Temptation Read online

  “It’s not just you involved, is it?” she said to him, angrier than she meant to be, but she didn’t want to remember that night they had spent together. “What about the other people here? Don’t you have any idea what a wonderful place this village is? It’s a perfect little jewel where people care about each other. But you want to give it away! If your wastrel of a brother gambles the place away, who takes care of the people of McCairn?”

  “And when did McCairn become any of your business?” James shot back at her. “You can’t wait to get out of here and go back to New York, to the people who really need you.” Every word was a sneer. “And what do you know of my brother to call him names? It was your father who—”

  Temperance came out of her chair. “How dare you use my father’s name? My father was a saint, an absolute saint, especially when compared to yours. My whole family is—”

  James stood, leaning toward Temperance, ready to shout her down.

  “None of us is quite ready for sainthood,” Melanie said loudly, making both of them turn toward her. Melanie looked at her daughter. “And, Temperance, perhaps before you start throwing stones, you should remember Aunt Isabella and Uncle Dugan.”

  Instantly, Temperance’s face turned red; then she sat down, as did James.

  “Hmmm,” Rowena said, looking from James to Temperance, then back again. “I was hoping that we could settle this in a civilized manner, but it looks as though you children can’t behave long enough to discuss anything. Melanie, dear, I think we should leave.”

  “Yes, of course,” Melanie said as she prepared to stand.

  “Wait!” James and Temperance said in unison, then glanced at each other, then away.

  “I . . .” Temperance began, “I think we should discuss this. The will is stupid—” She put up her hand to ward off whatever James was about to say. “It is stupid, but it does exist, and even though I have no idea why a man would write such a thing, we need to deal with it, as you said, in a civilized manner. First of all, I think it is a given that Colin cannot have the place. I haven’t met him, but I’ve certainly heard enough about him.”

  She turned to James, her face cold. “Is that agreeable to you? Or do you really want to turn all of your beloved sheep over to a gambler?”

  “Better a gambler than an American do-gooder,” James muttered.

  “What was that?” Rowena asked loudly, her hand to her ear. “Speak up, James, you know I’m a bit hard-of-hearing.”

  “I know no such thing,” James said quietly, narrowing his eyes at his old aunt. “You can hear the servants sipping your precious brandy from three floors away.”

  At that Rowena smiled and leaned back against her chair. “So what do you two want to do?”

  “Save the place,” Temperance said quickly. “A person must make sacrifices for others.” Turning to James, she looked at him with her eyebrows raised in question.

  He took a long while to look into her eyes; then after a while he gave a curt nod, and Temperance turned back to look across the table at her mother and Rowena.

  “All right,” she said softly, “we will marry. Not because we want to but to keep the village together. There are people involved who are more important than us.”

  At that Rowena and Melanie looked at the two of them with blank faces; then they turned to each other, then back to James and Temperance.

  “But, dear,” Melanie said after several moments, “we aren’t asking you and James to get married.”

  “You aren’t?” Temperance asked in surprise. “But I thought that’s what you wanted.”

  “Heavens no!” Rowena said loudly. “You two would have a worse marriage than James’s grandfather and his wife, and look what happened to them! She killed herself to get away from him.”

  “No, she didn’t.” James and Temperance again spoke in unison, then glanced at each other and away again.

  “Well, whatever. You can tell me about that later,” Rowena said. “We have more urgent business now. The key words in all this are ‘in love.’ I think, James, that you should know that I believe that that scoundrel brother of yours coerced your father into adding that—as Temperance so rightly says—stupid clause to his will. You know what Colin is like. He thought that you’d been married off to that awful girl and that when the time came, everyone would know that there was no love between the two of you. Colin just had to wait until you and he reached your thirty-fifth birthday, then all of McCairn would be his.”

  “Such as it is,” James muttered.

  “The land is worth something, I’m sure,” Rowena said.

  “All right,” James snapped, “what is it that you want of me?”

  “To marry Kenna, and for Temperance to plan the wedding,” Melanie said sweetly.

  “Who?” James asked while Temperance stared at her mother in wide-eyed silence.

  “Kenna, you dolt!” Rowena shouted at her nephew. “Kenna. The girl you loved when you were a boy, the one you wanted to marry, but your father hauled you off to London. Remember?”

  “Oh,” James said after a moment. “Kenna.” At that he smiled, then looked out of the corner of his eye at Temperance, but she jerked her head back around to stare at her mother.

  “Kenna,” Temperance said flatly.

  “Yes,” Melanie said, smiling at her daughter. “I must tell you the truth, that I had hoped that you and James would . . . Well, you can guess a mother’s hopes, but I can see now that it didn’t work out as I wanted. I never saw two people dislike each quite as much as you two do, and, Temperance, dear, your last letters have veritably reeked— begging your pardon, James—of your deep dislike of all things McCairn.”

  “You told your mother you hated McCairn?” James asked softly.

  “I did not!” Temperance said quickly. “Mother, I said no such thing. I said that McCairn needed to be pulled into the twentieth century, but, truthfully, after my last few days, I—”

  “Oh, I see,” James said, cutting her off. “It’s just me you hate.”

  “And why not?” Temperance shot at him. “After what you thought of me!!” She turned toward her mother. “He thought that I came here to marry him. When I helped the children or Grace, he thought I was doing it because I was after him, like some floozy who—”

  “We’re going to get nowhere at this rate!” Rowena shouted. “Now listen, you two, the last thing I care about at this moment is who thought what about whom. That doesn’t matter to me at all. What does matter is saving McCairn so the next generation can take care of the place.”

  Leaning across the table, she glared at Temperance and James. “For all that you two seem to hate each other, I think you agree that you don’t want the land sold and the people driven out of their homes. Am I right on this?”

  “Yes,” Temperance said softly. “To destroy this place would be a sin.”

  “Aye,” James said as he looked at Temperance in speculation, again looking at the way she was dressed.

  “James, it’s good that you can overcome that hateful pride of yours to admit that,” Rowena said. “Now the problem is that we have very little time before James’s birthday and he must be married for love by then. Since all my brother Angus’s tricks to find you a wife have failed, now the ox is in the ditch and it must be taken out.”

  She glared at James. “Do you understand me, boy? You must do something, or this precious land of yours is going to be gone. Then what will you do? Move into Edinburgh and get a job? I’m sure Angus would let you work for him. Something behind a big desk for fourteen hours a day?”

  James didn’t bother to respond to that but sat in stony silence.

  “Any other questions?” Rowena asked, looking from James to Temperance.

  When neither of them said a word, Rowena leaned back against her chair. “As Melanie said, we had hopes for the two of you, but since that is obviously an impossibility, and—” She stopped when both Temperance and James started to speak.

  “If either of you again tr