She stared at the letter, then raised her gaze and looked unseeing down the room. Whatever else she might lay at Marcus’s door, her more certain strength was due to him, too.
After a moment, she shook aside her thoughts; they’d grown hopelessly tangled again. She only had to dwell on him for a second, and emotions overwhelmed her mind—emotions powerful enough to drown all rational thought.
“I need to be Lady Carrick.” She looked at the letters spread before her. Lips setting, she reached for the letter knife.
* * *
Later that evening, Niniver sat in her customary armchair in the drawing room, her knees crossed, one foot idly swinging, and wondered how much longer it would be before Ferguson arrived with the tea tray. She had no idea how she’d previously filled her evenings, but she was perfectly sure she’d never felt this…disengaged. This bored, this disinterested, so entirely at loose ends.
So missing the presence of a man who hadn’t been a part of her life just ten days before.
After sending Ramsey McDougal on his way, she’d managed to make a reasonable attempt at, as she now thought of it, “being Lady Carrick.” It was odd; she’d never previously thought of herself as “Lady Carrick,” but now she’d commenced using the title as her focus, she was starting to feel as if she truly was working her way into the role.
She was starting to see herself as the lady of the clan.
To be conscious of the changes in herself as she…grew.
If having to deal with McDougal had led her to greater self-awareness, to a clearer appreciation of herself, perhaps he’d been a blessing in disguise.
She nearly snorted.
Hildy had, as usual, joined her for dinner. They’d eaten for the most part in silence. Niniver couldn’t remember what topics they’d previously used to fill the time—or if, pre-Marcus, they truly had been that silent.
She had a sneaking suspicion the latter was true, and it was purely the last days that had made her aware of it.
The minutes ticked by, and she let her mind return to the minor irritation of trying to remember where she’d left her favorite ribbon, with the small cameo she’d attached to it that morning. She’d worn the ribbon looped about her throat through most of the day, but while she’d been working in the library, she’d taken it off; when she’d leaned forward, head bent over her letters, it had felt as if it was choking her.
She’d thought she’d left it on one corner of the desk, but later, when she’d looked for it, she hadn’t been able to find it. Of course, then she’d doubted her memory, and now she truly wasn’t sure where she’d left it. She made a mental note to tell Mrs. Kennedy to ask the maids to keep an eye out for it.
Finally, Ferguson arrived with the tea tray. Hildy poured, they each consumed their usual cup, then they rose and headed for the stairs. In the gallery, Hildy paused by the attic stairs. “Good night, my dear. Sleep well.”
“And you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
They parted, and Niniver made her way to her room. She went in and shut the door, and felt grateful when the peace and silence of her own private space closed around her.
Without haste, she undressed, donned her nightgown, and got into bed. Lying back on the pillows, the covers drawn to her chin, she stared at the ceiling. She noted the moonbeams dappling the dim expanse, set dancing by the breeze rippling through the leaves of the trees through which the moonlight lanced.
She had, she realized, reached a level of calm, had achieved some degree of mental clarity. She could think, if not specifically about Marcus himself—one subject still too fraught with emotion—then at least about herself. She needed to think about what she did next, about how she wanted to go forward. About which direction she wanted to steer her life in.
About the new and stronger self she sensed emerging from the chrysalis of her younger, less sure, more self-conscious past.
Marcus might be gone, their liaison ended, but her time with him—his time with her—had changed her. Had started her down, not a different path, but perhaps the next path for her.
While with him, through being with him, her eyes had been opened to the woman she could be; the woman she became when in his arms—that woman truly did reside inside her. That same strength, and boldness, and the ability to act decisively and shape her own life—those characteristics, freed by her time with him, remained.
Looking back, looking inward, it seemed as if, up to ten days ago, she’d lacked some essential confidence, and asking for his help—and the days and nights they’d subsequently spent together—had provided that vital element, and freed and strengthened the woman she truly was.
The woman she needed to be.
The woman she wanted to be.
This new her, the woman she could feel herself growing into, felt right. With every step she took further into the transformation—with every action, such as dismissing McDougal, when she claimed and used her new inner strengths—she felt more sure, more established. More truly herself. As if she was standing on increasingly solid ground.
The change in her was real. The transformation was real.
She drew in a deep breath and, her eyes still fixed unseeing on the ceiling, held to her new strength, her increasing inner calmness, and let her mind shift to him.
She tried to see past the clouds of her emotions. Although they seemed to be settling, all she could sense beyond them was a gaping void. And, sadly, that was real, too.
She’d risked her heart, and he’d taken it. And there was nothing she could do about that.
* * *
Marcus sat behind the desk in his study at Bidealeigh and stared broodingly at the letter spread open on his desk.
He’d spent the day immersing himself in reconnecting with his staff and ensuring everything on the estate was running smoothly. He’d kept himself busy and his mind engaged, and let his emotions and impulses settle.
He had come in from working with his hounds at dusk and found the letter waiting. He’d read it, then had washed and dined before bringing the letter with him to the study to reassess and make his plans for the morrow.
After a moment, he raised the crystal tumbler he held in one hand and took a long sip of the very finest malt whisky the Scottish Highlands produced. Whisky that, as it happened, came from the same source as the disturbing letter.
Dominic, Earl of Glencrae, wasn’t one to mince words. He’d written that Ramsey McDougal had been banished from his ancestral lands—an act that, for those of the Highland clans, spoke volumes in and of itself—because he had sought to force a marriage with a neighboring laird’s daughter by attempting to rape her. He hadn’t succeeded only because the girl’s brothers had arrived in time to save her.
Apparently, McDougal hadn’t been pensioned off. He’d been summarily thrown out, and his family had disowned him.
Dominic advised that, should Marcus discover Ramsey McDougal hanging around the area, Marcus not wait for McDougal to give him an excuse before running him off.
His gaze on the letter, Marcus sipped again. He’d already decided to return to Carrick Manor first thing in the morning. He would have only one task when he got there—convincing Niniver to accept him as her husband. As he would not be letting her out of his sight until he did, she would be safe from McDougal and anyone else. But as soon as he had a chance, he would speak with Sir Godfrey Riddle, the local magistrate, and see what could be done about moving McDougal on.
No wonder the man had chosen Ayr as his base. With all the ships in the harbor, if anyone came after him, he could flee to anywhere in the world.
Dismissing McDougal from his mind, Marcus refocused on his major goal—his principal, dominant, and, until he achieved it, only goal: Convincing Niniver to marry him.
Now he’d drawn closer to her, now he’d seen and understood all the pressures bearing on her, the demands her position made of her, he fully comprehended on every level why Fate had linked them.
Him being her husband was the right role
for him, and for her. And being his wife was a position she, too, needed to fulfill her.
All well and good. He now needed to meet the challenge of convincing her that she could trust him in the role—more specifically, he had to get her to see that she already did, that she’d already taken all the necessary steps. All he had to do was get her to acknowledge that.
How was a stickier question.
It hadn’t escaped him that he’d fallen into the same trap—or was it a necessary pattern?—that his father and Thomas had. He’d left the woman who would be his wife. Admittedly, he hadn’t wanted to, and he would be riding back tomorrow, yet it seemed that leaving was some peculiar rite of passage Fate forced them to go through in forming this most vital of relationships.
Perhaps because riding back was, in truth, an unvoiced declaration, to themselves if to no one else.
Riding back signaled that they’d made their decision, that they’d irrevocably cast their lot—that they’d committed to the path of standing at their lady’s side and weren’t about to be refused or turned away.
Commitment. Riding back screamed commitment.
And he was already impatient for the dawn.
Lips twisting in self-deprecation, he thought back to their parting that morning.
After a moment, he drained his glass, then set it aside.
Why hadn’t he told her that he loved her?
It was the simple truth, and the words weren’t that difficult to say.
Such a declaration, so powerful in its simplicity, would have stopped her in her tracks. It would have obviated her sense of betrayal, and would have allowed him to reach her. They could have talked.
Better still if he’d told her earlier, instead of…
He forced himself to face the unpalatable truth—that he’d been coward enough to want some reassurance that she loved him back. That cowardly need of his was what had really been behind his wooing of her. It hadn’t been for her so much as for him.
And, as usual, Fate had seen through his ploy, laughed, and tripped him up. In no uncertain fashion. If he’d taken his heart in his hands and just asked her—taken the risk rather than putting it off to woo her first to gain some reassurance—she wouldn’t have overheard anything to give her the wrong idea of why he wanted to marry her.
Now she’d had that idea planted in her mind, he would have to work even harder to get it out again.
And there was no way to attack the issue other than directly. With no more obfuscation, no more trying to shield his heart.
He’d seen the pattern often enough—with his parents, with Lucilla and Thomas, with so many other Cynster couples. Many tried resistance at first, but that was always a lost cause, and he wasn’t in any mood to senselessly waste more time.
Since returning to Bidealeigh, his sense of time running out had only grown more acute.
So tomorrow morning, he would return to Carrick Manor, and once there, he would—verbally, metaphorically, and in every other way open to him—lay his heart at Niniver Carrick’s dainty feet. And he would leave it there, where it belonged.
She’d owned his heart for years, but—out of a misjudged notion of protecting her—he’d never let her know.
And if she didn’t love him in the same way?
Too bad. He would work, and strive, and simply be there, protecting and caring for her, until she did.
CHAPTER 15
Niniver woke to the dawn chorus, with the word “real” circling in her mind. The mists of sleep still clouded her thoughts; drowsy, not yet truly awake, she let her mind wander.
It returned, unerringly, to the moments, the minutes and hours, she’d spent with Marcus. There, in her bed. In the house, on the estate.
Shared moments, shared experiences, shared pleasures.
Shared joy.
All those things had been real, too.
The acknowledgement, that understanding, sank deep to where her emotions dwelled.
After a moment, she frowned and opened her eyes.
She stared across the room.
Real. How could that be? She tried to reject the notion, to think of reasons to negate it, to prove it untrue…
“Damn!” No longer the least sleepy, she turned onto her back. “But I heard him. And Sean.”
But did the clan wanting him to marry her mean that that was the reason he wanted to marry her?
I know the clan want me to marry you, but that isn’t why I’m asking for your hand.
“Oh, my God.” He’d told her he had another reason, but she’d heard his words as merely the obvious argument against her truth—the obvious way to insist that what she’d overheard hadn’t meant what she’d thought.
She’d assumed he’d been pretending, that any reason he advanced would be fabricated to suit, to get her to agree to marry him. She’d been convinced he’d been about to swear he loved her, and she would have been forced to fling that back at him as a lie. Knowing it to be a lie.
But what if he’d told the truth, and he really did want to marry her? Not because the clan wanted him to, but for some other reason?
She’d trusted him. Initially instinctively, but her instincts hadn’t been wrong. And in all those areas in which she’d trusted him—blindly for the most part, instinctively and completely—he had never let her down.
There really was no reason to start doubting her instincts now. No reason not to continue to trust him—to continue to accept that he wouldn’t knowingly, intentionally, do anything to hurt her.
That was one truth she needed to own to: She did, still, trust him implicitly, and he’d given her no reason to change her stance.
But him wanting to marry her for some reason other than the clan’s expectations didn’t mean that he loved her, either.
She liked having him beside her. She enjoyed his company as much as she enjoyed having him as her lover. She felt more secure and simply safe when he was with her, and more able to deal effectively with all she needed to do for the clan.
But she didn’t need a wedding to secure all that.
Yet she was fairly certain that was the price he would ask for and expect her to pay.
She didn’t want to risk a marriage, not even to him, but she didn’t want to lose him either, not if she didn’t need to.
In this case, consideration of what was best for the clan didn’t help. If his reason for wanting to marry her was one she could accept, then the benefit to the clan of having him as her husband was potentially enormous, quite aside from any question of the succession.
And if his reason wasn’t one she could stomach, then the clan would be better served if she remained unwed.
It all came down to why he wanted to marry her.
And if—aside from all clan considerations, as a woman rather than as a lady—she truly wanted to marry him.
For the past year, she hadn’t thought of herself, of her personal wants and needs. Her responsibilities had claimed her, and they had been so demanding that her stance of not marrying had been more or less dictated, clearly mandated as her correct path.
Now…if she was to lay aside the mantle of the clan and let herself—the new, stronger, more assured self she was growing into—decide, then… “If he loves me, I would marry him tomorrow.”
She knew very little about love, about what it was, or how to recognize it. Her mother had died when she was very young, and she retained only a vague memory of her uncle and aunt, Thomas’s parents. She had no real guide, yet she’d always sensed that, for a woman, love was the ultimate protection in a marriage.
Love, if he offered it, was the one inducement that would clear the way for her to take his hand.
Of course, if he loved her, he would want her love in return, but that was a simple matter. She’d loved him for years, and if he loved her, she would have no qualms over admitting that.
If he loved her.
How was she to find out if he did?
Somewhat to her surprise, the answer popped into her h
ead on the heels of the question. Admittedly, the suggestion came from that newfound self of hers, but that was only another reason to embrace it.
Tossing back the covers, she rose and crossed to the washstand. Smiling to herself, she poured water from the ewer into the basin. The old Niniver would never have had the confidence to do what she was about to do.
She wanted to know, so she would go and ask him.
Do you love me? Four simple words on which their futures hung.
She trusted him enough to feel certain he wouldn’t lie to her. And she now trusted her own instincts well enough to feel confident she would know if he tried.
They would settle this today, this morning, face to face.
Setting down the ewer, she felt a bolstering certainty she was starting to associate with being on the right path rise inside her. Carpe diem. Slipping her hands into the basin, she splashed water on her face.
* * *
Marcus was at the breakfast table in the small parlor when Mrs. Flyte came in, a frown on her normally cheery face.
“Mindy just found this on the front porch, sir.” She offered Marcus a small, lumpy, sealed packet. “Right by the front door, it was. No idea why they didn’t knock, and Flyte says as he’s seen and heard no one since we came downstairs.”
Marcus took the packet. “Thank you.”
Mrs. Flyte bobbed and left.
Marcus examined the crude packet—a sheet of paper folded over something squashable and sealed with a blob of wax. His name was scrawled in a masculine hand across the front. Turning the missive over, he slid his fingernail under the seal, broke it, then shook out what the packet contained.
A ribbon with a small cameo attached fell onto the tablecloth, along with a folded note.
He hadn’t seen the cameo before, but the ribbon…he recognized that instantly. He’d seen it gracing Niniver’s throat several times. He set down his fork, picked up the note, unfolded it, and read:
I have her. If you want to see her again, come to the old lead mine where the gantry still stands. Come alone. Don’t speak or alert anyone. You are being watched. If you make any attempt to raise the alarm, you won’t see her alive again.