Page 4 of In Love With the Wrong Highland Sister
James was silent. He splashed water on his face, sluiced it over his head, stood up, then began to dry himself. He felt extremely reluctant to leave his cozy, well-appointed bedroom to run his eyes over yet another young woman who might or might not be suitable for him. He was tired of all of it, and he suddenly made a decision.
“This is the last one, Gavin,” he said firmly. “If she suits, well and good, but if she does not, I am going home without a wife. Damn Father, and damn the lairdship. I am weary of going around begging for a woman to marry me, and I am sure they all have better things to do than entertain us.”
“Really? Do you think so?” Gavin asked as he too stood up. “From what I have seen so far, the ladies are practically swooning all over you, Jamie. How many have you seen now? A dozen? More? Surely at least one of them has piqued your interest just a little?”
James was toweling his hair vigorously, and after a moment, he pushed his hair back and shook it like a wet dog. “That is a dozen too many,” he said irritably. “And no, Jamie. Some are better than others, but you must remember that I have to spend the rest of my life with this person. You will too when it is your turn. Let’s see how you feel then!”
They were silent as they dressed. Both of them had refused a manservant, preferring to help each other. At last, they were both dressed and ready to descend the stairs to the dining room.
“Why do I feel like a condemned man going to the gallows?” James asked gloomily.
2
Laria was striking her punch bag with all the strength she had in her wiry, muscled arms. In the year since her husband’s death, she had given absolutely no thought to her femininity. She had no one to dress up for and no one to impress, so she did as she wished and dressed as she pleased, mostly in dowdy dresses that she had owned for years. She scraped her wavy fair hair back into a plait and thought no more about it. She had even thought about cutting it as short as a boy’s, but her mother and her sister, Eloisa, had begged her not to, so she relented.
She had sought out her father the day after Robert was laid to rest and confronted him in his study.
The laird looked surprised to see her so soon after the funeral. She was dressed in black, as was customary after a death; however, she did not look sad. Instead, she was absolutely furious.
“How are you, Laria?” he asked gently. Her eyes were red from weeping, but they were also dark with fury.
“I am angry, Father,” she answered as she clenched her fists and banged them on his desk. “If there is a God who loves us, why did he take my Robbie away from me? You know that I have loved him from the day I first saw him. Why could we not have been allowed to be happy?”
The laird stood up, then moved around the desk and knelt beside Laria’s chair to embrace her. “Because that is the way the world is made, my dear daughter. We are finite. We must die, and none of us knows where or when that will happen to us. Be glad for the time you had together and treasure your memories. I was very young, only five years old, when I lost my mother, who was the dearest person in the world to me, but I managed to heal eventually. You will too.”
“You have not answered my question, Father, but thank you.” Laria smiled at him through tearful eyes, then embraced him tightly. “Promise me one thing.”
“Anything, my sweet daughter,” the laird answered, feeling a little sad himself as he looked at Laria’s stricken countenance.
“Never expect me to marry again.” Laria drew herself out of her father’s arms and looked at him squarely. “They say I am barren, so it will likely not be a problem anyway since no man will want to wed a woman who cannot bear him a child. However, if some man comes along in the future and makes the terrible mistake of falling in love with me, then turn him away. I will never love another man the way I loved my Robbie, and I never want to feel heartbreak like this again.”
Hector MacLean had looked into his daughter’s eyes for a few more moments before she had laid her head on his shoulder while he held her safely in his strong arms. Laria would remember those moments for the rest of her life. She could never imagine feeling so sheltered and protected anywhere else but in the arms of her father, her mother, or her husband. Robbie was gone now, but her loving parents were still here, she told herself, and they would be enough. They had to be.
She remembered the moment now as she steadied the sand-filled leather punch bag that she practiced on every day. Whenever she felt that the weight of her loneliness was becoming too heavy, which was most of the time, she took her frustration out on the poor thing, as she thought of it, which bore the punishment and never complained. Sometimes she kissed its scarred surface and said sorry to it, almost as if it were a living being, feeling rather foolish as she did so.
Now she took off her padded leather gloves and turned to go back inside the castle and bathe, but she paused as she heard a familiar voice calling her name.
“Laria!” Eloisa ran up to Laria and threw herself into her arms.
“What is it?” Laria asked, seriously alarmed. “You are frightening me!”
Eloisa was breathless from having run all over the castle searching for her sister and was taking a few moments to recover her breath. When she could finally speak, she said: “James Elliot is here—the son of Laird Andrew Elliot from the Kirkmuir estate. He is looking for a bride, and Father gave him permission to come here and meet me. He said that I did not have to marry him if I did not wish to, but as you know, I don’t wish to marry anyone. At least, not ’til I am much older. Please, Laria, you must help me.”
“Of course I will help you!” Laria squeezed her sister more tightly for a moment, then let her go and held her at arm’s length, looking into the pale gray eyes that were so like her own. “What would you like me to do?”
“Distract him, flirt with him, hit him with something—anything that will keep him away from me,” Eloisa answered. She was beyond flustered now; she looked terrified, Laria thought.
“I will most certainly not flirt with him!” she replied indignantly. “I do not want him to get the wrong idea.”
“I know that Father wants us to have dinner with him and his brother,” Eloisa told Laria as they walked back into the castle. “I feel like being sick already. I just do not want to be married, Laria.”
“You are just nervous,” Laria said soothingly as she kissed her sister’s forehead. “He is just a man, Ellie, not an ogre. Perhaps he will be the sort of man who will bore you to tears or have a bad habit you don’t like. But you never know, you might even like him. The least you can do is meet him, and if you do not wish to take things further, then simply refuse him.”
“Surely that will break Mother’s and Father’s hearts, though?” Eloisa asked.
“I doubt it,” Laria replied. “This man will likely be the first of a long line of suitors.”
Eloisa relaxed enough to laugh a little before they both froze at the sound of male voices in conversation coming toward them out of the main entrance of the castle. One was the laird’s, but the other was a much deeper, younger one.
