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Authors: Arnette Lamb

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #Scottish, #General

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BOOK: Border Bride
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"You mean Lady Miriam. How is she?"

Thinking of the gracious woman who'd indulged his childhood fantasies and encouraged him to become his own man, Malcolm smiled. "My stepmother is still the fairest of women."

Alpin turned to the castle entrance, excitement dancing in her unusual eyes. "Is she here?"

"Nay. She and Papa are in Constantinople."

"I'm disappointed. She was always kind to me. I did so want to see her. Is she still a diplomat?"

Pride and affection warmed him. "Aye. Sultan Mahmud wants peace with Persia. He asked King George to send her."

A sigh lifted Alpin's shoulders and drew his attention to the symmetrical planes of her collarbones and the thin gold chain that disappeared into her cleavage. "Must be grand to be so valued," she said. "Imagine the king asking favors."

The soldiers on the wall had turned to stare. The fletcher stood in the doorway of his shop conversing with Alexander Lindsay. Passersby slowed, their curious gazes darting from their laird to his lovely visitor. Malcolm reached for a towel. "I think she would prefer a sojourn in Bath to a summer in Byzantium."

"I prefer the Borders. It's wonderful to be home." Alpin scanned the battlements, then the castle towers. "Have you brothers and sisters?"

Home? He considered challenging her absurd declaration, but decided to cast out another line of cordiality. "Aye, I've three sisters."

A dimple dented her cheek. "Oh, how wonderful for you. Are they here?"

He almost laughed and revealed how peaceful his home had become without his gregarious siblings. He had no business speaking so casually to Alpin MacKay. He did have business with her, however. The very gratifying business of retribution.

He tossed the towel aside. "Nay. The eldest married the earl of Hawkesford last fall. The other two are with Mama and Papa."

Alpin threaded her arm through his and strolled across the yard, pulling him along. "I can't imagine why they'd want to leave this place."

Looking down, he could see the mounds of her breasts and a familiar Roman coin at the end of the chain. His mind fogged with hazy images of a skinny ass and stick-thin legs shinnying up the drainpipe on the castle tower. Lord, she'd changed. "You always hated Kildalton Castle."

"Oh, Malcolm. I was such an angry child." Her guileless expression softened his heart. Her lush assets had an opposite and unwelcome effect. "I had nothing, no one, back then. It seems so safe and protected here now, as if your Scottish ancestors are standing guard over everything and everyone."

"Well, aye," he found himself saying. "Kildalton Castle has a way of capturing your soul."

"See?" She hugged his arm. "I knew we were still friends, and I'll wager the gifts I brought for you and Saladin that you're a romantic at heart."

Malcolm's wariness returned. He could think of no good reason for her to befriend him, let alone his confidant, Saladin. "How did you know Saladin lived at Kildalton?"

"The two of you are the talk of Whitley Bay. Is Salvador here?"

She spoke of Saladin's twin brother. "Nay, he's with my stepmother."

Her lips pursed with regret. "I'll miss seeing him again."

She'd ever been a solitary child. Before his death her guardian in Barbados had lamented in his letters to Malcolm that he feared she'd never find a kindred spirit. Now she was destitute. What farce did she play? "You've had quite a change of heart," he said.

"Of course I have." Her hand touched his. "I'm a woman now."

He didn't need his father's fake spectacles to see how gloriously maturity had embraced her. "You used to call me a sniveling cur."

"You used to call me 'runt.'" She looked at his arms, his chest, his neck. An artless feminine smile again produced the dimple. "Don't expect me to call you names now. You're a formidable presence, Malcolm Kerr."

If he didn't know better he'd think she was flirting. The prospect both baffled and inspired him. He stared at the ancient coin. "You're an interesting surprise, Alpin MacKay."

"Oh! Do you truly think so?" She squeezed his hand and turned her attention to the row of new barracks against the castle wall. "Wasn't the butcher's shop there?"

He felt as if she was coaxing him out on a branch and planning to hack away at the limb. With her, he knew the feeling well. Memory stirred his ire. "Aye. The butcher used to be there. You tossed his knives into the blacksmith's forge and set fire to his chopping block."

"You remember?" She shook her head and set the curls at her temples to swaying. "I was so selfish."

"Except to strays and injured beasts."

A wistful smile enhanced her youthful appearance. "I couldn't bear to see any animal hurt. What ever happened to Hattie?"

"Your three-legged rabbit?" Years ago in an attempt to win the favor of Malcolm's father, Alpin's uncle had forced her to give up her pet to Malcolm. Alpin had been so forlorn. An hour later she had rallied, and in a wickedly premeditated move she had wrecked Malcolm's future. Even now the wound smarted. "Hattie turned out to be an exceptional breeder." The irony of the subject made him grin. "Sweeper's Heath is overrun with brown rabbits."

"I'm so glad you cared for her. Thank you. Will you take me to Sweeper's Heath? I'd love to see Hattie's offspring."

Like a blow from a well-trained opponent, reality struck him. Her guardians were dead. The plantation in Barbados she had called home for over twenty years now belonged to Malcolm. But she couldn't know that. The transaction had been a private affair.

"Will you, Malcolm?"

"That depends. Why are you here now?"

New tears filled her eyes. "You mean why am I here
at last
. Oh, Malcolm. I begged Charles to send me home. There was never enough money, he said. Then after dear Adrienne died he hardly spoke at all. The rum finally killed him, you know. He did leave me a stipend. So I dashed out straightaway and bought passage on the first packet home."

"Come now, Alpin," he scoffed. "You hated the Borders."

"I hated everything and almost everyone then, or have you forgotten?" As if brushing away a pesky insect, she waved her hand. "Enough about me. I've a surprise in the carriage."

Malcolm shortened his long stride to match her quick, determined steps. He wondered what sort of wounded creature she'd brought. As they approached the carriage he noticed the trunks and hatboxes fastened to the boot. "You haven't been to see your uncle?"

She sent him a puzzled frown. "Do you know, it never occurred to me to go to Sinclair Manor. I only thought of coming to you."

He'd schemed to return her to Sinclair Manor and under the control of the uncle she hated. If she thought to avoid her fate, she'd be disappointed, another prospect Malcolm relished. But where did she intend to stay? Surely she was just stopping by Kildalton to pay her respects. He lifted an eyebrow. "Why would you come to me?"

"Oh! I've been too bold." She ducked her head, but not before he saw a flush stain her cheeks. "Island life loosens the manners and the tongue, or so the visitors say. It's just that you and I were so close when we were young. I couldn't have survived Sinclair without knowing you were only two hours away."

Years before, she'd driven a knife into his pride. Did she think to twist it with sweet words and false sentiment? She would wither into a hag before she succeeded. "We were close all right, especially when you held a dirk to my throat and tied me to a tree." He shuddered at the thought of what had come after.

She reached for the carriage door. "Let's not squabble. I'm harmless now, I assure you."

Oh, aye, he thought, as harmless as Eve with a bushel of quinces. But he was no naive Adam, languishing in Eden and yearning for forbidden fruit. He
was
a lord of the Border, perilously trapped between Jacobite clan chiefs to the north and loyal English subjects to the south. He had not needed another pretty diversion. He'd wanted retribution. So he'd meddled in Alpin's future and reduced her alternatives to none.

"Perhaps," he said, watching her fondle the brass handle, "you would care to join me for supper before you continue on your way."

Her hand stilled; then she brought it to her side. "Continue on my way?" She again craned her neck to look at him. "I came to see you, Malcolm. I thought you would want that."

Oh, he did, but their meetings would be at his convenience and in her uncle's English manor house. "You can't expect to stay here at Kildalton. 'Tis unseemly. After we've eaten, I'll have Alexander escort you across the border to Sinclair."

"My staying here is unseemly?" She chuckled. "Thank you for attempting to flatter me and guard my reputation, but I've been on the shelf for so many years, I'm dusty. Unless you are concerned about
your
reputation. Have you turned out to be a rogue, Malcolm?"

He braced his hands on his hips and laughed so hard the tassels on his sporran quivered. "If I have, Alpin, you can rest assured I'll keep my lusty proclivities on a short leash. But what would a spinster be knowing about rogues?"

Her mouth dropped open, and she slapped her band against her cheek. "It's your wife, isn't it?"

Humor vanished. The old enmity returned in full force. Because of her, he would never marry. She couldn't know that, but if the gossips in Whitley Bay had told her of Saladin's presence in Kildalton, they must also have told her that Malcolm had no wife. A situation the other clan chiefs longed to change.

Unable to meet Alpin's inquisitive gaze, he stared at the kilt-clad soldiers on the battlement. "I have yet to wed."
Thanks to you
.

"And you're so blasé about your bachelorhood. Unless…" Deviltry twinkled in her eyes. "You can't be waiting for me to fulfill that childish bargain we made years ago."

Memory failed him. "Which bargain?"

"You wanted a baby brother. You made me promise to give you a child. I thought 'twas a matter of spending the night alone at the inn in Bothly Green."

"I assume you now know it takes more."

Ignoring his innuendo, she said, "In exchange, you agreed not to tell your father or my uncle that I was hiding in the tower room. You reneged. They found me and sent me to Barbados."

Bitterness engulfed him. "I did not tell my father that you had run away from Sinclair Manor, nor did I tell your uncle you were here."

The intensity of her gaze captured him. "Truly?" she asked, disbelief in her husky tone.

"Truly. My father heard you in the tunnels and discovered your hiding place. You shouldn't despair at the prospect of falling under the baron's protection again."

Her confident stare and winsome smile unnerved Malcolm.

"I couldn't possibly go to Sinclair," she said. "Charles left you his plantation and all his possessions. As one of his possessions, I now belong to you."

Chapter Two

 

"You
belong
to me?" The voice of the ninth earl of Kildalton almost broke.

Alpin had expected to feel elation at catching him off guard, and she did. She hadn't counted on feeling admiration, hadn't anticipated the feminine yearning that pulled her stomach tight. But what woman wouldn't appreciate a man as handsome as Malcolm Kerr? Interest sparkled in his oak brown eyes, and a hint of a grin played about his lips. Lord, he could turn a nun's head.

BOOK: Border Bride
10.37Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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