The Scottish Lord’s Secret Bride

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Morven nodded. ‘I’d forgotten you told me that. Well then. Continue.’ She winced at her peremptory tone, but accepted it stemmed from nervousness, and hoped he would realise and accept it as such. ‘Our alleged nuptials.’

‘Witnesses,’ Fraser said slowly. ‘We think we didn’t have any, but in hindsight, I seem to remember seeing a couple of other people nearby, although I have no idea who. My eyes were on you. They were, I assume, waiting to do just as we did.’

Morven’s eyes were wide and puzzled. ‘But surely they don’t count? They weren’t there for us.’

He shrugged. ‘Perhaps not, but if they heard us…I believe it matters not. Even if it is considered we only did a hand fasting it is legal here.’

‘Hand fasting?’ That was something she didn’t understand. ‘Holding hands?’

‘In effect, yes. Holding hands and committing to each other in some way. As I always assumed I would have a traditional marriage, I’m afraid I don’t know when merely holding hands turns into a hand fasting that is considered as binding as a marriage. Strangely, I was never asked to witness or conduct a marriage before I went abroad. I imagine my father was and did so, but never me.’

‘It sounds so unbelievable doesn’t it?’ Morven said quietly. Nothing she could say would help their situation. ‘But then I am from England and only know what happens there. Naught that appeals to be honest.’ Not even to enjoy the rapture she had experienced with Fraser.

Fraser sighed. ‘So, I need to go to Stirling to find out the ramifications, not only of them, but the words we and Tam spoke. Plus if that was not enough to get straightened out, there is the added problem that if we are legally married here, would it hold up in England? What if your mama insisted you marry someone in England, and it was legal there, but if you came up here you would be a bigamist. If we went to England you would be seen as a fallen woman and scorned and banished from the ton.’

Morven gulped. ‘What? So let me see. I have no intentions of marrying anyone, but as it stands we might be legally wed. It could or could not be legal in England. I have no way of proving it either way. And that gypsy tricked us? Kill him slowly. Let him be pecked to death by those noisy crows. Show him the end of a hard stick up…oomptft.’

Fraser put his hand over her mouth. ‘Never curse a Romany.’ He burst out laughing at the disgusted expression on what part of her face he could see and kissed her cheek in the manner he seemed partial to. ‘Morven, hold fast. We don’t know anything for sure. Would it be so bad to be my wife?’

She sighed. ‘It could be. I have always held to my conviction about what a marriage should be, and would ours be that? Who knows.’

He would have to ask her about that conviction as soon as they had time to sit and discuss everything in depth. That moment was not the time to tell her that if the marriage were legal they would have to just make the best of it. ‘I’ll see what happens tomorrow and if necessary will have to approach Tam or Beshlie. That will not be fun, well not for me anyway.’

Morven bit his palm and when he moved his hand she flicked her tongue out to soothe the spot. His skin was salty and bore the scars and calluses of hard work. No soft landlord. But oh what a tangle.

‘Enough that if we are wed life could be very, very complicated, without upsetting a Romany, eh?’ She began to laugh. It was that or cry. ‘If we are wed only north of the border even more so. Oh Lord what now?’ We could make love perhaps? Morven did her best to banish that thought immediately. Now couldn’t possibly be the time. ‘I best laugh or I will cry.’

‘Well,’ Fraser said cautiously, obviously—luckily—oblivious to the direction of her thoughts, ‘I’d heard to be married over the bush could be legal but I honestly didn’t think it would apply to us at the games. I should have paid more attention to all those tales I heard when I was a youngster. It was only when I came home that I heard rumours that several couples had been married on that day, and were still together, that I began to wonder.’

‘It is amazing no one said that one half of one of the couples was the master of Kintrain then,’ Morven said thoughtfully. ‘Local gossip like that at Welland would be around the village in no time.’

‘Yes, but I went away so I suppose it was a case of out of sight out of mind. Or don’t upset the laird.’

‘Can’t it stay that way?’ Morven asked plaintively.

‘Well I am no longer out of sight and nor are you,’ Fraser pointed out, ‘So I would say not.’

****

How he hated to brush aside everything she said, but Fraser reasoned he had no option at that moment. ‘The one thing we do is make sure neither parent gets wind of this until we find out the truth,’ he said emphatically.

He had never seen anyone change colour so rapidly. Morven went white, red and then white again, her face the colour of the old climbing roses that clung to the wall, which enclosed the garden. ‘Oh Lord, yes, I never thought of that.’

‘Then we can go from there, for after all it seems that they…’ He hesitated and decided to take the bull by the horns. ‘It seems they think we would not suit.’

Morven nodded, her colour once more restored to its usual healthy glow, and chewed her lip thoughtfully. ‘I understood that as well. My poor sister is beside herself with worry. She is too young and the thought of you anywhere near her scares her witless. I have a feeling they meant to house her in a tower somewhere but she threw a fit and that idea, if indeed it was one, was shelved.’ She let her breath out in a long hiss. ‘Or so it seems everyone is trying to make me believe.’

Fraser hit one fist into the other palm. ‘I should have realised. I moved into this tower recently.’ He didn’t say how recently. ‘Here then, they meant to house her in these rooms. I did wonder when I saw them being aired in a hurry that mama was possibly up to some trick or another. She can be ruthless in her deviousness when she thinks it is warranted.’

Morven looked at him in query. ‘You have lost me there.’

‘There is a staircase from my rooms upstairs to these here,’ Fraser explained. ‘Ostensibly for servants, but used by the occupants when they needed to see each other without the knowledge of others. The castle is riddled with such passages.’

‘Secret trysts and so on?’ Morven asked with interest obvious in her voice. ‘How intriguing.’

‘Hmm.’ He might have known she would see it that way. To him it could be a nuisance. Or, he corrected himself, in the past it could. Now it could work to his advantage. ‘They have housed you here. Ulterior motive or expediency I wonder?’

‘Who knows, except it is as well it isn’t my sister. Murren is very young and as the baby of the family hasn’t developed the spine she needs to stand up to people. If you had appeared to her like you did to me, she’d run screaming like a banshee.’

‘Am I that much of an ogre?’ Surely he didn’t have a fearful reputation? ‘What do you mean they are trying to make you assume things?’

Fraser flicked her skirts up and swivelled Morven until she sat facing him, her legs either side of his, her breast touching his chest, and her quim resting next to his staff.

She raised her eyebrows but didn’t question his actions. ‘Mama intimating you would, I imagine, be enough to put fear into a young and impressionable girl. Murren needs someone to coddle her, not be bracing and ride roughshod over her. She isn’t like me. I would stand up to anyone who treated me so. Hopefully as she gets older she will learn to do so—but now? Not a chance. But then sometimes I see a look in her eyes and another one in my mama’s and wonder what they are up to. Ah well, hopefully I’ll find out soon. But that apart, Murren is likely to be in too deep, and would not be able to hold her own if challenged.’

‘I wouldn’t treat anyone like that.’ On reflection, he wasn’t too sure.

Evidently, Morven was. ‘Oh yes you would. You need someone strong to stand up to you when you think only your way is the right way. Otherwise you would bully them. Oh I’m sure you wouldn’t mean to but you would, believe me. Any recipient needs plenty of determination to defy you.’

‘As you did,’ Fraser said. ‘Therefore?’

‘Why yes…’

He winked and she shook her head—and her finger—at him. ‘Oh no, My Lord Fraser, not me.’

Fraser pulled her down a little and tightened his arms around her so her head was scant inches away from his chest. ‘Why not?’

‘We would not suit.’ Her voice was muffled as she spoke into his shirt. ‘I am too set in my ways.’

He wondered why she was so definite. In one way they were very suitable, both their bodies demonstrated that. His cock was painfully hard and pulsed against its confines. Her nipples stood out and demanded attention. ‘You think so?’ he asked mildly. Dare he ask why, if that were the case, her breathing was uneven and her skin sheened with arousal?

‘I know so, now change the subject,’ Morven said in a tone that indicated the subject was closed as far as she was concerned.

He’d allow her to think that for the moment. ‘As you wish, love.’

Morven glowered at him and he hid his smile. She’d get used to it, eventually. He hoped. He had no intention of changing tack now.

‘So.’ She tapped her lips and stared at him intently. ‘Tell me when you intend to go to Stirling.’

Fraser sighed. Truly Morven was like a terrier with a rat. Although in the circumstances, he supposed it was reasonable. It was her life as well as his they were trying to sort out. ‘Tomorrow. I’ll set off before breakfast, because it is a good three hours’ ride each way.’ Although it didn’t seem as important to him now. He was determined they would be wed, in church with everyone who wanted to be there around them. ‘Then of course I need to find the minister I seek.’

Morven nodded her understanding. ‘I’m coming with you.’

‘And how do you propose to do that? I’ll be away all day.’ He admired her intention, after all it was as much about Morven as him, but he didn’t think she would find a way of achieving her goal.

‘I don’t know yet but I will discover a way,’ she said stubbornly.

He really didn’t think she had a chance, but it was Murren who unwittingly helped. As they all sat around the dinner table, before the ladies left Fraser to his whisky—they didn’t pass port in Kintrain unless they had gentlemen visitors who were sticklers for etiquette or strangely didn’t like whisky—Lady Napier coughed delicately. ‘I thought tomorrow Fraser that you wouldn’t mind showing Murren around the estate. There are some pretty rides.’

Fraser cleared his throat, but before he had time to formulate his thoughts Murren rushed into speech. ‘Oh no, please, you’re too kind but no more riding, I beg of you. In fact I would like to spend the day doing nothing, alone. I’m tired, my headaches and I can think of nothing worse than jolting around. I am afraid the journey took more out of me than I thought possible.’

Fraser didn’t think she looked that fatigued, but then he didn’t know her strengths and weaknesses. He bowed. ‘Another time perhaps?’

‘Thank you, yes, as long as the horse isn’t too strong or the path too bumpy for a carriage or… Oh I’m such a weakling.’ She rubbed her hands together. ‘Although, I wonder, my lord, do you think you could take Morven instead? There will be plenty of time for me to see around when I am more likely to be alert.’