A Laird for Christmas (28 page)

“Morning?” he suggested. He reached down and drew the edge of the coverlet over the top of them. “Let me remain a few moments more.”

She smiled.

He lifted a hand to her face, touched her cheek, traced the outline of her upper lip. He wondered suddenly how a man could survive longing for a woman so much. Battle, he was used to. Abuse, he had endured. But if Jane wanted to reach inside him right now and grab his soul, then crush it in her palm, he would let her. He would do anything for her. He would marry her
this instant if she chose him. He would even walk away from the competition if that was what she needed him to do.

For a second his heart contracted. Could he walk away after what they had just shared? He had been the first. But now that he truly had initiated her, would she fall into the arms of any of her other suitors?

He bit his lip, afraid suddenly to ask that question or to say any words that, once spoken, would end this moment between them and return her to the others. His heart raced as he turned to look into her face. He saw peace and satisfaction there, and that lessened his anxiety somewhat.

“That was not supposed to happen.” She drew a long, shuddering breath. “We never were able to control our passion for each other.”

“That is not a bad thing in a couple.” He let the words slip past his caution. He studied her, gauging her response.

“I imagine it could prove inconvenient at times,” she said as she nestled against his shoulder.

“Passion is never inconvenient. It is a gift. You will see that in time.” A long, tender moment ticked by. His heartbeat gradually slowed, his breathing eased.

She looked up at him. “I should throw you out of the competition for ignoring my wishes.”

At the words, his whole world tilted. He had to speak the words she did not. He had to know. “Must the competition continue? After tonight—”

“Tonight changes nothing,” she said softly, stroking his chest with her fingers. He could see the storm that had gathered in her eyes. She was as confused about what they were to each other as he was. “I made a vow when the competition started to see it through to the end. I will follow through on that commitment.”

He understood, or at least he told himself he did. “If you must see this through, then at least allow me to stay in the competition. For how will I win if I am not involved?”

Her fingers stilled and a teasing smile can to her lips. “Then by all means, you must compete.”

He stroked a hand lovingly down her back, her waist, her thigh. “I might have to remind you again what you would be giving up.…”

In response to his touch, she arched against him, then caught herself and pulled back. “You do not fight fair.” Her voice lowered, her tone provocative.

“With you at stake, never.” Tonight, together, they had taken a step back through time, as though the past two years had not mattered. Every kiss, every touch, every moment had been the fulfillment of what they had started so long ago.

He cast a sidelong glance at Jane, breathed in the scent of roses that clung to her skin. While he could not claim her as his tonight, he was not about to hand her over to his competition, either.

In fact, now that he had had a deeper taste of the raw passion and unquenchable need that flared between them, he would not give it up without a fight.

T
he following morning, Nicholas and the other four remaining suitors gathered in the kitchen. Bryce sat in a chair near the table at the center of the room. He had recovered from his trauma of last night. He appeared as eager as the rest of them to get this morning’s competition over with so they could continue to search for clues to Jane’s attacker. This time, Bryce’s intentions seemed honest. Last night’s danger had changed him, seemingly for the better.

Bringing his attention back to the moment, Nicholas looked about the small chamber. Marthe stood in the corner near the hearth, surveying her domain. Nicholas knew she did not like having to share her space with others, but today’s cooking competition demanded it. The cook smiled at Jules, then frowned at Nicholas, her eyes narrowing.

At least now he truly understood why.

Nicholas returned a bright smile, one designed to weaken the knees of women in even the foulest of moods.

Marthe’s cheeks turned pink a heartbeat before she turned away.

Nicholas’s confidence grew. Before the day was through, he would once again be in Marthe’s good graces, and receive the one gift he considered most sacred—time alone with Jane.

“Good morrow, gentlemen,” Jane said as she entered the kitchen, followed by Lord Galloway and her aunt.

“What a fine day it is for our second to last competition.” Lady Margaret appeared to be in the best of health this morning. In fact, in Lord Galloway’s presence, the woman’s appearance had altered. Her cheeks had taken on a rosy tint and her gray eyes sparkled. She appeared far more vibrant than she had three days prior.

Margaret stopped beside Marthe and whispered something to the cook, to which she bobbed her head, then left. On her way out the door, she gave Jules a conspiring wink.

Jules preened, and Nicholas knew a moment’s fear at the realization that Marthe had helped Jules come up with something to cook that might just win him the prize.

Nicholas caught Jules’s gaze and curled his lips into a bitter smile. Nicholas was prepared to battle it out on the field of honor or over a hot flame. He cared not which. Jane would be his tonight, and all nights thereafter.

“Just as with the sewing competition, you will each have access to the supplies available on this table and in this room. Nothing more. You will be given two hours to cook something with a holiday theme for Lady Jane. Use your imagination and do your best.”

“We can truly cook anything we choose?” Colin asked. He sat opposite Bryce at the big table in the center of the kitchen. “I could make blood pudding in the shape of a wreath, if I choose?”

Margaret’s smile slipped. “I repeat, you have two hours and you can make whatever you like. Jane will be the judge, so I would keep that in mind as you prepare your entry.” She looked pointedly at Colin. “I might suggest playing to the judge if you want to win.”

Colin’s expression turned serious as he stared at the items on the table. “Eggs, butter, flour, oats. What if we do not know how to bake?”

“You have to cook something,” Lady Margaret said, edging for the door.

“Just try your best,” Jane reassured Colin with a smile, then glanced about the chamber. “I am eager to see what you all come up with.”

Margaret allowed Jane to precede her out of the chamber, then turned back to the room, gazing at each man. “No cheating this time.” On those words she closed the door behind her.

Colin groaned the moment the women were gone. “I am doomed to failure.”

“Cheer up,” Bryce said with a half-hearted smile. “None of the rest of us know how to cook or bake either.”

“Speak for yourself,” Jules replied, scooping up a portion of the butter from the crock on the table and heading toward a wooden bowl on another, smaller table near the open window.

David added his own groan to the bunch. “Great, a true baker to show us all up the way Lord Galloway did with the sewing.”

Nicholas moved to the table and inspected the items left there for their use. “Do not write off this competition yet. We each have the same chance to win if we actually prepare something. The only way to assuredly lose is to not even try.”

“Well said,” Bryce commented, reaching for the oats at the same moment David did.

David snatched them away.

Bryce stood, then paled and sat back down.

“I need oats, too,” Colin growled, moving toward David with his hand on his sword.

“Use them when I am done,” David moved to a small table near the hearth with such deliberate slowness that Nicholas knew it was his way of letting Colin know just how small of a threat he thought the warrior was.

Colin growled, drew his sword, and lunged for David.

Nicholas grabbed an iron pan from the wall and stepped between them. A loud clang resounded as the sword hit the pan. “Enough. You are squabbling like little girls.”

Colin’s lips thinned. “The only other thing I know how to make is with oats,” he groused.

When the fight died in Colin’s eyes, Nicholas stepped away, moving toward the shelf and grasping another bowl. Without argument, he took the bowl of oats from David and poured half into the new bowl, then set them on the table between Colin and Bryce. “I trust you two can share?”

“I never said I would not share,” David grumbled and turned his back on the room.

“We had best stop fighting and get to work. We only have two hours to come up with something acceptable.” Nicholas turned back to the table, inspecting the ingredients once more.

“Something palatable,” Jules offered as he stirred what looked like sugar into the butter he had claimed earlier. Satisfaction warmed his features as he surveyed the others. “Lady Jane will decide which offering tastes the best. If they all taste like oats, it will be the unique taste that wins this challenge.”

Colin’s face darkened again. His fist curled. “God’s blood.”

Nicholas locked gazes with Colin. “Cooking, not fighting, will win you this event.”

Colin released a pent-up breath. “I hate cooking.”

“So do the rest of us,” Bryce added with a half smile. “Ignore Jules, Colin. Cook whatever you can. Who knows, maybe it will be Lady Jane’s favorite.”

Colin fell silent as he took another bowl from the shelf and poured some of the oats into it, then set to work.

For the next hour, the men chopped, mixed, and molded. Colin, still angry with David, picked up a handful of flour and tossed it in his direction, coating his dark-hair in a film of tannish-white.

“Very nice,” David said, blowing flour off his face. In retaliation, he picked up a scoop of flour and dusted the blond warrior from head to toe, as well as all the surfaces around him.

“Do not insult a man’s cooking before you have tasted it,” Colin quipped.

Over the next hour, David and Colin continued their battle back and forth, sometimes catching Bryce or Jules or Nicholas in the process.

David focused his attention on creating a Scotch Pie with what appeared to be a thin, flaky crust filled with kidneys and potatoes. As for the oats he had fought to control, he merely ground up a small portion with a pestle and tossed them into the gravy as a thickener. The puffs of flour that headed his direction with regularity did not seem to harm his recipe in the least.

Colin spent the first hour trying to mix pork blood and oatmeal together to make blood pudding, but when he realized he had nothing to stuff the concoction into, he abandoned the mixture and simply mixed butter, oats, flour and salt together to make oak cakes that he cooked in a pan over the fire.

Bryce remained seated at the table for the first hour, concocting a mass of dough with flour, breadcrumbs, currants, suet, honey, spices and milk to bind it together.

“What are you making,” Nicholas finally asked when Bryce dumped the mass of dough in a square of linen, then set it in a pot that fit inside the huge cauldron over the open flames.

After setting his dumpling to cook, he returned to his seat at the table. “My mother used to call it a Clootie Dumpling.” He preened a moment before a swath of flour hit him square in the face.

He frowned. “Your flour cannot harm my dumpling,” he shot back at David.

“Perhaps not, but I can make you look like a fool with flour all over you,” David said with a chuckle.

Bryce’s frown deepened. He batted at his hair.

Nicholas ignored their continued discussion as he turned his attention to Jules. Jules had had his back turned to them for most of the time that they had been cooking. When he turned around, it was to reveal a pan of thin almond cookies in the shape of holly leaves.

At the sight, Nicholas’s frown deepened. Marthe had helped Jules come up with one of Jane’s favorites.

Jules smiled with satisfaction as he crossed the room, heading for the bread oven. He carefully set the delicate pastries on the heated surface to cook.

A moment of self-doubt hit Nicholas square in the gut as he looked over his competition. Would his simple dessert be good enough to go head-to-head with David’s pie, or Jules’s cookies? He drew a deep breath and let the anxiety slip away. He was doing the right thing. The recipe he had found would be the perfect creation for Jane, for the competition.

Jules had been right about one thing, if everything tasted like oats, what did not would certainly stand out. Nicholas looked about the kitchen for the proper tool. The butter churn sat in the corner near the door. He picked it up and chuckled to himself. His creation would be safe from flour or anything else that might attempt to sabotage him. On that happy thought, Nicholas set to work.

Time passed rapidly. When the chapel bell tolled the second hour, Jane and Lady Margaret, escorted by Lord Galloway, stepped inside the chamber.

Jane appeared serene as she walked through the door, but Nicholas knew she was anything but. He caught the telltale hitch of her breath, the shadow of nervousness in her violet eyes, and the slight defiant lift of her chin. “Your time is up, gentlemen,” she said, then stopped, mid-step, as her gaze moved about the chamber.