Rexanne Becnel (16 page)

He’d used his mother’s surname during his boxing days. Mac MacDougal. God, but that seemed a lifetime ago. Now he would become a MacDougal again, as a tribute to his mother. He would use her name, even if he had to go to court in America to make the change legal.

So he only nodded to the little priest, then forced himself to become practical once more. “I would like to write down this record of their marriage, and have you witness and sign the document as a true representation of your parish records.”

It took such a very little amount of time to do it. After months of travel and search, once he’d found the records it was only a matter of minutes before Marsh had the proof he’d wanted folded up, safe within his inside coat pocket. He patted his chest as Father Paterson showed him out. It was there. He had it now.

“I want to thank you, Father, and make a donation to your church.” He pulled out the leather pouch he kept for these donations, then added several coins from his own purse. “Thank you,” he repeated. Then on impulse he asked, “Might I have a few minutes alone in the church itself?”

“Why, of course, my son.” The priest stared from Marsh to the weighty pouch in his hand, then back to Marsh. Though puzzled, he was plainly pleased. “Take as long as you like.”

Alone in the little church, Marsh stared about—at the one stained-glass window, patched with a clear fragment where a portion of St. Jerome’s foot had at some point been smashed. The altar cloths were yellowed and patched as well, and only one brace of candles stood unlit upon the altar.

A fitting church in which to pray for his mother, he decided as he dropped to his knees on the uneven floor. She’d never aspired to riches or titles, or even the grand home he gladly would have built for her. Simple Maureen MacDougal Byrde had remained the same sweet and unassuming woman all her life, unchanged by the adversity Cameron Byrde’s betrayal had visited upon her.

Though he knew revenge had no place in a church, Marsh was not ready to forgive his father. So he prayed instead for his mother.

Thank you for making her my mother
, was all he could say.
Thank you for letting me have her for all those years
.

Only when he was calmer—and emotionally drained—did he finally depart the church. He stood on the little stoop, put his hat on, and stared out into the sunny street.

He’d accomplished exactly what he’d set out to do, found the proof of his mother’s claim and his own.

Now it was time to put that proof to work, and that meant returning to Kelso and Byrde Manor.

And to Sarah Palmer.

S
ARAH
spied Marshall MacDougal on the other side of the street, standing head and shoulders above a heavily loaded coal cart lumbering past. At once she shrank back against a bayfront window displaying the knitted sweaters and fine men’s wear of a tailor’s shop, hoping to avoid detection.

But it was for naught. As if he felt the weight of her startled stare, he looked up and fixed his gaze upon hers. He halted midstride, and hesitated only for a moment before altering his direction toward her. She had but a few seconds to catch her breath—and to send Mary to wait at the carriage with Fleming—before Mr. MacDougal stopped before her.

She knew at once that something had changed. The expression on his face was belligerent and his dark eyes glittered with a righteous sort of anger. Nothing surprising in that. But something about his mouth looked raw and perhaps even a little vulnerable.

She had no time to contemplate that odd possibility, for he spoke directly to her without any play at social chitchat. “I’m glad you’re here, Sarah. It saves me having to seek you out.”

She averted her eyes from his intense stare and looked beyond him at the shabby little church he seemed to have just left. The very church she’d been heading for.

Could he have found the proof he sought? Her heart began to race, and with a sinking certainty, she knew he had. If only she had arrived an hour earlier!

Yet what could she have done? Destroy that proof? She wasn’t sure she could do such a despicable thing, not even for her mother and her beloved older sister.

So she raised her face back up to him and waited with dread for what was to come.

To her surprise, he took her arm in one hand and steered her down the street. “I need a drink, if you don’t mind.”

“A drink? At a public house?”

“At a public house. Don’t worry, Sarah. It’s unlikely any of your society friends will ever learn of it. Dumfries is too far off the beaten track for them.” He laughed, a harsh, mirthless sound. “My father was right in that. His first wedding at a tiny little church in faraway Dumfries probably never would have been found out if his eldest son had not set out to avenge his wronged mother.”

Though she’d feared as much, Sarah gasped at his revelation. She stumbled, but his hand tightened around her arm. In a moment he steered her through the low doorway of a public house and into a dimly lit room only partially occupied by a few men. He guided her to a corner table, then with one large hand on her shoulder forced her to sit. He signaled to the barman and gave his order before pulling out a chair and straddling it.

“Yes,” he confirmed, facing her with that same belligerent expression. “I have the proof. My parents wed here at St. Jerome’s Church in Dumfries, September 15, 1796. A year before his second wedding to your mother.” He paused, but the impact of his words seemed to echo like hammer blows in Sarah’s ears.

“I assume you understand the import of that single, unassailable fact,” he went on, adding one last final blow. It very nearly took the last bit of wind out of her sails.

But Sarah was not one to let anyone revel for long in her defeat. Gathering her courage, she lifted her chin and met his dark, watchful gaze. “Oh, yes. I understand what it means. You have your proof, whatever it is, and you intend to use it to humiliate my family. To ruin us. Do I have the right of it?”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. “I can see why you would view it thus. I wonder, though, if you have it in you to understand my perspective. My mother was denied her rights as Cameron Byrde’s true wife. I was denied my rights as his true heir. Can you honestly fault me for wanting to collect what has always been my due?” He leaned forward, and his eyes fairly burned into hers. “It’s not your sister I wish to shame. I only want what is rightly mine.”

He sat back when their glasses and a bottle of amber liquid arrived. Though Sarah had never been in a public house before and was now sitting unchaperoned and drinking with a man she hardly knew, she did not flinch when he poured her a glass of what smelled like brandy.

She picked up the squat tumbler, holding it tight, for her hand shook so, then drank down the contents in one quick gulp. Her throat burned and her eyes watered profusely, but again she did not flinch. She’d failed her family, and now this man—whom she’d also behaved abominably with—was going to undermine every facet of their lives.

Though her own personal fortune was not affected, nor her brother’s, they were nonetheless all in this together. Mother, brother, sisters. When her mother and Olivia hurt, she too hurt. That was what being a family was all about.

So when he tossed his own drink down and refilled his glass, she knew she must do whatever it took to fight off this attack on the people she most loved, even if she did understand why Mr. MacDougal felt the need to attack them.

He held the bottle toward her, and she picked up her glass, wanting whatever courage the fiery liquid might impart.
Focus on Olivia, not him
, she told herself. Marshall MacDougal could take care of himself, as he’d already more than proven. But then she put her glass down and slid it aside. Drinking strong spirits would only give her a false sense of courage. It would not help her solve her dilemma.

Instead she took a deep, slow breath, then faced him squarely. “All right, Mr. MacDougal. Let us assume you do have some sort of proof to support your claim—sufficient proof to cast serious doubt on my mother’s marriage to that…that damnable man.” She pressed her lips together, then took another calming breath. “Assuming that, and assuming you are not lying when you say you do not wish to shame my sister, tell me, then: Just what is it you
do
wish?”

She watched as he shifted on the chair. He fingered his empty glass, rotating it in a slow circle on the pitted tabletop. “I want what any first son would be legally entitled to—”

“There is no title,” she interrupted him. “I told you that before.”

He slammed his glass down on the table. “And I told you I don’t give a damn about titles!” He leaned forward, glaring at her from beneath lowered brows. “I don’t give a damn about any English title. I want Byrde Manor. That’s all. The house, the lands, the livestock. The right to proclaim it as mine.”

She considered that. “Are you saying you’re going to move in there?”

“Maybe.” Then after a moment he added, “I don’t know. I haven’t decided.”

Sarah shook her head. “You have no idea what a responsibility an estate like Byrde Manor is. It’s not just land. It’s not just fields and flocks of sheep. It’s families who work there and have done so for generations. It’s tenant farmers and house servants and field workers.” It was her turn to lean forward. “It’s a history of one family’s responsibility to many others, and it is beyond valuation.”

His eyes burned into hers. “I am as much a part of that history and family as anyone!”

It was an angry, passionate declaration, and for a moment Sarah was taken aback. “That may be true,” she conceded. “But…but the attachment you have to Byrde Manor is based solely on revenge. In contrast, the attachment Olivia has is love. It’s love,” she repeated. “It will break her heart to lose Byrde Manor, whereas for you it is merely the spoils of some war you are waging with the horrible man who sired you both.”

Despite her emotion-laden words, he appeared unmoved. He filled his tumbler anew and slowly sipped at the contents. “Your loyalty to your sister—”

“
Our
sister!”

“—is admirable. I’ve told you that before, Sarah, and I mean it. But that changes nothing. We are plainly arrived at an impasse, for I will not leave Scotland without collecting my due.”

Without collecting my due
.

Those last few words echoed in Sarah’s head. He wanted his due, his inheritance. He’d come to Great Britain to take Olivia’s modest fortune from her. Once he achieved that, he would probably depart, leaving some agent to handle the property. After all, he’d expressed his disdain for her country’s social class system often enough. All he really wanted was the income Byrde Manor would provide. The income, and the revenge it stood for.

Her hand clenched around her glass. In the end this was all about money. Nothing else.

Then it occurred to her, the solution to everything. She would buy him off.

She’d known ever since she was a child that her father had left her much better provided for than Olivia’s father had. In truth, she did not even know the full extent of her own inheritance: profitable tenant holdings; extensive investments in the three-percents; and a quarterly allowance that had always been bigger than her sister’s annual one.

Surely it was enough to purchase Marshall MacDougal’s silence. Even if she dipped into the investments themselves in order to pay him the full value of Byrde Manor, she would still never want for anything. And it would be worth it if that meant he would leave them in peace forever. Though the rest of her family might object, she had no compunction about spending her money that way. Certainly her dear departed father, who had adored Livvie, would approve of her plan.

Taking a slow, steadying breath, she smiled, sure of herself once more, then raised the glass to her mouth—only for a sip. “Yes, it might seem we have reached an impasse. However, I would like to put forth another solution.”

He settled back in his chair, his arms crossed and an expression of skepticism on his face. “Another solution? This I have to hear.”

She took a deep breath, too nervous about how he would respond to her offer to be angry at his unpleasant attitude. James would be furious when he found out about this, but she didn’t care.

“I am very rich, Mr. MacDougal. Much more so than Olivia. And as you have surely ascertained, I love my sister and my mother dearly. Much as you love your own mother,” she added. “If you are not lying when you say you do not wish to hurt my family, to punish us for the misdeeds of your father—which misdeeds we played absolutely no role in—then I believe I have a solution to all this unpleasantness.”

Marsh kept his arms crossed and his features composed. But he knew at once what she was going to say. He knew. But he didn’t want to hear it, because he didn’t know how to respond.

Her eyes were as steady as a card sharp’s upon him. “I am willing to pay you the full value of Byrde Manor, in coin or note or any other venue you wish. The full value, Mr. MacDougal, if you agree to return to America at once and promise never to pose a threat to my family again.”

She sat there opposite him, looking just as poised and remote as she had the very first time he’d laid eyes on her, swathed in a red sable-trimmed cape and all the arrogance of her class and wealth. Now, as then, Marsh could only stare at her. She meant to buy him off. He was surprised, now that her offer was made, that she hadn’t tried this tactic sooner.

“This has been an expensive undertaking,” he said, more to buy time than for any other purpose. How was he supposed to respond to her?

Her expression grew more brittle, the blue of her eyes colder. Her full lips compressed into a taut line. “I can add your traveling expenses to the cost.”

Of buying you off
. The unsaid words resounded in the silence between them.

As that silence lengthened, however, he saw her swallow. It was just a faint movement, the creamy skin of her throat undulating beneath the velvet ribbon tied there.

Two thoughts occurred to him in quick succession. The first was that she was not so sure of herself as she pretended to be. The second was that he wanted to kiss that throat, to tug that ribbon off with his teeth, and all the rest of her garments as well.

Blood rushed to his loins at the very idea. That soft, pale skin would be even softer and paler in places presently hidden from his view—and pinker in others.

He stifled a curse as his manhood stiffened almost to the point of pain.

Misreading his continuing silence, she leaned forward, her expression earnest. “You said you did not mean to hurt them. Well, this is your chance to prove it. You will have your inheritance—every penny of it—and they need never know about what your father did to all of you. But you must agree never to come near them again.”

Or near me
.

It was that implication which drove Marsh to make his answer, an answer he had not planned, but which he knew immediately he would not swerve from.

“I will consider your offer, Sarah.”

“You will?”

She swallowed again and took a deep breath, and had he needed further resolve, the press of her lovely breasts against her muslin bodice would have done the trick.

“I will,” he said, dragging his gaze up to her face. “But we have other unfinished business between us. Business I would see brought to completion.”

He stared intently at her and knew, when blood rushed hot color to her cheeks, that she understood. Yet she fought the idea. “You…you cannot mean—No. You cannot.”

“But I do.” He reached for her hand, trapping those warm, slender fingers within his own. “I will take your money in lieu of Byrde Manor. I will return to America without confronting your sister or your mother. The secret of my father’s first marriage will sail with me and they need never know the truth—unless you choose to tell them. But I want one night with you.”

He took a harsh breath and his nostrils flared. He was so hard beneath the table that he could not have stood upright if he wanted to.

He turned her stiff, gloved hand in his so that they were palm to palm, their fingers entwined. Likewise, her shocked gaze clung to his. But no matter her shock, he was resolved on this matter. “Spend the night with me, Sarah, and we will finish what we only started in your carriage that night on the road.

“Surrender yourself to me, for that’s the only way you will ever be rid of me.”