Temptation

It was when she was introduced to Colin that everything began to whirl about in Temperance’s head so fast that she thought she was going to faint.

With her hand to her forehead, she swayed back against the paneled wall of the entrance hall. Grace caught her before she fell.

“Is she all right?” asked a voice that was identical to James’s. In fact, everything about Colin was identical to James.

Before Temperance could reply, Colin had picked her up and carried her into the drawing room. “Out!” he ordered the people who’d filed in behind him, and it was the same way that James ordered people about.

“Here,” Grace said as she handed Temperance a glass of brandy.

“Wrong glass,” Colin said with a frown. “You can’t serve brandy in a water glass.”

At that Temperance, lying on the sofa, her eyes closed, smiled. They might look alike, but they certainly weren’t alike in personality, she thought. James drank brandy from a sheepskin flask. “I’m sorry to have caused such a fuss,” Temperance said as she sat up. “But it was such a shock seeing you. I knew you were twins, but it was still a shock.”

At that Colin looked down at her, one eyebrow raised in speculation. “You’re not Kenna, but you’re in love with my brother,” he said, as a statement of fact, not a question.

“I most certainly am not!” she said quickly, then got off the couch. The contents of the will came to her mind, a mind that was already filled with too many other thoughts. She took the glass from Grace and drained it. Unfortunately, the brandy had the effect of making her feel sick, but she swallowed hard and regained her composure. “James is in love with Kenna, and Kenna is in love with him. This is a love match,” she said while looking Colin hard in the eyes.

Now that she was over her initial shock, she could see many differences between the two men. Years of being outside had weathered James’s skin, but Colin looked as though he’d lived in nothing but candlelight. Probably at the gambling tables, she thought.

“This is a love match,” she said again, in case he hadn’t heard her the first time.

“I see,” Colin said, looking her up and down in speculation. “And who, exactly, are you?”

“The housekeeper.”

For a moment Colin stared at her, then he threw back his head exactly as James did and laughed. “Yes, and I’m the head gardener.”

“She is,” Grace said softly from behind them. “She does everything in McCairn. She gets jobs for the women, and she runs the house, and she’s done everything for the wedding.”

“I see,” Colin said, again looking Temperance up and down. “But why? That’s the question, isn’t it? I can’t believe that my brother pays you enough to buy a dress like that. And those shoes . . .”

“Your uncle Angus purchased my wardrobe,” Temperance said stiffly. She didn’t like this man, didn’t like him at all. He looked like James but only superficially. There was a cold, calculating look in his eyes that she’d never seen in James’s. Temperance had to hold herself back from running out of the room to find James to warn him. But he didn’t need warning, did he? All of Clan McCairn knew about this man, knew of his gambling and how he was going to try to take McCairn away from James.

“I do think you’ve heard about me,” Colin said, then gave Temperance a smile that she was sure was meant to make her like him. He put out his hand to shake hers, but she turned and acted as though she hadn’t seen his gesture.

“I have so much work to do,” she said, then hurried out the door and nearly ran up the stairs. Only when she was in her bedroom did she breathe again. She shut the door, leaned against it, and let out her pent up breath. Whatever happened, someone must marry James today, she thought. Today was his thirty-fifth birthday, and if he didn’t marry for love today, then everything would be turned over to that dreadful man. That they were twins made Temperance’s flesh crawl. Were they the epitome of the old story of the good and bad twins? One evil, one good?

“And he thought I was in love with James,” she said aloud. But Temperance knew that wasn’t true. She couldn’t possibly be in love with any man who wasn’t in love with her in return, could she?

Suddenly, Temperance had an overwhelming urge to find Kenna. By now she should be in a room with some of the village women who had volunteered to “dress the bride.” Temperance had excused herself from that. For some reason that she didn’t want to think about, she didn’t want to see Kenna in the beautiful dress that Finola had designed until she absolutely had to.

But after a search of the house, which took over an hour because Temperance was constantly stopped by one McCairn relative after another who wanted to ask her a question (“Where’s the whiskey?” “Is there any soap in the house?” “Where’s the whiskey?” “Will there be races this afternoon?” and “Where’s the whiskey?”) Temperance still hadn’t found Kenna.

“Eppie,” she said to herself, then went in search of the little old woman. Eppie was sitting on a bale of hay outside the stables, watching Aleck soap one of the McCairn’s gorgeous racehorses. The man was wearing only his kilt, with his shirt, shoes, and tall socks off.

Already in a bad temper, Temperance couldn’t resist snapping at Eppie. “There isn’t enough for you to do inside the house?”

Eppie picked her teeth with a straw. “You haven’t met the McCairn’s branch of the family from over on the east, have you?” Eppie said as though that were an answer.

“No,” Temperance said, then let out a sigh and sat down beside Eppie to enjoy the view of Aleck with his shirt off. “Take over, do they?” Temperance asked. She looked at the watch pinned to her shirt. Colin had specifically noticed that watch, and now Temperance remembered with a wince of regret how much she’d charged to Angus’s account when she’d bought it. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been quite so hard on him.

“I can’t find the bride,” Temperance said at last. The sun glistened off Aleck’s skin, and the shadows played on muscles as he dipped a big sponge into a bucket of soapy water and washed the hindquarters of the horse.

“Back up in the attics, last I heard.”

“But she’s to get into her wedding dress,” Temperance said.

“Did that. Right pretty it is too. They say that Finola drew up the pattern. You plannin’ to put her into business?”

“Maybe Kenna can. I’m going back to New York, remember?” Aleck now had the horse’s foot between his heavy thighs and was soaping the ankles. His kilt was hiked up so that the curve of his buttocks showed. Neither Eppie nor Temperance had taken their eyes off of him during their conversation.

Eppie gave a little snort of derision. “Kenna ain’t doin’ nothin’ that ain’t for Kenna.”

It took Temperance a moment to understand what the old woman was saying; then slowly, she turned to look at her. “I thought that everyone in this village believed Kenna was an angel. All I’ve heard about is what a lovely child she was.”

“And you believed it?” Eppie said, then nudged Temperance with her elbow to look back at Aleck. He’d bent over to wring out his sponge, and his kilt was folded on one edge in a way that exposed the side of him from waist to knee.

For a moment, Temperance forgot what she was saying. Right. Kenna. “I thought that all of you—”

“Ask Grace, if you want to hear the truth,” Eppie said. “I bet she ain’t said nothin’ good about Kenna. And you ain’t seen the McCairn with her much, have you?”

As Temperance was thinking about this, Aleck finished with the horse; then with twinkling eyes, he turned to the two women and gave them a bow, as though he were an actor who’d just finished a performance. Temperance turned red and wanted to pretend that she’d not been watching and admiring him, but Eppie began applauding; then Temperance thought, What the hell, and applauded too.

Smiling, Aleck went back into the stables with his bucket. Temperance got off the bale of hay. “You know which attic Kenna is in now?”

“Looks like that one,” Eppie said, nodding upward toward a window where Temperance could see what looked like a candle flame flickering.

Temperance turned on her heel and went inside the house. She had to sneak up the back stairs before anyone saw her and started asking about the whiskey again, but as she reached the top floor and put her hand on the door into the attic, she drew back. What was she going to say to Kenna? Would it be news to Kenna that everyone in the house knew that she was looking for the McCairn treasure?

For a moment Temperance sat down on a chair outside the door and tried to think about what was going on, but the truth was, she couldn’t figure out anything. McCairn wasn’t in love with Kenna; Kenna was only after treasure. If everyone knew that, then how could they pull off a deception of the king? And what was this about Grace and Kenna, and about Saint Kenna not being loved by the village?

It was while she was sitting there that she heard voices. Right away she recognized the voice of James and knew that he was in the attic with Kenna. When a pang of what had to be jealousy shot through Temperance, she had to hold herself back from throwing open the door and demanding to know what they were doing in there together. Alone.

But as she put her hand on the doorknob, Temperance reminded herself that tonight James was going to be in bed with Kenna and that forever after . . .

She did open the door, but only slowly. Maybe if she saw that James was actually in love with Kenna, it would cure this indecision that was eating at Temperance’s stomach.

“Once you find the treasure,” came a voice that was like James’s, but there was a smooth, slick quality to it that was not like his, “we can kill him.”

Temperance froze in the doorway. Every muscle of her body was alert.

“You’ll be his widow, so you’ll own everything. It will all be yours.”

“And yours,” came Kenna’s voice in reply.

Very slowly, so she made no sound at all, Temperance turned and left the attic and went downstairs.

James was in his bedroom getting dressed for his wedding; his only attendant, Ramsey. Fitting, Temperance thought, since Ramsey was the McCairn’s son. There was bile in her throat as she thought of this and wondered how many other great secrets were being kept from her. But what she had to tell James, she wanted to say to him in private.

“I want to see you in the library immediately,” she said to James, then turned to Ramsey. “In the attic are . . . two people.” She couldn’t bear to say their names. “I want them in the library now,” she said, then shut the door.

She found Alys on the stairs and told her to go get Grace and send her to the library. Downstairs in the library, Temperance had to shoo eight half-drunken relatives out of the room. She was able to do this by picking up the drinks tray and setting it on the buffet in the hallway. They followed docilely, still laughing and enjoying themselves, seemingly unaware of the change of room.

Within twenty minutes, they were all assembled in the room: Temperance, James, Colin, Kenna, and Grace. Temperance shut the door behind them, locked the door, then put the key in her pocket.

“Where’s the whiskey?” was the first thing that Colin said.

“I think that all of us need to be sober for this,” Temperance said solemnly.

“Ah, yes, puritanical Americans,” Colin said, then sat down on the sofa. “So what do we owe this little meeting to? Have you been a bad boy, brother?” Colin asked in a lazy way that made Temperance want to hit him.

For a moment she hesitated. Maybe she should have told James everything in private, but she didn’t like secrets, not horrible secrets like this one, anyway. She took a deep breath and turned to look at James. “Your brother and the woman you’re to marry today are planning to murder you.”

At that James turned laugh-filled eyes to his brother. “Are you, now?”

In that single moment Temperance knew that everyone knew everything—except for her. She sat down on a chair. “Not that I care anything at all about this family, but no one is leaving this room until I’m told what’s going on.”

“You bastard,” Kenna said under her breath, her eyes narrowed at Colin. She was wearing the gown that had been designed for her, and except that there was a streak of dust along one edge, it was a stunning dress.

Temperance turned to look at James. He was wearing his wedding outfit, a black velvet jacket, a pristine white shirt with a lace jabot in the front. His kilt was clean, his sporran silver-edged. Beneath the kilt his heavily muscled legs showed that he didn’t spend his life behind a desk.

It was Grace who broke the silence. “Whatever is going on, someone has to marry the McCairn in about an hour, or the will gives everything to Colin,” she said softly.

“Ah, yes, the will,” Colin said, great amusement in his voice. “Are you sure you put all the whiskey outside?”

“James,” Temperance said in a low voice, “if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I shall leave here this moment and you will have to take care of all those houseguests by yourself.”

At that James had real fear on his face. He looked at his brother. “All right, where do I begin? I’ve always known about the will,” he said.

At that Temperance opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again.

James smiled at her. “I really did think that you’d come here to marry me, and I thought that at last my uncle was showing some sense. But that presumption turned out not to be true, as you so forcibly told me.

“But I knew that Aunt Rowena would come through. I was surprised that she didn’t demand that you and I marry immediately, but when she said Kenna was willing to marry me, I knew that that meant Kenna knew something about the treasure. The only things in Kenna’s heart were money and Gavie, in that order. She never loved me.”

At this Temperance turned to look at Grace, who was staring at her hands on her lap. So now Temperance knew why Grace had been in a bad mood since Kenna’s name was first mentioned. “I see,” Temperance said slowly. “Everything has been a joke.”

“Oh, the will is real enough,” James said. “I’m to marry today, for love, or I lose everything to my wastrel of a brother.”

From the way the men were looking at each other, it was plain there was no animosity between them.

“Do you gamble?” Temperance asked Colin quietly.

“Not much,” Colin answered with a smile.

“But one of us was expected to, you see,” James said, “and—”

“And when dear Aunt Rowena, the old gossip, saw me with a deck of cards after my father’s death, she told everyone that she’d been right all along and that I did have the family sickness.”

“The truth is that my brother is a hardworking barrister with a wife and three children to support.”

“Not much time to play the gaming tables,” he said cheerfully.

For a moment, Temperance sat still, trying to comprehend that what she’d been told about the family was actually nothing but a pack of lies. She looked at Kenna, sitting silently in her wedding dress. Her beautiful face was full of rage, and she seemed to understand everything that was going on.

“What about this?” Temperance asked, nodding toward Kenna.

“Like to hand it over, dear?” Colin said. “Might as well now that there’s to be no murder.”

At that Kenna stood and pulled a thin piece of brass from inside the front of her dress, and as she handed it over to James, she looked at Temperance. “Not that it matters, but murder was his suggestion and I refused to have any part of it. I draw the line at murder.”

“True, she did,” Colin said as he moved to stand beside his brother to look at the brass ornament.

“Shall we have a look?” James said, then reached into his sporran and withdrew all four packs of cards, the ones that his grandmother had had made for them.

Temperance knew that someone had searched her room to find two of the decks, but she didn’t mention that fact.

Kenna, Colin, and James spread the cards out on a long table that ran the length of the big leather sofa and began to twist and turn the ornament on top of the backs of the cards. Temperance and Grace stood to one side watching, silent, not speaking to each other or commenting on what the others were doing.

After about fifteen minutes, Kenna said, “I don’t see anything. How does it work?”

“I have no idea,” Colin answered. “I don’t have the mind of a gambler. If the gambling spirit skipped us, do you think that maybe Ramsey inherited it?”

“Or one of your daughters,” James shot back, annoyed that the whereabouts of the treasure hadn’t been immediately revealed.

“Get one of your relatives in here!” Kenna said angrily. “Surely one of them must be a gambler.”

“Gamblers, yes, but cheats seemed to have died with my grandfather.”

“All this trouble and we’ve still found nothing,” James said slowly as he looked at Kenna in accusation. “I gave you as much time as possible without actually marrying you, so I think you could have—”

It was Grace who remembered. “The wedding!” she said. “We have to go tell them the wedding is off. Everyone is waiting. They must all be at the church by now.”

Colin gave a slow smile. “Well, brother, it looks like the place is about to become mine.”

At that Temperance turned away and looked out the window.

Behind her, James said in a teasing way to Kenna, “I guess you still wouldn’t want to marry me?”

“I’d rather be burned alive.”

“You?” James said to Grace.

“No more men for me, thank you. It’s much more fun to earn money.”

Behind her, no one spoke for a few moments, so Temperance turned around to look at them. All eyes were on her.

James’s eyes were hot and intense. “On a fast horse we could get there without being too late.”

Temperance’s heart was pounding. What could she say? All she could feel was joy that James had never intended to marry anyone except her, and now she wouldn’t have to leave McCairn and go back to have a war with a girl who— “I’m a mess,” she heard herself say.

With a jaw-splitting grin, James grabbed her hand. “Later, I’ll buy you wardrobe from Paris.”

Temperance’s heart was pounding so hard that she couldn’t think of anything to say. Married! She was about to get married! She swallowed. “Actually, Finola showed me a dress she’d made and I was thinking about expanding the House of Grace to include women’s clothing. And Struan in the stables has made shoes and—”

It was Grace who shouted, “Go! Go! Go!”; then Colin gave his brother a push toward the door. There was a moment of throaty laughter as James fumbled in Temperance’s breast pocket for the door key; then they were in the empty hallway. As Grace had said, everyone was now at the church.

“Ready?” James said, then Temperance laughed and he started running, never releasing her hand as they ran toward the stables. There was a saddled horse waiting as though they’d been expected. James leaped into the saddle, then pulled Temperance up behind him, and they were off and running.

Maybe it was the wind in her face, or just the now-familiar path to the village, but as she clasped his broad back in her arms, Temperance’s confidence faded a bit. “They’d rather have Kenna. She’s one of their own,” she said to him.

“If they think that I’ll give the place to Colin and he can run them all off!”

Smiling, Temperance hugged him closer, but questions started going through her mind. Why? Why? Why?

“Why did you push me away that day I was crying? You must have known that I almost asked you to marry me that day,” she said, her face turned up to look at the back of his neck. After today she’d be allowed to touch him any time she wanted.

“I knew that Kenna would return only if she knew something about the treasure,” he said over his shoulder. “I wanted to give her all the time I could.”

What he said made sense, but Temperance couldn’t help frowning as she remembered her pain of that day. He’d done nothing to alleviate her pain. Why? Because he wanted his bloody treasure—which he didn’t get anyway.

She could see the church at the end of the long street, but at that moment a large flock of James’s beloved sheep decided to cross the road, so he halted and waited. He’d do nothing to make a sheep panic and maybe break a leg. There was something else bothering her. “Do you know anything about Deborah Madison?”

James threw a smile over his shoulder at her. “I found the newspaper article and the letter in the sheepherder’s cottage after the night we spent there,” he said. “I could see nail prints in the letter, so I knew you’d been upset by what you’d read. It was a hunch, but I had an idea that this Deborah Madison was like you were when you first came to McCairn. I wanted to show you that you were a much better person with us than you were in New York, so I contacted Colin and he telegraphed New York and Miss Madison took the first boat over.”

“Oh,” Temperance said, then put her head back down on his back. His hunch had been right, and she’d seen what he’d hoped she would. He was wise and perceptive, she’d give him that.

But there was something about this that still bothered her. Couldn’t he have talked to her about what he’d read? Sat down with her and told her that she’d changed? Why did he have to do such a sneaky and elaborate thing as go behind Temperance’s back and arrange for Deborah Madison to come to McCairn? It was the kind of thing that you’d do to teach a child. Show them. But grown-ups had reasoning power. Couldn’t he have . . . ?

Shaking her head, she tried to clear her thoughts. This was going to be her wedding day, and this was the man she loved. She knew him; he was a good man. She’d seen the way he took care of people. Later, they could iron out their differences. Later, after the requirements of the will had been fulfilled and McCairn was safe, she and James would talk.

But still, she remembered herself saying to women, “Didn’t you think of that before you married him?” Usually this pertained to the man’s love of whiskey. The answer the women gave was always the same: “No, I was in love and I didn’t think of anything past ‘I do.’”

When the sheep were clear of the road, James nudged the horse forward and Temperance tried to still her thoughts. James McCairn didn’t have any bad vices like those of the men involved with the women she’d dealt with back in New York. James didn’t drink to excess, certainly didn’t gamble. Perhaps he was a little high-handed, but every man had flaws, didn’t he?

In the next minute they were at the church, and the second they stepped inside, the place went wild with excitement, with everyone cheering and shouting. At the end of the aisle in the front row were her mother and Rowena, and they fell on each other, crying and laughing at the same time.

“Looks like they don’t mind having you after all,” James shouted down at her.

Temperance was smiling, but, inside, something was bothering her deeply. There had been no hesitation on anyone’s part when she had appeared in the doorway with James. But hadn’t they been expecting Kenna? “One of their own,” as they’d said a thousand times.

Everyone was there, all of McCairn, plus scads of James’s relatives from all over Scotland. And as she walked beside James up the aisle, nearly everyone slapped him on the back.

“You said you could do it, and you did,” she kept hearing. Along the way, someone thrust a bouquet of flowers into her hands.

But she didn’t understand what the words of the people meant. James had been able to do what? Get married and save McCairn from a gambling brother who doesn’t actually gamble?

It was at the altar that everything became clear to her. Hamish, a man Temperance had once despised, smiled and said to her, “James said he wouldn’t let you leave us, and he was right. Welcome home, lass.”

Then Hamish put up his hand for silence, and when the church was quiet, he began the wedding service. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today . . .”

Turning, Temperance looked out at the congregation, all of them beaming in that way that people do when they’ve pulled off some great feat. It was difficult for Temperance to comprehend, but she suddenly realized that everyone in the village had been in on this. They hadn’t hesitated when they’d seen Temperance at the entrance to the church because they had been expecting her to show up with James.

I don’t like this, Temperance thought. I don’t like it at all.

“Do you, James, take this woman . . .” Hamish was saying, but Temperance was still looking at the congregation. Her mother was sitting in the first row, crying softly into a handkerchief.

I thought he was serious about marrying Kenna, but he wasn’t, went through Temperance’s head. And she’d thought the people of the village were serious about wanting Kenna more than they could ever want an “outsider.”

When James said, “I do,” Temperance turned to look up at him, but she didn’t smile.

Hamish said, “Do you, Temperance O’Neil, take this man—”

Temperance turned back to look at the people. She’d had a lot of experience giving speeches, and she knew how to project her voice so that she could be heard by the people in the last row. James was holding her hand, but she pulled away from him. “I helped you in a spirit of honesty,” she said to the people, “but you didn’t treat me with the same respect. You weren’t honest with me.”

To say that the people were stunned was an understatement. Only Grace, standing to one side, having arrived on a horse with Colin, had a look on her face of, I knew this was going to happen.

It was Lilias who spoke out. “We never wanted Kenna. She was always after young Gavie. The boy was mad about her, but she left him to go after the McCairn. She deserves what she gets. If we used her, then it was because she deserved it.”

At that the people made noises of agreement.

“And what did I do to deserve to be tricked by all of you?” Temperance asked, then looked at her mother. “You were part of this, weren’t you?”

Melanie didn’t make any answer as she put the handkerchief up to her face and cried harder. Her silence was enough admission of guilt for Temperance.

“I don’t like this,” Temperance said softly, but everyone in the church heard her.

“Darling,” James said from beside her. “I think that—”

When she turned to look at him, she felt as though everything in her life had been leading up to this moment. Her mind was crystal clear. “All you had to do was ask me to marry you,” she said. “That’s all. Not say to me, ‘All right, I’ll give you what you want; I’ll marry you.’ No, I wanted what it seems that most of the women in this church received: a proper marriage proposal on bended knee, preferably with a ring in a pretty box, the same things that all women want. But instead, I got tricked and manipulated.”

As he’d always done, James tried to tease her out of her bad mood. “Isn’t it all fair in love and war?” he asked, eyes sparkling.

“Yes, I believe it is,” she said, then stopped. Everyone in the church was holding his or her breath; she could feel the tension. She knew that if she allowed the service to continue, there would be more cheering and great happiness. But Temperance couldn’t do it.

She wanted more. She wanted more than trickery and things done behind her back. But, most of all, she wanted love.

She looked down at the bouquet of flowers that had been thrust into her hands. She wasn’t wearing a wedding dress because this wedding had been planned for another woman. After Temperance had asked Kenna for the fourth time what kind of flowers she liked best, Kenna had reluctantly said, “Lilies.” So now the church was full of white lilies. But Temperance hated lilies. Hated the shape; hated the smell of the things. But then, this wasn’t her wedding, was it?

No, she wasn’t going to marry a man who until an hour ago she’d thought was to marry someone else, a man who had yet to ask her to marry him. And he’d certainly never said those words every woman wanted to hear. He’d never said, “I love you.”

She looked up at James. Truthfully, she was finally, at last, sure that she was in love with him. No one could look at a man and get all jittery inside as she did with him and not be in love. But she was going to take her own advice: she was going to think of problems before she married a man.

She thrust the bouquet of flowers into his hand, then turned and started down the aisle.

No one in the church said a word after the first gasps of disbelief.

James caught her arm halfway down the aisle. “You can’t do this,” he said quietly; his eyes were pleading with her. Don’t embarrass me in front of my people, he was silently asking her.

“If you leave, I’ll lose McCairn and people will be homeless,” he said softly.

Looking into the eyes of the man you love and saying no had to be the hardest thing that Temperance had ever done in her life. And she knew that if, right now, he’d say those three little words, she would turn and go back to where Hamish was still standing, the prayer book in his hand, his mouth still open in astonishment.

But James said no more and the moment was lost.

And because she didn’t hear those words, Temperance couldn’t continue. She couldn’t make herself marry a man for the sake of a village. “You should have thought of that before the last day,” she said. “And maybe you should have paid as much attention to me as to your treasure.” When he said nothing in reply, just stared at her, she turned and started walking again.

Outside were two of James’s racehorses, one ridden by Colin. Temperance wasn’t much of a rider, but right now she knew that she could do anything in the world. Easily, she propelled herself into the saddle and urged the horse forward. There were three of James’s sheep in the road, and when she came to them, she leaned down and shouted at them to move. For all that she might have just done the dumbest thing of her life, she suddenly felt very free.

At the crossroads, she didn’t hesitate. She wasn’t going to do the sensible thing and return to the house and pack her belongings. No, she was going to . . . Well, she didn’t know where she was going or how she was going to get there, but she was leaving McCairn—that was for sure.

She pulled just a bit on the horse’s reins, and the animal went right. On the road to Midleigh, with McCairn behind her, there was Kenna walking, her beautiful wedding dress now a muddy mess.

Temperance halted the horse.

“Did you come to laugh at me, Mrs. McCairn?” Kenna said nastily.

“I didn’t marry him,” Temperance said calmly. “Would you like a ride?”

Kenna opened her mouth a couple of times, then closed it. “Aye, I would,” she said at last, then put her foot into the stirrup and climbed on the horse behind Temperance.