Mad About the Marquess (Highland Brides Book 2) (40 page)

“Aye. And farther.” His gaze remained on the brilliantly vibrant landscape, as if he could easily picture every last inch of the place. “Our quarry is over the back of that hill, coming in just under a hundred acres—ninety-eight to be exact, though it’s one of the largest in the highlands. The rest though—” Here he paused, and drew in another lung full of the fresh, summer air. “The rest is moorland. Thousands and thousands of acres of heather and gorse and hills and rock and grouse. And sheep.” He turned to look at her, and something in his delirious gaze came back down to earth. “And unfortunately, you were right—crofters have been put off the land. The decision was made because the land was deemed too scrubby, too unsuited to arable agriculture for a number of reasons—steepness, rainfall, rocky soil—and only suitable for grazing by small numbers of sheep.”
 

He held up a hand to forestall her from speaking too soon. “So I am trying do more for Cairn’s former crofters, and do what’s right for our dependents. I’ve set one scheme in particular—a carding, dying and weaving mill up the glen—that I’m keen on, but that is a discussion and tour for another day. Today I just want to look at this”—he turned back to the vista across the moorland—“because, by God, it’s beautiful. It’s heaven.”

Heaven. Never in a hundred years would she have thought that the raw, craggy, soaring beauty of the place would fill her with the same wonder that made her husband’s chest expand with pure, undiluted happiness.
 

“This is home,” he said simply. “The one place on this earth I know I am meant to be. Devil take me, but I should have come home sooner.”

It was as if the whole of his heart was in his eyes and in his voice.

“Aye,” he said, as if she had spoken out loud “I thought it was the whole of the wide world when I was a child.”

She heard something else in his voice—an ache for something lost. “And now you know better?”

“Nay.” His voice grew strained. “I know more, surely. But better? I think not.”

A day ago—even an hour ago—she would have teased him for being a romantic. But now that she was here, now that she breathed the nectar-laden air, she could only agree. “I wish this were the whole of the world. I wish that there was no need ever to return to Edinburgh.”

Out here, with the clean wind streaking through her hair, blowing the dust and cobwebs and dirty, twisted secrets from her mind, there was no past to contend with, no future to worry about. Here everything seemed good and possible. As good as Alasdair, who seemed more completely himself, as if he were distilled down to his essence, like sharp mountain whisky.
 

“You are a romantic, after all.”

He smiled back at her, his sunny mood undimmed by any of her native cynicism. “Perhaps I am. Perhaps I am old-fashioned. But today, I really don’t care.”
 

“Look at you,” she teased. “Why on earth are you a politician and not a farmer?”

The happiness shining from his face dimmed a little, as if a cloud had passed in front of his sun. “It seemed impossible to be both, at first.”

“But now you must be both. Although I will say, I’ve never heard you talk about London, and the government the way you’ve been talking about Cairn, with—dare I say it—pleasure. You’ve not said one word about duty.” Because here, duty was devotion. Here, doing right by Cairn and its people was what he did, regardless of his personal feelings or inclinations. Or perhaps his personal feeling were more visible to her here—the granite foundation of his character. “Whatever persuaded you to leave?”

“Not what—who.” Alasdair picked up a small rock from the path, and exercised his discomfort by tossing it clattering against the stacked boulders of a stone fence in the distance.

 
He toyed for the merest moment with the thought of telling her something other than the uncomfortable truth. But deception of any kind was truly abhorrent to him. And lies always made everything worse. And she needed to hear this particular truth as much as he needed to tell her. “My grandfather. I disappointed him. He all but threw me out of Cairn.”
 

His young wife gaped at him. “I cannot believe it—of him or of you.”

It was kind and rather loyal for her to say so, but then again she had always seemed loyal to him—when she wasn’t trying to rob him, anyway. And to be fair, she hadn’t known she was robbing him.

But the truth was still the truth. “It wasn’t my grandfather’s fault, entirely.” Alasdair tried to sort through the convoluted tangle of blackmail and accusation, betrayal and shame, and crushing, crushing disappointment that still sat heavy in his chest. “I forced his hand, I suppose. I let him believe an untruth, because…” His reasons—pride, embarrassment, resentment, and a very real concern for the privacy of the truly injured party—all seemed so thin and ridiculous now, when he had the sage benefit of hindsight.
 

“Alasdair, did you…lie?” There was no triumph in her voice, no snide innuendo—only genuine shock. Much like his grandfather had evinced at the time.
 

“I lied by omission.” It gave him no pleasure to admit the fault. Only regret for all the years he had missed Cairn. And missed his grandfather’s unfailing support. “I took the blame for something I had not done out of a misguided sense of loyalty. Out of the heedless, headstrong belief that I had to be right. But I wasn’t. I trusted the wrong person—a person I had been warned against—and so it was my duty to take the blame.”

She was all solemn curiosity. “Alasdair, you’d best tell me what really happened.”

How like her not to let him evade discovery, or couch his admission in euphemism. “An acquaintance, a man I had unthinkingly invited here to Cairn, violated a young lady, another guest.” He tried to choose the politest way possible to say what was impossibly impolite, and in reality, simply criminal. “He forced himself upon her in the most dastardly,
bastardly
”—he didn’t mind giving vent to curses with Quince—“manner possible, and then denied all responsibility. So I offered for her. There, actually”—he pointed back down the hill—“under those ruddy hornbeams, in the garden. But for whatever reasons, she wouldn’t have me. Instead, she took my offer of money to help her do what she preferred, which was leave Scotland behind. It would have been a simple case of helping a friend in need, but the bastard blackmailed me over the whole affair, claiming he would tell everyone that I had been the one with the lass. And that I had paid her off.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair, as if he could brush away the memories. “But I wouldn’t pay him. I hit him, if you’ll recall my saying. And he told his lies to my grandfather.”
 

Her mouth opened in a silent “o” of affronted astonishment. “Is that why you went to London so suddenly?”

“It is why I stayed there. I was not to be allowed home until I mended my ways, and made something of myself.”

She pulled a face—all appalled disbelief. “I can’t imagine you not making something of yourself. It beggars the imagination. If anyone was bound for greatness, it was certainly you.”
 

Something very close to pride filled his chest. No, not pride—gratitude. “I thank you for your confidence, but at the time, it certainly wasn’t a forgone conclusion. I wasn’t even sure I had come up to his mark until the end, and he called me back. But by then he was dying. And unfortunately, he died before I made it back.”

It was a blow every time he thought of it—how many years his bad decisions had cost him. And all he could hope was that his experience could serve as a cautionary tale for a certain someone else who had made her fair share of whopping bad decisions.

A certain someone who stared into the middle distance for a bit, and then brought her quizzical gaze back to his. “All right, so you wanted to make your mark upon the world. Why politics? Why not…something else?”

This, at least, was easy. “No interest in the army, no inclination for the church.”

Her eyes searched his face, all frowning indignity on his behalf. “But you’re the heir. Usually it’s the second sons who are spiffed up and stood for Parliament—your Mr. Pitt the Younger is a perfect example.”
 

Her indignance on his behalf was charming. “It was felt I might have an affinity for government. If only I would apply myself with attentiveness and restraint.”

She leaned back, as if she were putting a certain distance—however slight—between them. “This is a warning for me, then, this attentiveness and restraint?”
 

“Nay. Not entirely. It was my grandfather’s admonition to me.” Alasdair was careful not to lecture. “But he was right—politics did suit my ambitions. Although originally I joined Pitt’s government because I was mad to make a name for myself, to correct the world’s bad impression of me, I eventually began to realize the opportunities and the power I had to effect change—that I could make a real difference in the world by making the right choices for the populace. It is still my ambition today. The world is changing rapidly, as you have so presciently pointed out to me, and we must keep up with it, or be left behind.”

Quince drew in a deep breath of the bracing air. “There are days when I most ardently wish to be left behind.”

Was that real regret he heard in her voice? It seemed too much to hope. But he hoped anyway. “Me too. But don’t tell anyone.”

His admission surprised a wee smile back across her lips. “Your secret is safe with me.”

“Thank you. Because it is important, you see, for you to understand my position.”

“Oh. You mean as your wife.” She shifted a little uncomfortably on the rock. “I need to understand your position within the government—the Home Office, is it?”

“Aye. Because—you will like this—what I do as Home Secretary is issue instructions on matters of law and order to officers of the Crown, like the Lord Lieutenants and magistrates—the Lord Provost in Edinburgh, for example. I am sure the deep irony of my situation—our situation—has not escaped you. It has certainly not escaped me.”

Understanding blew across her face like a stiff wind, buffeting her back. “Oh, Alasdair. If it became known that you helped me evade prosecution then you would be removed from your post?”

“Aye, most likely. Assuredly.” But the tightness in his chest—the nagging worry that had bound him up like a truss—eased a little. It was a relief to see that she finally understood.

But it was as if he had passed his unease directly to her—she looked utterly appalled. “And you married me anyway? Knowing it could cost you all?”

How like her to cut directly to the heart of the matter. Though he was not ashamed to admit it, but he still felt rather exposed. “Aye.”

But mercifully, she did not immediately ask him why he had married her anyway. Her mind was already racing ahead to other, more practical consequences. “And what will happen if someone—someone who matters or someone who wishes you political harm—finds out?”

He shrugged, and bent to examine a heather shoot. He had already thought it out—he had thought of little else from the first moment he had found her bleeding in her father’s glass house. “I brought you here so no one will find out. But I will lose everything—everything but Cairn. I have seen to it that Cairn is legally protected, no matter what. I have written already some letters explaining my decision and involvement, and have put contingency plans in place should I be forced out. But it would not be the end of the world. I would retreat here, to become a full-time farmer.”

“Oh, by jimble, Alasdair. You’ve given this serious thought.”

“I have,” he confirmed. “I am nothing without my plans. And today, with all this in front of me”—his arm swept across the vista—“it does not seem a punishment if I were to decide to stay.”

“But you would miss it—London and the government?”

He had long since made up his mind. “Some of it, aye. There are some causes that I believe in absolutely, that I would work for even if I were no longer part of the government.”

“Like abolition.”

It was more than a relief to be so well understood—it was very nearly a pleasure. “Aye, exactly like abolition. But that is a discussion for another day. And today I have tired you out. You look weary.” He reached toward her, thinking to touch her face, or brush her hair from her forehead as he had done previously, to regain the sweet intimacy of their night.

But their truce, this honest peace they had made between them was too new, too fragile to withstand too much pressure. He diverted his direction, and pulled a leaf from the brim of her hat. And stood. “Come. Enough for one day. Let me take you home.”