Tempting the Laird

by Julia London

Uncle Knox pointed to the cove.

  Catriona gasped. She lifted her skirts and began running down the path. “Mind you donna break an ankle, darling!” Uncle Knox shouted after her.

  Catriona paid him no need. She flew down to the sandy beach at the cove, running as fast as her legs would carry her, fast enough that her hair was falling from its coif. She ran until her chest was burning and she couldn’t drag air into her lungs.

  There was no one on the beach, but a small boat was rowing in from the ship.

  A figure on the boat suddenly rose to his feet. Catriona couldn’t believe her eyes, but that figure was Hamlin. He had come to Balhaire.

  He had come to Balhaire.

  Emotion overwhelmed her. She sank to her knees in the sand and tried to make herself breathe through her disbelief, her absolute astonishment. She had thought she’d never see him again. She had thought she’d never lay eyes on the love of her life again.

  As the boat neared the shore, Hamlin leapt over the side and into thigh-high water, splashing his way to her.

  Catriona gained her feet and ran into the surf to greet him.

  “My God, Catriona,” he said, grabbing her up, holding her to him, his face buried in her hair. “My God, I feared I’d never hold you again.”

  Catriona couldn’t catch her breath. “You came for me,” she choked out.

  “Of course I did, my darling. After what you did for me, how could I leave you? How could I live another moment without you?” He suddenly picked her up, walked to shore with her and put her on her feet. And then he kissed her. Openly. Fully. He didn’t care that tongues would wag. He didn’t look back. He was looking to the next astonishing thing.

  Catriona kissed him, too. She dug her fingers into his arms, afraid to let go of him.

  Hamlin at last broke the kiss. He caressed her cheek and then sank down onto a knee before her.

  “What are you doing, then?”

  “Is it no’ obvious? I am asking you—no, begging you—to be my wife, Catriona Mackenzie. Come to London, work with me, alongside me. Be my love, my mistress and the mother of my children, aye?”

  She felt as if she were in the midst of a dream. How could one go from such despair to dizzying heights of happiness?

  Hamlin took her silence as hesitation. He took her hand. “You were right, lass—we never spoke of it. There was too much to say, and we never spoke because there was too much to live in each moment, aye?”

  Overwhelmed, and her heart filled to bursting, Catriona sank onto her knees before him.

  “Will you no’ speak?” he asked, his palm on her cheek.

  “I canna breathe,” she said. “I’ve no’ taken a proper breath since I last saw you.”

  “Breathe, then. I’m here, aye? I’ve come for you, and I’ll no’ leave without you. Say yes, Catriona.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, and gulped for air again. “A thousand times, aye.”

  He laughed. He drew her into his embrace, and the two of them tumbled into the sand. And for the first time in weeks, Catriona felt as if she could at last breathe.

  EPILOGUE

  THERE WAS, AS one might expect, quite an uproar at Balhaire when Catriona appeared with a strange man who she gleefully introduced as her fiancé. Uncle Knox stepped in to right the ship. He’d kept Catriona’s secret, had not written her mother about her daughter’s enviable summer, but was more than happy to relate the tale now, complete with embellishments and a few events Catriona was certain didn’t happen.

  Hamlin finished the story by asking Catriona’s father for her hand.

  Her family was in awe. They kept looking at Hamlin as if he were an apparition. Why wouldn’t they? Their daughter, their sister, their niece, whom they’d long since put on the shelf, had caught a duke. And not just any duke, mind, but one who sat in the House of Lords and shared her sensibilities about justice.

  “It’s as if you’re marrying Zelda!” Rabbie exclaimed in awe.

  Catriona was going to marry the best man she’d ever known in her life, which was saying quite a lot, as the best men she knew were gathered in the great hall, celebrating her joy. The only people missing were Eula and Miss Burns, whom Hamlin reported were waiting impatiently for word at Blackthorn Hall, and would meet them in London.

  “London?” Vivienne exclaimed. “But I canna do without you here, Catriona!”

  “Aye, you can,” Marcas said, and kissed her cheek. “Allow Catriona to know the happiness we’ve known, aye?”

  There was no posting of the banns for the happy couple, as Hamlin was due to be in London in a month’s time for the start of the Little Season, and Uncle Knox wanted to return to England. They were allowed, under Scottish law, an “irregular” marriage, which occurred at Balhaire at the end of the week. A week after that, Catriona set sail with her husband, bound for London.

  It had all happened so fast and in such a flurry that she was still in a state of breathless astonishment. They were housed in Uncle Knox’s London townhome until Hamlin found a suitable home of their own. As he undertook his new duties, Catriona undertook hers—she was an unlikely duchess, mistress of a grand household, all responsibilities she took quite seriously.

  There were more surprises—after a month, Catriona discovered to her great delight that she was carrying Hamlin’s child. She wasn’t too old after all, apparently, and they were both delirious with joy.

  But not everything was golden. The truth about Hamlin’s first marriage began to circulate around London’s Mayfair district, and people whispered about the new duke, a divorced man, married to a Highlander. “Donna listen to the talk,” Catriona soothed Hamlin one night, when the weight of the gossip seemed to eat at him. “That is the greatest freedom there is, to no’ care what is said of you, aye?”

  He’d chuckled and pulled her into his embrace. “How are you so wise? The only opinion I care for is yours, leannan.”

  What the gossips and scandalmongers didn’t know was that Hamlin had returned Glenna’s family home and dowry to her. He was not heartless, and he understood that Glenna would have a bairn to look after. It had been Bain’s suggestion, the last one he made to Hamlin before he was summarily let go from his post. But curiously, Catriona and Hamlin received word from her mother that Glenna desired not to leave Auchenard quite yet. She wanted to help the women establish their weaving. It seemed that against all odds, she’d found friends at Kishorn Abbey.

  “How is it possible?” Catriona asked Hamlin, fully shocked by that turn of events. “She’s the most unpleasant woman I’ve ever known.”

  They were lying in bed, his hand on her belly. “Maybe the child has softened her, aye? I donna know. But I hope to heaven it is a true calling, for her sake and the sake of her bairn.”

  Eula flourished in London. She had friends now, lassies who invited her to tea and strolled with her in the park at Grosvenor Square, and whispered with her about the lads who followed them around on their long, gangly legs.

  Hamlin became quite involved in his work and took a particular interest in the reformation of the Poor Laws. He met long hours seeking reform with lords and ministers on the lack of uniformity across parishes in laws designed to help the destitute.

  But no matter how hard Hamlin worked toward a cause, he never lost sight of his wife. He was an attentive, loving husband, and Catriona often marveled that he was her husband. All those years spent mourning a marriage, when in truth, she’d only had to wait a little longer for the perfect man.

  Catriona settled into life in London in fits and starts. London society was much different than life in the Highlands, and London ladies at first viewed her with equal parts fascination and disdain. But as she grew rounder and worked harder to gain entry, social acquaintances began to warm to her. She was not without friends, although none as close to her as a sister or cousin. And they were English—for a woman taught on
her father’s knee to never trust an Englishman, she was slow to find her place in London society.

  Just before Catriona was due to begin her confinement, Uncle Knox came to visit without his new agent, Mr. Bain.

  “Why must you keep him?” Catriona demanded. “Surely there are other agents.”

  Uncle Knox laughed. “Will you never forgive him? If you ask me, if he hadn’t brought Mrs. Graham around, there is a high likelihood you’d not be living in this fine house with a child in you.”

  Catriona sniffed. She supposed he was right. “Well, then? Where is he?”

  “I have dispatched him to Balhaire,” Uncle Knox said. “It seems that Marcas Mackenzie’s niece is in a wee bit of trouble that needs sorting out.”

  Catriona had received many letters from home, and Vivienne had loudly complained about Marcas’s niece. Catriona was in the dark as to what the scandal was all about, but she knew it was causing strife.

  Her mother wrote often, too, with news of Kishorn Abbey and the budding weaving business at Auchenard. The women who had remained were quite happy with their craft. But some had left, looking for more society and a better wage.

  The talk of Hamlin and his previous marriage began to fade into the background as Catriona’s due date neared. It was summer again, and she could scarcely stand, she was so large. She was miserable—no bed or chair was comfortable, and even Hamlin’s massaging of her feet couldn’t soothe her. They said she was unusually large, and it felt as if her bairn kicked her on one end and punched her on the other all day long. “I’ll bear a horse,” she said.

  A terrible storm passed over London the night Catriona’s water broke. She was thankful that Hamlin was home at the time, meeting with his advisers about the Poor Laws. A midwife was summoned, and so began the excruciating, tedious night. Catriona was certain she’d not survive it, that her body would be rent in two. But just as the sun was coming up over the rooftops and the water from the night’s rain glistened in the trees and in the square, the mystery of the pummeling Catriona had endured was revealed to them all. She was astonished to deliver not one, but two healthy boys, identical to one another, with hair and eyes as black as their father’s.

  She could not have been happier. And as she watched Hamlin holding his newborn sons, the tears of joy shining in his eyes, she thought of Zelda’s words. Do not look back, but ahead, to the next astounding thing.

  At the time, she’d believed the astounding thing was behind her. But looking at her family now, and feeling the swell of love so intense that it made her weep, she couldn’t wait for the next astounding thing.

  * * * * *

  Ready for more love and adventure in the

  Scottish Highlands? Don’t miss a single book in

  The Highland Grooms series by

  New York Times bestselling author Julia London:

  Wild Wicked Scot

  Sinful Scottish Laird

  Hard-Hearted Highlander

  Devil in Tartan

  And coming soon,

  Seduced by a Scot

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Marriage and divorce laws differed between England and Scotland in the 18th century. In England, divorce generally needed some sort of Parliamentary dispensation. In Scotland, either man or woman could divorce on the grounds of desertion, which is what my Duke of Montrose sought in seeking his divorce.

  In England, marriage was supposed to be done in a church, with banns posted so that anyone with grounds might object, and was not accepted as a true marriage if not performed by clergy. In Scotland, however, there were both civil and church weddings, and “irregular” marriages that were based purely on consent. In other words, a man and woman had to consent to be married to each other in the presence of a witness. This is why eloping to Gretna Green, just over the border from England, became popular if an English or Welsh couple was underage or in a hurry.

  Hamlin and Catriona were in a hurry.

  GLOSSARY

  Twenty years ago, on one of my first trips to Scotland, I picked up Everyday Gaelic by Morag MacNeill, in addition to some linguistic texts and a Gaelic-English dictionary. What I learned from those purchases is that Scottish Gaelic is not for everyday use. I don’t know how anyone but a native speaker could ever become proficient—it’s a tough language. But that hasn’t stopped me from sprinkling Scottish Gaelic terms and phrases throughout my manuscripts like a boss. While I’ve tried to be accurate with gender and grammar, I’m no expert. So please take the instances where I use Scottish Gaelic with the grain of rock salt it deserves. Pronounce the words as you see fit because I don’t know how to say them, either. My apologies to Scottish Gaelic speakers everywhere.

  French:

  Le petite porcelet: akin to saying piglet, a term of endearment for a child

  Scottish Gaelic:

  Airson gràdh Dhè: for the love of God

  An diabhal toirt leis thu: the devil take you

  Bòidheach: beautiful

  Criosd: Christ

  Diah/Mi Diah: God/my God

  Fàilte/Fàilte dhachlaigh: welcome/welcome home

  Fèille: feast, festival

  Feasgar math: good afternoon

  Leannan: sweetheart

  Madainn mhath: good morning

  M’eudail: my darling, my dear

  Mo chridhe: my heart

  Nighean: daughter

  Sassenach: foreigner, most commonly used to indicate English

  ISBN-13: 9781488078996

  Tempting the Laird

  Copyright © 2018 by Dinah Dinwiddie

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