What a Scot Wants (Tartans and Titans) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Discover more Amara titles… When a Lady Kisses a Scot

  The Bewildered Bride

  Highland Salvation

  Saving the Scot

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Amalie Howard and Angie Frazier. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

  Entangled Publishing, LLC

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  [email protected]

  Amara is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

  Edited by Erin Molta

  Cover design by EDH Graphics

  Cover photography by

  Period Images

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  ISBN 978-1-64063-885-3

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition August 2019

  Dear Reader,

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  Chapter One

  Maclaren Estate, Scotland, 1831

  “I’m no’ marrying a bloody stranger!”

  Ronan Maclaren, Duke of Dunrannoch and Maclaren laird, slammed the sheet of fine vellum onto the desk. He glared at his mother and solicitor gathered in the study at Maclaren.

  “Father’s will said nothing of an arranged marriage.” His eyes shot to Mr. Stevenson, who sat to Lady Dunrannoch’s left, his leather case in his lap. The room was cold, the stone walls and floor absorbing the wintry Highland chill outside, and yet the man’s brow beaded with sweat.

  “At his lordship’s express instruction, I was not to mention the additional codicil until two years after his death,” Stevenson said. “At that time, if you hadn’t secured a wife on your own, I was to present the rest of the terms and the…er…bridal agreement.”

  Scowling at him, Ronan clenched his hands into white-knuckled fists. “In which I’m betrothed to a lass I’ve never met, against my own will.”

  It had nearly knocked him back on his arse when Stevenson had disclosed the new terms: An alliance between the Duke of Dunrannoch and the Earl of Kincaid was to be put into effect two years after the duke’s death, should Ronan fail to procure a wife for himself.

  A few years before, the former duke had nearly succumbed to a wasting illness, but his health had made a miraculous rebound and he had continued to thrive. So when he had not awoken one morning two winters ago, the loss had cut the entire Maclaren family off at the knees. However, it seemed the wily Duke of Dunrannoch had been prepared for his own exit and had made some alterations to his will since his initial brush with death. Namely, an amendment stating that the heir to Maclaren must wed, which hadn’t troubled Ronan. He had to marry at some point. Though he was not aware that the marriage amendment had included a sodding ticking clock.

  A clock that had just wound down and stopped entirely.

  “She’s not exactly a stranger, dear. Lady Imogen is a lovely woman,” Ronan’s mother, Lady Dunrannoch, said. Only a slight tightness at the corner of her lips betrayed her expression of tranquil confidence.

  But Ronan didn’t care if the woman was the loveliest rose in all of Scotland. According to the duke’s codicil, he now had no choice but to wed the Earl of Kincaid’s daughter—or he would forfeit his family’s distillery, Maclaren’s main livelihood and the business he’d poured his blood and sweat into for the last two decades.

  Ronan bit back a hiss of frustration. His crafty devil of a father would not have decided upon this scheme alone, not something this precise. That took a woman’s touch. He pinned a hard stare on his mother, who met it with cool reserve.

  “Ye had a hand in this. He wouldnae have done it without ye.”

  Lady Dunrannoch canted her head. “Your father amended the will shortly after he began to feel well again. Your reluctance to marry was perfectly clear, as was the reality that he would not be duke forever. You must understand his reasoning—”

  “As draconian as the previous ultimatum was, I did understand it,” he interjected coldly. “But this is nothing more than a marriage of convenience!”

  “As are most marriages in the aristocracy,” the duchess replied.

  “No’ mine!”

  He brought his fist down onto the desk and shook the massive hunk of carved Scots pine. Stevenson startled, the leather case slipping from his lap to the floor. His mother, however, didn’t so much as flinch. She kept her chin level, though one eyebrow crept up in a manner that made his ears burn. He was a grown man of seven and thirty, and she could still make him feel the sting of her displeasure without a word.

  “Are you telling me you wish to marry for love?” she asked.

  Ronan grit his teeth. She was leading him into a trap; he could feel it. He was as far from a romantic sop than anyone he knew, but hell…the idea of wedding a woman he didn’t even know or esteem turned his stomach. He flattened his lips.

  “I understand you’re upset, dear, but the Kinleys are a fine family of exceptional pedigree,” she said. “Lord Kincaid is an earl, and Lady Imogen is an acceptable match.”

  “I am capable of choosing my own wife, damn it.”

  “Then why haven’t you?” Her eyebrow lifted infinitesimally at his oath. “This is for your own good, my son.”

  He knew his reputation—stringent and particular to a fault. The hushed whispers that no lady, no matter the alliance benefits, the size of the dowry, or even her own personal endowments, would ever be good enough for Ronan Maclaren, Duke of Dunrannoch. But the plain truth was he’d hoped to meet a woman who stirred his blood, or at the very least intrigued him. When he took a bride, he’d at least like to feel some spark of affection for her.

  He couldn’t stand still another moment. Ronan turned from the desk and went to one of the tall casement windows overlooking the keep’s inner courtyard. He’d been born and bred to be duke, a role he’d prepared for all his life and one he took seriously. His clan and his f
amily had always come first. Always.

  Right now, however, he felt under attack, and by his own kin. The betrayal cut into his chest like a dull and rusty dirk.

  “You’ve had plenty of time to choose for yourself,” his mother went on, also standing. “I didn’t agree with your father when he asked Mr. Stevenson to draw up the betrothal agreement and the codicil surrounding it because I’d hoped that you would take the first change to his will seriously.”

  “I did—”

  “You’ve turned away several sound matches,” she went on. “And Maclaren cannot have a bachelor duke.”

  “It also cannae lose the distillery,” he growled.

  “And it won’t—if you see to your duty as duke and laird.”

  Devil take him, the woman was a battle-ax. Resolute and intractable. But she was right, as had his father been when alive. Clan alliances were integral to the strength and growth of a family’s holdings and power. His brothers and sisters had all wed for those very ends, and beyond his sister Makenna’s first marriage to a brutal laird—something neither Ronan nor any other Maclarens had known about until after the man’s death—they had all married out of affection, if not alliance.

  Ronan felt something tighten inside his chest. He’d thought himself in love once, long ago. But such folly was a double-edged sword—pleasure on one side, pain and suffering on the other. It had nearly destroyed him, and he hadn’t trusted another woman since. He glanced at the duchess. Perhaps it was his own fault for waiting so long, but no one had ever appealed enough for him to propose marriage. And now, a veritable stranger was being foisted upon him. He felt cornered by duty and circumstance, and he did not like it.

  He raked his fingers through his hair. “Say I sign this contract,” he said, refusing to look in his mother’s eyes. “What if the lady”—what was her name; Imogen or somesuch?—“refuses the match?”

  “Lord Kincaid has already agreed. He did so when your father presented the offer.”

  Ronan bit back his scowl. “So for clarity, if I refuse to sign the marriage contract, or if I break the signed contract, I forfeit our entire livelihood and the future of our clan.”

  Stevenson glanced to Lady Dunrannoch, who gave an imperceptible nod that Ronan didn’t miss. “Correct.” The solicitor cleared his throat. “And if Lady Imogen decides she will not marry you, she, too, will forfeit something of equal import,” he went on, tapping his case. “It’s all here in writing.”

  “It seems Father thought of everything,” Ronan said.

  “He was thinking only of your future. Of Maclaren’s future,” the duchess replied.

  Ronan met his mother’s gaze. Again, the sick swell of betrayal roiled in his stomach. He felt manipulated. Bent to someone else’s will. He knew it was only to benefit Maclaren and the ducal line, but he resented it more than he dared put into words. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t do his duty. He was a Maclaren, and that came before everything.

  He would not allow the distillery to fall into the hands of some outsider. It galled him beyond measure that either of his parents would see it so, just to see him wedlocked. He’d worked too damn hard for the last twenty years to build the distillery up from a single still in a ruined crofter’s cottage to a successful enterprise that employed nearly all of his clan.

  They depended upon him. Trusted him. Him, not some citified fop from Edinburgh who’d never stepped foot on Maclaren lands.

  “I willnae break the contract,” he said, a familiar resolve settling within him. One made of grim determination and steel will. Maclaren and its people would be secure. And his honor would remain intact.

  But as his mother nodded, the barest hint of regret in her expression, Ronan thought of this Lady Imogen, his future bride. The beginnings of an idea spun into existence. His honor would not fall into question and the distillery would remain in Maclaren hands if she were to cry off from the betrothal. She would pay a steep forfeit for rejecting him, but he’d be free of this marriage of convenience.

  In fact, he’d just have to make certain of it.

  …

  Edinburgh, Scotland

  Lady Imogen Kinley’s eyes fluttered closed, tears pricking the backs of them.

  Though she’d witnessed it a handful of times, the miracle of birth never ceased to amaze her. Humble her. She gazed at the infant wrapped in blue swaddling and marveled at his wrinkled, perfect, pink face. She cooed at the baby, soothing him with a finger and breathing in his sweet scent.

  The child’s mother lay in the middle of the bed. Mary was little more than a child herself. A scullery maid in a lord’s household, she’d been turned out on her ear, no matter that the lord in question had committed the wrongdoing in the first place. Imogen scowled. Men in their world simply did not get punished.

  She’d opened the doors to Haven, a sizeable terrace house in Edinburgh, when she’d come into the first portion of her inheritance on her twenty-fifth birthday, and had invested heavily in turning the place into a home for women just like Mary. Women like her beloved governess, Belinda, who’d faced a similar malfeasance from a man. When Belinda had died in childbirth, the shelter house had become Imogen’s life’s work. Her heart twisted at the thought of what had befallen the young governess…and the scoundrel behind it.

  Silas Calder—a man they had all trusted. A man she had trusted.

  Her fingers curled into her palms as she shoved the dark memory away. Silas had fooled them all, and while Imogen had narrowly escaped his clutches, Belinda had not been so fortunate.

  At least one good thing had come out of it. Haven had saved the lives of dozens of women caught in similar struggles. Over the years, Imogen’s education about what men were capable of had taken a sharp turn, and nothing could shock her anymore. And while Haven had expanded to offer other services like lodging and basic schooling, most of their efforts like finding homes for orphans or securing new placements were still funded primarily by Imogen’s own money. Which was dwindling.

  No matter. She would come into the final portion of her dowry in one year, on her thirtieth birthday. They would have to make do and stretch every guinea as far as it would go until then.

  Imogen savored the squirming feel of the bundle in her arms and the innocent look on his face. What a gift it was to not have a care in the world beyond satisfying hunger and being warm and comforted. With some reluctance, she handed the baby back to Emma, overseer of the shelter, part-time midwife, and her longtime friend. Marriage and motherhood were not in Imogen’s plans. This was her place. These women, her family.

  She would never marry if she could help it.

  “He’s beautiful,” she said to his mother.

  “Thank ye, milady,” Mary said again. “I would be on the streets if it wasnae fer ye.”

  “Mary,” Imogen said with a glance at Emma. She gentled her voice, but it had to be said. “This is the third position we’ve found for you, and your second birth. You cannot just keep allowing yourself to be seduced by the lord of the manor.”

  The girl had the grace to blush. “I dunnae mean to.”

  “At least use some form of protection against conception,” Emma interjected, scrubbing her hands after checking the babe and giving him to one of the waiting wet nurses. “Sponges and the like. It’s no’ all on the men, ye ken. ’Tis yer body.”

  “Try to get some rest,” Imogen said, then turned to Emma with a sigh of utter exhaustion.

  Emma had been a part of Haven from the start, handling most of the pregnant mothers, until they’d had to expand and hire a small staff of nurses and an additional midwife. She’d also helped manage the money and its allocation. They had met at finishing school, and though Emma had a head for numbers, her passion had always been medicine. A passion gained from her physician father, who had indulged her desire to learn.

  “It gets harder and harder to say no. We don’t have enough beds as it is.”

  “Mary is the exception,” Emma said gently. “The women ye help truly n
eed it. Haven has become a safe harbor for many who have nae place to go and nae one to turn to.”

  “I want to do more. Expand the schooling and extend it to boys as well.” Imogen pursed her lips as they walked back to the small office she kept for herself on the first floor. “Change and education start with both genders. And the flash houses in the city have been getting worse. Children need an opportunity to make a better life for themselves than petty thievery, or worse.” She eyed Emma. “How much money do we have left?”

  Emma drew a breath. “Enough for a while if we’re careful, but no’ to cover additional expenses like those.”

  “I will talk to my parents.” Imogen sighed. “Perhaps they’ll consider giving me the rest of my dowry early. It’s not like any more marriage proposals are forthcoming.”

  “Ye truly do no’ wish to marry?”

  “No.” And she didn’t. A husband was a shackle she did not want or need.

  “I’ll talk to my father tonight,” she said to Emma, packing up her satchel. “My parents know by now I’ll never marry. I’m a certifiable, unwanted old maid.”

  “Ye’re no’ old,” Emma said staunchly. “And if ye’d give yer suitors half a chance, ye wouldnae be unwanted or unwed.”

  It was probably true. Despite her apathy toward marriage, gentlemen with marital offers in hand had come in droves, attracted by her obscene dowry. But Imogen had refused to allow that money to go to some man who would get it simply by offering up his name. Her inheritance was meant for bigger things. More important things. And it was hers. And so, she had turned every one of them away by any means necessary.

  “Why would I want to marry?”

  “To have a family?” Emma returned.

  “I already have one.”

  “To fall in love, then?”

  Imogen rolled her eyes. “Love is useless. Just ask Mary and the men who profess their undying affection, only to run the other way once the fruits of their pleasure have ripened.”

  “Ye are much too cynical, my friend.” Laughing, Emma waved her finger in a circle. “Though, one day, when ye least expect it, love will find ye and knock ye head over heels.”