Temptation Read online

“But from what my daughter tells me, he loves that place and those people. They’re his life. Who would like the place better?”

  “No one would like the place,” Rowena said as she poured herself more whiskey. “But his younger brother, Colin, would love to have the land. He could sell it and gamble away the proceeds, small as they would be. He has the family illness. Too bad he isn’t a drinker like me; it’s much cheaper.”

  “Oh, my,” Melanie said, her mouth full of cake. “But, truly, I’m confused. If James loves the village and wants to stay there, why is he resisting my husband’s efforts to find him a wife?”

  “Because James doesn’t know of the will.”

  “Doesn’t know . . . ?”

  Melanie had put down her empty plate while Rowena had picked up the whiskey bottle to pour herself more, but it was empty. Leaning back against the cushions of the couch, she looked at Melanie. “It was the worst argument that Angus and I ever had. Just prior to the time of his father’s death, James was in a bad way, locked into a miserable marriage and, from where he stood, he had no immediate future, as his father was still a young man. James used to beg his father to be allowed to try some things with the sheep or whatever, but my brother always said no.

  “Then Ivor died in an accident. He was attending a Friday-to-Monday house party at some great estate in England and fell off the roof to his death. Afterward no one would admit to having been on the roof with him, but, knowing my older brother as I did, I’m sure he was probably chasing a housemaid.

  “Anyway, James couldn’t be found for nearly three weeks after his father’s death. He had gone stalking in the Highlands with just a gillie, and no one knew where he was, so Angus and I had that time to hear the reading of the will and attend to what we heard.”

  “That James was to marry for love before he was thirty-five,” Melanie said thoughtfully. “But James was already married at the time.”

  “Yes. The will had been written some years before.” Here again, Rowena’s eyes bored into Melanie’s.

  “I see,” she said. “For love. That’s the key. Everyone could see that there was no love between James and his wife, so that meant that when he was thirty-five, if he was still married to his current wife, the estates would automatically go to Colin.”

  “Yes, exactly. But Colin—for I’m sure that he knew every word of that will—didn’t think that the young woman would die within a year and thereby give James a second chance to complete the will’s requirements.”

  Melanie thought about that for a moment. “But the horror of his first marriage had no doubt soured James on marriage, so he’s been a confirmed bachelor all these years.”

  “Yes, and Angus and I have tried everything we can think of to get him married again.”

  “Without telling him the reason,” Melanie said. “I see. If he thought he had to marry ‘for love,’ he’d never be able to do it, would he? You can’t set out to be in love, but you can . . .” Her voice lowered. “—you can lie,” she finished.

  “Now you see the argument that Angus and I had. Angus said that James should be told everything so he could get himself some pretty little girl and act like he loved her, marry her, and keep what he wanted. How hard could that be?”

  “But James isn’t the ne’er-do-well that I’ve heard that Colin is, is he?” Melanie said. “Colin could act the part but not James. But then, who is to be the judge?”

  “The reigning monarch.”

  “What?!” Melanie said in disbelief.

  “At the time of Ivor’s death, Victoria was queen, and she agreed to be the judge in the dispute. Ivor and Colin were frequent guests at her house in Balmoral, and as he did with everyone, Colin charmed her—she liked the idea of marrying ‘for love’ so much that she agreed to be the judge.”

  “She certainly did believe she was going to live forever, didn’t she?” Melanie asked.

  “Yes, but, as far as I know, her agreement is still binding on her son Edward.”

  “My goodness,” Melanie said. “I wouldn’t want the responsibility to judge whether or not someone was in love.”

  “The king has a great deal of experience in that area, if you know what I mean.”

  At that Melanie smiled, for King Edward VII’s affairs with beautiful women were all the talk of society. The talk was discreet, but it was still rampant. “What a state of things,” Melanie said. “And James knows nothing of this?”

  “No. I won the argument over Angus, so we agreed not to tell James.”

  “No wonder Angus keeps sending young women to his nephew.”

  At that Rowena shook her head. “We’ve had ten years of it! You can’t imagine the number of women we’ve sent to my nephew. And when James comes to town . . . Heaven help us, but we parade them in front of him.”

  “But he’s not tempted.”

  “Not in the least.” At that Rowena’s eyes closed for a moment. “My goodness. I’m too tired to talk anymore. Come tomorrow and I’ll have Cook bake you some seed-cakes. You’ll like them; they’re half butter,” Rowena said, then she put her head on her chest and instantly went to sleep.

  Melanie took a moment to pull a hand-crocheted spread off the back of the hard little couch and tuck it around Rowena before she left the room. But her mind wasn’t on where she was; instead, she was thinking about all that she’d been told.

  Fifteen

  “Is James in love with her?” Alys asked her mother as she struggled to sew the tiny stitches that were needed to make the delicate roses that went on the hats. She was secretly being allowed to miss school to help with the hats. The secret came because she wasn’t allowed to let Miss Temperance know that she wasn’t in school. “Why can’t she know?” Alys had asked her mother before the first question was answered. “If it’s all right with the master, why wouldn’t it be all right with Miss Temperance?”

  “You shouldn’t ask so many questions,” Grace said, her mouth full of pins as she struggled to attach the flowers to the hat brim.

  “I’m just trying to understand who is actually the McCairn. Is it the master or Miss Temperance or the McCairn?”

  Grace stopped pinning long enough to give her daughter a quelling look and opened her mouth to snap at her, but then she thought of the way the horrible old fabric kept tearing in their hands, and there had been sunshine outside today.

  Grace dropped the hat onto the table. She’d been working since four A.M. and it was now nearly six in the evening, and if she tried to do any more, her eyes were going to cross. She looked at her daughter, who’d been helping her for six of those hours. “Let’s go outside, shall we?”

  “Oh, yes,” Alys said and dropped the hat instantly. Minutes later she and her mother were walking along the beach, and the sand between her toes made Alys feel good. Since she and her mother had been living in the big house, she’d had to wear shoes all day. The house was nice, but sometimes she missed the freedom of running barefoot along the sand.

  “What’s going to happen to us if she leaves?” Alys said.

  There was no need to clarify who “she” was. “I don’t know,” Grace answered softly, “and, honestly, it worries me.”

  “Is that why you’re trying to make as many hats as you can now, because after she leaves you think you’ll not be asked to make any more?”

  “Yes,” Grace said simply. She was no longer surprised at her daughter’s insight into what most people would call “grown-up problems.”

  “Would she be angry if she knew that I wasn’t in school?”

  “Oh, yes. She’s an American, and she believes that little girls can grow up to be president.”

  “What’s a ‘president’?”

  “A cross between a king and a member of Parliament.”

  “Is the American president like our king with all his lady friends?”

  “Of course not!” Grace said in shock. “If an American president were like that, the people would throw him out.”

  “Is he in love with her?