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‘Aye, it’s some dowry,’ Dr Hamish sighed, ‘though he’s expecting you to pay the price. No remarriage until Rory’s grown.’

The latter didn’t worry Riona. She didn’t visualise meeting someone else she might want to marry. It was the rest of the package that was hard to

accept. A move to Boston, however temporary, and undoubted resentment from a family who had no knowledge of his ‘bride’. Then a return to Scotland to be instal ed as the lady of Invergair Hal . Once she might have managed both, with Cameron’s love. Without it, she had the courage to face neither.

But what choice did she have? Face a court battle which she wasn’t too certain of winning? Turn her back on al Cameron could give their son? She

had only love, and it wasn’t enough. In a few years Rory would see what others had and know what he lacked. And perhaps he would find out what could have been his for the taking. How would she feel then? How would she feel when another pair of dark blue eyes looked at her with scorn?

She shut her own eyes in pain at the idea and tightly held the baby who was now her whole life.

CHAPTER SIX

RIONA stared out of the aeroplane window although there was nothing to see but white cloud. Soon they would land. She paled at the thought.

Would anyone be there to meet them? Would his family? She assumed he had told them of the child and prospective bride he was bringing home. How had they reacted?

It was almost two weeks since he’d made his absurd proposition. For several days she’d done nothing but wait in dread for a solicitor’s letter to drop through her letterbox. Then Rory had fal en il . Dr Macnab had diagnosed a simple virus but had warned her that the baby might be prone to respiratory ailments. To be on the safe side, he had transferred Rory to the cottage hospital.

Riona knew then she could never bring Rory back to the crofthouse. The estate had done essential repairs in the last year, but the damp in the wal s had proved impossible to eradicate. It wasn’t hard to envisage how that seeping damp would affect Rory’s health in the winter.

She sat by her son’s cot in the little hospital and searched for a way out. She saw only one. She went up to Invergair Hal the next morning.

With little sleep and in a confused but determined state, she’d barged her way past Mrs Mackenzie, the housekeeper, tracked down Cameron to the

breakfast table, and announced without preamble, ‘Al right, I’l do it.’

‘Do what?’ A disconcerted Cameron lowered the newspaper he’d been reading.

‘I’l marry you,’ she stated plainly, ‘under the conditions you stipulated... assuming you stil want me to.’

‘I... of course.’ He rose from the table, his eyes questioning her sanity for a moment, before switching to Mrs Mackenzie in the doorway.

The housekeeper, having tried and failed to stop Riona at the front door, had fol owed in her wake. Now she stood open-mouthed at what she’d just

heard.

With some of his usual composure, Cameron said, ‘Perhaps you could make us a fresh pot of coffee, Mrs Mackenzie?’

The housekeeper stared open-mouthed for a second longer, before nodding, ‘Aye...yes, sir,’ and backing out of the room.

‘Would you like to sit down?’ he invited Riona. ‘Or are there any more dramatic pronouncements to come?’

Riona’s lips thinned. She hadn’t meant to be dramatic. She’d just meant to get it over with. She hadn’t planned on having Mrs MacKenzie as

witness, and, consequently, the whole of Invergair, but it was something she’d have to live with.

‘No, there’s no more.’ She ignored the seat he drew out for her. ‘We can go when Rory gets better. He’s sick at the moment,’ she added in a flat

tone that hid the guilt she felt.

‘Yes, I know,’ Cameron revealed. ‘Macnab told me. Has his il ness anything to do with your decision?’

Riona hunched her shoulders. ‘Maybe. Does it matter?’

‘Not particularly.’ The chil returned to his tone even as he stated, ‘I should be able to get a special licence in a couple of days. I assume Archibald, the minister, wil agree to marry us. Dr Macnab, I’m sure, wil be happy to give you away.’

Riona shuddered at the idea and shook her head. ‘I’ve agreed to marry you and I wil . But I won’t do it here in Invergair.’

‘Is that so?’ His face set in hard lines. ‘Perhaps you’d care to give a reason.’

‘I...wel , to be honest, it would be too embarrassing,’ Riona admitted frankly.

‘I see.’ His voice was now like ice. ‘You find the prospect of marrying me in public humiliating.’

‘I never said that.’ Riona felt he was deliberately twisting her words. She’d simply meant that marrying him with al Invergair looking on would be something of an ordeal. ‘Anyway, the deal was I marry you to legitimise Rory. I can do that in Boston.’

‘Ensuring any embarrassment is mine,’ he countered.

Riona frowned. ‘Yours?’

‘If we marry in Boston, my family wil expect to attend,’ he pointed out, leaving Riona to conclude that, as a bride, she was going to be something of a disappointment to them.

Her green eyes darkened with temper, but she control ed it. They had six long months ahead of them and, to survive it, she would have to learn

indifference. She had already accepted that in Boston she would be regarded, and possibly treated, as a nobody.

‘Stil , if that’s your only condition.’ Cameron conceded the matter with a shrug, before drily adding, ‘At any rate, our marrying won’t remain a secret round Invergair very long. Not unless Mrs Mackenzie exercises considerable restraint.’

Riona doubted that, but she’d just have to put up with the gossip and speculation when she returned from America. Anything was better than

standing up in front of the minister who had baptised her and lying her way through a marriage ceremony, promising to love and cherish a man she now felt only bitterness towards.

‘So, as soon as Rory’s better,’ he continued at her silence, ‘we’l travel to the States.’

‘Yes, al right.’ Riona’s emotionless tones hid the dread she felt. In other circumstances going to Boston might have seemed an adventure, but in

these it was more like a prison sentence she had to serve to secure her son’s future.

* * *

doctor imagined that they were one step away from reconciliation, and he had just smiled knowingly when Riona had explained it was only a temporary arrangement, her going to Boston.

If he had been with them on the journey, Riona felt sure the doctor would have realised the true situation. They had driven from Invergair to

Inverness, flown to London, taken Concorde to New York, then the hourly shuttle from New York to Boston. A whole day together, and they’d barely

exchanged a word.

On every flight Cameron sat aloof from them both. They didn’t need to talk, so they didn’t. She fol owed where he led, getting off one plane on to

another, relying on the stewardess announcements to discover the duration and destination of each flight. Occasional y she disappeared to breast-feed Rory in a washroom, but Cameron never asked where she was going and she didn’t tel him.

Now they were circling Logan International Airport in preparation to land, and Riona began wishing she’d at least asked some basic questions. Like

how had he explained Rory’s existence to his family? And how had they reacted? Were they prepared to welcome Rory, if not her? She couldn’t imagine they’d be pleased to have her around, even on a temporary basis, and they wouldn’t have to be very perceptive to notice Cameron wasn’t pleased, either.

He didn’t hide the fact. She’d caught him watching her several times during the trip, with a hard unrelenting look on his face. And, behind that look, she could almost hear his brain clicking with cold precision, calculating how soon they could marry, then separate.

Riona bore his stare in stoical silence, and saw it change when his eyes moved to their son. He could so easily have felt the same resentment

towards Rory, a child he hadn’t planned on, had tried to prevent, but it was clear he didn’t. He’d claimed him readily enough, right from the first moment of discovery, and he watched him now with al the pride of a new father. He was taking him back home to America, regardless of any problems it caused.

And there were going to be problems, Riona realised, as she thought once more of his family. He had told her they would stay in his father’s and

stepmother’s house. His one-bedroom apartment wasn’t large enough to accommodate them al . She assumed his parents had agreed to this arrangement,

but that didn’t mean they were happy about having a total stranger thrust upon them. And Rory, although a grandson to Charles Adams, was no blood

relation to Barbara, Cameron’s stepmother, or Melissa, his stepsister.

Wel , she’d discover their feelings soon enough, Riona sighed, as the plane taxied along the runway and she realised the play was about to

commence. If she wanted to survive its six-month run, then strong and tough and careless was what she had to be. And she could be al of those for her son.

They left the plane, Cameron carrying Rory in his seat, and she walked with head high through the crowd welcoming arrivals. She scanned the faces,

waiting for someone to approach them. No one did and she released the breath she’d been holding. Cameron made arrangements at a desk for their luggage to fol ow them, then they walked out of the terminal building into the coolness of early evening.

Riona assumed they would hail a taxi and she did a double take when a large black limousine drew up before them. A uniformed chauffeur climbed

out, hesitated a split second when he saw Riona and baby, then quickly recovered his professional manner as he opened the rear doors and took their hand luggage.

‘Welcome home, Mr Adams,’ he said, as Cameron ushered her in first.

‘Thank you, Stevens,’ Cameron acknowledged the greeting briefly.

Then the chauffeur, seeing their only remaining piece of luggage, offered automatical y, ‘Shal I take your...the baby, sir?’

‘No, that won’t be necessary. He’l travel in the rear with us,’ Cameron relayed, and, so saying, skirted the car and strapped Rory into the seat on the far side.

Already instal ed in the car, Riona watched Stevens hover in attendance. Presumably the chauffeur normal y relieved his employer of such menial

tasks, but this situation was a new one to him. No one had told him to expect a baby in tow.

When Cameron was finished, he came round the car again, and climbed in beside Riona. She inched away automatical y, but needn’t have bothered.

The back seat could have accommodated another person on its soft, plush leather, and had enough legroom to make a racehorse feel comfortable.

As they pul ed away from the airport, Cameron flicked a switch and instructed, ‘Drive to my apartment first, please, Stevens.’

The glass screen between front and rear remained in place, the message communicated by an internal microphone. The chauffeur came back with

an immediate, ‘Yes, sir,’ before Cameron flicked off the switch.

Riona tried and failed to hide her stupefaction. Even at their closest, the most he’d ever told her was his family ran a construction business. She’d imagined a firm of builders, perhaps twenty or thirty, which he managed as his father’s deputy. But somehow she didn’t think that, even in America, moderately successful builders could afford shiny black limousines and scrupulously polite chauffeurs.

‘What’s wrong?’ He watched the frown deepen on her forehead.

‘Is this your car?’ she asked, a tremor of anger in her voice.

‘Technical y, no,’ he responded. ‘The car and chauffeur are at my disposal as an executive of the Harcourt Adams Corporation.’

It took Riona just a moment to see through this careful phrasing. ‘But your father owns the Harcourt Adams Corporation?’

‘Only a percentage,’ he corrected, without going on to admit how much.

Riona didn’t ask. She already suspected Cameron Adams and his family came into the seriously rich category. She didn’t want to pursue the subject

in case he thought her interested in his wealth. Presumably that was why he’d kept so quiet about it last summer.

They drove in silence away from the airport, passing through a tunnel under Boston Harbour, before heading into central Boston. Eventual y Stevens

pul ed up outside a large brick building where a uniformed doorman hovered.

‘I won’t be long,’ Cameron stated cool y, not offering her the choice of seeing his flat, and, with a ‘Circle the block’ to Stevens, returned the

doorman’s smile of recognition with a nod.

They circled the block as suggested and Riona didn’t need much experience to know from the impressive facade of Victorian town houses that they

were in one of the more prestigious areas of downtown Boston. The shops were of the exclusive variety—little designer dress shops and canopied

restaurants, discreet jewel ers and smal gal eries offering original paintings. Riona wondered where residents shopped for food, or did they just perpetual y eat out?

She caught Stevens looking at her in the mirror and offered him a wry smile to match her thoughts. She was pleasantly surprised when his stiff

features cracked a little into an answering smile. At least the family servants might be prepared to be pleasant to her.

They were circling round the block a third time when Cameron reappeared with a couple of cases. Stevens drew to a halt and leapt out to open

doors and stow away the extra luggage.

They continued westwards, out of the city, through the borough of Arlington, heading for Lexington, names Riona recal ed from books she’d read,

then turned off into a residential area of wide avenues and large houses, each bigger than the last, until they final y stopped before a pair of iron gates set in a high brick wal . The gates opened automatical y, and glided silently shut behind them.

Riona felt almost panicked, as if the shutting gates had made a prisoner of her. She felt no better when she looked ahead of her, at the house that lay at the end of the driveway. It wasn’t so much a house as a mansion, fairly modern in age, three storeys high and sprawling outwards.