A Scandalous Scot (16 page)

“And her father? You said he was a physician.”

Oh dear, he wasn’t going to continue that line of questioning.

“Jean and Catriona’s parents were fine people,” she said. “She’s an orphan now, though.”

“Like me,” he said, staring out at the view.

“Yes,” she said. “If you don’t mind, Your Lordship, why do you wish to know these things?”

He turned and studied her for a moment. “I should know something about my bride-to-be, don’t you think?”

She wanted to weep with relief and the sudden easing of the pain in her stomach.

“You’ll do the right thing, then, Your Lordship?”

He turned away again.

“I haven’t the slightest idea what the right thing is, Mrs. MacDonald. You may have condemned your niece to a lifetime of misery with me.”

The alternative wasn’t palatable, either.

Jean had always had a level head, until the earl came home. Since then everything she’d done had been a disaster, witness the episode in Mr. Prender’s room.

Sending her away might have solved one problem, but it had seemed too great a price for a foolish girl to pay.

Now, Mary could only nod, a gesture that surprisingly caused the earl to smile. Had she amused him?

“Tell your niece it will be a quick wedding. Within the week, I think.”

She nodded again, beyond grateful. “Thank you, Your Lordship.”

“Time will only tell, Mrs. MacDonald, if you should feel any gratitude at all.”

She wondered if she should leave. For several long moments he didn’t address her at all, merely stood there at the window. Just when she was about to ask him if she should retire, he turned and faced her once more.

“It is the honorable thing to do, isn’t it, Mrs. MacDonald?”

She sank into as deep a curtsy as she could manage, and when she rose again, she smiled at him. “Yes, Your Lordship. It’s the honorable thing to do.”

“Then God help us all.”

J
ean wanted to run as far and as fast from Ballindair as she could. She wanted to escape, and now, before the pressure in her chest grew so fierce her heart exploded.

Instead, she stood there, the words reverberating in her ears.

“You’re to marry the Earl of Denbleigh.”

Had Aunt Mary actually said those words? She must have imagined them.

“Have you nothing to say?” her aunt finally asked. “You’re to marry the Earl of Denbleigh.”

She hadn’t imagined them, then.

Jean shook her head.

Aunt Mary’s smile melted into a frown.

“I’m disappointed, Jean. I would have thought you’d be pleased at the circumstances.”

Jean couldn’t breathe. She pressed both hands against her chest and forced herself to calm.

“He’s an earl. I can’t marry an earl. I’m a maid,” she added, and had the most incredible urge to giggle. Was her aunt daft?

Aunt Mary advanced on her, stopping only when their skirts touched. Her frown faded, replaced by a gentle expression, her brown eyes warming.

“Jean, you’re the equal of any woman he might find to marry.”

She shook her head. “He’s an earl, Aunt.”

“He may have a title, but I’d have you marry a better man. Still, the title and his wealth will have to compensate.”

“Because of his divorce?”

Her aunt looked surprised. “You knew?”

She nodded. “He told me himself.”

Aunt Mary sighed. “Evidently, he did not like the way his wife behaved. There are some legal remedies for men, my dear. If a wife does not comport herself with propriety, a man can dissolve the marriage.”

Confused, Jean stared at her. “What did she do?” And what guarantee was there she wouldn’t do exactly the same?

Her aunt didn’t answer. What she did say, however, had Jean’s heart beating violently again.

“The marriage will take place in three days.”

The tip of her nose was cold. What an odd feeling. She touched it with trembling fingers, then concentrated on this absurd meeting in her aunt’s suite of rooms.

Her trunk was packed for her departure tomorrow. She’d been told what time to appear at the entrance to Ballindair, and a plethora of information she’d memorized and didn’t need now.

“Did you hear me, Jean?”

“Is this real, Aunt?” she asked.

Her aunt gently took her arm and led her to a chair. She sat, heavily, staring at the carpet.

“You’ll be married in three days’ time, my dear. If you have any objections to Wednesday, please let me know now.”

“I can’t marry the earl,” Jean said in a remarkably calm voice. She wasn’t trembling at all.

Perhaps she was a ghost, and everything around her only a diorama someone had arranged for her spectral amusement.

The frown was back on her aunt’s face.

“Of course you can,” she said. “You must. There is no other avenue open for you, Jean.”

“I was the one who went to his room, Aunt.”

The frown was now a thundercloud. “Do you think I don’t know that? I’m well aware of your behavior, Jean. But he is doing the honorable thing. If nothing else, this marriage will restore his tarnished honor.”

“I can’t marry an earl.”

“You’re the daughter of a respected physician and my sister. You are the equal of any woman the earl might have married and no doubt superior to the one he did.”

“I have to tell him who I am. I can’t marry him as Jean MacDonald.”

Her aunt abruptly sat on the chair opposite Jean.

“You cannot tell him.”

They looked at each other.

A moment later her aunt sat back in the chair, staring up at the ceiling as if the answer was written in the plaster.

“We are once and truly caught, then,” she said. “If you don’t marry him, he’ll demand to know why. If we tell him, he’ll dismiss the three of us.”

“And if I do marry him, it won’t be a true marriage.”

Her aunt sat forward. “Perhaps you’re wrong about that. Perhaps it doesn’t matter your name as much as your person.”

She blinked at her aunt, who waved her hand in the air as if to dismiss the legalities.

“It’s not as if you were a man,” she said. “Your name is going to change regardless. What does it matter what it is now?”

That didn’t sound right, but her aunt, having decided that her name was of no importance, refused to hear differently.

“I can’t be married without telling him, Aunt Mary. I can’t be married as Jean MacDonald. The marriage won’t be valid. I’ll be engaging in sin, which is the very reason you want me to marry the earl in the first place, so people won’t think I’m a sinner.” A strangled giggle trembled on her lips.

Aunt Mary stood. “I am the first person to demand the truth, Jean. I’ve lived my life with integrity. But I’m practical as well. Because of what your father did, you and Catriona might never find a man willing to marry either of you. I believe we should consider this circumstance a blessing.”

“I have to tell him.”

“I took a chance putting you on Ballindair’s staff, Jean. I never even informed Mr. Seath of your past. If you insist on telling the earl, he’ll not go through with the marriage, and we could all be in jeopardy.”

Before she could truly understand what was happening, Aunt Mary whisked her out of her suite and to the family wing, where she stood in front of a set of double doors.

“The Countess’s Suite,” Aunt Mary said, throwing open the doors. “You’ll be the first countess to occupy it in thirty years.”

Bemused, Jean followed her inside.

“Didn’t the earl’s wife live here?”

“She never came to Scotland.”

Jean stood in the sitting room, the space feeling heavy, as if the very air disapproved of her. Her gaze noted the various blue-and-white urns, the rose upholstered sofa and chairs, the oversized mahogany tables.

Two weeks ago she’d collided with the Earl of Denbleigh, and now she was to be his bride? What kind of place was Ballindair? When she’d first seen the castle, she thought it enchanted, and perhaps it was.

She couldn’t marry Morgan MacCraig.

“I’d rather go to Dumgoyne,” she said.

“If you do,” her aunt said, “you’ll be a servant forever. Is that what you want for yourself? Think carefully, Jean.”

“To be a servant, or a woman living in sin, are those my choices?”

“It was more than you had before,” her aunt said. “I cannot make the decision for you, Jean. I agree that these circumstances are unusual, perhaps even shocking. But your father’s actions condemned you to a half-life. This situation at least gives you a chance to live your life fully.”

Without waiting for Jean’s response, her aunt sailed out of the room, leaving her alone.

Jean walked to the window, pushing aside the rose patterned draperies, and stared down at the ornamental garden. If she married the earl, she’d never have to be a maid again. But, more importantly, she wouldn’t have to leave Ballindair.

She’d be a wife. He’d be her husband. That magnificent, arrogant, irritating, charming, intelligent man would be her husband. Or her pretend husband.

They were a pair, weren’t they? The earl who’d divorced his wife, and the maid who hid her past. Perhaps they deserved each other.

She turned and surveyed her surroundings. The tiny chamber she shared with Catriona could fit into the sitting room four times.

Some people would say the most wonderful wish of all had been granted her. A chance to change her life, even if it was based on a lie.

The painting above the fireplace, no doubt of Morgan’s mother, showed a woman with light brown hair and dark blue eyes, a smile curving her lips and her gaze brimming with happiness. What would the countess have said to her?

Go away. Who do you think you are, to become the Countess of Denbleigh?

Yet the earl was not perfect. He’d stood up in church, said his vows, then turned his back on them. Did he think to make up for betraying one set of vows by taking another or by marrying a maid?

Perhaps they were both to be faulted for considering this marriage.

“Is it true?” Catriona asked, suddenly appearing in the doorway.

Her sister was out of breath, her hair askew and her face pink. Had she learned of the news and raced up the stairs to verify it?

“Everyone says you’re to be married to the earl. Is it true?”

Jean made her decision in that second. She nodded.

Catriona entered the room. “Aren’t you the sly one. I gave you the idea, didn’t I?” Her eyes narrowed. “And you, all prim and proper, seduced him.”

Jean walked to her sister and stared her down. “Even for you, Catriona, that was an idiotic remark.”

“What do you mean, even for me?”

“You haven’t demonstrated your intelligence up until now. If you hadn’t gone to the Laird’s Tower, I wouldn’t have had to seek Mr. Prender’s assistance.”

“Andrew never said he saw you.”

“He didn’t,” Jean said, frustrated beyond belief with her sister. “Since when are you calling him Andrew?”

“Since you’re marrying the Earl of Denbleigh.”

The two of them glared at each other.

Catriona looked away a moment later. “I don’t have to be a maid any longer. There, that’s all I truly wanted. However it came about, I’m happy enough.”

No, Catriona would be happier if she were the one becoming a countess. Frankly, so would she. But was that entirely true? Did she want Catriona to marry the earl?

Her stomach fluttered and she pressed her hands against her waist.

“Does he know who we are?” Catriona asked, glancing toward the open door.

Jean shook her head.

Catriona nodded, as if satisfied. “I’ll have to go and pick out a room,” she said. “I think it should be in the family quarters, don’t you? I’m going to be the Earl of Denbleigh’s sister-in-law.” She glanced down at herself, giving her uniform a look of hatred. “And I shall need a new wardrobe as well. Have we anyone at Ballindair who can do hair?”

She loved her sister, she truly did, but there were times when Catriona stretched her patience so thin she could read through it.

While Catriona was still planning, Jean left the room. She didn’t want to see anyone or talk to anyone, or answer any questions. A few minutes later she found herself in the Long Gallery.

The day was cloudy; shadows shrouding the room. She sat on the same bench where she’d sat the night she talked to the earl.

What did she know about being a countess? For that matter, what did she know about being a wife?

What would her parents say to see her elevation to a countess?

You were raised with good manners and all the graces, my dear,
her father might have said.
An earl would be blessed to have you as his wife.

Her mother, on the other hand, would’ve done everything in her power to learn as much as she could about the duties of countess, and educate her for her new role.

She missed her mother dreadfully, had missed her even before her actual death. Pain had taken the gentle woman away, the constant smile turning to tight lips, and the patient understanding to stoic endurance.

Until that last year, when illness stripped her of any peaceful moments, her mother had been the spirit, and perhaps the soul, of their family.

How could she possibly act the same in this marriage? How could she see the good on even the darkest days? How could she support her husband and nurture any children that might come to them?

How could she be a wife, let alone a countess, when it was all too evident she was being used by the Earl of Denbleigh to atone for his past sins?

For that reason, and that reason alone, she was to be married. And not a real marriage, at that, which was her sin.

Was ever a bride as miserable as she?

Chapter 15

RULES FOR STAFF:
Always give way should you be approached in the corridors or stairways. Step to the side, become as small as possible, and avert your eyes.

“H
ave you lost your Scottish mind?” Andrew said, putting down his paintbrush and staring at Morgan. “You’re an earl. Earls don’t marry maids.”

Earls don’t divorce, either, but Morgan didn’t make that comment.