School For Heiresses 3- Beware A Scot's Revenge (39 page)

She snorted. The big lummox hadn’t even noticed them.

That should have taught her that the man was incapable of seeing certain things, even when they stared him right in the face. If something didn’t concern his clan or his manly pride or the Highlands, it was beneath his notice.

Tears stung her eyes and she squelched them ruthlessly. She wouldn’t cry anymore, she wouldn’t. Why should she cry over that obstinate fool?

All the same, she couldn’t resist picking a daisy and doing what she’d done so often as a girl, ripping the petals off as she chanted the litany that so many girls had chanted before her. “He loves me. He loves me not.”

“He loves you.”

She froze at the familiar voice coming from the hill behind her. She didn’t look. She couldn’t. What if she’d only imagined it?

Then she heard the heavy boot-steps descending. “He loves you,” the voice repeated, thick with emotion. “I love you.”

A thousand times in the last few days, she’d prepared herself for what she’d say if this moment ever came. But she couldn’t remember a word of it as she faced him. Though he was dressed in his finest, he looked uncertain of himself, even nervous. She’d never seen Lachlan nervous about anything.

“I love you,” he said again.

“How can I believe you,” she whispered, “when just two days ago, you practically denied it to my face?”

“Two days ago, I was an ass.”

“Yes, you were.” When he looked at a loss for words, she let out a breath. “I can understand your saying the wedding wasn’t legal, because it really wasn’t.” She stared down at the hapless daisy. “And I can almost understand your not wanting to admit before Papa that you’d bedded me.” Her voice broke.

“But how could you deny that you loved me?”

“I know. That was very wrong.” As he neared her, she could see the dark circles beneath his eyes, the pallor of his skin. “I have no idea how to make this right. You said that there’s no way to atone for denying love, but I’m praying hard that you’re wrong. Because I’ll do whatever it takes for you to forgive me.”

She wanted to throw herself at him and tell him she forgave him now, but she wasn’t going to make this easy for him. Not after what he’d put her through.

“And why
should
I forgive you?” she said hoarsely. “You only came after me because you’re worried that I’ll have your child and you’ll never see it.”

“No.” He stepped closer. “I’m worried that you have my
heart
and I’ll never see it. Like I told yer
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father, you stole my heart long ago. Without it, without you, I’m an empty shell of a man.”

The words were so sweet, she wanted to cry. Then his other words registered. “You spoke to my father?”

He nodded. “To ask for his blessing. He gave it, too.”

A frown touched her brow. Had Lachlan only come after her because Papa had absolved him of his foolish guilt? “What would you have done if he’d refused to give you his blessing?”

His dark eyes burned into her. “I would have sent my regrets that he couldn’t join us when we repeat our vows in the kirk. But whether we speak them again or no, you’re my wife. Nothing yer father can say will change that.”

Her heart soared. He really did love her. He really had come just for her.

“Please, lass,” he choked out. “You have to come back to me. If you don’t, you’ll force me to do something drastic.”

“Like what?”

“Kidnap you again. I brought the coach.” He looked amazingly solemn as he reached in his pocket and pulled out something he dangled before her. “And rope. And I’ll use both if I have to.”

She bit back a smile. “I hardly think that’s the way to get back into my good graces.”

He handed the rope to her. “Then you can tie
me
up with it and leave me here for the sheep to trample a while. Is that what you’d rather?”

“Actually,” she said, taking the rope from him, “I’d rather use the rope for something else entirely.”

“What?”

She looped the rope around his wrist, then hers. “To tie us together.” Tears of joy filled her eyes. “So we can never be apart.”

He took her in his arms. “We never will be again, I swear,” he whispered. Then he kissed her with all the tender care a woman could possibly want. There, in the midst of the glen where she’d first learned to adore him, he kissed her, and it was even more wonderful than she’d imagined in her girlish fantasies.

It had taken her years, but she’d finally gained her ballad hero. And this time, she meant to hold on to him for the rest of her life.

When he drew back, his eyes shone and his breath came in sharp, impetuous gasps. “Shall we go home, wife?” he said in that seducer’s brogue she loved so well.

She glanced up the hill to the cottage where he’d made her his, then cast him a teasing smile. “We could. Then again, it seems a shame to let all that lovely fleece go to waste…”

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With a laugh, he looped his arm about her and they hurried up the hill. The daisy fell unheeded to the ground, one petal left on its stem.
He loves me.

Forever.

Epilogue

V
enetia returned from the retiring room at Colonel Seton’s town house in Edinburgh, to find his ballroom filling with guests from his wedding to Aunt Maggie earlier in the day. An orchestra was tuning up, but she noticed no pipers. Aunt Maggie must have won
that
argument with the colonel. She’d been adamant that her wedding celebration be an elegant affair—no strathspeys, no Scottish reels, no pipers, and no whisky.

Venetia sighed.

“That sounds ominous,” said Mrs. Harris, who came to join her. She smiled at her old schoolmistress. “I’ve been meaning to ask what possessed you to leave the school in the middle of a session. I’m sure the colonel could have found some other person to bring Lucy up here.”

“Ah, but then I wouldn’t have had the chance to meet your husband. It’s not often that one of
my
pupils ends up eloping with a Scottish laird of little fortune and no connections.”

Her gaze shifted to where Lachlan helped the colonel move some chairs. “But I must say I begin to understand why you felt compelled to toss aside every rule I taught you. He’s quite a strapping fellow in his regimentals, isn’t he?”

“You have no idea,” Venetia said, laying a hand on her belly. She’d waited to say anything to Lachlan until she could consult a doctor here in Edinburgh. But now that she was sure, she meant to tell her husband just how strapping a fellow he was, the minute she could get him alone.

“You know,” Mrs. Harris said, “of all my girls, you were the one I felt sure would snag some very rich, very titled gentleman.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Venetia murmured, though she wasn’t in the least.

“Don’t be ridiculous—you seem happy, and that’s the most important thing.” Mrs. Harris cast her a fond glance. “You’re different here. More relaxed.”

She laughed. “No one married to Lachlan Ross could be anything else. He has a way of making a woman forget entirely about propriety.” When Mrs. Harris frowned, she said, “You seem different, too…agitated. And you’re never agitated. Has Cousin Michael been alarming you with his gossip?”

Mrs. Harris’s frown deepened. “You might say that. Or you might say that he’s arrogant and opinionated and secretive, an annoying trial of a man.”

Venetia bit back a smile. “I said much the same things about Lachlan. Indeed, my aunt said much the
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same about the colonel. Perhaps you are developing a more than cousinly interest in your ‘cousin.’ ”

“Bite your tongue!” Mrs. Harris fluttered her fan furiously. “I don’t even know who the man is, for heaven’s sake. He’s probably seventy years old at least, and though I’m past thirty, I’m not yet in my dotage.”

“I’m only saying—”

“Look lively, my dear, someone’s coming.”

That effectively ended the conversation. With a little leap in her pulse, Venetia turned to find Lachlan approaching.

Bestowing a polite nod on Mrs. Harris, he offered his arm to Venetia. “I was hoping to persuade you to dance with me.” His eyes twinkled. “I’m afraid it’s just a dull old waltz, nothing you could sing to, like

‘Tullochgorum,’ but you might find it enjoyable.”

“Very amusing,” she said as she took his arm. “Behave yourself, sir, or I’ll sing ‘Tullochgorum’ all the way back to Rosscraig tomorrow.”

“There are worse ways to pass the time,” he said as he led her to the floor. “At least it will keep Mother from plaguing us with her snoring.”

“Didn’t I tell you? Your mother is riding back in Papa’s carriage.”

Lachlan scowled. “Oh, she is, is she? And whose fool idea was that, a widow and a widower traveling alone together—”

“They’re not traveling alone, Lachlan,” she said with a laugh. “We’ll be in the carriage behind. Besides, you, of all people, have no room to complain about a man and a woman traveling alone.”

He took her in his arms as the music began. “I can’t say I like it, though. Grant you, yer father has done fine things at Braidmuir, bringing back some of the crofters and trying to manage both the sheep and the farming, but that doesn’t mean I want him courting my mother. It doesn’t seem proper somehow.”

“Proper!” She nodded over to where his mother danced stiffly with Papa. “You don’t get much more proper than that.”

“Only because Mother has never been to a fancy ball.”

“I hadn’t thought of that—she’s probably more comfortable at a ceilidh.”

His arm tightened about her waist. “And you, lass? Where are
you
more comfortable?”

She stared up into his dear face. “Wherever you are.”

He seemed to like that answer, for his gaze smoldered and his hold turned decidedly lascivious. “So you won’t mind leaving the city tomorrow?”

“Certainly not. I’m eager to be home.” She hesitated, but this seemed like the perfect moment. “I’m eager to begin work on our nursery.”

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“Nursery! We don’t have a—” He halted on the dance floor to gape at her, then dropped his gaze to her still-flat belly. “Are you…are we…”

“Aye, sir.” She mimicked his brogue. “I’m expecting a bairn, I am.”

He let out a whoop more fitting for a battlefield than a ball, then lifted her and swung her about.

“Lachlan!” she protested with a giddy laugh. “Put me down, for heaven’s sake! People are staring!”

“Let them stare,” he said, though he lowered her gently to the floor. “It isn’t every day a man receives such news from the woman he loves. Anyway, these city Scots need a little shaking up, don’t you think?”

She glanced around at Aunt Maggie’s “elegant” friends, who all had the look of pinch-faced Englishmen compared to Highlanders like Jamie, who was dancing happily with a new sweetheart. “Oh, I do.”

AsLachlan took her in his arms and began waltzing again, she added, “They’re much too stuffy.”

“Too rigid.”

“Too English. We really ought to shake them up. It would do them good.”

His eyes gleamed at her. “And what do you have in mind?”

“We could send for a piper and a fiddler. I wouldn’t mind dancing a strathspey or two.” She grinned.

“They could play ‘Tullochgorum.’ ”

“I brought some of my finest whisky for the colonel. It’s in our room at the inn. I could send for that, too.”

“We could turn this ball into a regular ceilidh.”

“Aye.” He sighed. “But yer aunt would never forgive us, and you know it.”

She sighed, too. “I suppose if we’re to keep peace in the family, we shouldn’t do it.”

“I don’t think so.” They danced a moment. “But I tell you what, princess.”

“Yes, my love?”

“When we return to Rosscraig, we’ll throw the ceilidh to end all ceilidhs. And you and I”—he paused to look down at her belly—“and the bairn will dance as many strathspeys as you please.”

“Or…” She trailed off with a coy smile.

“Or?”

“We could have our own private ceilidh in the colonel’s study.”

He got that look on his face that never failed to send delicious shivers dancing over her skin. “Now?”

“That depends.” She dropped her gaze to his kilt. “Are you practicing the ‘old traditions’ tonight?”

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“Why?” he asked, his face reddening.

“Because, my dear husband,” she leaned up to whisper, “that would make it much easier to do it in a chair.”

And with his laughter ringing in her ears, he waltzed her right out the side door.

Author’s Note

T
he Scottish Clearances of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries have had a lasting effect on theHighlands . To this day, the area is underpopulated because of the “Improvers” who filled their land with sheep, forcing their crofters to emigrate. It’s the reason the east coast of theUnited States andCanada is filled with people of Scottish heritage, the reason Scottish Highland Games abound in those areas. While we’ve reaped the benefits of assimilating that rich culture into ours, it devastated theHighlands , which hasn’t been the same since.

Whisky, however, played a large part in salvaging the economy. After 1823, when the Duke of Gordon’s Excise Act made it profitable to license a still, legal operations sprang up all over theHighlands

. The Glenlivet distillery began as an illegal still on the duke’s land (which is why he championed the act in the first place). I like to think thatLachlan went on to found a great scotch whisky. Entire books have been written about the king’s visit toEdinburgh , but one thing most scholars agree on—Sir Walter Scott’s novels and his orchestration of the pageantry of the king’s visit changed how the outside world viewedScotland forever. The kilt became the universal symbol of Scottish attire instead of just aHighland custom, and the culture was romanticized.