To Bed the Bride Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Codicil to the Last Will and Testament of Archibald Hamish Craig

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Author’s Note

  All for Love Series Announcement

  About the Author

  By Karen Ranney

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Codicil to the Last Will and Testament of Archibald Hamish Craig

  As previously stated, the estate of Hearthmere, including lands, cattle, sheep, and the Hearthmere bloodline, is left to my beloved daughter, Eleanor Elizabeth Craig.

  Since she is still a minor child, I entreat my younger brother, William, to act as trustee for Hearthmere and custodian of Eleanor until such time as she reaches her majority. Should he wish to accept this position, details of which are found in separate documents, he will be required to live with his family at Hearthmere in order to provide a home for Eleanor. When Eleanor reaches her majority, if she wishes, and solely at her discretion, my brother and his family shall continue to live at Hearthmere.

  In consideration for his services and that of his wife, the estate shall pay him an annual sum agreed upon in separate documents until such time as Eleanor reaches her majority.

  It is my wish that Eleanor, having been deprived of a mother from birth, will be surrounded by family who will love and cherish her.

  Family is everything.

  Chapter One

  September, 1868

  Hearthmere, Scotland

  “I won’t leave if you don’t want me to. If you’re afraid to stay here by yourself I can postpone my visit.”

  Eleanor Craig looked at her cousin, trying to tell if he was serious. Jeremy had never offered to do something unselfish.

  “I’m not afraid, Jeremy. Besides, there are twenty-five people here. I couldn’t be alone if I wanted to.”

  “Yes, but they’re servants.”

  She bit back a comment. Her cousin had never seen servants as people. It wasn’t his fault. The attitude was one her aunt had espoused and verbalized often.

  They aren’t our kind. How many times had she heard that comment?

  “They’re employees who work at Hearthmere,” Eleanor said, trying not to sound irritated. “They were loyal to my father and yours.”

  “Why shouldn’t they be? They get away with too much. No one’s here to tell them what to do.”

  “Mrs. Willett does an admirable job.”

  “Mrs. Willett is just a housekeeper.”

  Jeremy hadn’t wanted to accompany her to Scotland, a fact that was evident only hours after their arrival. When he’d announced that he was thinking of visiting Edinburgh, she’d been overjoyed. At least this way she wouldn’t have to hear him endlessly complaining about one thing or another.

  “You really should go,” she said. “See your friends. How long will you be staying?”

  “A week, maybe two.”

  Two weeks without Jeremy would be a blessing.

  Hearthmere was a jewel of a house, but it was not equipped with all the creature comforts her cousin preferred.

  “Go. I insist,” she said.

  “Mother wouldn’t be pleased if I left you here. Alone.”

  His look was speculative, almost as if he was trying to decide if she would immediately write her aunt and inform her that he’d abandoned his prescribed role of protector to hie off to the city.

  Eleanor smiled. “I’m not alone, Jeremy. I’d feel much better if I knew you were having as much fun as I was. I won’t say anything to Aunt Deborah.”

  He shook his head. “How you can abide this moldering pile of bricks, I don’t know.”

  Once again she bit back her comment. Hearthmere had been the Craig family home for four hundred years or more. As a Craig, Jeremy should understand that, despite the fact that he tried to pretend he wasn’t half Scot.

  Granted, there were places needing repair, but the house was filled with history. You couldn’t walk into the Clan Hall, for example, without feeling the spirits of long-dead Craigs surrounding you. The gardens were laid out on plans that had been prepared hundreds of years earlier. The curtain wall, part of the original castle, had been built as protection from enemy clans and the English and now served to shield the courtyard from the worst of the westerly winds.

  Her annual visit to Scotland was something she looked forward to all year. She came home not only to check on the house and the staff, but to refresh herself in a way. She dreamed of living here again just as she had before her aunt had upended the family and moved them to London.

  “It will be our little secret,” Eleanor said. “No one else needs to know.”

  “You’re certain?” Jeremy asked, already turning to leave the parlor.

  She nodded. “You mustn’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

  With any luck she hadn’t revealed her relief to him. Jeremy was like his mother in temperament, always finding fault with arrangements or people. The two of them seemed to enjoy complaining, never understanding how tiring it could be to hear.

  The longer he was gone the happier she would be.

  “I’ll be back in two weeks, then,” he said. “In time to escort you home, Eleanor.”

  Home? England had never been home to her and London even less so. She didn’t make that remark, however. Over the years she’d learned when to speak and when to keep silent.

  “You’ll be leaving in the morning?”

  “This afternoon, I think. The weather is fair, although that’s always hard to tell in Scotland. One moment it’s sunny. The next you’re deluged.”

  She’d always thought the same about English weather, but once again she kept her comments to herself.

  Jeremy was more than willing to forget that his father had grown up here. He seemed to have forgotten his heritage the moment they moved to England and especially after his mother had married again.

  His stepfather was Hamilton Richards, a wealthy industrialist who made soap, various kinds and types of soap that he shipped all over the world. He had no children of his own and welcomed all of them into his family and his home with sincere generosity. Ever since, both Jeremy and his sister, Daphne, had forgotten they were Scots.

  She watched as Jeremy walked out of the parlor. He’d probably already given orders for his bags to be taken to the carriage. Their conversation had only been for show. Jeremy didn’t really care about leaving her behind. The regrettable trut
h was that her cousin thought more of his own pleasure than anyone’s convenience.

  If Hamilton hadn’t been as wealthy as he was, perhaps Jeremy’s life would’ve been different. At this point, Jeremy would’ve had some sort of occupation, rather than spending most of his time gambling and drinking with his friends. Hamilton, however, was willing to finance Jeremy’s adventures.

  Daphne’s husband wasn’t nearly as wealthy as Hamilton, so there were times when she came to the massive London home, met with Hamilton in his library, and left with a smug smile on her face. With any luck, his fortune would outlast the Craig children’s greed.

  Eleanor had benefited from Hamilton’s kindness, too. Her aunt had been all for denying Eleanor this trip to Scotland. It had been Hamilton who had convinced Deborah to allow it.

  “Let her see the place,” Hamilton had said. “After all, she’ll soon have her own establishment.”

  Eleanor was grateful that her aunt’s husband had interceded. She hadn’t wanted to have to send for her solicitor. He’d been the one to originally insist upon the arrangement.

  “She is a Scot, Mrs. Craig,” he’d said to her aunt. “If you will not agree to remain in Scotland as was our arrangement with your husband, then Miss Craig must be allowed to return home periodically.”

  Her aunt had fussed for a few moments before the solicitor spoke again.

  “If you will allow your niece to visit Hearthmere for a month each year then I see no reason why the annual stipend should be allowed to stop, at least until Miss Craig’s majority. Just one month out of the year. Surely that wouldn’t be a hardship?”

  Up until then, Eleanor hadn’t realized that her aunt and uncle had been paid to care for her. She’d been allowed to come to Scotland for a month for the past four years. After her aunt had married Hamilton Richards, but Deborah had continued to allow the attorney’s arrangement. At least until this year, when she’d shortened it from a month to only two weeks.

  The time in Scotland had always been bittersweet, only because she had to ultimately return to England.

  “You can’t live there, Eleanor,” her aunt said, every time she returned. “Your life is here in London.”

  Only because she had no choice in the matter.

  Every time Eleanor came back to Hearthmere, whether escorted by Jeremy or her aunt and her husband, it was the same. Wishing they were gone to leave her alone to savor the house settling in around her, almost as if it welcomed her after an absence of eleven months.

  She’d never seen a ghost, although tales of them abounded in Scotland. She wished, however, that there were ghosts haunting Hearthmere and that her father was one of them. She’d sit at his knee as she had as a child as he’d tell her another story about their ancestors, the brave men and stalwart women who had lived here, loved here, and spent their lives protecting Hearthmere. She would walk with him through the house, visiting rooms she hadn’t seen for a year. His library. The Conservatory her great-grandfather had built for his wife. The aviary and then the chapel. The stained-glass windows and arched ceiling still had the power to steal her breath, no matter how often she opened one of the double doors and stepped inside.

  It felt like she was only half alive in London all these months, waiting impatiently for her arrival home. Once here, she could feel a stirring of her blood as if everything was slowly waking. She wasn’t Deborah Richards’s niece. She was Eleanor Craig, daughter of Archibald Craig, of the Clan Craig. She knew her history from the smallest fragment of battle flag in the Clan Hall, to the sword she’d once thought coated with rust up near the ceiling. Her uncle had been the one who told her the truth.

  “It’s blood, Eleanor. One of our bloodthirsty relatives evidently smite his enemy. Or is it smote? Regardless, they left the blood on the sword.”

  She missed her uncle. He’d died five years ago while walking from the house to the stable complex. Less than three weeks later his widow had swept up her two children and Eleanor and returned to London.

  If her father hadn’t died in a tragic accident, and then her uncle, she might have been able to stay here, instead of moving to England. A foolish wish, to be able to turn back time and circumstances.

  She was the only one in the family, she suspected, who wished things had stayed the same. Her aunt was blissfully happy and Daphne and Jeremy appreciated all of the advantages they’d been given, thanks to their mother’s second husband.

  The minute Jeremy’s carriage reached the last turn, heading for the main road, Eleanor grabbed her skirts with both hands and made her way quickly out of the parlor and through the corridor, up the stairs to the room she’d occupied ever since she was a child.

  Her cousin Daphne had once told her that since she was the chatelaine of Hearthmere she should occupy the large suite in the corner. Perhaps one day she would.

  After closing the door softly behind her, she raced to the armoire, tapping along the left side, just as her father had taught her. This piece of furniture had a secret panel, but it wasn’t the only one. Her desk had a secret drawer, too. So did her father’s massive desk in his library.

  The space wasn’t all that large, but it was big enough to hide her riding skirt. Not the one that went with her habit, sewn by one of the finest seamstresses in London. No, this style she’d devised for herself when she was ten. She’d taken one of her older skirts, sewn two tight seams, then cut the skirt in the middle. Only her father had known what she’d done and he’d approved wholeheartedly.

  “A woman’s saddle is a danger,” he’d said. “It’s flimsy and won’t do you any good. The harpies don’t have to know you’ve learned to ride astride.”

  They’d ridden together just after dawn every morning. For years she’d awakened with the same bright excitement until she was eleven and realized that those days were gone and would never come again.

  This time she would ride just as she had with her father, as she had on each of her annual visits.

  Standing, she grabbed the top half of her riding habit and paired it with her altered skirt. After pulling on her boots, she ignored the chaplet and the hat with its veil. She was going riding this morning, not like they did in London’s parks, but across the glen and down the roads until she and Maud grew tired.

  In her sitting room was a block of ornamental panels along one wall. She pressed the third block, then used her fingertips to open the secret door even farther.

  Hearthmere was a treasure trove of secrets and she knew them all. Her father had taught them to her one by one, revealing another magical aspect of the house on every birthday. She learned about this set of secret corridors and stairs when she was ten. There was no need for a lantern or candle. Arrow slits, once part of the old castle, lit the space.

  She made her way down the stairs, listening. There was an exit into the large pantry, but that was too close to the kitchen. A great many of Hearthmere’s servants congregated there in the mornings. The last thing she wanted to do was pop out and shock everyone. Instead, she took the next exit leading to an anteroom close to the library. Holding on to the door for a moment, she waited until a maid passed before stepping out.

  She left the house and made it past the milking shed before she was noticed. Two young boys heading in the opposite direction waved to her and she waved back.

  Turning, she looked at Hearthmere sitting on a knoll of earth, blocking out the view of the horizon, its two wings stretching out like arms to enfold anyone who came close. A long time ago a castle had stood there, home to the first Craigs.

  The gray stone was the color of London fog. The white-outlined windows looked like dozens of eyes, ever vigilant. All the chimneys reminded her of organ pipes, but instead of sound they belched smoke, especially from the kitchen. The house lived and breathed on its own without her interference, sheltering those who worked at Hearthmere, who kept her father’s legacy alive. Strangers were welcome here and travelers were greeted with a hot meal and sometimes a bed for the night, all in the name of Archi
e Craig.

  Hearthmere was, on the whole, self-sustaining. There were crofters on a huge swath of land that wasn’t managed under the home farms, and both cattle and sheep were being raised on the rest of the acreage.

  They employed twenty-five people, some who worked in the house, but mostly those who managed the horses.

  As she looked at the house, pride soared through her. She would always be a Scot, regardless of how many years she lived in England. Her father was a Craig and his father before him, a long line of men that stretched back hundreds and hundreds of years.

  Family is everything. Her father had said that to her repeatedly. She didn’t understand how her aunt and her family could so easily toss their heritage aside.

  She would never abandon Hearthmere.

  Chapter Two

  At the crest of the hill, Eleanor stopped to appreciate the view. Below her was the main stable building, consisting of over fifty stalls. The construction mimicked that of Hearthmere, the gray brick and white trim a perfect match to the house. Behind the stable was a series of paddocks and corrals, chutes, and rings to exercise the horses. Farther still was an oval dirt track her father had constructed to train the horses.

  Hearthmere Thoroughbreds were known for their gray coloring, and had won at The Oaks, The Derby, and most of the English races. Their winning times had improved the sport to the point that Hearthmere Thoroughbreds were synonymous with the best of the breed. They’d had requests to purchase available horses from all over the world. Only those buyers known to her father or uncle were considered, the health and well-being of their horses being of paramount importance.

  Their winnings were compiled in her steward’s monthly report. Every year they made more than the previous year. The profits were spent on improvements to the stables as well as buying more blood stock. When a foal was born she was informed of it, the birth heralded as important and recorded in her father’s large ledger. She wasn’t supposed to call it what it was, his stud book. Such an inelegant term would have been shocking said in mixed company. She wasn’t supposed to know a great deal that she knew, which was a shame because she could have had some rousing conversations about racing with several of her more boring suitors.