Temptation Read online

“Isn’t for you. I know, dear. You’ve certainly told me often enough. And I know that saving people is a worthy cause, but as you get older it’s nice to have someone to come home to. Temperance, dearest, I know what I’m talking about. I was married for sixteen years, alone for fifteen, and now I’m married again, and I can assure you that married is better. You don’t want to remain alone forever if—”

  “Alone? Mother, you’ve never been alone. You had Father for sixteen glorious years, and since then you’ve had me. Haven’t I been a dutiful daughter? I’ve never left you, have I?”

  Melanie gave a sigh. “No, dear, you’ve never left me. But—”

  “But what?” Temperance said with some agitation in her voice and no little hurt. Then she calmed herself and said more softly. “But what?”

  “Temperance, you’re so strong, so sure of yourself. You’re so like your father, so . . . so perfect, that sometimes I wish you were just a little more human.”

  “Human? I’m not human?” Temperance was stunned. “Isn’t what I’ve dedicated my life to very human? I can assure you that—” She stopped. “You have one of your headaches, don’t you? Lie down and I’ll call Marie.”

  “Yes, dear, you do that. And please call Angus.”

  “Him? No, I’ll stay with you. We can finish our discussion and—”

  “Please.” With her hand to her head, Melanie staggered to the fainting couch on the far side of the room and had to push half a dozen dresses aside to make room for herself. “Just Angus. Just my husband.”

  With a grimace, Temperance left the room. It hurt to have lost her mother so completely.

  Four

  “I hate him. I hate him. I hate him more,” Temperance said as she brushed a wet strand of hair out of her eyes. “I hate him more now. I will hate him more tomorrow.”

  With each declaration, she lifted a foot and set it back down in the mud, then she had to pull up on her leg with all her might to keep the sucking mud from pulling her down again as she made another step forward. The spines of her umbrella had broken within minutes of her leaving the village, and now she used it as a crutch to balance on.

  “I hate him with all my might,” she said, then pulled up a foot. “I hate him with the might of my . . . ancestors!” She said the last word with force as she leaned on the umbrella staff, then wrenched her left foot out of the ankle-deep mud.

  It was late at night and she was alone on a deserted muddy track that some man at the post office had told her was called a road. The thing didn’t deserve such an accolade.

  “I hate him into eternity,” Temperance said, then pulled up her right foot.

  All the people at the post office had been driven into hilarity when Temperance asked them about transportation to the McCairn estate.

  “McCairn?” the man behind the counter had said. “ ‘Estate,’ is it?”

  If the corner of his mouth hadn’t been twitching, Temperance would have thought she was in the wrong place. But wasn’t this James McCairn supposed to be the laird of a clan? Temperance didn’t know too much about Scottish history, but wasn’t that something important?

  But, based on the amusement of the postmaster and the four other men in the store, Temperance was saying something that was mightily funny to them.

  “This is Midleigh, Scotland, isn’t it? The driver didn’t let me off at the wrong place, did he?”

  “Oh, aye, this is Midleigh and ye’re in Scotland, but . . .” His secret joke so overcame him that he had to turn away for a moment.

  Temperance was cold and hungry and angry. The last twenty-four hours of her life had been hell. Up until the very moment that her mother saw her off in the heavily laden coach, Temperance had not believed that this was happening to her. She thought that her mother would suddenly find her spine and say, “No, Angus, what you are doing to my beloved daughter is wrong and the three of us will return to New York now!”

  But nothing close to those words came from her mother’s mouth. Instead, Melanie seemed to gain strength as the day of her daughter’s departure drew nearer. For the first six months of their stay in her new husband’s homeland, Melanie had hidden in a darkened room and taken headache powders four times a day. But during the two weeks before her daughter’s departure, the woman had been a dynamo of energy. She’d organized the packing of Temperance’s bags as though she were sending her daughter off to be gone, well, forever.

  “I can’t believe I’ll need a ball gown,” Temperance had said as she watched her mother clean out a wardrobe. “I’ll be gone only a few weeks.”

  “One never knows,” Melanie had said cheerfully. “Remember that Angus’s nephew is the laird of a clan and he does live in a castle, so I’m sure there will be wonderful parties. And now don’t forget, dear, that I can send you anything you need. Except money. Mr. McCairn has forbidden me that, but anything else you need, just let me know and I’ll send it.”

  “You can send me what my money can buy, but you can’t send me my money. Is that correct?” Temperance had said.

  “You know, dear, I feel one of my headaches coming on. Perhaps you could—”

  “Fetch your husband?” Temperance said, but her mother didn’t seem to hear the hurt or bitterness in her daughter’s voice.

  For her part, Temperance had spent the two weeks before departure discontinuing her meetings, telling people that she was returning to the U.S. very soon. “After a bit of a holiday,” she’d said as airily as she could manage. She’d roast in hell before she told anyone that her stepfather was blackmailing her.

  So eventually the horrible day when she was to leave had arrived, and even at the last moment, Temperance still expected her mother to save her. As Temperance walked down the steps and saw the coach, heavily loaded with her trunks, she felt like a prisoner walking to her execution.

  But her mother hadn’t saved her. In fact, Temperance hadn’t seen her mother looking so cheerful in years. There was a flush on her cheeks and a tiny dimple at the corner of her lips. And that odious man, Angus McCairn, was standing beside her, his arm around his wife’s plump waist, and he was grinning ear to ear.

  “Write me,” Melanie said to her daughter. “And don’t forget that if you need anything—”

  “A pardon?” Temperance said, coming as close as her pride would allow her to asking for a reprieve. There was part of her that wanted to go on her knees to Angus and beg to be allowed to stay. For all that she was a grown woman “past her prime,” as Angus constantly reminded her, she had never been away from her mother except for the three to six months a year when her mother went away to “rest.” But those separations didn’t count, Temperance told herself. Only distance had separated them then. Now, Angus McCairn separated them.

  But Melanie didn’t seem aware of her daughter’s misery and acted as though she hadn’t heard her. “I have a gift for you,” she said happily, “but don’t open it until you’re on the road. Oh, my, I can’t believe the time has come so soon. Well, dear, I . . .”

  When Temperance saw tears come to her mother’s eyes, she knew she had a chance, but then Angus put an arm firmly around his wife’s shoulders and led her away from the carriage. “Yes, Daughter, do write us,” he said over his shoulder as he led his wife into the house before she could say another word. Once inside the entrance, Melanie turned, gave a quick wave, then was pulled away, and Temperance was left alone to get into the carriage by herself.

  Then, once seated with some hope still in her heart, she hurriedly opened her mother’s gift. Maybe there would be a letter inside saying that Temperance didn’t have to go after all. Maybe the fat little package contained steamer tickets back to New York. Or maybe—

  It was a copy of Fannie Farmer’s cookbook.

  And at that sight, all hope left Temperance. She really was being sent away to a strange place among strangers to do an absolutely absurd job.

  After a long, exhausting trip, two hours before sunset, the carriage had unloaded her and her trunks at the post o