by Christine Merrill/Marguerite Kaye/Annie Burrows/Barbara Monajem/Linda Skye
He had to let her go. It was what she wanted. She deserved to have what she wanted, but did she really know what that was, any more than he did?
As midnight chimed, and the first foot, a tall villager with black hair, bearing a bottle of whisky and the black bun, led the rest of the villagers in to witness the betrothal ceremony, Fergus swore softly to himself. He’d thought he needed to atone. Susanna had shown him how wrong his thinking had been, but even after he’d realised he would not try to persuade her, he’d become so accustomed to the idea of her as his betrothed that he hadn’t spent any time wondering what it would be like without her.
Susanna wanted to be free. But what was the good of liberty if you were not happy? Then again, what right had he to decide what was best for her? He shook his head, as if that would make sense of the whirl of thoughts going round and round, but it made no difference. Susanna wanted to leave. If she left he would be miserable. Did she really want to leave? Did he want her to stay if that was not what she wanted? Did he even have the right to ask her to stay? On and on it went, in circles and spirals.
When the great gong which stood at the side of the hearth clanged, Fergus was no further forward and beginning to panic. He wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Not yet. But his villagers, crofters, tenants and servants with their ancient dependents and their bairns, generations of families crowded round, and any moment now, she would deny him, just as they had planned.
Susanna looked terrified as Fergus took her hand. They stood in front of Alec Fraser, the village elder who would conduct the ceremony. They had rehearsed the words briefly. She knew the Gaelic words which were her cue to tell him nae.
Alec chanted the ancient verses which were the prelude to the question. Finally, it came. ‘Do you take him?’ First in the Gaelic, then in painfully slow English for Susanna’s sake.
Silence. Her fingers curled into Fergus’s like a vice. ‘I… ’
‘No! Susanna, don’t say it. Please don’t say it.’
‘I… ’
‘I don’t want you to go. I know I should not say it, I know we had a bargain, I know that I have no right at all to interfere with how you want to live your life, but I can’t let you go. I can make you promises, Susanna, any number of promises, but I know they won’t mean anything to you. So all I ask is that you give me a chance. Give me a chance to prove that I can be the husband you deserve, that I can make you happy, that I’ll never want you to be anyone other than yourself. Please Susanna, take a chance on me. Don’t go.’
‘Fergus.’ She was crying. He thought he had lost her, with those tears, until she smiled. ‘Fergus, I wasn’t going to say no. I was going to say yes.’
‘Yes?’
‘Yes! Yes! Yes! Because I realised today that I want you more than anything. Because I think, I really do think, that with you I’ll be free to be myself. I don’t know it, but I think it. And I want you. And right now, that’s enough for me to take a chance on. If you will.’
‘If!’ Fergus pulled her into his arms. ‘Just try to stop me.’
It was not Susanna, but Alec Fraser who stopped them though, with a sound punch to Fergus’s shoulder, when it looked as if the kiss would not stop. ‘Here now, we’ve not actually finished with the formalities, Laird Kilmun,’ he said in a shocked voice. ‘Keep your powder dry man, for a wee bit longer.’
This sally caused much laughter. Even more laughter greeted Fergus’s command to get on with it, which Alec did. The vows were said. The verses were sung. The betrothal ring was blessed with a foul-smelling potion that was, Fergus told Susanna in an undertone, even older than Alec. Finally, the piper struck up a lonesome tune, a pibroch, or lament. ‘For the passing of the old, and the beginning of the new,’ Fergus told his wife. ‘And once it is done, you and I shall quit this party and make one of our own, if you are agreeable. For I wish to make up for my lack of finesse earlier.’
‘If you will tell me your preferences, laird, so too shall I,’ Susanna replied with a wicked smile which reflected his own.
He gave a shout of laughter. ‘By God, do you mean that you’ve decided to play the biddable wife after all?’
‘That very much depends on what you bid me do.’ She dropped a mock curtsey, looking up at him from under her lashes.
Fergus took her hand, and led her to the foot of the staircase, where he turned and bowed to the people. He wished them all a good New Year, and Susanna joined him, speaking in faltering Gaelic.
‘Is it over?’ Susanna asked as he closed the door behind them and turned the key in the lock. .
‘I very much hope that it is only just begun. I know this is a bit back to front, but there’s a formality we’ve not yet attended to.’ Fergus pulled her into his arms. ‘Am pòsadh tu mi? Will you marry me, Susanna?’
She twined her arms around his neck, and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. ‘Yes, Fergus, I will.’
They did not speak of love, not yet, but they made love, slowly and reverently taking off their clothes, tenderly touching, tracing, learning their bodies, skin on skin, lip on lip, coming together in a deeper and more meaningful way than before.
It was later, a year later, when Susanna lay in their bed, their daughter, Brianna, asleep beside her in her swaddling, that they finally spoke their feelings.
Fergus sat on the side of the bed, awed by his new family. ‘I did not think it was possible to be so happy. I did not dare hope that it would last, but now I do not doubt it. You are all to me, Susanna, gràdh mo chrìidh.’
Her single tear fell on top of the baby’s downy head. ‘Love of my heart,’ she repeated the words in English. ‘Always, Fergus.’
His Wicked Christmas Wager
Annie Burrows
ANNIE BURROWS’ love of stories meant that when she was old enough to go to university, she chose to do English literature. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do beyond that, but one day, when her youngest child was at senior school, she began to wonder if all those daydreams that had kept her mind occupied whilst carrying out mundane chores would provide similar pleasure to other women. She was right… and Annie hasn’t looked back since!
For Aidan again—you really are my hero.
CHAPTER ONE
“ARE YOU SURE this is the place?” Lady Caroline Fallowfield peered through the window of the hired hack, her nose wrinkling in disgust.
Though from all she had heard, this did look exactly the sort of low haunt Lord Sinclair frequented these days.
“Oh yes ma’am,” Arbuthnot assured her.
“And he’s still inside?” She could not imagine anyone willingly spending their evenings in a hovel like this. When they’d crossed the bridge into Southwark, she had imagined she might end up somewhere quaint and full of character. Not this ramshackle building, its roof slumped over mouldering piles which looked ready to slide into the Thames should the next tide turn with too much vigour.
“Yes ma’am,” Arbuthnot said again. “I’ve had the nipper keeping a close watch.” He pointed to the ragged urchin running up and down outside the Crossed Oars, aggressively accosting every passer-by.
“How can he possibly keep watch while he is so busy begging?”
“Easy,” he said with pride. “Any road,” he added with a shrug, “it’s better for him to have a good reason for hanging about the Oars. If he’d just stood in a doorway, watching like, then somebody would have took him for a spy and moved him on. Reg’lars are always afeard of someone laying information.”
“I see.” She smiled at him. Arbuthnot had turned out to be something of a treasure. The matter in hand was so delicate she had not wanted to employ a private investigator. But Arbuthnot owed her a favour. She had made sure he had medical help, and then compensation for the injuries he’d suffered when her late husband had forced him into the ring against a much younger, fitter opponent. She shuddered at the memory, which was so hard to blot out, of the event her husband had also forced her to attend. It had been sickening to discover that a great many so-calle
d gentlemen could derive so much pleasure from watching one man beating another to a pulp.
“I’ll go in first,” said Arbuthnot, and rapped on the roof, to get the driver to set the horse in motion. When they’d rounded the corner, Arbuthnot heaved his bulk out of the carriage. “I’ve told the jarvey to wait ten minutes,” he said, leaning back into the carriage, his body almost completely blocking out the bitter wind blowing off the river. “Then he’ll go round again, and drop you off right outside. I’ll have found his lordship by then. Wherever he is in the place, I’ll be standing right near, so you can go to him straight off.”
She nodded again. Arbuthnot would stand head and shoulders above whatever crowd might be in there. His plan meant that she would not have to waste time searching for Lord Sinclair.
She pulled her collar up round her throat against the chill which swirled inside as he slammed the door shut. For a moment, she wondered if she could go through with it. But then she reminded herself, as she’d done over and over again on the way here, that walking into a room full of drunken lightermen and mudlarks would be nothing—not after enduring four years of marriage to a monster.
It was just that it hadn’t seemed quite so daunting when Arbuthnot had been in the carriage with her. Now he’d got out, she felt very alone, and small, and defenceless.
She glared at the depression in the opposite seat where the gigantic prizefighter had been sitting. That’s what you got if you ever began to think you could rely on a man, she reminded herself. He rendered you weak, and dependant, and vulnerable.
She firmed her lips and lifted her chin. There was nothing that rabble could do to her that her husband had not already done. And done with more finesse. She’d survived him, and she would survive this.
The carriage jerked into motion, flinging her back against the squabs and putting her moment of doubt to flight.
Everyone was relying on her.
And so she was jolly well going to make Lord Sinclair see sense.
When the carriage stopped, Arbuthnot’s nipper sprang to open the door and pull the steps down. She tossed him a coin from the deliberately meagre supply she’d brought with her and strode into the tavern, head high.
This time it was not just the look of the place that offended her sensibilities. A wave of eau d’unwashed male, topped with a foam of tobacco smoke, with a base note of spilled ale and something she did not care to identify, slapped her directly in the nostrils.
“Ooh, la-di-da,” observed one of the men closest to the door as her hand flew instinctively to shield her nose.
She had expected trouble. She had briefly considered donning a disguise and attempting to blend in. But only briefly. In her experience, timidity only made bullies look upon you as an easy target. And so, instead, she’d emphasized her station. She’d donned her newest winter coat of dark green, with its wide lapels and trio of capes on the shoulders. Though it was based on a man’s redingote, the profusion of velvet trim, and the matching bonnet with all its ribbons and feathers, made the outfit indisputably feminine, high fashion, and costly.
“Lost, are yer darling?” asked another, eyeing her tightly-fitted bodice, or perhaps the double row of large silver buttons running down its length. “Mebbe I can show yer the way… ” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
“There’s summat I could show yer,” said another, lewdly clutching at the front of his breeches.
She lifted her chin a fraction, though that was the only sign she gave that she’d heard a single word. Their talk was all for show. Not one of them would dare do more than throw crude jibes her way, so long as she kept her nerve. She was a lady, and everyone knew the penalties for tangling with a member of the Quality.
Besides, she’d brought Arbuthnot with her, just in case.
And speaking of Arbuthnot… she scanned the throng swiftly. Even through the haze of tobacco smoke he was easy to spot, leaning nonchalantly against one of the supporting timbers, away to her left.
Directly in front of him, his booted feet stretched towards a blazing fire, slouched her quarry.
Lord Sinclair.
Her heart squeezed to see he had a woman sprawled across his lap. He was using one hand to stroke her thigh, while the other held a tankard very similar to the one clutched in Arbuthnot’s massive paw.
She rebuked herself for minding so much as she stalked across the room toward him. Naturally, he would have had women over the years. But she managed to blank out the catcalls and vulgar gestures that came her way with greater ease than she could deal with the vicious pangs of jealousy. The woman made matters worse by nuzzling at his ear. She could see why the woman appeared so fond of him. Although the Lord Sinclair she was looking at was a far cry from the youth with whom she’d so disastrously fallen in love six years before, he was the kind of customer she would have favoured, had she been a whore. Even with more than a day’s growth of beard darkening his jaw, his clothing neither new nor all that clean, and his blue-black hair straggling down almost to his shoulders, he was still the most compellingly virile male she’d ever seen.
So greatly did her hostility mount, with every step she took, that when she reached the table at which they sat, all she had to do was raise one haughty eyebrow, and the woman he’d been groping scrambled off his lap as though he’d turned white hot.
“No, Molly, don’t go,” Lord Sinclair drawled. “I like you.” Molly had offered a kind of comfort he’d sometimes needed after Caroline had casually destroyed him. And she had the gall to look down her haughty nose at them both.
Lady Caroline gave Molly a hard smile as she sat down on a bench on the opposite side of his table.
“We can conduct our discussion with Molly on your lap, if you prefer,” she said. “It makes no difference to me.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” he sneered. “You always do just as you please, and to hell with everyone else.”
She quirked one eyebrow. “Really? I rather thought that was your particular speciality.”
He could hardly believe his ears. She was accusing him of selfishness?
“Sebastian and Phoebe want you home,” she said. “The wedding… ”
“Wedding?” Molly took a swift backward step. “I ain’t wasting my time with you if you’ve got marriage to some gentry mort in mind.”
“No, Molly, you’ve got it wrong… ”
But it was too late. She’d flounced off.
“Happy now?”
He lifted his drink to a suddenly dry mouth, thanking God he’d suppressed any outward sign of how the mere sight of Caroline had affected him. When she’d walked in through the door, in spite of all she’d done, his heart had pounded, his stomach had clenched, and he’d gripped Molly’s leg so hard he’d probably left a bruise.
But she’d only come to deliver yet another message from his brother. So far he’d resolutely ignored all the increasingly impassioned requests to watch Sebastian marry Lady Caroline’s younger sister, telling himself he couldn’t be bothered. But the way he’d reacted when she’d stalked into this hell-hole was a mocking reminder that his reasons for avoiding the ceremony went so much deeper.
Lady Caroline watched him glaring at her over the rim of his tankard as he drained it to the last drop. Happy? She could not recall the last time she’d applied that word to her state of mind. Before the last time she’d seen him, probably. When she’d had dreams of marrying for love, to a man who claimed to love her too.
What a goose she’d been!
“No,” she said bluntly. “But that is beside the point.”
“The point being?”
“Oh, don’t be so obtuse. You know very well why I’ve come. You said as much.”
“That damned wedding,” he snapped. “Do you seriously think there is anything you can say that would induce me to attend that farce?”
“It is not a farce! Phoebe and Sebastian love each other.”
“Love,” he snorted with contempt. “There’s no such thing.”
H
er heart, which she’d long since thought immune to anything that anyone could throw at it, abruptly revealed she had been wrong. Once, this man had said he loved her. Passionately. Devotedly. Madly enough to defy the world and create a scandal that would have set the ton rocking on its heels.
She smothered the memory before it grew strong enough to wound her, took a deep breath, and said, “Even if that was true, your brother and my sister believe in it.”
“More fool them.”
She shrugged as nonchalantly as she could. “If you don’t believe in love, what is there to keep you away from their wedding?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Oh, come. Everyone is saying you mean to stay away because you are still broken-hearted over me. That you cannot bear to see me, especially not at a wedding. But if you don’t believe in love… ” She leaned forward, her eyes narrowed. “… then what is the reason you have so far refused to attend?”
My God, but she was a cold, hard woman. Every word had been like a dagger thrust to the heart.
But he would be damned if he let her know just how accurately she’d summed him up.
“Perhaps I don’t wish to waste my time watching my baby brother making a fool of himself over a female from your family,” he snarled.
“And I can see how profitably you normally spend your time,” she retorted, casting a swift glance around the shoddy tavern in which he looked very much at home. “From the rumours abounding about your life, of late, one would think your brother would be glad you have so far adamantly refused to answer his invitation. What man of good ton would want someone like you to darken his doors, after all? A notorious womanizer, gambler, drunkard, and even, if the latest on dit has any substance to it, a man who is not beyond breaking the law.”
“Your point being?”
The lazily lifted left eyebrow made him look every inch the viscount, in spite of the shabby clothing, and the situation in which she’d found him, in spite of the fact that he had not denied even one of the accusations she’d flung at him.
