The Laird Takes a Bride

by Lisa Berne

  She glanced at the elaborate ormolu clock set on the fireplace mantel and gasped. The breakfast hour had already commenced, and she was going to be late again. She didn’t want that. Mealtimes had become so pleasant; she’d had such nice conversations with Duff lately. It had been a long, long time since a gentleman had taken such an interest in her, and she in him. He was so intelligent, and so handsome. At first, it had been difficult to notice these attributes, but it was as if her perception had somehow, mysteriously, begun to sharpen.

  Quickly Isobel closed the Tome and put it back into the cabinet, pleased to notice that it was getting easier and easier to move it.

  Sheila lifted her head from the sampler on which she was laboriously sewing a simple floral border. “Granny,” she said suddenly, “are you always right?”

  Old Dame Margery glanced at her over the shift she was mending. “Nay, child, only the Lord above is always right. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh,” replied Sheila vaguely, “I was just wondering. Granny, Granny, your hands are better, aren’t they? The lady’s magic salve worked, didn’t it? And Granny, only see! I’ve finished one side entirely, isn’t it pretty?”

  “Very pretty, child, very pretty indeed.” Margery smiled at her grandchild, and watched as that strange, opaque look passed from her eyes and she turned them once more to her sampler.

  “Do it, man!” Duff said, with a certain urgency, to Grahame, Alasdair’s manservant whom he’d summoned to his own rooms.

  “All of it, sir?” asked Grahame, sounding more than a little astonished.

  “Aye. Now! Before I lose my courage.”

  “Very well, sir.” Grahame took his shears, drew a deep breath, and clipped off Duff’s long beard. Snip snip snip. And it was done. Slowly Duff turned to look at himself in his mirror. After a minute inspection, he said:

  “Shows off my jaw. Excellent. Now for a shave. And while you’re at it, you may as well trim my hair.”

  “And eyebrows, sir?”

  “Why not?” replied Duff, recklessly. “If a man’s got a good face, there’s no point hiding it.”

  “Very well, sir,” Grahame repeated, and obediently set to his work.

  Fiona sat at her desk, looking not at her notes and lists and letters, but out the window. It was a golden September day, breezy and mild, with perfect weather for the harvesting that had already begun. The sky was vast and so beautiful a blue it almost made her heart ache to see it.

  Movement, somber color, caught her eye, and she saw Monty the gardener stumping past in his dark jacket and somehow managing to carry as if it were weightless the longest ladder she had ever seen. Curiosity, and the temptation of a golden morning, decided her.

  In a flash Fiona was up and on her way outside.

  Chapter 12

  Alasdair had talked with the Smiths, seen for himself the damage to their barn, made arrangements for help. Now he sat astride his horse, aware that within him were competing desires.

  A part of him wanted to hurry back to the castle, find Fiona and sweep her up to their bedchamber. Lose himself within her. And make her cry out, again and again, with pleasure, as she had done last night.

  Yet another part resisted—stubbornly, very stubbornly.

  It was this hard, seemingly intractable part of him that won out, and so he dismissed Shaw and rode, alone, to the shore of Loch Sgàthan, the site of that epic disaster fifteen years ago, today as smooth and as placid as if it had never—would never —roil up in a storm and swallow a handsome new boat and all its occupants.

  He dismounted, flung the reins of his bay over its neck, allowed him to wander, knowing a single whistle would bring him back. He walked slowly to the rocky stretch of shore which met up with gently lapping water, that liminal space between solid earth and infinitely yielding water. He picked up a stone, expertly sent it skipping along the blue surface, and smiled a little, remembering Gavin’s annoyance when here was something his little brother could do better.

  Alasdair’s smile faded as he thought back to the day Mòrag Cray, and all the others, had arrived from Glasgow. She came alone, without parents, the boon companion of one of the other young ladies, and no sooner had he caught sight of her than he’d fallen madly in love.

  So too had Gavin.

  They’d liked the same girl before, had competed to win the affections of this young woman or that young woman, but it had always, before, been in fun; had never tested the bond between them.

  It was different with Mòrag.

  For one thing, she was heart-stoppingly beautiful. And even though you could tell that she knew it, you couldn’t bring yourself to hold it against her, for she was, simply, dazzling, with her luscious round figure, her wild black curls, those black eyes that always seemed to gleam as if with a secret you wanted to know.

  Easily, effortlessly, she charmed all the young men who had come to Gavin’s house-party—captivating them with her playful, teasing ways, swinging hot one moment and cold the next, flirting with you at breakfast and ignoring you at dinner, then casting warmly provocative glances at you just when you thought you’d give in to despair. She danced, she rode, she played cards to win and threw them down if she didn’t, but in the next moment was laughing again and ready to find something else fun to do.

  For a while Mòrag toyed with them all, and finally he himself—impetuous, bewildered, lovesick young fool—had one evening gathered all his courage and invited her for a stroll in the gardens.

  There, underneath a golden harvest moon, alone with her for the very first time, he had told her he loved her, asked her to marry him. Had actually gone down on his knees.

  And Mòrag laughed.

  Don’t be silly, she said. Get up, before someone sees you like this.

  But don’t you even like me? he had stammered, clambering to his feet.

  Oh, I like you well enough, my boy, she’d replied with a shockingly brutal honesty, but you aren’t the heir to Castle Tadgh and all its holdings, are you?

  It was as if she had whipped out a little, sharp knife from her dainty slipper and stabbed him with it. His chest—his heart —literally hurt him.

  My God, he had slowly said, I ought to tell Gavin what you really are.

  She’d laughed again. Do you think he’ll believe you?

  He didn’t know what to say to that.

  Then Mòrag had whisked herself away and back inside, and he’d been left alone, his boy’s pride cut to the quick, and wondering what he should do. Things were already strained between Gavin and himself, and if Gavin really cared for her, who was he to stand in his way?

  He didn’t know.

  And so he did nothing.

  His last glimpse of Mòrag had been of her standing on the boat’s beautifully varnished deck, her arm slid possessively through Gavin’s, her black hair, blown free from its demure chignon, blowing wildly in the rising breeze.

  Gavin had organized the sailing expedition. He’d laughed at the wind, the clouds massing overhead, the ruffled waters of the loch. And everyone laughed along with him—except for himself. He’d tried to dissuade Gavin from taking out his boat and been kindly patted on his shoulder and dismissed. He’d appealed to their parents: Mother had told him not to be so nervous, and his father had urged him to come along so that he could learn from Gavin’s skill in handling his new boat. In a rage, he’d flung himself away and over to his cousin Hewie’s, and persuaded him to join him in several hard rounds of boxing until his equilibrium had returned and the image of Mòrag’s lovely face had begun to fade from his mind. He’d ignored the wind and the rain, assuming, of course, that they were all back at the castle, safe and sound, and quite possibly primed to make fun of him for his silly caution.

  It wasn’t till very late at night, when the storm had finally waned, that some of his father’s men had found him at Hewie’s and told him the news.

  They were all dead.

  And he was now the laird of Castle Tadgh and all its holdings.

 
He had fallen again to his knees, only this time he was howling.

  If only he had tried harder to dissuade them—

  He could have somehow made them stay on land—

  Couldn’t he?

  Short of knocking them all senseless, what else could he have done?

  He didn’t know that, either.

  Afterwards, later, when the mourners had come, he had met Mòrag’s dazed parents, who came creeping into the Great Hall like mice, timid and overwhelmed, he a faded, stooping clergyman, she a graying slip of a woman in a cloak that had been repaired many times over. He’d understood at once Mòrag’s determination to have Gavin, to reinvent herself as a nobleman’s wife, a lady of superior social standing, wealthy, privileged, every whim obeyed. There was no way of knowing, then or now, if she’d truly cared for Gavin.

  Not that it mattered, Alasdair thought, sending another stone skipping lightly along the water. They had gone, and left him alone. But Duff had come, and together they had—why, they had seized the day.

  When he was twenty-three, he’d carried on a delightful flirtation with Lady Rodina Breck that had come to nothing. The year after that, he’d fancied himself in love with his distant cousin Kenna Salmond, but after a while his interest there had also dwindled away, into a tepid sort of friendship. His other amours had been strictly conducted with women who understood that a wedding ring was not in the offing. Marriage, then, had been the last thing on his mind.

  Alasdair remembered, suddenly, Fiona turning the tables on him at the Keep o’ the Mòr by saying sardonically, Why aren’t you married?

  He also remembered her saying to him, a few days after that, while sitting together in the Great Drawing-room:

  I’ve observed how you wear your authority absolutely, but lightly. That you have a nice way with servants. That your clan obeys you without reserve. That you have great material wealth, and you live in a marvelous home in a breathtakingly beautiful part of the world. And yet …

  She had broken off, on her face a sudden, unguarded look of sorrow, and soon after Janet Reid had playfully interrupted them.

  Poor Janet—who, now that he thought about it, reminded him more than a little of Mòrag. But somehow he couldn’t remember either of their faces particularly well anymore. How strange.

  Now he found himself wondering what Fiona had been going to say to him that evening. He had, seemingly, everything in the world, and yet …

  And yet there’s something wrong with you.

  And yet you’re missing something.

  And yet you’ve never married.

  And yet you’ve never found love.

  Alasdair now sank down onto his heels, his gaze fixed on the smooth, shimmering surface of the loch. Prior to his thirty-fifth birthday, his life had been for years very much like that: smooth and placid. Easy. He knew the rumors that had been circulating about him all these years, wildly exaggerated rumors of his dissolute way of life, and for these he cared not a whit. He was a good laird, dedicated to the welfare of his clan; what did it matter how he privately conducted himself?

  Did he need an excuse for how he’d lived his life?

  And yet …

  Loss had shaped him, there was no doubt about it.

  Maybe he’d become a limited sort of man.

  In China, so he had heard, there was an enormous wall, stretching for thousands of miles, creating a high impenetrable boundary around its perimeter.

  Maybe he was like that, too.

  But there wasn’t any point in beating one’s chest and bemoaning the state of things. He hated when people did that. Besides, to complain about his lot would be like feeling sorry for yourself when you’d been given a perfectly practical and serviceable pair of socks for your birthday—and pining in a very silly way for, say, the moon. He was married now, and determined to fulfill his responsibilities.

  And he liked Fiona, he respected her—wasn’t that good enough?

  It was going to have to be.

  You couldn’t, as the saying went, wring blood from a stone.

  As if to prove his own point, he picked up one more stone and squeezed it in his fist, hard.

  No blood, of course.

  He was safe inside his wall.

  His old familiar wall.

  Alasdair sent the rock skipping across the shining blue water, watched it sink, then rose to his feet. He whistled for his horse, which came at once; without hurry he rode back to the castle where, when he stepped into the Great Hall, he overheard one of the maidservants saying to another, with a distinct note of awe in her voice:

  “The mistress is up in a tree?”

  “What?” Alasdair said. “Where?”

  They turned quickly, each dipping a little curtsy, and the other maidservant said, “Out in the back, laird, so I heard, among the very treetops!”

  Naturally he had to go.

  As soon as he was outside he saw the tree with an enormously long ladder propped up against it, and there was Monty, too, with a gnarled hand upon one of the rails—all too casually it seemed to Alasdair. And there, high above, on the uppermost rung, was Fiona, peering with interest at something concealed among the branches.

  She too gave the appearance of great casualness, and Alasdair could not suppress a vision of her falling, falling, lying crumpled and broken at his very feet. He had feared for her life as a captive among the Sutherlainns, but at least it had not been her fault she’d been thrust into danger. Nobody had forced her to climb this damned ladder!

  He was afraid for her. And he didn’t want to be afraid for her. To care about someone so much his heart was in his throat. From head to toe his body was alert to the possibility she might be harmed … Oh, God in heaven, here he went again. He glared down at Monty and said in a low, fierce growl:

  “What the devil is my wife doing?”

  “Goldfinch nest,” said the laconic Monty. “Rare.”

  “And you let her go up there?”

  He shrugged. “She wanted to see it.”

  “It never occurred to you that it might be dangerous?”

  “Very sure-footed, the mistress is.”

  It was then that Fiona turned her head and smiled down at him, and Alasdair, with the ease of long habit, steeled himself to stay guarded, even as he smiled warmly back. He wasn’t, he told himself firmly, being duplicitous. He hadn’t done anything, or said anything, to deceive Fiona.

  He’d simply acknowledged his boundaries.

  That’s all.

  An understanding achieved within the private depths of a man’s being: how small a thing, impossible to see or touch or quantify, how invisible to all the world. Yet a single silent act can change everything, altering the flow of events, influencing behavior, shaping outcomes. A butterfly in Africa, so it has been said, can—by flapping its wings in a certain way—trigger a hurricane thousands of miles away.

  Thus did Alasdair shut a door.

  At precisely the same moment that Fiona would, as it were, open a window.

  High above, Fiona felt her heart bloom. It would have taken supernatural abilities for anyone to see that in the warmth of Alasdair’s smile, the flash of his white teeth, the glow in his extraordinary eyes, that something was a little lacking, something was held back. Fiona only saw her handsome husband, only thought of last night’s bliss, and felt a rush of fiery anticipation that made her grip a little harder at the ladder’s railing.

  Good God, was it possible—she caught her breath in wonderment—that she was falling in love? That such a gift was being given, when she’d thought it denied to her forevermore?

  Yes.

  Happiness seemed to roar through her, like a cataclysm released.

  Yes.

  Oh, but life was good! She gave a last quick glance to the little clutch of faintly speckled eggs all clustered together in their cozy nest. The promise of something rare and special; the hope of new life. Perhaps for her, too, and even now within her …

  Could it be that her dreams were co
ming true at last?

  “Goldfinches, laird!” she called joyfully. “We’ll have goldfinches this autumn!”

  “Naturally I am delighted to hear the news, madam,” he responded smilingly, “but won’t you come down? I want to talk to you.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Is everything all right with the Smiths?”

  “Aye, to be sure.”

  “Oh, good,” and Fiona began to descend, moving swiftly and safely to the ground. Not for her the dangerous tumble, the precipitous fall. And there he was, big and solid, strong and handsome, to have and to hold, forever. He took her hand, lifted it to his lips, and Fiona felt her knees go rather rubbery. “Oh, Alasdair,” she murmured; she couldn’t help it. And she didn’t care if she sounded a little breathless, because she was.

  “Madam,” he said, and in his deep voice was a caress, and wasn’t it lovely that he didn’t let go of her hand after he had kissed it.

  It was only Monty clearing his throat that seemed to break the spell. “I need the ladder elsewhere,” he said dourly. “Could be we’ve worms in the apple grove.”

  “Oh no,” replied Fiona, but absently, and Monty shot her a darkling look before reaching for the ladder. He had been planning to let her have some brilliant red and orange helichrysums, but now he changed his mind and grumpily trudged off by himself to see about those worms.

  Alone in the garden, Fiona looked up at Alasdair. “What did you wish to talk about?”

  “I’ll tell you later,” he said, softly, “tonight.”

  He wanted her. He still wanted her. She knew it; could feel it. And she wanted him, too: an answering desire, delicious and sensual, sparked fiercely, flew along her limbs, pooled in the secret juncture between her legs, and Fiona took a step closer to him. How wonderful it was to be married. How marvelous to—yes, to be in love. Why, she almost felt like a giddy girl again, as if the world was made over again, just for her.