Lost in Your Arms (28 page)

“You would have killed me.” MacLean nudged him with his toe. “If you didn’t shoot at us, who did?”

From the door at the side of the altar, a woman’s voice spoke. “You were a stupid lad, and you’ve grown to be a stupid man.”

MacLean and Enid swiveled to face Lady Catriona—and the rifle she held against her shoulder.

Enid took a useless step backward.

“My God,” MacLean said hoarsely. “Aunt Catriona, what are you doing?”

“Getting justice for my lad.”

Catriona was daft as a hatter, Lady Bess had said. It appeared she was right, and Enid’s heart thundered as she faced the ugly black eye at the end of the barrel.

“Neither one of you deserved to have my Stephen wipe his feet on you.” The muzzle roamed between MacLean and Enid. “He was a good lad, and neither of you appreciated how lucky you were to have him.”

She was far too steady in her aim.

Moving slowly, MacLean took Enid’s hand and led
her to the pew. They sank down together to present a smaller target.

“Does she shoot?” Enid whispered.

“Every season she bags a hart,” MacLean answered quietly.

Jackson wiggled like a worm as he tried to get out of the way.

“She shot at us in the gallery?” Enid could scarcely believe the petite woman could deal death so callously.

“I would have hit you, but that Harry creature stepped in the way.” Lady Catriona hated with profound malice.

“Harry never harmed you, Aunt Catriona.” Mac-Lean spoke in a soothing voice.

“He was a friend of yours, and besides, I had to shoot him, or he would have revealed me.” Lady Catriona took a few steps into the chapel, and the barrel moved toward MacLean. “And I want to kill you so badly. You were with Stephen when he died, Kiernan. You probably killed him.”

MacLean was clearly shocked. “How can you think such a thing?”

Lady Catriona’s pointed the rifle toward Enid. “But you . . . you’re the one who truly betrayed Stephen. You were his wife. You rutted with his murderer.”

It was a useless protest, but Enid had to try. “Lady Catriona, Kiernan didn’t kill Stephen.”

“Perhaps not. Perhaps he only failed to save him. But you
did
fornicate with Kiernan, and Stephen barely cold in his grave. I hate you both so much, I don’t know which one of you to shoot—but I know whoever is left will be miserable.” Catriona’s finger tightened on the trigger.

MacLean shoved Enid to the floor. He landed on top of her with a grunt of pain.

The rifle roared, and before the echo died away, Lady Catriona screeched. The rifle clattered to the floor.

Harry said, “Got you, you bitch.”

Harry. Thank God for Harry.

MacLean stared at Enid. She looked all right, and although his ribs ached, he was all right. Together, the two of them lifted themselves cautiously to peer over the pew.

Harry held Lady Catriona’s arm twisted behind her back, and she made little squealing noises as she struggled against his grip. “She shot me in cold blood,” he said. “It’s time to put her away.”

“Yes,” MacLean said. It was time she went back to her family. Her family was used to dealing with people like her; there were enough of them. “Take her to the north tower and lock her up. We’ll send her away tomorrow.”

Turning to the crowd gathering behind him, Harry said, “Kinman! Take her.” He shoved Lady Catriona away. “And get Graeme and Rab and carry Jackson out of the chapel.” In answer to an inaudible question, he said, “No, you can’t stop to talk to MacLean. Can’t you see he’s busy?”

While MacLean and Enid rose to their feet and dusted themselves off the two Scots and a grinning but silent Mr. Kinman hauled Jackson away.

Enid would have escaped with them, but MacLean wasn’t about to let her go. Not after so unsatisfactory a conversation. Catching her arm, he brought her to a halt. “Last night, you said you loved me.”

She flinched, as if he had hit her. “But I don’t want
to love you.” Her voice got higher, a sure sign she was nervous. “Love is nothing but an ambush, a trap, and you can’t run far enough to get away from the pain and the heartache.”

“But there’s joy, too. There’s having someone for your own. There are whispers in the night and raising a bairn and love that stretches to eternity—”

“It doesn’t stretch into eternity. That’s the trouble. We’d argue. You’d leave me because of who I am.”

Enunciating each word clearly, he said, “I . . . would . . . not.”

“Or you’d . . . you’d die!”

Her outburst surprised him. He glanced at the coffin and looked back at her. “I’m in reasonable good health, my dearling, and any man who survived what I have has proved his hardiness.”

“Or used up his luck!” She clenched her fists. “I’m so angry at everything that has happened.”

“It seems as if you’re always angry.” He was beginning to understand. “But you’re not. You’re scared.”

The color bleached from her face. “No.”

“Scared to death.” He studied her, seeing for the first time the truth behind her defiance, her self-defensive wit, her sarcasm. “Of having a man, and expectations, when life is uncertain at best. You’ve been trained to expect the worst of love.”

“The worst is the truth,” she snapped and backed away from him.

He followed. “No. From the first moment I saw you, I wanted you desperately. I couldn’t even lift my head from the pillow, and I managed to kiss you. There can never be another woman like that for me.”

She moved more quickly. She stumbled on the carpet.

“You want me, too.” He knew it. “You came to me last night. You said you loved me.”

“I do love you. But I can’t stay. I won’t stay.”

He didn’t even know he could say the words, but when she turned and walked up the aisle, he blurted, “Enid, I love you.”

She never slowed. She disappeared out the door.

“I love you!” She must not have heard him. He hurried after her.

Lady Bess stepped into his path and grasped his arm. “Let her go.”

“I can’t.” Enid was leaving him. She was all he wanted. She loved him, and he loved her, and she was leaving him!

“If you force Enid to stay, you’ll have only ashes in your hands. Let her go.”

MacLean could scarcely bear to listen to his mother, but so far nothing he had done had succeeded. He dragged Lady Bess along until he could see Enid’s fleeing form. Then, although it killed him, he stood still and watched her take flight, thinking she tore out his heart as she went. His breath was harsh and deep, and his voice was guttural when he asked, “Mother, is it true you wed the Englishman to save me from having to wed an heiress?”

“Well, yes, dear.”

He looked down at her, his beautiful, eccentric mother, still clinging to his arm. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You’re a smart lad. I knew you’d figure it out sooner or later.”

Taking her head in his hands, he kissed her hair. “Thank you, Mother.”

With a smile, she dug a cigar out from between her breasts. “Enid’s a smart lass, too. She’ll figure out that she loves you sooner or later.”

“Sooner?” he asked, needing comfort, no matter how indeterminate.

“Or later,” she confirmed.

Chapter 28

The London solicitor bowed in a most respectful manner as Enid left his office, but Enid scarcely noticed. She was in shock. In her hands she held a letter from Lady Halifax, written in the last days before her death, and in a velvet-lined box was the silver-backed brush she had used to brush Lady Halifax’s hair.

In a daze Enid wandered toward Hyde Park. She would sit on a bench and read it there, and then all would become clear. Surely then she would know what to do.

“My lord. My lord!”

The afternoon sun shone down on MacLean’s bare shoulders as he stuck his shovel in the earth of the newly plowed herb garden and waited until a panting Graeme reached him. “What?”

“She’s back.” Graeme leaned his hands on his knees and gasped for air. “Enid has returned to Castle MacLean and—”

MacLean dropped the shovel handle and started toward the castle at a run.

“She’s bargaining wi’ yer mother for yer hand in marriage,” Graeme called. “I thought ye’d be interested!”

MacLean was interested. He was more than interested. He burst through the front door of the castle and saw Donaldina.

“They’re in th’ east library,” she informed. “An’ my, doesn’t Mrs. MacLean look elegant!”

Elegant? Why did Enid look elegant? Better she should look haggard, as he did, from waiting a whole month to hear if the woman of his heart would wed him. Elegant, indeed. Better she should look hot and dirty from planting an herb garden as an enticement to a woman who’d been off to London buying clothing so she could look elegant. He strode up a flight of stairs and into his mother’s study—and saw Enid.

She
did
look elegant. She wore the newest, most fashionable travel costume made of dark purple satin with a matching hat and a silly feather that bobbed when she turned her head. He was ready to go over and shake her, but she smiled at him with such warmth that he stopped in his tracks. She smiled at him, and he would have sworn his broken heart played a bagpipe tune.

“We were just talking about you, son.” Lady Bess sat behind her desk, her book of household accounts open before her, twirling her pen. “Enid has made an offer for your hand.”

When her words finally penetrated his daze, he stared at his mother with her wrinkled brows and somber mien. “What?”

“She has made an offer for your hand,” Lady Bess repeated. “I think I speak true when I told her you would be happy to wed her . . .”

“Aye.” As a gender, women were stark, raving mad.

“Enid is offering us a dowry.”

“A dowry.” He turned back toward Enid. “Damn, woman, I don’t care about a dowry. I just want you!”

Lady Bess cleared her throat and frowned. “Nevertheless, we’re getting a dowry. She has offered two thousand pounds. I won’t allow you to wed for less than twenty.”

“Twenty thousand pounds!” MacLean shouted. Stark, raving mad. “Where would she get twenty thousand pounds?” He gestured toward Enid. “Where would she get two thousand pounds? She’s a nurse-companion.”

In an insulted tone, Enid said, “I’m offering two thousand pounds for you.”

Two thousand pounds! What had Enid been doing? Concerned, he demanded, “You didn’t rob the Bank of England, did you, lass?”

Enid laid her arm across the back of the sofa in an elegant arch. “Not at all.”

“She seems to have come into some money,” Lady Bess said. “She has offered a dowry, and we’re going to take it.”

“We don’t need a dowry.” This smacked of buying a husband. Of buying him.

“Don’t tell me what we need and what we don’t need.” Lady Bess tapped the book of accounts. “Twenty thousand pounds would buy us that strip of land the MacLeans had to sell off after the Forty-Five.”

Enid shrugged with fine disdain. “That’s too bad,
because I can’t afford more than three thousand pounds.”

MacLean stood, staring at Enid, hands dangling at his side. The first words he’d heard her say in over a month, and they were about money?

Lady Bess seemed to find nothing unusual in the scene. “Kiernan is the laird of a powerful Scottish clan. He’s worth twice twenty thousand.”

Enid looked him over, at the dirt on his kilt and his bare, sweaty chest, and her lascivious appreciation made him flush. “He is that, and not because of his clan.”

“Aye, he’s a handsome lad,” Lady Bess agreed. “In good health, with all his teeth, but a few scars from his recent ordeal. So you’ll pay twenty thousand?”

“Mother!”

Enid shook her head. “Four.”

“Fifteen.”

“Seven.”

MacLean wanted to punch his fist through the wall. “Why are you two doing this?”

Lady Bess glared at him meaningfully. “Don’t interrupt the negotiations. Enid will not wed you any other way.”

Once more, he gazed on the woman he loved. He was, as his mother said, the laird of a powerful clan. Enid was an illegitimate orphan, and when he’d discovered his true identity, in his rage he had accused her of being a liar. Of being mercenary. Of being a bastard and a whore, and he had hurt her so much that he would spend the rest of his life trying to make it up to her.

Now, somehow, she had discovered a way to bring something besides her own self to their marriage—and he would let her.

He needed only her.

She needed her pride. “Go on,” he said tersely.

“Twelve thousand pounds,” his mother said.

“Ten,” Enid countered.

Lady Bess stood and smiled. “I believe we have an agreement.”

MacLean gave a gusty sigh of relief.

Enid did not stand. “Ten thousand over the next ten years.”

Lady Bess’s smile faded, and she sat back down.

His frustration came out in a roar. “For God’s sake, women, by the time you get done with these negotiations, I’ll be too old to consummate the marriage!”

Lady Bess struggled against a grin. “Perhaps, son, it would be better if you went to your room and bathed while we finish.”

Patient. He had to be patient. Crossing his arms across his chest, he leaned against the cabinet. “You can just put up with the smell. I’m staying right here.”

By the time they finished negotiations the tension had put him into a state of exhaustion.

Lady Bess and Enid stood and shook hands.

Lady Bess left and closed the door behind her.

He straightened. “Are you happy now?”

Enid didn’t look happy. She looked a little like a female uncertain of her welcome. “Are you?”

“You’re going to marry me?”

“Yes.”

He allowed a grin to break over his face. He strode
over to her and without a care to her elegant travel costume, he pulled her against him. “Then I’m happy.” He kissed her, and when he finished she no longer looked uncertain, and that damned silly hat had fallen to the floor.

“Let me show you something.” Enid eased herself out of his arms, went to the sofa, and got her reticule. “Do you remember that I received the bequest from Lady Halifax?”

“Indeed I do.” He began to understand.

She pulled a paper covered with shaky, spidery writing from her reticule. “This is the letter she wrote to accompany it.”

He pushed it aside and pulled her into his arms. “Tell me what it says.”

She didn’t protest. Indeed, she snuggled close as if she liked half-naked, dirty men. “Lady Halifax said she liked me. Admired me. She left me five thousand pounds, and told me to conceal it from Stephen, to save it for the moment when I could achieve my heart’s desire. But when I received it, I had just come back from Castle MacLean, Stephen was gone, and I no longer knew my heart’s desire. I had thought I wanted to grow herbs on my own land, but in the last months that dream had grown acrid and unappealing. I tried to think where I would go, what I would do, now that I had the resources to make myself happy. I didn’t know. I thought maybe I should buy a home, but where? And a family, but I couldn’t buy one of those. Friends? I have friends, but while I have a fortune, they must still work for their living. I spent a fortnight wandering about London, looking for the truth in every park, on every street, in every garden.”

“What made you come for me?”

“I read the letter again. Lady Halifax said to seize my heart’s desire, and I realized—I could not see inside my own heart by looking about London. I had to . . . look inside myself.”

“And what did you see?”

Looking up at him, she placed her palms on either side of his head. “You. And you. And you. There is nothing that I want except you.”

He slid his hands over hers. “If you hadn’t come soon . . .”

“What? You would have come to get me?”

“Aye. A handfast marriage would do for us—until you agreed to take vows in our chapel with all my people as witnesses.”

She laughed a little. “I wondered. I kept looking behind me, thinking I would see you.”

Clasping her hands, he pulled one to his mouth and kissed the palm. She tasted like woman. His woman. “There is one thing I don’t understand.”

Her eyes half closed with pleasure. “Yes?”

“You said you inherited five thousand pounds.”

Opening her eyes wide, she smiled with excessive innocence.

“But you promised a dowry of ten thousand.”

“Over a period of ten years.”

“So you really are a liar.”

“And I’m a mercenary.”

“Who spent every pound of your fortune on me.”

“A wise investment, for you could do your part and make a family with me, and your mother would consider our child as part of my payment.”

“My wife is a beautiful, wanton trickster.” Laughing
slightly, he slid his arm around her waist, bent her back and kissed her with all the pent-up passion of the last month. “A beautiful, wanton, mercenary liar who would do anything to get me.”

“Anything,” she vowed. “I would do anything.”

Looking into her brilliant blue eyes, he repeated his vow, the vow he had made that day in the mountains in the sunshine. “I am the blood in your veins, the marrow in your bones. You’ll never go anywhere without knowing I’m inside you, supporting you, keeping you alive. I am a part of you. You are a part of me. We are forever.”

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Forever.”