The Scottish Lord’s Secret Bride

My love, I will soon be on board and ready to set sail. I pray I find you waiting.”

‘Much too young,’ he said again.

‘Not at all, it’s a good age to mould a wife,’ Senga insisted. ‘That was the age gap between your papa and me.’

‘What era are you from, Mama?’ Fraser shook his head. ‘All right, yes it worked for you and Papa, but you were one of the few couples I saw content and happy with each other. But generally? An eighteen-year-old innocent?’ Well she was. ‘I was thirty and had explored everything all young men do. I just did my duty and escorted her when I had to.’ He had to pretend it was just a holiday friendship and no more to save his sanity.

His mother blushed. ‘Fraser, consider my sensibilities.’

‘Mama, if you’ve pulled a stunt like this, I’m not sure you have any.’ Fraser began to pace the room. Really, could things get any worse? ‘Now I’m seven years older with all that entails.’ Not a lot considering He’s worked hard, and played very little. ‘That apart, think of a lamb and a wolf. If and when I decide to wed, my wife would need to be my equal, not a chit hardly out. I do not want to mould anyone.’

‘Well you should,’ Lady Napier said resolutely. ‘How else can they be what is needed for Kintrain?’

Natural talent? Sense?

He didn’t answer her out loud. If he opened his mouth he might say something he regretted later. No might about it, it was a given. Fraser counted to ten. Twice.

‘And I do think the younger sister, Murren, is a lovely…’

‘Enough,’ he ground out and held his hand up in the air.

His mama blinked and took a step backwards to sit heavily in a nearby chair.

‘That age gap is nigh on twenty years,’ Fraser went on. ‘No more, Mama. No matchmaking and if you want me here whilst they are, you’ll be wise to remember it. They are your guests, this is your home, but I’m its master. And if I choose not to be part of your, your visitors’ entertainment, I won’t. Plus, if I hear one word, just one word,’ he emphasised, ‘that makes me think that child assumes I will make her an offer, you will wish I hadn’t. This is my home, I’m the laird and remember if I choose to decide that only I and no one else lives here, you will be in the dower house before you can say I do.’

Lady Napier opened her mouth and shut it again immediately.

Fraser nodded. ‘Very wise. Plus you would be sensible to remember I have other estates to visit soon. It can be now as easily as next week or month. When I go is my decision, but you and your behaviour can influence it. I hope nothing, and I mean nothing at all, has been said to that young lady to make her think that I might consider her suitable as the Lady of Kintrain.’

‘Ah, er no.’ But his mother didn’t sound too sure. ‘After all why would there have been?’

Oh for the Lord’s sake. ‘Exactly.’ He deliberately spoke harshly and felt bad when his mama blanched. He understood that in her own way she was only trying to help him. ‘Now if you will excuse me, I need to see the factor.’

He didn’t; he’d already spoken to him earlier that day, but as an excuse it sounded plausible.

Now my need to go to Stirling is even more imperative.

Chapter Two (#ulink_92027696-8b91-526f-b81e-a0938de0f94a)

‘At the risk of sounding a moaning monster, Mama, are we there yet?’ Murren winked at Morven who hid her smile. She of course knew exactly where they were, and that there had been no need to stop for lunch. It was but five miles to the castle. They’d just passed The Lake of Menteith, the only proper lake in Scotland. As she’d been told on her previous visit, the other so-called lakes were all artificially made. An early cartographer who translated the Gaelic for low-lying land as “lake” only called this loch a lake due to a mistake. It had fascinated Morven, especially when Fraser had explained it was shallow enough for it to freeze over on occasion, and curling matches—a Bonspiel—would be held on the ice.

‘It’s so romantic,’ Murren went on in a dreamy voice that made Morven choke with laughter. Their mama looked at each of them in suspicion but didn’t comment. ‘You know that Mary Queen of Scots stopped in the priory for a few weeks when she was tiny? It was a safe haven for her after a horrible battle. Then they smuggled her out of the country to France.’

‘Murren, enough,’ the duchess said sternly. ‘You don’t want to be seen as a bluestocking; your sister is bad enough, and look where that left her.’

‘On the shelf,’ Morven said cheerfully. ‘It suits me.’ She hoped her voice didn’t sound as hollow as she knew her words were. It had to until she discovered what she was.

Why didn’t he ask me to go with him?

‘You’ll never get a man like that, either of you,’ the duchess said huffily. ‘I swear, I despair of you, Morven, but I beg of you do not put such ideas into your sister’s mind.’

Morven swore she heard her sister mutter under her breath something along the lines of ‘you almost tempt me’. Perhaps she did have a backbone after all.

‘It’s not long now.’ Morven decided it was time to butt in and do her best to restore harmony. It would never do to arrive at their destination with them out of sorts with each other. ‘An hour I would say, seeing as we have to go up the pass to the castle. Then we can relax.’ And if she believed that, she would also believe kelpies lived under the brig.

Her mother frowned. ‘Is it so close? I, ah, thought it further,’ she said unconvincingly.

‘It’s not,’ Morven replied and smiled as her mama coloured a little. ‘I’m sure you’ll be relieved, Mama, to know we are almost there. After all, this journey has been long and tedious has it not? I know you’ve suffered.’ As have we all.

‘Ah yes.’ Her mama’s redness increased. ‘Well as you say, almost there now and then we can unwind.’

You might be able to; I fear I’ll be as tense as a wound-up spring. Why on earth had she agreed to accompany her mother and sister? The castle held mixed memories. It was simple. Her mama had given her no choice, and with her brother busy elsewhere she had no one to agree with her plea to stay in Rutland.

He handed me into the carriage and bade me have a good journey. I never thought I’d be happy again. I was not too young to know my mind.

‘So,’ Morven said in an attempt to deflect her mind from things best not thought about at that time. After all, perhaps a face-to-face meeting would help her to know her own mind? ‘How long is it since you have seen Lady Napier? I forget.’

‘Senga? Oh a year perhaps, just under. She was in London just before her husband died and I came up for the funeral.’ The duchess sighed dramatically. ‘Poor Senga. Her son, the heir, was in Barbados and she was all alone.’

‘Apart from her younger children?’ Morven asked mildly. ‘I thought there were several?’

‘Ah, yes, but young,’ her mother blustered. ‘Such a hard time. Of course Fraser was not able to return in time to see his father buried.’

Morven remembered that. She’d thought she might get a letter or a note but had received nothing. It was as if she no longer mattered.

Perhaps just as well.

‘Then it will be good for you to be together again,’ Morven said in a composed voice. ‘I suppose the laird is away? The new laird.’

‘What?’ Her mother blushed and didn’t make eye contact with either of her daughters. ‘No, I believe he is now home.’

‘Was he away again?’ Morven asked straight-faced. ‘Or has he not returned since his…’ She hesitated. Banishment sounded much too harsh, and it hadn’t been that. She just felt it was. ‘Sojourn in the Indies,’ she said finally.

‘Er, I think he returned, went to do some estate business elsewhere and now is home. Tell me, do we need to stop in the village to freshen up?’

‘No,’ both her daughters chorused together.

‘Let’s just arrive and then freshen up, Mama,’ Morven said. I need to get it over and done with. ‘I assume we are expected today?’

Their mama blinked. ‘Ah, yes of course we are. Very well, let’s just head to the castle.’

‘As we have for the last goodness knows how many days?’ Murren said sotto voce to Morven. ‘On and off.’

Morven nodded. There wasn’t really anything else to add on the subject. She was on edge and worried that if anyone said anything even slightly controversial she would break down and scream.

The coach trundled along the tiny village street linked to the castle and the estate. A few locals watched as they drove past and one urchin whistled and shouted. ‘Aww, bonnie horses, fair braw.’

Morven chuckled. ‘That child has sense.’