Highland Bachelor 02 - This Laird of Mine (4 page)

As if sensing the direction of his thoughts, she said, “I am who I say I am. You will not deny me my rights as your wife, will you?”

He let a moment tick past before he answered her. “Until I have proof of our marriage, I cannot claim you to be anything but an interloper.”

Her lips curved into a cynical smile. “Very well. If that is how you will play this. But be aware that I am not going anywhere while you determine the truth behind my words. In the meantime, I intend to make our guests comfortable.” She turned away, heading toward the stairs.

He caught her hand and pulled her around, not harshly, as her fingers threaded with his before the touch ended. In that brief contact, an awareness arced between them, left him tingling and off balance. “And what about me, Claire? Will you act the part of wife for me?” Jules asked, attempting to sound fierce. Instead a husky timbre resonated in his voice.

Claire’s posture infused with unexpected steel. Her features hardened. The weakness he had seen earlier was no longer evident, and he realized there was more to this woman than he’d first thought. “There is room in this tiny chamber for only one of us, milord,” she said.

“Is that a challenge?” Ignoring all the warnings in his head, Jules reached for her hand once more, knowing as he did he was playing with fire.

She stepped out of his reach. “Think of it however you will, husband. I might be a woman who had no option but to accept what it was you or your solicitor offered on your behalf. But the marriage agreement I signed was very real. I am your wife.”

Her declaration goaded awake a long-dormant devil within him, a misplaced part of himself he had managed to temper over the years to a polished sheen of civility. Slowly, his eyes never leaving hers, he moved toward her. She tensed as he crept ever closer, until he was rewarded with her faint, intoxicating fragrance.

A flicker of surprise flared in her eyes and her breath whispered across his cheek a heartbeat before he pulled her forward, crushing her petal-soft mouth beneath his. For one heady moment her mouth was pliant, and then she fought, pushing him away.

The innocence of this exchange startled him. She had no audience before which to perform. And yet the kiss felt almost real . . .

Hot color flooded her cheeks. “You may only kiss me when I allow it,” she said, drawing back, her chest rising and falling with each rapid intake of breath.

“Well, then. If you are to remain here and impose on my hospitality, then you’d best get used to allowing me to kiss you frequently. For I will have some payment for my generosity.”

She gasped.

He smiled, feeling once more in control of the situation. “You are not my wife. You are a creation of my own making, and one I intend to rid myself of as easily as you were created.”

She frowned. “I will not make that easy.”

His smile increased. “Yet another challenge, my dear?”

She delivered him a sharp, angry glance. “You cannot drive me away.”

Again, that devilish side of himself reared and without hesitation he acted. He grasped her hand, spinning her around, and pulled her backside against his chest, pinning her free arm to her side.

“Consider your challenge accepted,” he breathed against the back of her ear.

She struggled in his grasp, but her movements were hampered by her heavy skirts. Still, one booted foot came down on his instep, drawing a hiss of pain from him. And as quickly as the pain came and went, so too did the sudden realization of how intimately he held her. As her buttocks pressed against his loins, desire, slid down his spine. For a heartbeat he allowed the indulgence, basked in the sensation of feeling alive again, feeling lust, desire, and physical need like he had not in so many years. He might have a reputation as a reprobate thanks to his stepmother and her gossip amongst the servants, but the reality was nothing of the sort.

In that moment of relaxing his guard while his thoughts wandered, Claire pulled out of his grasp. And with a rapid intake of breath and a swish of her skirts, she disappeared down the stairs.

He stared after her, and a sensual image of Claire reclining naked upon the small, sagging bed ambushed him, flooding his mind, filling his senses. He breathed sharply. Her scent lingered in the room. His body tightened further at the sweet torture she had evoked. The woman was an intruder in his life, yet she bewitched him like no other woman before.

Even Jane.

His heart raced at the realization. How could he possibly be bewitched by such a scheming interloper as Claire Elliot, when Jane, in all her perfection, was in a room belowstairs?

One exchange with Claire and he had forgotten all about the woman he’d loved since he was twelve years old.

Jules released a heartfelt groan. For that very reason, he had to get rid of Claire.

But before he could do that, he had to summon Grayson. Perhaps his solicitor could shed some much-needed light on exactly what had transpired. That also meant he would need to hire a messenger to summon him.

Jules frowned. Hiring the cleaning women had been far more difficult than he had imagined. The two women he finally convinced to come to the manor had jumped each time he entered a room. They never made eye contact, and as soon as they were finished, they demanded their money and scurried away.

It wasn’t just the cleaning women. Others in the village had retreated indoors at his approach. What other lies had his stepmother spread about him before her death?

No matter. Money could overcome their reserve if he offered enough of it. Jules’s frown deepened. What little he had was going quickly. It would not be long before his funds once again ran dry and his friends became aware of his dire straits.

Once Grayson arrived and Jules learned the truth, he could send Claire and his friends away and return to this impoverished state . . . alone.

As the door to the library closed behind Jules and his new wife, a whisper of cool air entered the room. Jane shivered as she waited for the footsteps to silence in the hall. She turned to her husband. “What are we to do about Claire?”

“Nothing, at present,” Nicholas replied with the steadied calm that often had a similar effect on her. Today, his steadfastness had no effect on her nerves whatsoever.

“Is Claire truly Jules’s wife?” Jane asked, as a million questions raced through her mind. It felt good to finally air the suspicions she had, they all had, of Claire and her connection to Jules. They had played along with her because of her knowledge of Jules’s solicitor.

“He did not denounce her.” Nicholas considered for a long moment. “Only time will tell, but your plan to follow Claire to Kildare Manor was a good one. We are here to support Jules should the need arise.”

“He seemed to know her,” Jane said. Jules had gone along with the woman easily enough. But Jane had seen that look of hesitation when he had first seen Claire. That one look had given Jane pause, and doubt had taken root. She knew Jules better than anyone else. She knew the nuances of her friend’s emotions. And the look she had seen pass between Jules and Claire a short while ago had been completely foreign to her. “However, I fear Jules could be in trouble.”

“Most men are when it comes to love,” Hollister said with a smile. He drew his pregnant wife against his side and wrapped an arm protectively around her.

Margaret chuckled. “Jane, dear, we will all be here to keep an eye on things. What could possibly go wrong?”

“Jules seems happy to me,” David replied. “But then again, I am not very savvy in matters of the heart.” He sighed. “I say we give them time alone. If there is something amiss here, the pressure of them being together will bring it out.”

“I could not agree with you more,” Nicholas replied.

Another whisper of cool air brushed Jane’s neck and shoulders. She pulled her shawl more tightly around her shoulders, holding back the shiver that threatened as frustration dragged at her, taunted her.

Jules was married. Or at least he appeared to be married. She should be ecstatic. Yet something did not feel quite right.

Nicholas frowned at this wife. “Do you not agree, Jane?”

“I am not certain of anything at present,” Jane replied. “All I know is something is not right here. I am not certain if it is Jules, this house, or Claire that has me worried, but something does.”

“Very well,” Nicholas said with a nod. “Perhaps we accepted Claire’s word too quickly. What we need is proof.” He folded his arms over his chest and met his wife’s gaze. “It is time for us to find out more, a lot more, about Claire Elliot MacIntyre and what she means to our friend.”

“I believe we must intrude into Jules’s finances as well,” Jane said with a frown. “Kildare Manor is not what it should be for an earldom that goes back to James V.”

Nicholas’s expression darkened. “Jules will not like our intervening.”

“How can we not?” Jane worried her hands before her. “He has nothing left. With the crofters gone, there is no way for the estate to produce an income.” Her gaze travelled the chamber. “I will not allow a friend of ours to live like this when we can easily afford to provide assistance.”

Nicholas nodded. “I will speak to Jules and find a way to assist him without insulting him.”

Jane smiled at her husband, greatly relieved. “Perhaps this whole situation with Claire is a blessing, for without her, we never would have known what kind of misfortune had befallen Jules’s estate.”

Nicholas did not return her smile. “Misfortune has been a part of this estate for so long, I doubt even an infusion of funds and some new furnishings can turn the place around. But we will see.”

Jane straightened, ready to accept the challenge.

In a shadowed corner of an inn on the border between Kildare Manor and the village of Kildare, a dark-cloaked woman sat before the minion she’d hired to spy on the new laird.

“I am disappointed in you,” she said, her voice sharp. “You have nothing to report? Surely you can get close enough to hear what they are talking about.”

The man didn’t answer directly. “He keeps himself surrounded by friends. It has been difficult to get close without anyone seeing me.”

“When did he have time to make friends, having spent so many months in gaol?” Her anger flared. She had wanted Claire to go in, do as she’d been told, then leave her to finish the ruination of Lord Kildare. “Who are these friends?”

“They are no danger to your plans. They merely brought his bride to him. They will desert him, I’ve no doubt, when they see the ruin of his estate. Two of the women are pregnant. Surely their husbands will want to keep them out of harm’s way by taking them back to their homes. Kildare will be alone with the girl before long.”

Despite the hood that shielded her face, she stared at the man, hard. Pleasure flooded her when he flinched. “Don’t come back here until you have something to report. If you disappoint me again . . .” She let the words trail off, but she knew the man understood their intent. She would threaten and she would punish those who did not do as she commanded. The twisted, lifeless body of the man’s predecessor was proof of that. She might be a woman, but she did not fear soiling her hands if it achieved her goal of tormenting, then burying Jules MacIntyre. Claire would be the means by which she would gain her revenge, thanks to Jules’s father. She had blackmailed James Grayson into revealing the intentions of Jules’s father. But instead of a gift to his son, the father had given her a means to Jules’s end when he’d found a “real” Claire to play the part of the fabricated bride. The man had meant to finally make amends to his son for a lifetime of neglect. Instead, he had provided the perfect vehicle for her own revenge.

Death would be a welcome relief when she was through with this last and final Lord Kildare.

F
r
om the back of his horse, Arthur Cabot narrowed his gaze on the wreck that was Kildare Manor. Why had the past Lord Kildare let his own estate go to ruin? The Kildares had always taken great care of the old place; he knew this as a son of one of their tenants.

Arthur could see the old farm now, across the fallow field in between two rock hedges. His parents had left the farm five years ago. After the old woman’s death.

That was when things started to change. Lord Kildare had lost not only his second wife, he’d lost his younger son, and some said his will to live. He gambled with money he didn’t have. And the money he did have vanished before any of the bills were paid or before he reinvested in the estate. That’s when the crofters and the servants started drifting away.

Arthur rode up the weed-lined drive and dismounted in the courtyard, hesitating instead of charging forward as his directive demanded. His thoughts turned to the past, when he had left the Kildare estate at fifteen to move to town with his parents, in their effort to find a better life. And now he was back. Not as a tenant farmer’s son, but on another mission. He had assumed the identity of a debt collector. Such a role was not too big a stretch. Lord Kildare owed his creditors a goodly sum.

The poor bastard.

Arthur stared at the closed doorway. He had no choice but to pressure the man into paying him something, adding a burden he was certain the new laird did not need. But his role demanded he stay close to Lord Kildare, and the woman who claimed to be his new wife.

Funny business that. Arthur had been watching the manor since Lord Kildare had arrived. So far the man’s only journey had been to the village with a cartload of carpets. He had returned several hours later with women to help him clean the place.

So when had the man acquired a wife?

Arthur needed to find out more about the situation. Boldly, he rapped on the door. It took several minutes before the door slid open a crack to reveal a watery eye. “What do ye want?”

“I am here to collect upon the debts of Lord Kildare.”

The door slid closed, but not before Arthur slipped his booted foot in between the door and the frame. “Now, let’s not be unfriendly, my good sir. I must speak with Lord Kildare immediately.”

With a heavy sigh, the old man surrendered. “Wait here,” he said as he shuffled away.

Arthur waited outside the doorway, uncertain if he had been invited inside, or if the old man had truly meant him to remain standing at the doorway, staring into the faded and dilapidated house.

Several moments later, the steward returned alone. Arthur frowned. The old man was supposed to bring him the laird of the manor. The servant held out his hand. “As partial payment on whatever yer owed.”

Arthur held out his hand to receive one small copper farthing. Before he could object to the sum, the massive oak door was closed tight.

One farthing.

Kildare owed a far sight more than that. It was time to turn up the pressure and make his presence known.

Claire wandered out of the house in an effort to escape not only her guests, but the man who had been so angry with her a short while ago. He did not want her here. That much was obvious. Outside, it was easier to push aside the angry look on his face, his harsh words.

She wandered across the courtyard to the back of the house, then down toward the water. Kildare Manor sat on the eastern shore of Loch Awe. From the grassy shore, she could see the rich rolling hills, covered in a blanket of heather that eased into the cold waters of the loch. The pristine reflection of the puffy clouds in the blue sky above shimmered in the steely gray water below.

The scenery was some of the prettiest she had ever seen in Scotland. Claire looked around with a sigh of pleasure until she turned back toward the manor itself. Surrounded by waist-high grass and covered in briars up to the roofline, Kildare Manor looked as neglected as it was lonely. She’d only been in the house for less than an hour, and she felt the emptiness, the grief, that had been too much a part of its history. It was as if the house mourned the loss of those who had once been so vibrant within its walls.

She knew the history of the house—the stories of Lady Kildare’s mysterious death and Jules’s subsequent trial for murder. Every story about the Kildares and their cursed estate had reached even the fringes of society where she existed. She also recognized the desperation and loneliness in her new husband’s eyes. Those same emotions had been her constant companions since she was twelve years of age, when she’d been cast into the world with no family and no home.

But she was more fortunate than most women who had suffered her fate. Her father had left a small sum of money, and that had helped convince the neighbors to take her in and raise her alongside their own children.

But what about Jules? He’d had a family to care for him. Hadn’t he? He’d had a home, and despite the neglect, Kildare Manor continued on. The place was not dead. It was merely sleeping, waiting for the right person to wake it up, to help it shed its past and begin again.

Would the newest earl be that person? Could she help him set the manor back to rights? Would he let her if she tried?

Judging by their earlier conversation, she doubted it. But even though he wanted her gone, and as soon as possible, she would do what she could in the next fortnight to set his house in order. Perhaps doing so would help her secure a way to his heart, even if temporarily.

Lost in thought, Claire picked her way through the waist-high grass at the shoreline toward a small stone building. It appeared as if it was used at one time to house boats and fishing paraphernalia, if the pile of decaying oars, rotting nets, and pocked floats were any indication. A single rowboat leaned against the side of the building. It was covered in withered leaves from a long-ago winter, caught up in spiderwebs from bow to stern.

Claire moved to the doorway and tried the latch. Locked. She moved on, rounding the other side of the small building when she discovered a rusted old scythe and a hoe. She picked up the scythe. The handle was weathered and dry and felt rough against her palm, but the blade, despite its color, looked like it might still do the job for which it had been intended.

Moving back to the grass, Claire gripped the top handle in her left hand and the central handle in her right. She held the blade close to the ground and swung at the swath of tall grass in front of her. To her delight, the blade sliced through the narrow patch of grass. She tried again, widening her stroke, but the grass only bent beneath the assault this time.

The blade was sharp enough, she knew from the first stroke. Pressing her lips together in determination, she tried again, returning to the small stroke she had made at first. Again, the grass fell to the left of the blade. A sense of accomplishment moved through her at the small path she had created. She continued scything, moving the blade from right to left, twisting her body in rhythm with each stroke.

Her arms ached at the unusual and contained movements, but she didn’t care. She was doing something productive that she hoped would help her win Jules’s favor.

“Stop.” The harsh word hung in the air.

Her movements ceased. Her muscles tightened and her nerves leapt. Jules.

In a suspended moment, she became aware of two things. One, Jules stood behind her. Two, with the soft swoosh of the blade arrested, a loud and persistent hissing sound came from in front of her.

Before her mind could reconcile the sound, she was hauled back against Jules’s chest. The scythe flew from her hands just as a brown snake with a black zigzag stripe along its back struck where she had been standing a heartbeat ago.

“A snake?” A scream wedged itself in her throat, but she held it back.

“An adder.” Jules’s rich baritone cut through her terror. He scooped her up in his arms and strode back toward the manor.

Claire suddenly became aware of the muscular arms that held her against an equally solid chest. Over his shoulder she looked back. The snake slithered toward them, then stopped at their retreat. The snake coiled into an S-shape once more, prepared to strike should they change their direction.

“What were you doing?” Those captivating blue eyes searched hers suspiciously.

She swallowed. “I was trying to cut the grass.”

He looked unamused. “There are snakes in the grass.”

“Was it poisonous?” she asked hesitantly, her heart still pounding.

“Yes.” He took a deep, exaggerated breath.

“Then why did you save me?” she asked with a frown. “If it had bitten me, all your ‘wife’ problems would be at an end.”

His heated glare sent a shiver over her flesh. “Had it struck you, you would not have died, but the next three days would have been very painful, painful enough that you might have wished you had died.” He set her down and stepped back, his face blank. “You are safe now. Stay out of the grass.”

She mourned the loss of his warmth. Her legs trembled beneath her, but she would never let him see such a weakness. She straightened. “Thank you.”

He nodded as he turned away.

“How long have you been back at Kildare Manor?” she asked in an effort to keep him with her. Suddenly being alone seemed worse than being subjected to his anger.

“Only a few days.” He stopped walking and turned around. “Why?”

She shrugged. “I merely wondered—”

“Why the place is so run down?” Though the words were edged, there was an amused gleam in his eyes that said he wasn’t as angry as he sounded.

She looked askance at him. “It is not my place to judge you. I know you have suffered the loss of your father and your brother three weeks ago. I cannot imagine the pain you must be feeling.”

He frowned and the light in his eyes vanished. “I had been absent from their lives for many years. As far as I was concerned, they died years ago.”

“Then we have at least that in common.”

His body uncoiled slightly at the words. His brow puzzled. “You mentioned you had no family.” He frowned. “And yet, you received a missive from them earlier today.”

She paled. “The missive was from friends who I consider family.”

It was a lie, and from the look on his face he knew it but asked instead, “Then what happened to your family?”

“They all perished in the plague of 1666.”

His frown deepened. “You were unaffected by the disease?”

“I developed spots, but for some reason, I was the only one to survive,” she said quietly. “Whether it was a blessing or a curse, I cannot say. It was a long time ago.”

His gaze fixed on hers. The compassion in his blue eyes startled her. “You’ve been alone all this time?”

“No,” she said, hardly daring to breathe as he took two steps toward her. “I lived with a local family for a while after my parents died. The father was a painter and he taught me alongside his own children. When I was fifteen, he died, and I left their home so that I would no longer be a burden on the family.”

“How long ago was that?” he asked as he moved one hand up to cup her cheek. His fingers stroked her skin, then shifted to one tendril of her hair that refused to stay coiled with the rest.

“I’ve been on my own for five years.” She could feel his fingers twining in her hair.

He wasn’t looking at her, he was staring at his hand in her hair, as if he were committing the texture and feel of it to memory. Then, his gaze returned to her face so fast it actually made her gasp. “Then my solicitor shows up and offers you marriage to me?”

She shrugged. When he put it that way, what she had done sounded desperate and conniving. “I grew weary of being alone.” It was partially the truth. She had been alone for so long that she had never expected anything else. Her thoughts about Kildare Manor suddenly came back to her. She, Jules, and the house were all alone and a little desolate.

If only things were different. If they had met under different circumstances, perhaps . . . but that could never be. She came to Kildare Manor for one reason and one reason only—to save the girls.

Despite the reminder of her purpose, her heart hammered at his closeness. She could smell his warm, clean skin as he tugged her slightly closer with the end of her hair. There was no pain, only an incredible tension as she shifted forward.

He fixed his startling blue eyes on her. The raw hunger there made her cheeks warm, and a shiver slid down her spine. He leaned forward, his face just to the side of hers. His warm breath brushed her cheek in a seductive flutter.

Her breasts tightened.

Slowly, his fingers left her hair to tilt her chin up. His gaze held hers, enthralled, as he searched her face for something. “I’m telling you the truth,” she said, as though the words were the answer to any question he might ask.

A half smile hovered on his lips as he brought them down to hers.

Claire moaned at the contact. This kiss was different than the last one. This one was gentle. Tender.

And it made her long for more of the same.

He left her lips to trail a blazing path down her jaw to her neck. “You are so very tempting,” he whispered, as he traced the curve of her ear with his tongue. “But you are better off without me.”