Marshal and the Heiress Read Online Free

household, whether he would find it as unsettling as she did. Through various wills and trusts, both she and Barbara, as widows of successive marquesses, had lifetime rights to live in the house. After her husband Jamie’s death, Hugh had come to live with them as the heir presumptive, taking over some of the sheep-farming aspects of the estate. John Alistair, though, had refused to petition parliament to designate Hugh as heir and had launched a search for Ian, scapegrace though he had been.
    No one had expected Ian to be found. But after a year, the search had yielded not Ian himself but his daughter—and heir.
    The news had squashed Hugh’s hopes and spurred her own. She and Hugh had long been at odds over the future of Calholm’s breeding of horses. She was as committed to it as the old Marquess. John Hamilton had harbored a lifelong dream to establish a stable second to none in. the British empire. The goal was to produce a champion for the Grand National, the most respected steeplechase in the British Isles.
    And they now had a prospect: Shadow, a five-year-old stallion who’d been born the day Lisbeth had come to Calholm as a bride. She had always felt linked to the great gray horse. She had helped train him, had spent hours currying and talking to him; and when Jamie died—two years after his father’s death and one year after his older brother, Hamish—she’d assumed their quest. She would give Calholm its champion.
    Lisbeth lived for that goal. But then Hugh had arrived, equally determined to sell the horses and take Calholm in a different direction: sheep farming.
    There was also the matter of the twenty tenant families, another bone of contention between herself and Hugh. John Hamilton had been committed to the descendants of the men who had fought with his father, the original marquess, during the Napoleonic wars. The men who had helped the first Marquess distinguish himself, thus winning the King’s favor, a title, and the land. Those families wasted land better used as sheep pasture, Hugh argued. But she wouldn’t allow the tenants to be put off the land, not as long as she still drew breath, not as long as even a sliver of hope remained.
    Now, with the discovery of Calholm’s heiress, Hugh appeared to have lost everything. So did Barbara, who’d tied her future to Hugh’s. Their fates, and Lisbeth’s, seemed to be in the hands of the American who held guardianship over Ian’s daughter. And none of them knew what to expect, or even if the claim was valid. Perhaps there was no proof that the girl was, indeed, a Hamilton.
    The burning question was: would the American and the little girl bring about Calholm’s salvation or its ruination?
    â€œThey have no right,” Hugh said bitterly at the table, stabbing at the meat on his plate. “The letter said the child’s mother was an entertainer. An entertainer, of all things!”
    â€œI thought you liked entertainers—particularly actresses,” Lisbeth said, unable to keep sarcasm from her voice. Hugh was a notorious rake who had accumulated a ton of debts on the expectation that he would inherit Calholm.
    He glared at her. He was aware that she had eagerly supported the search for another heir.
    â€œYou would rather have an American opportunist claim Calholm?” Hugh inquired, one eyebrow raised.
    â€œAt least he may not gamble it away,” Lisbeth said, unable to rein in her impatience with him. “John Hamilton would whirl in his grave if he knew your plans for what he so carefully built.”
    â€œYou care about those damn nags more than people,” Hugh shot back. “And you know I’ve stopped gambling.”
    â€œNo, I don’t,” Lisbeth said. “Your creditors cut you off when it appeared you might not inherit.”
    â€œJust wait,” he said. “The American will sell those bloody horses of yours. It’s the only thing that