The Laird Takes a Bride Read online

  Dedication

  For Lucia Macro

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Acknowledgments

  An Excerpt from The Bride Takes a Groom Prologue

  Chapter 1

  About the Author

  By Lisa Berne

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  The stronghold of clan Douglass

  Near Wick Bay, Scotland

  1811

  It was Fiona Douglass’s seventy-first wedding.

  To be precise, it was her seventy-first time attending a wedding.

  When you belonged to a large and thriving clan, there were naturally a lot of weddings to go to and the total number was bound to be high, especially if you weren’t a giddy girl any longer, but—to put it politely—a lady of considerable maturity.

  So: seventy-one weddings for Fiona.

  The details had long begun to blur, of course, but there were certain ceremonies that stood out in her mind.

  Today would be memorable because her youngest sister, Rossalyn, was getting married.

  Two years ago, in this very church, a spectacular brawl had erupted at the altar when the bridegroom’s twin brother (already roaring drunk) had lunged forward, seized the hapless bride, and tried to carry her off. A wild melee ensued as several other men (also already drunk) had, with joyful shouts, joined in. Forty-five minutes later, the combatants subdued by brute force and the bride’s veil hastily repaired, the ceremony had proceeded without further incident, the chastened, bloodied twin the very first to warmly shake his brother’s hand.

  It was also in this church that three years ago Fiona had attended the wedding of her younger sister Dallis.

  Seven years ago, old Mrs. Gibbs, aged ninety-eight and heartily disliked by nearly everyone in the entire clan, had loudly expired just before the vows were spoken. The general agreement was that she’d done it deliberately in a last triumphant bid for attention, and that she was likely chuckling up in heaven (or down below in the other place) because afterwards, as her corpse was being removed, her pet ferret had crawled out from a pocket in her skirt and dashed up the towering headdress of a haughty dowager from Glasgow, from which vantage point it had leaped gracefully onto the shoulder of Fiona’s own mother, who had screamed and then fainted, sending the bride into hysterics and several small boys into paroxysms of noisy laughter, thereby provoking Fiona’s father, the mighty chieftain of clan Douglass, into a fury so awful that the wedding was quietly called off and no one dared to partake of the gargantuan feast laid out in the Great Hall, resulting, of course, in a great deal of secret rejoicing in the servants’ hall for at least three days after that. The ferret was never seen again.

  Eight years ago, it had rained so hard during the wedding of Fiona’s cousin Christie that the church had begun to leak in (Fiona had counted) fourteen places and quite a few hats had been ruined.

  And nine years ago—why, nine years ago Fiona had watched as her younger sister Nairna had married the love of her life.

  The love of Fiona’s life.

  Fiona had never told Nairna that. She knew that seventeen-year-old Nairna was madly in love with Logan Munro, and as for Logan, who could fault him for preferring sweet Nairna Douglass, as soft and playful as a kitten, petite and rounded in all the right places and with masses of dark curls that framed her piquant little face most fetchingly? Who wouldn’t prefer Nairna to Fiona, at eighteen painfully thin and gawky and oversensitive, who blurted things out and tripped over her own feet? Especially since, at that moment in time, Nairna’s dowry had been substantially greater than Fiona’s.

  It all made total sense.

  Even back then, in the darkest period of her devastation, Fiona hadn’t been able to summon resentment or hostility toward Nairna, whom she had loved—still loved—with the fierce, protective devotion of an oldest sister for her younger siblings.

  To be sure, there was a secret part of her, a sad and cowardly part, that would have driven her far from home on this lovely summer’s day, where she wouldn’t be forced to look upon Logan Munro’s handsome face, but to this desire she hadn’t succumbed; wild horses couldn’t have kept her from attending Rossalyn’s wedding. She had, though, slid inconspicuously into the very last pew. She did this also as a kindness to her fellow guests. Even with her hair twisted into smooth braids, all coiled together and set low on her nape, she was so tall that she could easily block the view of others behind her. Nonetheless, and thanks to her accursed height, she could plainly see Logan where he sat, several pews away, next to Nairna.

  Logan’s hair was still black as a raven’s wing, still thick. His shoulders were still broad and heavily muscled beneath the fine mulberry-colored fabric of his fashionable coat.

  And, Fiona realized, a heart could still physically hurt, could ache painfully within one’s breast, even after nine long years.

  She made herself look away from Logan.

  Instead she gazed down at her hands, loosely clasped in her lap. Hands that weren’t white as they ought to be, fingers that were a little coarsened by riding without gloves, by long hours working in her garden.

  Around her slim—the less charitable might even have said bony—wrist was looped the silken cord of her reticule.

  Surreptitiously Fiona loosened the opening of the reticule and pulled out a small piece of paper, quietly unfolding it. On it she had written her latest list.

  Ask Dallis—when new baby due?

  Avoid Logan

  5 sheep with bloody scours, 2 with rupturing blisters—why?

  Help Aunt Bethia find her spectacles (bedchamber? solarium?)

  Avoid Logan

  Avoid Cousin Isobel, too

  Mother’s birthday next Saturday

  Tell Burns—STOP cutting roses too early

  Avoid Logan

  Avoid Logan

  Fiona withdrew a small pencil from her reticule and added another item.

  Stop thinking about Logan

  She also wrote:

  Make sure maid packed Rossalyn’s warmest wraps & tartans

  Northern cow pasture—fence fixed?

  Osla Tod—toothache—better or worse?

  Stop thinking about Logan

  Then she carefully folded the little piece of paper in two, slid it and her pencil back into her reticule, and looked toward the front of the church, ensuring that her gaze was firmly fixed on Rossalyn and her bridegroom, Jamie MacComhainn.

  How exquisite was Rossalyn’s gown, all shimmery silk and delicate lace, and how beautiful she looked in it. Jamie, in his turn, was a bonny young man. Fiona eyed him—the back of him—speculatively. Perhaps even a little bit suspiciously. He was amiable and intelligent, and from a good family. Father had approved his suit readily enough and had even, in a sentimental spasm, doubled Rossalyn’s dowry, and so here she was, not quite seventeen, a bride.

  Fiona watched as Rossalyn and Jamie turned to each other and smiled. Oh, she hoped that all would be well. She wished that she knew Jamie better, that she trusted him more.

  But thanks to handsome, charming, winsome Logan Munro, Fiona tended to view men with a certain skepticism.

  A certain reserve.

  She
thought back to that dark time when she was eighteen, when Logan had come to Wick Bay to visit. Nothing formal had been declared between them, but enough had transpired, previously, in Edinburgh, to make Fiona feel confident that she’d soon be betrothed.

  Instead, with stunning speed Logan had transferred his affections to Nairna, gone to Father to request her hand in marriage, and been—to everyone’s amazement—accepted on the spot, quite possibly because Nairna, among all her sisters, held the softest spot in the hard and erratic heart of Bruce Douglass.

  Even though Fiona had confided in her mother about her hopes, Mother had, without missing a beat, continued to smile and flutter around Logan, petting and praising her future son-in-law. Fiona had long considered her mother—warm and affectionate, plump and still pretty in middle age—as soft and yielding and altogether as comfortable as a child’s stuffed toy, but still, her behavior did seem a trifle callous.

  Privately, Fiona had said to her, hating the little tremble in her voice:

  “Mother, why are you so friendly toward Logan? After what he did to me?”

  “Oh, my darling child, I know how hard it is for you, truly I do,” said her mother, her large dark eyes filling with tears. “I remember how dreadful I felt when I discovered that your father had married me for my fortune—I really had thought it was a love match. It all happened during that terrible famine of the eighties, and people were starving. I was an heiress, you know. And only seventeen, like dear Nairna! But,” she had added, smiling through her tears, “I was considered quite beautiful in my day! Even your father said so! And he used my dowry so cleverly—within a few years he brought the clan back into prosperity!”

  Earnestly Mother had leaned forward to pat Fiona’s hand. “Thanks to your father we all live so comfortably, Fiona dear! Our gowns and jewels! Everything of the finest quality! So you see, everything always works out for the best. I’m sure that Nairna and Logan will be very happy together—such a handsome couple, and he simply dotes upon her!—and that another suitor will come along for you—someone you’ll like even better.”

  Fiona had brushed that aside. “You don’t regret marrying Father?”

  “Regret?” Mother’s dark eyes had shown nothing but bewilderment. “What a foolish notion, Fiona, to be sure! Besides, by the time I met your father I had, luckily, very nearly recovered from my stupid infatuation for my second cousin Ludovic—or was he my third cousin? So confusing!—it would never have done, you know, for the very next year he went to America and was killed. And your father so tall and so strong, and so handsome! Like a Viking warrior, everyone said!” Mother had fidgeted with the soft fringe of her shawl, then smiled again and with every appearance of sincerity went on: “I’ve been very happy these twenty years. Your father has taken such good care of us, and I’m just sorry that I haven’t been able to do my duty by him.”

  She meant, Fiona knew, that she had not been able to produce a living son, despite miscarriages (the total number of which she didn’t divulge), two stillbirths, and four healthy baby girls. Of this sad fact everyone in the Douglass keep was fully aware, for periodically Father would erupt into one of his angry outbursts, quite often in the Great Hall with dozens of people present.

  You’ve failed me, madam! he would roar, pounding his silver goblet on the table, denting it in a way that would have been comical if it wasn’t all so unpleasant. Other men have ten sons—a dozen sons—and I have none!

  Or: I had my pick of maidens, and ’twas my misfortune to choose you, madam. They told me you were fertile! Fertile for sons, that is, he might add, with a contemptuous glance toward his daughters.

  Or: I’ve managed to save this clan from extinction, and what have you done all these years? Nothing!

  Mother would sit quietly, passively, but Fiona—watchful, observant, even as a child—would see the quiver of her tender mouth, the quick rise and fall of her chest as she gave a deep silent sigh, her shoulders held tensely high.

  And then Father might fling his tankard out into the Hall, striking an unwary soul, or abruptly stand up and shove back his chair, toppling it, or stalk off, aiming kicks at the dogs who, fortunately, had learned to be preternaturally nimble when their master’s voice was raised. Fiona would look around and see the tears in Mother’s eyes, and in her sisters’ eyes, too. Not hers, though: her eyes were dry and her heart would feel all stony and angry.

  “Mother,” she would hiss, “he’s awful.”

  And then Mother would pull herself together, and drop her shoulders, and smile. “Oh no, Fiona dear, it’s just that he’s had so much on his mind. Didn’t you hear him say there’s a wolf after his sheep, and the Talbots are feuding again and setting fires? It’s not easy being chieftain, you know. Here—won’t you have another slice of mutton? I vow, you’ve somehow gotten thinner since breakfast!”

  And grumblingly Fiona would accept the mutton, being, in fact, still hungry.

  The human storm that was Father would just as easily shift into good humor, and then there was no one in the world more delightful to be around. But you could never trust that he’d stay cheerful. His expression could darken in an instant, his fists would clench, and things might fly across the room. You always felt a little wary around Bruce Douglass.

  Eventually, he seemed to accept his fate as the father of only daughters. There was, at least, a crumb of comfort for him in this unfortunate debacle: the wealth he’d amassed made the Douglass girls highly desirable matrimonial quarry.

  Father had therefore had quite a bit of fun by decreasing his daughters’ dowries on a whim, or suddenly increasing them to astronomical sums, thus keeping his lawyers in a continual anxious flurry of documents destroyed and rewritten. Fiona’s case was a little different. When, in his opinion, she’d been particularly annoying by—for example—forcefully disputing something he’d said, or disappearing all day on her horse, Father would retaliate by eliminating her dowry entirely. But not forever. The sun would shine, Father would change his mind, and eventually restore it, quite possibly to a radically different amount.

  Over the years, suitors for the Douglass girls came and went, thronged and melted away, and Father watched, welcomed, interrogated, feinted, scorned, rejected, laughed, and allowed himself to be shamelessly flattered by them all. One by one, his daughters wed.

  All except Fiona, who had never, somehow, found someone she liked enough to accept, and Father, rather surprisingly, had only nine or ten times threatened to lock her in her bedchamber until she said yes.

  And so the time had passed, on the whole not unpleasantly. Fiona had kept herself busy. There was always so much to do.

  But weddings tend to resurrect old issues, old emotions; new ideas, new possibilities.

  As if on cue, Fiona was distracted from gazing steadfastly (if a little absently) at Rossalyn and Jamie when, from his seat four pews away, Niall Birk turned and smiled at her, showing all his teeth and this, in the context of a rather long face with large damp eyes, reminding Fiona forcibly of a horse.

  Niall Birk hadn’t given her the time of day for quite a while, which probably meant that Father had, in a last-ditch effort to get his remaining daughter off his hands, taken advantage of the massive clan gathering at the keep to make it known that Fiona was not only dowered again, but—judging by the breadth of Niall Birk’s grin—very generously as well.

  Fiona’s suspicion was confirmed when, as soon as the ceremony was over, not only was she swiftly approached by Niall, but Ross Stratton and Walraig Tevis came crowding up around her, eagerly soliciting her hand for the dancing that was to follow the enormous meal awaiting them in the Great Hall.

  Fiona looked at them thoughtfully. She was twenty-seven. Since Logan, she’d never met a man who had caught her interest, or made her laugh, or inspired her blood to run a little hotter.

  Perhaps that was all behind her now.

  Perhaps she was incapable of falling in love again.

  Still, marriage had its benefits, didn’t it? She wo
uld be mistress of her own household. Maybe there would be children. And she’d no longer be subject to the unpredictable, tempestuous swings of Father’s moods—that in itself was appealing.

  Walraig Tevis, a great lumbering fellow nearly as wide as he was tall, pushed spindly Ross Stratton to one side. “You’re daft, Stratton, to think you’ve got a chance with Fiona,” he said, his heavy face alight with malicious humor. “She’s a full head over you, you wee mousie, you’d be the laughingstock of the clan!” He jabbed a beefy elbow into Ross’s chest with such force that the smaller man reeled backwards and nearly fell over, but with surprising dexterity he whipped from his boot a nasty-looking dagger and only the quick intervention of the scandalized minister prevented what promised to be a vicious altercation, and possibly a murder or two, from occurring a mere twenty paces from the church.

  Yes, as a married woman she’d be free of Father, Fiona thought, but she’d also be putting herself in the power of a husband who would have the indisputable right to do anything he liked with her.

  To her.

  And yet … and yet if any of them were to give the slightest sign that they really liked her, she might be tempted to seize the opportunity provided her by Father’s momentary generosity. Niall, for example, wasn’t bad-looking (especially since she liked horses). He wasn’t completely stupid. And he had a decent estate not far from where Rossalyn would be living with her husband Jamie MacComhainn; she could visit them often.

  Experimentally, Fiona stepped a little closer to Niall. She caught a whiff of stale sweat, alcohol, onions, and even—her nose wrinkled—a faint, flat, rank scent of blood. She flashed a quick glance over him and saw a reddish clump of matted hair near one temple.

  He grinned. “Bad, eh? You should see Dougal Gow. Poor lad couldn’t rise from his bed to come to the wedding. He’ll miss the feast and the dancing. So, you’ll give me the first two reels, lass?”