The Heiress Bride - Catherine Coulter [123]
“Where is the croft, Joan?”
“I shan’t tell you. You’ll just let him go and then he’ll kill you and I’ll be a widow even before I’m scarcely a wife, and it isn’t fair.”
“I fully intend that you become a full and complete and happy wife,” Colin said, and was pleased when she closed her mouth. “Where is the croft?”
Sinjun just shook her head.
Douglas said, “All right, Alex, where is it?”
Alex batted her eyelashes and looked utterly helpless. She heaved a deep sigh, which sent her husband’s eyes immediately to her glorious bosom. She fluttered her hands. “I don’t remember, Douglas; you know how horrid I am with directions. It was all this way and then that way and only Sinjun knows. Sophie and I were hopelessly lost, weren’t we, Sophie?”
“Hopelessly.”
“I’m going to beat you now,” Ryder said, and hauled his wife tightly against him. He leaned down to say something, but kissed her instead, full on her mouth. He raised his head and grinned. “Don’t worry, Douglas, Colin. I can get anything at all out of her with enough time. She melts like a candle. It’s really quite charming and—”
Sophie sent her fist into his belly.
He sucked in his breath but continued to grin. “Now, love, don’t deny it, you know that you adore me, that you worship me and the very shadow of my footsteps. You’re like a lovely rose that opens to the sun each morning.”
“Gawd,” Sinjun said, “you’re a horrible poet, Ryder. Just be quiet and let Sophie alone.”
Colin, frowning, said, “I would like to know what you three intended to do with MacPherson. Surely you don’t want to have to feed him three times a day for the next thirty years?”
“No,” Sinjun said. “We have a plan. If you would simply go away and drink brandy or something, all will be taken care of.”
“What is the plan, Sinjun?” Douglas asked. He rose now to walk around to her side of the bed. She shook her head and stared at the middle button on his buff riding jacket.
“Sinjun,” he said, leaning down over her, “I held you in my arms when you were born. You burped up milk on my shirt. I taught you how to ride. Ryder taught you how to tell jokes. We both taught you how to shoot and enjoy books. Without us, you would have grown up to be scarce anything at all. Now, tell us what your plan is.”
She shook her head again.
“I can still whip you, brat.”
“No, unfortunately you can’t, Douglas,” Colin said. “But I can and I firmly intend to. She swore to obey me when we were wedded but she hasn’t yet gotten beyond the abstract to the concrete.”
“How the devil could I obey you when you were in Edinburgh? Ignoring me, I might add. You were happy as a lark in that damned house with the black hole in the drawing room ceiling, weren’t you?”
“Ah, a bit of anger, Joan? Perhaps you would like to tell everyone here why I have remained in Edinburgh?”
“Your reasons were absurd. I reject them. I spit upon them.”
Colin sighed. “It’s difficult. I wish to deal with you properly but I can’t, not with your damned brothers hovering about. Douglas, Ryder, why don’t you remove your wives from this bedchamber? Then I can question Joan suitably.”
“No, I want Alex and Sophie to stay here! I’m hungry. It’s time for lunch.”
“Ah,” Colin said. “And which of the wives is to take MacPherson his lunch?”
“Go to the devil, Colin.”
Ryder laughed. “Well, we’ll have our answer soon enough. Unless they wish MacPherson to starve, they will have to take him food sometime. Then we will know.”
“Why did you remain in Edinburgh, Colin?” Douglas asked.
“To protect my wife,” Colin said simply. “And my children. That morning when she had the cut on her cheek, it was from a bullet ricocheting off a rock and striking her. I couldn’t allow her to remain in Edinburgh with me. I thought she would be safe here, and she was until MacPherson decided to leave Edinburgh and go to ground back here.”
“What children?” Ryder asked, looking at his brother-in-law blankly.
“Not again,” Sinjun said. “I have two stepchildren, Philip and Dahling. You