Courting an Angel (6 page)

“Me too,” Bliss added.

“Sweet cousins, I do love ye,” Rob said, her flagging spirits rising with their comforting words. “Dinna speak such blasphemy aloud in the presence of those who wouldna understand.”

“We won’t,” they chimed together.

“Rob?” Blythe hesitated and worried her bottom lip with her teeth before continuing, “Do you really think Roger Debrett will invite me to dance?”

“She wants to marry him,” Bliss announced, rolling her eyes.

“I’m positive Lord Roger will find ye irresistibly enchantin’,” Rob assured the ten-year-old. “Shall we go below and see if he’s arrived?”

On either side of Rob, the two girls placed their hands in hers. Together, they left the bedchamber and started down the corridor.

“I wish Uncle Rhys and Aunt Morgana could have come from Wales,” Bliss remarked as they descended the stairs to the foyer. “I do love listening to them argue.”

Rob and Blythe looked at each other and giggled, and Bliss grinned. Reaching the hall, the two sisters dashed inside to greet the guests, but Rob paused in the entrance and hid her left hand within the folds of her gown.

Situated at each of the short ends of the rectangular chamber, two gigantic hearths blazed and crackled and warmed the hall’s occupants. The flames from dozens of torches cast eerily dancing shadows against the walls.

Rob gazed through the crowd toward the high table, directly opposite the hall’s entrance. Lady Dawn, whose birthday they were celebrating, sat with Duke Robert in the place of honor. With the duke and the duchess were Uncle Richard and Aunt Keely. A group of guests gathered in front of the high table and chatted with them.

To the left of the high table, a band of London’s finest musicians played the sprightly, five-step galliard for the throng of nobles dancing in the center of the chamber. Long trestle tables had been erected around the inner perimeter of the hall and held every kind of seasonal fare imaginable from a variety of roasted meats and fowl to mince pies, cheeses, apples, nuts, and a generous supply of red wine.

Summoning her courage, Rob verified her left hand was hidden and then plunged into that noble mob. Ten steps inside the hall, she stopped short as an uncomfortable feeling of being watched assailed her senses. Nonchalantly, she looked around but detected no one paying her any particular attention.

Giving the casual observer the impression of demure femininity, Rob hid her left hand behind her right hand and walked around the dance floor toward the high table. She saw Roger Debrett dancing with Lady Darnel and slid her gaze to Blythe. The ten-year-old wore a mask of disappointment upon her pretty face, and Rob decided to speak with Lord Roger as soon as the music ended.

As she neared the high table, Rob recognized the familiar profile of the man who was speaking with her uncle. A smile of pure joy lit her face.

“Dubh” she cried. Forgetting to hide her birthmarked hand, Rob threw herself into her older brother’s arms and hugged him.

“Ye’ve grown more bonny,” Dubh said, smiling down at her upturned face.

“Do ye carry news of my annulment?” Rob asked, ignoring his compliment.

“What must be said will be said in the mornin’,” he told her.

“Is the news good or bad?” she persisted, tugging on his sleeve. “At least, tell me that.”

“’Tis interestin’,” Dubh teased her, an amused smile lighting his dark-eyes. “Yer bein’ rude, baby sister.”

Rob turned to the others seated at the high table and smiled apologetically. “I beg yer pardons. Best wishes on yer birthday, Yer Grace.”

“Thank you, darling,” the Duchess of Ludlow replied.

Rob would have spoken with the others, but again suffered the uncomfortable feeling of being watched. She hid her left hand within the folds of her gown and glanced around at the dancers, but was unable to detect anyone staring at her. She did, however, catch Roger Debrett’s attention and gave him an arch look that traveled from him to her cousin.

Roger nodded almost imperceptibly, and when the music ended a moment later, excused himself from Lady Darnel. The dashing young lord approached the group gathered in front of the high table and stopped before Blythe.

“My lady, how lovely you look tonight,” Roger remarked, bowing low over her hand.

“’Tis kind of you to notice my unassuming presence,” Blythe replied, a high blush rising on her cheeks.

Lord Roger gifted the ten-year-old with his most charming smile and inclined his head toward the dance floor, asking, “Would you do me the honor of partnering me for the pavane?”

Blythe’s answering smile could have lit the whole mansion. “I’d be delighted,” she said, accepting his hand.

Pleased with herself, Rob watched Roger escort Blythe onto the dance floor. From beside her, she heard Bliss say in a loud voice, “What a relief. I wasn’t relishing the thought of —” Rob snaked her right hand out and covered the eight-year-old’s mouth, making everyone laugh.

Rob turned to her brother and asked, “Are Ross and Jamie with ye?”

“No.”

“Ye rode alone to London?”

Dubh shook his head. “While in Edinburgh, I chanced to meet a couple of friends who were bound for England. One’s gone along to Hampton Court, but the other is stayin’ with me at Grandmother’s and will be here shortly.”

Rob nodded. Outwardly, she appeared the picture of serenity, but every fiber of her being tingled in a riot of suppressed excitement. Her brother’s sole purpose in traveling to Edinburgh would have been to gain an annulment for her. Rob knew her life was about to change as surely as she knew her own name.

“I saw ye walkin’ in the garden this afternoon,” Dubh remarked. “I’d like to meet yer friend. Where is she?”

Rob never heard her brother’s question. Once again, the uncanny feeling of being watched overwhelmed her senses. Without thinking, Rob hid her left hand in the folds of her gown and scanned the hall.

And then she saw him.

With his arms folded across his chest, he leaned nonchalantly against the wall opposite the high table. Easily the most incredibly handsome man she’d ever seen, the black-clad stranger stared at her with an intensity that made Rob fed weak-legged as if she’d been struck with the blunt end of a claymore.

Unexpectedly, the corners of his lips turned up into a lazy smile. He inclined his head in her direction by way of a long-distance greeting.

Rob read the supreme arrogance in his stance and his gesture. Even his irresistible smile was much too confident and strangely proprietary. Rob suffered the illogical urge to slap it off his handsome face.

“Did ye hear me?”

By sheer force of will, Rob yanked her gaze from the stranger’s and looked at her brother. “I beg yer pardon?”

Dubh grinned. “I’d like to meet yer friend. Isabelle, is it?”

Rob nodded distractedly. Like a flower beneath the noonday sun, she felt the stranger’s heated gaze. Its intensity flustered her and made logical thinking difficult.

“Would ye care to dance with yer brother?”

“I beg yer —?” Dubh’s question registered in her mind. She shook her head and said, “Later, perhaps.”

Rob ran one finger across the detested stain. Living in England this past year had been almost like heaven, but flaunting her deformity beneath the noses of London’s elite could abruptly end the plans she’d begun to make for herself. She flicked a glance across the hall. The black-clad stranger still watched her.

“Rob?”

“Isabelle, this is my brother Dubh,” she said, focusing on the voice beside her. “He’s just arrived from Scotland.”

“I’m pleased to meet you,” the blonde said with a smile.

“I’m more than pleased to meet ye,” Dubh replied, returning her smile.

“Isabelle is the Earl of Eden’s niece and a countess in her own right,” Rob interjected, but neither her brother nor her friend spared a glance for her.

“What a coincidence,” Dubh remarked, raising his brows at the blonde. “I’m the Earl of Dunridge’s heir . . . May I call ye Belle?”

“Please do,” she answered.

Dubh gestured to the dancers and asked in a husky voice, “Would ye care to partner me, Belle?”

Without saying a word, Isabelle placed her hand in his.

Surprised, Rob watched her oldest brother and her only friend join the dancing couples. She turned to speak with the others at the high table, but they seemed engrossed in their own conversations. Even her cousin Blythe still danced with Roger Debrett.

Standing alone in the midst of that noble crowd, Rob felt as conspicuously out of place as she had in the Highlands. Was she forever destined to play the outcast? Old Clootie’s flower made her different, set her apart from others.

And then Rob thought of Henry. If only he had returned from Hampton Court in time for the party. Rob knew she could brave anything with Henry by her side.

What she needed was a breath of winter’s fresh air to clear the old worries from her mind. Wending her way slowly around the perimeter of the dance floor, Rob reached the hall’s entrance and stepped into the deserted foyer.

As she reached for her cloak, a hand covered hers, and a voice behind her said, “Dinna leave, bright angel.”

“Great Bruce’s ghost,” Rob cried, startled.

She whirled around and found herself staring into piercing gray eyes. And they belonged to the black-clad stranger.

Like a proper English lady, Rob steeled herself against his smoldering look and tried to withdraw her hand, but the stranger refused to release her. When he spoke, his sensuously husky voice conspired with his disarming gray-eyed gaze to hold her in thrall.

“If my unworthy hand profanes yer angelic shrine,” the stranger said, “consider my lips as pilgrims to smooth the roughness of my touch.” At that, he pressed his warm lips to her hand and then gifted her with a devastating smile.

Enchanted by his chivalrous speech and gesture, Rob ignored the fluttering riot in the pit of her stomach and returned his smile in kind. She felt safe enough; some part of her mind heard the northern accent that announced his identity as her brother’s Edinburgh acquaintance. Out of habit, she hid her left hand within the folds of her gown.

“Ye do wrong yer hand, gentle Scotsman,” Rob told him. “With true devotion do pilgrims’ hands touch statues of angels and saints. ’Tis the way they kiss.”

“Dinna pilgrims and angels and saints have lips?” the stranger asked, inching closer.

“For prayer.”

“Why dinna we let lips do what hands do?” he suggested in a seductive whisper. His face came dangerously close, and he lightly brushed his lips across hers.

Shocked and excited, Rob kept her eyes open. The oh-so-gentle touch of his lips on hers sent a heated shiver coursing down her body to the tips of her toes. The delicious sensation ended in an instant.

What possessed her? She had an unwanted husband in the Highlands and a would-be betrothed at court. How did she dare stand in her uncle’s foyer and allow this stranger a liberty she’d denied both husband and suitor?

“Yer holy lips have absolved mine of sin,” the stranger teased, drawing her attention from troubling thoughts.

“Do my lips now possess yer sin?” Rob asked with a smile.

“God forbid,” he said. “Give me back my sin again.”

He moved to capture her mouth with his own, but Rob held him off with the palm of her right hand pressed against his chest. “My lord, I do protest —”

“— but not overly much.”

The stranger reached down, and capturing her hands in his own, brought them to his lips. He kissed the back of her right hand. After gazing for a long moment at the delicate devil’s flower staining her left hand, he pressed his lips on it.

His tender action nagged at an elusive memory. “Though rudeness to my brother’s friend troubles me,” Rob said, yanking her hand out of his, “I must inform ye that ye are maulin’ a married lady.”

“Madam, I’m better acquainted with yer marital state than any man,” he replied.

Rob heard the rueful tone in his voice and narrowed her gaze on him. “Who are ye?” she demanded, arching one perfectly shaped ebony brow at him. “Identify yerself.”

He leaned closer, and as a smile slashed across his handsome features, said, “Call me . . . husband?”

“Great Bruce’s ghost,” Rob cried.

The foyer spun dizzyingly, and the floor rushed up to meet her. For a few moments, Rob found refuge from shocked disappointment in a faint. All too soon, she began to swim up from the depths of unconsciousness, and a strange floating sensation permeated her senses. Then Rob heard the voices reaching out to her from a great distance, recalling her to cruel reality.

“Why won’t she awaken?” a man asked.

“She’s had a bad shock,” a woman answered.

“Why dinna we pitch cold water on her face?” suggested a second man.

“No.” Both Earl Richard and Lady Keely rejected the Marquess of Inverary’s idea.

Almost reluctantly, Rob opened her eyes and focused on her uncle’s and her aunt’s concerned expressions. In the background behind them rose a wall of books, and Rob realized she reclined in a chair within her uncle’s study. And then she saw the piercing gray-eyed gaze fixed on her.