Catherine Coulter - The Heiress Bride

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Titles by Catherine Coulter

THE EDGE
THE COURTSHIP
THE TARGET
THE MAZE
THE WILD BARON
MAD JACK
ROSEHAVEN
THE COVE
THE WYNDHAM LEGACY
THE NIGHTINGALE LEGACY
THE VALENTINE LEGACY
LORD OF HAWKFELL ISLAND
LORD OF RAVENS PEAK
LORD OF FALCON RIDGE
THE SHERBROOKE BRIDE
THE HELLION BRIDE
THE HEIRESS BRIDE
SEASON OF THE SUN
BEYOND EDEN
IMPULSE
FALSE PRETENSES

To Stacy Creamer

A woman who loves her crazed career, does it very well, and never loses her enthusiasm. A woman whos honorable, bright, and a jock. And she likes my writing.

All my thanks, Stacy. I hope you and I are together until either you lose your passion for pounding the pavement or I expire over my computer keyboard. Im happy. Im happy.

H E STOOD STARING out the narrow window down into the courtyard of his castle. It was April, but spring wasnt much in evidence yet save for the wildly blooming heather that poked through the patches of fog to dazzle the eye with a rainbow of vivid purples. Scottish heather, like his people, would burst through rock itself to bloom. This morning, fog hung thick over the stone ramparts; thick and gray and wet. He could hear his people clearly through his window two stories up in the north circular towerold Marthe clucking to the chickens as she tossed them grain, Burnie yelling at the top of his lungs at young Ostle, a new stable lad who was also his nephew. He heard bowlegged Crocker yelling at his dog, George II, threatening that hed kick the shiftless bugger, but everyone knew that Crocker would kill anyone who even said a cross word to George. The morning sounded no different from any hed heard since he was a child. Everything was normal.

Only it wasnt.

He turned away from the window and walked to the small stone fireplace, splaying his hands to the flames. This was his private study. Even his brother, Malcolm, when alive, had kept away from this particular room. It was warm in the room despite the sluggish fire, for thick wool tapestries woven by his great-grandmother were hung on every wall to keep away the damp and chill. There was also a beautiful old Aubusson carpet that covered most of the worn stones on the floor, and he wondered how his wastrel father or his damned brother had overlooked the carpet; it was worth a good deal of money, he imagined, and could have provided at least a weeks worth of gaming or wenching or a bit of both. So the carpet was left, and the tapestries, but little else of value. Over the fireplace on a nearly rotted tapestry was the coat of arms of the Kinrosses: Wounded But Unconquered.

He was nearly mortally wounded. He was in very deep trouble and the only way out of it was to marry an heiress, and quickly. He didnt want to. He would rather swallow one of Aunt Arleths tonics than marry.

But he had no choice. The debts incurred by both his father and his now-dead elder brother had left him bowed to his knees and nearly beyond desperate. He was the only one to be responsible, no one else. He was the new earl of Ashburnham, the seventh bloody earl, and he was up to his peers neck in financial woes.

All would be lost if he didnt act quickly. His people would starve or be forced to emigrate. His home would continue to decay and his family would know nothing but genteel poverty. He knew he couldnt allow that. He stared down at his hands, still stretched toward the fire. Strong hands he had, but were they strong enough to save the Kinross clan from the gut-wrenching poverty that had been his grandfathers plight after 1746? Ah, but his grandfather had been a wily man, quickly adjusting to a new reality, quickly ingratiating himself with the few powerful earls left in Scotland. Hed also been smart, not disdaining the smell of the factories; and hed invested the few groats he could get his gnarly hands on in iron and cloth factories springing up in the north of England. Hed been successful beyond his wildest dreams. But hed died like all men must. Luckily for him he died old and quite pleased with himself, not realizing that his son was a rotter and would bring Vere Castle back to its knees.

Hell, what was a wife anyway, he mused, particularly an English wife? He could, if he wished, simply lock her in one of the musty rooms and toss away the key. He could beat her if he found her proud and unbending. In short, he could do anything he pleased to a damned wife. Perhaps he would be lucky and shed be as malleable as a sheep, as witless as a cow, as bland as the castle goats who were at their happiest chewing on old boots. Whatever she would be, he would deal with it. He had no choice.

Colin Kinross, seventh earl of Ashburnham, strode from the study room at the top of the north tower. The next morning he was on his way to London to find a bride with a dowry as great as Aladdins treasure.

S INJUN SAW HIM the first time on a Wednesday night in the middle of May at a rout given by the Duke and Duchess of Portmaine. He was a good thirty feet from her across the massive ballroom, partially obscured by a lush palm tree, but it didnt matter. She saw him quite clearly enough and she couldnt look away. She craned her neck around two dowagers when he walked gracefully to a knot of ladies, bowed over a young ones hand, and led her in a cotillion. He was tall; she could see that because the lady came only to his shoulder. Unless, of course, the young lady was a dwarf, and Sinjun doubted that. No, he was tall, much taller than was she, the saints be praised.

She continued to stare at him, not knowing why she was doing it and not caring in the least, until she felt a hand on her forearm. She didnt want to look away from him, not now. She shook the hand away and walked off, her eyes still on him. She heard a womans voice from behind her but didnt turn around. He was smiling down at his partner now, and she felt something deep and strong move within her. She walked closer, circling the dance floor, drawing nearer. He was no more than ten feet away now and she saw that he was magnificent, as tall as her brother Douglas, and as massively built, his hair blacker than Douglass, ink-black and thick, and his eyesgood Lord, a man shouldnt have eyes like that. They were a rich dark blue, a blue deeper than the sapphire necklace Douglas had given Alex for her birthday. If only she were close enough to touch him, to set her fingers lightly upon the cleft in his chin, to sift through that shining hair of his. She knew in that moment that she would be perfectly content to look at him for the rest of her life. Surely that was a mad thought, but it was nonetheless true. He was well built; she wasnt ignorant about things like that, not with two outrageous older brothers. Yes, he had an athletes body, strong and hard and tough, and he was young, probably younger than Ryder, who had just turned twenty-nine. A small, insistent voice told her that she was being a silly twit, to open her eyes, to stop this infatuated nonsense, for after all, he was just a man, a man like any other man, and in all good likelihood he was cursed with a trolls character to go along with his magnificent looks. That, or worse: He was a complete bore, or had no brain worth speaking of, or he had rotted teeth. But no, that wasnt true, for he just threw his head back and laughed deeply, showing beautiful, even, white teeth, and indeed, that laugh bespoke great intelligence to her discerning brain, a rich, deep laugh, just like his eyes, and werent they intelligent? Ah, but he could be a drunkard or a gamester, or a rake or any number of other exceptionable things.