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‘But you are moving out of the castle.’
‘Which is none of your business.’
‘I’m offering you a job.’
‘I don’t want a job.’
‘If you don’t have the castle, you need a job.’
‘Don’t mess with me, Alasdair McBride. By the way, the kitchen’s out of bounds to guests. That’s what you are now. A guest. The estate’s in the hands of the executors, and I’m employed here. You have a bed booked for the night. The library, the dining room and your bedroom and sitting room are where you’re welcome. Meanwhile I have work to do.’
‘Jeanie...’
‘What?’ She pushed the bowl away from her with a vicious shove. ‘Don’t play games with me, Alasdair. Your cousin messed with my life and I should have moved away then. Right away.’
‘I want to help.’
‘No, you don’t. You want your inheritance.’
‘Yes,’ he said and he lost it then, the cool exterior he carefully presented to the world. ‘Yes, I do. The Duncairn financial empire is colossal and far-reaching. It’s also my life. To break it up and use it to fund dogs’ homes...’
‘There are some very deserving dogs,’ she snapped and then looked under the table to where Eileen’s two dopey spaniels lay patiently waiting for crumbs. ‘These two need a home. You can provide for them first.’
‘Look!’ He swore and hauled his phone from his sporran—these things were a sight more useful than pockets—and clicked the phone open. He flicked through a few screens and then turned it to face her. ‘Look!’
‘I have flour on my hands.’ She glowered some more and she looked...sulky. Sulky but cute, he thought, and suddenly he found himself thinking...
Um...no. Not appropriate. All this situation needed was a bit of sensual tension and the thing was shot. He needed to stay calm, remember who she was and talk sense.
‘Just look,’ he said patiently and she sighed and rubbed her hands on her apron and peered at the screen.
‘What am I looking at?’
‘At a graph of Duncairn’s listed charitable donations made in the last financial year,’ he told her. ‘The figure to the left represents millions. It scrolls off the screen but you can see the biggest beneficiaries. My grandfather and my grandmother after him refused to make Duncairn a listed company, so for years now the profits have either been siphoned back into the company to expand our power base, or used to fund worthwhile projects. AIDS, malaria, smallpox... Massive health projects have all been beneficiaries. Then there are smaller projects. Women’s refuges, otter conservation, even dogs’ homes.’
And Jeanie seemed caught. ‘Those bars are...millions?’ she whispered.
‘Millions.’
‘Then what was Eileen thinking, to leave the lot to just one cause?’
‘You know what she was thinking,’ Alasdair said wearily. ‘We both do. She was blackmailing us into marriage, and as far as I can see, she’s succeeded. I have no choice.’ He sighed. ‘The value of the castle ought to be enough for you, but if it’s not, I’ll pay you what you ask. I’ll mortgage what I have to. Is that what you’re after? You can name your terms but look at the alternative to us both. Use your head. I have no expectations of you, and I’ll expect nothing from you as my wife. Eileen’s will says we have to share a house for one full year before the inheritance is finalised, but I have a huge place in Edinburgh. I’ll fund you well enough so you can be independent. Jeanie, do this, if not for the charities I represent, then for you. You’ll earn even more than the castle this way. You’ve won. I concede. We’ll marry and then we’ll move on.’
And then he stopped. There was no more argument to present.
There was total silence and it lasted for a very long time.
* * *
Marriage...
Third-time lucky? The thought flashed through her mind and she put it away with a hollow, inward laugh. Lucky? With this man?
What he was proposing was purely business. Maybe that was the way to go.
This was a marriage for sensible, pragmatic reasons, she told herself, fighting desperately for logic. She could even feel noble, saving the Duncairn billions for the good of all the charities it assisted.
Noble? Ha. She’d feel sullied. Bought.
He thought she’d walk away with a fortune. If he only knew... But there was no point in telling him about the bankruptcy hanging over her head.
‘Would you like to see through the place in Edinburgh?’ he said at last. ‘It’s good, and big enough for us never to see each other. I’ll have contracts drawn up that’ll give you a generous income during the year, and of course we’ll need a prenuptial agreement.’
‘So I don’t bleed you for anything else?’
‘That wasn’t what I was thinking.’ But of course it was. It was an easy supposition—a woman who’d angled for the castle would no doubt think of marriage in terms of what she could get. ‘But the castle will be worth—’
‘Shut up and let me think.’
Whoa.
This woman was the hired help. She could see him thinking it. She was his cousin’s leavings. The offer he’d made was extraordinary. That she would tell him to shut up...
He opened his mouth to reply, she glared—and he shut up.
More silence.
Could she? she thought. Dared she?
She thought suddenly of Maggie, her best friend on the island. Maggie was a fisherman’s wife now, and the mother of two bright boys. Maggie was solid, sensible. She imagined Maggie’s reaction when...if...she told her the news.
You’re marrying another one? Are you out of your mind?
She almost grinned. It’d almost be worth it to hear the squeal down the phone.
But...
Act with your head. Do not be distracted, she told herself. You’ve done this in haste twice now. Get this right.
Marriage.
For a year. For only a year.
She’d have to live in Edinburgh, on Alasdair’s terms.
No. Even the thought left her exposed, out of control, feeling as she’d vowed never to feel again. No and no and no.
She needed time to think, but that wasn’t going to happen. Alasdair was leaning back, watching her, and she knew if she left this kitchen without making a decision the memory of this man would make her run. Physically, he was a stronger, darker version of Alan.
Alan had betrayed her, used her, conned her, but until that last appalling night he’d never frightened her. But this man... It was almost as if he were looking straight through her.
So leave, she told herself. It’d be easy, to do what she’d first thought when the terms of the will were spelled out. She could stay with Maggie until she found a job.
A job, on Duncairn? There weren’t any.
She glanced around her, at the great kitchen, at the big old range she’d grown to love, at the two dopey dogs at her feet. This place had been her refuge. She’d built it up with such care. Eileen had loved it and so had Jeanie.
It would have broken Eileen’s heart if she’d known Alasdair was forced to let it go. Because of her? Because she lacked courage?
What if...? What if...?
‘Think about it overnight,’ Alasdair said, pushing himself away from the door. ‘But I’m leaving in the morning. I need a decision by then.’
‘I’ve made my decision.’
He stilled.
She’d poured the milk into the flour and turned it to dough without noticing. Now she thumped the dough out of the bowl and flattened it. She picked up her cutter and started cutting, as if perfectly rounded scones were the only thing that mattered in the world.
‘Jeanie...’
She shook her head, trying to figure how to say it. She finished cutting her scones, she reformed and flattened the remaining dough, she cut the rest, she arranged them on the tray and then she paused.
She stared down at the scone tray. They were overworked, too. They wouldn’t rise properly. She should give up now.
But she wouldn’t give up. She’d loved Eileen. Okay, Eileen, you win, she told her silently and then she forced herself to look at the man before her.
‘I’ll do it if I can stay here,’ she managed.
* * *
He didn’t get it. He didn’t understand where this was going, but business acumen told him not to rush in. To wait until she spelled out terms.
She was staring down at her scones. She put her hands on her waist and her head to one side, as if considering. She was considering the scones. Not him.
She had a tiny waist, he thought irrelevantly, for one so...curvy. She was wearing a tailored suit under her apron—for the funeral. Her suit had showed off her neat figure, but the tight ribbons of the apron accentuated it even more. She was curvy at the bottom and curvy at the top... Um, very curvy, he conceded. Her hair was tied up in a knot but wisps were escaping.
She had a smudge of flour on her cheek. He’d like to...
Um, he wouldn’t like. Was he out of his mind? This was business. Stick to what was important.
He forced himself to relax, walking forward so he had his back to the fire. Moving closer.
He felt rather than saw her flush.
Inexplicably, he still had the urge to remove that smudge of flour, to trace the line of her cheekbone, but the stiffening of her spine, the bracing of her shoulders, told him he might well get a face covered in scone dough for his pains.
‘We’d need to live in Edinburgh,’ he said at last, cautiously.
‘Then there’s not even the smidgeon of a deal.’
‘Why the hell...?’
And at that she whirled and met his gaze full on, her green eyes flashing defiance. She was so close...
She was so angry.
‘Once upon a time I ached to get off this island,’ she snapped. ‘Once upon a time I was a fool. The islanders—with the exception of my father—support and care for me. In Edinburgh I have no one. I’d be married to a man I don’t know and I can’t trust. I’ve married in haste before, Alasdair McBride, and I’ll not do so again. You have much more to gain from this arrangement than I have, so here are my terms. I’ll marry you for a year as long as you agree to stay in this castle. Then, at the end of the year, I’ll inherit what the will has decreed I inherit. Nothing more. But meanwhile, you live in this castle—in my home, Alasdair—and you live on my terms for the year. It’s that or nothing.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’ He could feel her anger, vibrating in waves, like electric current, surging from her body to his and back again.
‘Take it or leave it,’ she said and she deliberately turned her back, deliberately broke the connection. She picked up her tray of unbaked scones and slid them into the trash. ‘I’m trying again,’ she told him, her back to him. ‘Third-time lucky? It might work for scones.’
He didn’t understand. ‘I can’t live here.’
‘That’s your decision,’ she told him. ‘But I have some very fine whisky I’m willing to share.’
‘I’m not interested in whisky!’ It was an explosion and Jeanie stilled again.
‘Not?’
‘This is business.’
‘The whole year will be business,’ she retorted, turning to the sink with her tray. ‘I’m thinking it’ll be shortbread for the guests tonight. What do you think?’
‘I don’t care what you give your guests.’
‘But, you see, they’ll be your guests, too, Lord Duncairn,’ she told him. ‘If you decide on marriage, then I’ll expect you to play host. If you could keep wearing your kilt—a real Scottish lord playing host in his castle—I’ll put you on the website. It’ll pull the punters in in droves.’
‘You’re out of your mind.’
‘And so was Eileen when she made that will,’ Jeanie told him, still with her back to him. ‘So all we can do is make the most of it. As I said, take it or leave it. We can be Lord and Lady of the castle together or we can be nothing at all. Your call, Lord Duncairn. I need to get on with my baking.’
CHAPTER THREE (#u5e3f688f-a37f-5684-8765-282c5a95c8b7)
FOUR WEEKS LATER Lord Alasdair Duncan Edward McBride, Sixteenth Earl of Duncairn, stood in the same kirk where his grandmother’s funeral had taken place, waiting for his bride.
He’d wanted a register office. They both had. Jeanie was deeply uncomfortable about taking her vows in a church, but Eileen’s will had been specific. Marriage in the kirk or nothing. Jeanie had felt ill when the lawyer had spelled it out, but then she’d looked again at the list of charities supported by the Duncairn foundation, she’d thought again of the old lady she’d loved, and she’d decided God would forgive her.
‘It’s not that I don’t support dogs’ homes,’ she told Maggie Campbell, her best friend and her rock today. ‘But I feel a bit of concern for AIDS and malaria and otters as well. I’m covering all bases. Though it does seem to the world like I’m buying myself a castle with marriage.’ She hadn’t told Maggie of the debt. She’d told no one. The whole island would think this deal would be her being a canny Scot.
‘Well, no one’s judging you if you are,’ Maggie said soundly, hugging her friend and then adjusting the spray of bell heather in Jeanie’s simple blue frock. ‘Except me. I would have so loved you to be a bride.’
‘I should have worn my suit. I’m not a bride. I’m half a contract,’ Jeanie retorted, glancing at her watch and thinking five minutes to go, five minutes left when she could walk out of here. Or run. Honestly, what was she doing? Marrying another McBride?
But Maggie’s sister was a lawyer, and Maggie’s sister had read the fine print and she’d got the partners in her firm to read the fine print and then she’d drawn up a prenuptial agreement for both Jeanie and Alasdair to sign and it still seemed...sensible.
‘This is business only,’ she said aloud now, and Maggie stood back and looked at her.
