Ewan leaned over and kissed her and she longed to melt into him. She closed her eyes and tried to savor every moment of their first kiss as man and wife.
And then the priest was unwrapping their hands and sending them on their way to begin their new life together.
A part of her desperately wanted to return to the inn and spend days alone with Ewan. But she had to return Agnes and she needed to speak with her parents. While her father had allowed her to leave, it was no guarantee that he would sign over her dowry to Ewan.
They did return to the inn but only to collect the carriage and horses. Clarissa and Agnes climbed into the buggy while Ewan and Keiran got onto their horses.
As soon as the wheels set in motion, Clarissa was on the other seat. “What happened last night?”
Agnes made a face at her. “Besides you leaving me with the most unethical laird in all of Scotland?”
“He didn’t, I mean you didn’t…” Clarissa grasped Agnes’s hand.
Agnes’s frown deepened. “Of course not. He’s not interested in me like that. He just didn’t want to give up his room. I told him if he was any type of gentleman, he would. What man doesn’t help women stranded on the side of the road or—” Agnes tossed herself back on the seat. “Why wouldn’t he be interested in me? I’m pretty enough. I don’t have a title, but I’ve a decent dowry. Not like yours, of course, but still.”
Clarissa bit back a smile. “But you wouldn’t want a man who couldn’t be a gentleman anyway.”
“Of course, not,” Agnes huffed. “He’s just dreadful.”
“I thought Ewan was dreadful too.”
Agnes lifted and eyebrow. “It isn’t even remotely the same. Ewan was always chivalrous and kind.”
Clarissa shrugged. “I didn’t think so, but I was too emotionally close to the situation to see it for what it really was.” She didn’t want to be too obvious. Agnes would have to discover the truth for herself.
They approached Ravenscraig just after the noon meal and Clarissa tried to calm the queasy churning of her stomach. Just before the drive, the carriage came to a halt and Ewan snapped open the door. “Are ye all right, lass?” he asked, holding his hand out to hers.
She took it and nodded as he gently pulled her out of the carriage. “Just a little nervous.”
“Don’t be.” He held her hands as he kissed her forehead. “I’ll be by your side the entire time.”
“I know my mother approves but my father…” her voice trailed off. “What if he withholds my dowry?”
“We have each other, we’ll get by.” He gave her a reassuring smile.
She tried to return it. “What if he never speaks to me again?” Her hand shook a little in his. “I’m angry with him but I still love him.”
“I hope it doesn’t come to that, lass.” He squeezed her hands. “I’ll do everything I can to make it right with him.”
“You won’t give me up, will you?” she asked, a little fear trickling into her voice. Now that she’d almost lost him once, she knew she couldn’t again.
But he pulled her into his embrace. “Anything but that.” His lips whispered down her cheek. “Ride with me up to the castle. There will be no separating us then.”
With a nod, he swung up on the horse and then reached down, easily lifting her up. Settling her sideways in front of him, he settled her close to his body. She leaned her forehead on his chest, arms around his waist.
The steady beat of his heart calmed her own into a more normal rhythm. For a moment she relaxed and her eyes drifted closed.
But the sound of her father’s voice made her head snap back up. Roughly he called, “What is the meaning of this?”
She lifted her head, her eyes narrowing on her father. The rest of her family stood slightly behind him but she only looked at him. Now that she was in the moment, or perhaps because she was in Ewan’s arms, she wasn’t nervous anymore and she wouldn’t run. “Hello, Papa.”
The calm of her voice seemed to take him aback. “You were supposed to return last night.”
“There was a terrible storm. We had to stay.”
“And Agnes?” An accusation was apparent in those two words. While Clarissa no longer had a pristine reputation to protect, her cousin did.
“My lord,” Ewan swung down from the horse, holding her in his arms. Gently setting her to the ground, his hand still wrapped possessively around her waist. “The inn was full so I gave my room to the ladies and Laird McKenna and I shared.”
Her father leveled Ewan with a stare. “If I’ve word to the contrary, you’ll be marrying my daughter.”
Ewan cleared his throat. “I already have, my lord.”
Her father paled considerably. “Without my consent?”
But her mother stepped next to him and Haggis on the other side.
“Let’s take this conversation into the house, shall we?” Haggis rumbled.
Her father turned his head, his lip curling. “She’s my daughter, Haggis. You’ve no right to supersede me as you’ve done.”
“We’re family so I willna knock out yer teeth.” Haggis crossed his arms. “Yer daughter just announced she’s married an earl. She did a fair sight better than ye, I’d say. If yer angry, then it should be at yerself for making such a mess in the first place.”
Those words were like a balm to her anger. She had done the right thing.
Her father just gaped at him but Ewan, with a squeeze to her hand, left her side and walked up to her father.
“My lord,” he started.
But her father let out a huff of breath. “You outrank me, you don’t have to call me ‘my lord.’ But you would if you hadn’t just been awarded the title a mere year ago.”
“Papa,” Clarissa’s exasperated huff cut through his response.
Ewan took that as an opportunity to continue. “I love your daughter, sir. I’ll do my best to care for her and keep her in the comfort she’s become accustomed to.”
“Of course you will.” Her father raised his hands in the air. “She’s got a dowry large enough to keep the Queen content.”
Ewan’s face tightened. There it was again and Clarissa knew it was a point of contention for him. For the first time since they’d arrived, she was nervous.
“I won’t take it.” Ewan’s voice was so low it might not have been heard over the ocean crashing in the distance but everyone seemed to hear him anyway because every eye turned to him.
Her father’s mouth dropped open. “What are you saying?”
“I didn’t marry her for the money and I don’t need it. I’ll provide for my family just fine without it. We’ll have time before the bairns come to make the house right and build up the income.”
“The bairns?” Her father’s voice had lost all of its anger.
“Children, dear,” her mother spoke for the first time, her hand coming to his arm.
“I married a Scot woman, I know what bairns are. I just, I hadn’t really considered that new babies would be coming in the future.”
“What was I marrying Davenport for?” Clarissa asked before she could stop the question from popping out.
“He didn’t seem quite ready to settle. I thought it might be some time before children…” his voice drifted off. “He really was a dreadful choice, wasn’t he?” Her father shook his head.
She’d needed those words, more than she had known. And when she heard them, she threw herself into her father’s arms. He hugged her tight. “Absolutely awful,” she laughed. “But it brought me here, to Ewan.”
“You love him?” her father asked.
She nodded and he gave her one more squeeze. “I do, Papa.”
She stepped back and took Ewan’s hand again. “Mo chridhe,” he murmured as his large hand enveloped hers.
Epilogue
“When are Agnes and your aunt arriving?” Ewan was sitting behind her, his arms creating a cocoon of warmth as she read the letter.
“Next week. They’ll stay until the baby comes.�
�� She bit her lip. He wasn’t going to like the next part. “My parents are coming too.”
She felt him groan. It had been a year since they had married and she was now six months pregnant. He hardly allowed her to do a thing, so she was actually eager for the company, but she didn’t want to tell him that.
In the end, her father had finally convinced Ewan to take some small portion of the dowry to make his lands fully operational. But she knew her father. He was already looking for ways to bestow the rest of it on them. The Scots weren’t the only ones who were stubborn. Her father was too. Much like herself.
And the baby, there was no way he wouldn’t be there when the baby came. She’d have to talk to Ewan about granting her parents a parcel of land to build a house on if her father hadn’t already bought one. He’d be coming to Scotland as often as the Queen to visit his grandchildren.
“How long do ye think they’ll stay?” he asked, keeping his voice neutral. She wasn’t fooled.
“Long enough that you might ask Keiran if we can purchase that strip of land between your holdings and his,” she answered honestly without giving too much information.
This time he gave a loud groan. While he’d come to terms with her father, they weren’t a love match by any stretch. “Just so that they don’t always have to stay in our house,” she finished with grin.
He began trailing his hand up her arm as his lips kissed a path down her neck. “I’m going to need plenty of consoling while they’re here.”
She giggled. “Is that right?” Then she turned to give him a soft kiss. “For you, my love, anything.”
“I’d do anything for you too. Even give your parents land right next to us.” He winked. “Do I have to build them a house?”
“You know my father, he’ll want to do it himself and it will give him something to do that keeps him out of your hair.”
He gave her a broad smile. “I’m beginning to like this idea more and more.” His hand slid back down to her arm and onto her growing stomach, gently massaging the skin. It was a tender touch filled with all the love he held for their child. She relaxed back into him.
“Will Fiona be joining yer uncle and aunt when they come?”
She gave a tinkling laugh then. “I don’t know yet. She’s still in the throes of wedded bliss.”
“We’re still in the throes of wedded bliss too.” His resumed his path down her neck, sliding onto her collarbone.
“Our bliss has culminated in a bairn,” she imitated his accent on the last word.
“Once the little lad or lass is out, can we continue with the bliss?” His voice was a low grumble, filled with heat and passion.
“Oh, we’re still in it now, aren’t we?” she gasped as his hand came up to brush her sensitive nipple.
“Most certainly. Now and forever,” he whispered and then they said no more. Their bodies speaking the language of love.
Heart of a Highlander
A Laird to Love Book 2
USA Today Bestselling Author
Tammy Andresen
Prologue
Colin Campbell stood just outside his father’s darkened room. At five years old, he’d learned the difference between real sickness and one of his father’s fits, as his mother liked to call them. His brother, Shamus, who was seven, stood next to him.
“He’s sad again,” Shamus whispered.
“I ken,” Colin hissed back, tired of his brother thinking he knew everything because he was two years older.
“It’s because of me, Ma,” Shamus looked down to the floor as he said it.
Colin nodded, his anger melting away. No one discussed it outside the house, but everyone inside the house knew. Shamus’s mother had died during childbirth. Colin’s mother was from the village. Not that she was just a farm girl. She had family in the Highlands that owned land, but her father had made his living on the sea. She’d been hired to care for Shamus and had quickly become the lady of the house. But after seven years, the elder Campbell still grieved the loss of his first wife. It was the worst near Shamus’s birthday. “I wonder what she looked like,” Colin pondered aloud. There were no pictures of her anywhere in the estate. Colin assumed they made his father too sad.
“Like me, of course.” Shamus’ face was set into hard lines. Colin wanted to argue that Shamus looked exactly like their father but he had learned not to touch such subjects. Most of the time, his father was a man to be admired. Strong and handsome, even the Earl of Ravenscraig would seek his council. But during these fits, his father slipped away leaving nothing but a shell.
“Colin,” his father called from the bed. “Come here, lad.”
With heavy feet, Colin moved into the room. He hated that his father wanted to talk with him during these times. The conversation was always the same and he had no idea what to say.
“Son.” His father called him over to the bed
“Yes, Da,” he replied in a quiet voice. It was required of him to be polite, attentive.
Waving his hand, his father called him closer. “I want to talk wit’ ye.”
“All right.” His feet slowed even more, dread weighing him down.
His father lifted his head and shifted to a sitting position. “Come closer.”
Hope rose in Colin’s chest and he quickened his pace. His father was sitting. He never sat up during these talks. Perhaps this time would be different.
“Don’t make the same mistake I made, Colin.” His father’s voice was raspy from lack of use. Colin’s hopes fell. This was how it always started.
“All right, Da.” He’d say anything to make sure this conversation ended as quickly as possible.
Colin was close to his father now and the older man pulled his son in for a hug. “If ye marry, don’t get swept away by love and passion. It will break yer heart, Colin. Marry a woman like yer mother the first time. Strong, capable and able to bear ye children. I made a mistake marryin’ Elswith.”
“Yes, Da.” Colin was retreating again. He didn’t want to hear these words. He could sense just under the surface that his mother was less in his father’s eyes even as his father vouched that she was the better choice. Even at his age, Colin could understand. His father had married for love the first time and it had broken his heart.
It didn’t sit right, and he wanted to go run by the loch, forget the words, and forget the feelings.
Jumping on the back of his pony, he rode bareback, not wanting to bother with a saddle. It took too long and without one, he felt truly free. He wasn’t supposed to go this far without a chaperone, but then again no one seemed to notice what he did when his father had taken to bed.
Skirting around the ridge on the south side, he came up to edge of the water, where the land was open and gently sloped down into the loch. As soon as the view widened, he saw the Earl of Ravenscraig, Haggis McDougal, sitting on the water’s edge with his eldest two daughter’s, Fiona and Emilia, the third, Ainsley, was just an infant and likely still at home.
He didn’t pay too much attention to Emilia as a general rule. She was still too young in his eyes and a quiet little one at that. But Fiona, with her shock of red hair and her willingness to do whatever the boys did, she had become his best friend. Though her love of teasing occasionally made them enemies. But that was fun in its own way and so Colin frequently sought her out. Whatever mood she was in, it was always interesting.
She skipped toward him now, eyeing his pony. “I can ride bareback too, ye ken.”
“Not as good as me,” he called back, his worries already falling away at the thought of a game. Fiona did that. Distracted him from the sadness.
“Better,” she grinned back, her hair flouncing behind her, glinting in the sun. Colin didn’t give most lasses a second thought but Fiona was different. She was his friend. Maybe it was because of that fact that he wanted to touch that flaming red hair, to see what it felt like.
He swung down from the pony, landing on the opposite side from the water so the animal blocked hi
m from the Earl’s sight. Fiona joined him and he handed her the reins. “My da is sad again.”
Fiona, who had been about to swing on the pony’s back, stopped, her eyes sympathetic as she turned to him. “That’s too bad.”
“Fiona,” he started. “Can I touch yer hair?”
She shrugged. “Sure. But I don’t ken why ye’d want to.”
“I like the color. It’s like a warm fire,” he whispered as he held the end of the braid in his hand, silky to the touch and making him feel warm inside. “I think it would cheer anyone who was sad.”
She gave him a smile. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said about my hair.”
“Do ye think love is bad?” he asked, not caring that the two thoughts likely didn’t make sense to Fiona. But he couldn’t hold the question in any longer.
She shrugged. “Why would it be? My da tells my mum he loves her every day.”
He nodded, feeling relieved. Maybe his father was wrong. Maybe it was just the sadness. People could love and not be hurt. But what if his father was right?
“Fiona, what are ye doin’ back there? No ridin’ that pony now, ye’ll wrinkle yer dress,” the earl called from the shore.
Colin peeked around to see Emilia sitting dutifully next to him.
Fiona swung up onto the pony and gave him a wicked smile. “Count how long it takes me to get to the ridge, and do it right. No cheating.” Then she kicked the pony and off she went. He stopped thinking about his da or love. Counting, he watched Fiona’s flaming red hair fly in the wind.
Chapter 1
Lady Fiona McDougal sat in the carriage with her hands clenched in fists. Outside, the beautiful spring Scottish scenery rolled by but it wasn’t the same peeking at it through a small wood-framed window. She should be out there, wind in her hair, horse underneath her as she took in the splendor that was her home.
My Enemy, My Earl_Scottish Historical Romance Page 13
