Chapter 22
April 23, 1803
Caelan was in a temper that he couldn’t shake. Clara refused to marry him. She had refused him last night, and she had refused him again this morning. She had even refused him in front of Elsbeth, though the lass might well believe they’d spent the night together.
Which they hadn’t.
And for what reason? The stupidity of that idea about falling in love. He’d lain awake half the night weighing the advisability of telling her that he might fall in love. Yet he didn’t believe it, and there was nothing worse than starting a marriage with a lie.
Clara knew what she wanted, and it was more than a castle and some books. She wanted a man at her feet, stars in his eyes.
He sat in the coach, drumming his fingers on one leg as the carriage rattled through the pass. “You do mean to stay in Lavenween? You won’t leave immediately?”
Clara had been looking out the window, down into the depths of the ravine, but she glanced over at him. “Only until Mr. Cobbledick arrives back from Glasgow. He may be there already.”
That wasn’t enough time to woo her into changing her mind. Damn it, he was going to have to follow her.
“You can have this carriage,”
he said, exasperated. “I can’t let you run off with a stranger. Who knows what will—”
“There’s no question of you allowing me,”
Clara said, cutting into his sentence. “You have no claim over me, laird, and you would do well to remember it.” She cast him a defiant—albeit sweet—look.
Caelan went back to drumming his fingers. Damn it, he wanted her more than . . . more than any woman he’d ever . . . But he couldn’t—
Clara would never believe him anyway. She didn’t care about his type of wanting. She wanted romance. The great love of the ages. He’d never been good at that, not with Isla and not now. It wasn’t in him.
How could he say that to her? Clara was certain that he had loved Isla with all his heart. Even if he said that he hadn’t, he wasn’t about to start languishing for her. Ready to kill himself for love or some such shite.
A greedy voice in his heart—or maybe his loins—persistently suggested romantic gestures. Buy some flowers. Root up Isla’s flowers and plant new ones instead.
That would be idiotic. Clara loved the way the castle swam in a blue ocean. He hadn’t noticed the watery effect until she pointed it out, but now he did. She made him see things differently.
Clara stared out the window all the way to Lavenween. Her heart was aching, but she had set her course. After church, she would stay with Fiona until Mr. Cobbledick returned to take her over the mountains, away from the castle. She had put on a traveling gown in case he was already in the village, along with a gathered cap fit for a housekeeper for wearing in church.
Caelan walked into the kirk looking extremely handsome, his kilt in perfect pleats, his shirt and cravat snowy white and starched. He had slung an adorable bag called a sporran around his hips. Clara tried to distract herself with the idea of stealing it and embroidering a face—with whiskers—on the front.
The village priest, Father Boggs, was an elderly man who greeted “Mrs. Potts”
with kindness but turned to the laird. She faded back as parishioners clustered around him, chattering about a man whose heart was broken, about a roof that had fallen in, about the churchyard gate that had been repaired. Caelan was obviously the heart of the village.
He turned, looking for her, but Clara shook her head. No housekeeper sat with her master. Caelan’s face darkened to a scowl, but Mr. and Mrs. Gillan were waiting in the first pew with Fiona, Alfie, and a man she assumed to be Rory. As Clara watched, Caelan bent his head and whispered something to his nephew.
Sure enough, Alfie dashed back down the aisle and said, very loudly, “Future Aunt Clara, why won’t you sit with me?”
Elsbeth giggled, and Maisie gasped audibly. Everyone in the pew before them turned around, their bonnets quivering with interest. In fact, everyone in the small church craned their necks.
“Please don’t address me in that absurd fashion. I sit here because I choose to,”
Clara said with as much dignity as she could, speaking not merely to Alfie but to his uncle.
Alfie tugged at her hand. “Seriously? Rather than sitting with me?”
Behind him, the church door opened again, and a rustle went through the congregation. Clara glanced up—and her mouth fell open.
Her best friend Torie’s sister, Leonora, was proceeding into the church on the arm of an elderly man whom Clara knew well, because she’d danced with Lord Bufford numerous times.
Her heart sank; the game was up.
One moment Leonora presented the picture of saintly devotion, a pearl-studded prayer book clasped in her gloved hand—and the next she dropped that prayer book to the stone floor. “Clara Vetry!”
she cried. “What on earth are you doing here?” Her eyes narrowed. “And what in the world are you wearing?”
Clara rose to her feet and moved into the aisle, hardly noticing that Alfie was still clinging to her hand. “Good morning, Lord and Lady Bufford.”
She dropped a curtsy.
“Oh my goodness,”
Leonora cried. “You’ve become a governess! Torie has been so worried about you. The only thing your mama would disclose was that you’d decided to move to Scotland, but we never imagined she had thrown you into such common circumstances!” She turned to her husband. “Bufford, you must do something!”
“Good morning, Miss Vetry,”
her spouse said, giving Clara one of his measured smiles. “I am happy to see you in my favorite part of this country.”
Politic, but not to the point.
A comfortingly large person loomed up at her shoulder. “Good morning, Lord and Lady Bufford.”
Caelan’s voice was practically purring with satisfaction.
“Need we have this conversation in front of the entire village?”
Clara hissed.
“Everyone will know by day’s end, anyway,”
Leonora said, waving her hand. “Lavenween is not like London. Truly, Clara, what are you doing? The Honorable Miss Vetry engaging in menial labor?”
“The Honorable Miss Vetry?”
Caelan repeated. “My, my.”
Clara threw him a scathing look.
“We were informed of Prince George’s reproachable behavior,”
Lord Bufford said in the same magisterial tone with which he presumably addressed the House of Lords. “I consider the future of the English monarchy to be in grave danger.”
“Never mind that,”
his wife cried. “Clara, you take off that dreadful cap this moment!”
Clara opened her mouth, but Torie’s older sister had never been one to mince words; Leonora reached out and tugged the cap off. Elsbeth had done her best, but Clara’s curls sprang out of their confines.
“What has happened to your hair!”
Leonora cried, sounding even more horrified.
“I love her curls,”
Fiona said, joining the group, deep amusement in her voice.
“So do I,”
Alfie piped up. “She looks like Wilhelmina.”
“You should never compare a lady to a chicken,”
Leonora told him, not unkindly.
“I believe the service shall be delayed,”
Fiona said. “Perhaps you might go outside and see how Wilhelmina is doing, Alfie.”
Clara was burning with embarrassment. Seemingly unperturbed, the minister had wandered down from the altar and was chatting with the few parishioners who weren’t riveted by the drama, because they were too old to overhear the commotion.
“I chose not to visit my great-aunt as my mother wished,”
Clara explained, seeing no way around it. “Instead, I arrived at Lord MacCrae’s castle.”
“Arrived at MacCrae’s castle?”
Leonora’s eyes widened. “The laird has no children.” She looked from Clara to Elsbeth and Maisie, horror growing on her face.
“As my housekeeper,”
Caelan confirmed helpfully. “That’s why she’s wearing that ugly cap.”
Back at the castle, he’d looked a perfect Highland gentleman, but now his hair was disheveled, and his jaw was beginning to darken. He looked considerably happier, though.
“I’m sure the service should begin,”
Clara announced.
“We have time,”
Caelan said, his eyes sparking with enjoyment.
“Yes, we do have time,”
Leonora said bossily.
Torie used to complain about her older sister’s imperious ways, and Clara started feeling very sympathetic.
“Laird, are you saying that a young English lady arrived alone at the MacCrae castle, a dwelling so disgraceful that the whole of Scotland knew of its condition?”
Leonora asked.
“That’s an exaggeration, and anyway, it’s clean now!”
Clara said, unable to stop herself.
“You have been cleaning,”
Leonora cried, hand on her heart. “Lady Vetry would be horrified!”
Who knew that Torie’s sister could be so dramatic? Clara’s impression had been that Leonora was cool and buttoned-down, but perhaps marriage had changed her.
“She has been cleaning,”
Caelan confirmed.
Clara glanced at him, and her heart skipped a beat. He was grinning, a wide smile that she’d only seen once or twice.
“Am I to understand that your housekeeper is actually a lady?”
Mrs. Gillan said, squeezing in beside Fiona. She looked not only interested but thrilled.
“I didn’t pretend to be his housekeeper in order to marry the laird,”
Clara told her. “I was pretending to be Mrs. Potts, but I had no idea who owned the castle.”
“Of course you didn’t,”
Fiona put in, her eyes twinkling.
“Mrs. Potts?”
Leonora cried. “The lady with whom Prince George fell desperately in love is being addressed as Mrs. Potts?”
Caelan’s body stiffened. “Prince George? Isn’t the man married?”
“More to the point,”
Leonora said, “you are not married, laird, and the Honorable Miss Vetry has been living under your roof without a chaperone!”
“My maid—”
Clara started.
Caelan’s deep voice cut in. “Aye, and it’s a burden to my conscience now I know the truth. She did indeed spend a night under my roof without another soul in the castle other than myself. After she came across me fishing.”
Leonora shuddered. “Everyone in this parish knows to avoid the loch for that very reason.”
Fiona chuckled and elbowed her brother. “I warned you, didn’t I?”
Revelations were rolling downhill like an avalanche. Torie would say that Leonora had the bit in her mouth and was running amok.
“We can settle this problem immediately,”
Caelan said, his voice smooth as silk.
“The answer is no,”
Clara said roundly.
Lord Bufford had been watching placidly, leaning on his cane, but he straightened. “I fear that you have no choice, Miss Vetry. I would be doing grave injustice to the memory of your father if I allowed your reputation to be ruined.”
“My father is long dead,”
Clara cried. “I don’t want to marry the laird!”
“You could have left my brother’s castle the moment you understood that he didn’t have another woman under his roof,”
Fiona pointed out. Like her dratted brother, her tone was richly amused. “You didn’t. You could have stayed with me.”
Caelan’s grin flaunted his satisfaction at this turn of events. “Without even knowing her title, I asked her to marry me,”
he said virtuously.
Defense came from an unlikely corner. “The lass shouldn’t be forced to marry,”
Mrs. Gillan said. “Didn’t I tell you, laird, that a warmhearted woman would be crushed by marriage to you, when you’re still grieving my daughter? Who’s to say when your heart will mend?” She moved to stand beside Clara. “It wouldn’t be fair.”
“What if Miss Vetry wanted to marry my brother?”
Fiona asked Mrs. Gillan.
“That would be different. She’s a good lass and worked hard the last few days, for all she’s a lady.”
A horrified noise came from Leonora’s lips.
“Aye, for all she’s a lady,”
Mrs. Gillan repeated. “She’d be a good wife to the laird. I wouldn’t want her to be forced into it, under the circumstances.” She crossed her arms over her chest and gave Leonora a fierce look. “It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Fairness is not relevant when a lady’s reputation has been marred,”
Lord Bufford stated. “Lord MacCrae, perhaps you might speak to your fiancée privately, after which Mr. Boggs will conduct the marriage ceremony.”
Clara gaped. “What?”
“We hold to the old ways in Scotland. Two people merely need declare themselves before at least two witnesses. I think we all agree that the situation is such that time is of the essence.”
“Except I’m not declaring myself,”
Clara snapped. Her glorious adventure lay in shards at her feet. She scowled at Leonora. “Torie would not agree with you, and you’re being frightfully bossy.”
“My sister is not here, and no matter her opinion, the rest of polite society would agree with me. Look around you, Clara. If you don’t marry the laird, the news will travel to Inverness and then to Glasgow, and from there to London.”
Clara opened her mouth to say that she didn’t care, but Leonora wasn’t finished. “From there, it will come to your mother’s ears and to those of her friends. You may have reason to dislike your mother, as she appears to have thrown you out of the house, but I have known you for years, Clara. You would never allow her to be rejected by society due to her daughter’s reputation as a fallen woman. My guess is that your assault on Prince George has been difficult for her to negotiate.”
“Assault on Prince George?”
Fiona muttered. “Damn it, I knew I liked you, Clara.”
Caelan leaned forward and said quietly, “Bravo.”
“Lady Vetry would never again be invited to one of the queen’s drawing rooms, which I believe she much enjoys,”
Leonora continued. “No doubt the prince behaved reprehensibly, but the scandal arose from the fact you struck His Majesty.”
“Excellent,”
Fiona said.
But Clara’s heart plummeted. Leonora was right. It was as if she’d fallen from the moon and instead of crushing a prince, crushed herself. Crushed her dreams of adventure, her dreams of a castle of her own.
“I believe I shall take up Lord Bufford’s excellent suggestion,”
Caelan said. He glanced over at the minister. “Mr. Boggs, please begin the service. The Honorable Miss Vetry and I shall return.”
He reached out, caught Clara’s hand, and drew her toward the door.