McCrory's Lady (23 page)

      
“I'm goin' to tell Miz Maggie yer on the mend—and fetch ye some of the fine calves head broth I've been steepin' since yesterday. It's good and nourishin’,” Eileen announced.

      
“Eating the boiled brains of a calf is enough to make me sick. Hell, Eileen, I'm already shot,” Colin protested.

      
”Ha! This from a man whose national delicacy is oat mush boiled in sheep's guts!” said Torres.

      
“Haggis isn't a dish I fancy either,” Colin replied sourly.

      
“I think you'd better capitulate, my friend,” Torres said with a chuckle as Eileen bustled away. When the two men were alone, his mood grew serious. “You were lucky, Colin. The slug missed your vital organs, and that young hand of yours knew how to slow the bleeding sufficiently to get you home. Your wife did a splendid job—she has a fine level head on her shoulders. Followed my instructions to the letter.”

      
Although Aaron did not pry, Colin could sense his friend's curiosity. After fifteen years as a widower who had avoided matrimony, his second marriage was quite a surprise. “Maggie helped me with Eden,” he said guardedly, knowing the doctor had heard the gossip. “My daughter needed a woman's caring after what she'd been through.”

      
“Has Eden been physically harmed?” Torres asked with concern.

      
“No, thank God...but she was hysterical when we found her. The scars are in her mind—and no one in this highly respectable community will give her a chance to heal,” he added bitterly.

      
“I know how vicious gossip can be, how it feels to be an outsider. But it's more difficult for a woman,” Aaron conceded. “At least, she didn't make the mistake of marrying that spineless Edward Stanley. Now, everyone knows the stuff he's made of.”

      
Torres's words had a familiar ring to them. “My wife said that very thing,” Colin admitted grudgingly.

      
Just then Maggie walked through the door, carrying a tray with a steaming bowl on it.
My wife
. Her heart lurched in her chest, and the broth spilled as she set down the tray.

      
“It seems you've pulled him through the worst of it, Mrs. McCrory. I’ll leave him in your capable hands,” Aaron said with a smile.

      
“Not if she's going to feed me that swill,” Colin interjected, scowling at the bowl.

      
“It's a clear beef consommé. Just don't think about where it came from,” Maggie replied.

      
“It's calves' brains.”

      
She looked down at the stubborn set of his jaw. “Maybe you could use them. You sometimes act like you don't have enough of your own,” she said sweetly.

      
Aaron chuckled. “I think it's time I was about my rounds. I'll be back in a few days to check on your progress, Colin.” He turned to Maggie and said, “Keep him in bed until then. I know he'll be champing at the bit to be out and about before he's had a chance to heal.”

      
“If a man wants some decent sustenance around here, he has to go out and get it himself,” Colin said testily as he tried to sit up. The effort cost him dearly.

      
At once, Maggie's hands were on him, pulling gently on his arm and plumping pillows to support his back. The doctor's chuckling farewell echoed down the hall and the two of them were left alone. Maggie's thigh brushed intimately against Colin's, reminding them both of the past night.

      
She looked at him uncertainly, wondering how much he remembered about their sleeping arrangements. “You really must eat the broth,” she said, turning to pick up the bowl as she willed her hands to stop trembling.

      
Colin noted her reaction and misinterpreted it. “What did I say last night when I was fevered?” he asked softly.

      
Her cheeks flushed and the broth sloshed onto the tray. “Nothing much that was coherent. You called for Eden...and Elizabeth.” The last word came out in a whisper.

      
“That's all?”

      
She raised the spoon to his mouth. “Nothing else made sense. Here, take a sip.” He noticed how she avoided his eyes as she plied the spoon. Glaring at the broth with distaste, he said, “It's my side that's injured, not my stomach. I want a steak.”

      
“If you're lucky—and eat this without giving me any more trouble—I'll see about some soft-boiled eggs for lunch,” she replied, nudging the spoon at his lips.

      
He sipped, then made a face. “That tastes putrid.” He swallowed, then studied her as she continued to feed him. What did you really hear, Maggie? “Were Eileen and Eden here—when I was feverish?”
God, please don 't let Eden know!

      
She blushed again. “No. Eileen and I felt Eden was too upset seeing you unconscious and bleeding. Eileen brought me the cold towels that I bathed you with, then I sent her to bed. She's getting too old to be running the stairs that way. I stayed the night with you.” Her eyes met his, waiting for a reaction.

      
“I know,” he replied. “I owe you another debt, Maggie.”

      
“I don't want your gratitude, Colin.” She dipped the spoon into the empty bowl with a clank and stood up to replace the dishes on the tray.

      
“What do you want, Maggie?” His whiskey eyes studied her, but already he was growing fuzzy-headed. His side throbbed too wickedly for him to think clearly.

      
She could see that he was tiring. Ignoring the discomfiting question, she removed several extra pillows from behind him. “You need to rest now.”

      
He started to protest, then gave in to the fatigue hovering over him. As soon as his eyes closed, she released a sigh of relief. How could she answer him?
I want you to love me, Colin.
No, she would never abase her pride before him again. He'd trampled on it enough already, calling her a whore, trying to buy her off. He would never love her. She turned and left the room in silence.

      
Colin lay in the twilight world between sleep and wakefulness, feeling oddly alone. He did not approve of her and he certainly did not trust her, but he did desire her. Just the scent of her made him ache with sexual frustration in ways he never had experienced before, not even for Elizabeth.

      
Especially not for Elizabeth, so chaste and ladylike, so far above him. He had worshiped Elizabeth, but always felt guilty about making sexual demands on her. Not that she had ever refused to do her wifely duty, but it had been a duty. As soon as she had been pregnant both times, she had expected him to quit her bed, and he had done so. He'd been a faithful young husband then, not questioning the proprieties, certainly not betraying his marriage vows with harlots.

      
As Colin drifted off into a troubled sleep, he thought it exceedingly aggravating that his lust at forty should be so much more firmly engaged than it had been when he was a randy lad of twenty-three.

* * * *

      
Maggie and Eden shared a simple meal with Eileen in the kitchen that night. Then Eden went upstairs with her father's supper, leaving the two older women alone.

      
“And it's that tired ye look. Off ta bed with ye. I've been cleanin' this kitchen for near twenty years without help.”

      
“I don't feel like I could sleep, Eileen. I need to keep busy,” Maggie replied as she scraped plates and placed them in the dishpan.

      
”Yer goin' to spend the night with him again, aren't ye?”

      
“Am I so transparent? The only way he'll tolerate me in his bedroom is when he's too ill to protest.”

      
The housekeeper gave a snort of disgust at the density of younger people. “He wants ye in his bed, right enough. The fool just isn't knowin' it yet. Yer not exactly helpin' the matter, actin' so proper 'n standoffish.”

      
“I'm sure you're mistaken,” Maggie said, refusing to believe that what she wished so desperately could be true.

      
“I've known Colin McCrory since he had scarce passed twenty years. He wants ye but he's afraid to admit it.”

      
“He's afraid consummating our marriage will tie him to me for the rest of his life,” Maggie said baldly. “We agreed to get an annulment after Eden's life is straightened out.”

      
“He no more wants that than ye do, but the only way to prove it to the likes of himself is to make it impossible for him to resist his own nature.”

      
“You mean seduce him?” Maggie asked, shocked at the calm way the old woman said it. “He'd hate me for it—if I could even succeed.”

      
Eileen chuckled. “Oh, ye'll succeed all right. And he won't be hatin' ye at all. That's the only way to be bringin' a man as stubborn as the mister to his senses.”

      
Maggie twisted the gold band on her finger, almost daring to hope. “I'm nothing like Elizabeth.” She played devil's advocate.

      
“All the better. The mister is a real man who needs a real woman to stand beside him. Don't be misunderstandin' me when I say that. I loved Miz Elizabeth. She was kind and good and sweet—but she never had the passion her man needed. He put her on a pedestal and worshiped her from afar. That's not the way of a real marriage. It should have fire.”

      
Seeing the look of fond remembrance in Eileen's eyes, Maggie said, “You've been married, then.”

      
“Aye. Johnny 'n me, we had lots of good years. He worked for Miz Elizabeth's family, too. I was her maid and he was their groom. When she married the mister, Johnny took a job breakin' horses at Crown Verde. He died of the influenza a few years after Miz Elizabeth was taken.”

      
“How much tragedy has occurred in this beautiful place,” Maggie said sadly.

      
“The past is past, the good and the bad of it. I only dwell on the good—and me time with Johnny O’Banyon was good. Me only regret was that I couldn't give him babes. I miscarried two. Then there were no more.”

      
Maggie reached out and took Eileen's gnarled hand in hers, silently communicating her understanding, yet afraid to reveal her own tragic loss.

      
Eileen was deeply touched. “Ye've suffered too, livin' all these years alone. Just like the mister has. Yer both young and strong, full of life and passion. Don't waste it, Maggie. Don't waste it.”

* * * *

      
Don't waste it
. As she sat watching Colin sleep that night, Maggie mulled over Eileen's advice to her. Dare she believe? Dare she act on it? He did desire her, but was that enough in the light of all her past sins? He would have to forgive a great deal...and forget as well. Somehow, she feared that a man of Colin McCrory's pride could never do that.
But isn't it worth the gamble?
some inner voice taunted.

      
Rising from the chair, Maggie rubbed her back and stared down at Colin's splendid features, softened by the dim flicker of a lone candle lighting the sickroom. She walked over and lightly brushed a lock of dark hair from his brow.

      
A real marriage should have fire.
Well, Lord knew there had been crackling fire between them from the first time they had set eyes on one another. She had never felt about another man the way she felt about this one. Perhaps, Eileen was right, and he had not wanted Elizabeth the way he should have desired a wife.

      
She blew out the candle and tiptoed from the room, feeling certain that he would sleep peacefully. Just in case, she left the door open between their rooms so she could hear him if he called out in the night.

      
By the next morning, Colin was feeling well enough to grow more insistent with his complaints about the food.

      
“I detest oatmeal.”

      
“You're a Scot. They're supposed to love oats.” Maggie raised the spoon again.

      
“Mayhap, that's why I emigrated.” He winced at the pain in his side as he raised his right arm and wrested the spoon from her, plopping it into the bowl. “Bring me a steak and eggs—
fried
eggs.”

      
Maggie sighed. “No steak, but I'll see about the fried eggs.”

      
By that night he had forced the issue of a steak by threatening to walk down to the kitchen and fry one himself if Eileen wouldn't do it for him.

      
The following morning Maggie decided that he was definitely feeling strong enough to sit up in bed for a shave. She brought in a bowl of hot water and placed it on the dry sink, then proceeded to strop his razor.

      
He eyed her skeptically. “How much practice have you had shaving men?”

      
She shrugged. “I've watched shearers work on sheep. It can't be much different.”

      
“My God, you crazy Sassenach! I'm a Scot, not a sheep!” He leaned back against the headboard with a look of horror on his face.

      
A grin twitched at the corners of her mouth. “I've shaved men before. Just hold still, Scotty.” She sat down on the edge of the bed and began to lather his face with the thick soap from his shaving mug. “Your beard's heavy,” she said in a husky voice.

      
“Damned nuisance. It itches like hell when it grows out.” She wore a simple tan skirt and a ruffled white blouse which buttoned up the front. He could see the curve of her breast when she leaned forward and raised her arm. The soft fragrance of lilies of the valley seemed to emanate from the deep vale of her cleavage. With every stroke of the razor, he felt himself growing more aroused.