Once Upon a Tower

Page 22

“You?” She was stunned.
“Aye.” He sat down, relishing the way her bottom settled onto his lap. “I was betrothed from the time I was quite young, so I could not sleep with a woman who might have expectations—or dreams—of becoming a duchess. Paying coin for the act would be distasteful; I would have dishonored my fiancée at the same time as myself.”
Edie sat still as a mouse; he drew his arm tighter around her back. Her eyes searched his, wide and surprised.
“So I am quite certain that I do not have ‘a disease of an intimate nature,’ ” he told her.
“Ah, my letter.” She recognized her own words. “No, I suppose you do not.”
He gave her another fierce, lingering kiss. They broke off with a new wildness between them, all but visible in the air. And they met each other’s eyes now with that between them like a glimmering possibility.
“Together,” she whispered, awed. “It’s nothing I would have expected. I always thought that a woman brought such a thing to her marriage, but a man . . .”
“Is supposed to have slept first with a chambermaid or a barmaid,” Gowan said. “That would be to abase myself as well as a woman in my employ.”
A choked laugh escaped from Edie’s mouth. “You’re a man of principle, Your Grace.”
“Is that not a good thing?”
Thirteen
Laughter was fighting with an aching, twisting need in Edie’s heart. She couldn’t look at Gowan any longer without leaning in to kiss him. She closed her eyes and put her cheek against his shoulder. “It’s a very good thing to have principles,” she said, the words coming soft and low. “You must have laughed when I wrote you about mistresses, let alone diseases.”
“I didn’t laugh. It was a fair question. There’s many a man has a mistress in addition to his wife. But I always hoped that I’d find a wife who would want to carry my children, and how could I dishonor that wife by pouring gold into the lap of a woman whom I had no intention of marrying?”
Edie turned and kissed Gowan’s neck. It was a strong column, that neck. “You are a complicated man.”
“These are not complicated things. There’s an old Scottish saying that ‘your present is your future.’ I choose not to tarnish what may come. Besides, my father . . .” He trailed off.
“Had mistresses?” Edie asked.
“Many.”
She dropped another kiss under his jaw, where his pulse was beating. “I thought my father had a mistress, but now I’m not so sure. Layla fears that’s why he doesn’t come home at night.”
“I doubt it,” Gowan said. “ ’Twould shame him to do so, and your father is not a man who would bring shame upon himself.”
Edie smiled, knowing he couldn’t see it. Her father was a bit stiff, but at heart, he and Gowan were both the sort of man whom a woman is lucky to find at her side. “Did your mother know of your father’s affairs?”
“Aye, she did.” The burr of his Scottish ancestry grew more pronounced. “But her behavior matched his. She would have had no right to make complaints.”
“I’m sorry,” Edie murmured, and leaned back against his arm in order to see his face. “That must be a difficult thing to find out about one’s parents.”
“My mother was notorious for her dalliances, so I learned it as a young boy.” There was a bleak acceptance in his voice. “Did your father tell you that I have a half sister, called Susannah?”
“Really? No, he didn’t mention it. Does she live in Scotland?”
“She lives with me, and she is five years old, or so we think.”
“What?” Edie sat up straight. “You have a half sister who lives with you and is five, ‘you think’?”
“My mother left us when I was eight, and she died a few months ago, leaving a child. Presumably, she remarried after my father died, though I had no knowledge of it. We have not yet found a baptismal record for my sister.”
“Oh my goodness.” Edie sprang from his lap and walked across the room before turning to face him. “Do I collect that you are marrying partly in order to provide a mother for your sister? I must tell you that I have no experience of children whatsoever.”
He had stood, of course. “Neither have I. But I engaged three nursemaids and a nanny.”
“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to make you rise.” She came back and sat down opposite him. “I don’t even know how big a five-year-old child is. Has she adult teeth yet? Can she speak? What am I saying? Of course she speaks!”
“Oh, Susannah speaks,” Gowan said, with feeling. “All the time. And she has teeth, too; she bit me the first day she came to Craigievar. So I would advise you to be careful when approaching her.” He sat again and reached out to take her hand.
“Oh my,” Edie breathed. Without really noticing, she watched as he traced a pattern on her palm with one finger. Her mind was reeling. She was not only marrying and moving to Scotland; she was evidently taking on an orphaned child. Really, her father could have mentioned that detail.
“I do remember that you expressed the wish to have children only after a few years. I was not prevaricating by neglecting to mention Susannah in my letter; I must confess that, because I wasn’t in Scotland, I actually forgot about her.”
He didn’t look guilty in the least.
“Have you any family members who are helping raise her?” Edie asked hopefully. “An aunt, perhaps?” She couldn’t possibly become a mother to a five-year-old, overnight. She wasn’t sure she had even seen a five-year-old before.
“Unfortunately, no. I have some aunts, but they haven’t yet met Susannah. They are my father’s sisters,” he explained. “They live in the Orkney Islands.”
“She is in the castle alone?”
“There are one hundred and thirteen servants in residence, including the four who are dedicated exclusively to her care.”
Her own mother had died when she was still a child, and so Edie was well aware that even one hundred servants couldn’t make up for a lost parent. “Perhaps there are books about this sort of thing,” she muttered. “Is the poor child terribly grieved? How did your mother die, if I might ask?”
“She drowned in a loch after imbibing more whisky than advisable.” There was a pause, and then he added, “My father died years earlier, after drinking two bottles of whisky. On a bet, you understand.”
Edie began sorting through the standard expressions of sympathy she had been taught; none seemed adequate.
“Still, my father died triumphant in his ill-advised wager, which would undoubtedly be a consolation to him. I do not drink spirits, in case you are concerned about the possibility that I have inherited the family susceptibility.” Gowan delivered these facts in an utterly even tone, as if he were recounting no more than a change in the weather.
“And Susannah’s father . . . your stepfather?”
“My mother referred to herself as a widow, though no one in her household knew much about her life before she moved to Edinburgh last year. She may have concealed her marriage from me in order to protect her allowance. Or it may be that Susannah is illegitimate. I have hired Bow Street Runners to find out.” He folded his arms over his chest. “There are those who would maintain that I offer you a tarnished name.”