Do you mean to ignore us?”
He glanced over his shoulder at his sister, Vivienne, as she waddled toward the vacant chair beside him. She was round with her fourth child, and sat heavily, sprawling her legs before her, her hand protectively on her belly. Vivienne was the second oldest sibling, eighteen months younger than Cailean. Then came Aulay, the sea captain who was away just now, and then his brother Rabbie. He took a seat beside Vivienne. The youngest of them all, Catriona, joined them as well, fidgeting with a string in her hands and propping herself on the arm of her father’s chair.
“So you’ve met her, aye?” Vivienne asked, catching his hand. “The lady of Auchenard?”
Cailean shrugged. It was no surprise to him that word about her had spread quickly through the glen. It had been a week since he’d last seen her in that curious morning meeting outside the walls of Auchenard.
Vivienne’s eyes fired with delight at his silence. “Did you find her bonny, then?”
“I—”
“She means to bag a husband!” Catriona eagerly interjected.
Cailean laughed at that.
“Aye, it’s true!” Vivienne insisted.
“Why in heaven would a woman of her means and connections seek a husband in the Highlands of Scotland? Where do you hear these barmy tales?”
“MacNally,” Rabbie said matter-of-factly. “She released him from service and he’s had quite a lot to say. He’s told anyone who will give him half an ear that the lady must marry in a year’s time or forfeit her fortune.”
“Aye, it’s true,” Catriona insisted as she shouldered in beside Cailean. “It was so said in her husband’s last testament. She must marry within three years of his death or lose her entire fortune. It’s quite large, aye? I’ve heard as much as fifty thousand a year.”
“Who has said this?” their father asked.
“Mr. MacNally and Auntie Griselda. She’s heard it all the way from London.”
One of Arran Mackenzie’s salt-and-pepper brows rose. “Zelda has said?”
“She said it was so large a fortune that any man in Scotland who had as much as half a head on his shoulders would be climbing the walls to have a look at her, then. Her husband has been gone more than two years now, and she’s less than a year left to settle on a match and marry. That’s why she’s come to Scotland. To settle on a match!” she announced, sounding triumphant, as if she’d solved a mystery.
“Diah, are there no’ men enough in England?” Rabbie scoffed.
“No’ the sort a lass would want to marry,” Vivienne said, and the Mackenzies laughed.
“There are men enough in England,” Cailean said. “It’s nonsense.”
“Unless...” his mother said thoughtfully.
“Unless?” Vivienne asked.
“It is possible that she seeks a Scot for a husband. She might think to install him at Auchenard for an annual stipend, then return to London and live as she pleases.”
Lady Mackenzie’s children and her husband stared at her.
“Mamma, how clever you are!” Catriona gasped. “That’s precisely what she means to do! And she’s bonny,” she added in a singsong voice. “You saw her, Rabbie. You could put her fortune to good use, aye?”
“And what would Seona have to say about that?” he responded, referring to the young woman to whom he’d been attracted of late. “The lady is a Sassenach, Cat. There is no fortune great enough to tempt me to tie my lot with the English.”
“Mind your tongue!” Vivienne scolded her younger brother. “Your mother is English!”
“My mother is no Sassenach. She merely happens to have come from England,” Rabbie said, inclining his head toward his mother.
Margot Mackenzie shook her head at her youngest son. “You’ve been too much in the company of Jacobites, Rabbie,” she warned him, to which Rabbie shrugged. “I should like all of my sons to marry and give me the grandchildren I deserve, but I’d rather none of them become entangled with a woman whose motives are not true.”
She didn’t look at Cailean, but he knew she was thinking of Poppy Beauly...a woman whose motives had not been true.
Poppy was the other Englishwoman Cailean had known who was as adept at flirtation as Lady Chatwick. She had destroyed any notion that he might have had about complicating his life with a wife and children.
Aye, his world had narrowed considerably since that wound was opened.
He’d only just reached his majority when he met her. He’d spent that unusually cool summer in England, at Norwood Park, his mother’s familial estate, under the less-than-watchful eye of his uncle Knox. The winsome, beautiful Poppy Beauly was the daughter of his mother’s very dear friend, and Cailean had been truly and utterly smitten.
Over the course of that summer, he’d wooed Poppy and professed his esteem to her more than once. For that, he’d received her warm encouragement. He’d been so green that he’d even dreamed of the house he would build for her, of the children they would bring into this world.
Poppy had given him every reason to believe she shared his feelings. “However, I am sure you understand that I must come out before I will be allowed to receive any offers,” she’d warned him. “I won’t come out until my eighteenth birthday.” Then she’d proceeded to assure him with a passionate kiss that had left Cailean feeling as if he might explode with need.
Cailean had waited. He’d spent another year aboard his father’s ship, and the following summer he’d returned to Norwood Park. Poppy had been happy to see him. She had made her debut, and while he knew she had other suitors, she still encouraged his pursuit of her, and quite unabashedly, too. He was her prince, she said. He was so kind, she said. She held him in such great esteem, she said.
At the end of that extraordinary summer, with Uncle Knox’s blessing, Cailean had offered for her hand.
Much to his surprise and humiliation, Poppy Beauly had been appalled by his offer. She’d snatched her hand back as if she feared contagion. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Mackenzie,” she’d said, reverting to addressing him formally. “I must beg your forgiveness if I’ve given you even the slightest reason to believe that I could possibly accept an offer.”
“You’ve given me every reason to believe that you would!” he’d exclaimed, horrified by his stupidity.
“No, no,” she’d said, wringing her hands. “I have enjoyed your company, but surely you knew I could never marry a Scot, sir.”
As if he were diseased. As if he were less than human.
The rejection, the realization that Poppy Beauly did not love him as he loved her had devastated the young man Cailean had been. He had loved her beyond reason, obviously, and had limped back to Scotland with his broken heart.
He’d taken a solitary path
