Temptation Read online

  But Temperance was like her father, and she’d always had one-year goals and five-year and ten-year goals. And, what’s more important, she’d stuck to them.

  But now, in the short time she’d been in McCairn, it seemed that her very foundation had been shaken. For the first time in her life she didn’t know what to do about anything.

  Part of her wanted James to act like a hero in a novel and sweep her off her feet. She wanted him to declare undying love for her and tell her that she had to remain in McCairn forever and be his wife. Temperance could see herself living in that big stone house and producing babies, all of whom grew up to wear kilts and play bagpipes.

  The other part of her wanted to run away from this place and never see it again. She remembered how she had been in New York, always sure that what she was doing was right, always moving toward a goal, a big goal, something that she was sure was going to change the earth.

  “Do other women have this dichotomy inside them?” Temperance had asked Grace last night.

  “No,” Grace had said sleepily. “Most women know exactly what awaits them: a man and a lot of children. If they’re lucky, the man is good and he supports all of you and he lives a long time. If the woman is unlucky, he drinks or beats her. Or he dies,” she added softly.

  “But that’s just it,” Temperance said with passion. “When I was in New York, I felt that I was giving women a choice.”

  “No, you gave them a place to stay when the men ran out on them,” Grace said with a yawn. “You were a landlord.”

  At that Temperance had sat back on her chair and stared in openmouthed astonishment at Grace, for Grace had just reduced years of Temperance’s do-gooder work to one word, “landlord.”

  “Is that all I was?” Temperance had whispered.

  Grace gave her a weak smile. “What do I know? I wasn’t there, so I can’t be a judge. I only know what you’ve told me. It just seems to me that here on McCairn you’ve done more. You’ve given women a way to help themselves. I can buy my own house someday even though there’s no man in my life, and Alys can go to school. Now, if you don’t mind, I must get some sleep. Tomorrow’s the big day.”

  “Yes,” Temperance said softly, then got up and went to her own bedroom. Tomorrow was the big day, her last chance. Tomorrow she had to do something or she was going to lose . . . What? she asked herself. What was she going to lose? It wasn’t as though the McCairn was begging her to marry him. She’d hinted to him three days ago that if he did ask, maybe she would remain here in McCairn. But James hadn’t taken the hint. In fact, he’d told her that he was going to marry Kenna, so that was the end of it.

  For the three days before the wedding, Temperance had lost herself in work. James’s relatives had started arriving, and it had been up to Temperance to welcome them. She’d started to apologize for the state of the rooms, but they had laughed at her. They well knew the state of the finances of the head of Clan McCairn.

  Three times Temperance had tried to talk to Kenna about the coming nuptials, but she never had “time” to discuss anything. “Do what you want,” she’d said over her shoulder, then run off to some other part of the house.

  “Ain’t found nothin’ yet,” Eppie would inform Temperance twice a day, meaning Kenna’s quest for the treasure.

  “Why doesn’t she at least try to be discreet?” Temperance had asked in frustration after she’d had a fight with the butcher. Wasn’t it Kenna’s job to deal with her own wedding?

  The kitchen had been full of people, but no one had answered her. Ramsey was, as always, holding a bottle for a lamb. He’d looked up at Temperance and said, “Maybe she hopes she’ll find the treasure before the wedding so she won’t have to marry my father.”

  For a few moments Temperance stood there blinking at him. “Father? James McCairn is your father?”

  “Aye,” he said. “No one told you?”

  “No,” she said softly. “No one told me.”

  Temperance found James at the top of the mountain. For once he wasn’t doing something to a sheep but was sitting with his back against the stone wall of the cottage where they had . . .

  Anyway, he was smoking a pipe.

  “I saw you,” he said. “Do you realize that when you first came here, you were out of breath at that climb, but now you can run all the way up?”

  Putting her hands on her hips, she glared down at him. “Why didn’t you tell me that Ramsey was your son?”

  For a moment James blinked at her. “It’s not a secret. Why didn’t you know?”

  “That’s not an answer. Who is his mother?”

  “A girl I met in London. Long time ago.” He took the pipe out of his mouth, looked at it, then put it back between his lips. “What’s that all over the front of you?”

  Temperance didn’t bother to glance down. “Flour and blood. I’ve been in the kitchen. Are you going to tell me about this or not?”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “Have you provided for the boy? Is he to inherit the title, the land? What have you done to see to him? Not much, if his living accommodations are any indication of what you’ve done for him. I thought he was a stableboy!”

  “An honorable position, if you ask me.”

  Temperance glared at him harder.

  “All right,” James said with a sigh. “What do they teach you women in America that you’re always concerned with money? Did you know that the women in McCairn now earn more than the men? Last week Lilias told Hamish that he couldn’t have his nightly draft because she was now selling all the tonic that she made. And Blind Brenda—”

  “You are not answering me.”

  “I haven’t done anything about anything, if that’s what you want to know. The girl and I were together one night; I didn’t even know her. Two years later her mother came to me and told me the girl had died of consumption, then shoved a scrawny boy at me. I brought him back here to live with me. As for the rest of it, I guess my legitimate son will inherit, if I have any, that is.”

  At that he looked at her waist.

  “Tomorrow you’re marrying Kenna, remember?”

  “Yes. So where’s she looking now? The attics?”

  Temperance threw up her hands in disgust at him and his whole clan, then turned and walked down the mountain.

  So today she was putting flowers in the church and trying not to think too hard about anything. This time tomorrow everything would be finished and she’d be free to return to New York and . . . and . . .

  What? Fight Deborah Madison for the title of who would go into the history books? At the thought she gave a shudder.

  “Are you all right?” Grace asked.

  Temperance started to say that she was fine, but instead, she straightened. “No,” she said at last. “I’m not fine. I’m . . . Actually, I’m not sure what I am, but it’s not fine.”

  At that she turned and left the church. If the flowers didn’t get put in the right place, what did it matter to her? If it didn’t matter to the bride or the groom, who was she to care?

  Twenty-three

  It was when she was introduced to Colin that everything began to whirl about in Temperance’s head so fast that she thought she was going to faint.

  With her hand to her forehead, she swayed back against the paneled wall of the entrance hall. Grace caught her before she fell.

  “Is she all right?” asked a voice that was identical to James’s. In fact, everything about Colin was identical to James.

  Before Temperance could reply, Colin had picked her up and carried her into the drawing room. “Out!” he ordered the people who’d filed in behind him, and it was the same way that James ordered people about.

  “Here,” Grace said as she handed Temperance a glass of brandy.

  “Wrong glass,” Colin said with a frown. “You can’t serve brandy in a water glass.”

  At that Temperance, lying on the sofa, her eyes closed, smiled. They might look alike, but they certainly weren’t alike in