The Earl's Convenient Wife (Harlequin Romance)

by Marion Lennox

  He thought of his magnificent living quarters upstairs and suddenly it had lost its appeal.

  ‘Get your cooking into you before it’s cold,’ Jeanie told him, still smiling, so he sat in one of her squashy armchairs and he ate four singing hinnies and drank two cups of tea, and Jeanie sat on the mat with the dogs and ate two singing hinnies and drank one cup of tea and then they were done.

  Done? Jeanie cleared the cups and lifted the tray to one side. To safety? The world steadied—waiting to see what would happen?

  The way he was feeling... She was so...Jeanie. There was no other word to describe her. Jeanie.

  He slid down onto the mat beside her. The action was deliberate. One more boundary crossed?

  He shouldn’t be pushing boundaries. He, of all people, knew how important boundaries were, but maybe this one could be...stretched?

  ‘Jeanie,’ he said softly and he reached out and took her hand, not the hand wearing the wedding ring because for some reason the wedding ring was not where promises were to be made, but her right hand where lay the heavy signet of the Duncairn line.

  ‘Jeanie,’ he said again, and then, because he couldn’t help himself, ‘I’d really like to kiss you. No pressure. If you say no, then I won’t ask you again.’

  ‘Then I’d best say yes,’ she said, softly, amazingly, wonderfully. ‘Because I can’t stand it one moment longer. I’d really, really like it if you kissed me.’

  * * *

  She was out of her mind. She should not be doing this—she should not!

  She was and she had no intention of stopping.

  They were on the rug before the fire. His hands cupped her face, he looked into her eyes for a long, long moment, the world held its breath—and then he drew her mouth to his and kissed her.

  And she’d never been kissed like this. Never. It was as if she’d found her home. Her centre. Her heart.

  There was all the tenderness in the world in his kiss, and yet she could feel the strength of him, the heat, the need. The sheer arrant masculinity of him.

  How could a kiss be a life changer? How could a kiss make her feel she’d never been alive until this moment?

  How could a kiss make her feel as if her world were melting, the outside fading to nothing, that everything were disappearing except this man, this moment, this kiss?

  The heat...the strength...the surety... For that was what it was, she thought in the tiny part of her mind that was still available for rational thought. Surety?

  Home.

  She was twenty-nine years old. She’d spent twenty-nine years failing at this relationship business. She’d had a weak mother, a bully for a father, a husband who was no more than a mirror of his family’s business, then another who was vain and selfish and greedy.

  This man might be all those things underneath, she thought, but there was no hint of it in his kiss. Her head should override what her body was telling her, what his kiss was telling her, but this kiss couldn’t be ignored. This kiss was making her body feel as if it were no longer hers.

  Rightly or wrongly, all that mattered was that, for this moment, Alasdair McBride wanted her and she wanted him, as simple as that. One man, one woman and a desire so great that neither could pull back. Sense had no place here. This desire was as primeval as life itself and she’d gone too far to pull back.

  Too far to pull back? That was crazy. It was only a kiss. She could break it in a moment.

  But she had no intention of breaking it. This kiss was taking her places she’d never been, places she hadn’t known existed. Her hands had somehow found their way to his hair, her fingers sliding through the thick thatch of jet black, her hands drawing him closer so she could deepen...deepen...

  She heard a tiny sound from far away and she thought, That’s me. Moaning with desire? What sort of dumb thought was that?

  Dumb maybe, but the time for asking questions was over. If this moment was all she had of this man, her body knew she’d take it.

  Weak perhaps? Stupid? Was it Jeanie being passive? Was this the Jeanie of old?

  No. She felt her world shift and shift again and she knew this was no passive submission. Her hands held him even tighter and then tugged until his arms came around her and he drew her up to him, so his dark eyes could gleam into hers.

  ‘Jeanie McBride, can I take my wife to bed?’

  * * *

  If the dogs hadn’t been there, they might have made love right where they were—he certainly wanted to—but the dogs were gazing on with interest and, even though they were only dogs, it was enough to make a man take action.

  Or maybe it was because he wanted to take this woman to bed with all the honour he could show her? Maybe this moment was too important to rush?

  He wasn’t sure what the reason was. Hell, his brain was mush, yet he knew enough to gather her into his arms and sweep her against his chest and carry her up the great, grand staircase to his rooms, to his bedroom, to the massive four-poster bed that was the place the Earls of Duncairn had taken their brides for generations past.

  His bride?

  She’d married him a month ago and yet a month ago she hadn’t felt like this. He hadn’t felt like this. As if this was his woman and he’d claim her and honour her and protect her from this day forth.

  What had changed?

  Nothing...and everything.

  He’d spent the past month watching her. He’d come to her with preconceptions, prejudiced beyond belief by her marriage to his cousin. Those prejudices had been smashed by Jeanie, by her laughter, her courage, by everything about her. Every little thing.

  He’d spent a month waiting for this new image to crack. Waiting for the true Jeanie to emerge.

  It hadn’t happened, or maybe...maybe it had. For the image he’d built up was a woman with a brave heart and an indomitable spirit.

  What he held in his arms now was a woman of fire. A woman who, as he laid her down on his bed, as he hauled off his sweater and drew her to him, took the front of his shirt in her two hands and ripped...

  ‘If you knew how long I’ve wanted to do this,’ she murmured. And then she stopped because his chest was bare and she was gazing at him in awe...and then shifting just slightly so she could kiss...

  * * *

  She was adorable, he thought. She was stunning, beautiful, wild. She still had a smear of flour on her face from cooking. He’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life.

  ‘If you’ve wanted to see me naked,’ he said and he couldn’t get his voice steady for the life of him, ‘how do you think I’ve wanted to see you?’

  And then she smiled, a smile of sheer transparent happiness, a smile that shafted straight to his heart.

  * * *

  Jeanie woke as the first rays of light crept over the sea through the window.

  She woke and she was lying in the arms of the man she loved.

  The knowledge almost blindsided her. She couldn’t move. She could hardly breathe. She was lying tucked under his arm. He was cradling her—even in sleep? Her skin was against his skin. She could feel his heartbeat.

  Her man. It was a feeling so massive it threatened to overwhelm her.

  When she was young she’d loved Rory, large, dependable Rory, who’d wanted to please and protect her—as long as it hadn’t interfered with his routine. She had loved him, she thought, but never like this. Never with this overwhelming sense of belonging.

  For a short time she’d also thought she’d loved Alan. How long had it taken her to find the true Alan under the sham of the charming exterior? Too long.

  But now... With Alasdair...

  True waters run deep?

  Where had that saying come from? She didn’t know. She didn’t even know if she had it right, but the words came to her now and she felt almost over
whelmed by their rightness.

  This man was deep, private, a loner. She knew the story of his parents. She knew from Eileen about his solitary childhood and she’d learned more from him.

  And now... She’d learned more in the past hours than she could even begin to understand. He’d wanted her but this was more than that. The words he’d murmured to her through the night, the way he’d held her, the way he’d looked at her...

  He’d shed his armour, she thought. Her great warrior had come home.

  ‘Penny for them.’ His voice startled her. It was still sleepy, but there was passion behind the huskiness. There was tenderness, too, and she thought last night wasn’t just...last night. The armour was still discarded.

  He was still hers.

  ‘I was feeling like we should advertise singing hinnies as the world’s new aphrodisiac,’ she managed. ‘Known only to us.’

  ‘Let’s keep it that way,’ he said and gathered her closer. ‘Just between us. It feels...excellent. Jeanie...’

  ‘Mmm?’ She lifted her face so she was pillowed on his chest. She liked his chest. As chests went, his was truly magnificent. The best?

  ‘I don’t know if I’m going to be any good at this.’

  ‘At...’

  ‘At marriage.’

  She thought about that for a moment, assembling ideas and discarding them until she found the right one.

  ‘Just lucky we’re not, then.’

  ‘We are.’

  ‘No.’ She pushed herself up so she was looking down at him, into his beautiful dark eyes, so she could see him clearly, all of him. He was her husband, her body was screaming at her—but she knew he wasn’t.

  ‘Alasdair, I’ve been down that path,’ she said, slowly but surely, knowing that, no matter what her body was telling her, what she said was right. ‘Twice now I’ve taken wedding vows and meant them. This time we spoke them but we didn’t mean them. They were lies from the start so maybe that’s the way it’s meant to be. We’ve made the vows but now we need to prove them. We shouldn’t even think of marriage before...unless...we fall in love.’

  ‘Jeanie, the way I feel—’

  ‘Hush,’ she told him and put a finger to his lips. ‘We both feel,’ she told him. ‘And maybe for you it’s the first time, but for me... Alasdair, if this is for real, then it has to feel real. I won’t have you held to me by vows we made when we were under duress. Let’s leave this for a year.’

  ‘A year...’ He shook his head, his eyes darkening. He lifted one of her curls and twisted it and the sensation of the moving curl was enough to drive her wild all by itself. ‘I have news for you. I don’t think I can wait a minute.’

  She was struggling to keep her voice even, to say what needed to be said. ‘That’s the way I feel, too, and I think...I think that’s okay.’

  ‘It has to be okay—wife.’

  ‘No.’ She drew back, still troubled. She had to make him see. ‘I’m not your wife, Alasdair. For now I’m your lover, and I’d like...I’d like to stay your lover. Last night was...’

  ‘Mind-shattering,’ he said and she wanted to melt but she mustn’t. She mustn’t.

  ‘We didn’t go into last night with vows, though,’ she managed. ‘Alasdair...’

  ‘Jeanie?’

  He was driving her wild with wanting, but she had to say it. ‘If at the end of the year we still want to marry, then...then we can think about it, but no pressure. We’re not married until then.’

  ‘So we’re merely lovers?’

  ‘I don’t think merely comes into it.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ he said and he smiled and tugged her back to him. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he told her. ‘A year of self-enforced courtship. A year where I’m locked in Duncairn Castle with my Jeanie, and at the end—’

  ‘I’m not your Jeanie, and we’ll worry about the end at the end.’

  ‘But for the next few moments?’

  And finally she managed to smile. Finally she let herself relax and savour being where she most wanted to be in the world. ‘Let’s just take each few moments as they come.’

  ‘Starting now?’

  And he smiled back at her, a dark, dangerous smile that had her heart doing back flips. He tugged her closer and he didn’t need to wait for a response.

  ‘Yes,’ she breathed and then she could scarcely breathe at all.

  CHAPTER NINE

  LIFE HAD TO RESTART, a new norm had to be established, the world had to realign on its axis.

  Lovers but not husband and wife?

  It was working, Jeanie conceded as week followed week, as summer faded to autumn, as the castle settled to its new routine. Duncairn guests were now welcomed by a host as well as a hostess. Alasdair drew back on his visits to Edinburgh. He still worked during the day, sometimes from dawn, but at five every afternoon he kitted himself out in full highland regalia and came down the massive stairway to greet their guests.

  Their guests. That was what it felt like. It was even fun, Jeanie conceded, sitting in the great library watching guests sipping their whisky, listening to Alasdair draw them out, listening to them tell of their travels, watching them fall under his spell.

  It was also excellent for business. Although she nobly didn’t advertise it, it was soon all over the web that the Earl of Duncairn Castle greeted his guests in person, and bookings went up accordingly.

  ‘By the time you get your castle back it might be paying for itself,’ she teased him that night.

  For the nights were theirs. Their lives had fallen into a pattern. They walked the dogs at midday or when there was a break in the weather. They greeted the guests together. They had a brief dinner together. They came together at night.

  Every night he was hers.

  ‘We’ll get the castle valued and add to your wages accordingly,’ he told her. ‘You needn’t worry about the effort you’re putting in not being appreciated.’

  ‘I’m not worried about value.’

  ‘You should be.’

  But how to explain to him she didn’t give a toss? How to say that she was living for the moment, and if, at the end of the year, this wasn’t a marriage, then she’d not want anything to remind her of what could have been?

  For she’d fallen in love, she conceded, as the weeks wore on. Alasdair might be able to hold himself apart, segment his life into times he could spend with her and times he couldn’t, but there was no way she could.

  He’d thought this could be a marriage, but Jeanie knew what bad marriages were, and she wanted more.

  Did he think of her at all when he was elbow deep in his endless paperwork, phone calls, negotiations, flying trips to Edinburgh, fast international flights for imperative meetings? she wondered.

  Did he fly back to her thinking, I want to get back to Jeanie? Or did he fly back thinking he had to get back to fulfil the stipulations of his grandmother’s will?

  At night, held in his arms, cocooned in the mutual passion, he felt all hers. But at dawn he was gone again.

  She rose each day and got on with her work but she couldn’t help listening for when the dogs’ pressure got too much and she’d hear his study door open.

  ‘Walk?’

  How could she ever say no? It’d be like cutting her heart from her body. She donned her mac and her walking boots, they set off in whatever direction the dogs led them and she thought as she walked that she’d never been happier.

  Except...

  Except this was still compartmentalised. While they walked they talked of the castle, of the guests they’d had the night before, of the eagles, the otters, the wild things that crossed their path.

  She tried, a few times, to ask about his work. Each time he answered politely, telling her what she wanted to know but no more.

  The
message was clear. His work was one compartment. She was another.

  In those times she knew he wasn’t hers completely. She could see it in his eyes—this was a midday walk between business sessions. His mind was on deals, plans, business she had no part in.

  And she was part of his plans for the castle. As the weeks wore on she realised that. His decision to dress and come down to greet their guests was a business decision and a good one. She was part of that section of his business dealings but not the rest.

  ‘I should be happy,’ she told the dogs, because there was no one else to talk to. ‘How many wives know their husband’s business?’

  She’d known Rory’s—he’d bored her to snores with details of every last fish.

  She’d been forced to know Alan’s. He’d involved her in it to the point where she’d thought she was drowning.

  Alasdair kept his business separate. She thought...she guessed...there was something worrying him about the business but she wasn’t permitted to know what.

  ‘It’s his right to keep to himself,’ she told the dogs. ‘We could still... We might still be married, even if...’

  Even if...

  ‘He has less than a year to let me in,’ she whispered. She was sitting by her hearth, supposedly reading, but she’d given the book up to hug the dogs. She needed hugging. It was late at night, she was tired and soon she’d go to bed but she could hear the distant murmur of Alasdair on the phone. Who was he talking to? Who knew?

  Should she go to bed and wait?

  ‘Of course I will,’ she told the dogs. She had to be up early in the morning to get the guests’ breakfasts, but, no matter how early she rose, Alasdair would rise earlier.

  Ten more months to make a marriage?

  ‘It’s not going to work,’ she said bleakly.

  ‘So tell him,’ she told herself.

  ‘How can I?’ She hugged the dogs tighter. ‘How can I?’ she asked them again. ‘He’s given me so much...how can I ask for more?’

  * * *

  It was working better than he’d thought possible. Somehow he seemed to have succeeded at this marriage business. Somehow he’d got it right.