The Heiress Bride (Sherbrooke Brides 3)

“I’m being realistic. You could be pregnant and you’d best face up to it.”

Sinjun swallowed. “No,” she said. “I won’t allow it.”

“Here, have some haggis.”

It was a bagged mess of livers and heart and beef suet and oatmeal all served up with potatoes and rutabagas. Sinjun took one look at the bloated sheep stomach it was served in and wanted to run.

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nbsp; “You didn’t order it from the innkeeper’s wife,” she said slowly, just staring at that foreign-looking stretched hot bag filled with things she’d just as soon never see in her life. “There hasn’t been time.”

“I didn’t have to. It’s the main dish served here and has been since the inn opened five years ago. Eat.” So saying, he cut into the skin and forked down a goodly bite.

“No, I can’t. Give me time, Colin.”

He smiled at her. “Very well. Would you like to try some clapshot? It’s a dish from the Orkneys, supposedly coming to us from the Vikings. All vegetables. It’s usually served with haggis, but eat it by itself and see if it settles nicely in your belly.”

She was grateful. The rutabagas were nasty things, but she could shove them to the sides of the plate. The potatoes were good, and the hint of nutmeg and cream made it quite tasty. There was no more conversation between her and Colin.

Sinjun spent the next hour and a half in a daze of pain. She didn’t notice the damned countryside, even though Colin kept up a stream of travel commentary. She was nearly to the point of telling him she couldn’t ride another yard, another foot even, when he said, “Pull up, Joan. Yon is Vere Castle.”

There was a wealth of pride and affection in his voice. She craned up in her saddle. Before her, sprawled out over an entire low hillock, was an edifice that was the size of Northcliffe Hall. There all similarities ended. The west end was a true fairy-tale castle, with crenellated walls, round towers, and cone-topped roofs that rose three stories. It was a castle from a children’s storybook. It needed but flags flying from all the towers, a drawbridge, a moat, and a knight in silver armor. It wasn’t massive, like Northcliffe Hall, but it was magical. It was connected to a Tudor home by a two-story stone building that resembled a long arm with a fist at each end. A fairy castle at one end and a Tudor manor at the other—in this modern day two such disparate styles should have been a jest, but in reality the whole was magnificent. It was now her home.

“The family lives primarily in the Tudor section, although the castle part is the newest, built back at the turn of the seventeenth century. That earl, though, didn’t have quite enough money to do it right, thus it is rotting at a faster pace than the Tudor section, which is nearly one hundred and fifty years older. Still, I love it. I spend much of my time there, in the north tower. When we entertain, it’s always in the castle.”

Sinjun stared. “I hadn’t expected this,” she said slowly. “It’s massive and all its parts, well, they’re so different from each other.”

“Of course there are different parts. The original Tudor hall dates back to the beginning of the sixteenth century. It has a fireplace large enough to roast a large cow. In the Tudor wing there’s a minstrel’s gallery that would rival the one at your Castle Braith in Yorkshire. Oh, I understand. You expected something of a hovel, something low and squalid and probably smelly, since Scots, of course, have their animals living with them. Something not nearly as impressive as your wondrous Northcliffe Hall. It isn’t stately, but it’s real and it’s large, and it’s mine.” He fidgeted a moment. “The crofters many times have their animals in their houses with them during the winter. That is true, but we don’t at Vere Castle.”

“You know, Colin,” she said mildly, looking at him squarely, “if I indeed were expecting a ratty hovel, why, then, wouldn’t that prove how much I wanted to marry you?”

He looked nonplussed at that. He opened his mouth, then closed it. She turned away from him but not before he saw, for the first time, the utter weariness and pain in her eyes that she’d kept hidden from him. At least this was something tangible, something he could get his teeth into. “Sweet Lord,” he bellowed, “why the devil didn’t you say anything to me?” He sounded utterly furious, which he was. “You’re in pain, aren’t you? Yes, you are, and you didn’t say a damned word to me. Your stubbornness passes all bounds, Joan, and I won’t have it, do you understand me?”

“Oh, be quiet. I’m fine. I wish to—”

“Just shut up, Joan. Not too sore, are you? You look ready to fall down and expire. Are you bleeding? Have you managed to rub yourself raw?”

She knew she wasn’t going to stay on her horse’s back for another moment. She simply couldn’t. She pulled her leg free and slid off her horse’s back. She leaned against the horse until she could get control of herself. When she had control, she said, “I will walk to your castle, Colin. It’s a beautiful day. I wish to smell the daisies.”

“There aren’t any damned daisies.”

“I will smell the crocuses, then.”

“You will just stop it, Joan.” He looked enraged. He cursed, then he dismounted.

“Stay away from me!”

He drew up three feet from her. “Is this the girl who wanted me to kiss her in the entrance hall of her brother’s home in London? Is this the girl who walked up to me at the theater, thrust out her hand, and informed me she was an heiress? Is this the girl who kept insisting that I bed her immediately? Even in the carriage? Where is she, I ask you?”

Sinjun didn’t answer. She didn’t care. She turned away from him and took a step. She felt pain grind through her. She stumbled.

“Oh damnation, just hold still and be quiet.”

He grabbed her arm and turned her to face him. He saw that damned pain again in her eyes and it struck him silent. Gently now, he drew her against him, supporting her with his arms around her waist. “Just rest a moment,” he said against her hair. “Just rest and then allow me to hold you. I’m sorry, Joan.” He pressed her face against his shoulder. She breathed in the scent of him.

She didn’t say a word.

She arrived at her new home in the arms of her husband atop his horse, just like a fairy princess being brought to her prince’s castle. However, unlike that fairy princess, Sinjun was wrinkled and dusty and painfully aware that she looked a wreck.