why did he feel exactly as he had on the day his mother had left him on the doorstep of her solicitor’s office?
******************
It was his eldest daughter’s bloodcurdling screech that first alerted Roscommon Kincaid to the arrival of the mail coach. Although the unearthly sound was one he had been hearing ever since Alice had been in napkins and realized it would make anyone within earshot give her whatever she wanted just to make it stop, it still made him grit his teeth and itch to clap his hands over his ears.
Leaving an ugly blot of ink on the accounts ledger he had been reviewing, he jumped to his feet and barreled from the study, moving with remarkable alacrity for a man of his girth.
He supposed he ought to be grateful for any break in the monotony, no matter how vexing. Ever since Catriona had eloped with that scoundrel, it had been deadly dull around the estate. He’d managed to escape to the stables for a few hours to witness the birth of a new foal, but most of his time had been spent trapped in the house listening to his wife prattle on and on about her latest piece of needlework while Alice mooned over some comely young buck she’d met at Lady Enderley’s ball last week.
He hadn’t realized how much he enjoyed verbally sparring with his quick-witted niece until she was gone. Now he had no one to debate Scottish rights with him or argue that Bonnie Prince Charlie might have been able to hold on to the Scottish throne if he hadn’t ignored the battle advice of his best commander and chosen to fight on open, marshy ground. He hadn’t even had a decent game of chess since Catriona left.
As he reached the entrance hall, an underfootman rushed in front of him and threw open the front door, plainly fearing he was on the verge of charging right through it.
His wife was standing on the steps of the sunny portico, a handkerchief pressed to her lips. Alice stood at the bottom of the steps, pointing at the tree-lined drive.
At this distance, her screeching was slightly more coherent, if not any more pleasing to the ears. “It’s her, Papa! It’s
her
, I tell you! The horrid little beast has come back to ruin all of our lives, just as she did the first time!”
Ross blinked at the dusty mail coach parked in his drive, wondering if he’d dozed off at his desk and somehow traveled back through the years. A slender girl was alighting from the back of the coach, her bonnet slightly squashed, her gown rumpled and travel-stained, a smudge of dirt on her cheek and a disgruntled-looking cat in her arms.
He drifted down the steps toward her, still doubting his senses. “Catriona? Child, is that you?”
She lifted her chin to offer him a tremulous smile. “Hello, Uncle Ross. I’ve come home.”
Before he had time to absorb that startling bit of information, she burst into tears and flung herself into his arms.
“T
hey say ’e ’as a cock like a battering ram, you know.”
“Oooh, do they, now? It’s a shame ’e didn’t marry ’im a wife who knew what to do with it. I ’eard he could pop a woman’s corset strings just by lookin’ at ’er, if you know wot I mean.”
“Ha! My Billy ’as been lookin’ for my corset strings for nigh on three years now and still
’asn’t found ’em. I gotta pluck ’em myself if I want ’em popped!”
“I also ’eard one woman weren’t enough for ’im. That it took two at a time to satisfy ’is ferocious appetites.”
“That wouldn’t be a problem, would it? As long as one o’ them was you and one o’ them was me.”
As the young parlor maids dissolved into lusty gales of laughter, Catriona cleared her throat sharply and stepped into the drawing room.
The maids’ ruddy faces went even redder. One of them snatched up a feather duster and began to wave it over a pier table, while the other one bobbed up and down in a graceless curtsy. “G’day, miss. We was just going.”
“I dare say you were,” Catriona replied frostily as they ducked out of the room, nearly tripping over each other’s feet in their haste to escape.
As they scurried toward the kitchens, their muffled giggles floated back to her burning ears.
It wasn’t the first time in the past month she’d entered a room to overhear the servants whispering about her and her scandalous marriage. She was rapidly growing tired of skulking around her own home, dodging snickering maids and leering gardeners. Those who could read had gleaned the details of her impending annulment from the more lurid scandal sheets. The others were content to get their gossip secondhand, while browsing the vegetables at the village market or smoking around the kitchen fire after their duties were done.
Just as she’d predicted when she proposed her plan to Simon,
she
was the laughingstock of the city, not him. No one could believe she was dissolving her union with one of the most shameless Lotharios in London because he had failed to perform his marital duties to her satisfaction. Several courtesans and women of ill repute had already come forward in the scandal sheets, gleefully offering to testify on his behalf.
Fortunately for all of them, that would not be necessary. Thanks to her uncle’s influence and the church’s public loathing of Gretna Green weddings, the bishop had agreed to grant them an annulment by the end of the month. Since the banns had never been read and their union had been blessed by a blacksmith, not a clergyman, it could easily be argued before the ecclesiastical council that it was not properly sanctioned by God.
Normally the annulment process took three years, at the end of which time the court could appoint two of the most highly skilled courtesans in the land to
test
the groom’s virility. It wasn’t difficult for Catriona to envision the disastrous outcome of
that
particular challenge.
To ensure her uncle’s cooperation, she had been forced to tell him everything that had transpired between her and Simon. Well, almost everything. She had neglected to mention that they had consummated their little sham of a marriage, not once, but twice.
Or numerous times, if one counted each event separately.
There was much speculation, both in drawing rooms throughout the city and between the pages of the scandal sheets regarding the nature of her own obvious
failings
. Was she so cold that a man’s touch failed to warm her? Had she caught her bridegroom in bed with another woman on their honeymoon and decided to take her revenge by besmirching both his manhood and his reputation? Some had even dared to insinuate that perhaps it was a woman she preferred in her bed, because surely no female with
natural
inclinations would be able to resist the carnal charms of a man like Simon Wescott.
Catriona wandered around the elegantly appointed drawing room, oblivious to the radiance of the sunlight spilling through the tall French windows. Soon it would be as if she had never been Mrs. Simon Wescott. Never spent two glorious nights in his arms and his bed.
Until a fortnight ago, she had harbored the secret hope that those nights might have borne fruit. She had even allowed herself to entertain a fantasy that had Simon strolling into some London ballroom to find her heavy with his child. But the arrival of her monthly courses had destroyed that hope and given her a painful reminder that dreams such as those belonged to the naïve girl she had been, not the woman she had become at Simon’s hands.
Trying to ignore the piercing ache in her heart, she wandered over to the bookshelf. With the last of the Kincaids scattered to the four winds, she could no longer take comfort in the Scottish ballads collected by Sir Walter Scott. Against her better judgment, she slid a slim volume of Robert Burns’s poetry off the shelf. She flipped restlessly through the pages until a familiar stanza caught her eye:
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will love thee still, my Dear
Till a’ the seas gang dry.
The page blurred before her eyes. Catriona slammed the book shut, remembering how Simon had recited those very words to her with such tender conviction in the ruins of the great hall at Castle Kincaid. When she had been gazing into his smoky green eyes, it had been easy to believe he spoke from the heart. But now she knew they were only pretty words—designed to win a heart, but not keep it.
She shoved the volume of poetry back on the shelf and took another restless turn around the room. With any luck, she would perish from boredom before her broken heart killed her. She feared it was only a matter of time before she started pasting seashells on pieces of colored paper or stitching hackneyed homilies on samplers like Aunt Margaret.
She was almost beginning to regret not accepting Georgina’s invitation to visit Georgina and her husband at their town house in London. But she knew the gossip would be even more virulent there, the jests at her expense more difficult to ignore. She was already dreading traveling there at the end of the month to appear before the ecclesiastical council.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor. She turned eagerly toward the door, absurdly grateful for the interruption.
A liveried footman appeared in the doorway. Inclining his bewigged head, he said,
“There’s a gentleman to see you, madam.”
She could not stop her heart from leaping with hope. Smoothing her skirts, she fixed a shaky smile on her lips and said, “Send him in, please.”
The footman stepped aside, intoning, “The Marquess of Eddingham.”
Catriona’s heart plunged right back down to her toes as Eddingham swept into the room, carrying his walking stick in his white-gloved hand. His smug smile was every bit as infuriating as she remembered.
“Shall I ring for some tea?” the footman asked.
“That won’t be necessary,” she replied, giving their uninvited guest a frosty look. “The marquess won’t be staying for tea.”
“Very well, madam.”
As the servant bowed his way out of the room, it was all she could do not to grab him by the ear and command him to stay. She would have welcomed a chaperone, but now that she was a matron, they did not require one.
Eddingham sketched her a graceful bow. “Miss Kincaid.”
“That would be Mrs. Wescott, my lord.”
“Ah, yes.” His dark eyes sparkled with malicious amusement. “But not for much longer, from what I hear.”
When she didn’t offer him a seat, he sauntered over and sank down on the settee, propping one boot on the opposite knee. She reluctantly took the chair across from him.
She folded her hands in her lap and gazed at him sullenly, not caring in the least if he found her totally lacking in social graces.
He was the first to break the awkward silence. “I thought you might like to know that I’ve just returned from the Highlands.”
“Indeed? I trust the fresh air was a boon to your disposition.”
“I found it to be quite invigorating. I thought you might also be interested to learn that there was no need to flush those pesky Kincaids or their outlaw leader off my land.
Apparently they were so lacking in spirit that they scattered like frightened sheep at the mere mention of my name.”
“I’ve heard you have that effect on women as well.”
His smile showed signs of fraying around the edges. “You disappoint me. I had hoped that matrimony might have tamed that haughty tongue of yours.”
“Not every man finds it necessary to cow a woman’s spirit just to compensate for his own lack of it.”
He sighed. “Contrary to what you may have been led to believe about me, I am not a petty man,
Miss Kincaid
,” he said, his tongue deliberately caressing the name. “I’ve always taken great pride in not holding a grudge.”
“That’s very comforting, given that during our last exchange you expressed the passionate wish that I might burn in hell.”
He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “When I heard of your recent
misfortune
, I immediately asked myself how I could be of assistance.”
Catriona was beginning to regret declining the footman’s offer. She would have loved a pot of hot tea to dump in Eddingham’s lap. “How very benevolent of you.”
“I plan on returning to the Highlands within the next fortnight to demolish the pile of rubble that sits on my land. It’s nothing but an eyesore and my advisers have assured me that the land can be easily transformed into prime grazing for a flock of Cheviot sheep.”
In the blink of an eye, Catriona saw the lone remaining tower of Castle Kincaid silhouetted against a starlit sky, heard the majestic song of the bagpipes soaring into the night, felt Simon’s hands on her bare skin as he laid her back on a bed of moss and made her his wife in more than name only.