"See? I said you’d make an ideal daughter-in-law." Her voice lowered to seriousness. "Go to Glen Lyon as soon as you can. Hamish may sound as English as the Duke of Devonshire, but he’s Scots through and through. His intellectual life is here in London, but his heart and soul are in the Highlands. You have no chance of truly understanding him until you see him on his estates."
Emily’s gaze shifted to the other side of the room, where Hamish seemed to be involved in an equally intense conversation with Fergus and Diarmid. "He always seem
s to fit in here."
"Yes, he does. He grew up in London, much as he hated it. But the war effort needed his father, and my Graham had a powerful sense of duty. As you’ll discover does Hamish."
She already knew he did. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have married her to save her good name. "Yet he stays in London."
"He has a career to make. Although I hope you’ll encourage him to spend more time at Glen Lyon. It’s good for him."
Emily wanted to say she had no influence over what her husband did, but stopped herself. Better by far that his mother continued in her happy fancies. She didn’t need to know that her hopes for her son’s marriage were fated to fail. "I’ll try."
"Once you have children, Hamish won’t need much persuading. He’ll want the bairns brought up as good little Scots. He always claimed he’d marry a Scots girl, so nobody questioned whether his children belonged in the Highlands."
With that, Emily’s pleasure at her mother-in-law’s welcome corroded into guilt. Because there would be no bairns to roam Glen Lyon. There would only be two people yoked together for life, in what was sure to become worsening estrangement. Lady Glen Lyon would never dandle Hamish’s babies on her knee or watch a grandson groomed to become the next laird.
Right now, Emily felt like the greatest imposter in Christendom.
Chapter 14
Hamish tried to keep an eye on Emily, so he could dive in and rescue her from his mother if need be. But it was difficult when he had his own troubles, battling to convince the two people who knew him best that he was reconciled to his marriage. Not to mention hiding the humiliating truth that he’d never share his wife’s bed.
Fergus and Diarmid might laugh. Even worse, they might feel sorry for him. That he couldn’t bear.
"She’s gey bonny, laddie. Did ye spark the scandal just so you could win her?" Fergus asked.
"It’s not a bad idea, but no." He struggled to keep his voice even. As he bore their teasing, his smile had become more and more fixed. "I lost my temper with her when she told me I’d made a mistake in calculating my comet’s velocity."
"She understands that guff ye scribble down?" Diarmid said. "I admire her even more."
"I told you this, Diarmid," Hamish said through his teeth.
His cousin’s grin was mocking. "Aye, ye did. But I still like to see you squirm."
Fergus was watching Emily. "Well, who would have thought?"
Hamish shifted on his feet and smothered a growl. "That I could persuade a pretty girl to wed me?"
The flashing green glance Fergus shot him reminded Hamish that he hadn’t liked the Laird of Achnasheen when he’d first met him. At fourteen, Fergus Mackinnon had been an arrogant bugger. He was even worse at thirty-four.
"There’s that. But I’m actually talking about the miracle that your volatile temper has finally had a positive result. Most of the time, it lays waste to everything within a ten-mile radius."
To Hamish’s regret, Fergus’s description of the devastation he caused was accurate, even if he was wrong about the positive result this time round.
"Which doesnae mean ye should exercise it more often," Diarmid said. "A happy marriage requires patience and understanding, no’ ye blowing up like a volcano every time things dinnae go your way."
Right now, Hamish would dearly love to tell his two dearest friends to stick their opinions up their arses. But he had a horrible feeling that would only confirm their smug assessment of his poor self-control. His tone was strained as he replied. "I don’t need your advice, Diarmid. Or yours either, Fergus."
Diarmid clapped him on the shoulder. "Your marriage hasnae started under the most auspicious circumstances. Ye might want to listen to your more experienced friends."
"More experienced? Have you forgotten I always had more luck with the lassies than you did, chum?"
Which wasn’t entirely true. Diarmid had that poetical, brooding air that made women weak at the knees. He suspected that he and his cousin shared equal honors when it came to catching a comely wench’s interest. Not that Diarmid had eyes for anyone but his beloved Fiona these days.
Fergus studied Hamish with an expression that looked like pity, God rot him. "That’s lassies, my friend. A wife is something very different."
"I don’t see why," Hamish said mutinously, even though he might in private admit that his dealings with Emily had nothing in common with his bachelor conquests. For a start, she wasn’t going to end up in his bed. At last, the world gave him permission to swive a female as often as he wanted – and his honor consigned him to sleeping alone. Somewhere the fates were rolling about laughing.