Scandal's Bride by Stephanie Laurens Page A

glanced at Catriona, but she wasn’t looking at him. Her gaze was fixed in the distance, her expression one of stunned incredulity.
    â€œHow could he?” Her vehement question broke the spell; she focused abruptly on the solicitor.
    A cacophany of questions and exclamations poured forth. Seamus’s family could not take in what their sire had done to them; most of them were helpless, barely coherent.
    Seated beside Richard, Mary turned a stricken face to him. “My God— how will we manage?” Her eyes filled; she grasped Richard’s hand, not in supplication, but for support.
    Instinctively, he gave it, curling his fingers about hers and pressing reassuringly. He saw her face as she turned to Jamie, saw the hopelessness that swamped her.
    â€œWhat will we do?” she all but sobbed as Jamie gathered her into his arms.
    As stunned as she, Jamie looked at the solicitor over her head. “Why?”
    It was, Richard felt, the most pertinent question; the solicitor took it as his cue and waved his hands at the others to hush them. “If I might continue . . . ?”
    They fell silent, and he picked up the will. He drew breath, then looked up, peering over his pince-nez. “This is a most irregular will, so I feel no compunction in breaking with tradition and stating that I and all others in my firm argued most strongly against these provisions, but Mr. McEnery would not be moved. As it stands, the will is legal and, in our opinion, uncontestable by law.”
    With that, he looked down at the parchment. “ ‘These next words are addressed to my ward, Catriona Mary Hennessy. Regardless of what she might think, it was my duty to see to her future. As in life I was not strong enough to influence her, so in death I am putting her in the way of one who, if half the tales told of him and his clan are true, possesses the requisite talents to deal with her.’ ”
    There followed a detailed description of how the estate was to be divided between Seamus’s children in the event Richard agreed to marry Catriona, to which no one listened. The family and Catriona were too busy decrying Seamus’s perfidy; Richard was too absorbed in noting that not one of them imagined any other outcome than that the estate would pass to the Church.
    By the time the solicitor had reached the end of the will, despair, utter and complete, had taken posssession of the McEnerys. Jamie, swallowing his bitter disappointment, rose to shake the solicitor’s hand and thank him. Then he turned away to comfort Mary, distraught and weeping.
    â€œIt’s iniquitous,” she sobbed. “Not even the barest living! And what about the children?”
    â€œHush, shussh.” Jamie tried to soothe her, his expression one of abject defeat.
    â€œHe was mad.” Malcolm spat the words out. “He’s cheated us of everything we’d a right to expect.”
    Meg and Cordelia were sobbing, their meek spouses incoherent.
    Sitting quietly in his chair, untouched by the emotion sweeping his hosts, Richard watched, and listened, and considered. Considered the fact that not one of the company expected him to save them.
    Considered Catriona, sleek and slender in deep blue, her hair burning even more brightly in the dull and somber room. She was comforting Meg, counselling her away from hysteria, exuding calm in an almost visible stream. Straining his ears, he listened to her words.
    â€œThere’s nothing to be done, so there’s no sense in working yourself into a state and having a miscarriage. You know as well as anyone I didn’t get along with Seamus, but I would never have believed him capable of this. I’m as deeply shocked as you.” She continued talking quickly, filling Meg’s ears, forcing the woman to listen to her and not descend into excessive tears. “The solicitor says it’s a fait accompli , so other than calling down curses on Seamus’s dead