The Bridegroom Wore Plaid

by Grace Burrowes

  “How am I looking at you?” He tipped his glass to his lips but didn’t take his gaze from hers.

  “With tender eyes. Your gorgeous green eyes are soft…” She glanced around, color staining her cheeks. “I suppose that’s the drink talking.”

  “The drink doesn’t work quite that quickly, Augusta, not even on nice English ladies. Would you like more?”

  She shook her head, but her words lingered in Ian’s mind: tender eyes. He knew what she meant. He hadn’t regarded anybody or anything with tender eyes for so long…

  “Will I see you at dinner, Augusta?”

  “You will.” She looked like she might say something more, like she might go up on her toes and grace him with one of those sweet, chaste kisses of hers, but she just put her empty glass on the sideboard and left Ian alone with his drink.

  He finished his whisky in a single swallow and set the glass down solidly beside Augusta’s. They’d get through dinner, they’d get through whatever lay ahead, but Ian was more convinced than ever that his future would not include marriage to Augusta Merrick’s cousin.

  Nor to any woman upon whom he did not gaze with tender eyes.

  ***

  Waiting would make a lesser man unsure of himself, but as the week progressed, the baron became more confident of his plans. Friday was to be the grand ball—as grand as these rustic surrounds could produce—and an organized hunt was planned for Saturday.

  The shoot was just too perfect an opportunity to pass up, and then, with Augusta laid out in the parlor, it would be simple to explain to the earl that time had just become of the essence. If he wanted to get his Scottish paws on good English coin in the foreseeable future, he’d quit his fool posturing and snooping, and get Genie wedded and bedded in short order.

  And as for Genie… The hens were keeping her in a protective circle, clucking and fussing and being sure to order tea when the baron came around. No matter. In a few days, the Daniels family would be mourning, the MacGregors would be trying to explain how a guest had been killed by accident in their woods, the earl would take off running for a special license, and Altsax would rejoice.

  ***

  “We need to talk.” Ian drew Genie’s arm through his and kept his expression friendly. When she would have pulled away, he smiled down at her as convincingly as he could, when he wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled. “Show a little faith, woman. I’m not your enemy.”

  Her features smoothed out into that bland nonexpression at which English ladies forced to accept dubious company excelled, and she fell in step beside him. “I understand from Gilgallon there’s a litter of kittens in the stables. Perhaps you might show them to me, my lord?”

  “Their eyes have been open for a few weeks,” Ian said, willing to work with any gambit. “They’re leaving the nest more and more, and if we’re patient, we’ll likely catch them playing.”

  She made an effort thereafter at the small talk: Fiona was such a delightful child. Did he enjoy haggis?—haggis, for God’s sake—Did he have a favorite among all the flowers in his lovely gardens?

  And all the while he was wending his way at a crawl toward the stables and filling the air with inanities, Ian couldn’t help but compare this lady with another.

  Augusta would have marched along right beside him, arguing with him or grilling him on the follies of Scottish church politics. She would have spoken her piece; she would have delighted in his touch; she would have borne the faint scent of lilacs when he bent near…

  “What do we need to discuss, my lord?” Genie’s blue eyes were full of trepidation by the time they reached the stables.

  “You’re not sleeping much, are you?” He dropped her arm and wasn’t surprised when she moved off a good six feet down the barn aisle.

  “I am not. The surroundings are unfamiliar, and the sun comes up quite early. I’m sure I’ll accustom myself to Balfour over time.”

  Could she sound any more dismal? “Genie, do you want to marry me?”

  She turned her back, and to Ian’s eye it looked as if she’d hunched in on herself. “I do not want to marry you, but I shall marry you.”

  “For God’s sake, why?”

  She faced him, the expression in her eyes appallingly bitter. “You’re the best of a bad lot, Ian MacGregor. I have to marry someone, I know this. Papa regards it as my purpose on earth to drag some impoverished title into the family, as if I were bringing down game with his rifle and shot. I haven’t any more Seasons. He’s made that plain. Hester is more than of age, and I must be safely wed before she can be paraded up to the altar. You are not only my best chance, I very much fear you’re my last chance.”

  He advanced on her; she held her ground until they were just a foot apart then stepped back. “I was not asking why you’d condescend to accept my suit, madam. I was asking why you do not want to marry me. I know your position—the entire household knows your position—I do not know the reasons for it.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not personal to you. I don’t care to marry any title my parents choose for me. The precedents don’t bode well for our union, and some genuine affection—not the manufactured kind—is not too much to ask of a man for whom I will give up every freedom.”

  Her expression was not so much angry as it was… resolved. Determined.

  “What precedents would those be? I personally know the man who married the highest title in the land, and the union prospers more shamelessly each year.”

  Her chin came up. “I am not a queen, and I do not appreciate your making a jest out of what will likely turn into a petty tragedy.”

  Oh, bloody damn. Her big blue eyes were aglitter with inchoate tears. Ian reached out a hand, intending to make some conciliatory contact with her shoulder or her arm, but she flinched away, her gaze wary.

  Ian took a step back and considered the woman whom common sense said he was supposed to marry. “The precedent you refer to, Genie, would that be your parents?”

  She gave a jerky nod, which caused tears to spill down her cheeks. After another considering silence, Ian held out his handkerchief, dangling it from his fingers like a white flag.

  “Thank you.” She snatched it from him and blotted it against her face with both hands, reminding Ian of Fee weeping into the apron of her pinafore.

  “Your parents’ union was arranged, then?”

  Another nod, but she lifted her face from the white square of linen and aimed a look both accusatory and condemned at Ian. “Mama’s family was thrilled that she had landed a man in expectation of a title. They provided her an obscene dowry, and everybody thought it amusing when she would not come down to breakfast after her wedding night.”

  The unease Ian lived with daily, the unease that had been gathering since this entire scheme with Altsax’s daughter had been hatched, congealed into dread. “She could not come down, is that it?”

  Genie put more distance between them, walking off a few paces to stand outside Merlin’s stall. “I attend my mother at her bath, my lord, because she is too ashamed to let the maids see what my father does to her, what he has been doing to her for years. The bruises—”

  Her voice broke, and her reserve, her damnably English, cool, impersonal reserve made him want to howl. “I’ll not raise my hand to you, Genie. I promise you that, but if we go through with this, our marriage could be very, very personal.”

  She shuddered, making it plain she took his meaning. “I know you need heirs. If marriage becomes unavoidable, I’ll tolerate my duty if you insist.” She’d spoken so quietly she’d nearly whispered.

  I’ll tolerate my duty if you insist. Genie’s grudging capitulation to duty blew through Ian’s thoughts like a gust of frigid Highland air. She would lie unmoving, tolerating his rutting when she must, the candles snuffed along with any hope e
ither of them had for happiness.

  As if Ian could bring himself to join with any woman under circumstances such as those.

  He was not going to marry her. He’d been working up to this realization even before joining Augusta in bed, but he knew it now with the same certainty he knew the sounds of his siblings’ voices and scent of the heather on the Balfour hillsides. For the sake of his children, his honor, his sanity, and even his obligation as a gentleman to the woman before him and to her cousin, he would not marry Genie Daniels.

  Ian sorted courses of action in his mind while he regarded Genie standing just a few feet away. The best plan he’d been able to devise was desperate and fraught with risk, and while it might leave Ian free of Altsax’s marital schemes, it would also leave him with nothing to offer any other woman, much less a woman he loved.

  He lopped off that thought for consideration another day. While he knew he could not marry Genie Daniels, Genie herself required convincing.

  “Let’s try something.” Ian kept his voice down, glancing around to make sure they were still alone. “A little experiment.” Before he lost his nerve.

  “What sort of experiment?”

  He gave up on the words that were getting them nowhere and moved close enough to kiss her, steadying her with his hands on her shoulders. She stiffened at the first touch of his lips on her cheek, stiffened more when he didn’t immediately remove himself, and then started trembling when he smoothed a hand over her back.

  “I’m sorry.” She jerked back long before Ian could steel himself to join their mouths. “I am so sorry, but just as you have promised not to raise your hand to me, I have promised myself I would marry only for love.” She turned away, though Ian kept one hand on her arm.

  “Genie, lass, I’m sorry too, but surely you see now we’re going to have to come up with something if we’re not to be a great deal sorrier here directly.”

  She nodded, her gaze on the dirt floor. “Papa wants to make an announcement at the ball this weekend.”

  This was news—bad news. “I haven’t signed the documents.”

  “He’ll make the announcement anyway to force your hand.”

  “And if I gainsay him?”

  Her hand went to her cheek—probably the very cheek her father had struck while Gil looked on helplessly—and she shook her head. “You think I’m the one Papa can coerce, my lord, but if you back out now, he’ll have it all over Town the hospitality at Balfour was abysmal, the sheets damp, the food poor, and the company mere peasantry. He can ruin you with a word. He’s done the same to many and enjoyed doing it.”

  Insight struck with a strange sense of liberation: if Ian coerced Genie to the altar, he’d be no better than Altsax.

  “I can’t marry a woman who’s being forced to say her vows, much less a woman who detests my touch, Genie. I won’t do it to you, or to myself.”

  Her expression became impatient. “Yes, you can and you will. The alternative is to jeopardize your family’s standing and security—which you might be willing to do—but you won’t leave me to my father’s machinations. He might not have chosen you for your honor, but it’s the reason he’ll get you to say vows you abhor.”

  She wasn’t stupid. Too late, Ian realized his intended was a very perceptive woman. Also very frightened, and the prospect of spending years married to her…

  He asked a question he hoped was theoretical. “Did you want a white marriage, then?” Images of Augusta popped into his mind, her hair cascading around her naked breasts, her smile wicked in the moonlight…

  Bloody damn.

  “I do not seek a white marriage,” Genie said. “One hears talk such unions can be annulled, and your brothers aren’t married. If you are to have heirs, they need to be of my body.”

  The idea made her as sick as it did him. He could see that by the careful lack of expression on her face. “Genie Daniels, I cannot—I will not—marry, much less consummate a marriage with a woman who’s being forced. We’re at an impasse, and until we resolve it, I’ll not sign anything, regardless of what your papa announces.”

  A calico kitten came stotting out of the saddle room, followed by a second, a marmalade tabby. “Lass, I am so sorry.”

  She kept her gaze toward the kittens rolling and playing on the ground, each arching its back and hissing and spitting before leaping merrily on the other. “I’m sorry too,” she said, turning and leaving. Ian swore viciously for long minutes then grabbed a muck fork and started stabbing at the horseshit that seemed to be accumulating all around him.

  ***

  Con had taken to watching for Julia without even realizing it himself, and it wasn’t hard to find her, because she was almost always in Genie’s vicinity. He wasn’t surprised then, to find the lady who had most recently graced his dreams sitting on a bench outside the foals’ paddock, a book of poetry facedown in her lap.

  “Mrs. Redmond, good day.”

  She smiled up at him. “Connor. Good day to you too.”

  His chest expanded to behold that smile. She’d fallen asleep on his shoulder in the billiards room, then awoken blushing and stammering. As soon as he’d set her hair to rights, she’d scampered off, and he’d been left wondering ever since.

  Wondering and aching.

  “I don’t find you in solitude very often,” he said, taking the place beside her.

  “I have been remiss in my duties as chaperone.” She set the book aside. “Genie is visiting the horses on her intended’s arm, though, so I have a few minutes to spend with Mr. Burns.”

  “I’ll read to you if you like.” Because he was that far gone, he’d read her smarmy old Robbie Burns. To have her drowsing in his arms again, he’d read her English poetry naked on the front drive. “Genie has already gone up to the house.”

  “I hardly see how your brother is going to bring the girl around if they don’t spend more than five minutes together at a time.” She started to rise, but Con caught her by the wrist.

  “We need to talk about that.”

  She sank slowly to the bench and made no move to retrieve her hand, so Con linked their fingers where their hands rested between them. “We need to have a private discussion, in fact. Are you all right, Julia?”

  She closed her eyes and let out a sigh. “When you pitch your voice like that, Connor, so low and intimately, I am not all right in the least. My innards get to fluttering and my brain stalls and all I can think about…”

  He rubbed his thumb over the soft skin of her wrist. “All you can think about…?”

  “All I can think about is having a billiards room built into all my residences.”

  “Interesting idea. Have you missed me then, Julia?”

  She didn’t hesitate. She nodded, cheeks flaming. “You destroy a lady’s sense of decorum, Connor MacGregor. I see you in my dreams. All the hours I spend trailing Genie around the gardens, sipping tea with her, and reading novels to her in the library, I am watching for you.”

  Con kept his eyes on the stables, lest he allow her to see what this confession was doing to his… composure. “We have a problem, my dear.”

  She glanced over at him, her scrutiny guarded. “I’m not expecting, if that’s what you’re hinting at.”

  “Would you like to be carrying my bairn, Julia?”

  He’d put the question to her to knock her off her pins, to get the dreamy look out of her pretty brown eyes, but the smile curving her mouth—full, soft, sweet, and sincere—had him feeling poleaxed where he sat.

  “Don’t answer that question if you value my dignity, Julia Redmond. We truly do have a problem. I happened to be up in the hayloft, catching forty winks, when Ian and Genie came strolling by to visit the horses. Were you aware your niece has a specific aversion to an arranged match with a title?”

>   Julia’s head slewed around, and the dreamy expression was nowhere to be found. “A specific aversion?”

  “Said the precedents didn’t bode well, and she’s promised herself to marry only for love. Ian kissed her cheek—mostly to make a point, I’m guessing—and it was painful to watch. Seems the baron’s brand of domestic discipline has put the fear of arranged marriages in his daughter.”

  “You saw…?” Julia fell silent, worrying her bottom lip. “Augusta and I have suspected Altsax’s example has put Genie off an arranged match, but Genie wouldn’t divulge any particulars.”

  “It gets worse.” Con leaned across her to retrieve the book, also to feel her breast pressing against his arm. “Genie has decided to put her trust in a man, but not her intended.”

  “Gilgallon.” Julia loaded a wealth of despair into the name. “I saw them after Altsax walloped Genie, and I’d say they’re equally smitten.”

  “So what are we to do? Ian will end up marrying the girl just to keep her safe from her own father.”

  “I don’t know what to do.” Julia looked around them and gave his hand a surreptitious squeeze. “Maybe we could discuss it further over a game of billiards?”

  ***

  “It’s stinking worse the more I stir it.” Ian tossed the latest missive down on his desk and accepted the drink Mary Fran passed him. “I can find out all I want about a wee piece of Kent that serves as the Altsax seat, but the Gribbony barony and its Scottish holdings are a confounded mystery.”

  “What does Daniels have to say about it?” Con posed the question quite, quite casually, but Ian saw Mary Fran brace herself.

  “Young Daniels has departed for the South. He said he’d be back by week’s end. He took a proper leave of me as his host, so I can’t think it was anything more than business, just as the man said.”

  Mary Fran looked grateful for Ian’s observation. Gil looked thoughtful. “Genie says her brother has been kept out of the business of the barony, says Altsax won’t allow his son the least involvement with the estates, or with Trevisham, either.”