School For Heiresses 3- Beware A Scot's Revenge (37 page)

He wouldn’t look at her, and that alone was a blow to her heart. “The wedding wasna legal, my lady, and you know it.”

As a low grumble started again among the crowd, her father said, “What do you mean, it wasn’t legal?”

“We spoke the vows in Gaelic, sir.”

“My daughter doesn’t know Gaelic,” Papa said.

Lachlan arched his eyebrow. “Exactly. I tricked her into repeating the words. No court would ever uphold the marriage.”

A stunned silence fell upon the others. Aunt Maggie sighed, and Lady Ross began muttering under her breath about foolish men with pigheaded ideas.

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Like this one. Lachlan was throwing her away, devil take him. Because of some misplaced notion that he’d be giving her father justice. How could he? “You can’t prove I don’t know Gaelic. Everyone in that room heard me say that I did.”

For the first time all morning, Lachlan shifted his gaze to her. “Can you repeat the vows now, Lady Venetia?”

His formal manner hurt almost as much as his rejection.

“Lass?” her father prodded.

She drew herself up. “This isn’t a court. I don’t have to repeat them or prove anything. My word should be enough.”

Her father grabbed her arm. “Damnation, daughter, if he did trick you into saying vows, there’s no reason you have to—”

“We consummated the marriage,” she said with a blush. “I should think that’s reason enough.”

Papa stared at her, stunned, then glowered at Lachlan. “You bedded my daughter, you black-hearted ass?”

“I did not,” Lachlan said calmly.

Venetia could only gape at him. He would deny that, too? He would wipe out every precious moment they’d shared? How dare he!

“She says otherwise,” her father growled, “and why should she lie?”

“Because she feels sorry for me and my clan; she thinks to help us by marrying me and giving me her fortune. Yer daughter has a tender heart and a canny mind. She’s figured out that you would never agree to a marriage, never agree to give me her dowry, unless she was ruined.”

“Damned right, I wouldn’t!”

“Fortunately, she isn’t ruined, sir.” His gaze swung to her, unmistakably tender. “No mere man could possibly ruin such a perfect creature as yer daughter.”

Tears stung her eyes as she caught the twist he’d given to “ruin”; he was trying to soften his rejection of her. Did he actually think he was doing her a favor by releasing her from the marriage? Did he really expect her just to go along?

The devil she would. “Yet you’re calling this perfect creature a liar.”

He paled. “Not a liar. Just overzealous in yer eagerness to help my clan.”

She approached Lachlan. “And the fact that I love you means nothing to you? That you claimed to love me?”

The sudden flicker of something in his eyes, something needy and dark and desperate, gave her hope.
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Then his face went blank again. “I claimed a lot of things with you.” He swallowed, then continued in that cool, awful voice she was rapidly growing to despise. “They were only villainous attempts to get what I wanted—yer dowry, the money I thought yer father owed. That doesn’t mean the things I said were true.”

Now,
that
roused her temper. She marched up to him, face alight. “So you don’t love me? That’s what you’re saying.”

He stared down at her, his expression conflicted. “Go home, lass. You don’t belong here in this ruined place, scraping and saving for a few curtains.”

She noticed he couldn’t bring himself to say flat out that he didn’t love her. “I don’t care about any of that! And I
do
belong here, I do! Ask anyone in your clan, and they’ll say the same.”

“You belong with yer family. I thought I had just cause to take you, but I was wrong, do ye ken? I had no right at all.”

Her eyes narrowed. “That’s what this is about? You’ve transgressed against your own rules of right and wrong, so now you mean to atone for that by doing something foolishly noble?”

“I’m not going to be like my father, damn it!” he shouted, then caught himself and lowered his voice.

“My father stole what didn’t belong to him from a man who was his friend, who’d done naught to hurt him. Father never had to pay, and thanks to that, I’ve gone and done the same, rubbing salt in a man’s wounds who didn’t deserve it.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, no more. It ends here.”

“You mean, you plan to atone for your sins by trampling
my
heart.”

Pain flashed over his face before he masked it. “I’m sending you back where you belong. Where you always belonged, if I’d had the sense to see it.” He glanced away, a muscle throbbing in his jaw. “Once ye’re safely back in London, you’ll see that I’m right. Ye’ll find a man worthy of you, and you’ll take yer place in society where you belong. You’ll forget this, all of this.”

“You must think I’m quite the fickle female, if you believe that.”

“I think ye’re caught up in the romance of yer childhood home. But it won’t last.”

He’d said something like that before, but back then he hadn’t known her well, so he’d had reason to believe it. He didn’t now. That he could convince himself that he did infuriated her.

“What if I find myself with child?” she asked, heedless of who else heard. With a glance beyond her to where her father jerked upright at the mention of children, Lachlan stiffened, then returned his gaze to her. “Ye’re only saying that to force yer father’s hand. Because you and I both know that if you found yerself with child, yer father would make me marry you.”

“And you would marry me then?”

“
If
you ever found yerself with child. Which you won’t.”

So that’s how he was going to justify this…this insanity. He would send her back to London ruined but
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free to take another husband if she pleased, figuring that her dowry would smooth over any man’s objections to an unchaste wife.

But if she should happen to bear his child…well, that was a different matter. He would have to claim her then—it was the right thing to do. Keeping her now that he’d married her wasn’t right, oh no. Letting their love heal the rift between their families wasn’t right, oh no. But if a child came into it, then and only then he could forget his cold and lofty ideas about justice.

Well, he was in for a surprise. She had a sense of justice, too. He might have spent years away from the Highlands because of his pride, but she wasn’t about to let him spend years away from her because of some foolish ideas about atoning for his sins. So she’d have to force his hand.

“Fine,” she said, tipping her chin up. “If you don’t want me, I’ll leave.”

He gritted his teeth. “I didn’t say I didn’t want—”

“But listen to me, Lachlan, and listen well.” She walked up close until she was nose to nose with him.

“I’ll give you three days to come to your senses. Then my father and I will leave for London.”

He just stared at her, his face as rigid as his justice.

She scowled. “Once we do, I’ll be gone from you forever, do you understand? You’ll know nothing more of me, ever. If I should happen to find myself with child, you’ll never know. If I marry some other man and let
him
raise your child, you’ll never know.”

His jaw grew taut. “Yer father would tell me—”

“Not if
he
doesn’t know. And if I have to move to another country to ensure that, I will.” That seemed to shake him, so she went on relentlessly. “If I leave here without you, then my life is my own. Who knows? I may just join my friend Amelia in Morocco for a long visit and never return.”

That made alarm flare in his face, and she said, “If you’re going to shut me out of your life, Lachlan, then I’ll shut you out of mine.” Her voice broke. “So you’d better think long and hard about your justice. Because once I’m gone for good, you’ll get to spend the rest of your life wondering where I am and how I’m doing and whether you have a son somewhere with another man’s name.”

When he just continued to stare at her, hollow-eyed, she stifled a sob. She’d counted on such a threat bringing the stubborn lout around, but what if it didn’t? Would she really walk away from him, to leave this place forever in three days?

No, never. But she wasn’t about to tell him that. It was time Lachlan Ross learned that life didn’t always go according to his plan. That right and wrong weren’t as easy to define as he believed.

“Here’s one more thing for you to think on over the next three days.” Tears burned in her throat.

“Consider this while you’re sitting in the master bedchamber where we confessed our love, while you’re doing the ‘right thing’ and atoning for everyone’s sins.”

She reached up to cup his cheek. “The greatest sin of all is to deny love. And there’s nothing in this world you can do to atone for that.”

Then, with her heart breaking, she turned, took her father’s arm, and left Lachlan to his cold and lonely
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atonement.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Dear Cousin,

I am willing to call a truce between us, if you’ll agree with me on one matter. A man hunting for
a wife ought to admit his situation from the outset. That way no woman can ever accuse him of
treachery. Surely you’ll admit that the best marriages are built on honesty.
Your relation,

Charlotte

L
achlan spent his first day away from Venetia in a blessed numbness, checking on the stills and going into Dingwall to let people know he wasn’t dead. It was sobering to find himself the object of such great concern. His flimsy story that he’d played dead only until the Scourge’s men could be routed met with astonishing acceptance. They were apparently so glad to have him back, they weren’t going to quibble over how it had happened.

At least
someone
wasn’t angry at him. His clan members were furious that he hadn’t pressed Duncannon for the money. They couldn’t understand his reasons, since they didn’t know what his father had done, and he meant to keep it that way. Duncannon deserved not having his secrets widely known. Mother deserved her privacy, too. He cringed every time he thought of how mortifying it must be to discover that your dead husband had taken your friend into his bed. Lachlan didn’t know how to comfort her.

Not that she would let him. Refusing to speak to him, she stomped about the house telling the maids what a pity it was that Venetia couldn’t be there to help. She referred to him as “my idiot son” with a frequency that began to annoy him.

Of all people, Mother should understand. Couldn’t she see that the lass deserved better than a life in the Highlands cut off from her family?

Guilt clutched at him anew. It had been one thing to hear Venetia speak of her aging, ill father, and quite another to watch her worrying herself over the shattered relic of a man. She needed her father; the man needed her. She certainly deserved better than a lifetime chained to the scoundrel who’d ripped her from him.

Never mind that she didn’t seem to agree; she would in time. It would be selfish of him to keep her here. What did it matter if the thought of her leaving Ross-shire, never to return, stripped the very flesh from his heart? Letting her go was the right thing to do.

Then why did it feel so very wrong?

That night he couldn’t sleep. And in the morning, he awoke to the realization that he had only one more day before she would make good on her threat. God help him. The thought of her bearing his child without his knowing it…

No, that at least must never happen.

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He went to find his mother. “I need you to pay Venetia a visit at Braidmuir.”

Mother arched an eyebrow at him.

“You must beg her to write you from London if she finds herself with child.”

His mother crossed her arms over her chest. “And why must I do this?”

“Because it would be yer grandchild! Surely you care what happens to it.”

“Aye, but you gave up my right to care about the bairn when you denied the marriage. Which you said you didn’t consummate anyway, remember?” Her eyes held an unholy glint. “So as you told Duncannon, there won’t be any grandchild.”

He scowled at her. “You know damned well that I bedded Venetia on the night we said the vows. Half the servants in Rosscraig probably saw her leave my bedchamber in the morning. And they’d never keep something like that from you.”

She shrugged. “I still don’t see what that has to do with me. You had yer chance to keep her; you threw it away and the bairn with it.”

“It’s not any bairn I care about!” he cried. “I just can’t stand the thought of her bearing one alone, ye ken? What if something happens?”

Her face softened a fraction. “Seems to me you gave up the right to worry about that, too.”

He rubbed the back of his neck in sheer frustration. “What if she goes to Morocco like she said? Do they even have doctors in a place like that? She’ll be forced to use some foreign fellow, who’ll most likely kill her in his ignorance.”

“That could happen, I suppose.”

He glared at her. “And if she stays in London and has a child, she’ll be branded a whore by society. She’ll have to live in seclusion.” He shook his head. “Venetia wouldn’t be happy in seclusion. She likes being around people.”

“I didn’t think you cared what she liked,” his mother said with a cool smile.

“Of course I care! That’s why I’m doing this. For her. So she can have the decent life in society that she deserves.”

“Has she said that’s what she wants?”

He let out an oath. “The lass doesn’t know what she wants. How can she, when I’ve tricked and seduced her at every turn?” He paced restlessly. “She hasn’t even considered that marriage to me means leaving her sickly father, since I doubt Duncannon will ever wish to return to the Highlands.”