Читать книгу Some Like It Scot - Donna Kauffman - Страница 7

Graham MacLeod needed a bride.

Not that he wanted one. But there were extenuating circumstances.

“How about Bitsy?” Roan said, clicking away on his computer keyboard, resulting in a steady stream of photographs parading across his monitor.

Graham did not want to know what site his friend was on, much less who any of those women were. He was hardly going to choose a mate from a website catalog.

Roan barely paused on any of them more than a second or two, then kept clicking, while faces kept flashing.

Graham turned and looked out the office window, wanting no part of any of it, truth be told. He should be out in the fields, running tests, checking the fresh growth. Not wasting time on some four-hundred-year-old wild goose chase.

Roan took a short break, sighed, and plowed his fingers through his hair, then went back to tapping keys, a resolute expression on his normally genial face. “I mean, there is that unfortunate skin condition, and I’m no’ too certain she’ll be willin’ to leave the family homestead, carin’ for her great auntie’s cats as she does.” He paused briefly to shoot a wry smile in Graham’s direction. “Not to mention carting her over the threshold might take the wind out of your sails a wee bit.”

Graham glanced over at him. “Bitsy is your cousin. Have a care.”

“She’s routinely pulled pranks on us since we were wee lads,” Roan reminded him. “And no’ the gentle, affectionate kind, either, if you recall. I still bear the physical scars. Just last week she thought it would be the height of amusement to con Henrietta into addin’ a heavy starch to my laundry. The laundry in question was my boxers.”

Shay snorted from where he sat at the other desk, across the room. “So you’re sayin’ your cousin gave you a stiffie?”

“That’s no’ amusin’, Shay, no’ in the least,” Roan shot back.

“And he wants to marry her off to me,” Graham said to Shay. “With friends like that—”

“It’s a friend like me who’s going through all the trouble of helping you out in the first place, don’t forget,” Roan said. “I wouldn’t have suggested her, but she’s the only available McAuley lass of age left on the island.”

Graham turned fully back around. “That canno’ be true.”

Roan laughed. “Ye’ve less than four hundred of us to see after, perhaps twice as many sheep, but I’ll bet you know the sheep’s lineage better than your own. You spend far too much time out in the fields, running tests, measuring soil—”

“Probably sending longing looks toward the sheep,” Shay interjected, but was studiously going over papers when Graham shot him a dark look.

Roan laughed. “Perhaps I should send them a warning. You’ve been quite the hermit far too long.”

“Veritable monk,” Shay added, distractedly. “It’s not natural.”

“Yes, well, as you both are fully aware, given you face similar circumstances, the list of available companions on Kinloch is a rather short one past blood relatives of one sort or another.”

“Aye, but we’re not tied to a clan law that forces us to marry one of them in order to carry on our work,” Roan said, not remotely put off by Graham’s deepening scowl.

“Nor are you tied to only finding a suitable McAuley on this island,” Shay reminded him. “Which is why God made ferry boats. Perhaps you’ve heard of them, big seafaring vessels that can transport a man to the mainland—and heaven—in a matter of hours.”

“He only goes to the mainland for science and farming symposiums,” Roan reminded Shay. “And a veritable smorgasbord of sweet, young flesh to be found at those functions, I’m sure.”

“Actually, I think horn-rims on a woman are rather sexy,” Shay said, pausing in his reading as if to give that matter serious thought.

“Only as you’re sliding them off her, so she canno’ see you so clearly,” Roan joked. “Blurry up your bits a little. ‘Things are larger than they actually appear, darlin’, and all that.”

“He’s really no’ that amusing after all, is he?” Shay said to Graham in that flat, dry manner that was distinctly his, before going straight back into the stack of legal documents he was poring over.

Graham gazed at his two closest friends. He and Roan McAuley had been best mates since they’d both been in nappies. Shay Callaghan had popped up during their seventh summer, when his mother dumped him on Kinloch to be raised by his father before leaving for parts unknown. It had come as a particular surprise to Callaghan senior, as he hadn’t known he was a father until that fateful day. The three youths had muskateered up pretty much immediately, and had been quite the reckonable force ever since.

As young men, they’d left their tiny Hebridean island, heading to university on the mainland—Graham in Glasgow, Shay and Roan in Edinburgh—each in pursuit of very different dreams. But fate’s quirks had eventually brought all three back to their rustic, rural home, where they remained, each with a vested interest in bettering the life for their fellow clansmen and islanders.

They were an odd mix. Shay, always the pragmatic, level-headed one, was the natural born mediator and solver of problems. He’d become a barrister, just like his father, though their relationship had always been a rocky one. Aiden Callaghan had been gone close to six years, an early heart attack taking him far before his time, leaving Shay, freshly minted degree in hand, as the most recent Callaghan man to handle all matters of legal import, for the Kinloch residents, as his forebears had done for centuries prior.

Roan, on the other hand, was the one with the ready wit and easy charm. Inventor, dreamer, and electronics genius, once he’d found computers and the Internet, there had been no stopping him. While Shay kept the peace, Roan was often called upon to use his droll and easygoing nature to keep his more serious and focused compatriots from growing too stodgy and dour.

Graham was a scientist by nature and degree. He was happiest when he was out in the fields, and the only technology he cared about was the kind that would help him nurture the unique Kinloch flaxseed crop that his clansmen’s entire economic existence depended upon. In addition to being a scientist and a farmer, he was, and had been for several fortnights now, the laird of the MacLeod clan, as well as current leader of the dual clanship—with the McAuleys—that comprised the citizenry of Kinloch.

Or he was until the autumnal equinox, anyway.

At which point he needed to be married to a McAuley, or the leadership would pass to the other side. In this case, it would put them into the hands of a man who didn’t even reside on Kinloch, who very likely wasn’t even aware of the daft ancient island law, much less his possible pending inherited title.

“Do you really think all this is necessary?” Graham asked, yet again. “Ualraig was single for as long as most everyone on the island can remember. I don’t recall them nudging him to tie the knot after my dear grandmother departed.”

“But it was precisely because he had wed your dear grand-mamma when he became laird and leader, that it wasn’t a concern,” Shay noted. “No’ a legal one, at any rate.”

“But how legally enforceable is a four-hundred-year-old marriage pact? Surely there isn’t a man, woman, or sheep, for that matter, who sincerely wishes me to stop moving forward with our crop growth. We’ve turned things around substantially in the years since the blight, and in the past three we’ve seen significant progress, but no’ enough as yet to guarantee the rest of us won’t be fleeing to the mainland to look for new livelihoods. We’ve already lost people more than we should have, though I can hardly blame them. But if we’re to ultimately survive, we need—I need—to keep pushing and doing whatever it takes to get us back to one hundred percent growth. Hell, seventy-five percent would allow us to take advantage of our full market potential. We can’t promise that right now, so we have to turn new interests away. We’re at sixty-two percent. Sixty-two! With winter howling at our backs. We’ve no time for silly games.”

Graham waved a hand at Roan’s laptop, which might as well be umbilically attached to the man, he was never separated from the damn thing.

Roan headed the island board of tourism—which was actually just Roan and auld Liza MacLeod, who came in thrice weekly to do minor bookkeeping and the odd secretarial job. But he also took care of marketing Kinloch Basketry, which was the far bigger and most important job. The unique artisan baskets were woven from the waxed linen threads made from the rare, if small, flax crop that grew on the island.

There was no denying it had been Roan’s marketing genius and “big-picture strategy,” as he’d called it, that had moved them from merely selling their one-of-a-kind baskets in the U.K., to competing in a global marketplace…and competing quite famously.

Much like Harris tweed, which had been borne on one of their sister islands, theirs was a cottage industry—literally—that single-handedly kept the island economy afloat and, like its tweed weaving counterpart, could continue to do so for generations, if not for one wee problem.

“If we don’t grow the flax, we can’t weave the bloody things! That is where my energies should be directed,” Graham said. He paced Roan’s small office, trying to stay calm in the face of the ridiculousness of it all, but losing the battle handily. At barely thirty-one, he’d already worked too hard, for too long, taking up where Ualraig had left off, fighting the foul whims of Mother Nature. They were all working hard, and the stakes were bloody damn high.

The blight that struck their island home close to a dozen years back had made it a struggle to take full advantage of the increased interest Roan’s online marketing campaign had brought them. The impact on the wee island’s economy had been so severe, at their lowest points, it had looked as if the centuries strong MacLeod-McAuley clan alliance might finally be forced to a sad, ignominious end.

But Graham’s hard work and dedication to finding solutions to the ongoing struggles they faced by growing a unique crop on such unforgiving land was beginning to pay off. Harvest percentages were climbing—slowly—but the increase was constant, with no decline at all for the past three growth cycles. With enough consistency, they could accept more contracts for their baskets. There was real hope, and his clansmen knew it and supported him wholeheartedly. Not that he wanted their gratitude, but due to the situation at hand, surely now that he was clan chief in full, they weren’t going to hold him hostage to some centuries-old, outdated tribal law.

Shay cleared his throat. “I’ve studied the original documents until my eyes are crossing, Graham. I’m sorry to report that I don’t see any way around it.”

“We’ll simply overturn it, then, right? As clan chief, don’t I have a wee bit of say in how the island laws are maintained? Surely—”

“According to what was written, the law was purposely created so that no individual clan chief could abolish it,” Shay explained. “Its sole purpose was to keep the clans united against—”

“The insurgency on the mainland, which, I might remind you, hasn’t been an issue for quite some time. Just what are we protecting ourselves from, by forcing the sitting chief to legally bind himself to the other clan by marrying it?”

Shay held him under a steady regard. “We’re a wee spit of land located not only a fair distance from our mother land, but also from the rest of our sister islands, all situated between us and its bonny shores. We’ve no cause to have ever been the stronghold we’ve succeeded in being, for any amount of time, much less centuries of it. Clearly the pact has done what it set out to do. It has worked. I dinnae believe it matters, Graham, that the wars that provoked its evolution have ended. Look at the American constitution and how it has managed to guide a country to power, despite being written so long ago that the creators of the document couldn’t possibly have foreseen how it would be applied in times such as the ones we live in now. And yet,” he added, mildly, “they seem to be doing okay.”

Graham lifted his hands, then let them fall helplessly at his sides. “I understand the sentimental reasons why everyone wants to hew themselves to the auld rituals. But it’s no’ practical any longer, to force my hand, especially in something as sacred as marriage, all to appease a ruling that we no longer need abide by to survive. What we need to do to survive is to grow the flax, increase our industrial output. If we’re going to focus on sentiment, then let it be the pride of the fact that we create the most intricately woven, beautifully artistic, unique baskets in the world. It’s history, it’s art. It’s the—”

“Harris Tweed of craftsmanship,” Roan finished with him, then sighed. “We’ve heard the speech, Graham.”

“Then you already know that it’s that very history we should be embracing, and working toward maintaining, to keep us a thriving island stronghold. Not worrying about whether the MacLeod laird has taken a McAuley bride within some ridiculous and entirely nonsensically determined period of time. I don’t believe in it and I refuse to follow it.”

Graham thumped Roan’s desk with his fist to underscore his words, though Roan barely raised a brow at the action, despite it being well out of character. “I’ll take it up in a town meeting if need be. Gain a consensus vote. Surely if everyone says aye to abolishing the thing, it must be rendered no longer legally binding. We could rid ourselves of it and get back to focusing on what’s important.” He smacked the desk with both palms, then pushed off and strode across the room to look out the front window and down the main lane of the village. “There will be no sham wedding on Kinloch.” He turned back to face his friends. “I have your support in this, am I right?”

Both Roan and Shay continued to stare at him for several long moments, before finally looking at each other.

“I’ll expand the search to the mainland,” Roan said.

Shay nodded. “I’ll write up the banns that are to be posted as soon as an agreement with the bride has been reached.”

Graham looked at them both incredulously. “Did ye no’ hear a word I just said?”

“We did,” they both said in unison, neither one so much as pausing as they continued going about whatever it was they had to go about to see Graham lawfully wed to an eligible member of the McAuley clan before the end of the autumnal equinox. Being as it was mid-August, that was little more than a month away. Giving him roughly forty days to find a bride.

Heaven help them all.

“I’m going to call the town council,” Graham stated, not giving up just because the two men he regarded as brothers had already done so. “In fact, I’m going to call an island tribunal. If we get a consensus then, as far as I’m concerned, legal or no’, that’s all the support I need to continue on and be done with this wild goose chase.”

“It’s no’ just a consensus, Graham,” Shay told him. “It has to be one hundred percent. They all have to say aye.”

Graham spun back around. “Really? So there is a solution! Why didn’t you say so? I’m certain I can and will have that. Who would say nay?”

“I can think of a few,” Roan said. “Like Dougal. And auld Branan, for certain.”

“They’re not the only elders who will hold out,” Shay agreed. “They love you, no doubt, but they’ll stick with tradition.”

“Even over what’s best for the island? If we let someone else, an outsider no less, come here and begin making decisions regarding our well-being—surely even the oldest resident wouldn’t chance that.”

Roan shrugged. “Perhaps they think you’ll persevere with your crop management whether you’re laird or no’.”

“What if I have no say in the matter? What if this”—he turned to Shay—“what’s the bloke’s name?”

“Iain McAuley.”

Graham turned back to Roan. “Iain. What if this Iain has other ideas about our little island industry? He’s never so much as set foot on our soil much less worked it with his own hands. Who knows what he’d decide to do. We can’t risk that.”

“He may not even want it,” Roan reminded him. “In fact, he probably won’t. Who would?” He looked to Shay and grinned. “We’re no’ exactly the Fortune 500 of inheritances, you know.”

“He’ll probably be begging you to take it over.” Shay agreed, then leaned back in his seat and folded his arms. “Besides, if he wants to be laird, he’ll have to honor the marriage pact law as well.”

Graham pumped an air fist. “Right! He’ll have to marry a MacLeod! I’m betting he won’t be any more enthusiastic about that than I am. Hell, for all we know, he’s already married.”

Shay shook his head. “He’s no’. He’s thirty-two, unwed, living in Edinburgh. Works for an investment firm. Quite the bright and shiny diamond, too, from what I’ve dug up.”

“Still—”

“There is a much longer list of eligible MacLeod lasses,” Roan pointed out. He shrugged when Graham shot him a dark look. “I’m only stating the truth here. I mean, aye, he could find the whole thing tiresome and a waste of his time, but what do we know? Maybe he’ll think it quite the lark. Shay said he already has more money than Croesus—from his job, as well as a few trusts and such from his mum’s side of the tree.”

“He could marry just to lay claim to the property and the title,” Shay said. “The wealthy generally don’t mind accruing more things.”

“This would hardly be a feather in his asset list.”

Shay shrugged, and Roan said, “I don’t think we should chance it,” before going back to his search.

Graham turned to Shay, who merely lifted a brow. “He’s right,” he added, as Graham began swearing under his breath.

“I’m still calling the island tribunal,” Graham insisted. “If I get the damn law overturned, there will be no title inheritance. Kinloch will remain under my governance as long as her people wish me to lead.”

“You’ll have forty days to campaign, get them all to agree,” Shay reminded him.

“And that’s the same forty days you’d also have to find a bride,” Roan added. “I dinnae think it’s a wise bet to divide your energies.”

“I need to try. Especially given that even if I was willing to follow the law, there doesn’t seem to be anyone eligible to marry anyway.”

Both of his friends sighed, then nodded, knowing, as they must have all along, that he wouldn’t go down without a fight. To that end, Graham turned on his heel, determined to do whatever it was going to take to set the proceedings in motion. His hand was on the knob, when Roan hooted.

“What do ye know. I think I’ve found her!”

Graham turned, knowing he had to at least ask. “Found who?”

“Your wife.”

“Roan—”

“I expanded my search to the mainland, and, well…I had to search a wee bit more widely, but I plugged the McAuley name into Facebook, then backtracked the names to the tree list that Shay has drawn up, and”—he turned his laptop around and gestured with a flourish—“voila! A connection to our own McAuley tree, albeit a wee bit distant one. But it only matters that the connection is there.”

Graham wasn’t about to take a single step closer, much less look at the poor woman Roan had targeted. He already felt trapped, bound, and tethered by an archaic clan law…and he’d grown up knowing about it. He couldn’t fathom broaching the subject with someone who knew nothing of him, nothing of Kinloch, much less of the ridiculous MacLeod-McAuley marriage pact.

Roan looked at him triumphantly. “It just took a little determination.”

“How do you know she’s linked with our McAuleys? Just becaue her surname—”

“That’s the beauty of Facebook, my friend. Her whole family history is documented, mostly as it pertains to their family industry, but there it is,” he added with a bit of dramatic flair, squinting back at the screen, tapping some keys, and scrolling some more. “Shay and I already drew up a lineage of everyone on Kinloch, going back several generations, so all I had to do was extend the branches out on those who have left the island over the past, say, fifty years. He spun the laptop back around again so the monitor faced Graham. “There’s a direct link. She’s the veritable needle in a haystack.” He grinned, quite self-satisfied. “And we found her.”

A knot fisted tightly in Graham’s gut. It felt a lot like a noose, tightening around his neck. “Even if I was willing to remotely consider the idiotic idea of pursuing the poor lass—and I’m most emphatically not—what on earth could I say to her that wouldn’t make me sound like an utter loon? I mean, consider it, Roan. Truly. I approach a total stranger, and propose marriage, and if that same well-documented family of hers has even the slightest bit of protectiveness, they’d have me in a white jacket, locked in the nearest tower. And I could hardly blame them.”

He turned to Shay, needing the voice of reason he would surely provide. “Tell him this is utter lunacy.”

Shay didn’t so much as glance at Roan. “You should at least consider it,” he said, leaving Graham momentarily speechless. He lifted his hand before Graham could regroup and lecture them both on the rest of the vast and varied reasons why considering it was the very last thing he was about to do. “Think of it as a contract, of sorts. In fact,” Shay said, his aristocratic features lighting up in a way they rarely did, “I’ll gladly draw up a legal agreement that you can propose with. Approach it like a business deal.”

“Because every woman dreams of being proposed to with a legal document,” Graham said darkly, unable to truly believe he was even having this conversation. “You two canno’ be serious.”

But it only took looking at them to prove that they couldn’t be more serious.

“You have to at least try,” Roan said. “I mean, we did find a candidate. That’s a start—more of a solution to all this than we had before.”

“You’ve both gone stark ravers. Mad as hatters.”

“If you don’t at least try,” Shay said, “there will be nothing to stop Iain from taking over Kinloch, if he decides to show up and claim a MacLeod as a bride. Then everything we’ve all worked for will have been for naught.”

“You were right when you said this wasn’t just about you,” Roan added. “It’s no’ like we all don’t have an ancestor or ten who’ve had to make far greater sacrifices in the name of clan unity and prosperity.”

“Besides,” Shay went on, “there’s nothing in the law that says you can’t dissolve the union at a later time.”

“How much later?” Graham asked, still not actually considering following through on it. He was more set on getting the island to turn the law over than ever before. When he was done, not only would he not have to face the ridiculous stipulation, but neither would any MacLeod or McAuley after him. And it would effectively render Iain’s claim on Kinloch null and void as well. Win-win, the way he saw it.

“The original documents don’t address the topic directly. I suppose because divorce or dissolution of a marriage, especially an arranged one between two clans, wasn’t something that happened often, if ever. Especially in our case, where there was too much riding on the union to allow the participants that kind of luxury.”

“You’re saying none of them ever did? Divorce or dissolve, I mean?”

“I’ve gone all the way back,” Shay said. “Traced it all, looking for loopholes or precedent.” He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. Then shook his head. “No’ a single union ended in anything other than death.”

“And no,” Roan said archly, “you can’t dump her off the cliffs.”

“Very funny.” Graham shook his head, then swore under his breath. “So you’re saying I could dissolve the union, but that I’d be the first in four hundred years to do so. Brilliant.”

“Well, you’re talking about dissolving the pact itself,” Roan said. “Surely if you think our fellow islanders will agree to such a thing, then they’d be equally amenable to you making a mockery of the law all together.”

Graham ducked his chin. He’d never once, in all his years, felt his birthright to be a burden. It was a vital, albeit sometimes difficult life path, but a challenging one he’d taken to with dedicated interest rather than complaint. Yet, in that moment, he’d be a liar if he said the mantle didn’t weigh heavily on his shoulders…and he wished he were merely the scientist farmer he felt himself to be.

“You truly dinnae think they’ll agree to abandon the law, do ye?” he said quietly, as the most likely eventuality sunk in and took hold for the first time. “Even though it might mean the very survival of this island?”

Both Shay and Roan shook their heads. “You could try,” Shay said.

“But, as I said, you’ll be wasting time that could be spent courting one”—Roan shifted the laptop back around and peered at the screen—“Katie McAuley.”

“Which isn’t a guaranteed win, either,” Graham reminded them. “I’m either asking my own clansmen to abandon the auld law, or allow me to make mock of it by finagling a marriage agreement from a woman I’ve never even met.”

“Ye’d hardly be the first in our history to do that,” Roan said. “And she’s no’ exactly hard on the eyes, lad. Have a look. Besides,” he said, his mischievous charm surfacing, “you were the one blessed with the MacLeod good looks and charm. We’d place our bets that you’d be able to win her over. Who knows, perhaps it wouldn’t be in name only. You would make quite the bonny couple.”

Graham scowled at him. He felt far from charming at the moment.

“Go on,” Shay urged. “Have a look. Then decide.”

“I can even pinpoint an exact location and time for you to meet,” Roan said.

“And however would you know that?”

Roan nodded at the screen. “She’s chatted about it with some of her girlfriends.”

“How is it you’re suddenly privy to chats she’s had with her mates?”

He sighed and rolled his eyes. “You really should consider using your own computer for something other than research. Perhaps if you had, we’d already have solved this problem.” He sighed when Graham merely continued waiting a response. “Facebook,” he explained, with exaggerated patience. “It’s all there on her wall.”

“Her what?” Graham waved a hand. “Truly, don’t elaborate. I dinnae want to know. There is work to be done. I can’t be dallying about on some online site, trolling for…” He shuddered, just thinking about it. “Ualraig is likely rolling in his grave right now and I couldn’t blame him. We havnae struggled and fought and worked so hard to have it all hinge on”—he waved his hand in the direction of the laptop—“that. Her.”

“Katie McAuley,” Roan supplied helpfully, clearly undaunted in the face of Graham’s disgust. “She’ll be at the St. Agnes chapel Saturday hence. Half past two. I’d strongly suggest you be there a might bit earlier.”

“At a chapel?” Shay asked.

“Mm hmm,” Roan said briskly, looking back at the screen, tapping the keys again. A moment later the printer started churning. “Wedding.”

“How poetic,” Shay said, his mouth curving in a wry grin. “Perhaps witnessing the vows will soften her up some, eh, Graham?”

“You need to talk to her before that,” Roan said, pulling the sheet from the printer and handing it to Graham. “After the ceremony people head in all different directions, and there is no telling how closely monitored the reception might be. The church is your best bet.”

Graham took the paper without even looking at it. “I canno’ believe you’re both serious. You truly believe I should travel all the way to the mainland, to—” He glanced down at the map printout Roan had given him, then squinted and looked at it more closely, before looking back at his oldest, dearest, and quite possibly soon to be dearly departed friend. “It says Annapolis. Maryland. Which, the last time I checked, wasn’t on the mainland, it was—”

“Oh, but it ’tis,” Roan said, his single dimple deepening with obvious glee. “Just happens it’s the mainland of America.”

“Now you truly have gone off your daft.” Graham turned to Shay. “I’m not heading across the pond to chase this”—he shook the paper as fury, along with a good amount of fear, knotted the words in his throat. “This is the most outrageous, preposterous—” He stormed to one end of the office, then back to face them. He had to make them see, make them understand. “We simply have to gain support for abolishing the law. That’s all there is to it.”

A light tap sounded on the door directly behind Graham. He’d barely moved out of the way when it swung open to reveal the stout form of Eliza McAuley. “Ye’ve a visitor, just in off the ferry.”

“Eliza, it will have to wait,” Graham said. “We’re in the middle of a very important discussion. We—”

“I’ve two perfectly good ears, Graham MacLeod. I can hear quite well what’s going on in here, and let me tell you,” she said, stepping up to him with a fiery light sparking her faded blue eyes to life, “Roan is correct. You’ll find little support for your abolishment scheme amongst the elders on this island. Don’t think we’ll stand by while you attempt to undermine what our ancestors set about creating. We’re still here four hundred years later largely due to their foresight.” Then she pinched his cheek, as she’d done since he was a wee lad. “Don’t think we dinnae love you, because we surely do, spoil you, we do. Doted on ye since ye were but a wee lad, traipsing along after your grandfather. And we’re proud of you now, we are. Fiercely so. We raised ye to be the man ye are, have no doubt of it. And are quite content with how you turned out. But you need to be sensitive to balancing your new ways with our auld ones.”

“Eliza,” he said, working his jaw slightly when she released his face. The pinch wasn’t any more enjoyable now than it had been in his youth. “Do you mean to say that you honestly believe it’s in our best interests for me to bind myself to what amounts to a complete stranger?”

Eliza’s smile was wide and confident. “Darling lad, weren’t ye listening to Shay? We’ve been arranging marriages for quite a long time. I’m no’ thinking your argument there will hold much weight.”

Had the auld woman had her ear to the door the entire time? “But—”

“But perhaps I should introduce the young man waiting patiently in the outer office. He might be the one to change your mind.”

“We don’t have time right now to—”

“Oh, but ye’ll make the time for this.” Eliza had already shifted back and a moment later a tall, blond-haired, nattily dressed, rather dashing-looking fellow entered the room in such a way as to say that he was quite used to making an entrance, and equally confident that folks would react favorably when he did.

“I say,” he said, skimming his gaze past each of theirs, then sticking his hand out. “Which of you is Graham MacLeod?”

“That would be me,” Graham said, stepping forward. “What can I do for you, Mr….”

The man chuckled, displaying a marquee poster set of teeth a blinding shade of white not often seen on that side of the pond, and extended his hand for a brisk, firm shake. “Iain. Iain McAuley, and I’ve come to claim my island. And my bride.” His grin widened, revealing two perfectly formed dimples. “I daresay, not in that particular order.”