Strangers at the Altar

‘In name only, Ainsley. Tied by a bit of paper, which is no more than a contract.’

‘Contracts require payment. What professional services can you possibly imagine I can provide?’

‘An objective eye. An unbiased opinion. I need both.’ Innes shifted uncomfortably. ‘Not advice, precisely,’ he said.

‘Because you do not like to take advice, do you?’

‘Are you mocking me?’

‘Another thing you’re not used to, obviously.’ Ainsley smiled. ‘Not mocking, teasing. I’m a little rusty. What is it, then, that involves my giving you my unbiased and objective opinion without advising you?’

‘When you put it like that!’ He was forced to smile. ‘What I’m trying to say is, I’d like you to come to Strone Bridge with me. Not to make my decisions, but to make sure when I do make them, I’m doing so without prejudice.’

‘Is that possible? It’s your birthright, Innes.’

He shook his head vehemently. ‘That’s the point. It’s not. It pains me to admit it, but I don’t know much about it, and I haven’t a clue what I want to do with it. Live there. Sell it. Put in a manager. I don’t know, and I won’t know until I go there, and even when I do—what do you say?’

‘That’s the price? That’s the professional services I’m to render in order to have my life back?’

‘You think it’s too great a cost?’ Innes said, deflated.

Ainsley smiled. Then she laughed. ‘I think it’s a bargain.’

‘You do? You understand, Strone Bridge is like to be—well, very different from Edinburgh.’

‘A change from Edinburgh, a place to take stock, is, as you pointed out, exactly what I need.’

‘I’m not asking you to stay the full year. A few months, until I’ve seen my way clear, that’s all. And though I’m asking you to—to consult with me, that does not mean I’ll necessarily take your advice,’ Innes cautioned.

‘I’m used to that.’ Ainsley’s smile faded momentarily, but then brightened. ‘Though being asked is a step in the right direction, and I will at least have the opportunity of putting my point across.’

Glancing at the decanter of whisky, the level of which had unmistakably fallen by more than a couple of drams, Innes wondered if he was drunk after all. He’d just proposed marriage to a complete stranger. A stranger with a sorry tale, whose courage and strength of mind he admired, but he had met her only a couple of hours ago all the same. Yet it didn’t seem to matter. He was drawn to her, had been drawn to her from that first moment when she’d stormed out of the lawyer’s office, and it wasn’t just the bizarre coincidence of their situations. He liked what he saw of her, and admired what he heard. That he also found her desirable was entirely beside the point. His instincts told him that they’d fare well together, and his instincts were never wrong. ‘So we are agreed?’ Innes asked.

Ainsley tapped her index fingers together, frowning. ‘We’re complete strangers,’ she said, reflecting his own thoughts. ‘Do you think we’ll be able to put on enough of a show to persuade your people that this isn’t a marriage of convenience?’

‘I’m not in the habit of concerning myself with what other people think.’

‘Don’t be daft. You’ll be the—their—laird, Innes. Of course they’ll be concerned.’

She was in the right of it, but he had no intentions of accepting that fact. He was not the laird. The laird was dead, and so, too, was his heir. Innes would not be branded. ‘They must take me—us—as they find us,’ he said. Ainsley was still frowning. ‘Strone Bridge Castle is huge. If it’s having to rub shoulders with me on a daily basis you’re worried about, I assure you, we could go for weeks without seeing each other if we wanted.’

‘That is hardly likely to persuade people we’re living in domestic bliss.’

‘I doubt domestic bliss is a concept that any laird of Strone Bridge is familiar with. My ancestors married for the getting of wealth and the getting of bairns.’

‘Then that puts an end to our discussion.’ Ainsley got to her feet and began to head for the door of the coffee room.

Innes threw down some money on the table and followed her, pulling her into a little alcove in the main reception area of the hotel. ‘I don’t want either of those things from you. I don’t want to be like them,’ he said earnestly. ‘Can’t you see, that’s the point?’

‘This is madness.’

He gave her arm a little shake, forcing her eyes to meet his. ‘Madness would be to do what you’re doing, and that’s walking away from the perfect solution. Stop thinking about what could go wrong, think about what it will put right. Freedom, Ainsley. Think about that.’

Her mouth trembled on the brink of a smile. ‘I confess, it’s a very attractive idea.’

‘So you’ll do it?’

Her smile broadened. The light had come back into her eyes. ‘I feel sure there are a hundred reasons why I should walk very quickly in the other direction.’

‘But you will not?’ He was just close enough for her skirts to brush his trousers, to smell the scent of her soap, of the rain in her hair. She made no attempt to free herself, holding his gaze, that smile just hovering, tempting, challenging. Tension quivered between them. ‘You would regret it if you did,’ Innes said.

‘Do you know, Mr Innes Drummond, I think you may well be right.’

Her voice was soft, there was a tiny shiver in it, and a shiver, too, when he slid his hands from her shoulders down her arms, closing the space between them and lowering his mouth to hers. It was the softest of kisses, the briefest of kisses, but it was a kiss. A very adult kiss, which could easily have become so much more. Lips, tongues, caressed, tasted. Heat flared and they both instinctively recoiled, for it was the kind of heat that could burn.

Ainsley put her hand to her mouth, staring wide-eyed at him. Innes looked, he suspected, every bit as shocked as she. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘Are you?’

‘Not really, but I promise that was not in any way part of the bargain I’m proposing.’

She slanted him a look he could not interpret as she disentangled herself from his loose embrace. ‘That was merely the product of too much whisky on top of too much emotional upheaval. It was like a—a valve to release the steam pressure on one of those steam engines you build bridges and tunnels for, nothing more.’

He laughed. He couldn’t help it, because she was right in a way, and she was quite wrong in another, but in every way she was wholly unexpected and a breath of much-needed fresh air. ‘I’m thinking that my return to Strone Bridge is going to be a source of constant emotional upheaval,’ Innes said. ‘We might need to do a lot of kissing.’

‘You’re an engineer,’ Ainsley replied primly, though her eyes were sparkling. ‘I suggest you invent a different kind of safety valve for yourself.’

* * *

‘Ainsley, what a nice surprise.’ Felicity Blair, editor of the Scottish Ladies Companion, greeted her friend with a warm smile, waving her into the shabby chair on the other side of the huge desk that dominated her tiny office. ‘I’ve just been reading Madame Hera’s latest advice. I am not at all sure we can publish this reply, not least because it’s rather long.’

‘Which one is that?’ Ainsley asked.

In response, Felicity picked up a piece of paper from the collection that Ainsley recognised she’d handed in to the office a week ago, and began to read:

‘Dear Anxious Miss,

Simply because you are more mature than the average bride-to-be—and I do not consider two-and-thirty to be so old—does not mean that you are exempt from the trepidation natural to one in your position. You are, when all is said and done, setting sail into unchartered waters. To put it plainly, no matter how well you think you might know your intended, you should be prepared for the state of matrimony to alter him significantly, for he will have secured his prize, and will no longer be required to woo you. This might mean calm, tranquil seas. But it might prove to be a stormy passage.

My advice is to start the way you mean to go on and take charge of the rudder! Give no quarter, Anxious Miss; let your husband see that he cannot set the course of the matrimonial vessel to suit only himself. Do not allow yourself to be subsumed by his nature nor his dictates simply because you have assumed his name. Do not allow your nerves, your maidenly modesty or your sex to intimidate you. Speak up for yourself from the first, and set a precedent that, if not immediately, will, I am sure, eventually earn your husband’s respect.

As to the more intimate matters with which you are concerned. You say your intended has indicated a lack of experience, and you are worried that this might—once again, I will revert to the seafaring metaphor—result in the becalming of the good ship wedlock. First, I would strongly advise you to muster your courage and have a frank chat about the mechanics of your wedding night with a married lady friend, thus eliminating the shock of the complete unknown. Second, I would advise you equally strongly to give your husband no inclination that you come to the wedding night armed with such information, lest he find it emasculating. Third, remember, if he really is as innocent as he claims, he will be as nervous as you. But he is a man, Anxious Miss, and thus a little flattery, some feminine admiration and a pliant female body, will ensure the success of your maiden voyage.

Good luck!

Madame Hera’

Ainsley smiled doubtfully. ‘I admit, the sailing metaphor is rather trite, but if I had not used it, I would have been forced to invent something else equally silly, else you would have deemed it too vulgar to print.’

‘At least you did not surrender to the obvious temptation to talk about dry docks in the context of the wedding night,’ Felicity replied acerbically.

‘No, because such a shocking thing did not occur to me,’ Ainsley replied, laughing. ‘Though to be serious for a moment, it is becoming quite a challenge for Madame Hera to advise without entirely hiding her meaning behind the veil of polite euphemisms. The whole point of the column is to provide practical help.’

Felicity set the letter down. ‘I’ve been pondering that very issue myself. You know how limited the space is for Madame’s column each month, yet we are now receiving enough correspondence to fill the entire magazine.’

‘Aren’t you pleased? I know I am. It is proof that I was absolutely right about the need for such a thing, and you were absolutely right to take the chance to publish it.’

‘Yes, the volume of mail is a true testament to the quality of Madame’s advice but, Ainsley, the problem is we can’t publish most of it, for our readers would consider the subjects far too warm. Even with your shipping metaphor, that reply to Anxious Miss is sailing close to the wind. Oh, good grief, you’ve got me at it now!’ Felicity adjusted the long ink-stained cuffs that protected her blouse. ‘I’m glad you stopped by, because I’ve got an idea I’d like to discuss. You know it will be exactly two years since we launched Madame Hera’s column next month?’

‘Of course I do.’ It had been the first step away from self-pity towards self-sufficiency Ainsley had taken. She remembered it vividly—the thrill of dreaming up the idea after one particularly dispiriting evening with her husband. ‘It’s funny,’ she said to Felicity, ‘at first it was the secret of Madame’s existence that I enjoyed most, knowing I had something all mine that John knew nothing about. But these days, it is the hope that some of Madame Hera’s advice actually helps the women who write to her that I relish. Though of course, one can never really know if one has helped.’

‘You do,’ Felicity said firmly. ‘You know you do, just by providing an ear. Now, as I said, there are a great deal more people asking for Madame’s advice than we can cover in our column, which brings me to my idea. A more personal service.’

‘What on earth do you mean by that?’ Ainsley wondered, for a startled moment, if her friend had somehow heard of her remark about earning a living in the Cowgate the other day.

Felicity gave a gurgle of laughter. ‘Your face! I do not mean anything immoral, never fear. I mean a personal letter service. For a price, of course, for matters of a more sensitive nature, we can offer a personal response from Madame. We’ll split the fee between the journal and yourself, naturally. Depending on how many you can answer in a month I’d say your earnings from the journal could triple at least. What do you say?’

‘I’m getting married,’ Ainsley blurted out.

Felicity’s dark brown eyes opened so wide as to appear quite round. ‘You’re doing what?’

‘I know, it’s a shock, but it’s not what you think. I can explain,’ Ainsley said, wondering now if she could. She’d hardly slept a wink these past few nights wondering if she had been an idiot, and coming here this morning had been a test she’d set herself, for if practical, outspoken, radical Felicity thought it was a good idea...

* * *

Half an hour and what seemed like a hundred questions later, her friend sat back at her desk, rummaging absent-mindedly for the pencil she had, as usual, lost in her heavy chignon of hair. ‘And you’re absolutely sure that this Mr Drummond has no ulterior motives?’

‘As sure as I can be. He’s started the process of paying all of John’s debts.’

‘At least you’d no longer be obliged to call yourself by that man’s name. Does he include the mortgage on Wemyss Place in the debts?’

Ainsley shook her head. ‘Innes wanted to pay it, but as far as I’m concerned, the creditors can have the house. It has nothing but unhappy memories for me. Besides, I have every intention of repaying it all when I inherit my trust fund, and that mortgage would take up nearly all of it.’

‘So, you are going to be a Highland lady. The chatelaine of a real Scottish castle.’ Felicity chuckled. ‘How will you like that, I wonder? You’ve never been out of Edinburgh.’

‘It’s only a temporary thing, until Innes decides what he wants to do with the place.’

‘And how long will that take?’

‘I don’t know. Weeks. Months? No more, though he must remain there for a year. I’m looking forward to the change of scenery. And to feeling useful.’

‘It all sounds too good to be true. Sadly, in my experience, things that are too good to be true almost always are,’ Felicity said drily.

‘Do you think it’s a mistake?’

‘I don’t know. I think you’re half-mad, but you’ve had a raw deal of it these past few years, and I’ve not seen you this animated for a long time. Perhaps getting away from Edinburgh will be good for you.’ Felicity finally located her pencil and pulled it out of her coiffure, along with a handful of bright copper hair. ‘What is he like, this laird? Are you sure he’ll not turn into some sort of savage Highlander who’ll drag you off to his lair and have his wicked way with you the minute you arrive on his lands?’

‘There is no question of him having his wicked way,’ Ainsley said, trying to ignore the vision of Innes in a plaid. The same one she’d had the first day she’d met him. With a claymore. And no beard.

‘You’re blushing,’ Felicity exclaimed. ‘How very interesting. Ainsley McBrayne, I do believe you would not be averse to your Highlander being very wicked indeed.’

‘Stop it! I haven’t the first idea what you mean by wicked, but...’

Felicity laughed. ‘I know you don’t,’ she said, ‘and frankly, it’s been the thing that’s worried me most about this idea of mine for Madame Hera’s personal letter service, but now I think you’ve solved the problem. I suppose you’ve already kissed him? Don’t deny it, that guilty look is a complete giveaway. Did you like it?’

‘Felicity!’

‘Well?’

‘Yes.’ Ainsley laughed. ‘Yes, I did.’

‘Was it a good kiss? The kind of kiss to give you confidence that your Mr Drummond would know what he was doing? The kind of kiss that made you want him to do more than kiss you?’

Ainsley put her hands to her heated cheeks. ‘Yes. If you must know, yes, it was! Goodness, the things you say. We did not— Our marriage is not— That sort of thing is not...’

‘You’re going to be out in the wilds. You’ve already said that you’re attracted to each other. It’s bound to come up, if you’ll forgive the dreadful double entendre. And when it does—provided you take care there are no consequences—then why not?’ Felicity said. ‘Do you want me to be blunt?’

‘What, even more than you’ve been already?’

‘Ainsley, from what you’ve told me—or not told me—about your marriage, it was not physically satisfying.’

‘I can’t talk about it.’

‘No, and you know I won’t push you, but you also know enough, surely, to realise that with the right man, lovemaking can be fun.’

‘Fun?’ Ainsley tried to imagine this, but her own experience, which was ultimately simply embarrassing, at times shameful, made this impossible.

‘Fun,’ Felicity repeated, ‘and pleasurable, too. It should not be an ordeal.’

Which was exactly how it had been, latterly, Ainsley thought, flushing, realising that Felicity had perceived a great deal more than she had ever revealed. ‘Is it fun and pleasurable for you, with your mystery man?’

‘If it were not, I would not be his mistress.’

It was only because she knew her so well that Ainsley noticed the faint withdrawal, the very slight tightening of her lips that betrayed her. Felicity claimed that being a mistress gave her the satisfaction of a lover without curtailing her freedom, but there were times when Ainsley wondered. She suspected the man was married, and loved her friend too much to pain her by asking. They both had their shameful secrets.

Ainsley picked up the latest stack of letters from the desk and began to flick through them. What Felicity said was absolutely true. As Madame Hera’s reputation spread, her post contained ever more intimate queries, and as things stood, Ainsley would be hard-pressed to answer some of them save in the vaguest of terms. She replaced the letters with a sigh. ‘No. Even if Innes was interested...’

‘You know perfectly well that he would be,’ Felicity interjected drily. ‘He’s a man, and, despite the fact that John McBrayne stripped you of every ounce of self-esteem, you’re an attractive woman. What else will you do to while away the dark nights in that godforsaken place?’

‘Regardless,’ Ainsley persisted, ‘it would be quite wrong of me to use Innes merely to acquire the experience that would allow Madame Hera to dispense better advice.’

‘Advice that would make such a difference to all these poor, tormented women,’ Felicity said, patting the pile of letters. ‘Wasn’t that exactly what you set out to do?’

‘Stop it. You cannot make me feel guilty enough to— Just stop it, Felicity. You know, sometimes I think you really are as ruthless an editor as you pretend.’

‘Trust me, I have to be, since I, too, am a mere woman. But we were talking about you, Ainsley. I agree, it would be wrong if you were only lying back and thinking of Scotland for the sake of Madame Hera and her clients. Though I hope you’ve more in mind than lying back and thinking of Scotland.’

‘Felicity!’

‘Fun and pleasure, my dear, require participation,’ her friend said with another of her mischievous smiles. ‘You see, now you are intrigued, and now you can admit it would not only be for Madame Hera, but yourself. Confess, you want him.’

‘Yes. No. I told you, it...’

‘Has no part in your arrangement. I heard you. Methinks you protest just a little too much.’

‘But do you approve?’ Ainsley said anxiously.

Felicity picked up her pencil again and began to twist it into her hair. ‘I approve of anything that will make you happy. When does the ceremony take place?’

‘The banns are being called on Sunday for the first time. The ceremony will be immediately after the last calling, in three weeks. Will you come, Felicity? I’d like to have you by my side.’

‘Will you promise me that if you change your mind before then, you will speak up? And if you are unhappy at this Strone Bridge place, you will come straight back here, regardless of whether you feel your obligations have been met?’

‘I promise.’

Felicity got to her feet. ‘Then I will be your attendant, if that’s what you want.’ She picked up the bundle of letters and held them out. ‘Make a start on these. I will draw up the advertisement, we’ll run it beside Madame’s column for this month and I will send you a note of the terms once I have them agreed. Will you be disclosing your alter ego to the laird?’

‘Absolutely not! Good grief, no, especially not if I am to— He will think...’

Felicity chuckled gleefully. ‘I see I’ve given you food for thought, at the least. I look forward to reading the results—in the form of Madame’s letters, I mean.’ She hugged Ainsley tightly. ‘I wish you luck. You will write to me, once you are there?’

Ainsley sniffed, kissing her friend on the cheek. ‘You’ll get sick of hearing from me.’ She tucked the letters into the folder, which was already stuffed with the bills she was to hand over to Mr Ballard, Innes’s lawyer.

‘Just one thing,’ Felicity called after her. ‘I’ll wager you five pounds that if your Highlander ever discovers that you are Madame Hera, he’ll be far more interested in finding problems for the pair of you to resolve together than taking umbrage.’

‘Since I shall take very good care that he never finds out, you will lose,’ Ainsley said, laughing as she closed the door behind her.

Chapter Three

Dear Madame Hera,

I have been married for three months to a man whose station in life is very superior to my own. Having moved from a small house with only two servants to a very large manor with a butler and a housekeeper, I find myself in a perfect tizzy some mornings, trying to understand who I should be asking to do what. My husband has suggested turning to his mother for advice, but she obviously thinks he has married beneath him and would see my need for guidance as evidence of this. As it is, I am sure the housekeeper is reporting my every failure in the domestic sphere to my mother-in-law. Only last week, when I committed the cardinal sin of asking the second housemaid to bring me a pot of tea, the woman actually chastised me as if I were a child. Apparently, such requests should be relayed through the footman, and I should not desire to take tea outside the usual hours, whatever these might be.

I love my husband, but I am being made to feel like an upstart in my new home, and I dare not tell him for fear he will start to take on his mother’s opinion of me. Is there some sort of school for new wives I can attend? Please advise me, for I am beginning to wonder if my housekeeper would have made a better wife to my husband than I can.

Timid Mouse

Argyll, July 1840

It was cold here on the west coast. Despite the watery sunshine, a stiff breeze had blown up in the bay at Rhubodach. Innes shivered inside his heavy greatcoat. He’d forgotten how much colder it was here, and it would be colder still in the boat. Sitting on a bandbox a few feet away, Ainsley was reading a letter, clutching the folds of her travelling cloak tightly around her and staring out over the Kyles of Bute. These past three weeks there had been so much business to attend to they’d barely had time to exchange more than a few words. Standing before the altar beside him just a few days ago, she had been almost as complete a stranger to him as the day he’d proposed. Yet in a very short while, they’d be on Strone Bridge, playing the part of a happily married couple.

The dread had been taking a slow hold of him. It had settled inside him with the news of his father’s death. It had grown when he learned the terms of his inheritance, then became subdued when Ainsley agreed to marry him, and even suppressed as they made their arrangements and their vows. But on the coach from Edinburgh to Glasgow it had made itself known again. Then on the paddle steamer Rothesay Castle as they sailed from the Broomilaw docks to the Isle of Bute it took root, and by this afternoon’s journey from Rothesay town to the north part of the Isle of Bute where they now stood waiting, it had manifested itself in this horrible sick feeling, in this illogical but incredibly strong desire to turn tail and run, and to keep running, just as he had done fourteen years before.