The Laird's English Bride

by Lauren Royal

  With a gasp, she crossed her arms over herself. “Tell me you didn’t see that.”

  “I didn’t see that.” But he had. She was beautiful. Everything about her was beautiful. Not only the way she looked, but her soul. And the way she felt in his arms.

  She shivered. “I…I don’t know what came over me.”

  “It was the cold,” he said, offering her an out. “And the wet.”

  But they both knew that something had changed in the water.

  “Yes, it must have been,” she said. Her hair had come undone and hung in long, wet tendrils down her back. He wanted to wrap his hands in it. Her arms were still crossed over her chest. “I’m sorry,” she added.

  “For what?”

  “For making you get wet. Ruining your clothes and boots. I hope…” She froze, and her face went white—whiter even than when she’d been submerged in the icy river. “Please don’t be vexed with me.”

  “Why would I be vexed with you, Clarice?”

  She looked like she expected him to be furious, and the truth was, that expectation in itself rekindled his anger. His hands itched to throttle the man who had taught her to be so wary.

  Lucky for him, the scum was out of reach.

  “You didn’t do it on purpose,” he said. “And truth be told, I would happily ruin my boots to hold you again.” He moved closer. “May I kiss you again, Clarice?”

  She bit her lip, for all the world looking like she didn’t believe him.

  He wouldn’t press her, not now when she looked so cold and miserable. Moving to the other bench, he sighed and picked up the oars. With strokes made powerful by frustration, the boat was soon slicing through the water toward the docks.

  “Tell me, Clarice,” he asked presently, “if you cannot swim, why weren’t you frightened when you fell?”

  Her words were long in coming, and when they finally did, it was with a kind of wonder, as though she surprised herself with her answer. “I knew you would come after me,” she said simply.

  Progress, he decided. It would have to do for now.

  EIGHT

  “I’M THINKING . . .” The horse in the stall before him flicked its tail, and Cameron forced his mind back to the discussion. “I’m thinking if I cross our Highland ponies with some of this stock, then—”

  “Why’re you hanging around here, Cam?” Caithren grinned and took her cousin’s hand, pulling him out of Cainewood’s stables. “It’s obvious your head is somewhere else.”

  “I wanted to study English breeding methods.” He followed her along the path back to the castle. “And the estate manager’s theories pertaining to crops—why, there are all sorts of newfangled ideas that bear exploring, as long as I’ve taken the time to remain here in England until—”

  “Cam.” Caithren paused on the trodden grass that led through a meadow sprinkled with yellow buttercups, her smile all too knowing. “You don’t want to talk about crops.”

  “Nay?” Cameron sneezed, then rubbed a finger under his nose. “Do you know, then, who around here might be considered the expert on sheep—”

  “You’re not wanting to talk about sheep, either.”

  He remained mute, cocking one sandy brow.

  “You’ve been distracted all afternoon,” she declared. He’d never been able to hide much from Cait. “Would you rather be somewhere else?”

  “Nay. Nay, of course not.” He almost reached to tug one of her plaits—an old gesture of affection between them—before remembering she now wore her hair loose to please her husband. He crossed his arms instead. “How is married life treating you, Cait?”

  “So far I like it.” She turned and started ambling over the drawbridge, her straight hair fluttering in her wake. “Very much,” she called back, laughter in her voice.

  Following her, his boots sounded loud on the timeworn wood. “I’m going to miss you.” They’d been there for each other, always. “I can hardly imagine returning to Leslie alone.”

  “You need someone to share it with.” Exactly what he’d been thinking, but he could all but hear the wheels turning in her head. And they weren’t running the same direction his did. “There is always Lady Nessa.”

  “She wouldn’t have me when I was plain Cameron Leslie—”

  “But now you’re the laird, Cam.” Caithren stopped beneath the barbican and turned to him.

  “Exactly.” He blinked at her in the shadows. “Whatever feelings I had for Nessa died when she laughed at the thought of ever marrying me. She is sleekit, but cold underneath, aye? I won’t be going back to her now.”

  His gaze drifted up to the massive portcullis overhead. The iron-banded gate would kill him instantly should it fall. Indeed, he would prefer such a fate to life with Lady Nessa.

  “And the village lasses?” She grinned and started walking again, backward this time, avidly watching his face. “I can think of more than a couple who are anything but cold. You’ve shared a kiss or two with some of them, aye?”

  He reached for her shoulders and spun her to face away. “I won’t be saying.” He heard Caithren’s hoot of laughter. “But there’s none of them I can picture spending my life with, regardless.” He trailed her into the quadrangle and up the winding stairs of the old keep, all the while picturing spending his life with a certain someone who waited in a small white cottage. “I want somebody like Clarice—I mean, Mrs. Bradford.”

  His statement seemed to vibrate through the ancient stones, and his cousin’s feet faltered on the steps. “You mean you want Clarice herself, don’t you?” He could hear the smile in her voice as she climbed. “Don’t trouble yourself to argue—I saw you two together at my wedding. Does it not bother you that she’s been married before?”

  “If I were thinking of having her, nay, it wouldn’t bother me.” They passed beneath an archway and onto a long stretch of wall walk that circumnavigated much of the castle. “She didn’t have an easy time of that marriage, Cait. Not that I’m planning to take her home with me, you understand, but it’s the truth I’ve found myself wondering if maybe I could make her happy. And Mary. She’s a precious lass, and she’s had a hard life.”

  It was quiet up on the wall, and the view stretched for miles, lush and green. “You shouldn’t marry someone to right past wrongs,” Cait said softly. “Or even to make her happy. You should marry for your own reasons. If marriage is what you’re thinking you want, you need selfish reasons, if I may say so.”

  “I have my own reasons. But they don’t matter, since Cl—Mrs. Bradford—won’t consider my suit. Not that I’ve been trying to court her. That would be daft, would it not? I’m leaving in four days.” He crossed to the side facing the castle. “She thinks she’s too old for me.”

  Though Caithren remained on the other side, he could feel her gaze on his back. “What do you think, Cam?”

  “I think she’s lovely and sweet, and a strong person who isn’t afraid of hard work. Life at Leslie isn’t easy, as you well know. It’s no Cainewood.” He gestured to the immense edifice of the castle and the open quadrangle, continually crisscrossed by servants going about their business. As castles went, Leslie and his lifestyle there couldn’t have been more of a contrast. “My wife won’t be lying around eating sweetmeats all the day.”

  When she came to stand beside him, Caithren’s eyes flashed hazel fire. “Is that what you think I’ll be doing?”

  He raised both hands in mock self-defense. “I know you better than that. But the fact remains you could do nothing more than that if it pleased you. Whereas my wife—”

  “You are thinking of marriage, aren’t you?”

  “I think I might love her,” he blurted. As soon as the words left his lips, he knew they were true. Feeling suddenly unsteady, he braced himself against the solid stone wall. “That’s reason enough to marry her, aye?” His voice shook slightly.

  Cait gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Are you sure, Cam? You’ve known her but a few days.”

  He gazed out over the busy
quadrangle for a spell. “How long did you know your new husband before you decided you loved him?”

  “Not much longer,” she conceded, looking thoughtful. “Maybe the Leslies just fall fast.”

  Cam snorted.

  “So then I have a question for you, Cameron Leslie.” Her face split into a grin. “Why have you wasted the afternoon hanging around here when you could be courting your lady?”

  “She invited me for supper,” he admitted.

  “Then go ready yourself,” she said. “You look like a drowned rat.”

  She gave him a shove toward the keep and the stairs, and he was off without another word.

  “Just don’t go gathering flowers to impress her,” she called after him.

  NINE

  “HE KISSED ME, Gisela.” Clarice paced her friend’s small cookshop. “Just like that, and then he asked me to go home with him to Scotland.”

  Gisela pushed a strand of flaxen hair back under her mobcap. “And when he comes tonight, what will you tell him?” she asked, her words directed to the table where she was counting the strawberry tarts Clarice had brought her.

  “I don’t know what to tell him. He cannot have been serious, anyway.” Drawing a deep breath, Clarice took the empty basket off her arm and set it on the table. “Watch where you’re running, Mary!”

  “You as well, Anne,” Gisela chided her sprite of a child as she watched the two girls race around the cookshop. “You’re making me dizzy.” She reached out a plump hand to stop her daughter’s hectic progress. “Go into the back and fetch Mrs. Bradford two loaves of bread.”

  “As you wish, Mama.” Laughing, Anne streaked past a lace curtain and into the next room, Mary close on her heels.

  Clarice sighed. “I’m still wondering how it is I invited him to supper. I was leaving to go home and dry off, and the words just came out of my mouth, all by themselves.”

  “All by themselves, is it?” When Clarice kept her lips pressed tight, Gisela leaned closer. “You like him, don’t you?”

  “He’s good to Mary. Patient. He told her a story. And her eyes light up when—”

  “This isn’t about Mary.” With a self-satisfied smile, Gisela counted coins to pay Clarice for the tarts. “It’s true your daughter could use a man in her life. Can’t we all?” Her kind brown eyes sparkled when she laughed. “But this is about you, Clarice, and what you want for yourself.”

  “I’ve been happy alone with Mary. After what I went through with Will, I value my independence.”

  “And?” The money jingled when Gisela scooped it up.

  “He’s young.”

  “How young?”

  Clarice bit her lip. “Nineteen.”

  “A young man, yes, but a man grown. If your age difference doesn’t bother him, why should it bother you? Other women will be envious.” When Clarice rolled her eyes, Gisela handed her the coins. “And?”

  The money clinked in Clarice’s hands as she toyed with it, pouring the small pile from one palm to the other. “Scotland. He lives in Scotland. For heaven’s sake, I’ve never even been to London!”

  “And?”

  She lowered her head, and her voice dropped to a defeated whisper. “My skin tingles when he touches me. I”—she looked up—“I’ve never felt like this before.”

  “I felt like that once upon a time.” Gisela’s words sounded far away, as far away as where she seemed to be staring. “Then Tim succumbed to the smallpox, and here I am…running the cookshop alone. Alone, Clarice.” Her gaze focused on her friend. “It isn’t good to be alone.”

  “I have Mary,” Clarice said doggedly.

  And I’m terrified, she added to herself.

  “For how many years will you have her?” Gisela asked. “They grow. They grow and they’re gone. You cannot live your life through a child, my dear. That wouldn’t be fair to either of you.”

  TEN

  “DELICIOUS.” Cameron pushed back from the table. “You’re a woman of many talents. I thank you for the fine meal.”

  Her cheeks burning, Clarice rose to clear the bowls. “It was nothing compared to what they serve at the castle.”

  “I’ve told you, Clarice, I’m a simple country lad. I prefer simple country food.”

  His words weren’t mere flattery—he’d polished off two servings of the stewed venison she’d prepared. She leaned close to retrieve his empty bowl. He smelled fresh and faintly spicy, not just the clean scent of the river, but like he’d bathed afterward at the castle, using expensive imported soap. Her husband had worked hard at the mill and rarely bathed—he’d usually smelled of stale sweat.

  She jumped back when Cameron released a great, thunderous sneeze.

  He shook his head as though to clear it. “Oh, I’ll admit that once in a while it’s nice to eat fancy. But a man could fall ill eating like that every day, aye?”

  “I hope you’re not falling ill now,” she told him, her heart thudding at the sudden thought. The Black Death had swept through England two years earlier, devastating the population. And its first symptom was sneezing.

  His face turned red. “It’s just—” Cupping his hands over his mouth, he sneezed again.

  Mary stared at him with open admiration. “You have the loudest sneeze I’ve ever heard.”

  “Mary!” Clarice admonished, although she’d been thinking the same thing herself before anxiety had distracted her.

  He sneezed yet again, seeming to shake the cottage walls. “My apologies. It’s just—” Another explosion had Clarice reaching for her daughter. She had half a mind to run for the door.

  Looking sheepish, Cameron buried his nose in a handkerchief. “It’s just the flowers,” came his muffled admission.

  “The what?” Mary asked, nibbling on a fingernail while a panicked Clarice tried to recall if her daughter had touched him with that hand.

  “The flowers.” He gestured toward the middle of the table, where Clarice had placed a bowl crammed with cheerful posies she’d picked from her garden. “They make me sneeze.”

  His words finally got through to her. As he drew breath in preparation for another discharge, Clarice lunged for the bowl, clutching it to her chest. “Flowers make you sneeze?”

  With an obvious effort, he held back. “Aye. I’ve always been that way—I don’t know why.”

  “Lud.” So he wasn’t on the verge of death after all. Trying not to laugh—at herself or his absurd affliction, or maybe both—she sidled toward the door. “Let me just take these outside.”

  Cameron began to rise, as though he intended to help her. Or to leave.

  “Mary,” she choked out, “will you please pour Sir Cameron more ale?” She hurried outside, closing the door behind her before she slumped against it, attacked by a fit of the giggles like she’d never experienced.

  Around Cameron, she seemed to be a different person. She knew not whether that was good or bad, but she did know she had to get herself under control.

  Biting her tongue, she drew a deep breath and used every ounce of her will to keep a straight face as she reentered the cottage.

  As requested, her daughter had poured more ale. Apparently recovered, Cameron sipped and chatted with Mary while Clarice bustled about, stoking the fire and lighting candles to ward off the dark that was swiftly falling. If she were honest with herself, she was hoping the cozy atmosphere and another cup of ale would keep him there awhile.

  Though if she were perfectly honest with herself, what she truly hoped for was another kiss.

  And why not? What could it hurt? She’d already let herself get swept away. The inevitable disappointment would be no worse for having one more memory of Cam to cherish.

  He had removed his surcoat and sat at her table in a thin lawn shirt, the sleeves rolled up to reveal tanned, muscled forearms. That small display of skin was enough to remind her how he’d looked and felt all wet. Agile and strong, and so unlike her husband’s aging form. She could hardly imagine Will hauling her from the river with such ea
se, let alone kissing her to distraction while he did it.

  But though Cameron had readily accepted her supper invitation, he hadn’t so much as touched her all evening. She wondered whether he’d given up, or whether he was simply gentleman enough not to pursue her in her daughter’s presence. She hoped it was the latter.

  For she meant to have that kiss. She’d thought of little else since Cam had shown her the truth this afternoon: that she’d never really been kissed before. A mindless grinding of the lips, perhaps, but not a true kiss as she now knew it, as something intimate and exciting and sublime. Something she wasn’t ready to forgo just yet.

  Everything else, she could happily live without. She knew what that felt like, and why anyone would ever call it making love was beyond her comprehension. A glossy lie, that, doubtless invented by men to keep brides from abandoning their marriage beds.

  But the kissing. The kissing, she was rather taken with.

  “Well, I’ve got two choices,” Cameron announced, rising. “I can either leave or we can dance.”

  Clarice was removing the apron that covered her navy blue dress. “Dance?” Whatever was he talking about?

  “Aye, dance,” he said. “I was supposed to practice my dancing tonight, in preparation for Friday’s ball. Lady Kendra told me in no uncertain terms that I was to return early or dance here instead.”

  Clarice didn’t fall for that story, but when he began pushing the table and chairs out of the way, she couldn’t seem to find the words to tell him no. Courtly dancing was for couples, mostly. He would have to touch her.

  Her skin tingled at the mere thought.

  Mary scraped a chair across the floor. “May I dance, too?”

  “Of course you may.” He brushed his palms on his plain wool breeches. “We’ll start with the minuet. I need the most practice in that—”

  “We’ve got no music,” Mary pointed out.