The Earl's Convenient Wife

‘Lady Eileen was very sure of what she wanted. She has...all eventualities covered.’

He exhaled and took a while to breathe again. Eventualities... ‘Explain.’

‘You and Mrs McBride would need to live in the same residence for a period of at least one year before the estate can be settled. However, Lady Eileen was not unreasonable. She acknowledges that in the course of your business you do need to travel, so she’s made allowances. Those allowances are restrictive, however. In the twelve months from the time of your marriage there’s an allowance for no more than thirty nights spent apart.’

Alasdair said nothing. He couldn’t think what to say.

He’d loved his grandmother. None of what he was thinking right now had any bearing on that love. If he had her in front of him...

‘She’s also taken steps to ensure that this arrangement was kept.’ The lawyer coughed apologetically. ‘I’m sorry, but you would need to keep to...the intent of the will.’

‘You mean she’d have us watched?’

‘There are funds set aside to ensure the terms are being adhered to.’

He stared at the lawyer in horror. ‘You’re out of your mind. Next you’ll be saying you’ll be checking the sheets.’

‘I believe,’ the lawyer said and allowed himself another wintry smile, ‘that your sleeping arrangements within the one residence would be entirely up to you and your...your wife. Mind...’ he allowed the smile to widen ‘...she’s an attractive wee thing.’

‘Of all the...’

‘Though it’s not my business to say so, sir. I’m sorry.’

‘No.’ Though she was, Alasdair conceded, his thoughts flying sideways again. He’d been astounded when his cousin had married her. Jeanie McBride was petite and freckled and rounded. Her soft brown shoulder-length curls, mostly tugged back into a ponytail, were nothing out of the ordinary. She didn’t dress to kill. In fact, the first time he’d met her, he’d thought how extraordinary that the womanising Alan was attracted to such a woman.

But then she’d smiled at something his grandmother had said, and he’d seen what Alan had obviously seen. Her smile was like the sun coming out after rain. Her face lit and her freckles seemed almost luminescent. She had a dimple at the side of her mouth, and when she’d chuckled...

He hadn’t heard that chuckle for a long time, he thought suddenly. He hadn’t seen her smile, either.

In truth, he’d avoided her. His grandmother’s distress over Alan’s wasted life had been enough to make him avoid Jeanie and all she represented. He’d known she was caring for the castle and he acknowledged she’d seemed to be making a good job of it. She’d steered clear of him these past few months when he’d come to visit his grandmother. She’d treated him formally, as a castle guest, and he’d treated her like the housekeeper she was.

But she wasn’t just a housekeeper. Right after Alan’s death Eileen had said, ‘She seems like a daughter to me,’ and he’d thought, Uh-oh, she’ll stick around until the old lady dies and hope to inherit, and now he was proved right.

She must be as shocked as he was about the will’s contents. She’d get nothing unless they married...

That could be used to his advantage. His mind was racing. The only cost would be the castle.

And a year of his life...

The lawyer had risen, eager to depart. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I understand I’m leaving you in a quandary but my task here was purely as messenger. I can see the taxi approaching. Mrs McBride has been efficient as always. Will you bid her farewell for me? Meanwhile, if there’s anything else myself or my partners can do...’

‘Tear up the will?’

‘You and I both know that we can’t do that. The will is watertight. From now on there’s only a decision to be made, and I have no place here while you make it. Good luck, sir, and goodbye.’

CHAPTER TWO (#u5e3f688f-a37f-5684-8765-282c5a95c8b7)

THERE WAS TOO much to get his head around.

Alasdair paced the library, and when that wasn’t big enough he took himself outdoors, through the great, grand castle entrance, across the manicured lawns, down the ha-ha and to the rough pastures beyond.

The shaggy highland cattle were still where they’d been while the lawyer had been making his pronouncements. The day had been warm and they were feeling the heat. If it got any hotter, they’d be wandering down to the sea and standing belly deep in the water, but for now they were lying on the rich summer grass, grazing where they could reach.

He loved the cattle. More, he loved this whole estate. His grandparents had made one small section of the castle liveable when his grandfather inherited, and they’d brought him here as a boy. He’d wandered the place at will, free from the demands his socialite parents put on him, free of the restrictions of being known as a rich kid. He’d fished, climbed, roamed, and when his grandmother had decided on restoration he’d been delighted.

Only that restoration had brought Jeanie into their lives.

If it hadn’t been Jeanie, it would have been someone else, he thought grimly, striding down the line of battered fencing towards the bay. His grandmother’s two dogs, Abbot and Costello, elegant spaniels, beautiful, fast and dumb, had loped out to join him. The smell of rabbits would be everywhere, and the dogs were going nuts trying to find them.

Alan’s wife...Jeanie...

His grandmother had said she’d loved her.

He’d thought his grandmother had loved him.

‘So why treat us like this?’ he demanded of his departed grandmother. ‘If we don’t marry, we’ll have nothing.’

It was blackmail. Marry... The thing was nonsense.

But the knot of shock and anger was starting to untwist. Jeanie’s assessment was right—his grandmother was a conniving, Machiavellian matriarch—so he might have expected something like this. Marriage to Alan’s widow... Of all the dumb...

Eileen had loved reading romance novels. He should have confiscated every one and burned them before it was too late.

He reached the bay and set himself down on a great smooth rock, a foundation stone of an ancient fortress. He gazed out to sea but his mind was racing. Option one, no inheritance. Nothing. Walk away. The thought made him feel ill.

He turned and gazed back at the castle. He’d hardly been here these past years but it had always been in his mind. In his heart?

There’d been McBrides at Duncairn Castle since almost before the dinosaurs. Would he be the one to let it go?

The woodchip industry would move in, he thought. The pastures included with the castle title were mostly wild. The castle was heritage-listed, but not the land.

There were deer watching cautiously just above the horizon, but money was in woodchips, not deer. The land would go.

Which led—sickeningly—to option two.

Marriage. To a woman he couldn’t stand, but who also stood to gain by the inheritance.

He gazed around again at the cattle, at the distant deer, at the water lapping the shores, the dogs barking in the distance, the eagles...

His land. Duncairn.

Was the thing impossible?

And the more he calmed down, the more he saw it wasn’t. His apartment in Edinburgh was large, with separate living quarters for a housekeeper. He’d bought the place when he and Celia were planning marriage, and afterwards he’d never seen the point of moving. He worked fourteen-, fifteen-hour days, especially now. There were things happening within the company he didn’t understand. Nebulous but worrying. He needed to focus.

He still could. He could use the Edinburgh house simply to sleep. That could continue and the terms of the will would be met.

‘It could work,’ he reasoned. ‘The apartment’s big enough for us to keep out of each other’s way.’