Elaine Coffman - [MacKinnon 04] (11 page)

The moment he spoke the words, he gritted his teeth. Why had
he spoken as he had? He had no reason to be so hard on her. She was his wife.
What was he trying to do, run her off? He searched his mind for something to
say, some soft sentiment, the kind a woman would love, but he had no skill with
either.

He might have gone on, feeling this bumbling inadequacy, but
she picked that moment to turn her head, looking at him, and he released her
abruptly. What he saw staggered him.

She was not beautiful.

But she was angry. “What I wasna hankering for was to spend
two weeks here, alone,” she said, pulling away and setting her clothes right.
“You may be a wealthy, important man, Mackinnon, but you dinna have any
manners.”

That drew him up short. “If you wanted manners, you should
have stayed in Scotland,” he said, then cursed himself for letting her bait
him.

“Aye, or married a butler.”

Adrian blinked a time or two at the way she spoke. This was
a woman to be reckoned with. He was accustomed to always being in control, if
not having the upper hand, and he didn’t exactly like the fact that this new
wife of his was not only holding her own, but causing him to make a fool of
himself in the process. Her very presence bothered him. She made him feel odd,
even awkward, unsure of himself, unsure of what to say, or how to say it.
Manners
,
he thought. Of all the things he expected a woman to want, it never occurred to
him it would be manners. She was a real, genuine lady—with a title. Where in
the world would he get the kind of manners she wanted? He had never felt so
bungling and ill suited for the task at hand. Loggers, he could talk to. Or
even Molly or Israel. But a genuine lady? “We haven’t time for such niceties as
manners here,” he said in his defense. “California is rough and uncivilized.”

“Aye, I ken it’s a lot like the people.” He almost smiled at
that. She had a sharp mind and a keen wit. She wouldn’t be boring. That pleased
him more than he could say. He felt his anger drain away, and even some of his
initial disappointment over the fact that she was not beautiful. “You’re quite
outspoken for such a little thing.”

“Aye, it’s a family trait.”

“Mmmmmm,” he said thoughtfully. “That surprises me.”

“Why?”

“For some reason, I thought a well-bred lady would know how
to control her tongue.”

This was said with such an overtone of infuriating amusement
that she felt her irritation mount. She opened her mouth to tell him what she
thought of him, then closed it. But she couldn’t restrain herself for long.
“Don’t you appreciate honesty, or is it that you don’t like a woman who speaks
her mind?”

He looked her over, up and down, quickly. “I have an
appreciation for honesty. As for the other, I can only say… Never mind. I
suppose I have Ross to thank for it. Our tastes always were different.”

“If you ken that, why did you ask him to find you a wife?”

“It was a sudden impulse—as a man who drinks poison, or
shoots himself.”

There it was again, that maddening tone of amusement in his
voice, as if he were intentionally provoking her. “Perhaps you should have
tried poison.”

His smile was like a Highland winter. “You’ve a sharp
tongue,” he said. “I trust you know how to control it.” He said nothing
further, but stood looking down at her, a brown-haired stranger with
penetrating blue eyes and a hard mouth. She shivered at the impact.

“You’re chilled.” His eyes swept over the thinness of her
dress. “You shouldn’t have come out here in such light clothes. The wind is
brisk here.”

“Like the conversation.”

He lifted a dark brow, but said nothing, his eyes going over
her slowly, as if reassessing what they had seen earlier. The woman was no
beauty, but the realization did not seem to matter. The short time he had held
her had been enough to burn the memory of a superbly slender figure, curved and
swelling in all the right places, upon his mind, and
dear God! What eyes!

They weren’t the clear green he remembered so vividly from
Katherine, but a strange hue—neither green nor brown, but somewhere in
between—alive and flashing, intelligent, and certainly not in any way soft and
tender, as a woman’s eyes should be. Her nose was small and slender—too small
and slender to be considered classic—and her mouth was too full and too wide.

That same mouth was too set, too firm, too resolute, for a
woman. He had seen that kind of mouth often in men he had business dealings
with, and they were always the most difficult to deal with, to get off center,
and always the most reluctant to see things his way. This was a face to do
battle with, a face composed of too many strong angles that blended into a
determined chin. There was too much honed strength there, he realized, too much
understanding, too much patience, and more than enough willpower to see things
through. It was a face too dauntless to be beautiful—
and he had requested a
beautiful woman.
He made no effort to hide the fact that he was surveying
her critically, nor was he concerned that his disappointment was so obvious.

“You are disappointed,” she said. “You expected beauty.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll get used to it. It isn’t the first
time I didn’t get what I wanted.”

He saw the gleam of humor deep in her oddly colored eyes.
“Well, the devil’s bairns have the devil’s luck,” she said.

If Adrian had not been taken so off guard by her plainness
and the odd way she said
well
, so that it sounded like
wheel
, he
might have come back at her, but this woman had him coming and going. He didn’t
know which end was up. Completely flustered now, all he could do was stare.

He did not like this woman. She was too outspoken by half,
and yet the image of her on a wind-swept hillside stayed with him.

She was most assuredly not what he had in mind when he wrote
that letter to Ross. Yet something about her reached out to him.
Her eyes,
he thought, they were the eyes of a stranger, the kind of eyes a man could lose
himself in, for to look at them was like stepping through a mirror into her
very soul. He saw so much there, determination, understanding, gentleness,
goodness, a cloudy residue of pain—things he did not want or need from her.

Anger rose within him, tingling like an itch on the end of
his fingers—something that wanted release, or at least retribution. His look
turned cynical and hard, and when she looked back at him, he saw the wide-eyed
stare of awareness and he knew he had his retribution. His thoughts were
astonishing to him. She might be graceful and lovely to watch. He might be
married to her. He might even go so far as to say he desired her.

But he did not like her.

He wasn’t a very experienced man as far as women were
concerned, but it didn’t take an experienced man to know about women like this.
Even with his limited exposure to the fairer sex, he knew about women who
looked for a man to attach themselves to like a leech; women who would drain
the life from a man; women who gained strength from a superior position, from
the vantage point of being able to lord it over a man; women who had that sly,
knowing smile. He had never admired this kind of strength in a woman. With open
frankness, he let his eyes roam over her.

The sound of her voice startled him, coming out of the
silence that had enveloped them, for the world seemed to quiet and go still,
save for the sound of the wind whispering and dancing through tall, silky
grasses.

“It’s a little late to change your mind, Adrian, if that’s
what you’re thinking.”

Adrian was taken aback. The sudden use of his name had
caught him off guard. She turned those devilish eyes upon him and smiled, the
stubborn angles of her face melting into enchanting softness. The corners of
her mouth lifted with amusement. She might be smiling, but he knew the strength
that lay temporarily passive within her, ready to spring with sudden ferocity
at a moment’s notice. She lifted her brows slightly, as if waiting for him to
make a further fool of himself. The way things had been going, she wouldn’t
have long to wait.

She shook her head, as if disbelieving what was going on
here. And why shouldn’t she? He didn’t believe it himself. Things were
definitely not off to a good start, but he’d pay hell knowing how to back
things up a bit and start over. They weren’t exactly off on the wrong track
here; it was more like the whole damn train had been driven off a cliff.

Adrian watched her, feeling a powerful rush of blood to his
head that left his mind muddled.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to disagree. It’s
never
too
late. Not even in marriage.” He paused a moment, expecting her to respond. When
she didn’t, he went on. “The fact that you are my wife doesn’t necessarily
signify permanence, does it?”

He thought he saw a spark of anger flare in her eyes, but if
he had, it was quickly overridden by a gleam of humor. “Aye,” she said with
infuriating calmness, “it doesna—no more than drawing a breath implies you will
live long enough to draw another one. All we can do is hope.”

“Hope? Is that what you were doing? Hoping to draw another
breath by flirting with death at the edge of these rocks? If it was, then you
have a muddled sense of reasoning.”

“Aye, and it brought me here to be your wife,” she said, as
if feeling a pinch of anger over the way he came blundering into her life like
a well-meaning sheepdog, tripping over his big feet.

“I am as fond of life as anyone,” she went on to say. “I was
trying to catch my paint pot before it rolled over the edge,” she said, her
voice clear and strong. Then, looking at him squarely, she added, “I would have
had it, too, if you hadna interrupted me with your rescue.”

Adrian frowned. “What you would have had is your head split
on one of those rocks below,” he said. “No pot of paint is worth that risk.”

“My home was among cliffs such as these. I played around
them as a child. My father always said I was a surefooted lass. I never came
close to falling.”

Adrian felt as if he had just ridden full speed into a rock
wall. She disappointed him. She angered him. She made a fool out of him. She
was not what he wanted, yet looking at her, he felt a quickening, a rapid surge
to his pulse that he knew did not belong there. He couldn’t be feeling desire
for her.

He couldn’t.

He gave her another one of his unpleasant smiles. “Although
I admire your over-stoked sense of confidence, I should remind you that there’s
always a first time.”

His eyes swept over her. A sudden urge to jerk her into his
arms and kiss her silly made him come back at her harder than he intended. “I
can see that aside from being different, my brother’s taste in women is also
less…particular.”

“Aye,” Maggie said. “I know all about your taste in women.”
Her words were a reminder that she could mention his thwarted desire for his brother’s
wife and cut him to the bone.

“I should warn you,” she was saying, “that one can be
particular to the point of obsession.”

He flinched. A hot flush spread across her cheeks. “I beg
your forgiveness,” she said, her voice laced with genuine regret. “I canna
always control my tongue.”

“I’ve had plenty of proof of that,” he said, then his tone
softened and he sighed. “The fault was mine, I suppose. I had no business
provoking you. I shouldn’t be surprised you retaliated with anger. I seem to
have that effect upon most people.” His apology struck her as hard and bitter.

“Having no knowledge of your surefooted past, when I saw you
dangerously close to the edge of the rock, I feared for your safety. I didn’t
mean to be so rough. Are you all right?”

She smiled, the smile fading when he did not return it. “I
dinna break anything…” she said, then noticing the jagged edge of a torn nail,
she added, “major.”

“You’re fortunate in that, at least. You shouldn’t be out
here, this close to the rocks. This is no place for a woman. If I were you, I’d
gather up my play-pretties and get myself home before I did something really
foolish.”

“It’s a little late for that now.” Her eyes swept over him.
“Fools rush in,” she said, and started to laugh.

He did not share in the hilarity of it, and Maggie thought
about that. The suddenness of his appearance to jerk her away from the cliff’s
edge had momentarily stunned her; the force of his anger, his curt castigation,
left her a bit confused. Here she had been at his home for two weeks, much of
that time spent in a brown study, where she played out the dramatics of their
first meeting. In all the instances of her imaginings—where she saw herself
perfectly groomed and draped upon a piano bench, or some other equally sublime
setting—she had never, not once, considered that she would be greeted by an
ill-tempered man who had jerked her by the scruff of the neck from what he
thought to be the jaws of death, then rounded on her reproachfully, ordering
her home with all the ire of an aggravated schoolteacher.

It had been some time since she had been ordered home in
punishment, and the almost theoretical aspect of it was more than she could
contain. She bit her lip and reminded herself it would not do to raise the ire
of her husband on the occasion of their first meeting—at least not any more
than she already had. That reminder produced a valiant effort to stifle the
urge to laugh outright.

He looked at her hard, the clenching of his jaw telling her
he was well aware of her urge to laugh again, but his eyes never softened
toward her. In spite of his aloofness, his coldness, she was unable to dismiss
him and look away. There was something arresting about his face; something
besides the fact that he would have been a devilishly handsome man if it
weren’t for the cold, cynical expression he directed at her.

“We aren’t getting off to a very good start, are we?” she
asked suddenly. “Shall we try again?”