Once Upon a Highland Autumn (20 page)

Eleanor cackled. “Nor would I. No, you made a better choice. Rossington strikes me as a fine husband for you. When your mother calms herself, she’ll realize that she’s gotten what she really wanted all along—you’re married to an English lord.”

Kit stood silently behind her and Megan could feel him bristling. “Oh, but I’ve already explained to Lord Rossington that this is not a
real
marriage, only a handfasting. He kindly agreed to do it so I wouldn’t have to marry the marquess.”

Eleanor looked at him. “How very chivalrous of you, my lord.”

Kit bowed without speaking, as elegant and sober as a knight receiving laurels for rescuing a damsel in distress. Megan’s heart swelled a little. He really was kind, even with a split lip.

Eleanor observed him soberly. “Mind you, I daresay Glenlorne will have something to say about this match. He’s likely to insist you marry her properly, in a church, at once, if not sooner.”

“If no one else does, Alec is bound to consider what will happen when word of this handfasting business gets about—and they won’t stop talking about it for some weeks, I daresay,” Eleanor continued. “The village is a shambles, and I daresay this story will become a local legend to rival Mairi’s tale. Before long, word of it will also go south to London with all those rejected lords and ladies, where it will be crouching in the grandest salons and ballrooms, waiting to pounce when you make your debut in the spring. It won’t be just a tale then—it will be scandal.”

Megan’s chest tightened, and she put a hand against her heart, felt it pounding like a drum before a hanging. “But it’s not like that at all! And anyway, I don’t want to make my debut. I intend to remain here.”

Eleanor smiled. “How willful the young are! Have you thought of Alanna? Devorguilla will still insist that she must go to London.”

Megan’s stomach dropped at the thought of her shy sister facing the scorn of the English
ton
. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes. I thought I’d better come and see if you had entered into this match just to spite your mother, or for love, or simply for sheer lust. I’m sorry to see it is for another reason entirely.” Megan felt her aunt’s sharp eyes on her face, and knew she wouldn’t miss the hot blood that filled her cheeks. “So, what will you do now, the two of you? You could put a brave face on it, see it as what’s done is done, and consider yourselves properly wedded in the old tradition until you can get yourselves before a proper man of God—or at least a blacksmith.”

Megan didn’t dare look at Kit. She’d cry again if she did.

“Can one annul a handfasting?” Kit asked. “This is a mar—er,
match
—of convenience only.”

Eleanor squinted at him. “On what grounds? You seem well enough suited.”

“Not at all!” Kit said quickly. “I mean, I never intended to marry—”

He had the grace to stop when Megan turned to glare at him. He closed his mouth and shifted his stance, clasping his hands behind his back, and squaring his shoulders. He would have looked more fearsome without the bruises and bloodstains and the rip in his coat. He wasn’t even wearing a cravat. He looked younger now, Megan thought, less English, and rather angry. “I believe we must consider this sensibly, my lady,” he said to her in a stiff tone. “I think what’s called for is a formal announcement of our
betrothal
,” Kit said, stressing the word betrothal. “That’s honorable enough. Then, after a time, we will simply agree not to marry after all, put it about that we have broken our engagement, and go our separate ways, with no harm done.”

Megan felt a little of the tension seep from her shoulders. Surely that would be a suitable, honorable solution. She looked at her aunt, but Eleanor shook her head.

“Perhaps if you were in England that would work, my lord. Here, the only honorable thing is to go through with the contract you have made,” Eleanor insisted.

“For the entire year and a day?” Kit said, his voice breaking slightly, his face reddening.

“Indeed,” Eleanor said. “Now, do you intend to stay here in the glen?” she cast a glance at the cottage, and at the castle.

Megan followed her gaze, realized that it would be impossible. The whole situation was impossible. “We can’t stay here,” she murmured.

“And you can’t come back to Dundrummie,” Eleanor said. “I doubt Devorguilla will welcome you home—in fact, I’m sure she won’t, and even if Dundrummie is my home and my castle, I enjoy my peace too much to insist she take you back. It will be some time before she and Alanna are ready to leave for London. There are letters to write, accommodations to see to, packing to be done—” She made a small sound of pity at the sight of Megan’s renewed tears and reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her niece’s ear. “You could go and stay in Inverness or Edinburgh, or go to England, I suppose.”

“England?” both Megan and Kit said together in horror.

Eleanor raised one gray brow. “Or there’s the hunting lodge at Dundrummie. You could stay there, Megan, with Jeannie as your chaperone.”

“Oh, I see,” Kit said enthusiastically. “And I would depart for England. Once the time has run out, then I—we—would both be safe—er—honorably free.” Megan cast him another sharp look, but he kept his gaze on Eleanor. “Would that satisfy propriety, my lady?”

“English propriety, yes. The Scots won’t like it, especially Glenlorne. No, for the time being, you’ll have to stay here, at least give the impression that you are honoring the handfasting. You can sleep here in the glen, my lord, and Megan can stay at the lodge, with Jeannie to guard your virtue. At the end of the allotted time, you can easily part. If necessary, Jeannie will be able to swear—as will I—that there hasn’t been the slightest hint of anything remotely romantic between you.”

“Could it be sooner than a year and a day? I cannot be away from my lands as long as that,” Kit said anxiously.

Eleanor frowned. “I left England some fifty years ago, because I fell in love with a Scot—so much passion! He was so different from the Englishmen I knew. I see I made the right decision.”

Megan saw Kit color indignantly. “He’s been very kind, aunt,” she said quickly.

Eleanor’s lips rippled, but she did not agree or disagree. “Now—I brought you a picnic. I daresay you’ll need time to discuss this. I will take Graves and go and ask Jeannie to prepare the lodge, and send her up to fetch Megan at sunset. Will that do? She’ll bring you back here again in the morning.”

Megan looked at Kit, saw the frown on his face. He nodded at last, unable to think of another, better solution.

“Good.” Eleanor beckoned Graves forward and he set the basket down.

“I’ll serve, Graves,” Megan said quickly as he bent to open it.

“As you wish, my lady. May I offer congratulations?”

“Not just yet, Graves, not just yet,” Eleanor said. “Come along. We’d best get ourselves home. I daresay there’s a mess to handle there, too.”

Megan watched her aunt go down the hill, leaning on her walking stick, with Graves’s hand under her elbow.

A mess to handle. And that’s exactly what this was. She turned to look at Kit. He was standing a short distance away, staring out across the loch, his expression miserable. She supposed she owed him an apology.

She no longer had to fear being married off to a noble lord. She clasped her hands around her arms. She was damaged goods now, a wanton, willful wife to a man who did not want her. Yet not a wife at all. She felt her skin heat.

“I did not intend for this to be—” she began, and he looked at her over his shoulder, his eyes dark, angry, and her tongue stuck to her tonsils.

“You did not mean to trick me into marriage?” he asked, his tone cold.

She raised her chin. “I had no intention of marrying you at all!” she said.

“Yet here we are.”

She tasted the bitterness of that. She stood a dozen feet from a stranger, a man she’d met not a fortnight before, and had disliked on sight. Now, for a year and a day they were stuck with each other. Surely, when Eachann came home, or if Rossington was called away to his earldom, she would be free again. She watched the wind blow his fair hair back from his tanned forehead. She could see the repairs he’d made to the cottage, the new bench that stood by the door. The work had made him broader, added muscle, and his coat looked just a bit tight across his shoulders now, where it had been flawlessly tailored before. Even with the sleeve torn, and stains marring his buff breeches, and blood on his shirt collar, he looked every inch an aristocrat. Her heart leaped in her chest, and she turned and carried the basket up to the bench by the cottage.

“Will you have something to eat?” she said. She hadn’t had breakfast, and it was now nearly noon.

“What is there?” he asked as he came up the hill to her.

“There’s chicken, cheese, cherries, a flask of wine, and one of whisky. There’s bannock, as well—oh, and the
lunastain
cakes.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the crumbling loaf. He looked at it disdainfully. “Do you still have yours?” she asked.

He took his
luinean
out of his pocket and regarded it. “Is there some kind of magic spell attached? Does it bind us further if we eat them?”

She looked at them. “Perhaps we can feed them to the otters. Someone should enjoy the bread, if not the luck.” She set her loaf aside, and refused to look at it, busying herself with getting out the rest of the meal.

She poured him a glass of wine, the ruby liquid sparkling in the sun. It was cool, and tasted good, and she broke off a bit of bannock and chewed it slowly. He picked at a bit of chicken.

“What did you intend to do today, my lord? That is, if I had not interrupted your day so rudely?”

He sent her a sharp glance, perhaps wondering if she was mocking him, and she held his gaze. He sipped his wine. “I suppose I would have worked in the castle, trying to clear some of the rubble—if I had not been beset with—”

“Go on,” she said. “What were you going to say? Beset by ghosts, the curse, me?”

“Women,” he said. “You are not the only one hounded by suitors you do not want, remember?”

“The very reason we entered into this, I think,” she said, and looked around. “There’s not a soul here now.”

He looked almost surprised. “No, there isn’t.” He sounded relieved.

“Except me, of course,” she said, and he looked at her sharply. She smiled, and knew this was the place to apologize, but she could not.

“I will be pleased to allow you to go about your own business,” he said.

“What, here in the glen, every day, for the next year and a day?”

“And half a day,” he murmured as he looked at the angle of the sun.

“Shall I cook and clean and sweep the cottage while you shift charred timbers?”

A frown creased his brow. “If you wish. Do you read? I have several books. Or if you like to sew—”

“I detest it,” she said. “Sewing that is, not reading. I could help you.”

He looked horrified. “What? Searching for—” He bit the sentence off short. “A lady cannot clear rubble. It’s too dangerous.”

“Then I shall weed the garden by the wall. I thought I saw roses struggling to grow there when we were here last.” She could have bitten her own tongue in two. Her skin heated at the mention of the day she’d fallen on him, lay atop of his body in the heather like a lover, imagining how it might feel to kiss him. Her breath caught in her throat. She supposed she knew that now, having kissed him at the handfasting. He’d tasted of whisky, and his mouth had been warm and sweet. She swallowed and turned away, looked for the wine, though she wanted water.

The sun came round to shine down on the bench, and after the meal, they sat in silence, watching the birds wheeling in the clear sky, bearing the curious stares of the otters who came out to sun themselves likewise on the rocks by the shore. She felt languid, sleepy, comfortable.

“What would you have been doing today?” he asked. “If we had not—spent it as we did?”

He could not even say it.
Handfasted
. She tightened her lips. “I would have been standing on a stool in my mother’s parlor, being fitted for my wedding gown,” she said.

“What color?” he asked.

“Whatever the color is in Lord Merridew’s coat of arms, I suppose. I would not have had any choice in the matter. My mother would have chosen the style, the fabric, and the color. She has waited since the day I was born to see me as the bride she’s always envisioned.”

“It must have been a shock to see you in the village square, wearing a plain blue gown, your hand bound to mine with a handkerchief.”

She felt guilt chill her. “I fear I’ve disappointed her dreadfully.”

“Surely she would have been equally disappointed if you’d married your Eachann.”

Eachann. She’d barely thought of him all day. His name sounded strange on Kit’s lips, spoken aloud, here, between them.

“Yes, but I had intended to be more—careful—in convincing her.”

“And your brother, what does he think of Eachann?”

Alec would tell her she could do better than Eachann Rennie. That’s why he’d allowed Devorguilla to insist that the girls must have at least one Season in London, so they could see some of the world beyond the hills that marked the borders of Glenlorne, and then decide who they loved. If she and Eachann had asked to wed, he would have told them to wait a year, and see how they felt when Megan returned from London. But surely she knew her own heart better than Alec did. She loved Eachann.

“Alec?” she said, realizing Kit was waiting for a response. “Oh, he would insist I wait and think on my choice,” she said truthfully.

“For a year and a day?” he asked.

She colored. “Aye. But I know my own hea—mind.”

He smiled. “Your brother may be right. People change over time. It may be that your Eachann will return a different man than the one who left.”

She gritted her teeth at the sound of her love’s name on Rossington’s lips. “Of course he won’t. He will always love me, and I will always love him. Why should that change?”

He studied her. “You don’t give up on what you want, do you?”

She tossed her head. “Never.” Well, once she had imagined herself in love with a handsome cousin, and then realized how silly he was, and had fallen out of love just as quickly. She wondered now if it was possible that she would fall out of love with Eachann, too. It was just the faintest of doubts, but she put a hand to her heart to still it. “I love Eachann,” she said aloud. “Have you never been in love?”