How to Marry a Highlander

garments strewn across the bed that four of his sisters shared now.

In his pocket was a total of seventy-two pounds, all the money he had in the world. After the shearing there would be enough to repair the roof on the castle or to eat over the winter. Until then, he had nothing. He didn’t know a thing about finding husbands, and the men he knew in London were the sort he would never allow near his sisters. The sort that had taken Miranda.

The land was barren, the flocks decimated from plague the year before, famine before that, and overproduction under his father’s haphazard tenure.

Whatever stores of grain and good will there’d once been, his father had lost on unwise investments that his second wife had encouraged him to pursue.

When Duncan had finally gone home a year and a half ago, after nearly a decade’s absence, the place had been in ruin. The bankers had not responded to his pleas. The estate, they said, would never produce. The Eads clan would get no more assistance through honest channels.

There was another option, of course. If he went to Myles and asked for a loan, his former employer would give it to him. But the price Myles would demand for it would be too high. He couldn’t do it. That life was behind him. It had to be. For his sisters’ sake.

He needed air. Now. And sunlight. Anything to shove away memories of those years in dark alleys and dockyards. Those years when all he’d wanted was to forget the pain.

He tore off the tunic and dressed. A soft knock came at the door. Tying his cravat, he opened it a crack. Una poked her head in.

“Brither, ye’ve a caller.”

He frowned. Few knew the location of his hired rooms in London. “Be ye certain?”

“Aye. And Duncan . . .” Una’s blue eyes sparkled. “She’s a bonnie young Sassenach.”

It would have been remarkable if Teresa had not been quivering in her prettiest slippers. Six pairs of eyes stared at her as though she wore horns atop her hat. She was astounded she had not yet turned and run.

Desperation and determination were all well and good when one was sitting in Mrs. Biddycock’s parlor, traveling in one’s best friend’s commodious carriage, and living in one’s best friend’s comfortable town house. But standing in a strange flat in an alien part of town anticipating meeting the man one has been dreaming about for eighteen months while being studied intensely by his female relatives did give one pause.

Her cheeks felt like flame, which was dispiriting; when she blushed her hair looked glaringly orange in contrast. And this was not the romantic setting in which she had long imagined they would again encounter each other—

another ballroom glittering with candlelight, or a rose-trellised garden path in the moonlight, or even a field of waving heather aglow in sunshine. Instead now she stood in a dingy little flat three stories above what looked suspiciously like a gin house.

But desperate times called for desperate measures. She gripped the rim of her bonnet before her and tried to still her nerves.

The sister that had gone to fetch him reappeared in the doorway and smiled. “Here he is, then, miss.”

A heavy tread sounded on the squeaking floorboards. Teresa’s breaths fled.

Then he was standing not two yards away, filling the doorway, and . . . she . . . was . . . speechless.

Even if words had occurred to her, she could not have uttered a sound.

Both her tongue and wits had gone on holiday to the colonies.

No wonder she had dreamed.

From his square jaw to the massive breadth of his shoulders to his dark hair tied in a queue, he was everything she had ever imagined a man should be. Aside from the neat whiskers skirting his mouth that looked positively barbaric and thrillingly virile, he was exactly as she remembered him. In seeing him now, indeed, she realized that she had not forgotten a single detail of him from that night in the ballroom.

But more than his eyes and muscles and all those other manly bits of him drew her. Much more. The very fibers of her body seemed to recognize him, as though she already knew how it felt for him to take her hand. Just as on that night eighteen months ago, now an invisible wind pressed at her back, urging her to move toward him, like a magnet drawn to a metal object. As though they were meant to be touching.

Despite the momentous tumult within her, however, Teresa could see quite clearly in his intensely blue eyes a stark lack of any recognition whatsoever.

3

“Weel?” The single word was a booming accusation. “Who be ye, lass, and what do ye be wanting from me?”

It occurred to Teresa at this moment that she could either be thoroughly devastated by this unanticipated scenario and subsequently flee in utter shame, or she could continue as planned.

An image came to her: herself kneeling at the Reverend Elijah Waldon’s feet, offering his slippers while he sat in his favorite chair before the fire reading from Butler’s collected sermons.

She gripped her bonnet tighter.

“How do you do, my lord? I am Teresa Finch-Freeworth of Brennon Manor at Harrows Court Crossing in Cheshire.” She curtseyed upon legs that felt like pork aspic.

His brow creased. “And?”

“And . . .” It was proving difficult to breathe. “I have come here to offer to you my hand in marriage.”

Silence.

Complete stillness from the man and seven women staring at her.

A book slipped from a sister’s hand and clunked to the floor. “Pardon,” the sister mumbled.

“Why, Duncan, ye old trickster,” another sister exclaimed. “Ye’ve gone an found yerself an heiress to surprise us!”

He swung his head to her. “I’ve no—”

“I’m not an heiress.” It was only the second truth Teresa had spoken in a weeklong spree of creative inventions. She’d told her parents that Diantha had invited her to town for a visit. She’d told Diantha and Tobias that she needed new gowns and that Mama had sent her to London on a shopping lark for both of them. And she’d told Annie she was escaping Mr. Waldon, which actually was the truth.

She stepped forward, her heartbeats atrociously uneven. All eyes turned to her, including his, beautiful and so blue—like the most vibrant autumn sky—

that it was difficult to think.

“I will have a marriage portion,” she said. “But while it is not shabby, it is not by any means a fortune.”

“How much is it?” a sister demanded.

“Sorcha!”

“Dinna be missish, Elspeth. If our brither’s set to wed her, we should all ken hou much money she’ll bring to the family. We’ve anly got one chance at this.” Sorcha’s black hair was pinned tight to her head. Of the seven plain gowns in the room, hers was the plainest.

“Well.” Teresa bit her lip. “I don’t know exactly how much it is. I only know that my mother, who spends far beyond her allowance every quarter, seems satisfied with the amount. So, I—” He took a step toward her, effectively closing her throat with lock and key.

“I’m no set to wed anybody, Sorcha.” He looked directly at Teresa. “As this lass knows.” He tilted his head. “Dinna ye, miss?”

He was so large, his shoulders and arms straining at the fabric of his rather shabby coat and the muscles in his thighs defined in trousers that had probably seen too many seasons.

She was staring at his legs. Her gaze snapped up.

Her breath caught somewhere in the region of her ankles. The slightest crease had appeared in his right cheek.

“You are not set to wed me, of course,” she managed. “But I hope you will consider it.”