Tall, Dark and Kilted (28 page)

“You look tired, lass.” He regretted his honesty the instant the words left his tongue.

He’d meant to rouse her further by whispering some choice bit of seductive wickedness in her ear. Perhaps suggest that after he’d finished tantalizing her with his fingers, he’d use his tongue to give her release. That’s why he’d left the stairwell and approached her.

To let her know he meant to make love to her this night. Leastways, as far as his present situation allowed.

Now he’d broken one of the first rules of wooing.

He’d commented on how ragged she looked.

He frowned, wishing he could kick himself.

“Lass”—he tried to make it better—“that’s no’ what I meant to say.”

“I’m fine, thank you. Not tired at all.” She snatched up her box of broken china and summoned the two red-haired youths he now knew to be Honoria’s nephews. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll get on with my workshop.”

“You’re also the loveliest sight to grace my eyes since”—he leaned close, ignoring her ire—“the last time I looked upon you.”

Her mouth tightened and her gaze flicked to the trollop.

So that was it. She was jealous.

Hardwick almost whooped for joy.

“She canna hold a candle to you.” He folded his arms, feeling smug. “Later, when we are alone, I shall prove it to you. As I’ve been trying to do the while, as I am sure you know.”

To his delight, she blushed.

Looking sweetly flustered, she half turned away from him to pluck a small, deep red square from her box of treasures. Then, clearly taking great pains to conceal how much he’d ruffled her, she handed the little piece of china to Violet Manyweathers, who accepted it with glee.

When she returned to the worktable, her cheeks still glowed with anticipation and—he was certain, for he could see it—her pulse beat excitedly in the hollow of her throat.

She couldn’t wait to be alone with him.

Her eagerness shone like a beacon.

Then she ruined it by flashing a bright smile on the two brawny lads, Robbie and Roddie.

Hardwick frowned.

She handed the taller of the two lads her box of broken china. “Robbie, if you’ll pass this around so everyone can select a special piece, and you, Roddie”—she gave the other youth a tray piled high with the tools she called
mosaic nippers
—“if you’ll hand out these, as well, we can get started.”

As if on cue, Honoria and Behag Finney the cook stepped out of the shadows on the far side of the vaulted chamber. Coming forward, they held small tables he’d heard referred to as
folding work trays
clutched beneath their arms.

Nodding to them, his lady quickly returned her attention to the audience. She held up her own nipper and an uneven piece of porcelain.

“Most of the broken china pieces I use for my Vintage Chic collections are cut into squares, ovals, hearts, and rectangles.” She set down the bit of porcelain and her nipper. “Even so, some of my most prized offerings have been made from irregular shapes. I’d suggest holding your piece in your hand while closing your eyes and then letting the china tell you in its own way how best to cut it.”

Almost everyone except Colonel Darling nodded appreciatively.

Aussie Elizabeth rolled her eyes.

And at the back of the room, Birdie MacGhee was clearly using her wifely influence to keep Mac from slapping his thigh and hooting loudly.

Hardwick, too, could have easily guffawed.

He’d lived too long and too hard to waste time listening to cracked and broken bits of porcelain.

He did look on as, contrary to his word, Colonel Darling fished not one but two pieces from the proffered box. Choosing first a small bit of what Cilla termed
chintz
, a delicate-looking floral pattern in yellows, pinks, and greens; his second choice proved equally fine, this piece boasting hand-painted deep purple flowers and green leaves.

The colonel’s puffed chest and the telling glances he bestowed on both Violet and Flora left little doubt as to whom he had in mind as recipients for his labors.

As if pretending not to notice—or, at the least, to have forgotten his avowals not to get actively involved in jewelry making—Cilla continued on. She moved about the rows of class attendees, the slight jiggling of her full breasts and the tempting sway of her hips making it difficult for Hardwick to think of much else.

Until she stopped beside wee Violet Manyweathers’s folding work tray. The old woman’s hands shook, making it difficult for her to cut her square of deep red Fiestaware into the oval shape she wished for a pendant.

Again and again, Cilla encouraged her, finally leaning down to cover the woman’s trembling fingers with her own strong ones so that, together, they managed to clip and cut the square into Violet’s oval.

Hardwick moved closer, watching silently and not even realizing he’d drawn so near to them until a loud yelp shattered the spell.

Eyeing him accusingly, Dunroamin’s little mascot dachshund, Leo, peered up at him from where he’d been curled at Violet’s feet.

“Sorry, laddie.” Hardwick reached down to pat the dog’s head.

But much as he regretted stepping on Leo’s tail, his mind was elsewhere.

Instead of Dunroamin’s well-lit vaulted undercroft, he saw Seagrave’s great hall. Rather than Cilla and Violet Manyweathers, his long-ago intended and his mother loomed before him. Recalled from the hazy mists of time, the two souls from his past filled his vision, one much loved and cherished, the other inspiring only shudders and distaste.

As if it were only yesterday, he looked on as the beautiful Lady Dolina appeared behind his mother’s chair and then leaned down to snatch the spoon from his mother’s bent and trembling fingers.

“She should be locked in a tower! Kept away from the hall, where a nurse can hand feed and coddle her.” Lady Dolina slapped the spoon onto the high table, well out of his aging mother’s reach. “It offends my gentle eyes to watch her food dribble down her chin!”

“And you offend me.” Hardwick took the beauty by the elbow, pulling her from the dais and, ultimately, out of his hall.

It was the last he’d seen of her, not that he’d minded.

What he did mind was her intrusion now.

She’d robbed him of the pleasure of watching Cilla bend down to help Violet Manyweathers cut her square of red dinnerware. Prepared as he was—he’d pulled his tartan binding especially tight—he’d been enjoying how her well-rounded buttocks bobbed with her every move.

He didn’t need to examine the tightness in his chest.

Born of an entirely different emotion; one Bran would surely call
love
, neither his lustful urgings nor the swellings of his heart mattered at the moment.

His mother and Lady Dolina were gone.

And they’d taken Cilla and Violet with them.

Hardwick frowned, blinking.

He knuckled his eyes, but nothing changed. The vaulted undercroft was empty. Only the vacated seats and his lady’s worktable remained.

Furious that he’d spent much more time than he’d thought peering into his own past, he took a piece of brilliant blue Fiestaware from the box of broken china. He turned the shard over in his hand, his heart thumping harder the longer he peered at it.

It was the same blue as Cilla’s eyes.

“Where were you?”

He whirled around at her voice. The shard of blue flew from his fingers. “I . . . hell and botheration, I—” He reached down, swiping the little piece of dinnerware off the undercroft’s stone-flagged floor.

“Well?” She stepped out of the shadows, the neat stacks of folding work trays lined against the wall behind her, indicating what she’d been doing.

“I was thinking.” He set the shard on the table. “Thinking of you, and so deeply that I didn’t realize you’d ended your—”

“I didn’t mean now.” Her gaze slid to the chair where the trollop had sat. “I meant all this week?”

His brow furrowed. “I was patrolling your uncle’s peat fields. I thought you knew.” It was the best answer he could give her, unwilling as he was to reveal that he’d spent the time drilling himself on the moors.

Using every passing moment to dwell on his desire for her in order to test the strength of his tartan binding, only returning once he’d assured himself he could pleasure her without suffering his own arousal.

He looked at her now, not missing the bright color staining her cheeks. Nor did he fail to note that she was avoiding his eyes. When she once more flashed a glance at the trollop’s seat, he knew why.

“By Odin!” Disbelief swept him. “Dinna tell me you think I—”

Her eyes flashed. “Everyone knows men go wild over smooth women like Elizabeth.”

“Smooth women?”
He stared at her, at first uncomprehending.

When he did, his jaw nearly hit the floor.

He took a deep breath, releasing it quickly. “It wouldn’t have mattered to me if she’d shaved her head, as well, do you hear?”

Picking up the blue shard again, he wrapped his fingers around it, squeezing hard. “She could have thrown off her clothes and pranced about naked, for all I care. I would still no’ have seen her. No’ in the way you mean.”

Cilla bit her lip, wanting to believe him. But just that moment her waistband was biting viciously into her recently acquired belly roll.

She flipped back her hair, met his gaze full on. “She has a flat stomach.”

The words sounded petty even to her.

Unable to retract them, she started to frown when—to her amazement—Hardwick jammed his fists on his hips and, throwing back his head, began to laugh.

His dark eyes alight, he grinned at her. “I can see you’ve ne’er known a Highlander if you think we lust after stick women!”

Cilla tried to appear unaffected. “I’m sure I don’t know what a Highlander lusts after.”

“Then, my sweet”—he stepped closer, his thumb rubbing slow circles over the piece of blue Fiestaware in his hand—“perhaps it is time you learned.”

She glanced aside, painfully aware of the bright overhead lights shining down on them. They’d highlight the puffiness beneath her eyes and her mussed hair. Having attempted to look calm, cool, and collected, she’d adopted Aunt Birdie’s signature french twist.

Only on her, it hadn’t worked.

The pins had slipped and the elegant do was now nearly undone.

“My ex was of Highland stock.” It was a lame excuse, but bought her time. “At least he claimed to—”

“Sweeting, if he’d been a true Highlander, you would have known it.” His voice deepened, his burr sliding through her like sun-warmed honey. “As a good friend of mine is wont to say, ‘There are men and there are Highlanders. Woe be to anyone fool enough not to know the difference.’ ”

“I can tell the difference.” She looked back at him, her heart clutching. “It’s a big one.”

“Aye, so I’ve been told.” He flashed a wolfish smile.

Cilla’s eyes widened.

He laughed.

Heat consumed her, his nearness and the look on his face rousing her even more than the ghostly magic of his hot stares and roving fingers. Her heart began hammering, and her mouth went dry.

“Then tell me again how you can seem so real,” she blurted, nerves making her grasp for a safer subject.

“Because I will it so and”—he paused, his voice turning earnest—“because I’ve had seven hundred years’ practice.”

Unable to argue with that, Cilla glanced to where Leo slept curled beneath the worktable. “And him?” She waited until he, too, looked down at the little dog. “Why isn’t he afraid of you? I’ve always heard dogs ran from ghosts.”

“And do you always believe what you hear, Cilla lass?”

“I—”

“Dogs are no different than people, sweet.” His smile returned, his eyes twinkling. “In spirit or in life, they are the same souls. Dinna tell me you’ve ne’er noticed that dogs can tell when someone likes them or no’.”

He cast another quick glance at the sleeping Leo. “They also ken a good soul from a bad one. That knowledge doesn’t change just because the soul they see might be
others
.”

Cilla blinked. “Others as in a ghost?”

He nodded.

Under the table, Leo stretched and started snoring.

Hardwick stepped closer, something in his eyes warming her to the roots of her own soul. Never had a man touched her so deeply both inside and out. She couldn’t imagine what would happen when he
really
touched her, something she knew was going to happen very soon.

She moistened her lips. “Are you trying to tell me you’re a good man?”

He shook his head slowly, his eyes going dark. “I’ll leave that for you to decide. What I wish to do is show you how good
you
are.”

She blinked. “Me?”

He leaned close to nuzzle her neck, letting his lips brush across her skin. “You and no other, aye,” he declared, nipping her ear.

“O-o-oh . . .” Cilla’s heart began a slow, hard thumping.

He lifted the shard of blue Fiestaware he still held and appeared to examine it. “Did you know, for starters, that your eyes are the same brilliant blue as this? Or”—he put down the bit of blue dinnerware and picked up a cream china piece with a delicate gold edge—“that your hair glistens with the same golden sheen as the rim of this porcelain?”

He looked at her for a long moment, his gaze burning her soul. “A man could lose himself in such eyes as yours.” He put down the fragile bit of gold-rimmed china and reached for her hair, twining a strand through his fingers. “In my day, kings would have gone to their knees for a maid with such silken tresses of gold. This day, this e’en, I am telling you that I have dreamt of touching your hair.”

He let the strands spill across his hand. “I have dreamt of much, Cilla.”

She bit her lip, unable to speak.

His words were making her melt.

As for his eyes, it almost hurt to look into them, so intense was his stare. No man had ever looked at her with such naked hunger.

“Eh . . .” She stumbled over her tongue, the wild hammering of her heart making it impossible to think. “No one ever said—”

“More’s the pity.” He turned back to the table, taking a sliver cut from Violet’s red dinnerware. “And more is my pleasure in showing you. Behold the rich color of your lips,” he added, holding the tiny shard to the light before returning it to the table. “Sweet lips that beg kissing, Cilla.”