The Devil Wears Tartan by Karen Ranney Page A

workmen warning that the obelisk was being erected too close to the Egypt House. If it ever fell, the structure might well be damaged. Marshall had given orders that work was to continue just as his father had wished, perhaps as a fitting memorial to the man. As apart as they had been in life, his parents had been close in death. His mother had died in May, and his father followed in June. Aidan had not lived to see his most prized acquisition set in its place of honor.
    Marshall sat at the desk once more and pulled a sheaf of papers toward him.
    In the last years of his life, his father had become almost maniacally acquisitive. Even after his death, so many shipments had arrived at Perth that Marshall had no choice but to simply warehouse the lot. Upon his return from China, he’d begun the transfer to Ambrose of his father’s Egyptian treasures. Each week, another wagon or cart arrived from Edinburgh, and each week, Marshall was surprised by what his father had purchased or taken from Egypt.
    As long as he could remember, Aidan Ross had been fascinated with Egypt and its culture. He’d studied Champollion’s notes on the Rosetta Stone and conferred with scholars with a similar interest. More than once—and more than once in his mother’s hearing—his father had expressed a desire to live his entire life in Egypt.
    His mother had made no comment whatsoever. She’d simply raised her right eyebrow and fixed a look on his father that would have frozen a pharaoh.
    Once Marshall had been as acquisitive as his father, but he’d been fascinated with Asia and the Far East. He no longer had a love for all things Oriental. He no longer wanted anything around to remind him of his travels to China or his ultimate imprisonment there.
    I wouldn’t be displeased to do it again.
    He wasn’t surprised to hear her voice in his mind. Her declaration had been surprising, perhaps even shocking, and certainly tempting. She wanted him to be a husband. Perhaps she’d deluded herself that there was something likable about him, something to admire about Marshall Ross, Earl of Lorne.
    If so, he should go about the business of explaining that she was wrong. There was nothing in his nature or his character to recommend him as a spouse. She believed him to be someone he wasn’t. All he could offer was his title and his wealth, both of which could be passed to an heir, or a daughter. For that reason alone she’d been brought to Ambrose. Perhaps last night he’d given her a child and there would be no further necessity for him to visit her.
    My parents adored each other. What a fresh and unspoiled innocence. She wanted the same from their marriage. What would she say to the truth about him?
    Perhaps she never needed to know.
    She was beautiful, and he’d been lonely. The occasion of his marriage had given him an excuse to bed an attractive woman. He’d needed her, temporarily, andyet that momentary weakness made him feel strangely vulnerable now.
    “We learn to accept what we know,” he said aloud. Amenhotep smiled benignly at him from the corner.
    Not too long ago, he’d seen Amenhotep walk, a hallucination that had shaken him badly. What had Davina said about courage? Courage wasn’t like chocolate at all—it was the bitterest alum, a taste that curled the tongue and soured the stomach. Courage was the enemy of peace. Courage kept a man struggling to live when it was easier to simply give up and surrender.
    I would like to do it again. Here she was, in his mind once more.
    What answer could he give to that? So would I, Davina. If I were sane. So would I, if I were not afraid that I’d see things move and see you grow into a two-headed Hydra and then laugh at me with bulging red lips dripping with blood.
     
    Well, marriage was certainly not what she’d expected. She’d been amazed, fascinated, delighted, astounded, thrilled, annoyed, and made miserable—all within the span of twenty-four hours. What would the next day