“Him smelling her clothes was all in the book?” Emma asked, astonished.
“No.” Jared’s cheeks flushed. “But I know it’s true. That’s how I tried to hold on to you.”
Emma’s eyes burned, the image of this proud man alone, touching things she’d worn, trying to feel close to her.
“Sir Brannoc went mad and might have thrown himself to his death also, if it weren’t for his lady’s last request. One she had made him swear to see through is ever she died. She must have feared it would be at Lord Magnus’s hand. Brannoc swore, no matter what, he would…”
“Would what?” Emma asked, breathless, spellbound by a fairy tale ages old.
“Would take his sword and go to the standing stones. Pledge in that ancient holy place that he’d avenge her. Kill the husband who’d made her so desperate. He was kneeling at the stones, swearing his oath when she stepped from the shadows. She’d been waiting for him all along.”
“Wh-what?”
“When Lady Aislinn got word of her husband’s return to Scotland, she took the fairy flag and slipped from the castle gates, telling no one.”
Emma imagined the Lady in her silver gauze gown, slipping from behind the standing stones to offer herself to the man she loved. A man who’d suffered, believed her crushed on the rocks, carried out to the sea beyond the Knight Stone.
“But why didn’t she tell Sir Brannoc what she planned to do? Why put him through that torture, making him believe—?”
“To save his life, and hers. His grief was the only way to make certain the castle folk would believe she was dead. And their believing was the only chance she and Sir Brannoc had of escape. If she’d been discovered and dragged back to Craigmorrigan, her husband would have put her to the sword.”
“For loving another man?”
“No. To keep his bloodline pure. He was obsessed by his lineage, wanting a son to carry it on.”
“But Lady Aislinn was barren.” Emma’s breath caught. “Oh, God! With the fairy flag gone Lord Magnus would have no reason to keep a barren woman as his wife.”
“That’s right.” Jared smiled at her, admiration in his eyes for her insight. “For years he’d blamed LadyAislinn for no heir being conceived. But in the end, it wasn’t her fault.” Jared’s voice dropped low. “There was a far more precious reason she had to make certain the world thought her dead. Lady Aislinn wasn’t barren after all. She was carrying Sir Brannoc’s child.”
“The child she’d wanted for so long,” Emma whispered, feeling her own empty arms, her womb’s hollow ache.
“She and Brannoc pledged their love with none but the stones to hear them. She wore a ragged gown her maid had given her, no bridal finery but the fairy flag veiling her hair. But she wrote that she was garbed in something far more magical and precious—her bold knight’s love.”
“But if they had a child, why didn’t their descendants tell what really happened? Years later, after Lady Aislinn and Sir Brannoc had died and they were out of danger?”
“The lovers would have had to shed their identities and remain anonymous on pain of death. Lady Aislinn still being married in the eyes of the church, their child would have been a bastard. Even so, maybe one of their grandchildren did try to set the story straight, but we Scots do love our tragic folklore. And the original version made a better tale to hand down.”
“A little like the paparazzi, huh? Scandal’s much more interesting than happy endings.” Suddenly Emma’s pulse quickened. “Oh, Jared! You have to tell Barry about what you’ve discovered. Lady Valiant will be even more amazing than before once the script’s rewritten to tell the truth.”
“Robards knows all about it. I went to see him first, with the proof of the story and a briefcase full of videotapes Davey took while you were training.”
“You what?”
“I made Robards watch the tapes right then and there. Told him this discovery made Lady Valiant the film of a lifetime. The whole world knows about his demand for excellence. The best—scripts, actors, set designs. I told him that if he didn’t cast you in the lead, he’d regret it the rest of his life.”
“Jared, you’re crazy! You can’t just—”
“He actually called his wife to come see the videos as well. She said the same thing. Without you, Emma, Lady Valiant will never be everything it could. Angelica Robards said your portrayal of Lady Aislinn had Oscar written all over it. And Barry would be a fool if he didn’t move heaven and earth to get you back.”
Emma’s head reeled, her hands trembled. “They really…they thought…”
“He’ll be calling you tomorrow. Would have called sooner but I convinced him to let me tell you—about the true story, about you playing the part. You will, won’t you? Bring Lady Aislinn to life? My lady? And yours?”
“But Davey—the publicity—”
“Doesn’t matter a damn. The boy is dying for you to come back to the castle and so is the rest of the town. If Feeny and his like want to stalk you, they’re going to find it rough-going around Craigmorrigan. Snib alone ought to scare them to death. The man’s got a mean pair of collies to sic on them.”
Emma tried hard to believe what Jared said was true. To star in Lady Valiant. To go back to the castle…it seemed like a miracle.
But it still couldn’t wipe away the things that separated her from the man she loved. Because of who she was. What that might cost anyone near her.
Jared grasped her shoulders, looked down into her face, his beautiful mouth tender with love for her. “Just think about Lady Aislinn and her knight. They had so many battles to fight, Emma. But in the end what really mattered was only that they fought them together.”
Panic jolted through her, mingled with desperate longing. She’d made up her mind for the best, she reminded herself ruthlessly. What was best for Jared. For the children they’d never have. But it hurt. God, it hurt. “I’m sorry, Jared,” she choked out. “I can’t…”
“Don’t tell me you can’t,” he said fiercely. “I don’t believe it.” He cupped her face in his big, warm hands, his eyes bright with love for her. “There’s nothing on this earth you can’t do if you put your mind to it. Get a sword to my throat. Make me want…”
“I want, too,” Emma cried. “But wanting something doesn’t mean we can have it.”
“Tell that to the little girl who won’t let me sleep at night. The one brandishing a wooden waster while I’m teaching her to sword fight. Tell that to the little lad with your eyes who knows his mum will be there to open the gift he made her come Christmas morning. Tell that to my heart, Emma, where those babies you made me want so badly already live.” His eyes shone, bright with tears. “Damn it, woman, marry me out of mercy if nothing else! They’re half McDaniel, you know. They’ll give me no peace!”
Emma stared at him, the desperate need plain on his face, so many shadows vanquished at last. What had it cost him to risk what he feared most…to challenge his darkest demons for her? For children that might never be. Love…She’d heard it bite through his husky Scottish burr. He loved them already. Just as she did.
Emma brushed a stray leaf from his hair, imagining him facing down the Captain, determined to love her. Such courage deserved honesty, whether it terrified her or not.
“They’ve been busy, those babies,” she confessed. “They’ve been haunting me, too. But I thought…my life…it’s still so complicated.”
“I don’t care,” he started to argue. She laid her fingers over his mouth, a gesture so familiar, so right, his breath warm and moist and infinitely precious feathering against her.
“I do care. I’ve had time to think about what I really want, Jared. I’m going to try doing live theater.”
“After you star in Lady Valiant,” Jared cut in, the dent showing in his brow.
She couldn’t help grinning, he looked so determined. “Right. After,” she said. “Theater is what I really wanted all along. I was going to head to New York tomorrow, audition for a show on Broadwa
y, but London…London has some of the best theater in the world.”
Jared closed his eyes, caught her hand, kissing her fingers. “We could winter there, in the city. Maybe I could get a grant to work with the British Museum. And in the summer, we could go wherever we wanted, excavate sites together. Unless you want to keep doing films once the world sees what you can do in Lady Valiant. Then we’ll work it out somehow. I won’t have you giving up part of yourself for me.”
The words filled Emma with hopes she hardly dared hold. “And I’ll be pestering you on dig sites until I’m eighty. Asking you questions. Dressing up in medieval costumes.”
“And I’ll be stripping them off you whenever I get the chance.”
She sobered suddenly. “Jared, I can’t promise there won’t be men like Feeny in the future. But in theater I won’t be as high-profile as on the screen.”
“It won’t matter a damn which way you choose to go with your career. Feeny and his kind trade on tragedy and scandal. And we’ll be so happy there will be no heartbreak for them to find.”
“We can’t know that. What life might bring.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Jared said fiercely. “We’ll always know what’s real, Emma. My love for you. Your love for me. We don’t need a Scottish fairy flag or a wedding dress sewn in your Civil War to bless our future. We’ll have all the magic we need in each other. Best of all, we know we’d both rather die than surrender. You and I can keep the dragons at bay.”
Emma felt fear melt. What else could it do in the face of such a valiant knight?
“I already convinced your grandfather I mean what I say,” Jared insisted. “I’m not leaving without you.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. And this whole marriage thing—I’ll even fight you for it. Me and you. A couple of swords. If I win, you marry me.”
“I don’t know, Butler.” Emma’s lips warmed into a smile. “You’ve lost to me before.”
“Not this time, lady. This time I know what I’m fighting for.” He glowered at her, his fierce warrior’s face. “Marry me!”
“All right. I surrender.” Emma slid into his arms, laughing. “You win.”
“No.” Jared’s mouth found hers in a kiss fierce with love, sweetened by awe, his quest achieved at last. “This time we both win. Forever.”
Emma melted against him, slid her hands under his sweater, felt the hot, hair-roughened warmth of his skin. She kissed him with hope, with faith, believing in miracles, the way she had when she was ten. Before she sneaked through the broken place in March Winds’ picket fence and her life began to brim with people who loved her.
“Listen, Emma, there’s one more thing we need to discuss. The whole flight over here I’ve been thinking…”
“About what?”
“About what I’d do with you once I got you into that gazebo. That’s where I’d hoped to do my ‘rough wooing’ if it came to that. You know. Throw you over my shoulder, ravish you until you swear your undying love and all that.”
“You hardly have to go to that much trouble, Butler. I thought we already did that—the swearing and all.”
“I know, but I got kind of turned on by the idea. Unfortunately, the gazebo’s a little crowded at the moment with your grandfather and Captain out there.”
“Captain!” Emma exclaimed.
“Oh, no. I never should have mentioned the damned dog. I don’t mind the two of you having a tender reunion after I’m done with you. But until then—” He frowned, the dent in his forehead delighting Emma to her soul. “Maybe I could bribe the two Captains to get lost. A few dog treats, an opportunity to get in a lovely fistfight. I could get that lad I saw driving the tractor a mile back to come and call them both fluffies. That should keep them busy.”
A cacophony of noise erupted in the kitchen, a racket of familiar voices and furry Captain’s eager bark making Emma’s heart well up with gratitude for all the treasures she’d found. Her mother and Jake. Cousins Will and Amy and little Deirdre Skye. Uncle Cade’s gruff affection. Aunt Finn always trying to make peace in the raucous clan. But it seemed that peace in the McDaniel family was once more in short supply. Hope’s high-pitched voice pierced right through the other sounds.
“Grampy said that bad man came who made my sister cry! I’m going to kick him right in the—”
The last words were muffled, doubtless by the nearest grown-up’s hand. Deirdre Stone’s admonition echoed up the landing. “You’re supposed to be a ballerina today.”
“I’m not a ballerina!” Hope exclaimed fiercely. “I’m Red Riding Hood and my daddy’s the big bad wolf. And there’s not anybody we can’t beat! We’re McDaniels, right, Daddy?”
“Some of us are.” Jake’s laugh echoed up the stairs. “Almost makes me feel sorry for this Butler guy. Almost.”
Emma leaned back in Jared’s arms and flashed him a devilish grin. “Looks like it’s time you meet the rest of my family.”
Jared winked at her, the castle’s magic sparkling in his eyes. “I can’t wait.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-0087-0
THE WEDDING DRESS
Copyright © 2007 by Kim Ostrom Bush
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
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Table of Contents
Chapter One Emma’s World Shatters TWENTY-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD Emma McDaniel winced as she recognized the headline blazing across the tabloid a college-aged girl was devouring in the airport baggage claim. Unfortunately, neither huddling deeper into the enveloping folds of her raincoat nor tugging the brim of her Witness Protection ball cap lower to shadow her face could shield Emma from the pain. She knew the fine print on the glossy cover by heart. Jade Star actress faces studio insiders’ doubts to attempt role of a lifetime…Her beaming ex-husband brings home the baby she refused to give him. Images in living color flashed into Emma’s head: The picture of Drew Lawson, the only man she’d ever loved, leaving the hospital in Whitewater, Illinois, his face aglow as he cradled his new daughter in his arms while Emma’s onetime best friend, Jessie, leaned against him, her shy face luminous. The joyous new parents stood out in sharp counterpoint to the paparazzi shots of Emma back in L.A., thronged
Chapter One
Chapter Two “NOTHING LIKE HATE at first sight to make a lady feel welcome,” Emma muttered under her breath as Butler all but rolled his battered Mini Cooper on yet another hairpin corner. The right shoulder of the narrow road plunged down in a boulder-strewn cliff, while a dozen yards to the left, a mountain soared skyward. If it weren’t for the biting chill that had whipped her raincoat in the airport parking lot and the lowering thunderheads gathering on the horizon, she might have been tempted to get out and walk to Castle Craigmorrigan. Her legs ached from bracing herself against the floorboards, her fingers clamped in the upholstery to keep her arm from touching his. For God’s sake, could
the man take up any more room? It was like being wedged in a clown car with MacTavish the Pissed-Off Scot Giant. Not to mention the fact that Butler’s testosterone overload was sucking up all the oxygen in the cab of this ridiculously small vehicle. “Getting us both killed isn’t going to do you a
Chapter Two
Chapter Three THE WIND SANG its night song to the sea, a centuries-old lamentation of lovers who would never come home. Emma perched on one of the stone benches that flanked an alcove big enough to hold Butler’s car. Leaning her elbows on the crude table filling the rest of the space, she peered out the tower window, a view of the rugged Scottish coast that formed the castle’s rear defense spilling out beneath her. Everything about Castle Craigmorrigan seemed ready for war. The soaring walls, the cramped stone stairways in which only a defender would be able to swing his sword. Even the costume she’d wrestled herself into hours ago came complete with a small sharp knife in a scabbard which swung from the filigreed belt slung low about her hips. It’s called a girdle, not a belt, she could almost hear Butler correcting her in disgust. And he would be right. She remembered the name from a class on costuming she’d taken at drama school. “Yeah, well, for a genius you’re not so smart yoursel
Chapter Three
Chapter Four THE BARN WAS DESERTED. The rest of the horses boarded at the nearby stable dozed in the morning sun as Jared tacked up Falcon, the black Andalusian stallion he borrowed to ride in mock tournaments and the dainty gray mare the studio had leased to play Lady Aislinn’s beloved Morgan le Fay. Jared regarded Emma with a mixture of smugness and irritation. Wary, she hung back just a little, struggling to mask her trepidation, acting nonchalant, but betraying her nervousness in tiny ways. Fidgeting with the end of her girdle, swallowing hard when she thought he wasn’t looking, nibbling at her rosy bottom lip as she thrust out a hand for the mare to sniff. “Don’t let her bite you,” Jared said. “She’ll think you’ve brought her a carrot.” “Why?” “Because I…Because horses are forever hopeful and I can’t have her nipping off your fingers. The studio wouldn’t like it.” “I wouldn’t like it either.” Emma curled her fingers back into her palm. “I faint at the sight of blood.” “We’ll try n