Poor Dr. Croydon had once more been sent for this morning, and the household was awaiting his arrival whilst attempting to ignore the ghastly hollering emerging from Monty’s bedchamber, where he had been tied to the bed posts by their enterprising domestics. The extra laudanum spooned down his throat had worn off about an hour ago, by her estimation. Thankfully, Mama was suffering his tantrum at the moment.
Catriona was tempted to cry about it all now as she tried to consume her breakfast. Torrington was still insensate, and Hattie would probably never speak to her again on account of Monty’s reckless ways. She had been forced to write a note to Rayne, informing him she could not marry him. And she had also had to pen a note to Hattie, explaining her brother was…
“My lord, you cannot simply…my lord, this is highly irregular! My lord, I insist you stop!”
The frustrated objections of the butler echoed just beyond the breakfast room. The door opened, flinging against the damask wallcoverings with a thump. And there he stood, the man she had been meant to marry today. The man she had promised, just the night before, she would marry in the morning, regardless of her brother’s mayhem.
But that had been before the staircase incident.
And the peeing on the rug incident.
And the earl looked furious.
Beautiful, but furious.
She stood. “My lord. You did not need to come.”
“Of course I did,” he bit out, striding toward her. “You are to be my wife, and matters concerning you also concern me.”
To the butler, who lingered with a look of barely suppressed outrage—perhaps understandable after the evening they had just had—she nodded. “It is well. You may go. I sent a note to Lord Rayne this morning requiring his presence.”
The domestic bowed and took his leave.
In truth, she had done nothing of the kind. Rather, she had sent Rayne a note explaining—loosely, of course—the events of the prior evening and begging a delay of their nuptials. Although she had not requested his presence, it stood to reason he would appear, given they had been promised to marry this morning and that he seemed quite intent upon achieving their union.
Clearly, he was here on account of his sense of duty. The same sense of duty which made him promise himself to a woman he then intended to abandon. The same sense of duty which enabled him to believe having an heir would absolve him of all his obligations.
The same sense of duty which told him he could marry her, get her with child, and then leave.
The more thought she devoted to it, the more Rayne’s indefatigable sense of duty enraged her.
“You did not have to come here this morning on account of our impending nuptials,” she told him. “Waiting one more day ought not to be a problem. Should it?”
His lips tightened into a grim line. “One day does not seem sufficient to tend to the needs of your wastrel brother, my lady. If we are to delay our nuptials based upon Montrose’s whims, we shall remain forever unwed.”
Rayne was not wrong. Monty was a goodhearted man, and she loved her brother, but even she had grown weary of his antics.
The earl’s thinly veiled hostility gave her pause. “Are you not willing to wait one day?”
“After one day, shall it be another, and then another?” he asked. “Lady Catriona, perhaps I have not made it clear before, but allow me to do so now. I need a wife. I need an heir. And then I need to return to my country. All of these tasks must be accomplished as quickly as possible.”
He had prowled toward her in the course of their conversation, and he now stood devastatingly near. His scent hit her, along with a wave of yearning she could not shake regardless of how foolish she knew it to be.
The lingering prick of jealousy at his love for Spain and his first wife made her bold. “Is this not your country as well, Lord Rayne?”
His nostrils flared in irritation. “No. It is not. My home is where I make it, and that has never been here. Nor will it ever be.”
Of course. It was what she had expected him to say.
“I am sorry, my lord, for requesting a postponement of our nuptials,” she forced herself to say rather than pursuing the troubling matter. “You must know, I would not have done so were it not a necessity.”
“Montrose,” he growled, his loathing of her brother almost palpable.
Ah, Monty.Some days, she despaired of him. Any hopes she had entertained that this incident would curtail his wild ways had been summarily dashed last night.
“This is rather indelicate,” she began, not certain how much she ought to reveal to Rayne. What she truly meant was it was mortifying.
Her brother was a disaster, it was true.
