Fascination -and- Charmed (36 page)

“Good.” Slipping his hands up to her calves was so natural. “Can you move it?” Holding her knees would make her so much more secure.

“It’s ...
stiff.
”

The effort to shoot open the bolt caused her to wobble.

Mortimer shifted his grip rapidly up Grace’s thighs. “Careful,” he said, hearing the thickening of his own voice. “Be very, very careful.”

“I do believe someone has closed it permanently.”

Another wobble took Mortimer’s hands even higher, past garters to such soft skin.

“They have! It’s nailed shut and ... Oh, Sir Mortimer!”

The tensing of her body let him know she’d finally noticed how intimately he touched her. “You’re perfectly safe. I’ll help you down.”

A slight, deliberate shift on his part and she started to fall.

Mortimer grappled and it simply happened; her silk drawers parted to admit one of his hands.

“Sir Mortimer!”

He could not do other than save her from a terrible accident. “Trust me,” he said, bundling her skirts at her hips, cupping her delightfully rounded bare bottom, and swinging her legs around his waist. “Ah, yes. My poor Grace. Trust me and I shall make certain you forget to be frightened.”

At the sight of Arran, the Muirs’ butler all but staggered backward. “My ... lord?”

Arran, with Calum at his elbow, swept off his hat but made no attempt to remove his mud-splattered cloak. They strode into the foyer and glanced quickly around.

The butler, a thin, white-haired ancient who walked like a puzzled partridge in his shiny black slippers, tilted his head and peered up into Arran’s face. “Lord ... Stonehaven?” His filmy eyes shifted to Calum. “And the boy?”

“Good evening, Jarvie,” Arran said. The servant had been with the Muirs since before Arran first visited with his father in the summer of 1800. “You’re correct. I’m Stonehaven—the younger,” he added lest the old man think he was talking to Arran’s father. “And this is my friend, Mr. Innes.”

Jarvie hitched rheumatic shoulders. “Your father died some years since, my lord. I was merely taken aback to see you. I had heard you no longer—”

“Yes, yes,” Arran said. “I no longer
do.
But I’m here now and I’d appreciate your assistance. I’m looking for my cousin, Sir Mortimer Cuthbert, and his party. I believe they were to attend a musicale here this evening.”

“Indeed,” Jarvie said. “Third floor. The green drawing room.”

“I’ll check there,” Calum said, starting up the stairs, taking several steps at a time.

“Lady Cuthbert arrived,” Jarvie said. “And her sister and the quiet young lady and her mother. But I don’t believe I saw Sir Mortimer.”

Calum hesitated, looking down at Arran.

“They’re about to go in for refreshments, sir,” Jarvie said loudly. “Supper’s set in the little drawing room and Lady Muir’s parlor. Second floor for the little drawing room. Third floor, Lady Muir’s parlor.”

“We can’t afford to waste more time,” Calum said.

Arran nodded. “I’ll go to the gardens. Just in case.”

“The gardens, my lord?” Jarvie’s impressive brows jutted over a beaked nose. “The party is assembled above, not outside.”

“Do not concern yourself,” Arran said. “Go on up, Calum. I’ll head for the pavilion. I know where it is.”

She would be embarrassed for the rest of her life!

“I’m so sorry,” Grace said. “I slipped.”

“Think nothing of it.” Sir Mortimer’s voice was muffled. “But I fear we have a small problem. I must ask you to keep your legs where they are for a moment.”

Her legs were still wrapped around his waist. “Why?”

“We ... A part of your, er,
apparel
has become attached to a ... A moment and I’m sure I can undo the problem.”

“Oh!” His fingers pressed into her most private places. “Really, I insist you let me down. Move your hand at once.”

He did move his hand—in a rubbing motion that sent a burning sensation into her thighs. Grace tried to clamp herself together, to shut him out.

“I shall simply have to loosen my own clothing,” Sir Mortimer said. “Otherwise we shall tear your dress. Then how shall we explain where you’ve been when we get you back inside?”

Another stroke of his fingers caused a fresh rush of hot tension.

His face was pressed to her breasts!

“You are very soft, Grace.”

“I do not care if my clothes are torn,” she said, struggling.

“Of course you do.”

He moved all about her, rubbing between her legs, lifting her higher whilst he hitched at she knew not what. And his very mouth grazed beneath the neckline of the bodice that was still too large.

“Sir Mortimer!”

Arran leaped up the steps to the pavilion and pounded on the door. It had been Grace’s voice he heard. Calum had been right. She was in there.

“Grace! It’s all right, my love. I’m here. Open this door, Mortimer.”

“Stonehaven?” she called. “Oh, thank goodness.”

He heard Mortimer curse.

“The door won’t open,” Grace said. “It’s stuck.”

Arran remembered another time, years ago, when he’d chased Mortimer, threatening him with the thrashing he richly deserved for tormenting a kitten. On that occasion Mortimer had also become “stuck” in the pavilion.

He drew in a calming breath. “The lock must have shot home by itself. Remember how it did that time when we were boys, Mortimer?”

Silence.

“I’m sure that’s what happened. Check the wall to the left of the door. There should be a key on a ledge.”

“Is it there?” Grace sounded near hysterical.

He would
kill
Mortimer if he’d ... Later must be soon enough to deal with that.

“Dash me,” Mortimer said loudly. “Here it is.”

In seconds the door swung open and Grace tumbled out. “Stonehaven! Oh, thank you. Thank you. I was so—”

“Dashed grateful, old man,” Mortimer thundered with spurious enthusiasm. “Quite forgot that key.”

“Are you all right?” Arran asked Grace. He gathered her against him and said softly, “You aren’t hurt?”

“N-No.”

“She almost was,” Mortimer said. “We were trying to open that trap above the door. Grace is a game little thing, Arran. You’ve a good woman there. Insisted upon climbing on my shoulder and—”

“The trap was nailed shut when we were children,” Arran said.

“Well, no harm done,” Mortimer said, and his eyes met Arran’s above Grace’s head.

If there was no harm done, it was only because Calum had managed to virtually drag Arran to Edinburgh. “No,” he said slowly. “No harm.” Keeping communication open with Mortimer would be the best course. Easier to watch him that way.

“Mama will be so concerned by now,” Grace said. “I cannot imagine how long I’ve been out here.”

“Not long, I should think, m’dear,” Mortimer said heartily. “But Arran had better get you back inside before you catch your death. Flimsy gown, that.”

Arran’s spine ached with the longing to knock the bastard down. “Lead the way, Mortimer.” In future he intended always to be where he could see his cousin’s back.

“No. Think I’ll pass. Thanks all the same. I’ll pop on back to our place.”

“
My
place, d’you mean?”

“Exactly. Who would have thought they’d have nailed that trap shut?”

Arran helped Grace down the steps. “You would, Mortimer. Muir caught you climbing through it once too often. Don’t you remember? He had you do the nailing.”

He didn’t wait for a response from Mortimer. Once back inside the Muirs’, and with Jarvie hovering nearby, he inspected Grace. “Best make sure you don’t look as if you’ve been
building
a pavilion,” he temporized. “Are you certain you aren’t at all hurt?”

She shook her head.

“Miss Wren went for a walk in the garden,” Arran told Jarvie. “She got herself stuck in that pavilion.”

Jarvie tutted. “You don’t say, my lord.”

Arran raised Grace’s chin and looked into her eyes. “There is absolutely nothing I should know? About your unpleasant experience?”

“Nothing.”

He didn’t miss the unhappy shadow in her golden eyes. Little imagination was needed to suggest what might have caused Grace to scream Mortimer’s name in the pavilion. The debauched scoundrel had been in the process of forcing himself upon her; Arran would make a wager on that.

“Well, you certainly look marvelous.” And she did. In red satin, she was startling. Automatically Arran smoothed back a silver-blond lock that had begun to work free of the tight chignon that had become her preference in the past few days. “You are a jewel in that dress. A fascinating scarlet jewel. You should be wearing the rubies.” His attention dropped lower. The bodice did not fit particularly well—which was all to the good in this instance. The satin dipped loosely between her pretty breasts. How easily accessible they would be. His body’s response was predictable.

Mortimer could have ... Arran clamped his teeth together.

“Do you have a kerchief, Stonehaven?”

His gaze shot back to her eyes. “A kerchief?”

Grace tugged her bodice higher and spread a hand over her décolletage. “Yes. A kerchief.”

“I’m afraid not. Are you injured?”

“No.” To Jarvie she said, “Could you find me a kerchief—something in lace, perhaps?”

The man’s face showed no sign of surprise. He left the hall, and Grace promptly turned her back on Arran.

“
Is
something wrong, Grace?”

“No.”

“Then we really should be getting upstairs.”

“You seem quite changed, Stonehaven. Quite good-tempered.”

Could he be blamed for his previous ill humor toward her? “The circumstances of our meeting were not the best.” Yes, he could be blamed. “You were misled. I may have behaved badly. I regret that. Perhaps it is time for us to make a better beginning.” After all, he needed a wife, and quickly.

And he found he ... liked her?

“It was wrong of me to come to Scotland as I did. In such a calculated manner.”

Arran raised a hand to touch her hair, but dropped it back to his side. “You were desperate to find a way to support yourself and your mother. A marriage such as Calum offered was bound to seem like an answer to your prayers.”

“It did!” She looked over her shoulder at him. “But I do not feel good about agreeing simply because I wanted security.”

He wanted to ... He
wanted
her. “I think you were very brave,” he told her. The way her sun-tipped lashes made a golden shadow in her eyes fascinated him. “You feel great responsibility for your mother. That has become obvious to me. For her—more than for yourself—you took an enormous risk.”

Rosy color rose in her cheeks.
Charming.

“You are so very kind, Stonehaven,” she said, and for an instant he thought her mouth quivered. “But I
knew
you were. Just as I know what it is that made you so horrid—and you were very horrid for a while.”

The scuff, scuff of approaching slippers heralded the return of Jarvie. “I trust this will do, miss,” he said, holding out a white lace kerchief as if it were a fish too long from the water.

“Oh,
perfect.
Thank you.”

Grace’s head bent forward, and Arran watched the interesting spectacle of elbows rising and falling as she did something with the “perfect” kerchief.

“There!” She came to his side and smiled gaily. “You see? You have no need to fear being compromised by me again.”

He could only stare. “Compromised? By
you?
”

“Don’t shilly-shally about it, Stonehaven.” She sounded positively exuberant. “You are an exceedingly principled man. I caused you—although I hope you will believe that I did not know it at the time—but I caused you to be drawn away from your principles. An excessive display of female
skin
caused you to desire to Sit With Me. You could do nothing to help yourself. I expect it’s all part of the mysteriousness that is the marriage—that part of a marriage that occurs strictly between a man and a woman, that is—in private—when they are alone?”

“Good God,” he muttered, unable to stop himself.

“May I ask you a question?”

“Why not?” He had never encountered a female like her.

“Did we do quite
everything
that occurs between a man and a woman—in private?”

He looked past her at Jarvie. The old man’s chin jutted, and his neck. His eyes revealed nothing.

“This is hardly the time or the place to discuss such ... personal matters. His gaze settled on the lace kerchief and he frowned. “What ...?
Why
have you ...? Grace, why have you stuffed that ridiculous little kerchief into your bodice?”

“You see?” She jabbed him with a forefinger. “You looked at the very spot where the most purely female skin is located. If I had not thought very quickly, my wretched skin would have been turning you into a tyrant again. But I am beginning to understand you very well, Stonehaven. Trust me. Your principles will be safe in my hands.”

“
Good God!
”
The woman was amazing. He had to restrain himself from removing her foolish little modesty frill. “Since we seem to be having the most outrageous conversation, there is a small matter that has concerned me. It continues to concern me.”

She settled her hand on his arm. “You may ask me anything.
Anything.
”

Really, she did have marvelous eyes ... and marvelous skin ... and her face was
different,
unforgettable, intelligent, ethereal ... Damn it, he was becoming obsessed with the chit. Unbelievable.

“Stonehaven? Please don’t hesitate to trust me with your problems.”

Exasperated but amused, he ushered her to the stairs. “You are too kind, Grace.” They started up. “The matter I wished to discuss was your ...
friendships
with men to whom you are not related.”

“I only have one.”

He stopped. “Me? Yes, at the moment. But I was referring to previous, er ...”

Grace appeared puzzled. “You know there have been no previous friends such as you.”

“I know no such thing for sure. I thought ...”

“What could you possibly have thought?” She went to remove her hand from his arm, but Arran covered her fingers and held them. “You thought I had ... you thought I had experienced with other men what I experienced with you? You believed I was a female with no sense of propriety at all and that I was accustomed to being alone with men?”