Marcus stopped abruptly and looked around. There, in the corner with two other tartan-clad men, sat the laird who had whisked Alyse from him. He wore a big grin on his boyishly handsome face. It would be his luck that this man was his neighbor and frequented this establishment.
“I’m really not in the mood.” Or perhaps he was. Perhaps a tussle with this cheeky bastard would be a proper and suitable release for his current ire. Especially since he could not turn around and lay hands on the man who stood claiming his woman. The thought jarred him a little. His woman. Alyse was his. And he was hers. Not that she appeared to want him right now.
“Aye,” the Scotsman said, studying his face as though reading Marcus’s mind. “You just did that. You just left her with some other man.” He chuckled. “After everything you did to get her back from me.”
Marcus looked behind him. He couldn’t help himself. The Scotsman’s words rolled through him in a bitter tide. He watched as the younger man reached for Alyse’s hand. He spoke to her earnestly, his face full of emotion.
“She wants him,” Marcus murmured, even as those words cut through him like a knife.
“That pimple-faced lad? I think I could snap him wi’ a sneeze.” He snorted. “Perhaps she wants ye but doesna think ye want her.” He shook his head. “Gah . . . fools the both of ye. She be yer wife. ’Ave ye forgotten that?”
Marcus shook his head. He had ripped up the bill of sale. Had severed his responsibility to her. He had no obligation to her and she had none to him.
“She’s not my wife.” The words were painful to utter. Strange how that had happened. Before he had latched on to them, now they were abhorrent.
She was free of him. He had done that for her.
This time the entire table laughed. He looked down at the three men. “What is so funny?” His hands tensed into fists at his side.
“Ye are,” the laird replied. “Ye canna declare yourselves married publicly in Scotland as ye both did and it no’ be true. That is all it takes, my friend. Ye are a married man in the eyes of the law.” His gaze swung to Alyse. “Married to that lass.”
Marcus stared. He couldn’t speak.
Could that be true? Granted he was not familiar with Scottish law, but as he had already discovered, things were a little different here.
Elation swelled inside his chest only to be quickly followed with doubt. No. Not doubt. Fear. Fear that she would not want this. Fear that she would be unhappy. Fear that she still wanted another man rather than him.
So much of his life, he realized, had been caught up in fear. Fear of his father. Fear that his father was everything wrong and evil in this world. Fear that he was cut from the same cloth and would be just like him.
He was done with fear.
Striding across the room he called her name.
She turned quickly, those wide topaz eyes locking on him. He wanted those eyes on him every day for the rest of his life. Stopping before her, he devoured the sight of her. He could look nowhere else. Not at the man beside her. Not at the men stomping their feet and shouting encouragement several tables away.
He dropped down on one knee and took her chilled hand in his. “Alyse . . . Don’t leave me. Please be my wife. Because you want to be my wife. Because I want you to be my wife. Because I want us together and this life.” The cheering stopped. All sound disappeared. “Because I love you. And I want to spend the rest of my life loving you. I may have bought you on that auction block that day, but it is you who owns me, body and soul.”
She sucked in a ragged breath as though she had been struck. She didn’t say anything for several moments. Finally her flushed face crumpled, and a sob broke loose. “But you’re a duke. I can’t be a duchess. I’m not a duchess—”
“You’re you. Be you. That’s all I want. I don’t want a duchess. I want a woman to love. I want you to love. We already have a home here. You love it. I know you do. I saw it in your eyes. I love it, too. We can make a good home here, a happy home here.”
“Yes.” She nodded, tears streaming down her face. A laugh burbled from her lips. “Yes yes yes yes.”
He hopped to his feet and hauled her into his arms. He hugged her close, tightly, as though he figured she might change her mind. As though he feared she might slip away and disappear like a wisp of smoke.
He released a gust of breath. Perhaps the first breath he’d ever taken. Free of fear. Full of love.
Epilogue
Five years later . . .
“She’s coming!” Alyse declared as she burst open the doors to Marcus’s study and waddled her way toward his desk.
She was fast increasing with their first child and their joy couldn’t be any greater.
They had begun to accept that a child may not be in their future, no matter how very much they wanted one, when Alyse suddenly discovered she was with child.
For five years they had focused all their love and attention on each other and Kilmarkie House, building it into a home they were both proud of.
They’d added staff and outbuildings. Made repairs on the house and redecorated its interior. They’d planted more crops and improved commerce in the local village. When Alyse learned they had no blacksmith, she sent for her friend, Nellie, and her husband, a young blacksmith.
Although they did have to contend with the occasional reivers who had a penchant for stealing their cattle and sheep. Inviting Laird MacLarin and his grandmother to dinner usually won them the return of their lost flock for they suspected he was the one who liked to abscond with their livestock in the first place. He might be gentry, but he was little better than a criminal and he enjoyed vexing Marcus to no end.
With the impending birth of their child, their blessings only continued. They were finally having a child of their own to love. Someone who could grow and carry on the legacy they were creating at Kilmarkie. A little one who would walk the shoreline with them in the evenings and admire the dolphins. Marcus smiled wistfully. Hopefully a little girl who was the spitting image of her mother.
It was the life he never knew he wanted. A life he doubted he deserved, but nonetheless it was his and he would never give it up.
Looking up from the ledgers spread across his desk, he lifted his spectacles off his nose to better view his lovely wife. He had succumbed to the need for spectacles last year, much to his chagrin—and much to his darling wife’s delight.
Alyse insisted he looked dashing in his spectacles. He would be inclined to think she was jesting—or at the very least, humoring his vanity—if not for the fact that she had ravished him moments after she had first seen him wearing the infernal things. As absurd as it seemed, his wife found him all the more irresistible wearing them.
He didn’t question it. He simply counted himself a very lucky man . . . and wore them at every opportunity as it served to incite his wife’s desires.
“Who is coming?” he asked, nodding to the missive she clutched in her hand.
“Your sister! Clara! She is coming. She’s finally coming. She always said she would like to visit and now it seems she is. Oh!” Alyse glanced down at the letter again, her bright eyes dancing with delight. “We haven’t seen her in years. She is a woman grown now, can you imagine it?”
They had not seen Clara and the rest of his family since their one trip to London a few years ago. He’d wanted his family to meet Alyse. He himself had wanted to see them, too. Of course, he missed his sisters and wanted to set things right and make peace with Ela and Colin who now had their hands full with their children. Marcus was too contented with his life to hold any grudges.
Following that trip, he had been happy to return to Kilmarkie House with Alyse permanently. His life was here now away from the noise and bustle of Town and he would not have it any other way.
He frowned as he digested the news his wife happily imparted. “I must confess some confusion. The last letter from Ela said they were busy planning Clara’s wedding.”