She took a deep breath. “I really prefer to remain here at Gleneden.”
“Why?” It appeared it was his turn to be blunt.
Maura thrust her chin out. “I know what you are doing,” she said, her voice very low. “You are testing me. You think I wed you so that I could become a duchess, for the possessions I might gain. But I don’t want your title or your wealth. Or anything it can buy. In sum, sir, I won’t spend a single shilling of yours.”
A little voice in her mind reminded her of the candlesticks and such that she’d given Murdoch only that morning. That was different, argued another voice. That was payment for what the Black Scotsman had stolen from the McDonough. That was forthe people of McDonough. Not for her. Not for her own pleasure. She wanted nothing for herself.
“Now that,” Alec remarked dryly, “is simply being foolish. You are a duchess. You must dress accordingly.”
“A pity you find me so lacking, sir. I am sorry to embarrass you so.” The scathing look she bestowed on him was blunted by the tremor of her lips. The admission cost a bit of pride, but she held her head high. Stupidly, she felt the sting of tears burn the back of her throat.
“I said no such thing, Irish, and you know it. It is not a lack of breeding you suffer from.”
He gazed down at her. Gentle as his tone was, she sensed impatience. She chafed at his superior height—and at her inability to read what was in his mind when he saw so keenly into hers.
“And precisely what is it that I suffer from?”
“Merely this, Duchess. I wed a lovely Irish rose. But I’ve discovered my Irish rose has many thorns.”
Maura’s lips tightened. “And I have wed a prickly Scottish thistle.”
Alec lifted his gaze heavenward. “Ah,” said he, “a wife with both beauty and wit. What more could a man ask for?”
“I will not lie. It is how I feel.” Even as she said it, Maura cringed inside. What a hypocrite she was. “I prefer to remain here at Gleneden.”
Alec had leaned a hip against the top of the bridge, his legs crossed leisurely at his ankles, his arms across his chest. A breeze ruffled his dark hair across his forehead, lending him a boyish look.
But there was nothing boyish about the rest of him. His shirt was unbuttoned, revealing a wedge of dark, hair-roughened chest. Maura felt her mouth go dry. He said nothing, merely gazed at her, and all at once she recalled the feel of her lips trapped beneath his the night of the masquerade. So warm, so hotly persuasive. Sternly, she checked the thought.
“Did you hear me, sir?”
“I heard you,” he said mildly. “Nonetheless, you may wish to make an early evening of it. We’ll be leaving at dawn, and I should hate to have to come help your maid in getting you dressed, particularly when I would much rather assist you in getting undressed. But”—a slow smile crept along his lips—“I am happy to render assistance in either case.”
The cad! So he thought he had won, did he? He delighted in tormenting her. Everything about him—his almost lazy demeanor, that devilish smile that now curled his lips—proclaimed his smugness. She chafed at his self-righteousness.
Yet clearly he could not be persuaded otherwise.
“Very well, then, Scotsman. If it’s my company you wish in Glasgow, you shall have it.”
He offered his arm. “Excellent. I’m glad I was able to persuade you. I should hate the thought of being in Glasgow pining for my wife.”
Pining, was it? Ha!
She smothered a biting retort just in time.
Better to risk one battle, she reminded herself, than lose the war.
Chapter Twelve
Upon their arrival at the train station in Glasgow, Alec handed his wife into a hack, while a young boy stowed their two bags. Alec couldn’t help but smile while the horses clopped along the narrow streets. Maura’s pretty little nose was pressed against the window. She reminded him of a child who was making her first visit to the city.
“It’s very old, isn’t it?” she said.
“Glasgow?”
“Aye.”
“It is. The Romans built fortresses here in the first century, and the city itself in the sixth or seventh, by St. Mungo. Some legends claim he was related to King Arthur.”
