The Laird’s Bride

Chapter One

"You're letting the estate run to rack and ruin!" Cameron Fraser thundered.

"Nonsense, dear boy, I'm bringing civilization to it," his uncle responded. "Thirty years I've lived here" — he shuddered — "and finally it's within my power to make something of the place."

"Make something of it? You're letting it fall to pieces. The great storm was more than two months ago and not one tenant's roof is yet repaired, nor any orders given to begin. Winter's staring us in the face, and what do you do, Uncle? Order silk hangings from Paris—silk!"

His uncle said earnestly, "But dear boy, quality pays. Wait 'til you see what a difference hangings will make to this gloomy room. Besides, the tenants can fix their own roofs."

Cameron's nails bit into his palms. "Not without money to pay for materials, they can't. Besides, it's our responsibility — my responsibility as laird."

His uncle smiled. "Laird? In name, perhaps."

"Aye, I ken well it's in name only. Yet I bear all the shame for the neglect," Cameron said bitterly. "If Uncle Ian were still alive . . ."

"I know. Who would have imagined he'd go before me, him being so much younger, but there it is," Charles Sinclair said. "So you'll just have to trust me. I have so many plans. Nearly five years is it not, before you turn thirty and gain control?"

Cameron clenched his jaw. After his father had died, both of Cameron's uncles had been left in charge, and he'd paid scant attention to estate finances.

Uncle Ian was a Fraser, and his love for the estate and its people ran bone deep in him, as it did in Cameron.

But now Uncle Ian was dead and the remaining trustee, his maternal uncle, Charles Sinclair, could do as he pleased.

And what he pleased was, in Cameron's view, entirely frivolous.

Cameron tried again. "If those roofs aren't fixed, come winter, people will freeze. Do you want the death of women and bairns on your conscience?"

Charles Sinclair returned to the perusal of silk swatches. "Your conscience is too delicate, dear boy. Peasants are hardy folk. Now, look at this design I drew for—"

"You'll not spend a shilling more of my inheritance!"

His uncle glanced up, faintly amused. "Dear boy, how do you propose stopping me?"

"Marriage!" The word burst from Cameron's mouth, shocking himself as well as his uncle.

He'd had no intention of marrying, not for years to come, but now he saw it was his only solution.

Under the rules of his father's will the trust would conclude on Cameron's thirtieth birthday or his wedding day—whichever came first.

"Marriage? With whom, pray? You've not attended a society event in years."

It was true. Cameron preferred hunting and fishing to dancing and, up to now, he'd avoided the marriage mart of Inverness like the plague.

As a result he couldn't think of a single likely female.

And since half the women on the estate were related to him, officially or unofficially—Grandad had been quite a lusty lad—he had to look further afield.

Cameron's fists clenched in frustration.

His uncle chuckled. "You haven't thought it through, dear boy, have you?

Marriages take time to arrange. Your grandfather and mine negotiated for months over my dear sister's marriage to your father, and as your trustee, naturally I will handle any such negotiations on your behalf.

And by then you will have a home worthy of a bride. " He patted his designs.

"No negotiations will be necessary," Cameron snapped.

"I'll marry the first eligible woman I find.

" He turned on his heel and stormed from the room, nearly cannoning into his two cousins, Jimmy and Donald, waiting outside.

Distant cousins, orphaned and raised on the estate, they were like brothers to Cameron.

"What did he—" Donald began.

"Meet you at the stables in fifteen minutes," Cameron snapped. "I'm off to Inverness to find a bride."

* * *

THE THREE YOUNG MEN galloped through the village, scattering squawking hens and setting dogs barking. "Marry the first eligible woman you find? You canna be serious!" Donald shouted over the sound of galloping hooves.

"Ye're crazy, mon," Jimmy agreed. "If ye must marry, at least choose the lass wi' care and caution."

"I've no choice," Cameron flung back. "The longer I leave it the more my uncle squanders what little money we have. He's already ordered silk hangings from Paris—costing a fortune. The sooner I'm wed, the sooner I can cancel the order. And stop his ridiculous spending."

Rain set in, a thin, relentless drizzle. After half an hour of it Jimmy edged his horse alongside Cameron. "Ach, Cameron this rain is freezin' me to death. Let's go back. We'll find a solution to your woes tomorrow, when we're no' such sodden miseries."

"You go back if you want to, I'm for Inverness. I swore I'd marry the first eligible woman I find, and so I will." Cameron bent his head against the rain and rode on.

"He swore to his uncle he'd marry," Jimmy told his brother glumly. He pulled out a flask, took a swig of whisky and passed it across.

Donald drank from it. "He'll no go back on his word then. You know Cameron."

"Aye, pigheaded—a Fraser to the bone." Jimmy drank another dram of whisky and the two brothers rode gloomily on in their cousin's wake.

Cameron took no notice. He was used to his cousin's complaints. They'd stick with him, he knew. He was glad of it. Another few hours to Inverness, and then to find a bride. The whole idea was somewhat . . . daunting.

He'd never given marriage much thought. He liked women well enough, but marriage was a serious business, the sort of thing a man considered in his thirties. But he couldn't let his uncle squander any more of his inheritance.

Cameron's mother and her brother, though of pure Scots blood, had been born and raised in France.

Their grandparents were exiles who'd fled with the Prince after the disaster of Culloden.

Raised in Parisian luxury, fed on romantic, impossible dreams of Scottish glory, they'd both found Scottish reality, and the poverty that had resulted from the effects of war, sorely disappointing.

Cameron's mother had died of an ague when he was a wee lad, but her brother, Charles, who'd initially come for the wedding, had stayed on, never marrying, seemingly harmless. Cameron's father had tolerated him, and Cameron was inclined to do the same. Blood was blood, after all.

Though to name him as co-trustee . . .

Who would have expected Uncle Ian Fraser to sicken and die of a chill, such a big, hale man he'd been?

But if, after nearly thirty years of sponging off the Frasers, Charles Sinclair thought he could now turn a Scottish castle into a mini Versailles, he had another think coming.

They reached the bog at the southern edge of the estate. A narrow raised road had been built across it in ages past. At the end of the causeway was the wooden bridge that would take him onto the Inverness road.

In ancient times the bog had proved a useful barrier.

The estate lay on a promontory, defended on two sides by water, and inland by mountains.

The narrow, easily defended causeway was the only way to cross the treacherous, muddy land of the promontory, and the bridge over the burn into which the bog slowly drained gave the only access to it.

History had lost count of the number of times Frasers had burned the bridge to keep out invaders.

But those times were long past. The current bridge had been built when his grandfather was a boy. It was time to drain the bog and build a sturdy stone bridge, Cameron thought. His father had planned to do it but he'd died.

God grant Cameron would soon have the power to begin the necessary work. All he needed was a wife. It wouldn't take him long, surely, in a town the size of Inverness.