Bride by Stella Cameron Read Free Book Online Page B

decide,” Struan said quietly. “You always were a righteous bastard—”
    “I was always righteous?” Calum's black glare silenced the other man. “What are you doing in this place? Tell me that. Your grandfather's folly was always ignored. Look at it. A gaudy, moldering disaster, just as it has been since we were boys together here. Shanks—who ought to have been dismissed years ago—Shanks had the audacity to try to pretend he didn't know where you were. That silent estate commissioner of yours—Caleb Murray—he admitted to seeing Justine but couldn't bloody well say whether or not she'd disappeared. I'd be ignorant yet if that poor Mairi hadn't started babbling about Justine's trunks being at the castle even if she wasn't—and if some vapid creature called Buttercup hadn't piped up that the
lovely
viscount lived here. Good God!”
    “The quality and nature of Kirkcaldy's staff is no affair of yours, Calum,” Struan said with infuriating calm. He rubbed Justine's shoulder. “Shanks in particular was merely trying to do what he'd been told to do. I have had some slight inconvenience that has made it necessary for discretion in the area of my whereabouts.”
    “I have no further interest in your intrigues,” Calum told him shortly. “Arran and I have spent far too many hours concerning ourselves with your petty mysteries. Keep them to yourself. But do not involve Justine.”
    “He did not involve me.”
    “Do you try to tell me that coming here was your own idea, my lady?”
    Color left Justine's cheeks, but she sat up quite straight. “I do, indeed.”
    “Hah! He always had a way with women. He could always make them do his will. Now he has the most honest woman I ever met lying for him.”
    Struan shot to his feet and advanced upon Calum. “That is enough. Brothers in all but blood we may be, but I'll not allow you to insult the sweetest lady ever to draw breath.”
    “Pretty words,” Calum said softly, standing toe-to-toe with one of the two men who meant as much to him as his own life. “Tell me you did not wait until you knew I had to accompany my grandmother to London. Tell me you failed to calculate Arran and Grace's proposed absence from Kirkcaldy for some weeks, then managed—by what means I cannot imagine—to lure Justine to Scotland.”
    “He did not.”
    Calum ignored Justine. “What evil lies did you tell her? That you were ill and needed her cool hand upon your brow? You know well how softhearted she is. Or could it be that you used those two—”
    “Hold your tongue,” Struan snapped. “Leave my children out of this.”
    Calum paused when he realized that lie was yet in place. He glanced at Justine, who was attempting to smooth her skirts. The story that Ella and Max were Struan's children by a very early marriage ended by his wife's death, had been invented to cause Justine and others to accept them at Franchot Castle. Calum himself must bear some of the blame for the deceit. He and Pippa had concocted the tale together, never expecting Struan to embrace the falsehood about the two waifs he'd befriended so wholeheartedly as to eventually appear to believe it true.
    “Very well.” Calum made up his mind what had to be done. “At least be responsible in this, man. Come clean. What has occurred between you and my sister?”
    “I …” Struan turned back to Justine, whose eyes had grown bright again, this time suspiciously so. “Oh, my dear one. Do not cry. You are blameless.”
    To Calum's amazement and ire, Struan dropped to one knee before Justine and began to straighten her hair with his fingers. All the while he murmured to her in soothing, unintelligible sounds. And she looked at him as if he were sent as a gift from God!
    “Unhand her,” Calum demanded.
    Struan finished his smoothing of Justine's hair at his own pace, drawing it back to rest behind her neck. Then, as calmly as you please, he settled the neck of her gown more tidily. He plucked at the velvet pleated