The Earl's Convenient Wife

‘I, Alasdair Duncan Edward McBride, take thee, Jeanie Margaret McBride... To have and to hold. For richer or for poorer. In sickness and in health, for as long as we both shall live.’

He wished—fiercely—that his grandmother hadn’t insisted on a kirk. The minister was old and faded, wearing Wellingtons under his well-worn cassock. He was watching them with kindly eyes, encouraging them, treating them as fresh-faced lovers.

For as long as we both shall live...

In his head he corrected himself.

For twelve months and I’m out of here.

* * *

For as long as we both shall live...

The words were hard to say. She had to fight to get her tongue around them.

It should be getting easier to say the words she knew were just words.

The past two times, she’d meant them. She really had.

They were nonsense.

Stupidly she felt tears pricking at the backs of her eyelids and she blinked them back with a fierceness born of an iron determination. She would not show this man weakness. She would not be weak. This was nothing more than a sensible proposition forced on her by a crazy will.

You understand why I’m doing it, she demanded silently of the absent Eileen. You thought you’d force us to become family. Instead we’re doing what we must. You can’t force people to love.

She’d tried, oh, she’d tried, but suddenly she was remembering that last appalling night with Alan.

‘Do you think I’d have married you if my grandmother hadn’t paid through the nose?’

Eileen was doing the same thing now, she thought bleakly. She was paying through the nose.

But I’m doing it for the right reasons. Surely? She looked firmly ahead. Alasdair’s body was brushing hers. In his full highland regalia he looked...imposing. Magnificent. Frightening.

She would not be frightened of this man, she told herself. She would not. She’d marry, she’d get on with her life and then she’d walk away.

For as long as we both shall live...

Somehow she made herself say the words. How easy they’d been when she’d meant them but then they’d turned out to be meaningless. Now, when they were meaningless to start with, it felt as if something were dying within.

‘You may kiss the bride,’ the minister was saying and she felt like shaking her head, turning and running. But the old man was beaming, and Alasdair was taking her hands again. The new ring lay stark against her work-worn fingers.

Alasdair’s strong, lean hands now sported a wedding band. Married.

‘You may kiss the bride...’

He smiled down at her—for the sake of the kindly old minister marrying them? Surely that was it, but, even so, her heart did a back flip. What if this was real? her treacherous heart said. What if this man really loved...?

Get over it. It’s business.

But people were watching. People were waiting. Alasdair was smiling, holding her hands, ready to do what was right.

Kiss the bride.

Right. She took a deep breath and raised her face to his.

‘Think of it like going to the dentist,’ Alasdair whispered, for her ears alone, and she stared up at him and his smile widened.

And she couldn’t help herself. This was ridiculous. The whole thing was ridiculous. Jeanie Lochlan marrying the Earl of Duncairn. For a castle.

She found herself chuckling. It was so ridiculous she could do it. She returned the grip on his hands and she even stood on tiptoe so he could reach her.

His mouth lowered onto hers—and he kissed her.

* * *

If only she hadn’t chuckled. Up until then it had been fine. Business only. He could do this. He could marry her, he could keep his distance, he could fulfil the letter of the deal and he could walk away at the end of twelve months feeling nothing. He intended to feel nothing.

But that meant he had to stay impervious to what she was; to who she was. He couldn’t think of her as his wife at all.

But then she chuckled and something happened.

The old kirk. The beaming minister. The sense of history in this place.

This woman standing beside him.

She was in this for profit, he told himself. She was sure of what she wanted and how she was going to get it. She was Alan’s ex-wife and he’d seen how much the pair of them had cost Eileen. He wanted nothing to do with her.

But she was standing before him and he’d felt her fear. He’d felt the effort it had cost her to turn to the minister and say those vows out loud.

And now she’d chuckled.

She was small and curvy and dressed in a simple yet very pretty frock, with white lace collar, tiny lace shoulder puffs and a wide, flouncy skirt cinched in at her tiny waist. She was wearing bell heather on her lapel.

She was chuckling.

And he thought, She’s enchanting. And then the thought flooded from nowhere.

She’s my wife.

It hit him just as his mouth touched hers. The knowledge was as if a floodgate had opened. This woman...

His wife...

He kissed her.

* * *

She’d been expecting...what? A cursory brushing of lips against lips? Or less. He could have done this without actually touching her. That would have been better, she thought. An air kiss. No one here expected any more.