If You Dare (44 page)

“And you?” Weyland had become like a father to Hugh, and he wouldn't allow him to be hurt. “I will no' leave you here to the wolves.”

“This is the worst crisis in the history of our organization. I can't go to ground. But I'll call in help and with luck, we'll bait Grey to come here. Stop shaking your head, son. Ethan is on his way back here. Quinn will be here today. Rolle is spoiling for the fight. But Jane must go.”

The news that his brother Ethan was coming reassured Hugh and he finally relaxed somewhat—

“And you will marry her first.”

“What?”
He hadn't heard correctly. Surely he hadn't. He glanced at the door and back, lowering his voice. “Weyland, you brought me here to marry her? Something you should know—I'm no' marrying anyone. Ever.”

“You must wed her. I want her gone from here for at least a couple of months out of the city. Away from the scandal and the danger. As her husband, you can take her away.”

“I can do that without wedding her.”

“No, Hugh, it must be—”

“You ken what I am. How can you choose me for this . . . task?”

“It's because of what you are that it must be you. Do you know what the marriage would say to anyone who would think to do her harm? She'd become a MacCarrick. If the threat of your reputation wouldn't be enough, then what about Ethan's? She'd be his sister-in-law. And Courtland's as well. The only bride in the family. Who would risk your family's wrath to hurt her?”

“God damn it, did you ever think that I might no' wish to wed her?”
Not to marry . . .

“No, I did not.” Weyland gave him a pitying smile. “That thought never entered my mind.”

Hugh hid his astonishment. Or maybe he didn't. Apparently he hadn't been able to hide his feelings for Jane before.

“I'd believed you would be more receptive, but if you're truly averse to the idea, then you can get an annulment after the worst of the threat has passed.”

“No,” he snapped. “It will no' happen.”

“It must. I won't trust her with anyone but you.” When Hugh still refused, Weyland clasped his forehead. “Son, I'm tired, bloody tired, and I'm about to have the fight of my life. I can't win against the deadliest, most skilled adversaries on earth when I have one blatant vulnerability that would be like a red flag to them.”

An unmarried, heartbreakingly beautiful, uncontrollable, trouble-seeking daughter. No wonder Weyland looked like hell. “Weyland, you doona understand. I canna make her happy.”

“Hugh, you can bugger
happy!”
He slammed his fist on the desk. “I want her
alive.
”

Hugh was undaunted by his tone. “Let's talk scenarios. The most likely is that you apprehend Greys and Ethan goes on the offensive and strikes out against a few of the worst threats
in such a telling manner that he warns the rest away. Everything returns to near normal except we overreacted with this marriage when I should have only taken her to lay low for a couple of months. And now we're stuck with each other for the rest of our lives.”

“Then you can get an annulment after things die down. If the two of you are so dead-set against it, then don't have a marriage in truth.”

He shook his head, but Weyland spoke over him. “Here's a scenario, Hugh. You know I might not make it through this alive.” He put his hand up when Hugh began to interrupt. “Be-fore I die, I know that my daughter is married and could not have a more fearsome protector. I
don't
die wondering what will become of her. Do you know what a boon it would be to me to know she's safe with you? To finally have her settled?”

Hugh shoved his fingers through his hair. “This idea of yours has a serious flaw. Jane will never agree to it.” Hugh had been merely a summer diversion for her. Someone to practice flirting with.

“Then I'll make you a deal. If she agrees, you wed her and take her into hiding until this dies down. If she refuses, you take her away temporarily with no bond between you, risking scandal at best and increased danger at worst.”

Hugh scowled at that, but stubbornly insisted, “She will no' agree.”

“Do we have a deal?” When Hugh gave him one tight nod, Weyland called Jane in once more. “Jane, I have some news.” She sidled in, looking guarded. To Hugh, he said, “Why don't you go round and pack a case? I need to speak with Jane privately.”

Weyland closed the door behind him, but not before Hugh heard her snap, “What is the matter with you? And forgodsakes, why would you bring
Hugh
here?”

With that running through his mind, he rode to his
family's London town house as though in a daze. After so many years fighting to stay away from her, then to be forced to be with her—no, to marry her. . . .

He was shocked to realize how badly part of him wanted Weyland to succeed in persuading Jane.

He mindlessly washed and dressed, then packed only essentials, not convinced Weyland could in fact move her to this measure short of blackmail. When he returned, he heard them still arguing in the study, so he sank down in a chair outside. Jane came out ten minutes later, pale, shaking, her eyes bright with either unshed tears or fury. Good money on the latter.

“Hugh, I am . . . constrained to agree to this insanity. You are not, and you will ruin my life if you don't refuse.” Turmoil and emotion rolled off her in waves. She'd always been like that—volatile, like an explosive, yet no one but him seemed to understand just how . . .
complicated
Jane was.

So Weyland had succeeded. Hugh was to marry Jane. He hadn't expected her to be happy about the nuptials, but he hadn't thought she would be utterly devastated either. “Marriage to me counts as a ruined life?”

Every word she spoke was tight, clipped with her proper English accent, and dripping with outrage. “I was on my way to meet Frederick Grafell—
Lord
Whiting—when you showed up here. Do you know
why
I was to meet him?” She answered her own question, “Because I was accepting his sodding
proposal
today!”

Hugh's vision swam, but why should he be surprised? He'd wondered as each month went by—for years—why she hadn't married.
Wait. . . .
How had Weyland not known about this? He had to have—he knew everything about his daughter. She was about to be “settled” without any interference from them.

Bloody hell. This just kept getting better.

“Yet your father is still insisting on me?” It was a genuine question, but she took it as a retort and glared at him.

“Why, Hugh? Why is he lying about Davis being un-hinged? A business partner becoming so dastardly I have to flee my home?” Her face was drawn with confusion. “Why is Father so set on
you?
Did he blackmail you into this as well? Of course he did, why else would you agree to such a lunatic idea?”

“Because he asked it of me. I've no' been blackmailed, but I have promised your father. Just cooperate with me. The arrangement will no' be permanent as long as we doona . . . consummate the marriage.” He lowered his voice and said, “Rest easy—this is temporary. I have no intention of remaining married any more than you do. And you know that if I dinna touch you before then you're safe from it now.”

“As if I'd let you,” she hissed.

He stood and pinched the bridge of his nose. His head was throbbing, his body tense, but he tried to calm his tone. His ire never daunted Jane—it only elevated hers to a fever pitch. “Did you ever think that this is no' something I want either?” No, he didn't want this, was never supposed to marry, but now that he'd seen her once more, he didn't want anyone else to wed her either. And he was just selfish enough to agree to Weyland's machinations. Her father knew what was best for her, he reasoned, and Weyland had chosen Hugh. “Jane, I dinna come here thinking I'd leave with a bride.”

She advanced until she was toe to toe with him, unflinching as she raised her face to his. “If you do this, Hugh, you have no idea how much I'll make you regret it.” When he said nothing, making his expression unbending, her lips parted in disbelief. In a low, seething voice, she said, “I will make your life a living hell,” then swept up the stairs to her room and slammed her door. And with that, he knew, she'd accepted the plan.

“More of the same,” he muttered as he followed her, wondering if his wedding and marriage might go smoother than his engagement.

•  •  •

“The Scotsman is mine.”

Jane had made this declaration to her female first cousins with her very first look at Hugh MacCarrick. Her heart had stuttered, and she'd decided then that she would be the one to make him happy so his eyes wouldn't be so grave. She'd been thirteen and he was nineteen.

He and his brothers had come down from Scotland for the summer to their family's lake house—which was directly across the lake from her family's. When Hugh met her, he clucked her under the chin and called her poppet, and it sounded wonderful the way he said it with his brogue. He was kind to her and she followed him everywhere.

Her father asked them to come back down the following summer, delighting her. Since he had no sons, Papa was set on recruiting Hugh and his brothers to work in his import business.

By the end of those three months at the lake, when she got a bee sting or splinter she ran to Hugh alone.

Her fifteenth summer he returned, but spent most of the time frowning at her. As if he didn't quite know what to make of her. When she'd been sixteen, he'd avoided her entirely, spending all his time with his brothers and her father discussing the business.

She'd cried each night, miserable, missing her big, solemn Scot. Her seven cousins, who with her made up society's infamous “Weyland Eight” told her she could have anyone and that they didn't want her crying over that “rough MacCar-rick.” “I don't want
anyone,”
she'd said, with tears streaming down her face. “I just need my Scot back.”

Seeing she would not be dissuaded, her cousins suggested
she play dirty, and they'd known what they were talking about. Their saying was, “Man bows before the Weyland Eight. And if he won't bow, we'll make him kneel.” The eight of them had always pooled their knowledge, the older cousins teaching the younger, all of them thick as thieves and fiercely protective of each other.

Rowdy Samantha, next to the eldest, had said, “Now we scheme, Janey. By next summer we'll make sure you have lowcut dresses, soft as silk hands”—she grinned a devilish grin—“and a shameless demeanor. Your Highlander won't know what hit him.”

But he didn't come the next summer, leaving Jane devastated. Until that one night when luck was with her, and he arrived with an urgent message for her father. Whatever could be pressing about relics and antiques, Jane couldn't fathom.

Before he rode off, she made sure he saw her, and he gaped as if he didn't recognize her. A one night's stay had turned into two, then three, and he couldn't seem to spend enough time with her. She'd learned much in the previous year from her older cousins, and she hadn't forgotten the tears and confusion he'd caused. Every day he was there, she teased and tortured him for the days he hadn't been.

One afternoon, they'd been lying side by side in the meadow, and she rolled on top of him to tickle him. He despised it when she tickled him, and for hours afterward was surly and tense, his voice more husky.

But this time instead of shaking her loose, he reached up and tugged her hair ribbon loose to free her hair. “So fair,” he rasped as he ran his thumb over her cheek. “But you know that well, do you no'?”

She leaned down and kissed him. Not the torturing little kisses on his ear before she whispered to him, or the brushing of her lips on the back of his neck like she'd been giving him all summer, but a real kiss.

He took her shoulders and pushed her up, grating,
“You're too young, lass.”

“I've already had marriage offers.”

He scowled at that, then shook his head. “Jane, I'm leaving here soon.”

She smiled sadly. “I know. That's what you do when summer's over. And every winter I miss you very much.”

He just stared at her face as if memorizing it.

When she was eighteen, he never arrived. She'd finally broken down and asked her father about him, and he'd hesitantly explained that some men were more restless than others. Best not to grow attached to them or you'll get your heart broken. Would've been nice to know that
sooner.

She'd been so convinced they would marry—it had been a foregone conclusion for her—that she'd only been desperately counting the days until Hugh deemed her
not
too young. She'd believed they would be together even before the night she'd happened upon a conversation between Hugh and Ethan. Happened upon because she'd been reduced to spying.

“Do you love her?” Ethan had asked.

Silence. Then finally, “Aye. I know I should no', but God help me I do. . . .”

She loved him, too. People in love got married. She'd been so young and had believed in him so much. Yet he'd known he was leaving. It had been a conscious decision on his part, and he hadn't even told her why. . . .

Lost in thought, swayed by the rocking coach, she almost didn't notice that he was staring at her just as he used to. She was wed to him now, instead of Freddie as she'd expected. She hadn't loved Freddie, but she cared for him and they had fun together and she trusted him—something that was very difficult for her to do after MacCarrick. She trusted that Freddie would never hurt her.

She glanced at Hugh and was surprised to find that her fury hadn't dimmed in the least from the past and then had spiked from his refusal to leave her alone now. To her bewilderment, her normally easy-going father had blackmailed her into accepting Hugh. She'd been forced, but Hugh hadn't been and could've saved them both from this.