Scottish Brides (4 page)

He hadn't seized the chance to take her then. Painstakingly, he had righted her, and they had ridden back to Castle MacNachtan. The memory of his own restraint infuriated him now, although later, when she had crept into his bed and shyly, daintily debauched him as only a virgin could do, he had thought he'd won all. He'd been triumphant, silly in love, convinced he had just waged the most successful campaign he had ever waged for a woman's heart, for it was the only
important
campaign he had waged for a woman's heart.

And in the end, she'd rejected him.

“
I never meant . . . you can't . . . I can't marry you.” She snatched up the corner of the wool blanket, covered herself, and crawled across the mattress away from him as if he'd threatened to harm her. “Why would you ask such a thing?”

He was as stunned as if she'd brought out an axe and tried to put it through his skull. “I've been courting you. You've been responding. Last night, you came to me.” He gestured around at the archaic, curtained bed that had witnessed the sweetest, most gentle and tremulous loving he'd ever experienced. “My God, you were a virgin. Of course I want to marry you!”

She stopped sliding away and leaned toward him, a vision of tumbled hair and swollen lips. “Because 1 was a virgin. Well, let me tell you
—
”

“No. I don't want to marry you because you were a virgin! I wanted to marry you regardless of your state of chastity. But when a woman has reached your age and not tumbled into bed with a man sooner, the man she tumbles with assumes she loves him!”

A certain expression crossed her face.

And he knew right away he'd stated his case badly. He could almost hear Lady Valéry quoting, “A woman of your age?”

So he hastily added, “And I love you. I wanted to marry you yesterday. The day before. The first time I saw you! ”

“Infatuation,” she said flatly. “You're a nice man in the throes of infatuation.”

That was when he lost his temper. “I am not a nice man,” he roared.

He might not have even spoken. She said, “Now . . . you've got to go away.”

A nice man.
He'd brooded about that one phrase.
A nice man.
He still brooded about it. Apparently she thought he treated every woman the way he'd treated her, and fell in and out of love with obnoxious regularity. In fact, looking back, he realized she had a decidedly odd opinion of men, and he still didn't know why.

But he would find out. Oh, yes, he would.

Andra poked her head around the curve of the stairs where she'd disappeared. “Are you out of breath from the climb? Shall I help you with my arm around your waist, old man?”

She didn't even realize the danger she courted. He smiled, depending on the shadows to hide the menace of his intent. “Yes,” he invited. “Come down and assist me.”

Something—the tone of his voice, the flash of his teeth, or perhaps that knowledge of him that she had gleaned through the mingling of their bodies—must have warned her, for she stared down at him for one still moment, then said briskly, “I think not,” and her head bobbed out of sight.

He heard the clatter of her soles on the stairs as she hurried upward, and his smile widened to a savage grin.
Run away, little girl; you'll not outrun me.

Her own valiance stood his stead as a weapon, for it would never occur to her to admit to alarm. Even now, as her footsteps slowed, he knew that she was telling herself to stop being such a ninny, that he was a civilized man who could be depended upon to be a gentleman.

She didn't realize that the veneer of civilization wore thin when a man was deprived of his mate.

It grew warmer as he climbed upward, and he caught her at the place where the stairs slanted sharply upward, becoming more of a ladder. Andra stood, head bent against the tight constraint of steps and wall and ceiling, her fingers tucked into the handle of the trapdoor, a sconce on the wall barely lighting
the stygian darkness. “Can you lift the hatch?” she asked. “Or shall I?”

That stupid valiance of hers must be blinding her to the instincts
of primitive woman. She should be fleeing him, but instead she taunted him, inquiring without actually asking if his manners had evaporated when she'd banned him from her bed. They had, but he saw no reason to tell her so now. They were not yet completely away from the inhabited part of the castle and the restraints enforced by the presence of other, more civilized people.

Taking care to touch no more than the tip of her elbow, he guided her toward the wall, away from the drop that descended to the base of the tower, and passed her. He pushed back the shiny steel latches and lifted the sturdy wooden panel. With the screech of metal and wood, he shoved the trapdoor up and across the floor of the chamber above.

A sudden brightness descended from the tower, and a draft of fresh air relieved the stuffiness of the stairway. “The servants must have left the windows open. I'll speak to Sima when we are done here.” Her tone made it clear she wished that would occur soon.

The spring of his anger wound tighter. “Indeed, you should. Your servants take too much on themselves.”

The irritation that infected him spread to her. He could tell by the color that bloomed in her cheeks and the flash of her dark eyes. She bit her resentment back, and he rejoiced. She didn't want to give in to his passion, not any kind of passion and that meant she feared the results.

She had loved him; he knew it, and he would discover what megrim had made her withdraw from him. That was his mission this evening—not getting her alone, which he badly wished to do, or even viewing the MacNachtan marriage kilt, which he now used as a pretext.

“Are there mice?” he asked.

“Probably.”

“I don't like mice.”

“What a craven.”

She ridiculed him, and he did no more than bow his head. If she were fool enough to believe him craven, she deserved what she got, and more.

She moved forward, and he stepped down and gestured her upward. He saw the flash of wariness when she realized how smoothly he had maneuvered her, but she hesitated only a moment before brushing past him.

She thought him a gentleman, or at the very least that she could manage him as she managed everything else in her barren life. She didn't realize that the layers of civility had been peeling away from him: on the ride here, during that interminable dinner, on the long ascent up the stairs. He watched her climb the ladder, watched as her slender ankles rose to eye level, and watched as she glanced down at him. She couldn't retreat, but she did snap, “Stop leering at my legs and follow me.”

“Was I leering?” He skipped every other rung until he stood directly behind her. “Imagine that, a man appreciating his woman's attributes.”

Placing her hands flat on the floor, she boosted herself up. “I am not—”

His hand cupped her bottom, lifting her, turning her. Then his arm swept down and knocked her knees out from under her. The boards thumped as she landed, and he sprang up and over her. Trapping her between his outstretched arms, his weight supported on his hands, he said, “Yes, you are my woman. Let me remind you how much my woman you are.”

“Mr. Fairchild . . .” Her brown eyes observed him cautiously, her fingers hovered close to his chest, but she kept her tone brisk and impersonal. “What was between us before is no longer a matter of importance.”

“At one time not too long ago, I thought you a shrewd woman.” He lowered his body onto hers, inch by heated inch. “I have changed my mind.”

Four

 

 

 

Hadden kept his legs between Andra's, using his knees
to press against her skirts, pinning her in place. The scent of soap mixed with the scent of him, and his breath huffed from beneath his parted lips. Her fingers hovered so close to his chest that she could feel the heat of him, but she shrank before his forward motion. Something in her insisted she not touch him. Not if she wanted to cleave to her resolution to remain alone and not risk—

She could see, through the blackness of his pupils, the determination that steered him. His breath caressed her cheek. “Andra.”

A like determination blazed through her; he would not intimidate her. She shoved at him hard. “Get off me, you big oaf. Who do you think you are? Some kind of English reiver?”

He rolled off her and flopped flat on his back, covering his eyes with his arm. She experienced a measure of satisfaction—and unacknowledged relief. She wasn't so wrong about her reading of Hadden's disposition, then. He wouldn't kick a dog, or slap a servant, or kiss a lass against her will. He was a nice man, a malleable man.

In time, he would do as she'd predicted all those months ago. He would forget about her.

Sitting up, she looked at his outstretched figure. Yet she had imagined he would forget before Castle MacNachtan disappeared at his back. And she never thought he would have been so irate. Cautiously, she slid away from him and farther into the attic. Could there be other facets of his character that she had evaluated incorrectly?

“Is that it?” He sounded carefully bland, like a gambler determined not to show his hand, and still he hid beneath the cover of his arm.

“Was that what?” she asked cautiously.

“Was that the reason you wouldn't accept my suit? That I am English?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then it's my family.”

“Your family?”

“Perhaps the infamy of the Fairchilds has spread even into the Highlands of Scotland. You've heard the tales, and you're reluctant to graft such a shrub to your illustrious family tree.”

Startled, she considered him; he was handsome, honorable, and kind, she could scarcely believe his protestations—and she'd be damned if she'd tell him the real reason. “I've never heard of your family.”

“Then you're worried that my sister raised me, and she did not, perhaps, do as well as parents would. Yet let me assure you, she loved me dearly and taught me well. I have the manners and morals of a man raised by the sternest father.”

“I know that, for in the Highlands,” she said loftily, “we judge a man by his character, not by his background.”

He took his arm away from his face and stared at the ceiling. “Really? And how do you judge my character?”

She swallowed. “You said you wanted to marry me, but I knew you didn't . . . you were just infatuated.”

Turning his head, he examined her thoroughly. “Really.”

She scooted a little farther away and wished she could scoot down the stairs and out the door, and run and hide from that enigmatic, knowing gaze. She didn't like the combination of restraint and recklessness he displayed. It made her unsure of herself—and of her control over him. She wasn't used to feeling like this: nervy, like a horse to be broken and ridden at will. She was the lady, and always in command.

Why, then, was her heart beating a little too fast? Why did her breath catch, and the faintest dew cover her forehead? Was it because she feared he would force her to tell him the truth? A truth that even she pretended did not exist?

Deliberately, as she had done so many times these months, she turned her mind away to tasks and duties. She couldn't think about it now, so she looked around the chamber. After all, a mistress must oversee the labor of her people.

And the condition of the tower proved that her people could be depended upon, regardless of the task, All traces of dust had been swept away. The floorboards, although old and splintered, had been scrubbed. The glass windows sparkled, and two of them were barely open to let in fresh air. Spiderwebs no longer festooned the corners. Unneeded or worn furniture stood about the chamber: a chair stripped of its cushions; a bench; a tall, aged lamp table.

Trunks had been gathered from all over the castle and transported up the stairs, and Andra grimaced as she imagined how the men must have complained. But she, more than anyone, knew the futility of arguing with the house-keeper when she was set upon a scheme, and this chamber was, after all, truly spacious and bright. Perhaps Sima was right. Perhaps it would be good to store the family valuables up here.

Although Andra wasn't looking at him, she was aware when Hadden sat up. Even though he was across the open trapdoor from her, he seemed too tall, too muscled and too intent on her for comfort.

Not that she knew anything too much about men and their desires, but she suspected that primal glare meant she'd best hurry with the kilt, or she'd be fighting him off.

That hadn't been what happened before. No, last time he'd been here, she had done the seducing, and a good job she'd done of it, too, for he'd proposed marriage before morning.

She woke to find him looking at her with a wondrous glow in his eyes, as if she didn't have the mark of the pillow on her cheek and her mouth didn't taste like the bottom of the well and her hair wasn't a witch's black tangle.