The Earl's Convenient Wife. Marion Lennox

       Alasdair kissed her.

      It was a true wedding kiss, a lordly kiss, the kiss of the Lord of Duncairn claiming his bride. It was a kiss with strength and heat and passion. It was a kiss that blew her fragile defences to smithereens.

      Jeanie shouldn’t respond. She shouldn’t! They were in a church, for heaven’s sake. It wasn’t seemly. This was a business arrangement, a marriage of convenience, and he had no right…

      And then her mind shut down, just like that.

      She’d never been kissed like this. She’d never felt like this.

      Fire…

      His mouth was plundering hers. She was raised right off her feet. She was totally out of control and there was nothing she could do but submit. She fought desperately to gather herself, regain some decorum, and maybe Alasdair felt it because finally, finally he set her on her feet. But his dark eyes gleamed at her, and behind that smile was a promise.

      This man was her husband. The knowledge was terrifying, but suddenly it was also exhilarating.

      The Earl’s

      Convenient Wife

      Marion Lennox

      

www.millsandboon.co.uk

      MARION LENNOX has written more than a hundred romances and is published in over a hundred countries and thirty languages. Her multiple awards include the prestigious RITA^® Award (twice) and the RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award “for a body of work which makes us laugh and teaches us about love.”

      Marion adores her family, her kayak, her dog and lying on the beach with a book someone else has written. Heaven.

      With thanks to Rose M, my new and wonderful neighbour and friend.

      Gardening will never be the same again.

      Contents

       Cover

       Excerpt

       Title Page

       About the Author

       Dedication

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

       CHAPTER FIVE

       CHAPTER SIX

       CHAPTER SEVEN

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       CHAPTER TEN

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

       Extract

       Copyright

       CHAPTER ONE

      MARRY...

      There was deathly silence in the magnificent library of the ancient castle of Duncairn. In specially built niches round the walls were the bottles of whisky Jeanie had scraped to afford. Weirdly, that was what she was focusing on. What a waste. How much whisky could she fit in a suitcase?

      How many scores of fruitcakes would they make? There was no way she was leaving them behind. For him. For her prospective bridegroom?

      What a joke.

      She’d been clinging to the hope that she might keep her job. She knew the Lord of Duncairn didn’t like her, but she’d worked hard to give Duncairn Castle the reputation for hospitality it now enjoyed.

      It didn’t matter. Her efforts were for nothing. This crazy will meant she was out on her ear.

      ‘This must be a joke.’ Alasdair McBride, the sixteenth Earl of Duncairn, sounded appalled. It was no wonder. She stood to lose her job. Alasdair stood to lose his...fiefdom?

      ‘A last will and testament is never a joke.’ Edward McCraig, of the prestigious law firm McCraig, McCraig & McFerry, had made the long journey from Edinburgh to be at today’s funeral for Eileen McBride—Alasdair’s grandmother and Jeanie’s employer. He’d sat behind Jeanie in the Duncairn Kirk and listened to the eulogies with an air of supressed impatience. He wished to catch the last ferry back to the mainland. He was now seated in one of the library’s opulent chairs, reading the old lady’s wishes to her only surviving grandson—and to the live-in help.

      He shuffled his papers and pushed his glasses further down his nose, looking at neither of them. Crazy or not, Eileen’s will clearly made him uncomfortable.

      Jeanie looked at Alasdair and then looked away. This might be a mess, but it had little to do with her, she decided. She went back to counting whisky bottles. Maybe three suitcases? She only had one, but there were crates in the castle cellars. If she was brave enough to face the dark and the spiders...

      Could you sell whisky online?

      She glanced back at Alasdair and found his gaze was following hers, along the line of whisky. With an oath—a mixture of fury and shock—he took three glasses from the sideboard and poured.

      Soda-sized whiskies.

      The lawyer shook his head but Jeanie took hers with gratitude. The will had been a nasty shock. It was excellent whisky and she couldn’t take it all with her.

      But it did need to be treated with respect. As the whisky hit home she choked and sank onto one of the magnificent down-filled sofas. A cloud of dog hair rose around her. She really had to do something about Eileen’s dogs.

      Or not. This will said they were no longer her problem. She’d have to leave the island. She couldn’t take the dogs and she loved them. This castle might be over-the-top opulent, but she loved it, too. She felt...befuddled.

      ‘So how do we get around this?’ Clearly the whisky wasn’t having the same effect on Alasdair that it was on her. His glass was almost empty. She looked at him in awe. Actually she’d been looking sideways at Alasdair all afternoon. Well, why not? He might be arrogant, he might have despised her from the first time he’d met her, but he’d always been worth looking at.

      Alasdair McBride was thirty-seven years old, and he was what Jeanie’s granny would have described as a man to be reckoned with. Although he didn’t use it, his hereditary title fitted him magnificently, especially today. In honour of his grandmother’s funeral he was wearing full highland regalia, and he looked awesome.

      Jeanie always had had a weakness for a man in a kilt, and the Duncairn tartan was gorgeous. Okay, the Earl of Duncairn was gorgeous, she conceded. Six foot two in his stockinged feet, with jet-black hair and the striking bone structure and strength of the warrior race he’d so clearly descended from, Alasdair McBride was a man to make every eye in the room turn to him. The fact that he controlled the massive Duncairn financial empire only added to his aura of power, but he needed