The Lady and the Laird

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“ROBERT NEEDS TO find another bride now that his first choice has fled.” The Dowager Marchioness of Methven, radiating energy and disapproval, seated herself with orderly care on the upright chair Robert held for her. She had a habit of speaking about people as though they were not present. Certainly it felt to Robert as though his input into the conversation was not required.

It was a week after the wedding and they were in the library at Methven Castle. Mr. Kirkward, the family lawyer, had traveled up from Edinburgh to advise them. He was sitting on a lumpy gilt-and-cream sofa and looking most uncomfortable. Lady Methven was seated opposite and Jack drew up a chair to one side. Robert preferred to stand. He crossed to the window and looked out; a soaking gray haze hung over the far mountains, damping the day down and casting dark shadows across the glen.

This was how he remembered his grandfather’s castle, as a dripping, mournful edifice that had been barren of pleasure. In those days it had been his older brother, Gregor, who had brought light and laughter to the old place, but now Gregor was gone. As always, Robert felt the profound ache in his chest that memories of Gregor brought with them. Gregor’s death had changed his life and his future. He had been the second son, the spare. Methven should never have been his. His grandfather had told him so, that fierce old man who had made no secret of the fact that Robert was a poor substitute for his brother.

“It is indeed most unfortunate that Miss Brodrie eloped,” Mr. Kirkward agreed, his dry, precise tones recalling Robert to the room with its sterile shelves of uncut books and its uncomfortable furniture. “Such volatility in a bride quite ruins one’s plans.”

“Better before the wedding than afterward,” Robert said laconically.

He saw Kirkward’s pale gray eyes blink rapidly behind his bottle bottom spectacles. Like Lord Brodrie and the minister before him, the lawyer was evidently thinking him a cold fish.

“Quite so.” Mr. Kirkward shuffled the papers he had taken from his document case. Robert noted his discomfort. He had seen it in other men who had been uncertain how to deal with him. His brusque manner, his lack of warmth, intimidated many people. He knew that. It could be useful; he had never seen the need to change. Charm was a concept that was alien to him.

“Any preferences for your next choice, Rob?” Jack asked. He threw Robert a glance laced with malicious amusement. Jack was one man who was most certainly not intimidated by him. But his cousin knew him better than most men.

“I don’t have the luxury of choice,” Robert said tersely. “As I understand it, there is no one suitable. I have to wed a descendant of the first Earl of Cardross, and sadly his line was not very fecund. Only Miss Brodrie and one other cousin are eligible.”

“That would be Lady Annabel Channing,” Lady Methven said, nodding. “Pretty girl, but a complete lightskirt. You would never know if your heir was yours or someone else’s.”

Mr. Kirkward made a choking noise. He took off his glasses and polished them feverishly on a white handkerchief.

Jack laughed. “I wouldn’t mind a brazen bride,” he said. “That might have its benefits.”

Robert did mind, but there was little he could do about it. “My attempts to find a suitable wife have foundered,” he said. “I might as well choose an unsuitable one since she is the only eligible woman left.”

If only he had not kissed Lucy MacMorlan. One kiss had made him ache to take Lady Lucy to his bed when what he was obliged to do was take another woman as his bride. He did not like Lucy very much. Her meddling had cost him dearly. He certainly did not trust her. But liking had little to do with wanting, and he wanted her badly.

“You will do nothing so unbecoming to the name of Methven as marry a lightskirt, Robert,” his grandmother corrected him.

“I’ll do what I have to do,” Robert said bleakly. “Grandmama, there is no alternative.” He would marry an entire brothel of lightskirts if that were the price he had to pay to keep his lands.

“I regret to inform you that Lady Annabel wed last month in London,” Mr. Kirkward said primly.

“Then we are in some difficulty,” Robert said. He felt a violent fury to be so hamstrung by fate. All his life he had taken control, wrested it to him when he had none, fought for it. To be outmaneuvered by a royal decree three centuries old, to be able to do nothing to secure his estates and the future of his clan was intolerable.

“We simply cannot allow ghastly Wilfred Cardross to take Methven land,” Lady Methven said. There was a plaintive note in her voice, as though she suspected Robert of backing off from the fight. “He is a horrible man and he will clear the people from the estate and destroy their communities and sell off everything that he can and squander it all on the cards.”

“I have no intention of allowing Cardross to take the Methven estates,” Robert said. The earl was a hard landlord who Robert knew would force the crofters from their traditional homes and livelihoods. Many of the families of men who had fought for the Methven clan for generations would be turned off, abandoned into poverty, families divided and their strong community spirit extinguished. Those on the far-flung northern islands that were part of his patrimony would simply starve in these hard economic times.

He could never allow it. It was his duty as laird to protect the welfare of his people, and he was not going to fall at this, the very first hurdle. It was his fault that they were in this position in the first place. If he had not turned his back on Methven and on his duty as heir all those years ago, he would not have been in Canada when his grandfather had died and would not have taken so long to claim his inheritance. He realized that his fists were clenched tightly. Tension seeped through every muscle in his body. It was impossible to allow Wilfred Cardross to triumph. Yet how to prevent it...

Mr. Kirkward cleared his throat. “My lord, if I might mention...” He sounded timid. Robert wondered if the lawyer genuinely was afraid of him. Surely his reputation was not that bad.

“Of course, Mr. Kirkward,” he said.

“There is one other family line we have not previously explored,” Kirkward said. He searched through the sheaf of papers in his case with agitated fingers, and Robert saw he was holding a family tree. “We discovered it a number of weeks ago, but as you were already betrothed to Miss Brodrie it seemed irrelevant....” He placed the parchment on the table and smoothed it with his hand. “There is a slight problem, my lord, but perhaps, as you are—forgive me—desperate...”

Robert felt a prickle of irritation. He preferred directness to all this circumlocution.

“Spit it out, Kirkward,” he advised.

“You would be obliged to be brother-in-law to the man who stole your bride,” Kirkward murmured. “A sacrifice, but a small one perhaps, given that half of the Methven estates is at stake—”

Robert cut him off with a chopping motion. “Kirkward,” he said, “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Mr. Kirkward flapped the genealogical list in his hand. “We had been interpreting the terms of the royal decree very strictly by looking for direct descendants of the Cardross earldom in the male line,” he said. “However, when we looked in the female line we found another line of descent.”

Robert thrust the hair back from his forehead in a quick, impatient gesture. “Would that meet the terms of the original treaty?” he asked swiftly.

Mr. Kirkward sighed with the air of a man at the end of his tether. “All the legal advice I have taken suggests it would meet the terms, my lord.”

Robert felt a flash of hope. Then he remembered the lawyer’s previous words. “When you said I would be obliged to be brother-in-law to the man who stole my bride...”

“Mr. Kirkward is referring to Lachlan MacMorlan,” Lady Methven said. She was squinting upside down at the family tree, head on one side. “The Duke of Forres’s daughters are kin to Cardross.”

Robert looked up sharply. “I know the Forres are kinsmen,” he said, “but I thought it was too distant a connection.”

Mr. Kirkward was shaking his head. “Straight down the line from the youngest daughter of the first Earl of Cardross.” His eyes darted from Robert’s face to Lady Methven to Jack. “There is, however, an impediment.”

“Naturally,” Robert said ironically. “When was it ever easy?”

“You may not wed any lady over the age of thirty or a widow,” Jack murmured, quoting from the original royal treaty. “No lady under the age of seventeen, no foreigners, especially no lady with English blood—”

“I need no reminders,” Robert said dryly. He could not quite believe that when he and Jack had first heard the ridiculously tight terms of the royal treaty they had actually laughed at it.

“Lady Christina MacMorlan is one and thirty,” Lady Methven said. “And Lady Mairi is a widow, so they are both ineligible.”

That left only Lady Lucy.

Lady Lucy MacMorlan was his only chance.

Lady Lucy who wrote erotic love letters like a wanton and kissed like an innocent. Lady Lucy who had ruined his betrothal, lied to him, caused scandal after scandal, was deceitful and manipulative and had done it all for the money.

Lady Lucy whom he wanted with a fierce lust that was quite inexplicable.

Jack shifted in his chair. “And suddenly it’s your birthday, Rob,” he said dryly.

There was an abrupt silence in the room. Everyone looked at Robert.

“Whatever can you mean, Jack?” Lady Methven said.

“Only that Rob likes Lady Lucy MacMorlan rather a lot,” Jack said, his grin broadening.

“Thank you, Jack,” Robert said dryly. “A helpful intervention, as always.” He stood up. “You mistake. I do not like Lady Lucy at all and I do not trust her an inch.”

Lady Methven looked scandalized. “Robert! She is a sweet girl.”