Taken by the Laird (19 page)

Twirling the stunning ring Hugh had given her around her finger, Bree knew she had just become his possession. She had given up her right to an independent life, her right to her inheritance. By law, Hugh would become owner and master of Killiedown Manor. Nothing belonged to a wife, unless some special provision was made by her father or guardian. She was quite sure Lord Stamford had done no such thing.

It was a struggle for Brianna to stay on her feet and keep a mask of neutrality on her face while Hugh ushered her guardian and former fiancé out of the room. From what she could hear, he was practically tossing them out of the castle, promising to do the marquess some damage if he ever returned.

“M’lady, my good wishes to ye,” Mr. MacTavish said warmly with a quick bow.

She felt no such warmth from the other man—the beefy estate manager who’d been so rough with her the night they’d unloaded Hugh’s brandy shipment. Brianna doubted he’d have added his own good wishes had MacTavish not done so before leaving. But they were boorish, at best.

“Ach, lass, ye look fashed,” said Mrs. Ramsay, who’d not only removed her ubiquitous apron, she’d combed her hair and worn a very good dress for the occasion. Two things that had not changed were her stern features and her authoritative manner. “Come and sit here while
I get you a draught of something to restore ye.”

Brianna allowed herself to be led by Mrs. Ramsay’s steady hand to the sofa near the fire, while Mr. MacTavish poured her a glass of brandy. “I’m sure the laird will return shortly,” he said, “and then ye’ll feel better.”

Perhaps, but Brianna doubted it.

“Drink up lass, er…m’lady,” said Mrs. Ramsay.

She took a sip, and the liquor burned her tongue and all the way down her throat. She told herself that the tears that filled her eyes were merely due to the strong brandy she was unaccustomed to drinking. She blinked them away and found herself perusing every corner of the room, all the places where Hugh had made love to her.

And she wondered how long Castle Glenloch would be her home.

Hugh’s free-trading business might keep him in Scotland until spring. But then what? Would he expect her to remain at Glenloch after he tired of her and returned to his usual pursuits in London?

A sickening weight settled in the pit of her stomach at the thought of Hugh resuming his roguish life in town. If she believed every bit of gossip she’d ever heard about him, he had a mistress or two down in London who would be awaiting his return.

“The ring you wear belonged to the laird’s mother,” said Mrs. Ramsay when they were alone.

Brianna curbed her glum thoughts and looked up at the housekeeper. “Did you know her well?”

“She didna spend much time at Glenloch,” the woman replied with a brief shake of her head. “Like the rest of us, she didna like hearin’ the ghost.”

“What of Laird Glenloch’s wife?” she asked, addressing the question she had burned to ask as they’d worked on her wedding dress. “Did you know her?”

The woman’s brows creased together and she clasped her hands at her waist. “No, m’lady. I doona think anyone really knew her. She was a quiet one. Kept to herself.”

Brianna wanted to ask for details about Amelia and the day she’d jumped to her death, but it seemed much too awkward to speak of, and the housekeeper did not seem inclined to discuss it. “ ’Tis very sad.”

“Aye,” said Mrs. Ramsay. “Will there be anything else?”

“Thank you, no,” Bree replied as she stood. She felt steadier now, and went to the table where her marriage lines lay inside a beautiful leather folder. Opening it, she looked at the words that bound her to Hugh and to Glenloch, and at the signatures that made it all legal in Scotland. ’Twas final.

Startled at the sound of Hugh’s voice right behind her, she whirled around to face him.

“We might have avoided all this had you been honest with me from the start,” he said.

The anger she’d anticipated and managed to avoid all the previous day was clear in his tone.

“You are not the only one who is trapped, Laird Glenloch.”

He gazed at her, his eyes so dark, his cheeks slightly flushed, and yet the scar on his cheek seemed blanched white. “Just so. But I made a perfectly unsatisfactory spouse the first time around.” He reached behind her
and closed the portfolio. “Do not expect any improvement this time.”

He took the documents and strode out of the room.

If he were in London, Hugh would have gone to his sporting club and challenged someone to a boxing match. Striking out in the ring would be the only way to rid himself of the wild-eyed frustration that permeated every pore of his body. Naught but a colossal beating—either given or taken—could dispel the degree of dissatisfaction he felt.

And the fear.

He walked up to his bedchamber and placed the portfolio inside a drawer in his wardrobe, underneath his clean shirts. He did not want to look at it for a very long time, if ever again. So much for his vow of permanent bachelorhood. He was married now to Brianna Munro, and naught could change that. He’d become responsible for her, just as he’d been responsible for Amelia.

He did not see how this could work out well for either of them.

He changed out of the clothes he’d worn during their brief but all-too-final marriage ceremony, and left the room. Amelia’s door was ajar again, and he stepped across the hall to close it, deciding all at once that he was going to have it cleared out—Amelia’s furniture and all her belongings removed, once and for all.

He pushed open the door and looked inside. A few of Amelia’s dresses lay in disarray upon the bed, likely from Brianna’s search for something she could tailor to fit her. He wished she had chosen something less ap
pealing than the azure confection she’d worn to say her vows. It would have made it far easier to despise her for ensnaring him in yet another marital debacle.

To be fair, he could not really blame Brianna for their situation. She seemed to have as great an aversion to marriage as he did. And it was quite true that she’d tried to leave Glenloch the very day after she’d arrived. And they would have left for Dundee before Stamford’s and Roddington’s arrival had he not gotten himself half sprung in Falkburn instead.

Hugh glanced around the room, reluctant to go inside, for if there was any restless spirit in Glenloch, ’twould reside there. But naught had happened the last time he’d gone in with Brianna, no rattling of windowpanes, no ghostly presence.

He scrubbed one hand across his face and walked to the open wardrobe where most of Amelia’s clothing was still stacked neatly on its shelves. His marriage to his first wife had been just as inauspicious as his new one, arranged by their fathers when Amelia was only eighteen and he barely twenty. Hugh had been too young—and too naïve—to understand that her shyness and their differences in temperament would make them forever incompatible. Perhaps if they’d had children, things would have been different.

This time he had known better, and yet he’d allowed it to happen all over again. He decided that Brianna would never use this room, this bedchamber where Amelia had spent so many hours avoiding him. In fact, he was going to have Mrs. Ramsay lock it and throw away the key.

He went inside and closed the door of the wardrobe, stopping suddenly when he felt a cold, clear sensation of being watched. He turned and looked around, but saw naught, in spite of the shiver of dread that coursed up his spine. It would be just like Amelia to begin haunting him now that he had remarried. He shuddered and exited the room, then went downstairs, deliberately avoiding the library as he headed for the door. He did not want another interchange with his chilly, distant wife. His past was full of those.

He went out to the stable and discovered young Ronan MacTavish, shoveling out the horse’s stall. “I’ll do that,” he said, taking the implement from him. “Run back to the castle and see if your grandmother has any other jobs for you. I’ll finish out here.”

“Aye, Laird!”

Hugh started immediately, working off his anger and frustration by shoveling and making sure the stall was clean, then taking care of the gelding. He brushed the animal to a fine sheen, then checked each of its hooves. He was on the last one when Brianna’s voice startled him.

“I’d like to talk to you,” she said.

He dropped the horse’s fetlock and came out of the stall.

He was dirty and sweaty, but she had not changed out of her wedding clothes, though she wore a heavy woolen shawl across her shoulders. She was still so beautiful she took his breath away.

He tossed the hoof pick onto the worktable and gave her his attention.

She looked down at the floor and then quickly back to his eyes as she flushed pink, obviously remembering their impetuous coupling in the straw. “I’d like to go up to Killiedown Manor.”

“Killiedown?”

She nodded. “My aunt’s estate—my home.”

He had not expected her to want to leave now. With solid deliberation, he closed the distance between them and crossed his arms over his chest.

She took a step back, a telling move.

“I do not wish to quarrel,
wife.
But this is your home. You are now Lady Newbury. Or Lady Glenloch, if you prefer.”

He reached out and touched a wisp of her hair. She swallowed audibly. “I realize that. But m-my belongings are at Killiedown. All my clothes, and…” She raised her hem a few inches and stuck out one booted foot. It was the boot she’d worn with her old trews and rough coat. “I would like to get some of my own shoes…that don’t give me blisters.”

It was nearly Hugh’s undoing. She’d looked as majestic as a queen in her altered gown, and yet her feet had been clad in her rough boys’ boots.

He cleared his throat, but his voice sounded gruff, nonetheless. “We’ll go in a few days. I’ve got a shipment to dilute and move out first, and I want to supervise every stage personally.”

She gave a questioning frown, and he realized she did not know that anything was amiss.

“There have been some irregularities in Glenloch’s
free trade of late. I want to see that everything is done correctly.”

“What kind of irregularities?”

Her interest didn’t surprise him, not when he remembered her mentioning that her aunt had been a free trader. Lady Claire, of all people. “MacGowan’s been transporting the brandy away from the Mearns, and using some Stonehaven ruffians to do it.”

“What of the locals? Will the Falkburn folk not do it?”

“No, they’d be happy to do it, but MacGowan tells them there’s no market for brandy in these parts.”

She made a sound of surprise. “That doesn’t seem likely, does it?”

“Not particularly.”

“Does all this mean you’ll be leaving Glenloch for the distribution?”

“Are you anxious to see me gone?”

She bit her lower lip.

“Because I’m not going to be anywhere tonight but in our marriage bed.”

Though she was wearing only a woolen shawl, Brianna felt overheated when she returned to the castle. Hugh meant to consummate their marriage that night—as though it had not been consummated before. Many times.

Yet theirs was not a real marriage. They’d said the words that bound them to each other, but Brianna doubted that Hugh intended to be any kind of a hus
band. Nor did she want one. She only wanted her life at Killiedown back. She wanted to study her breeding lines and choose strong mares and stallions here and in Ireland, and on the continent.

If she could just get to Killiedown, Brianna was sure she could convince Hugh that she belonged there, and not at Glenloch. He could leave her at her home up north, near Muchalls, and go about his life as he pleased, without giving her a thought.

She let herself in through the door nearest the scullery and started for the staircase in search of refuge in her own bedchamber, but was waylaid by Mrs. Ramsay.

“Ye’ll be wantin’ a special wedding supper,” she said, “so we’ve—”

“That will not be necessary, Mrs. Ramsay.”

“Beggin’ yer pardon, m’lady, but I think ye’re mistaken.”

Brianna stopped in her tracks. Mrs. Ramsay and Fiona had stayed until just past dark to help her alter Amelia’s gown, and the housekeeper had said little during the hours they’d spent together. Brianna assumed it was fear of attracting the ghost that kept the two women silent. Today, Mrs. Ramsay seemed to have no such qualms.

She wiped her wet hands on her apron. “Ye may have marrit under…difficult circumstances, and ye’ve done yer auntie proud. But I’ve known yer husband since he was a wee bairn. I know that he can be a verra persuadin’ man.”

Brianna felt a blush rise from her chest to her cheeks,
for it must have been obvious to all that Hugh had persuaded her into his bed. And Mrs. Ramsay was absolving her of blame for her downfall.

“M’lady, ye’ve done everything jus’ right thus far. Ye made a beautiful bride, and ye’re Lady Glenloch now. Doona repent this day.”

How could she not? Hugh was not particularly enamored or committed to her. He had married her out of obligation, and nothing more. Glenloch would be yet another temporary home for Bree. Soon Hugh would leave Scotland without a backward glance.

But he intended to have a wedding night.

“You’re right, Mrs. Ramsay,” Brianna said, suppressing a sigh. It did not matter. “Thank you.”

“All will be ready when we leave today. Ye’ll only need t’ light the candles.”

It was hours until suppertime, and Brianna was not sure Hugh would come inside, even then. She might have to choke down Mrs. Ramsay’s special meal by herself while she thought about the life she might have led if Bernard had not withdrawn his offer of marriage at Lord Stamford’s objection. Or how her life might have played out if she’d been able to escape her guardian until February.

Brianna missed Claire desperately and wished once again that she’d known of her aunt’s illness. She’d have hurried back to Killiedown the moment she heard of it, and not left her side until she was well. Bree knew she would forever feel the pain of remorse for her neglect.

She wondered if Hugh felt guilt or regret over Amelia’s tragic death. Her suicide must have been a blow to
him, even though he’d admitted they were not close.