The Scottish Lord’s Secret Bride

‘She does?’ What an inane response, but for the life of her, nothing else came to mind.

Murren nodded feverishly. ‘What do you think? You know him?’

‘Knew him.’

Morven thought her sister’s face was flushed and her eyes clouded, but as Murren wouldn’t look Morven in the eye it was difficult to tell. She’s hiding something. It gave Morven a jolt. The sisters had always been open and honest with each other. A nasty niggle of unease hit her. Not always on her side and now inexplicably it seemed neither on Murren’s. A pang of sadness threatened to engulf her. Times were changing.

‘Morven, he’s old.’ Murren stared at Morven intently. Almost as if she were intent on divining Morven’s reaction. ‘Almost twenty years older than me. And they want me to marry him. Oh she said so sweetly, that it could wait a year or so. She accepts that I’m still young, but he has to have a wife.’ She burst into tears. ‘Why me?’

Morven cuddled her sister close. If only she could reassure her, but really what grounds did she have? She couldn’t say he was hers, because she had no idea where she stood in his affections. Nowhere probably, but even so… He would crucify Murren, break any spirit she had without even realising it. She couldn’t say she thought it all a sham, because what grounds did she have for that suspicion except Murren’s behaviour, and that might have nothing to do with it. Even so…

‘I wonder if he knows about this?’ Morven mused. He better not. ‘From what I remember the laird is not one to be forced into anything he doesn’t want to do, and he’s…he’s a person who needs someone to stand up to him.’

‘I couldn’t do that.’ Murren gulped. ‘I’m not strong-willed like you, Morven. If I marry I need it to be to someone kind and gentle, who will not try to change me. From all Mama said, I hardly think the laird is that man.’

All of that statement rang true and Morven agreed with it wholeheartedly. ‘Well then don’t worry. We’ll sort it. No one will make you marry if you don’t want to. Especially not to him.’

Especially.

****

‘I’ve told you, Mama, I have too much to think about and do, to play host to your friends,’ Fraser said for at least the sixth time. ‘I won’t actively ignore them, I promise you. I will do all that is proper. However, I need to catch up on what’s been happening on the estate. Papa had lost his grip towards the end—you know that.’

‘He couldn’t help it,’ his mama said defensively. ‘He had lost his capability to see things straight.’

‘Mama, I know and it was not a criticism, merely a statement of fact. It is also fact that I have to straighten things out. We were lucky to have such loyal staff to hold on to the reins but, ultimately, I am the person to decide what, when, and how. I came home after five years, as soon as I was able, had hardly drawn breath here before I went to Edinburgh on behalf of the estate.’ And I have other people I want to find. To discover why I heard nothing, to…

‘Fraser, are you well?’ His mama stared at him intently. ‘You look white and dyspeptic.’

‘Not at all, as I said, I’m just trying to think of everything that needs to be done,’ he replied urbanely.

Interestingly his mother flushed and bit her lip before she blinked and smiled. ‘You will do so well.’

He hoped so. ‘Now, I have to stamp my authority on what goes on at Kintrain before I do anything else. Anything,’ he emphasised. ‘And that includes considering marriage.’ And I need to find out if I am wed or not. That was not going to be easy. Fraser made a mental note to go to Stirling the following day and make some enquiries.

To whit was a ceremony such as he had entered into considered valid? Plus, why was he not told about the possible ramifications at the time? That he could hazard a good guess about. It has suited others not to mention it.

‘You still haven’t said who your guests are,’ he continued as his mother handed him a glass of their duty unpaid, made on the estate, finest malt whisky. He held the glass to the light to watch the amber contents glisten. ‘All I’ve had is vague, oh an old friend and some of her children. Even when I thought I might have to play nursemaid on part of their journey, I still didn’t know for whom I might be caring. Lord, Mama, do you know if I need to hire nannies or extra staff to keep the bairns occupied?’

‘Well it was all irrelevant once you didn’t,’ his mama said evasively. ‘You went to Edinburgh, they travelled via Carlisle, and we need no more staff.’

Why couldn’t she look him in the eye again?

‘So, now I do need to know,’ he said forcefully. ‘How many is some? Is that why you’re so vague about these people?’ Fraser added the optimum amount of soft spring water that came from high in the hills, to make the whisky taste as the makers intended. ‘You’re not sure just how many of your guests I have to be hospitable to?’

‘Our guests,’ his mother said emphatically. ‘I thought you were too busy to want to know the details. I’m trying not to burden you with minutiae.’

Fraser smiled. He wasn’t going to be tricked like that. ‘No, Mama, your guests, using my hospitality. Who are…?’

‘Fraser.’ She pouted, which in itself was enough to make him wary. ‘Surely it is immaterial.’

He raised one eyebrow and noted how his mama still couldn’t meet his eyes. As he thought, she was up to something. Something she thought he wouldn’t approve of. ‘How can the names of people stopping in my house, sharing my hospitality, not be important?’ he asked sardonically. ‘With one breath you are exhorting me to be a proper host, with the other you choose not to tell me to whom…’ He stopped speaking and simply waited.

His mother sighed. ‘I feared if I told you, you would delay your return home, and not be here for their stay.’

Why?

‘If I had my way I wouldn’t have left at all,’ Fraser said deliberately. ‘You were the one who insisted only I could go to Edinburgh.’

Lady Napier reddened. ‘I thought it necessary. As a woman no one would listen to me.’

Fraser knew he looked sceptical, because she burst into speech.

‘Fraser, it’s true. When your papa died, I did my best. But I could have screamed at times. No one listened to me. In fact one or two so-called advisors went to the Laird of Lassgoil and asked him to step in on my behalf.’ Senga growled, actually growled. ‘How dare they.’

‘What? Geordie Lassgoil?’ Surely not? ‘He’s doddery.’

‘That’s as may be, and luckily he refused. But to some he was more worth listening to than I—one reason I was glad you came home when you did. And why I thought it best you go south on the clan’s behalf. Sometimes it is so…so bloody hard to be a woman,’ she finished impassionedly. ‘Damned bloody hard.’

He’d never heard his mother blaspheme before. His shock must have showed on his face because she smiled somewhat shamefaced. ‘Bloody hard,’ she reiterated once more.

All right, that sounded half believable. ‘Even so, as it happened nothing, nothing,’ he stressed, ‘needed to be done there. The estate manager and I could have dealt with it all with from here. A wasted journey. Why I wonder? What are you not telling me?’

Lady Napier shifted on her seat and opened her eyes wide. Fraser snorted. ‘That allegedly innocent look will not deter me, Mama. Why are you being so secretive? What do you know I will not like?’ It seemed the itches up his spine were there for a purpose.

‘Mother?’ He emphasised the sobriquet she hated. According to Senga Napier it made her sound a harridan, something she insisted she was not.

Not generally.

Lady Napier sighed. ‘Nothing to do with the estate or your journey, I promise you. It’s just that our visitors are The Duchess of Welland and her daughters.’

His instincts were correct. He didn’t like it. ‘Both of them?’ he asked with a sinking feeling. ‘Both daughters?’

‘Well yes.’

His heart plummeted. Dammit that was not what he needed. Not now, not yet. ‘So you chose to keep me in the dark, because…?’ How he kept a snap out of his tone he had no idea.

She didn’t want me. He remembered his words in his letter. “I love you, come to me. Why did we let ourselves be parted?” She didn’t want me.

‘I thought you might not be happy,’ his mama admitted. ‘After all you had no interest in Morven when she was here.’

Little she knew.

‘She was eighteen, to my thirty,’ he said patiently and hoped the pulse in his neck did not show just how erratic it was. If she thought that, he had no intention of disabusing her of that idea. ‘Too big a gap. Much too young.’

Not for what we did. Not for what we could have had.

“Leith 1810,