Once Upon a Highland Summer (7 page)

He indicated a seat across from him. “Join me.”

What choice did he have? Alec wondered if the earl knew he’d broken into his home, terrorized his wife, stolen her private letters. He sat down slowly, wondering if he was about to feel the cold steel of a knife under the table as it thrust into his belly.

But Bray merely signaled for the waiter, a jeweled signet ring glinting in the spartan candlelight. “Whisky would be most appropriate, I assume?” he asked Alec. Alec nodded, his jaw too tight to speak. Bray smiled, and Alec recognized ruthlessness masquerading as camaraderie. His skin prickled as the earl’s gaze slid over him. Neither Westlake nor his own meager title would protect him if Bray knew. Alec searched Bray’s face, but there was no accusation there. Surely if Bray wished to ask about the break-in, he’d simply have waited outside, had a few burly footmen wrestle Alec into a dark coach, or an even darker alley. The man before him was a companion to the Prince Regent, one of the most powerful peers in the kingdom. But if he wasn’t here for that, then what in hell did he want?

Bray waited until the waiter had set the drinks before them and taken his leave. He raised his glass, his eyes hard as jet as he stared at Alec over the rim.

“Kendrick is quite right, you know. You’ll be very much in demand on the marriage mart now you have a title.”

It was on the tip of Alec’s tongue to insist the earl call him MacNabb, but he held his tongue, curious now, as well as wary. “You didn’t do very well at the tables tonight,” Bray stated.

“What’s this about, my lord?” Alec asked. Bray let his gaze fall to Alec’s untouched glass.

“Tell me, do you make whisky on your estates in Scotland?”

“No.” Alec replied shortly, though his father had drunk enough ale to fill the lake below the castle.

“Do you raise sheep, weave wool at Glenlorne?”

Alec was silent.

“Cattle? Oats?”

“Why do you ask?” Alec demanded again.

“Because I’m curious. I wondered what kind of income a Scottish earl might have, so I looked into it.”

It was clear enough by the smirk on Bray’s face that he knew Glenlorne was penniless. Alec had no intention of playing games with a bored English earl, or listening to another Englishman belittle Scotland—and him—for his own amusement.

He began to rise. “Good night, Lord Bray.”

Bray held up an imperious hand. “Do sit down. I have a proposition for you.”

“No—” Alec began.

“You have three young sisters, don’t you? And all of marriageable age, or very nearly, I understand. How do you provide for them?” Bray interrupted.

That stopped Alec. Bray’s cold smile was the kind Alec would normally have taken as a warning, but he was curious now. He wondered if Bray wished to purchase Glenlorne. That would indeed solve many problems. “What do you want, my lord?”

“As I said, I have a proposition for you. A marriage proposal, actually,” Bray replied.

Alec resisted the urge to laugh. “You’re hardly my type, my lord.”

Bray sent him another frost-tipped grin. “Quite. But I meant my daughter. Sophie made her debut this Season. She’s been at every ball and party of consequence. Not the circles you travel in, of course. You probably haven’t had the pleasure of an introduction.”

New warning bells clattered in Alec’s head. “Your daughter, Lady Sophie Ellison?”

“Yes. I want you to marry her.”

“Marry Lady Sophie Ellison?
” Alec repeated stupidly, stunned. Surely there was a mistake. Lady Sophie was the belle of the Season, destined to be the wife of a wealthy duke at the very least. There were rumors of a match with foreign royalty, not a penniless Scottish earl, but Bray nodded.

“I trust you know her then?”

Everyone knew the Earl of Bray’s daughter. She was widely considered the loveliest girl in London. Alec had never met her. Alec swallowed. There must be something very wrong with her indeed if Bray wanted
him
to marry the girl. Her father’s fortune, his royal connections, would go far in making even a plain girl lovely, and a stupid one fascinating. Pure panic raced through his veins, overriding the hope that somehow Bray’s offer meant salvation and solvency and a happy ending.

“I’m afraid I’m not in the market for a wife,” Alec said carefully.

“She comes with a dowry of fifty thousand pounds.”

Alec stared. “Fifty—” He gulped.

“Yes. Think of that. All the whisky, oats, cattle, and sheep you could want. You could make your manor house—”

“Castle,” Alec murmured.

“Castle.” Bray waved a dismissive hand as if it mattered little where his daughter would be housed after her nuptials. “You could make it the most magnificent castle in all Scotland—a romantic little love nest for yourself and Sophie.”

Alec stared into his whisky. Romance? He’d never been in love, never even considered the possibility of it. Marriage was a different matter, rarely involving love. Not that he’d considered marriage either. His hand tightened on the glass. Fifty thousand pounds. He could give his sisters dowries, see them marry well—very well indeed. He could rebuild the cottages and farms of Glenlorne, see them rise once more out of poverty, give them back their pride—

He shut his eyes. Those were his grandfather’s dreams, not his. He doubted there was anything left at Glenlorne worth rebuilding. It would be a fool’s errand, as impossible as trying to bring the dead back to life. It was certainly no place to bring a bride, especially a bride like Lady Sophie Ellison.

“You hesitate,” Bray said.

“Why? Why me?” Alec demanded, suddenly angry. His whole life had changed in the past day.

Bray shrugged. “Why not? You’re a handsome young man with a title—and a castle,” he soothed. “Did I mention that Sophie comes with her mother’s jewelry? All of it, more diamonds and rubies and emeralds than any woman could wear in a lifetime.”

“She wouldn’t have cause to wear them at Glenlorne,” Alec muttered.

“No matter. Sophie will grow to love Scotland. I’m sure there’ll be no need at all for her to return to London.”

Warning bells clanged again. It was clear now that the Earl of Bray wished to be rid of his daughter. He was all but selling the poor girl to a man he hoped would keep her in the farthest reaches of the kingdom, never to be seen again. It obviously didn’t matter if Sophie was happy, or if Alec could make her so. He felt pity for the girl, and wondered what she’d done to deserve such a fate. Did she even know this was happening? It struck him like a bolt.

The letters.

If this had something to do with the letter that he’d dropped, the one Westlake said Bray had found, then Sophie’s fate was his fault. He felt his stomach rise uneasily.

“Think of the money, Glenlorne,” Bray urged.

Alec swallowed. Fifty thousand pounds meant no more lies, no more stealing or spying. Instead, he could live a life of honor, wealth, and privilege. It was tempting. He rose to his feet. “I’ll need to consider this more carefully. I’m leaving for Scotland tomorrow. I’ll have my man of affairs contact you.” Waters, wasn’t that the name on Devorguilla’s letter?

Bray’s hand on his arm stopped him. “Come now, Glenlorne. There are no banns required in Scotland. You could take her with you, marry her once you reach Scotland.”

Alec stared down at the blue veins under Bray’s knuckles, at the jeweled rings that adorned his hands. No English father wanted his daughter marrying over the anvil. It was unseemly and scandalous, even if the groom was an earl. He thought fleetingly of the red-haired lass he’d helped on her way to just such a fate, felt guilt. If he hadn’t dropped that letter, he would never have seen her on the street, and Bray would likely be in a far more elegant gentleman’s club, negotiating a far different match for Sophie. He suddenly felt responsible for the unhappiness of both women—and for the misery of his half sisters and Devorguilla too.

“Perhaps a long betrothal, so we can get to know one another,” Alec hedged. “When I return, we can arrange it. A year, shall we say?” He wondered where the lass he’d met in the street was now. Married, he hoped, deliriously happy with her faithful, stalwart husband. She was a brave wee thing. Love had made her willing to do anything for a chance at happiness. She’d be the kind of wife who would stand by a man in his hour of need, love him always—if things went as she hoped, of course. What kind of wife would pampered, petted Sophie make?

She’d make him rich.

“A year!” Bray scoffed. “You feel I’m being too hasty, do you? Shall we make it sixty thousand pounds? Here’s what I’m willing to do. Since you must leave at once for your estates—and I fully understand you must take up your duties at once—I’ll arrange for Sophie to travel to Scotland. You can show her the glories of Glenlorne before the wedding. Would that do?”

“I’m not—” Alec began, but Bray rose to his feet, and held out his hand.

“She’ll be there within a fortnight. That will give you time to break the happy news of your impending nuptials to your kin—or is ‘clan’ the right word?”

“It was once an outlawed word, I believe, especially in England,” Alec said. Clans, the Gaelic tongue, the plaid, even bagpipes had been forbidden by the English Crown for decades after Culloden.

Bray chuckled. “His Highness plans to change all that. He adores Highland dress. Sir Walter Scott promised to find him a tailor who could make him a proper suit of Scottish garments, and bring a bagpiper to play for him.”

“If he can find one,” Alec muttered.

Bray ignored the quip. “I can see you are a patriot, a man of honor. Sophie prides herself on setting new trends, starting new fashions. The prince enjoys things Scottish, but it will take a female, a lady like Sophie to bring it into style. Imagine that if you will. Every Englishman will be tracing his Scottish roots, and Scotland will rise to glory once again—with pipes, plaids, and Gaelic.”

Alec swallowed a groan. English interest in Scotland had never, ever, boded well. He stared at Bray’s outstretched hand. Whatever reason Sophie was being married off, he was at least partly to blame. And his sisters needed the money. Wasn’t that why he’d come here tonight? He imagined arriving at Glenlorne, as penniless and useless as his father, another worthless mouth to feed, even if he was earl. Jasper Kendrick was right. Marrying money was the fastest way to a fortune, perhaps the only way. He had to marry someone, he supposed. Bray had shown him he had no choice.

Reluctantly, he clasped the hand of his future father-in-law.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

A
ngus’s ghost, transparent as a gauze curtain, stood staring out the window of the old tower, watching over the glen. Georgiana could see the road through his broad back as it wound past this tower on the way to the new castle. Well, it was hardly new. It was older than either of them, and they’d been dead for nearly twenty years, but it was newer than this place their ghosts inhabited.

“What are you watching for?” she asked.

He gave her a steely look from under his white brows. He’d grown from a winsome lad to a fine, handsome man. She would have liked to grow old with him. She felt the familiar bite of regret, and tilted her head to smile at him, imagining what that might have been like.

“Can a man not admire the view?” he asked, crusty at her interruption, obviously wary of her wistful smile.

“Yes, I suppose so,” she said mildly, and drifted nearer, letting him feel the weight of her presence. He shrugged, but didn’t move away.

“Something’s about to happen. I can feel it in my bones like I used to be able to feel a storm coming down from the hills,” he grumbled. “Perhaps it’s here already. Devorguilla always was a scheming piece, and young Brodie MacNabb has arrived, all smiles and muscles, even if he hasn’t got the wit God gave a bonxie. She’s up to something, or he is—something that will change Glenlorne forever.” He looked at her like a fierce eagle.

As if he had bones. She suppressed a smile.

“Will it be as bad as Culloden? Glenlorne survived that, Angus.” Georgiana let her eyes roam over the width of his shoulders, the strength in the ghostly hands that clutched the windowsill. He turned to look at her, his gaze fierce.

“Aye, Glenlorne survived that, but this is different. My father divided his sons, put a few on each side, half Jacobite, half Royalist, just to be sure the MacNabbs would keep Glenlorne no matter who won.”

“And which side did you take?”

His scowl intensified. “How could I have chosen? I was a Scot, but—” He looked away his eyes roaming the glen, his shoulders hunched against the memory.

“But you were in love with an English girl, the daughter of an English lord,” she prodded, finishing his sentence.

“I wasn’t a coward. I would have fought with my brothers, but they didn’t give me the chance.” He studied his hands. “The night we planned to run away together, they caught me, packing my things. They knew well enough where I was going. They knocked me senseless, threw me over a horse, and dragged me to the coast. They put me on the first outbound ship they found, not caring where it was headed, just so long as it took me away from you.”

“So that’s why you didn’t come,” she said softly, without blame, though she felt regret keenly enough. It was a familiar companion.

“Did you truly believe I’d abandoned you?”

She sighed, and the breeze stirred the stunted trees that had begun to grow up within the tower’s ruined walls. “They told me you had done exactly that, later. They said you’d come to your senses and run away rather than face a life with me.”

“Bastards!” he hissed. A flock of swallows fled in terror at his malevolence, streaking past Angus’s shade and out into the open sky. He flinched, though they could not harm him. “I suppose my brothers paid the price for it. All dead, or captured.”

“If you’d stayed, you would have died with them at Culloden Moor, and I would still have lost you,” Georgiana said softly. She drifted closer still. “Tell me where the ship took you. I’ve often imagined—”