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“No. It is me.”
He rubbed his square jaw with his leather-gloved hand. “I intend to carry you.” It sounded like a warning.
“Say yes, please.” Gemma brushed rain from the epaulettes of her spencer.
Helena sighed and nodded. The gentleman’s arms went underneath her, swooping her from the ground. He’d carried her out of the ha-ha before she realized her face pressed against his spice-and-starch-scented lapels. A rather nice smell.
She jerked her head back. How improper to notice such a thing.
The gentleman peeked at her. “How did you fall down there?” There it was again. Doon. Would Helena speak like that soon, too?
“Clumsiness, I fear.”
“No doubt the boys were with you.” With steady steps, he marched to a black, white-socked gelding grazing a few yards distant. She might have been a sack of corn seed for all the intimacy of the act. “I’ll put you on the horse, if you dinnae mind.”
What she minded was encountering him in this sorry state, but ah well. She’d left her pride back in London. “Thank you for your assistance.”
With no noticeable difficulty, he adjusted her in his arms and hoisted her into the saddle. She landed square on the horse’s back, although it was an uncomfortable fit, sitting sideways on the standard saddle. It was far more suitable, however, than being carried in his arms all the way back to the house.
Although he had been everything proper. Even now, he looked away when she adjusted her sullied gown and cloak over her legs. It proved no easy task, for the drenched muslin of her gown clung to her damp undergarments, which stuck to her limbs, revealing the curves of her legs. And her cloak did not reach her ankles.
Mama would swoon at the sight.
Her rescuer removed his blue coat and held it up to her. It was on her tongue to refuse, but his expression brooked no argument. His eyes were soft, though. And such a nice shade of green, like the underside of a new leaf.
She unclasped her cloak and draped it over her legs like a blanket. Then she pulled his wool coat over her shoulders, at once enveloped in welcome warmth and his spicy smell.
“Thank you.” Did he realize she meant it for more than his coat?
He nodded, then turned to Gemma. “Are you able to walk back, Mrs. Knox?”
“Oh, yes.” She tucked her hand into his elbow. “What an exciting day.”
Did Helena imagine it, or did the gentleman glance at her and smile? The evidence vanished as if washed by the raindrops pelting from the leaden sky. With a click of his tongue, he urged the horse to a walk.
“In my haste, I did not wait for a proper introduction.” He tilted his head to Gemma. “Perhaps you would be so kind, ma’am?”
Gemma’s hand flew to her face. “I beg your pardon. In all the activity, I forgot.”
She then spoke his name, but Helena had guessed it the moment he appeared. How many landed neighbors of a certain age did Tavin and Gemma possess? His name was familiar to her. She had spent the past two weeks clinging to it like the rail of a rotting bridge over a turbulent river. Clutching it because, while she didn’t quite trust its safety, it was the one hope she had to get to the other side.
He was John Gordon, the Lord Ardoch. The stranger she had come here to marry.
* * *
In less than an hour John Gordon, Lord Ardoch, had returned home, changed into dry clothes and ridden back to his neighbor Knox’s house, and been shown with all haste into the blue-papered drawing room. Not one of his London cohorts in Parliament would dare call him inefficient, and if ever a matter demanded expediency, this was it. The task ahead was critical.
Unfortunately, it was also distasteful. Not the marriage, exactly, but the other part. Coming to terms with Lady Helena Stanhope’s father.
“And the deed can be accomplished by when?” The powerful Duke of Kelworth stopped pacing a trail into the thick Aubusson rug and leveled John with a glare. Other men quaked under such a stare during parliamentary discussions at Westminster. But not John, which perhaps accounted for Kelworth’s bristling manner toward him.
His future father-in-law. He stifled a grin. His peers in Parliament would drop a collective jaw when they found out John had married Kelworth’s daughter. Romeo and Juliet made a less surprising match.
“I must post the Banns first, Your Grace.” John sipped his coffee. Bitter, as he liked it.
“That will take too long.” Kelworth shoved thinning blond hair from his broad brow in an impatient gesture. “This is Scotland. Marriages are performed by blacksmiths and butchers. Can’t the deed be done today?”
The deed, as if his daughter’s marriage to him was naught but a transaction. Most dukes expected a better match for their eldest daughter than John, true. No doubt Kelworth would have preferred a Tory, too.
“It could, but your daughter deserves better, and I’ve my own bairns to consider. A wedding in the kirk is best for everyone. I’ll make special arrangements for all the Banns to be read at once during divine services this Sunday, and we can be married Monday.” He set his coffee on the filigreed table. “By this time next week, it will be over.”
For better or for worse.
A pinprick of guilt needled John. He was betraying his late wife’s wishes by marrying again—she’d never said those precise words, but he’d understood her meaning. Catriona would understand him marrying this way, though, wouldn’t she? Because it was not for love?
A brief knock on the door drew their gazes. The butler opened the door, admitting a rush of cool from the hall and a wide-eyed Lady Helena. “Forgive my intrusion.”
John hopped to his feet. Kelworth stood, too. “No intrusion, daughter. The matter is settled. Ardoch is on his way out.”
“I should like an audience with him before he leaves.” Her words were for her father, but her clear gaze fixed on John.
“Well, then.” Kelworth started to sit down.
“A private one.” Her thumbs fidgeted.
“I should be honored, Lady Helena.” John was eight-and-twenty, no green lad, but the idea of being alone with Lady Helena sent his heart thunking in his chest.
Kelworth’s brows met in a fierce line and his face purpled, like he had choice words to sputter. Instead he succumbed to a fit of coughing.
John stepped forward. “Your Grace?”
Helena rushed toward him, wincing with each step. “Papa—”
“I’m well. Don’t fuss.” A few more coughs, and Kelworth’s coloring returned to its normal hue. He stepped away from Helena’s outstretched hand, avoiding both of their gazes. “Five minutes.”
The moment the door shut behind Kelworth with a soft click, Helena hobbled toward John. He hastened to her side, arm extended. “Mayhap you shouldn’t be walking yet.” His wife would have stayed in bed for a week or more after taking a fall. But Helena was not Catriona, was she?
He shoved the dangerous thought aside and assisted Helena into the fireside chair vacated by her father.
“I’m already much better. ’twas just a twist.” She’d changed clothing since her tumble into the ha-ha, and her high-neck gown of white covered her, throat to wrist. She looked the model of modesty.
Something they both knew to be an overstatement.
He pitied her and her mistaken choice to trust the wrong gentleman, and it was clear from her demeanor that she regretted it. But here she was, paying the price, without tears or wailing, and he couldn’t help but admire her resolve. He took the seat beside her.
“How may I put you at ease?”
“You already have, more than you know. Agreeing to a, er, convenient marriage to me, sight unseen?”
In a fit of madness four weeks ago, he’d confided to Tavin how much he wished he had a wife—for the children’s sake but no more—but he’d expected nothing to come of his admission other than relief at sharing his burden with a friend.
Tavin, however, knew of a female who sought a husband—who was rather desperate for one, as it turned out. When John learned the lady was amenable to a marriage in name only, he couldn’t help but believe it an answer to prayer.
“You agreed to the same. We both have our reasons.”
“As to that.” She swallowed. Pinked like a cherry. Looked everywhere but at him. “Papa wished to rush the wedding in the event I was in a d-delicate state.”
Oh. “I assure you, it doesn’t matter to me if you are with child or not.”
“I’m not. In a delicate state, that is. If you’re to be my husband, you should know.”
So she had no need of an immediate marriage, after all. Did that mean she wished to break their arrangement altogether?
Of course she did. Who would wish to bind herself to a stranger and raise his children?
Disappointment soured his stomach. He needed a wife. No one could replace Catriona for the children, but they needed someone. Needed her now, because he had failed so miserably.
But that wasn’t Lady Helena’s problem; it was his. He forced a smile. “I see. Fear not, Lady Helena. I shall speak to your father and tell him we decided to break our arrangement.”
“No, you misunderstand. I’m willing to marry you. But you deserved the truth first. If you do not wish to marry me now that you’ve met me, however, I understand.” She looked into the hearth, presenting him with her profile. Her blue eyes flashed silver in the firelight until the fringe of her dark lashes lowered, allowing him the freedom to truly look on her. She was dainty, from her fingers to her pert nose. Tendrils of blond hair escaped the pins at her crown to curl about her temples.
She was lovely, his bride-to-be. But frightened, too. Her fingers clutched the armrests of her chair.
She need never be frightened of him. “Our convenient arrangement might be unusual, but it suits me well,” he said. “We may marry Monday, if it pleases you.”
“It does.”
This was nothing like his first proposal. His heart had skittered like a snared rabbit’s that winter day nine years ago when his father arranged for him to speak to Catriona. They were both nineteen, the same age as Helena was now. A bit young, but his parents desired him to marry at the earliest opportunity. He must produce heirs, as many as possible, because children, as his family knew all too well, were fragile. And heirs were an absolute necessity.
He didn’t resist his father’s direction to marry Catriona. She was a fair lass with a kind demeanor. He’d called on her at the appointed hour and asked for her hand. She had smiled, he had smiled. He gave her a chaste kiss afterward.
Now, betrothed once again, there were no smiles. No kisses, chaste or otherwise, would ever exist between him and Lady Helena. This was a business transaction, no more.
But they were in agreement. Relief soothed his stomach like a healing tonic, yet a niggling of fear would not be displaced. Would he come to regret this? Would she?
Her eyes were large, as if she expected something. Perhaps he should kiss her hand, if not her lips.
He stood and bowed instead. The scent of clean linen and rosewater emanated from her, fresh and feminine and more appealing to him than it should be. “Thank you, Lady Helena.”
“Are we to forever thank one another for our sacrifices?” Her smile was weary. “We shall help one another. But there is one more thing we should discuss.”
A token of his pledge, perhaps? Surely this duke’s daughter would expect something expensive. A small price to pay, he supposed, for what he asked of her. He fingered his signet ring. “Anything.”
“I wish to meet your children before we make an announcement.”
Of course. That should have been obvious. What sort of father was he, to commit to marrying a stranger before he saw how she behaved with his children?
A desperate one, that was the sort of father he was. And he saw no other way to nurture his four charges than to provide them with a well-bred maternal figure to see to their needs. Tavin’s recommendation of his cousin Lady Helena’s character—disregarding the one grave error that brought her here—gleamed like a polished gemstone. She was a lady of breeding and bearing: educated, refined and gentle with her younger sisters.
“Tomorrow? It would be my pleasure to introduce you.” His niece and three children were quick-witted and mannerly.
No doubt she’d love them on sight.
Chapter Two (#u4a51da65-3759-564d-9511-ee143ccb2707)
They are just children.
Helena perched on the settee in her betrothed’s drawing room awaiting his offspring, willing her hands to be still. She’d wear through her gloves if her thumbs kept up with this fidgeting.
They are just children. And Lord Ardoch is just a man whom you shall seldom see.
And this was to be her home, the oddly named Comraich. She was more than capable of running it, despite her youth, although the task was a trifle daunting. It was only natural, facing such prospects, for her stomach to stir as if a whirlwind eddied inside her.
But she had not expected to be daunted by him. Lord Ardoch was no longer a distant hope for redemption, but a real man with gold hair curling over his brow, his elbow propped on the arm of his chair, his index finger resting against his lip. Intelligence sparked in his eyes, and his broad shoulders bore an air of confidence. Her husband-to-be was self-assured, noble and handsome.
Handsome? Oh, dear. Her thumbs resumed fidgeting on her lap.
“Your home is a far more comfortable pile of stones than I expected, considering its age,” Papa was saying. “How do you feel about living in such an ancient manse, Helena?”
Her gaze flew to Lord Ardoch’s. His brows lifted, awaiting her response. Heat flushed her cheeks.
“Comraich is lovely.” And it was, with its blue freestone walls and mullioned windows. “This is a pleasant chamber, too.”
The drawing room benefited from southwestern exposure. Light spilled through the windows to brighten the cheerful green and cream decorating the walls and furnishings. A gilt pianoforte occupied the corner by the window, and Helena itched to touch the keys. Once Lord Ardoch left for London and she was alone, she’d play every day.
One side of Lord Ardoch’s lips curved upward. “I’m gratified you think so. My late wife decorated it to her tastes, but you may do as you wish with it.”
Alter his wife’s rooms? Her hand lifted an inch from her lap. “I would not wish to overstep.”
Lord Ardoch’s gaze fixed on her hand. “It’s not an overstep. You’re to be the lady here. Change whatever you like.”
What she liked was to change nothing. To be a grateful little mouse. She lowered her hand.
“Change is your way, isn’t it?” Papa skewered Lord Ardoch with a glare. “I suppose you’ll have some new bacon-brained notion for the House of Lords come January?”
Helena’s thumbs fidgeted anew, but Lord Ardoch grinned, appearing almost gleeful. Her husband-to-be could stand up to Papa. Few could.
“Not new at all, Your Grace. I’m determined to introduce a plan to improve education.”
Papa waved his hand near his nose, as if the notion reeked. “Do not think I’ll support your notions because you are my son-in-law.”
Lord Ardoch’s smile turned impish, taking years off his countenance. Was this what his sons looked like? If so, they no doubt got away with heaps of mischief.
“I would not have dared dreamt it so, Your Grace. But neither will I neglect my determination to see the children of Britain educated.”
“All children?” Helena blurted. Did he mean the poor? Or just poor boys?
Papa stiffened beside her. “He’d insist the government school every urchin.”
