Her Highland Boss: The Earl's Convenient Wife / In the Boss's Castle / Her Hot Highland Doc. Marion Lennox

       CHAPTER THREE

      FOUR WEEKS LATER Lord Alasdair Duncan Edward McBride, Sixteenth Earl of Duncairn, stood in the same kirk where his grandmother’s funeral had taken place, waiting for his bride.

      He’d wanted a register office. They both had. Jeanie was deeply uncomfortable about taking her vows in a church, but Eileen’s will had been specific. Marriage in the kirk or nothing. Jeanie had felt ill when the lawyer had spelled it out, but then she’d looked again at the list of charities supported by the Duncairn foundation, she’d thought again of the old lady she’d loved, and she’d decided God would forgive her.

      ‘It’s not that I don’t support dogs’ homes,’ she told Maggie Campbell, her best friend and her rock today. ‘But I feel a bit of concern for AIDS and malaria and otters as well. I’m covering all bases. Though it does seem to the world like I’m buying myself a castle with marriage.’ She hadn’t told Maggie of the debt. She’d told no one. The whole island would think this deal would be her being a canny Scot.

      ‘Well, no one’s judging you if you are,’ Maggie said soundly, hugging her friend and then adjusting the spray of bell heather in Jeanie’s simple blue frock. ‘Except me. I would have so loved you to be a bride.’

      ‘I should have worn my suit. I’m not a bride. I’m half a contract,’ Jeanie retorted, glancing at her watch and thinking five minutes to go, five minutes left when she could walk out of here. Or run. Honestly, what was she doing? Marrying another McBride?

      But Maggie’s sister was a lawyer, and Maggie’s sister had read the fine print and she’d got the partners in her firm to read the fine print and then she’d drawn up a prenuptial agreement for both Jeanie and Alasdair to sign and it still seemed...sensible.

      ‘This is business only,’ she said aloud now, and Maggie stood back and looked at her.

      ‘You look far too pretty to be a business deal. Jeanie, tomorrow you’ll be the Lady of Duncairn.’

      ‘I... He doesn’t use the title.’ She’d tried joking about that to Alasdair. She’d even proposed using it in castle advertising but the black look on his face had had her backing right off. You didn’t joke with Lord Alasdair.

      Just Alasdair. Her soon-to-be husband.

      Her...lord?

      ‘It doesn’t stop the title being there, My Ladyship.’ Maggie bobbed a mock curtsy as she echoed Jeanie’s thoughts. ‘It’s time to go to church now, m’lady. If m’lady’s ready.’

      Jeanie managed a laugh but even to her ears it sounded hollow. She glanced at her watch again. Two minutes. One.

      ‘Ready, set, go,’ Maggie said and propelled her to the door.

      To marry.

      Third-time lucky?

      * * *

      He was standing at the altar, waiting for his bride. He’d never thought he’d be here. Marriage was not for him.

      He hadn’t always believed that, he conceded. Once upon a time he’d been head over heels in love. He’d been twenty-two, just finishing a double degree in law and commerce, eager to take on the world. Celia had been a socialite, five years his senior. She was beautiful, intelligent, a woman who knew her way around Scottish society and who knew exactly what she wanted in a marriage.

      He couldn’t believe she’d wanted him. He’d been lanky, geeky, unsure, a product of cold parents and too many books, knowing little of how relationships worked. He’d been ripe for the plucking.

      And Celia had plucked. When she’d agreed to marry him, he’d thought he was the luckiest man alive. What he hadn’t realised was that when she was looking at him she was seeing only his title and his inheritance.

      But she’d played her part superbly. She’d held him as he’d never been held. She’d listened as he’d told her of his childhood, things he’d never told anyone. He’d had fun with her. He’d felt light and free and totally in love. Totally trusting. He’d bared his soul, he’d left himself totally exposed—and in return he’d been gutted.

      For a long time he’d blamed his cousin, Alan, with his charm and charisma. Alan had arrived in Edinburgh a week before he and Celia were due to marry, ostensibly to attend his cousin’s wedding but probably to hit his grandmother for more money. He hadn’t been involved with Jeanie then. He’d had some other bimbo on his arm, but that hadn’t cramped his style. Loyalty hadn’t been in Alan’s vocabulary.

      And it seemed it wasn’t in Celia’s, either.

      Two days before his wedding, Alasdair had realised he’d left his briefcase at Celia’s apartment. He’d had a key so he’d dropped by early, before work. He’d knocked, but of course no one had answered.

      It was no wonder they hadn’t answered. He’d walked in, and Celia had been with Alan. With, in every sense of the word.

      So now he was about to marry...another of Alan’s leavings?

      Don’t think of Alan now. Don’t think of Celia. He said it savagely to himself but the memory was still sour and heavy. He’d never trusted since. His personal relationships were kept far apart from his business.

      But here he was again—and he was doing what Celia had intended. Wedding for money?

      This woman was different, he conceded. Very different. She was petite. Curvy. She wasn’t the slightest bit elegant.

      She was Alan’s widow.

      But right now she didn’t look like a woman who’d attract Alan. She was wearing a simple blue frock, neat, nice. Her shoes were kitten-heeled, silver. Her soft brown curls were just brushing her shoulders. She usually wore her hair tied back or up, so maybe this was a concession to being a bride—as must be the spray of bell heather on her lapel—but they were sparse concessions.

      Celia would have been the perfect bride, he thought tangentially. That morning, when he’d walked in on them both, Celia’s bridal gown had been hanging for him to see. Even years later he still had a vision of how Celia would have looked in that dress.

      She wouldn’t have looked like this. Where Celia would have floated down the aisle, an ethereal vision, Jeanie was looking straight ahead, her gaze on the worn kirk floorboards rather than on him. Her friend gave her a slight push. She nodded as if confirming something in her mind—and then she stumped forward. There was no other word for it. She stumped.

      A romantic bride? Not so much.

      Though she was...cute, he conceded as he watched her come, and then he saw the flush of colour on her cheeks and he thought suddenly she looked...mortified?

      Mortified? As if she’d been pushed into this?

      It was his grandmother who’d done the forcing, he told himself. If this woman had been expecting the castle to fall into her lap with no effort, it was Eileen who’d messed with those plans, not him. This forced marriage was merely the solution to