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She’d seen this ring. It was in every one of the portraits of the McBride earls, going back in time until the names blurred and Eileen’s history lesson had started seeming little more than a roll call.
Each of those long-dead earls had worn this ring, and now it lay on Alasdair’s hand. It was a heavy gold signet, an intricate weaving, the head of an eagle embossed on a shield, with the first letters of the family crest, worn but still decipherable, under the eagle’s beak: LHV.
Loyalty, honour, valour.
Alan had mentioned this ring, not once, but often. ‘He’s a prig,’ he’d said of Alasdair. ‘And he’s younger than me. He thinks he can lord it over me just because he wears the damned ring...’
The ‘damned ring’ was being held out to her. No, not held out. Alasdair was taking her hand in his and sliding the ring onto the middle finger of her right hand. It fitted—as if it was meant to be there.
She stared down at it, stunned. So much history in one piece of jewellery... So many McBride men who’d worn this ring...
‘Wh-what do you think you’re doing?’ she stammered at last, because this didn’t make sense.
‘Pledging my troth.’
‘Huh?’ Dumb, she thought, but that was how she was feeling. Dumb. And then she thought: she shouldn’t be here. Her fragile control felt like crumbling. This man seemed as large and fierce and dangerous as the warriors he’d descended from.
Loyalty, honour, valour...
This was the McBride chieftain. He was placing a ring on her finger, and the ring took her breath away.
‘Jeanie, I have nothing else to show you I’m serious.’ In the kirk, Alasdair’s vows had been businesslike, serious, but almost...clinical. Here, now, his words sounded as if they came from the heart. ‘I’m promising you that at the end of this year of marriage I will make your life secure. As well, I will buy this castle for what it’s worth and Alan’s creditors will be paid. I’ll treat it as the last of Alan’s share of the estate. He was, after all, just as much Eileen’s grandson as I was.’
‘You don’t have to make me secure,’ she managed, still staring at the ring. ‘And Alan wasn’t worth—’
‘I’m not judging,’ he told her. ‘And I refuse to think of Alan after this. To be honest, it took courage to come here. I haven’t been back to this place since that day he hurt the otters. But I have come, to find life has moved on. But it needs faith to face it. So here’s my faith in you, and I’m hoping you can find that faith in me. At the end of the year I’ll take on this estate and I’ll care for it as Eileen would have wanted it cared for. And as I suspect you want it cared for. And I will ensure your future...’
‘I don’t want anything.’
‘I know you don’t. You don’t seem to put yourself into the equation at all, but I’m putting you there. It seems you canna keep the castle, Jeanie lass, no matter what Eileen’s will says, but you can keep the heart of it. As long as you wear this ring, this estate will be safe, our Jeanie. I promise you. Hand on this ring, I swear.’
He’d lapsed into broad Scottish, the voice of his ancestors, the voice of his people. He was lying full-length on a bed of moss over a rippling burn, he was looking at her as no man had ever looked at her, and the way he spoke... It was as if he were kneeling before a throne, head bowed, swearing fealty to his king.
Swearing fealty to...her?
‘Alasdair...’ It was hard to breathe, much less speak. She had to fight for the words. ‘There’s no need,’ she managed. ‘You don’t have to do this. Besides...’ She stared at the intricate weaving of gold on her finger and her heart failed her. ‘I’ll probably lose it in a pudding mix.’
He smiled then, but his smile was perfunctory, the gravity of the moment unchanged. ‘I know you won’t. I trust you with it, Jeanie, as you trust me with the castle.’ His hand closed over hers, folding her fingers, the ring enclosed between them. ‘I’m asking that you trust me back.’
‘I can... I can trust you without the ring.’
‘Why would you?’
‘Because...’ How to say it? There were no words.
And the truth was that until now, until this moment, she hadn’t trusted. Yes, he was Lord of Duncairn but he was just another man, like her father, like Rory, like Alan. A man to be wary of. A man who sought to control.
Was this ring another form of control? She searched for the control angle, and couldn’t find it.
She had no doubt as to the significance of this ring. She could hear it in his voice—that it meant as much to him as it had to every other earl who’d ever worn it.
Trust... He was offering it in spades.
‘I’ll give it back,’ she managed. ‘At the end of the year.’
‘You’ll give it to me when you’ve seen what I intend doing with this place,’ he told her. ‘When you see me hand the wilderness areas over to a trust to keep it safe in perpetuity. When you have total faith, Jeanie McBride, then you can give it back.’
‘I have faith now.’
‘You don’t,’ he said softly and his hold on her hand tightened. ‘You can’t. But you will.’
* * *
And then it rained.
She’d been so caught up, first with the otters and then with...well, with what she’d been caught up with, that she hadn’t noticed the clouds scudding in from the west. Now, suddenly, the sun disappeared and the first fat droplets splashed down.
And Alasdair was tugging her to her feet, smiling, as if something had been settled between them that made going forward easy.
Maybe it had.
And maybe, Jeanie thought as she scrambled with Alasdair to reach the shelter of the cottage, as she didn’t quibble about the feel of his hand still holding hers, as she fought to regain her breath and composure, maybe something had settled inside her as well.
Trust? She’d never trusted. She’d walked into this marriage blind, knowing only that circumstances once again had thrust her into making vows. But now... For some reason it was as if a weight was lifting from her shoulders, a weight she hadn’t known she was carrying.
This year could work. This year could almost be...fun? Such a word was almost nonexistent in her vocabulary. As a child of a dour, grim fisherman and then as Rory’s wife, a man under the thumb of his family, a man with limited horizons and no ambition to change, life had been hard and pretty much joyless. Life with Alan, so tantalising at first, had ended up filled with nothing but terror, and since that time she’d been subsumed with guilt, with debt, with responsibilities.
Today, though...today she’d lain in the sun and watched otters and this man had given her his ancestral ring. He’d given her trust...
And then he pushed open the cottage door and all thoughts of trust went out of the window.
She’d been in this cottage before. She’d walked this way with the dogs—it was a fair trek from the castle but at times during the past three years she’d needed the effort it required. Sometimes trekking the estate was the only way to get rid of the demons in her head, but even when she was fighting demons she still liked staying dry. On the west coast of Scotland rain came sudden and fierce. She’d walked and watched the sky—as they hadn’t today—and she’d used this cottage for shelter.
She knew it. Any furniture had long gone, the windows were open to the elements and the place seemed little more than a cave.
But today... Someone had been in here before them. The room they walked into was a combination of kitchen/living, with a hearth at one end. The hearth had always been blackened and empty, but now... It contained a massive heap of glowing coals. Firewood was stacked beside it. The stone floor in front of it had been swept of debris and a rug laid in front. With the fire at its heart, the room looked almost cosy.
She hadn’t noticed smoke from the chimney. Why?
She’d been too aware of Alasdair, that was why. Of all the stupid...
‘How on earth...?’ she managed, staring at the fire in disbelief, and Alasdair looked smug.
‘Insurance,’ he told her. ‘There’s never a day on this island when you’re guaranteed of staying dry, and I’m a cautious man. I never take risks without insurance.’ But he was frowning at the rug. ‘I didn’t ask for the rug, though. That’s a bit over the top.’
‘You think?’ Her voice was practically a squeak. ‘Who did this? Not you. Surely...’
‘You don’t think I could have loped up here before breakfast?’
‘No!’ And her tone was so adamant that he grinned.
‘That’s not a very complimentary way to talk to your liege lord.’
She told him where he could put his liege lord and his grin widened. ‘I talked to Mac about getting the fire lit,’ he confessed. ‘Mac can’t walk up here himself any more—I need to do something about gillie succession planning—but he does know a lad, who came up here and lit it for him.’
‘A lad?’ Jeanie breathed. And then she closed her eyes. ‘No.’ It was practically a groan. ‘It won’t be one lad. It’ll be two. He’ll have asked Lachlan and Hamish McDonald, two of the biggest wastrels this island’s ever known. They’re twins, they’re forty, their mother still irons their socks and they do odd jobs when they feel like it. And they gossip. Mac’s their uncle. Do you realise what you’ve done? This’ll be all over the island before we get back to the castle that you and I have lain by the fire here and...and...’
‘And what, Jeanie?’ His smile was still there but his eyes had become...watchful?
‘And nothing,’ she snapped and walked forward and grabbed the backpack from his shoulders and started to unpack. ‘We’ll eat the sandwiches I made and then we’ll go home. And why did you pack wine? If you think I could climb these crags after a drink...’
‘I could carry you.’ He sounded almost hopeful.
‘You and whose bulldozer? Get real.’ She was totally flustered, trying to haul the lunch box from the backpack, trying not to look at him. She tugged it free with a wrench and shoved it down onto the hearth.
Alasdair stooped. His hand came over hers before she could rise again and his laughter died.
‘I’m not into seduction,’ he told her. His words echoed into the stillness. ‘You’re safe, Jeanie. This fire’s here to keep us warm and dry, nothing more. I won’t touch you.’
There was a long pause. ‘I never said you’d try,’ she said at last.
‘You look like you expect it.’
She was struggling, trying to get it right, trying to explain this...panic. ‘It’s this ring,’ she said at last. She stared down at the magnificent Duncairn signet and she felt...small. Frightened? At the edge of a precipice?
But still Alasdair’s hand was over hers, warm, steady, strong. They were crouched before the fire. His face in the firelight was strong and sure.
‘The ring is simply a promise,’ he told her. ‘It’s a promise to keep the faith, to keep your faith. You needn’t fear. I’m not into taking women against their will.’
‘Not even...’ Her voice was scarcely a whisper. ‘Not even the woman you’ve taken as your wife?’
‘You’re not my wife,’ he said, evenly now. ‘We both know that this is a business relationship, despite what Hamish and Lachie may well have told the islanders. So let’s have our sandwiches, and I intend to drink at least one glass of this truly excellent wine—my grandmother kept a superb cellar. You can join me or not, but whatever you do, my Jeanie, know that seduction is off the agenda.’
* * *
Which was all very well, she thought crossly as she did what was sensible. She ate her sandwiches and she drank one glass—only one—of wine, and she thought she should have settled, but why did he have to have called her my Jeanie? And Jeanie lass?
It was merely familiar, she told herself as she cleared their debris into the backpack. Any number of the older folk on the island called her Jeanie lass. Any number of islanders referred to her as our Jeanie.
But Alasdair McBride was not a member of the island’s older folk. Nor was he really an islander.
It shouldn’t matter. It didn’t matter.
It did. It made her feel...
Scared.
‘It does seem a shame to waste the rug. Do you want a nap before we head back?’ Alasdair was watching her—and the low-life was laughing again. But not laughing out loud. It was more a glint behind his eyes, a telltale quiver of the corners of his mouth, the way his eyes met hers...
Laughter never seemed too far away. What did this man have to laugh about? she demanded of herself. Didn’t he know life was hard?
But it wasn’t hard for him. This man was the Earl of Duncairn. He could laugh at what he wanted.
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