Rebellion & In From The Cold (8 page)

“More than you think,” he said softly, guarding his own temper.

“You sit in your fine house in London or your manor in the country and dream by the fire of values and great social change. We live the fight every day, just to hold on to our own. What do you know of the terror of waiting in the dark for your men to return, or the frustration of not being able to do more than wait?”

“Do you blame me, too, for your being born a female?” He caught her arm before she could spin away. Her shawl fell away from her hair and onto her shoulders so that the evening light struggling through the doorway and the chinks in the wood glowed over it. “I might curse myself for preferring you that way.” He resented bitterly his automatic response to her. “Tell me the truth, Serena, do you despise me?”

“Aye.” She said it with passion, wanting it to be true.

“Because I’m English?”

“It’s reason enough to hate.”

“It’s not, but I think I’ll give you one.”

To please himself, he thought as he dragged her against him. To undo the knots in his stomach, calm the thunder in his loins. She jerked back and might have landed a blow, but he was prepared for her, and very quick.

The moment his mouth came down on hers, she went still. He heard her breath suck in, then only the buzzing in his own head. She had a mouth like rose petals, soft, fragrant, crushable. With an oath, he wrapped an arm around her waist and locked her to him. He could feel her breasts yield and her body tremble. His own was rigid with the shock of the sensation that poured through him.

Behind them the horses blew and shifted weight. Dust motes danced in an errant sunbeam.

She couldn’t move. She thought she might never move again, because all the bones in her body had
dissolved. Behind her eyes was a rush of color, so vivid, so brilliant, that they would certainly blind her. If this was a kiss, then she had never experienced one before, for this was all heat, all light, all movement, in one meeting of lips.

She heard a moan, such a soft, such a sweet moan, and never recognized it as her own. Her hand was on his arm, fingers tangled in the tear of his sleeve. She might have swayed, but he held her so close.

Was she breathing?

She had to be, for she lived still. She could smell him, and the scent was much the same as it had been on their first meeting. Sweat, horses, man. And he tasted … Her lips parted, she thirsted for more. He tasted like honey warmed in whiskey. Wasn’t she already drunk from him?

Her heart began to thunder, drumming in pulses she hadn’t known existed. If there was more, she wanted to find it. If this was all, it was enough for a lifetime. Slowly she slid her hands up his arms, over his shoulders and into his hair. Her kiss changed from one of shock and surrender to one of demand.

He felt her teeth nip at his lip and a fire centered in his loins. Suddenly desperate, he pressed her back against a post and savaged her mouth even as it opened and invited him in. In that instant he was more her prisoner than she his.

He surfaced like a man drowning, gulping in air and shaking his head to clear it. “Good God, where did you learn to do that?”

Right here, right now. But shame and confusion stained her cheeks. However it had happened, she had let him kiss her and, Lord help her, she had enjoyed it. “Let me go.”

“I don’t know if I can.” He lifted a hand to her cheek, but she jerked her head away. Struggling for patience, Brigham stood where he was and tried to catch his breath. A moment ago she had kissed him in a manner to rival the finest French courtesans. But now, right now, it was painfully clear she was innocent.

He could kill himself—if Coll didn’t beat him to it. Brigham set his jaw. Seducing the sister of his friend—the daughter of his host—in the stable, as though she were a tavern wench. He cleared his throat and stepped back. When he spoke, his voice was stiff.

“I offer my deepest apologies, Miss MacGregor. That was unforgivable.”

Her lashes swept up. Beneath them her eyes were not sheened with tears but bright with anger. “If I were a man, I’d kill you.”

“If you were a man,” he said, just as rigidly, “my apologies would hardly be necessary.” He bowed and went out, hoping the cold air would clear his head.

She would have enjoyed killing him, Serena thought. With a sword. No, a sword was much too clean, much too civilized, for English vermin. Unless, of course, she used it to sever small pieces from him one at a time rather than end his worthless life with one thrust through the heart. She smiled to herself as she imagined it. A quick hack there, a slow, torturous slice here.

Her thoughts might have been gruesome, but no one would have guessed by looking at her. She was the picture of quiet feminine occupation as she sat in the warm kitchen and churned butter. It was true that when her thoughts darkened she brought the plunger down with unwarranted force, but the energy, whatever its source, only made the job go faster.

He’d had no right to kiss her that way, to force himself on her. And less right than that to make her like it. With her hands wrapped around the wooden staff, Serena sent the plunger dancing. Miserable English cur. And she had patched up his hurts with her own hands, served him a meal in her own house. Not willingly, perhaps not graciously, but she had done it nonetheless.

If she told her father what Brigham had dared to do … She paused for a moment as she dreamed of that possibility. Her father would rage and bellow and very likely whip the English dog within an inch of his miserable life. That made her smile again, the picture of the high-and-mighty earl of Ashburn groveling in the dirt, his arrogant gray eyes clouded with terror.

She began to churn faster as her smile turned into a snarl. The picture was right enough, but she’d prefer to hold the whip herself. She would make him whimper as he sprawled at her feet.

It was true, and perhaps sad, Serena thought, that she had such a love of violence. It concerned her mother. No doubt it was a pity she hadn’t inherited her mother’s temperament rather than her father’s, but there it was. It was rare for a day to go by when Serena didn’t lose her MacGregor temper and then suffer pangs of guilt and remorse because of it.

She wanted to be more like her mother—calm, steady, patient. The good Lord knew she tried, but it just wasn’t in her. At times she thought God had made the tiniest mistake with her, forgetting the sugar and adding just a dab too much vinegar. But if God was entitled to a mistake, wasn’t she then entitled to her temper?

With a sigh, she continued the monotonous chore of working the plunger up and down.

It was true enough that her mother would have known exactly the proper way to handle Lord Ashburn and his unwanted advances. She would have become frigidly polite when he’d gotten that look in his eyes. That look, Serena thought, that told a woman instinctively that he meant mischief. By the time Fiona MacGregor had been done with him, Lord Ashburn would have been putty in her hands.

For herself, she had no way with men. When they annoyed her, she let them know it—with a box on the ear or a sharp-tongued diatribe. And why not? she thought, scowling. Why the devil not? Just because she was a woman, did she have to act coy and pretend to be flattered when a man tried to slobber all over her?

“You’ll be turning that butter rancid with those looks, lassie.”

With a sniff, Serena began to work in earnest. “I was thinking of men, Mrs. Drummond.”

The cook, a formidably built woman with graying black hair and sparkling blue eyes, cackled. She had been a widow these past ten years and had the hands of a farmer, thick fingered, wide palmed and rough as tree bark. Still, no one in the district had a better way with a joint of meat or a dainty fruit tart.

“A woman should have a smile on her face when she thinks of men. Scowls send them off, but a smile brings them around quick enough.”

“I don’t want them around.” Serena bared her teeth and ignored her aching shoulders. “I hate them.”

Mrs. Drummond stirred the batter for her apple cake. “Has that young Rob MacGregor come sniffing around again?”

“Not if he values his life.” Now she did smile as she remembered how she had dispatched the amorous Rob.

“A likely enough lad,” Mrs. Drummond mused. “But not good enough for one of my lassies. When I see you courted, wedded and bedded, it’ll be to quality.”

Serena began to tap her foot in time with her churning. “I don’t think I want to be courted, wedded or bedded.”

“Whist now, of course you do. In time.” She gave a quick grin as her spoon beat a steady tattoo against the bowl. The muscles in her arms were as solid as mountain rock. “It has its merits. Especially the last.”

“I don’t want to find myself bound to a man just because of what happens in a marriage bed.”

Mrs. Drummond shot a quick look at the doorway to be certain Fiona wasn’t nearby. The mistress was kindness itself, but she would get that pinched look on her face if she heard her cook and her daughter discussing delicate matters over the butter churn.

“A better reason is hard to find—with the right man. My Duncan, now there was a man who knew how to do his duty, and there were nights I went to sleep grateful for it. Rest his soul.”

“Did he ever make you feel”—Serena paused a moment, groping for the right words—“well, like you’d been riding fast over the rocks and couldn’t get your breath?”

Mrs. Drummond narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure that Rob hasn’t been around?”

Serena shook her head. “Being with Rob’s like riding a lame pony uphill. You think it’ll never be done with.” Her own eyes were bright with laughter as she looked up at the cook.

That was the way Brigham saw her when he walked in. Her long fingers were wrapped around the plunger, her skirts were kilted up and her face was alive with laughter.

Damn the woman! He couldn’t keep himself from staring at her. Damn her for making him want just by looking!

He made little sound, but Serena turned her head. Their eyes locked, briefly, almost violently, before Serena lifted her chin away and went back to her churning.

The look had lasted only an instant, but that had been long enough to show Mrs. Drummond what had put Serena into a temper. Or rather, who.

So that’s the way of it? she mused, and couldn’t prevent a small smile. Locked horns, without a doubt. It was as good a way to begin courting as she knew. She’d have to think on it, she decided. But the earl of Ashburn was certainly quality, as well as having a face and form that made even a widow’s heart flutter.

“Can I serve you, my lord?”

“What?” Brigham turned to stare through Mrs. Drummond before his eyes slowly focused. “I beg your pardon. I’ve just come from Coll’s room. He’s complaining for food. Miss Gwen says a bit of your
broth would do him.”

Mrs. Drummond cackled and went to the pot by the fire. “I have my doubts he’d think so, but I’ll spoon it up and have it sent. Would you mind me asking, my lord, how the lad does?”

He had made the mistake of looking at Serena again as she lazily stroked with the plunger. If anyone had told him that watching a woman churn butter could dry a man’s mouth to dust, he would have laughed. Now he couldn’t see the humor in it. He tore his eyes away, cursing himself. It would pay to remember that he had already spent one sleepless night because of her, two if he counted the one they had spent together nursing Coll.

“He seems to fare better today. Miss Gwen claims his color’s good enough, though she’ll have him stay in bed a while yet.”

“She could do it. The good Lord knows no one else could deal as well with the lad.” Mrs. Drummond tutted over the man she considered the oldest of her charges. She slanted a look at Serena and saw that she was watching Brigham from under her lashes. “Would you care for some broth yourself, my lord? Or a bit of meat pie?”

“No, thank you. I was on my way to the stables.”

That had the color lifting into Serena’s cheeks as she banged wood against wood. He lifted a brow. Though she set her chin and moved her bottom lip into a pout that had his stomach muscles clenching, she didn’t speak. Nor did he as he gave a brisk nod and strode out.

“Now that’s a man!” Mrs. Drummond exclaimed.

“He’s English,” Serena countered, as if that explained everything.

“Well, that’s true, but a man’s a man, kilt or breeches. And his fit him mighty true.”

Despite herself, Serena giggled. “A woman’s not supposed to notice.”

“A blind woman’s not supposed to notice.” Mrs. Drummond set the bowl of broth on a tray and then, because her heart was soft, added a gooseberry tart. “Molly! Molly, you lazy wench, come fetch this tray to the young master.” She set the tray aside and went back to her stirring. “The man Lord Ashburn brought with him from London, lassie, the proper-looking gentleman?”

“Parkins.” Serena flexed her cramped hands and sneered. She found it odd that her heart rate had leveled almost to normal as soon as Brigham had swept out. “His English valet. Imagine, bringing a valet here to fuss with the cut of his coat and the shine on his boots.”

“Quality’s used to having things done a certain way,” Mrs. Drummond said wisely. “I hear Mr. Parkins is an unmarried gentleman.”

Serena moved her shoulders. “Probably too busy starching Lord Ashburn’s lace to have his own life.”

Or he hasn’t met a woman with life enough for two, Mrs. Drummond mused. “Seems to me, Mr. Parkins could use a bit of fattening up.” She grinned, then set the bowl aside to shout for Molly again.

* * *

Quality, Serena thought with a sniff a few hours later. Just because a man had a trace of blue blood in his veins didn’t mean he was quality. It didn’t make him a gentleman, either. All it made him was an aristocrat.

In any case, she wasn’t going to waste her time thinking about the earl of Ashburn. For nearly two days she had been tied to the house, to the day-to-day chores, which were increased by Coll’s needs. Now she had some time free. Perhaps she was stealing it, but she could make it all up later. The truth was, if she didn’t get out and off by herself for just a little while she might burst.