Chapter Fourteen #3
“Don't play the innocent with me, Marcus MacGregor. You know full well I would not let my favorite cousin wed without me.” The keen curiosity in her gaze vanished and her eyes narrowed in a fashion that Marcus knew well.
“I am wondering, Cousin,” she said, “why it is I read of your engagement in the newspapers instead of hearing it from you.”
Marcus looked at Elise, whose impassive expression didn't quite hide the sense that she, too, wondered the same thing.
He slid an arm around Elise. She stiffened. The small hope inside him sagged, but he kept his gaze on her. “When last I visited Ashlund, I had no notion I would marry.”
“No?” Sophie said, bringing both their attentions onto her. “Still, you could have sent a personal missive.”
He again felt Elise's thoughts echo the question, and he looked down at her. “Forgive me, Sophie,” he said, and smiled gently at Elise. “Since Elise agreed to be my wife, I have thought of little else.”
“Not so, Cousin,” Sophie replied. “You didn't forget the formal announcements.”
Marcus shot his cousin a sharp look.
Sophie groaned. “Elise, are you sure you will be able to put up with him for the rest of your life?”
Marcus started. He cursed silently at Sophie, then his future wife when her expression remained unreadable save a hint of curiosity.
“Everyone is speculating about the woman who has captured Marcus's heart,” Sophie went on.
“Good Lord,” Elise blurted
Sophie laughed. “Didn't you know, my dear? Marcus is a confirmed bachelor.”
Marcus stilled as Elise looked directly at him for the first time. “Really? I wouldn't have believed it.”
“Why is that?” Sophie asked, the eagerness in her voice so transparent that Marcus wanted to thrash her.
“Because your cousin pursued me with such a vengeance that I would have thought he was desperate for a wife.”
Sophie burst into howls of laughter, and his desire to laugh with her forced him to cough loudly several times.
“Does this,” he began, but halted abruptly to clear his throat before saying, “Does this mean—”
“This means, sir,” Elise cut in, “you should attend to your guests.”
He opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again.
* * *
Elise opened the door to the library and stepped aside. “Forgive me, Lady Whycham. I hadn't expected company, so the ladies' drawing room isn't ready to receive guests.”
“Call me Sophie.” She brushed past Elise. “We shall soon be related. No need to stand on formality. Now,” Sophie seated herself on the divan and waited until Elise had taken a seat beside her, “tell me what my cousin has done to annoy you.”
Elise startled but managed a hasty, “I'm not sure what you mean.”
Sophie's eyes twinkled. “I know my cousin.” She laughed, a small snort escaping in the process.
“Still, he did surprise me with the decision to wed again.” She leaned close.
“Marcus had formed no lasting attachments since Jenna's death.
Though he is no womanizer—he is a remarkably discriminating man—he isn't one to refrain from female company.”
“I didn't have the impression he denied himself the company of women,” Elise said dryly.
Sophie's eyes widened with mirth and she clapped a hand over her mouth. Elise blinked, then gave into the infectious laughter.
Sophie lowered her hand. “All right, Cousin, what has he done?”
Elise hesitated. How did she explain that Marcus hiding the fact he was a rich and powerful man could prove to be his and her undoing?
When Elise had finished relating the tale of how she had come to Scotland and of Marcus's deception, Sophie took a deep breath. “I suppose learning the man you're to marry will one day be a duke could be a shock. But the fact he cares for you—” Sophie halted, and Elise knew her shock showed.
“You doubt his feelings?” Sophie asked.
She didn't, but she hadn't grown used to the idea, and the fact Sophie had so easily seen it made her want to cry. So, she countered with, “How can any woman know what a man thinks?”
“Come now, you must comprehend that Marcus isn't a man to make a commitment lightly.”
“What I comprehend is that Marcus is a man accustomed to having his way.”
“That is true of any man with half a wit.”
Elise couldn't help laughing. “I suppose you're right.”
Sophie's expression softened. “You aren't betraying your husband by loving again.”
Elise nearly choked. “N-no, of course not.”
“There is no one for you to return home to?”
She recalled the blood darkening Steven's coat. “No.”
“Your husband's family, what of them?”
“There is no one.”
Sophie sighed. “A shame.”
“Yes,” Elise replied, and couldn't prevent a picture of the two who waited for her at the bottom of the sea. Her chest tightened and she rose. “Would you care for a drink?” She crossed to the sideboard. “Marcus keeps an excellent Napoleon brandy.”
“Brandy?”
Elise paused, her hand on the decanter lid, and twisted to look at Sophie. “Don't tell me you're going to lecture me. Are all MacGregors so puritanical?”
Sophie's eyes lit with amusement. “I've heard the MacGregors called many things—bloodthirsty, uncouth, barbaric, ignorant—but never have they been compared to anything so noble. Puritanical, indeed.”
Elise couldn't resist. “There is port, if brandy is too strong for you.”
“Brandy it is,” she said without hesitation.
Elise poured two glasses of the brandy and returned to the divan. She handed a snifter to Sophie, then sat down.
“Did I mention that I tried escaping to Australia?”
“I do not recall the story,” Sophie replied with such gravity that Elise couldn't help wondering if someone had indeed repeated the tale in the short time the countess had been there.
“Marcus's men retrieved me,” Elise said.
“Retrieved you?”
“It seems strange now that I left,” she said more to herself than Sophie.
“What happened when my cousin's men came for you?” Sophie asked.
“Cameron sent them. Marcus wasn't aware I had left. He told me if he had come, it would have gone far worse for me.”
“I can well believe that. Why did you leave?”
Elise grimaced. “The reason was sound.”
“Do you mean to extract a little revenge now?”
Elise looked at Sophie. “Things aren't always as simple as they seem.”
Sophie nodded once. “And often not as complicated as we think. What stops you from leaving again?”
“He would only come for me again.”
“But of course,” Sophie agreed. “There is nowhere you could hide from him. I do see your point.”
Elise looked sharply at her. Merriment danced in Sophie's eyes, and Elise realized she referred to Marcus and not Price, as her imagination had jumped to think. She was hallucinating—either that or drunk.
“Just how rich is my husband-to-be?” The countess's eyes widened, and Elise cried, “Good Lord, that didn't come right at all.” She groaned and collapsed against the divan back.
“I imagine you wonder what sort of reception you'll receive once you leave Brahan Seer?”
Elise's heart jumped, but the reaction was stalled by the honesty that shone in the countess' eyes.
“I swear, Sophie, as foolish as it sounds, I had no idea he was a duke.
Here at Brahan Seer… I knew him as Cameron's son and leader of the MacGregor clan.
I knew they weren't destitute, but a duke!” She laid a hand on Sophie's hand. “I am no duchess.”
“And I was no countess,” Sophie replied.
“What?”
“I was only Lady Ashlund. Of course, my family has money.” Sophie's eyes danced. “All Ashlunds have money. But, then, so does Justin.”
“Ashlund,” Elise repeated. “They are MacGregors?”
“Oh, no. Ryan MacGregor married Helena Ashlund about one hundred and fifty years ago.
Helena was an only child, therefore, the dukedom fell to Ryan when Helena's father Coll Ashlund died.” Sophie shook her head and a shadow passed over her face.
“That was a terrible time. The MacGregor name had been outlawed.”
“The clearances?” Elise asked.
“Oh, no. Those atrocities are much more recent,” she said.
“There was a great deal of political strife”—Sophie laughed—”when hasn't there been political strife in Scotland?
In any case, the crown seized MacGregor land, and the MacGregors fought back.
It is said in our family that, if not for Helena marrying Ryan, his brand of the MacGregors, Marcus's line, wouldn't be here today.”
“Ashlund money,” Elise murmured.
“You have it,” Sophie said.
Indeed, Elise thought. Now what am I to do with it?