"Um. Collin." Fergus inched farther away.
"What?"
"Ye may want to . .."
"I think your friend is trying to warn you that I did not come about the damned horses."
He straightened, his head swung so that he could really look at her this time.
"I'm sorry I did not wake you last night, wife. You needed your sleep."
A warm flush of embarrassment crept up her neck to join the blood that was already hot with anger. "I am glad I was not awake to hear any more of your lies."
Quiet seemed to drop over the stable like a shroud. Her husband froze, eyes too deep in shadow to read. Alex wondered belatedly how many others were about, knew she should care, and yet she could not muster the sentiment. If Danielle had not told her, if she had gone chattering about her plans to Rebecca or Bridey. . . Fresh anger flooded her veins.
"My maid informed me that we are to have a new home next year. My maid."
The muffled sound of Fergus's boot against the dirt revealed his retreat. Collin set down whatever tool he held in his hand and stepped into the light.
Alex had expected fury or at least self-righteousness, but she saw only weariness in the lines of his face. "I meant to tell you."
"What does that mean, 'meant to'? We've been alone these six days."
He turned back toward the stable and jerked his head, prompting a young boy to scamper out and run down the road, grateful to be away from the fight.
Wonderful. He would likely repeat it all to his mother before the hour was out.
"Even the new house is not grand, Alex. I did not want to present it to you as such."
"Do not try to make it sound anything better than it is. You meant this as a trial. To see if I could be the wife of a poor man, a farmer. Well, let me make something clear to you, MacTibbenham Collin Blackburn, I am the wife of a farmer. And whatever regrets or doubts you have about me come too late."
"It is not that I doubt you," he lied.
"If you care to drown this marriage in falsehoods, I cannot stop you, but I will not stand here and listen to them."
Her hair whipped into her face when she spun to stomp away, the strands sticking to her lips, then to her tongue when she tried to push them out. A shadow darted behind the closest shed. Another eavesdropper. Lovely. "Alex. Wait."
She managed a few more steps, but where was she going? To her new room in this strange house? What comfort would that be?
"Alex." His hands settled over her shoulders, light on her bones, tentative. So he should be.
"I'm sorry, wife."
Alex swiped a hand over her face to clear away the strands of hair and possibly a few tears as well. "I'm sorry."
"This is the memory I will have now of my first day in your home."
Weight settled into his hands. She could almost feel him slump. His lips brushed her ear and she wanted to rest her back against him.
"Please. Will you walk with me?"
She hesitated, stupidly grateful that he felt sorry. He took her silence as assent and tugged her to his side, wrapping his fingers into her stiff hand.
"Come with me. I'll show you the new house."
Alex wasn't even sure she wanted to see his blasted house now, but she thought it might sound petulant if she said no. Nearly as petulant as she felt.
So, unsure how to react, she followed him, first staring hard at the ground, then glancing furtively about.
He led her to the road and along it where it followed the natural line of the shallow valley, curving 'round the base of Westmore's hill in a slow, wide arc. The hills were rocky and wooded, but a wide swath of green eased out in front of them as the road snuck between two low rises.
The closer they came to the green, the farther the meadow seemed to stretch. A small group of horses came into view, chomping steadily at the dew-wet grass as they wandered.
A minute passed, then five. Leaves crunched beneath their feet. Then she finally saw it. Collin's new home.
His hand fell away when she stopped to take it in. The river-rounded stones of the foundation fit tight together like a puzzle. The gray stone rose up plaster walls to frame the doorway and to form the many chimneys. Oak timbers edged the rest of the long structure, and though it was only two stories, the gray, tiled roof rose so steeply that it seemed as tall as the hill that protected its north side.
It was lovely, large and yet so like a cottage it seemed as cozy as their trysting place in the woods. If she'd stumbled across it, she'd have thought it the longtime residence of a squire and his family if not for the flat black of the glass-less windows and the absence of wood-smoke tripping from the chimneys. In short, it looked like a home.
Tears burned her eyes. "It's so beautiful, Collin. How could you have kept it from me?"
"Do you like it then?"
"Of course I like it. What kind of person would I be not to?"
"I. . ."
Alex waited for something, an explanation or a denial, but he only exhaled—a sigh fraught with regret and frustration. His hesitance prompted a wave of tears and, in her weakness, she turned to him, the only one she wanted.
Pressing into his warmth, she dug her fists into his chest even as she leaned her face against his shoulder.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, folding her tightly to him. "It's nothing to do with what I think of you. It's just. . . This cannot be the kind of home you had imagined for yourself. It would fit into just one wing of Somerhart."
"Why are you so stubborn in this?" Alex huffed, then breathed him in, resisting the urge to put her teeth to his flesh. Anger and need warred within her and both wanted her to bite him. "I never spent a moment of my life imagining a husband or a home. I told you that. I had no dreams of a palace or riches. You are the only man I've ever thought to marry, Collin. Can you not understand that? And whatever you come with, that is what I want."
He smelled of work—horses and hay and man. Her temper helped to rouse other passions, so that her belly jumped when he swept his hands over her back.
"Shall we go inside? It's not close to done, but I'd like to—"
"No."
"Oh. All right. The stables then. You asked to see—" "No. Take me home, Collin."
"Home?" The stark lines of his face grew starker still. "To Somerhart?"
"To Westmore, you beast. To your bed."
"To my . . . Oh." He seemed to finally register that her burning cheeks were now hot with something other than ire, and his eyes narrowed. "Well." A new firmness rose to cradle itself in the softness of her belly. "Home then."
And after he'd taken her home, after he'd lain her body into that lush fur and sunk himself between her legs, Alex was able to set aside their argument.
He was a brooding man. She knew that, just as she knew herself to be hot-tempered and bolder than most men could bear. But she loved him for what he was and for what he accepted in her.
The first months could be rough going; Lucy had told her that just a week before. Give it time, she'd whispered. Things have a way of settling into place.
But they would not settle if she held a grudge over every slight and misjudgment, so Alex made peace with his test and vowed to wait for everything to fall into place.
"Jeannie Kirkland, ye blasted spawn of Satan, where the hell is my flask?"
Jeannie winced and clapped a hand over Alexandra's giggling mouth. She tried not to sneeze when the girl's black curls tickled her nose. "Shh."
They pressed closer to the wall, feet sticking out too far beneath the musty tapestry. But her brother stomped past them and down the hall till his boots slapped against the stairs.
They heard a faint shout of "Jeannie!" and burst from their hiding place in a cloud of dust and laughter. Jeannie tugged her new friend along.
"Come, Alex. I can't believe you haven't been up here."
They stole down a short hallway at the very back of Westmore keep and through a warped door at the end. A narrow stairway curved up, disappearing into the darkness.
Jeannie threw open a trapdoor and led the way into the starry night. The flask sparked silver in the moonlight as she held it high.
"The finest whisky ever made by man, lassie, and worth a king's ransom." She took a swig, grimaced, and pushed it toward Alex.
Alex took a sip and, though she didn't cough, she couldn't keep the rasp from her voice. "Fine. Very fine."
Jeannie laughed outright. "Liar. Don't worry, it gets better the more you drink."
She took another sip before she handed it back to Jeannie. Jeannie raised the flask again and felt the liquor burn a path to her stomach and upwards too, setting her eyes and nose tingling.
By God, she loved it up here on the parapets, had always loved it. The night bloomed above them in a swath of stars. The moon hung like a great belly in the east, surely too heavy to rise any farther. It was beautiful here, but cold as well. The whisky was a welcome warmth.
"So?" Jeannie drawled after another swig.
"So, what?"
"Ach, don't play dumb. How do you like being married to our Collin? My brothers kept me away as long as they could, but three weeks was too much for even them to bear. They were dying to meet you."
She and four of her brothers had raided the castle mid-afternoon, demanding to see the bride. The new Mrs. Blackburn had bubbled over with happiness to see them, but she fell silent now.
"Surely it's not so bad?" Jeannie prodded.
"No, it's not so bad. In fact, I think it's rather good."
"Mm. I always suspected the man would make an excellent bed partner."
Alex made a strangled sound, but Jeannie knew without a doubt that she wasn't offended. Growing up with brothers had a way of expanding a girl's horizons.
"Um. Yes. He is. Absolutely."
Jeannie thought of the bed she'd like to be warming and couldn't stop the sigh that fell from her lips.
"Did you . . . ?" Alex started. "That is . . . Did Collin never court you?"
"What?" That snapped Jeannie out of her brooding. "Oh, God no. We've known each other forever."
"But I would think, after so much time . . . You seem very close."
"Well, close in the way I am with my cursed brothers. We met when I was seven or eight and I suppose he caught me at a time when I was sick to death of boys. He was just a disappointment really. Another neighbor who wasn't a girl."
"And when you got older?"
"Hmm." Jeannie passed the flask back. "I willna say I've never noticed him, but I've been told my brothers are handsome—"
"Oh, yes."
"—So perhaps I was just exposed too young to braw, bonny men. It doesn't weaken my knees. Or anything else for that matter."
Alexandra sighed and wilted into the wall. "Well, he leaves me weak, I confess. Of course we've only been married a month now."
"And are you getting on?"
"Yes. Although . . ." Alex glanced in her direction, and Jeannie saw the pained tension in her face. "He is very dark sometimes. And the circumstances of our marriage—"
"What were the circumstances?"
"Oh, um. A bit of an indiscretion. My brother did not force him to the altar, but I doubt Collin would have thought of it if not for the . . . extenuating circumstances."
"Don't be so sure, Alex. He was quite fierce when he spoke of you."
"He spoke of me?"
"Oh, I caught him sneaking back into the ball that night with lilac petals in his hair." They both broke into giggles at the thought. "He was beside himself. 'Do not speak of this to anyone. She is a fine lady.' Needless to say, I was scandalized."
Alex laughed so hard that tears leaked from her eyes, and Jeannie grinned in delight, thinking of Collin tortured by love. The man had seemed to live like a monk before. But now . . .
"Really, Alex, I have never seen him so much as flirt with a lady. Do not doubt that he cares for you. Why, he stared at you tonight all through dinner!"
"I. . . Yes, but he seems angry, doesn't he?"
"He's just jealous. He didn't like the attention my brothers showered over you. And Fergus too."
Fergus, Jeannie thought. Fergus, who avoided her like the plague. Fergus, whom she'd spent so many hours watching from this very rooftop.
Alex leaned a little closer. "Jeannie, I couldn't help but notice. . ."
"Oh, I love him!" Jeannie cried, voice hoarse, rusty from the years she'd been waiting to say this very thing. "I love him, Alex. What am I to do?"
"Fergus?"
"Yes, Fergus. He won't. . . He won't hear of it. Says my father wouldn't consider accepting his hand."
"Would he?"
"No, that cold-blooded whoreson! He says Fergus has no money and no land and no hope of ever having either."
"Oh."