Temptation

The sign on the brownstone house said “Women’s Employment Agency—If you have a talent, we have a job.”

James McCairn stood before the front door and raised his hand to knock, then lowered it. Right now he’d rather face a line of men with cannons than do what he’d come here to do. Standing still for a moment, he reached down to scratch his leg. Both of his legs were raw from wearing the confounded trousers instead of a kilt that allowed a man’s skin to breathe. And he was sick of the heat of the lowlands.

Running his hand around his collar, he felt a trickle of sweat there, and for a moment he almost turned and fled. But then he remembered Temperance and what his life had been like for the last two years. She had only been with him for a few months, but since she’d left, his life had been . . .

Taking a deep, bracing breath, he raised the brass knocker and let it fall. A maid opened the door almost immediately.

“They only find jobs for women,” the woman said, looking him up and down. “And you ain’t one by a long shot,” she said, and there was an invitation in her voice and eyes.

“Delly!” came a voice that James well knew, and when he heard it, he knew that he’d done the right thing.

When Temperance turned a corner, she saw him, and instantly, he was sure that she had been as miserable as he’d been these last years. This is going to be easy, he told himself, and his self-confidence returned. Putting his shoulders back, he walked toward her as proudly as though he were on his own land and wearing his kilt.

“Hello,” he said, smiling. “Remember me?”

For a moment Temperance stared at him; then she smiled slowly. “James,” she said. “You haven’t changed a bit.” But that wasn’t true. He was, if anything, better looking than when she’d last seen him—and just the sight of him made her heart beat faster.

James smiled warmly. “I should have told you that I was going to be in New York, but I never got round to it,” he said, trying his best to sound as casual as possible.

“No, of course not,” she answered softly. “Won’t you come in so we can visit? I’d like to hear all about what’s been happening in McCairn. My mother writes me, but . . .” She trailed off as James moved closer to her. His nearness made words impossible, and it was as though the last two years hadn’t happened.

There was still the old magnetism, he thought, and smiled again.

“Won’t you come inside?” Temperance said softly as she opened a door to a prettily decorated little parlor. “Delly, would you send in some tea and cakes?”

They didn’t speak again until they were alone in the room. Temperance sat down on a small sofa, then indicated that James was to take the chair across from her. But he didn’t sit. Instead, he stood by the fireplace, his arm resting on the mantel. She was prettier than he remembered, but there was something new about her, an air of maturity that he hadn’t seen before, and it was becoming to her.

Once they were settled, James opened his mouth to tell her why he’d come. He planned to tell her that he was ready to forgive her for the way she’d humiliated him at the altar and take her back.

But just as he opened his mouth to speak, the door flew open and in ran a little boy. He had dirt all over his face and hands and down the front of his blue-and-white sailor suit. “Mom! Mom!” he yelled as he buried his face in Temperance’s skirts. Behind him ran a young woman, her nanny uniform’s hat askew.

“He got away from me, I’m sorry,” the nanny said.

Lovingly, Temperance stroked the boy’s dark blond hair. “What have you done this time?”

“He dug up every one of the new bulbs the gardener put in last week!” the nanny said in exasperation.

“Oh?” Temperance said, raising her eyes to look at the woman. “And where were you? Meeting your boyfriend again?”

At that, tears sprang to the girl’s eyes. “I’m sorry, miss, it won’t happen again. I’m new at this. It’s so much easier makin’ a livin’ on my back than doin’—”

“Mable!” Temperance said sharply as she looked down at the boy; then she lifted his head from her lap and held his little face in her hands. “There’s someone I want you to meet,” she said as she turned the boy to look at James. “This is James McCairn and he’s from Scotland. Go and shake his hand.”

The little boy left his mother, solemnly went forward, and held out his hand to James to shake. Just as solemnly, James shook the small hand. He was a handsome child. “It is a pleasure to meet you,” James said quietly.

The maid brought in a large tray covered with a big pot of tea and three plates holding little cakes and cookies. With a squeal of delight, the boy grabbed three cakes at once, stuffing two into his mouth.

“Go and wash him,” Temperance said to the nanny, “and stop sniveling. And, Delly, from now on you’ll—” She broke off, instead, giving the girl a warning look. After a quick kiss to the boy’s cheek, the two maids and the child left the room, closing the door behind them.

“I apologize for that,” Temperance said, looking up at James.

He was doing all that he could to recover himself, for the bottom of his world had fallen out when the child had yelled, “Mom!” then run to Temperance. “I see that you’re still saving your wayward women,” he said, trying to sound lighthearted as he sat down. All the arrogance had left him in the last moments. Why hadn’t he acted sooner? Why hadn’t he—?

“Tea?” she asked as she picked up the pot.

“You’re doing well,” he said, looking about the room.

“Yes, I think so. I—” She cut herself off as she handed him his cup of tea. “You didn’t come here to hear about me. What brings you to New York?”

You, he wanted to say, but his pride held him back. “Business for McCairn,” he said, then put his cup down and reached inside his coat pocket and withdrew a small box. “I brought you something.”

Temperance took the box from him and slipped the ribbon off of it. Inside, wrapped in tissue, was a golden shell on wheels. Atop it was a tiny man holding on to a rope as thin as hair that was attached to the front of the shell. Not only was it exquisite, it looked to be made of gold.

“Ah, yes, my mother wrote me that you’d found the treasure,” she said, then set the beautiful object down on the tea table. That treasure had cost her a lot, she thought, and after she’d been told of its discovery, she’d written her mother that she never wanted to hear another word about McCairn. When she looked back up at James, she was smiling. “You figured out about the cards and the template, then?”

James gave her a one-sided grin. “No, not really. At least not until later, that is. I, uh, threw something through the big mirror over the fireplace in the library. When the glass fell away, there was a deep hollow back there and everything my grandmother had bought was in there.”

“That must have been exciting for you,” Temperance said, sipping her tea and looking at him. “And how did your grandmother put the treasure behind the mirror?”

“You always were clever,” he said, smiling, but Temperance didn’t smile back. “There was a trapdoor in my grandmother’s bedroom. It was extremely well hidden, and we never would have found the door if we hadn’t found the treasure first. And the template was a key, not something to be used on the back of the cards.”

“What an interesting woman your grandmother must have been,” Temperance said, then glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “I’m so happy that you found your treasure. And how is everyone in McCairn?”

“Well. Everyone is doing very well,” James said, too aware that she was already wanting to get away from him. “Grace married the man who delivered hat blanks, and they moved to Edinburgh, and young Alys is already starting to take courses in medicine.”

“That’s wonderful,” Temperance said, finishing her cup of tea.

“And I had my grandmother buried in consecrated ground.”

“I’m glad. I know how much that meant to you.”

“And you?” James said quietly.

“Your uncle honored our agreement in spite of the fact that I hadn’t fulfilled my end of the bargain,” she said. “I didn’t find you a wife.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said.

“That’s what Angus said too. When I stopped hating him, I found that he was a very nice man. He’s allowed me the use of my father’s house and access to some of the money my father left my mother, all under supervision, of course.”

“The girl at the door said, ‘They only find jobs for women.’ Are you, by chance, in partnership with Miss Deborah Madison?”

“Heavens no! But I must say that that dreadful girl turned my life around. She made me see that, somewhere along the way, I’d sold out.”

“You?”

The way he said it, made Temperance frown. It was as though he was insinuating that she was too perfect to be human. It was something she’d been accused of before. “Deborah Madison made me realize that I’d been feeding my pride rather than helping people who needed help. I’m ashamed to say that I used to love being a ‘celebrity.’ I liked having little girls ask for my autograph. I liked—” She waved her hand in dismissal.

“Anyway, after McCairn, I thought that maybe I had a talent for finding people work, so I returned to New York and opened an employment agency. I let others try for the history books,” she said with a tiny smile.

“You said that your money is ‘supervised.’ By a husband?” he said, then wanted to bite his tongue off. He hadn’t meant to ask that. Ever since he’d seen the boy and realized that he’d lost her, he’d meant to be cool, reserved, to keep his pride intact.

“No,” Temperance said with real amusement. “Kenna is my partner and she keeps in contact with Angus’s bank managers. Financially, we’re well looked after.”

“Kenna?” James said in disbelief. “Kenna Lockwood? From McCairn? The one who—”

“The very one. Mother talked Angus into allowing Kenna to be my guardian. ‘A good McCairn girl down on her luck,’ is what my mother called Kenna.”

For the first time since he’d arrived, he saw a spark of the old Temperance he used to know. Did she hate him? He could have sworn that when he first saw her, there had been a spark in her eyes. But now he wondered if it was a spark of hatred. “So Kenna handles your money,” he said. “I hope you have a trustworthy accountant overseeing the books.”

For a second, Temperance’s eyes flashed fire. “Kenna is my partner in this business,” she said angrily. “She and I and my son live upstairs, and together we manage the employment agency.” With a clank, she put down her teacup, then looked at him across the table. This time there was no mistaking the anger in her eyes. “You really haven’t changed, have you, James McCairn? You know how my mother got your uncle to agree to Kenna’s being given a job? My mother told Angus that he needed to bring back honor to the McCairn name after what you’d done to her, after what you and all of McCairn had done to her.”

At that James stood. “I never did a damned thing to that girl. Years ago she tried to trick me into marrying her because she was after the McCairn money! She deserved what she got.”

Temperance also stood, her face full of fury. “So I guess you’re considered a clever man because you used trickery to try to find your beloved treasure, but if a woman uses trickery to try to get money, she’s a thief and deserves punishment. And I guess I, too, deserved what I got, didn’t I? After all, I’d done so many bad things to all of McCairn that I deserved to be tricked and manipulated, didn’t I?”

“You were tricked?!” he said. “You were scheming to marry me off to—” Breaking off, he stepped away from her and lowered his voice. “I came here to tell you that I was willing to forgive you for the way you humiliated me, but now I—”

“Forgive me,” she said under her breath. “Forgive me?”

“I can see that I wasted my time,” he said, his back rigid; then he turned and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

In the hallway he was so angry that he was shaking. He’d traveled all the way to the United States just to . . . To what?

It certainly wasn’t to be humiliated again, that’s for sure. When he thought of those minutes, then hours, then months after she ran out on him, humiliating him before the entire village, he could—

As he grabbed the handle of the front door in order to leave the house, he stepped on something. When he looked down, he saw that it was a Crayola crayon.

Picking it up, he looked at the crushed tip. When Temperance had been in Scotland, she had had her mother send boxes of these things to the children in McCairn. And after Temperance had seen the pictures that one of the children drew, she’d written some letters to a couple of art schools in New York. But nothing had come of the letters because James hadn’t married Temperance as he’d planned and Temperance had left McCairn forever.

Turning, he looked at the closed door to the parlor. When she’d walked out on him in the church, she’d said that if he’d just asked her to marry him, she would have. It was too late for that now because now she was married and had a child. She had a business helping her down-on-their-luck women, and she was happy. While he was . . .

James took a deep breath. Pride was a cold bedfellow. He knew that very, very well.

With his shoulders back, he opened the door into the parlor, walked in, and closed it behind him. She was still sitting on the sofa, and he could see that she’d been crying. She turned away, wiped her tears, and tried to hide her face from him.

“I have something to say,” he said softly.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I think you’ve said everything.”

“No,” he said, and for a moment he thought again about turning and running. If she was already married, what he had to say wouldn’t make any difference. Right now he could save his pride and walk out that door and . . . and what? Go home with his pride intact? But, then, wasn’t it his pride that got him into this in the first place?

“I broke the mirror in the library in a rage. In fact I broke a lot of things after you left.”

“You don’t have to tell me any of this,” Temperance said as she stood up.

“Yes, I do,” James said. “And if I can travel all the way to this hot city and put on these itchy, confining pants, then you can bloody well listen to me. So sit!”

Temperance blinked at him, then sat back down.

Putting his hands behind his back, James began to pace as he talked. “Grace left McCairn. She took her new husband, her daughter, and her business and left McCairn. But she didn’t go before she gave me a piece of her mind. She said she couldn’t stand what McCairn had become. She said that my bad temper and my sulking over what had happened with my first wife, then later over what I thought that you had done to me, was just an excuse for me to stay on that mountain and not face life. So she took her child and her business and she left.

“Actually,” he said, “most of the people of the village gave me a piece of his or her mind.”

Pausing a moment, James stared at the wall in front of him. He was remembering the lassitude that had taken over the village after their new, modern business was taken from them.

When he spoke again, his voice was softer. “Others besides Grace left too because they said they couldn’t see any future in McCairn.”

James stopped pacing and sat down on the chair across from Temperance, but he didn’t look her in the eyes. Would he see pity there? The great McCairn hadn’t been able to save his own people.

“As for Colin, he didn’t want the place. He said he was sick of the whole family treating him like a monster because he liked a card game now and then. He said he was happily married, loved his children, and he was on the board of directors of three banks, so his gambling urges were taken care of there. He said McCairn was just a liability and that he wanted nothing to do with it.”

James looked down at his hands. It was hard to admit to this failure, but at the same time, there was something that was being released inside him. To say these things out loud made him feel as though a huge boulder inside him were being dissolved.

He looked up at Temperance, but there was no pity in her eyes, only interest. It encouraged him to go on. “I went to lawyers and talked to them about the will. It took a couple of years, but in the end several people came forward to testify that I had married for love once, and there was nothing in the will saying what to do if she died.”

James gave Temperance a weak smile. “Since Colin didn’t want the place, my work with lawyers meant nothing except that now I’m the real owner of the McCairn—such as it is—and I can pass it on to my descendants.”

“To Ramsey,” Temperance said softly.

“Yes. To Ramsey.” For a moment James didn’t say anything, but then he looked up at her and there was no longer any shield in front of his eyes, nothing guarding him, protecting him, and Temperance knew that she was looking at the inside of him, a place he didn’t allow people to see.

“All those years,” he said softly, so quietly that she had to lean forward to hear him. “I thought that the problem with McCairn was money. If I just had enough money, I could bring my land and my people back to what they once were. When you said McCairn was a laughingstock of all Scotland, you were right.”

When Temperance opened her mouth to apologize for that thoughtless statement, he put up his hand to stop her. “No,” he said, “you were right, and you hit a nerve when you said it. I was ashamed of my family’s history of gambling and the resulting failure of my homeland. Grace was right: I was hiding in McCairn, staying away from the world.”

James couldn’t sit still any longer but again stood and began to pace. “But I was content all those years before you came, content with what I was doing, content with being alone. I now realize that I did heavy, manual labor fourteen hours a day to keep myself from thinking.”

He stopped pacing and looked at her. “But then you came along and you woke all of us up. You made me laugh. You made me want the company of a woman. I hadn’t been lonely until you showed up, then I was sick with loneliness.”

James sat back down on the chair and looked into Temperance’s eyes. “But I never told you. I never told you how much having dinner with you meant to me. Or how much pleasure I received from the hours we spent in the cave. You were so generous and kind to the people of McCairn, more generous than I ever was. You were kind to them on a personal level. I didn’t have to do anything because I was the McCairn.”

When he looked at her, there were tears starting to form in his eyes. “You were right to leave me. You should have. If you’d stayed, I would have—”

“Taken me for granted?” she said.

At that James smiled. “You always did have the ability to make me laugh. Yes, if you’d gone through with that wedding, I think I would have come to treat you abominably. We don’t prize what’s easily won.”

He took a breath and looked away for a moment, then back at her. “I came here today to . . .”

“To what?” she prompted.

He smiled at her. “To tell you that I’d forgive you and take you back. Looks like I didn’t learn much in these last years, does it? I don’t think it ever occurred to me that you’d be married and have a child. I think I thought that you were—”

“Crying in loneliness over you every night, as you were over me?”

“Yes,” he said, smiling, then had to take another breath to calm himself. He’d lost. His damned, insufferable pride had lost him everything.

But when he looked at Temperance, he smiled. “I can’t believe this, but I feel better now. It’s odd, but I thought that if I ever humbled myself, I’d crack right down the middle, but instead, it feels kind of free. I feel lighter.”

Temperance smiled warmly at him. “I guess they don’t have the saying in Scotland that confession is good for the soul.”

“It wasn’t a saying we had in laird school,” he said, making her laugh; then he withdrew another box from his pocket. “I want to show you something else.”

It was a ring box. “James, I don’t think—” she began, but he cut her off. It was obvious that she was going to tell him that he didn’t have to humble himself any more.

“No, I need to tell you something,” he said. “I need to do this for myself. At the altar you said that you wanted a ring and—”

“James, please,” she said. “You don’t have to do this.”

“But I do,” he said. “I want to show you something. I did, as you said, trick and manipulate you, but maybe I had some good intentions. After I walk out that door today, I promise that I’ll never bother you again, so I need to leave you with some good thoughts about me.”

Opening the little box, he pulled out a gold ring and handed it to her. “Can you read the inscription?”

Taking it, she held the ring up to the light.

“At the wedding you said that if I had just come to you on bended knee with a ring in a pretty box, you would have said yes. I wanted to show you that I meant to, I really did, but I also wanted to hand you riches, so I waited until the last minute with Kenna to see what she knew.”

He handed her a receipt from a jewelry store. It was dated weeks before she left McCairn. The receipt said that the ring was to be inscribed with, “To Temperance, with all my love, James.”

As Temperance looked inside the ring, she could see engraved inside, “To TM with all my love, JM.”

“It was too long, so they had to abbreviate it,” James said, smiling. “And they didn’t have last names, and they knew that I was demanding the ring be ready within twenty-four hours, so they made do.”

Temperance handed the ring back to him, then sat back against her chair and looked at him in silence.

As James looked at her hands, his stomach clenched. There was a wedding ring on the third finger of her left hand.

When he spoke, he tried to sound as though his heart weren’t breaking. “So who is he?” James asked.

“Who is whom?”

“Your husband. If my uncle found him for you, I’ll kill Angus.”

Temperance smiled. “Don’t have one. I tell people that I was widowed, and they accept that. Truthfully, I don’t think anyone believes me, but the lie makes me more human. Kenna’s been a great help. She’s good at business, and she says she likes earning money much more than, well, men.”

James was staring at her, his mouth open. “But the child,” he said.

“He’s yours,” Temperance said cheerfully, as though she were announcing a party.

“What?”

“My son is your son. I never was good at numbers, and so much was happening in those last weeks that I didn’t realize that I was going to have a baby.”

It took James several minutes to comprehend what she’d just said. “No husband?” he whispered.

“No husband.”

The next moment James was fumbling for the ring and almost dropped it twice before he got to Temperance; then he went down on one knee and grabbed both her hands in one of his. “Will you marry me? Please? We’ll live wherever you want. Here in New York, so you can run your business. And now I can afford to buy you anything you want—not that I think you can be bought, but I—”

Temperance put a finger over his lips. “I’d like to go back to McCairn. I’d like my son . . . our son to be raised there, with his big brother, Ramsey. And as for this place, Kenna can run it. She doesn’t need me.”

“I need you,” James said, his eyes pleading. “We all need you. Desperately.”

“And I need you,” Temperance said softly. “And our son needs us both.” Bending, she softly kissed his lips. “Would you like to meet your son? Really meet him?”

For a moment James looked as though he were going to cry; then he stood up and Temperance could see a change come over him. He had discarded his pride to win her, and now she had given it back to him. And he had given her back her pride also. These last years had been difficult. Being a single mother was hard, and—

“Shall we go?” he asked, as he held out his arm for her.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”