Emma sighed and rested her chin on her hand, bracing herself for the usual lecture about the responsibilities of being the eldest and the importance of devotion to duty, followed by the familiar assurance that they all appreciated the sacrifice she was making on their behalf.
“It occurred to me while you were gone that you may have wondered why I was so eager for you to accept the earl’s proposal in the first place.”
“Not really. I always knew why.” Emma struggled to keep the note of bitterness from her voice. “So Papa wouldn’t end up in the workhouse and the other girls might have a chance to find decent husbands of their own.”
“That’s what I might have led you to believe but in truth, I never wanted you to marry the earl for our benefit, but for your own.”
Emma straightened on the stool, frowning in confusion. “Just how could marrying a man old enough to be my great-grandfather work to my benefit?”
“I convinced myself that his wealth and power would somehow shield you from the slings and arrows of life.” Her mother shrugged. “Besides, I knew the man was ancient. How long could he possibly live?”
A startled laugh escaped Emma. She would have never expected her mother to echo the exact words that had gone through her own racing mind as she had stood before the altar with the earl the first time.
“Of course you would have to endure the unpleasant duty of presenting the man with an heir,” her mother admitted with a grimace, “but once the earl was gone, you wouldn’t have to answer to anyone. You could be mistress of your own fate.”
“Did it never occur to you that I might want to wed for other reasons?” Emma closed her eyes briefly, unable to look at the bed where her mother was sitting without remembering the shattering pleasure she and Jamie had shared there only a few hours before. “For love perhaps?”
Her mother looked her in the eye, her gaze as uncompromising as Emma had ever seen it. “I didn’t want you to make the same mistake I did. I married for love, you see, but ended up with neither money nor love, only regrets.” She rose from the bed and wandered restlessly to the window, where she stood with her back to Emma, gazing out over the mighty shadow of the mountain. “Your father and I have spent the past week not knowing if we would be attending your wedding or your burial. It gave us ample time for discussion. We’re both in agreement that we won’t force you to marry the earl against your wishes. Your father is downstairs at this very moment, fully prepared to go to the earl and tell him that we’re calling off the engagement.”
“But what about the settlement?” Emma whispered, stunned nearly speechless by her mother’s words. “We both know Papa has already spent a large chunk of it to settle his gambling debts.”
Her mother turned to face her, her hands clasped in front of her. “We’re prepared to return the unused portion to the earl immediately and find a way to pay back every penny of the rest. Even if it means selling the property that has been in my family for two hundred years. If necessary, your sisters have even volunteered to go into some sort of service with one of the more wealthy families in the parish—as paid companions, perhaps, or even governesses.”
Emma knew it wouldn’t do to show up at her own wedding with a reddened nose, but she couldn’t stop the tears from welling up in her eyes. “They would do that? For me?”
Her mother nodded, then came rushing back to kneel by her side. She smoothed Emma’s hair with a trembling hand, her eyes beseeching. “It’s not too late, sweetheart. You don’t have to go through with this.”
Emma threw her arms around her mother and buried her face in the sweet-smelling crook of her neck. “Yes, Mama,” she whispered, smiling through her tears. “I do.”
* * *
GOLDEN RAYS OF SUNLIGHT streamed through the tall, arched windows of the abbey, bringing with them the hope of better days to come. The uncomfortable wooden pews were packed near to bursting with the earl’s neighbors and villagers from the nearest hamlet, all hastily gathered together to celebrate the safe return of their laird’s bride and his impending nuptials.
Many of them were curiosity seekers, eager to see how his young bride had fared after surviving such a dreadful ordeal. There had been much speculation—some of it quite lurid—about the various indignities she might have suffered at the hands of such a ruthless band of rogues. Some even whispered that the earl must be even more noble and selfless than they’d suspected if he was still willing to wed the lass after she’d spent even a night in the company of a strapping young brigand like Jamie Sinclair.
As his bride took her place before the altar, the whispers swelled to a steady murmur. Those in the back of the abbey craned their necks to get a better look at her.
She bore little resemblance to the terrified creature who had been carried away from that altar on the back of Jamie Sinclair’s horse. She held her shoulders straight and her head high, betraying no hint of embarrassment or shame at what she might have endured at the hands of Sinclair and his men. Her skin was no longer as pale as alabaster but flushed with a healthy glow. A few shimmering copper tendrils had been allowed to escape from her elegant chignon to frame her freckled cheeks and gently brush her graceful nape. There was a ripe fullness to her lips and an alluring gleam in her eye that made more than one wife in the abbey pinch her husband to stop him from gawking.
Keenly aware of all the eyes upon her, including those of her family in the front pew, Emma held her bouquet of dried heather in front of her, her hands no longer trembling but as steady as they’d once been on the grip of Jamie’s pistol.
Since her own wedding gown had been destroyed during her abduction, the earl had generously offered to let her borrow one of the moldering and woefully outmoded gowns worn by his second or third wives during their weddings to him, but she had opted instead to don one of her own gowns—a simple walking dress of snowy white India muslin with a high waist and lace cuffs.
Her bridegroom appeared at the back of the church, garbed once more in the ceremonial kilt and plaid of the Hepburn laird. Emma’s eyes narrowed. If the earl’s plot had succeeded, she wouldn’t be wearing a wedding gown on this fine spring morn, but a shroud.
There was such a bounce in his step as he marched up the aisle she was surprised his bony knees didn’t clatter together. He even deigned to wink at his nephew as he passed the family pew. Ian Hepburn stretched one arm out along the back of the pew and returned his uncle’s greeting with an enigmatic smile.
As her bridegroom joined her, the minister opened the Book of Common Order and pushed his steel-rimmed spectacles up on his nose with a trembling finger, plainly remembering the last time the three of them had stood before that altar.
Just as he opened his mouth to begin the ceremony, the double wooden doors at the back of the abbey came flying open with a mighty crash. Emma’s heart soared as a man appeared in the doorway, silhouetted against the sunlight like a champion from another age.
Chapter Thirty-three
OH, HELL,” THE MINISTER muttered, the color draining from his face. “Not again.”
This time he didn’t even wait for Jamie to draw his pistol. He simply tossed the Book of Common Order straight up in the air and went diving behind the altar.
The Hepburn’s guests huddled in their pews, wide-eyed with both apprehension and anticipation. Emma’s father rose half out of his seat as Jamie came striding up the aisle, but her mother placed a steadying hand on his arm, shaking her head. Emma’s sisters couldn’t stop themselves from preening a bit as he passed.
“What are you doing here, you insolent whelp?” the Hepburn demanded, shaking a bony fist in the air. He began to inch away from Emma, his hopeful expression belying his outrage. “Have you come to finish what you started?”
“Indeed I have, auld mon,” Jamie replied.
“I suppose there’s nothing I can do to stop you.” The earl huffed out a long-suffering sigh. “You won’t be satisfied until you’ve murdered my bride in cold blood right before my eyes.”
Those eyes brightened even more as a dozen redcoats came streaming into the abbey behind Jamie.
“And what’s this? More uninvited guests?” He shot Jamie a triumphant smile. “These fine officers of the Crown must have followed you. I should have known they wouldn’t let a rogue like you elude their clutches forever.” As the British soldiers came marching down the aisle, he addressed the officer in their lead. “I suppose you’ve come to nab the culprit who shot my bride, Colonel Rogen? Excellent work, men. Take him into custody.”
“We already have,” the officer replied, his lean face grim.
The earl gasped as their ranks parted to reveal a snarling Silas Dockett. One sleeve of the gamekeeper’s coat was torn clear off his shoulder and his brawny arms were secured in a pair of irons in front of him. A nasty bruise shadowed his jaw and his lower lip was swollen to nearly twice its normal size.
“I don’t understand,” the earl croaked. “What is the meaning of this?”
Colonel Rogen said, “We have several witnesses who claim that this is the man who shot your bride.”
“That would be me,” Bon said as he came swaggering up the aisle. He gave Ernestine a ribald wink as he passed the Marlowe pew, eliciting a titter from Ernestine and scandalized gasps from her sisters.
“And me,” Graeme added, a particularly pleased smirk on his lips as he limped after Bon.
“And us,” Angus and Malcolm called out in unison, shoving their way through the ranks of the soldiers.
“Witnesses?” the earl spat, eyeing them as if they were beetles that had just crawled out of a pile of sheep dung. “I am a peer of the realm and the laird of these lands. Surely you don’t expect me to believe you would take the word of this… this… Highland riffraff over mine? Why, they’re naught but a bunch of filthy, no-good Sinclairs!”
“Colonel Rogen might not take their word, Uncle, but I can promise you that he was more than eager to take mine.” A collective gasp went up from the crowd as Ian Hepburn rose from his pew and sauntered forward, offering Emma a courtly bow and his uncle a lazy smile. “I, too, was in the glen on the day Miss Marlowe was shot and I have already presented Colonel Rogen here with a letter confirming with absolute certainty that Mr. Dockett here was the culprit who shot her.”
“You swivin’ bastard!” Dockett shouted, straining against his chains. “I’ll ’ave your balls for breakfast, I will!”
Graeme limped right up to the man who had beaten him with such brutal enthusiasm. Thrusting his face into Dockett’s, he said, “I’d mind that cheeky tongue o’ yers, mate, or someone just might cut it out for ye. Before ye’re hanged.”
Ignoring Dockett’s feral growl, Ian continued. “My letter also confirms that Mr. Dockett has been in my uncle’s employ for a number of years and that he was acting solely on my uncle’s orders on the day Miss Marlowe nearly lost her life.”
“Seize him,” the colonel ordered, nodding toward the earl.
The crowd watched, paralyzed with shock as two of the young soldiers hastened to obey their colonel’s command. Ignoring the Hepburn’s incoherent sputtering, they tugged his bony wrists in front of him and clapped them in irons.
His sputtering rose to an enraged howl. Emma watched without an ounce of pity in her heart as they began to haul him away from the altar. But they had failed to take into account just how skeletal his limbs were. As they dragged him past Jamie, he slipped one wrist out of its iron cuff and snatched the pistol from the waistband of Jamie’s breeches.
As he whirled around and pointed the weapon at the snowy white bodice of Emma’s gown, a muffled hush descended over the abbey. The redcoats fell back, plainly afraid of spooking him into firing.
“You cunning little bitch,” he spat, the pistol wavering wildly in his palsied grip. “You knew about this ambush all along, didn’t you?”
Despite having a pistol pointed at her heart for the second time in that abbey, Emma felt strangely calm. “Of course I did. I’m the one who planned it. With a little help from your nephew. And your grandson.”
The Hepburn’s face went from beet red to eggplant purple. “Just because his whore of a mother lured my son into her bed, that doesn’t make that miserable bastard my grandson! I should have known you were no better than her. You just couldn’t wait to spread your legs for the first randy young buck that came along, could you?”
Emma’s father surged to his feet. “I say now, sir, that’s quite enough of that talk!”
“Indeed it is,” Jamie said softly, reaching around to give the earl’s wrist a vicious twist.
Several screams echoed from the rafters as the pistol discharged, splintering one of the windows. As a shower of glass came raining down, Emma ducked, covering her head with her hands.
When she straightened, Jamie was standing in the middle of the aisle with the pistol in his hand and murder in his eyes. The earl slowly backed away from him, clutching his injured wrist.
“What are you doing?” Emma cried.
Jamie lifted the weapon, closing one eye to sight the earl’s bony chest down its long, black barrel. “What someone should have done a long time ago.”
“I thought you said your pistol only held one shot?”
“I lied,” Jamie said, drawing back the hammer of the pistol with his thumb.
Before his finger could squeeze the trigger, she shouted, “Wait!” and darted around him, placing herself between the two men.
Jamie immediately lowered the pistol. “Stand aside, Emma.”
Ignoring him, she smiled sweetly at the earl. “There’s one thing I neglected to tell you, my lord.”
“Emmaline,” Jamie growled.
“As it turns out,” she said brightly, continuing to advance on the earl, “you never had any need of a bride after all.”
“What in the bloody hell are you talking about?” the Hepburn ground out.
She drew closer to him, hypnotized by the sight of the ripe purple vein pulsing in his temple. “It seems that you had an heir all along. Prior to Jamie’s birth, your son Gordon married Lianna Sinclair before a rightful minister of the kirk. I have the page from the marriage register to prove it. She was never his whore, you black-hearted old goat.” He stood frozen in place as Emma leaned close to his ear, her hissed whisper audible to every ear in that abbey. “She. Was. His. Wife.”
“His wife?” the Hepburn choked out, his breath beginning to rattle in his throat.
“Out of my way, sweeting,” Jamie commanded.
Emma held up one finger in a plea for more time. The Hepburn clawed at his throat, his rheumy eyes bugging out as he struggled for air. A thin line of spittle trickled from the corner of his mouth. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped like a stone to the floor of the abbey.
While Emma dusted off her hands, a satisfied smile curving her lips, the rest of them crept closer, gathering around to gaze down at the earl’s motionless form.
But only Bon dared to nudge him with the toe of his boot. “What do ye know aboot that, Jamie? I do believe the lass just spared ye the trouble o’ shooting him. I always said he wasn’t worth the powder it would take to blow him up.”
“Or the rope it would take to hang him,” the colonel added dryly, signaling his men to drag both Dockett and the earl’s body from the abbey.
“Hold on just as minute,” Ian said as they lifted the earl. He yanked the Hepburn plaid unceremoniously from his uncle’s shoulders. “I don’t believe he’ll have need of this where he’s going. I’ve heard it’s quite warm there.”
When the redcoats and his uncle’s body were gone, Ian draped the plaid over Jamie’s shoulders as if it was the mantle of a conquering king. “Congratulations, Sin! It only took the Sinclairs five centuries to win back their castle. I hope you realize that since you’re now legally my cousin and the new earl of Hepburn, I have every intention of sponging mercilessly off your extensive fortune. As a matter of fact, there’s this little property just outside Edinburgh that’s recently come to my a
ttention…” He trailed off, peering into Jamie’s face. “What’s wrong? Are you already sulking because I forgot to address you as ‘my lord’?”
Jamie was fingering the rich red and black wool of the Hepburn plaid as if he’d never seen it before. He slowly lifted his head, his gaze sweeping the pews. Every eye in that abbey was fixed on him as the wedding guests struggled to absorb the astonishing news that their new laird was not only a Hepburn but a Sinclair.
He wheeled on Emma, panic dawning in his eyes. “Bluidy hell, lass, what have you done? I told you this wasn’t what I wanted!”
Emma stood her ground, facing him just as boldly as she had faced the Hepburn. “Just what do you want? To spend the rest of your life hiding on that mountain? To shield your heart from every risk, every ache, until you end up old and all alone just like your grandfather?” She shook her head. “Don’t you see? This isn’t about what you want. It’s about who you are. Your parents dreamed of ending the feud between the Hepburns and the Sinclairs and they succeeded beyond their wildest imaginings. They created a link between the two clans that could never be broken. And that link is you.”
He touched a hand to her cheek in a lingering caress, his eyes shadowed by a fierce sorrow. “I’m sorry, lass, but draping me in plaid and calling me a Hepburn doesn’t make it so. I’ll always be a Sinclair at heart. I can’t be caged by castle walls.”
Tugging the garment from his shoulders, he tossed it back to Ian. Emma could only watch in stunned disbelief as he turned his back on her and went striding toward the door, rejecting not only his destiny but her love. She drew his mother’s necklace from the bodice of her gown, taking comfort in the weight of that ancient cross in her hand.
“I know what you believe,” she called out, both her heart and her eyes spilling over with love for him. “But your parents’ love didn’t destroy them. It saved them. Because it was their love that created you and as long as you live on in this world, there’s a part of them that will always survive.”
Jamie just kept walking.