him with the wine had been worrying, though! He had seen that look before in the eyes of experienced courtesans. A certain arrogance and self-assurance that came with the innate confidence of beautiful women.
Grace Stanton was hardly beautiful.
And yet she was not ugly either. Not when the sun hit the light velvet of her eyes or shadowed deep dimples on each cheek. Not when her fingers had touched his arm and he had felt something more than mere indifference.
Frowning he glanced over at the younger cousins. Frail, fragile and fearful.
She protected them, supported them, held their shaking fingers in her own and shepherded them inside, like a mother hen might do to her chicks when the rowdy farmyard dog was nigh.
He looked at his men and saw that their interest was firmly placed on his wife-to-be, and on the ring she wore.
He had seen it immediately when first he had taken her hand.
His brother’s ring.
The gold insignia burnished by time.
Ten months since Malcolm had been killed in an accident at Grantley with the explanations of his demise as patently false as the proffered sympathy. No body had ever been found, the ravine he had fallen into deep and craggy and a river at its bottom channelling out to sea. Lach’s brows drew together as he remembered the Earl of Carrick’s oldest son Stephen giving his grandmother and him a version of the death with lying eyes and a shaking voice. Fallen during a ride after giving his troth to Stephen’s cousin? Looking at the lady herself, Lach could not believe her to have inspired a proposal from a brother who had courted and left many of the beauties of both England and Scotland.
Curtailed by politics, however, any revenge was compromised by the unchangeable declaration of meddlesome kings.
A wife of means would be provided to pacify the Kerr clan for the loss of their kin. One brother for another and half of the spoils of the Stanton dowry to fill the empty coffers of Belridden. A quarter would go to Edward; a sop perhaps for Lionel, the Duke of Clarence, in his own bid for the Scottish throne, and the rest to David, a welcome windfall with the merks of the Berwick Treaty largely unpaid. When Lachlan had protested against the offer, it was made clear to him by David that he had no choice. Marry the girl or risk his lands! Put so succinctly, he had packed his things and headed south to get her: his brother’s intended, the Kerr ring still on her finger carved in gold and rubies. Unhidden.
The bile rose in his throat. Had it just been he, he might well have laid his hands around the slim column of her neck and squeezed the truth from her about what had happened to his brother.
But he couldn’t. Not with the fate of his people resting so firmly in her traitorous palms. Not with the threat of winter looming, close and long, and a hundred clan children who would not see the next spring should he take unwise retribution.
He hated the feeling of helpless anger he was suddenly consumed with. Hated the knowing smile on Grace Stanton’s face and the muted sobs of the group of yellow-haired girls. Hated Grantley and its luxury. Hated the problem of poverty he was faced with, and no way short of marriage and a rich wife to solve it.
When the front doors were opened by myriad servants, the opulence of the manor made him stop. The whole of the bottom floor of Belridden would have fitted into this one single salon, wealth screaming from each priceless piece of furniture. He wondered what Grace Stanton would make of the hall at his keep and knew the answer with a sinking heart. She would probably have one peek and burst into tears and take to her bed for a week. Wasn’t that the way of wealthy women?
Her bed. His bed? Their bed? Lord, he had not even had the time to think through the sleeping arrangements before being summoned south on the orders of his king. A niggling worm of doubt turned inside him.
To bed her?
To unpeel the high-necked gown from her body and discover the woman underneath. To enter her with the legality of the king’s missive between them and produce an heir? To see her stomach full swelled with the seed of his loins, ripe, womanly, available.
Even with his brother’s band on her finger, the idea was not repugnant. Not repelling. Nay, the very idea took on a breathless possibility and shimmered between them as they took their seats at the table.
Sensual. Shocking. Raw.
He noticed how she slid her chair as far away from him as she could manage.
‘S-S-Stephen will be here t-t-tomorrow.’
Her stutter made her strangely vulnerable and as their eyes caught close he saw something in them that garnered his pity. Pure and utter effort marked the velvet, and a light sweat beaded her upper lip.
‘We will be gone long before then, aye.’ No point in pretending otherwise. He was annoyed with his sudden want to make things a little easier for her. Annoyed, too, when the softness that had been in her eyes sharpened and she turned away.
A wife to provide a suitable heir. That was all he needed.
That and her sizeable dowry.
And as soon as he could rip Malcolm’s ring from her finger, he would.
Chapter Two
The party from Belridden hardly ate a thing.
They hardly touched the fowl or pork or salmon that appeared in course after course from the generous kitchens of Grantley. Nay, they sat there like a sullen solid wall of plaid and muscle and helped themselves to wine. But that was all.
Did they think the fare poisoned? Or was it food so unlike the nourishment at Belridden that they just could not steel themselves to try it?
A headache that had begun outside blossomed and the zigzagged beads of light that tore through Grace’s vision widened. She would be married under the name of God to a man she would only be able to half-see.
Blinking hard, she caught his glance.
No, his half-glance. One eye, no nose and the glimmer of a neck, and the rest of his body disappearing into jagged nothingness.
Wiping wet hair from her forehead, she no longer cared about the welts of thickened skin hidden beneath her fringe as she counted slowly backwards from one hundred. Sometimes that helped. Today it didn’t.
The arrival of Father O’Brian lifted the silence, his lilting accent welcomed.
‘I had it from the cottagers that the Kerr party were here, Lady Grace, and wondered when you’d be having a need of my services?’
He stopped as he came fully into the room and stared at the strangers opposite. She’d always thought Patrick O’Brian a large man, but compared to Lachlan Kerr he suddenly looked small. Still, to give him his due, the cleric tried to stand his ground as his eyes slid across the numerous swords. ‘I cannot marry you in battle gear, Laird Kerr. In the face of our Lord such a thing would be sacrilege.’
‘Then you cannae marry me at all,’ Kerr returned, no waver in his voice, just a cold, hard certainty. ‘And when ye don’t comply with the demands of your liege, the way forward from here for you might well be an uneasy one.’
Her uncle began to splutter, a red sheen covering his cheeks. Grace could see it
