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He drew her against his chest, and she wrapped her arms around him, burying her face into his manliness.

“I suppose, after a time, we can seek an annulment or a divorce,” he said. “I’ll nae take ye to my bed.” A hint of regret colored his avowal, and the timbre of his voice stalled her heart for a pair of beats. “But for now, we must exchange vows.”

She angled her head up to look at him, seeing the earnestness in his eyes. The consternation and remorse there, too. Those penetrating eyes sank to her parted mouth, and then with a muffled groan, he kissed her.

Slowly. Gently. A wonderfully soft, warm caress.

And she realized she’d yearned for his mouth on hers for weeks. Since she’d danced with him that first night of the Hogmanay celebration. How could she have been so blind that she’d not seen what was before her?

She felt something for Camden. Something intense and heady.

Standing on her toes, she twined her arms around his sturdy neck, reveling in the maelstrom swirling inside her.

Bethea gasped in pleasant surprise at the tingles humming through her body, and the splendidness of pressing her breasts and torso against his hard contours. She wanted to crawl inside Camden, to explore every glorious, firm curve and masculine angle.

His tongue teased the seam of her mouth, and she opened for him, allowing him access to that which no man had explored before. He made a low, gravelly sound in his throat; one hand splayed between her shoulders and the other grazing her hip.

Through the layers of her gown and petticoats, her skin grew hot, a peculiar yearning building deep in her belly.

A single, sharp rap on the door interrupted their kiss.

“Camden, the reverend has arrived,” Bryston McPherson called softly through the slightly lopsided door. “Sir Walter wants ye and yer—ah—betrothed below.”

Breathing irregularly, Bethea attempted to regain her composure. She’d never dreamed a kiss could rattle her senses so thoroughly.

But that hadn’t been just a kiss.

Thathad been introduction to passion. Passion that until this moment, she hadn’t realized burned hotly beneath her proper exterior. And she couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to be Camden Kennedy’s wife in every way. To take him to her bed and let him do with her what he would. To do with him what she would.

“Aye. We’ll be down momentarily.” Camden rested his forehead against hers, the tenderness and consideration making her want to weep. “It will be all right, Bethea. I vow to ye.”

She couldn’t fathom how, but inexplicably, she trusted him, even in this impossible situation.

“All right,” she finally agreed.

Not an overly exuberant acceptance to a proposal. But then, Camden hadn’t proposed, had he? She’d never met this Sir Walter Makepeace, but she couldn’t like anyone who lorded their power over another.

With a reassuring smile, Camden tucked her hand into his arm and led her below. He lent her his strength as they spoke their vows, giving her hand a comforting squeeze every few minutes.

The tired-looking cleric barely hid his yawns as he droned on, blinking sleepily. Behind him, Sir Walter Makepeace beamed as if Camden were his son and he’d granted him a knighthood.

And then, it was over.

And, God and all the saints and angels help her; she was Mrs. Camden Kennedy.

Knocked on the head, abducted, and married.

All because she’d wanted to spare Branwen humiliation.

Camden gave Bethea a chaste kiss on the cheek before shaking Sir Walter’s extended hand, and then Bryston McPherson’s as he slapped Camden’s back.

“Congratulations, my friend,” Bryston said.

Camden merely cocked a superior brow and leveled his friend a quelling look.

Grinning, McPherson gave her a kindly wink and a nod. “Mrs. Kennedy.”

She’d have to have been deaf not to hear the humor in his words.

Did he think this a grand jest?

People’s lives had been manipulated, possibly ruined.

“I hope we’ll have the pleasure of wishin’ ye well soon, Mr. McPherson,” she said with false sweetness. It would serve him right to find himself leg-shackled through no fault of his own.

Shaking his blond head, the earring in his left ear swinging with the motion, he chuckled and threw up both hands. “Never say it.”

“We’ll see,” Camden muttered beneath his breath.

Twenty minutes later, Beatha sat in Etherington’s coach once more, her new husband sitting across from her, as they jostled and bounced their way to Edinburgh.

The headache that had niggled earlier thrummed full on now. With two fingers from each hand, Bethea rubbed her temples in a slow, circular motion.

What in God’s name have I done?