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  As they exited the stuffy ballroom and made their way onto a crowded terrace, Aisla took a long sip of her champagne. And grimaced. Even after years of drinking the stuff, she couldn’t abide the sweetness or the pop of effervescence. She longed for some of the stout ale she’d known back home at Montgomery. But here in Paris there was only wine, champagne, or sherry for ladies. So, she’d learned to drink like a society lady. She’d learned to speak like one, too, though, as Julien had pointed out just now, her brogue had a way of returning when she was caught by surprise. And his casual proposal of marriage had certainly done just that.

  Julien led her to a stone balustrade, apart from the other guests milling about, and Aisla could feel his need to charm and jest fade away.

  “It’s time I marry,” he began. “I’m nearly thirty and Maman wants it done. You know I can’t deny her anything.”

  Aisla felt her shoulders relax. There it was—the truth of the matter. Julien’s mother, Lady Haverille, had grown tired of waiting for her only child to marry. And yes, Aisla did know that he had trouble denying his lovely mother whatever she wished. Lady Haverille was a fine woman, one Aisla adored beyond measure. It still didn’t explain why he’d chosen her. She hadn’t given him, or any other man for that matter, any signal that she was remotely open to marriage.

  For one very good reason.

  “Thank God,” she said, panicking slightly. “Perhaps we can find you someone else. One of those debutantes, for example.”

  He nearly choked on his sip of champagne. Coughing lightly, Julien set his glass on the wide shelf of the balustrade. “You know I don’t have the constitution for a debutante. We are much better suited, and I confess I’ve grown attached to you. I also haven’t helped but notice how you’ve remained wholly unattached these last few years.”

  Julien was right. When she’d first joined her aunt in Paris, the offers had come in abundance. And when she’d turned her back on them without hesitation, it had caused a rash of whispers and scandal, wherever she went. But as the years passed, each one tucking Aisla further and further upon the shelf, the scandal had fallen off. So had the offers. No one seemed to care much anymore that she was a ‘spinster.’

  If only they knew the truth.

  “Julien,” she said with a sudden quiver in the bottom of her stomach. “I cannot marry you.”

  She knew rejecting him would not injure his feelings, only his plans. Yet, she still wished she didn’t have to.

  “We could be friends,” he said quickly. “Married friends. To be completely honest, Aisla, I’ve not met one woman here, or anywhere, to whom I could picture tying myself for the rest of my life. Except for you.”

  Aisla felt a rush of warmth on her cheeks, and with a start, she realized she was blushing. She hadn’t blushed in ages. “You don’t understand,” she said, clasping her hands and twisting her fingers in a burst of nervousness.

  “What is there to understand?” He propped an elbow on the balustrade and leaned toward her. “I need a wife, and I’d prefer her to be a friend. We scrub along, don’t we?”

  “Of course we do, magnificently, but—”

  “Do you find me attractive?” he asked. Aisla’s eyes widened, and she forgot what she’d been about to say. “Because I find you very pretty, and it wouldn’t be troublesome at all, at least not on my end, to…produce an heir.”

  “Jules!”

  He laughed at her shocked expression. “Very well, if such a thing would be troublesome for you, I have loads of cousins in England and any one of them will do to inherit my fortune. Or we can give it to your family or to charity for all I care.”

  The last bit was said with some bitterness. He took her clasped hands and pried her fingers apart to weave them with his own. “I’ve given this a great amount of thought, and I want you to be my wife. Trust me, this will be the perfect ton marriage of convenience with a little fun thrown in for posterity. It will be a grand old laugh, and we’ll be content with our lot and each other.”

  Aisla held his gaze, feeling the warmth of his hands through their gloves, and let out a heavy sigh. For the first time in six years, she swallowed the instant rejection that had leaped onto her tongue after a proposal. To her astonishment, she could see the possible future Julien was offering: a content marriage between friends. Love and lust, and all the messy and disastrous ramifications those two emotions stirred, would never have to enter the equation. Not with Julien. She could have a future…one that allowed her a modicum of true freedom, unlike the act she’d performed for the last six years.

  Because the truth was, her freedom could end at any minute.

  And Julien was her best friend. Aisla couldn’t remember exactly how they had come to be such good friends. Her aunt, Lady Griselda Sinclair, her mother’s younger sister who had married a Frenchman, had introduced her to Julien at a ball, just like this one, and they had simply fallen in together. He had liked her Scottish brogue, and she had liked his self-deprecating humor. And she had also liked that he’d never thrown in his hat with her other luckless suitors. In fact, he’d gotten a good laugh at all the earls and dukes and counts who had continued to pursue her, only to be rebuffed. She’d never imagined that he’d now be the one standing here, proposing.

  He frowned at her. “You’re thinking much too hard about this.”

  “It’s just…” she began, though she still felt thrown off-center by the strange notion running through her mind. That maybe this could be a blessing in disguise.

  She’d become so used to the idea of growing old, alone. It had, for so long, been preferable to what she had thought was the only possible alternative: a return to Scotland, and to the world she’d left behind. But even after years of living in Paris, Aisla couldn’t leave behind the lingering knowledge that she was running away. That she was hiding. And she was suddenly exhausted. Perhaps what Julien was suggesting could fix that.

  “It’s just what?” he prompted, squeezing her fingers.

  She shoved away the sobering thought that by traveling this path, she’d be evicting the only man she’d ever loved from her heart. For good.

  Aisla shook herself. Hard. She didn’t need love—that road had only brought her heartache and misery. She needed peace. “Very well, I’ll consider it.”

  Julien’s smirk vanished. In its place appeared a broad and gleaming smile of victory. “Did you just say yes?”

  Aisla bit her bottom lip and shook her head. “Not exactly. First, there’s something I must tell you. It’s important, and a bit complicated. And it may completely reverse your good opinion of me. You may wish to retract your proposal, in fact.”

  “Now, I’m intrigued, little minx.” Julien grinned wickedly and brought her hands to his lips to kiss the back of each one. “Do you have a secret lover I don’t know about? A dark, erotic past full of scandalous secrets?”

  “Don’t joke, Jules.” She drew her hands from his. “It’s much worse.”

  He vaulted a golden eyebrow. “What can possibly be worse than a scandalous erotic past?”

  Aisla took a breath to tell him what she had kept secret since she fled Scotland: “The thing is…I already have a husband.”

  Chapter Two

  Aisla strolled with Julien in the lovely gardens at Parc Monceau in Paris trying to ignore the boldly curious glances he was sending her way. She hadn’t seen him since her shocking announcement that she was a married woman. He had prodded her for more information, but declaring a secret that had been zealously guarded for the better part of six years had left her more skittish than a horse surrounded by snakes. She’d departed the ball soon after, citing a megrim.

  But Julien was not one to be deterred and had relentlessly called upon her for three days until she’d finally agreed to accompany him on a walk. Though only under duress. She’d heard Julien in the foyer, announcing loudly to her hapless aunt that he intended to see for himself if Aisla was unwell, and she decided to avoid a scandalous scene of an unmarried gentleman storm
ing into her bedchamber. She had worse scandals to worry about, like her married status and the existence of a husband she’d left behind in Scotland.

  “Chérie, you cannot make such a confession and not expect questions,” Julien said after they’d been strolling for some time and stopped at a bench overlooking a small ornamental pond.

  “I know,” she said. “I suppose I was hoping you wouldn’t ask them.”

  He shot her a jaunty grin. “Not a chance. You’re right. This is much more risqué than a dark erotic past—not by much, mind you—but you have piqued my jaded interest. Who is this husband of yours and where have you stashed him?”

  “Scotland.”

  He whistled. “A Scot, no less.”

  “I’m Scottish, ye dolt.”

  “And there’s that charming brogue. So the wee Scottish lass married the strapping Scottish lad, and then what happened?”

  Aisla pursed her lips. “Are we truly going to do this?”

  “It’s like a dislocated shoulder, chérie. The quickest way forward is to snap it back into place.”

  “Niall was the furthest thing from a dislocated shoulder,” she muttered. “More like a festering open wound.”

  “Sounds dire.”

  “It was.”

  Aisla swallowed. She knew there was no way around explaining what had happened. She had done what had been necessary to survive. She’d done everything possible to forget the man who had broken and discarded her heart. The man she’d left behind out of sheer self-preservation. And here she was about to unlock memories that had been buried for good reason. But perhaps it was time for a new start.

  Aisla clasped her hands together in her lap and stared out at the ducks splashing at the edge of the small pond. “I met him when we were fifteen,” she began. “You recall when I told you of my half brother returning to claim his rightful place as the Duke of Glenross?”

  Julien squinted, his brow creasing. “Brandt Pierce, the stable-master from Essex turned duke, if I remember correctly.”

  “Yes, well, my sister-in-law, Sorcha, invited her family to Montgomery after my brother’s claim was reinstated. That was when I met Niall. I’d been sheltered most of my life, you see. My father had planned for me to marry into the Buchanan clan, and so I was not expected to entertain any suitors besides my intended, Dougal Buchanan. Niall was the first boy outside of my own brothers and clansmen who showed any interest in me.”

  “And you? Did you fancy him?”

  Aisla paused, sorting through the rush of memories as they came one after the other. Niall’s brilliant blue eyes. His easy smile. The whispered words of devotion. She’d fallen in love almost instantly.

  “I admired him,” she said softly. “We eloped. At eighteen, we went to Inverness and married.”

  “Eloped?”

  She blushed. “I became pregnant.”

  “Naughty Aisla,” he said with a smile, and Aisla knew he was only attempting to defuse the situation with his usual lighthearted humor. “Couldn’t wait for the marriage vows?”

  “I was in love, and Niall was very persuasive,” she said, heated memories swarming like bees.

  Her first time had been seared into her brain. She had given herself to Niall willingly, and she had not regretted it once. It’d been magical. Perfect. She’d desired him so desperately, and he her. On his last visit to Montgomery, they’d hastened away to an empty crofter’s cottage whereupon he’d made his intentions clear.

  “I want to be with ye, Aisla,” he’d whispered, kissing her temples and her nape, and making her mad with desire. “I want ye as my wife. I love ye.”

  “And I love ye, Niall.”

  After two years of stolen kisses and fraught touches, all she’d wanted was him. It’d been indescribable the way he’d looked at her, those piercing blue eyes of his devouring every inch of her as they’d fumbled to remove their clothing. She’d blushed and gasped when he’d shucked out of his shirt and discarded his trousers. The love of her life was not shy, nor had he any reason to be. She’d studied him greedily, eyes roving a chest sculpted with sleek muscle, and legs that were lean and strong. Aisla had been shy, but his patience was endless as he’d coaxed each garment from her body—her dress, her stays, her shoes, her stockings and garters, her chemise.

  “Ye’re the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen, lass,” he’d told her, his voice husky, when she finally stood nude. He’d kicked off his smalls, and the temperature in the small cottage had soared. Good Lord, she’d never seen a more magnificent sight.

  “So are ye.”

  And he had been. There’d been pain when he’d breached her maidenhead, but it had soon been eclipsed by a driving, burning passion that melted her bones and turned her brain to mash. Niall had taken her to the stars, and back again.

  And she’d missed her flux shortly thereafter.

  Aisla stole a glance at Julien, who was waiting patiently for her to continue. “We thought our parents would think us too young, and my brothers would have cheerfully murdered the man who had deflowered and ruined me. Neither of us wanted our baby to be born out of wedlock, though, so we left in secret to Inverness and then returned to Montgomery as man and wife. My mother was not pleased, nor was Niall’s sister, Sorcha. But I was in love and wanted to be with Niall for the rest of my life.”

  “Sounds like a fairy tale.”

  “It might have been that way at first, or maybe I was a naive, silly girl with roses in her eyes and blinded to reality,” she said with a sad smile, staring down at her palm and curling her fingers into a fist. “You see, Niall had lost his left hand in a cruel act of violence, but he was so brave and beautiful, and uncowed by life. I could see the pain of what he’d suffered, still there, buried deep inside of him, but foolishly perhaps, I thought my love could save him from it. But when we returned to Maclaren, things changed.”

  “He was a cripple?” Julien asked.

  She jolted at the word.

  “No one who knew Niall would ever call him that,” she said with a brittle laugh. “The Marquess of Malvern chopped off his hand when he was a boy to prove a point. An eye for an eye, he’d claimed, as punishment for a fire that had been started by Niall’s two older brothers and injured Malvern’s steward. Back then, he’d practically owned the Maclarens before their lands were reinstated by King George.”

  “I’ve heard of Malvern,” Julien said. “A sorry excuse for a man who deserved his end in Newgate from all accounts. To think he would do such a thing to a boy.”

  “It was beyond cruel, but everything Niall did was in spite of that hand. He fought harder, worked longer, gave his all to prove his worth.” She licked her lips, weaving her fingers together, her voice dropping low. “It wasn’t enough, though. It was never enough. I wasn’t enough.”

  Julien reached over, his large gloved hand closing comfortingly over hers and squeezing. “How so?”

  “Despite my happiness at being his wife, I missed my mother terribly. Oh, I’d been welcomed by the Duke and Duchess of Dunrannoch, to be sure, though they, too, had expressed disappointment at the hasty nuptials. It was my husband, though, whom I missed the most. Niall became…different. I did as well, I suppose. I hadn’t expected to feel so weepy and needy all the time, but my maid explained that it was part and parcel of pregnancy.”

  She shrugged, blinking back the tears that suddenly stung her eyes at the thought of the child that had once kindled in her womb and the emptiness that had replaced it. That pain took her by surprise and she gasped, nearly doubling over.

  “Chérie,” Julien said in concern. “Are you well?”

  Aisla grasped for every ounce of inner fortitude she possessed. “Yes, I haven’t thought of this—or so much about him—in years.” She hadn’t allowed herself to. It had been the only way to escape the dull ache of the memories.

  “You don’t have to talk about it now, either. We could discuss it another time. Or never again. It’s up to you.”

  She blinked, almost desperate
to take the way out he’d offered her, but a part of her knew Julien deserved to know her past before they attempted any future together. “No, you should hear it all before you decide I’m what you want.”

  Releasing her hands, he reached into his pocket and handed her a handkerchief, watching as she dabbed it to the corner of her streaming eyes. “Go on,” he told her gently.

  “Niall was a different person at Maclaren than the boy I’d known. I rarely saw him, and when I did, he stank of whisky.”

  “He was a drunk?”

  She nodded. “Apparently. He wasn’t the same boy who had wooed me at Montgomery. The clansmen at Maclaren treated Niall with a strange reverence, too, coddling him at every turn. He seemed preoccupied and spent his hours doing nothing of use, but brawling and carousing. And he drank far more than I’d ever seen him do at Montgomery during his visits. He became a stranger—a spoiled boy who didn’t care about anything but himself. I tried to fill my days with the children of Maclaren, teaching them to read while Niall filled his with everything but me.”

  Aisla bit her lip. Including one woman in particular—Fenella. The girl had been a longtime friend of Niall’s and fancied that she would one day marry him. She’d been cruel toward Aisla from the moment she’d arrived at Maclaren, and Aisla had no doubt that Fenella had been the one to drive and deepen the wedge between her and her husband.

  She folded the handkerchief into tiny squares, the old bitterness and shame boiling up inside of her. “They all hated me. It was as if I were some hurried, shameful secret. Or perhaps it was because I was from Montgomery, and not Maclaren. I was the outsider who had stolen the clan’s golden lad. They resented me for it.”

  “That wasn’t your fault,” Julien said.

  “Regardless, I thought at least with the baby, I’d have a place,” she went on. “But I was wrong.”

  Julien waited in silence for her to go on, but Aisla was suddenly daunted. Her story wasn’t anywhere near finished, but she couldn’t bring herself to explain the next bit. It still made her furious to think about it.