The Earl's Convenient Wife

Alan had betrayed her, used her, conned her, but until that last appalling night he’d never frightened her. But this man... It was almost as if he were looking straight through her.

So leave, she told herself. It’d be easy, to do what she’d first thought when the terms of the will were spelled out. She could stay with Maggie until she found a job.

A job, on Duncairn? There weren’t any.

She glanced around her, at the great kitchen, at the big old range she’d grown to love, at the two dopey dogs at her feet. This place had been her refuge. She’d built it up with such care. Eileen had loved it and so had Jeanie.

It would have broken Eileen’s heart if she’d known Alasdair was forced to let it go. Because of her? Because she lacked courage?

What if...? What if...?

‘Think about it overnight,’ Alasdair said, pushing himself away from the door. ‘But I’m leaving in the morning. I need a decision by then.’

‘I’ve made my decision.’

He stilled.

She’d poured the milk into the flour and turned it to dough without noticing. Now she thumped the dough out of the bowl and flattened it. She picked up her cutter and started cutting, as if perfectly rounded scones were the only thing that mattered in the world.

‘Jeanie...’

She shook her head, trying to figure how to say it. She finished cutting her scones, she reformed and flattened the remaining dough, she cut the rest, she arranged them on the tray and then she paused.

She stared down at the scone tray. They were overworked, too. They wouldn’t rise properly. She should give up now.

But she wouldn’t give up. She’d loved Eileen. Okay, Eileen, you win, she told her silently and then she forced herself to look at the man before her.

‘I’ll do it if I can stay here,’ she managed.

* * *

He didn’t get it. He didn’t understand where this was going, but business acumen told him not to rush in. To wait until she spelled out terms.

She was staring down at her scones. She put her hands on her waist and her head to one side, as if considering. She was considering the scones. Not him.

She had a tiny waist, he thought irrelevantly, for one so...curvy. She was wearing a tailored suit under her apron—for the funeral. Her suit had showed off her neat figure, but the tight ribbons of the apron accentuated it even more. She was curvy at the bottom and curvy at the top... Um, very curvy, he conceded. Her hair was tied up in a knot but wisps were escaping.

She had a smudge of flour on her cheek. He’d like to...

Um, he wouldn’t like. Was he out of his mind? This was business. Stick to what was important.

He forced himself to relax, walking forward so he had his back to the fire. Moving closer.

He felt rather than saw her flush.

Inexplicably, he still had the urge to remove that smudge of flour, to trace the line of her cheekbone, but the stiffening of her spine, the bracing of her shoulders, told him he might well get a face covered in scone dough for his pains.

‘We’d need to live in Edinburgh,’ he said at last, cautiously.

‘Then there’s not even the smidgeon of a deal.’

‘Why the hell...?’

And at that she whirled and met his gaze full on, her green eyes flashing defiance. She was so close...

She was so angry.

‘Once upon a time I ached to get off this island,’ she snapped. ‘Once upon a time I was a fool. The islanders—with the exception of my father—support and care for me. In Edinburgh I have no one. I’d be married to a man I don’t know and I can’t trust. I’ve married in haste before, Alasdair McBride, and I’ll not do so again. You have much more to gain from this arrangement than I have, so here are my terms. I’ll marry you for a year as long as you agree to stay in this castle. Then, at the end of the year, I’ll inherit what the will has decreed I inherit. Nothing more. But meanwhile, you live in this castle—in my home, Alasdair—and you live on my terms for the year. It’s that or nothing.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’ He could feel her anger, vibrating in waves, like electric current, surging from her body to his and back again.

‘Take it or leave it,’ she said and she deliberately turned her back, deliberately broke the connection. She picked up her tray of unbaked scones and slid them into the trash. ‘I’m trying again,’ she told him, her back to him. ‘Third-time lucky? It might work for scones.’

He didn’t understand. ‘I can’t live here.’

‘That’s your decision,’ she told him. ‘But I have some very fine whisky I’m willing to share.’

‘I’m not interested in whisky!’ It was an explosion and Jeanie stilled again.

‘Not?’

‘This is business.’

‘The whole year will be business,’ she retorted, turning to the sink with her tray. ‘I’m thinking it’ll be shortbread for the guests tonight. What do you think?’

‘I don’t care what you give your guests.’

‘But, you see, they’ll be your guests, too, Lord Duncairn,’ she told him. ‘If you decide on marriage, then I’ll expect you to play host. If you could keep wearing your kilt—a real Scottish lord playing host in his castle—I’ll put you on the website. It’ll pull the punters in in droves.’

‘You’re out of your mind.’

‘And so was Eileen when she made that will,’ Jeanie told him, still with her back to him. ‘So all we can do is make the most of it. As I said, take it or leave it. We can be Lord and Lady of the castle together or we can be nothing at all. Your call, Lord Duncairn. I need to get on with my baking.’

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

FOUR WEEKS LATER Lord Alasdair Duncan Edward McBride, Sixteenth Earl of Duncairn, stood in the same kirk where his grandmother’s funeral had taken place, waiting for his bride.

He’d wanted a register office. They both had. Jeanie was deeply uncomfortable about taking her vows in a church, but Eileen’s will had been specific. Marriage in the kirk or nothing. Jeanie had felt ill when the lawyer had spelled it out, but then she’d looked again at the list of charities supported by the Duncairn foundation, she’d thought again of the old lady she’d loved, and she’d decided God would forgive her.

‘It’s not that I don’t support dogs’ homes,’ she told Maggie Campbell, her best friend and her rock today. ‘But I feel a bit of concern for AIDS and malaria and otters as well. I’m covering all bases. Though it does seem to the world like I’m buying myself a castle with marriage.’ She hadn’t told Maggie of the debt. She’d told no one. The whole island would think this deal would be her being a canny Scot.

‘Well, no one’s judging you if you are,’ Maggie said soundly, hugging her friend and then adjusting the spray of bell heather in Jeanie’s simple blue frock. ‘Except me. I would have so loved you to be a bride.’

‘I should have worn my suit. I’m not a bride. I’m half a contract,’ Jeanie retorted, glancing at her watch and thinking five minutes to go, five minutes left when she could walk out of here. Or run. Honestly, what was she doing? Marrying another McBride?

But Maggie’s sister was a lawyer, and Maggie’s sister had read the fine print and she’d got the partners in her firm to read the fine print and then she’d drawn up a prenuptial agreement for both Jeanie and Alasdair to sign and it still seemed...sensible.

‘This is business only,’ she said aloud now, and Maggie stood back and looked at her.