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‘But I’m not a professional.’ Her eyes widened. ‘You cannot possibly mean— I told you, I was joking about the Cowgate.’
Innes laughed. ‘Not that! I meant a business professional.’ She was now looking utterly bewildered. Innes grinned. ‘The more I think about it, the more I see how perfect it is. No, wait.’ He caught her as she made to get up. ‘I promise you, I’m neither drunk nor mad. Listen.’
Ainsley sat down, folding her arms, a sceptical look on her face. ‘Five minutes.’
He nodded. ‘Think about it as a business proposal,’ he said. ‘First of all, think of the common ground. To begin with, you need to pay off your debts and I am rich enough to be able to do so easily. Second, you are a widow, and I need a wife. Since we are neither of us in the least bit interested, now or ever, in marrying someone else...’
‘How can you be so sure of that?’
‘How can you?’ He waited, but she made no answer, so he gave a satisfied nod. ‘You see? We are of one mind on that. And we are of one mind on another thing, which is our determination to make our own way in life. If you let me pay off your debts, I can give you the freedom to do that, and if you marry me, you’ll be freeing me to make up my own mind on what to do—or not—about my inheritance.’
‘But we’ll be tied to one another.’
‘In name only, Ainsley. Tied by a bit of paper, which is no more than a contract.’
‘Contracts require payment. What professional services can you possibly imagine I can provide?’
‘An objective eye. An unbiased opinion. I need both.’ Innes shifted uncomfortably. ‘Not advice, precisely,’ he said.
‘Because you do not like to take advice, do you?’
‘Are you mocking me?’
‘Another thing you’re not used to, obviously.’ Ainsley smiled. ‘Not mocking, teasing. I’m a little rusty. What is it, then, that involves my giving you my unbiased and objective opinion without advising you?’
‘When you put it like that!’ He was forced to smile. ‘What I’m trying to say is, I’d like you to come to Strone Bridge with me. Not to make my decisions, but to make sure when I do make them, I’m doing so without prejudice.’
‘Is that possible? It’s your birthright, Innes.’
He shook his head vehemently. ‘That’s the point. It’s not. It pains me to admit it, but I don’t know much about it, and I haven’t a clue what I want to do with it. Live there. Sell it. Put in a manager. I don’t know, and I won’t know until I go there, and even when I do—what do you say?’
‘That’s the price? That’s the professional services I’m to render in order to have my life back?’
‘You think it’s too great a cost?’ Innes said, deflated.
Ainsley smiled. Then she laughed. ‘I think it’s a bargain.’
‘You do? You understand, Strone Bridge is like to be—well, very different from Edinburgh.’
‘A change from Edinburgh, a place to take stock, is, as you pointed out, exactly what I need.’
‘I’m not asking you to stay the full year. A few months, until I’ve seen my way clear, that’s all. And though I’m asking you to—to consult with me, that does not mean I’ll necessarily take your advice,’ Innes cautioned.
‘I’m used to that.’ Ainsley’s smile faded momentarily, but then brightened. ‘Though being asked is a step in the right direction, and I will at least have the opportunity of putting my point across.’
Glancing at the decanter of whisky, the level of which had unmistakably fallen by more than a couple of drams, Innes wondered if he was drunk after all. He’d just proposed marriage to a complete stranger. A stranger with a sorry tale, whose courage and strength of mind he admired, but he had met her only a couple of hours ago all the same. Yet it didn’t seem to matter. He was drawn to her, had been drawn to her from that first moment when she’d stormed out of the lawyer’s office, and it wasn’t just the bizarre coincidence of their situations. He liked what he saw of her, and admired what he heard. That he also found her desirable was entirely beside the point. His instincts told him that they’d fare well together, and his instincts were never wrong. ‘So we are agreed?’ Innes asked.
Ainsley tapped her index fingers together, frowning. ‘We’re complete strangers,’ she said, reflecting his own thoughts. ‘Do you think we’ll be able to put on enough of a show to persuade your people that this isn’t a marriage of convenience?’
‘I’m not in the habit of concerning myself with what other people think.’
‘Don’t be daft. You’ll be the—their—laird, Innes. Of course they’ll be concerned.’
She was in the right of it, but he had no intentions of accepting that fact. He was not the laird. The laird was dead, and so, too, was his heir. Innes would not be branded. ‘They must take me—us—as they find us,’ he said. Ainsley was still frowning. ‘Strone Bridge Castle is huge. If it’s having to rub shoulders with me on a daily basis you’re worried about, I assure you, we could go for weeks without seeing each other if we wanted.’
‘That is hardly likely to persuade people we’re living in domestic bliss.’
‘I doubt domestic bliss is a concept that any laird of Strone Bridge is familiar with. My ancestors married for the getting of wealth and the getting of bairns.’
‘Then that puts an end to our discussion.’ Ainsley got to her feet and began to head for the door of the coffee room.
Innes threw down some money on the table and followed her, pulling her into a little alcove in the main reception area of the hotel. ‘I don’t want either of those things from you. I don’t want to be like them,’ he said earnestly. ‘Can’t you see, that’s the point?’
‘This is madness.’
He gave her arm a little shake, forcing her eyes to meet his. ‘Madness would be to do what you’re doing, and that’s walking away from the perfect solution. Stop thinking about what could go wrong, think about what it will put right. Freedom, Ainsley. Think about that.’
Her mouth trembled on the brink of a smile. ‘I confess, it’s a very attractive idea.’
‘So you’ll do it?’
Her smile broadened. The light had come back into her eyes. ‘I feel sure there are a hundred reasons why I should walk very quickly in the other direction.’
‘But you will not?’ He was just close enough for her skirts to brush his trousers, to smell the scent of her soap, of the rain in her hair. She made no attempt to free herself, holding his gaze, that smile just hovering, tempting, challenging. Tension quivered between them. ‘You would regret it if you did,’ Innes said.
‘Do you know, Mr Innes Drummond, I think you may well be right.’
Her voice was soft, there was a tiny shiver in it, and a shiver, too, when he slid his hands from her shoulders down her arms, closing the space between them and lowering his mouth to hers. It was the softest of kisses, the briefest of kisses, but it was a kiss. A very adult kiss, which could easily have become so much more. Lips, tongues, caressed, tasted. Heat flared and they both instinctively recoiled, for it was the kind of heat that could burn.
Ainsley put her hand to her mouth, staring wide-eyed at him. Innes looked, he suspected, every bit as shocked as she. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘Are you?’
‘Not really, but