The Beauty of the Mist (10 page)

She didn’t turn but noted the sound of the door closing quietly behind her.

John stood briefly with his back against the closed door, his eyes locked on the straight back of the woman by the window. Her arrival had been quite timely, punctuating out one of Caroline’s least attractive moments. In fact, in all their years together, John had never seen in his former mistress such an apparent lack of restraint. She had not just stormed angrily away from the confrontation. Her emotions had carried her away.

But the warrior knew that Caroline’s retreat was temporary at best. Leaning against the door, he knew he had to devise a plan to keep her running. The fair Lady Caroline had a temperament that required her to rise to every challenge, and John would have to be ready for any eventuality.

Just then, Maria turned slightly and glanced shyly at him. Like a sleeper suddenly drawn from a nightmare into a beautiful dream, John smiled. Yes, perhaps there was a way to keep Caroline from causing too much damage—to herself and to everyone else.

“You are having us watched,” she noted gravely.

“Aye, for your protection.”

“From whom?” Maria’s eyebrows raised in surprise.

“From the visitors the like of Lady Caroline.”

The young woman considered, and then nodded is response. “For a moment, I...I wasn’t sure Lady Caroline would let me pass,” Maria said, her face grave.

“Aye, I know the feeling,” John responded, crossing the cabin. “I recall once making the grave error of stopping my horse on a bridge with a couple of my men not far from Stirling, to talk to a friar. Lady Caroline and a number of her friends and kin came riding up behind, demanding that we clear her way. She can be quite imposing.”

“And what happened?”

“Well, it was a while ago, but as I recall, I decided that since we were all heading to court, we’d should only knock down a few of her companions before being gracious and giving way.”

John began to smile and then frowned at the memory. That encounter—and the events that followed later that same day—marked the beginning of a chapter in his life he now wanted behind him.

“Have you eaten this morning, Maria?” the Highlander asked hospitably, shaking off the reminiscence.

“Mistress Janet made sure that we were fed, Sir John,” Maria answered, looking up at him. “Truthfully, she has been quite kind.”

John strode to a cabinet under one of the open windows and removed a decanter and two goblets. “Then, may I get you something to drink?”

She shook her head politely in response.

John paused, his eyes twinkling mischievously. “Now that I think of it, I wouldn’t blame you for not accepting anything from my hand.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Last night I gave you a drink, and you passed out in a matter of moments.”

Maria looked in embarrassment at her bandaged hands. It was true. She could not remember a thing that had taken place last night after they sat down at the table in Isabel’s cabin. She’d opened her eyes to the dim light of early morn and the pleasant, smiling face of Janet Maule.

“I must admit that, aside from wine, I don’t have much experience with spirits such as the one you served me.”

“Well, don’t give it another thought, lass. I know many a Scot who has ended up an evening of drinking just as you did last night.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “That makes me feel much better.”

John stepped closer to her. How different these two women were, he thought. Caroline had blown into the room under full sail and dropped anchor as if the cabin were her own; Maria still stood uneasily by the windows, her cloak wrapped tightly around her. Her stance told him she was still undecided whether to run or to stay.

“So,” he said, changing the subject, pouring a cup for her anyway and placing it on the window sill. “How are they this morning?”

Her eyes followed his gaze to her hands.

“A bit swollen, but I feel no pain.”

John glanced up worriedly for a moment, before realizing she was not being completely honest about what she was feeling.

“Tell the truth, Maria,” he said sternly, putting his own cup down beside hers and moving toward her. “Don’t you feel even a wee bit of pain? Perhaps a bit of throbbing?”

“Well, I...”

“Tell me, lass,” he continued, and gently lifting one hand and flexing the fingers. “Don’t you feel hot bolts of steel running up your arm when I do even this?”

Watching the color drain from her face, John knew Maria was in great pain, whether she admitted it or not.

“Very good,” he growled.

“Oh?” she responded, gingerly trying to pull her hand from his grasp. The Highlander held her wrist firmly. “You’re happy that I suffer?”

“In this case I am,” he answered honestly. “If you still had no feeling, I’d be a bit worried that the injuries were festering.”

“I see,” Maria murmured. Another thing she had not thought of.

“Has anyone seen to them this morning?” John asked, looking into the green depths of her eyes.

Maria shook her head, trying to steady her uneasiness. Without another word, the Highlander reached up and tugged at the tie of her cloak. The heavy garment dropped to the deck at her feet. Too surprised to voice a complaint, she stared at his crisp white shirt.

He knew he’d shocked her by his bold action. But if she wasn’t going to make up her mind about going or staying, then he would make it for her. Releasing her hand, John leaned down and picked up the cloak, then he moved and hung it from a wall peg. “Didn’t that physician of mine visit you in your cabin this morning?”

“He did, Sir John,” she answered, her eyes widening as the giant took her by the arm and moved her rather unceremoniously into a chair by the work table. Maria wondered briefly if this was the way all men treated women outside of the boundaries of court life, or if this was just the Scottish way. She sat down, though, without protest. “He wanted to see to them himself, but I asked him to wait...until this afternoon. He told us he would be coming back again then.”

John pulled up the only other chair in the room and sat before her. As he reached for her hands, Maria quickly withdrew them, placing them protectively in her lap.

“You don’t need to see to them,” she said hopefully, looking into his handsome face. “I will allow your physician to change the dressing when he comes back.”

But the young woman knew she could not long withstand either his gaze or his outstretched hands.

“There really is no need,” she repeated, lowering her eyes to his hands. She hadn’t come here to have him see to her dressings. She had a task to accomplish, one she had rehearsed in careful whispers with Isabel before the old woman had drifted off. She knew exactly what she had to say and do. But everything Isabel had told her then was becoming far more complicated. Here, alone with this tall and forceful man, she was beginning to forget her words. So close to him, she could smell his fresh, masculine scent and, as much as she tried to avoid it, she could not help glancing up at his handsome face–at his swarthy and chiseled features, at the black hair swept back from his broad brow and his deep blue eyes.

Indeed, the longer she sat, the more conscious she became of the continual flush she felt in her cheeks, of the growing heat and chills that seemed to be battling for control of her insides. The longer she sat, the more impossible her task appeared to become.

Laying his hands in his lap, John waited patiently, quite contented for the moment to study her in the light of day. She was even more beautiful than by candlelight, her lips even more enticing.

He had assumed her to be a lady, and he was quite certain that she was. A very proper one. Her bandaged hands in her lap, she sat erect on the edge of the chair, clearly discomforted by the present situation, quiet but alert. Clearly, she had something to say to him; she wouldn’t have come to his cabin otherwise. But whatever it was, Maria was having a difficult time with it.

John knew she was not unusual in that. He recalled a journey to Spain, in which he had conveyed the Count Pedro de Ayala to his home. The old gentleman had spent a number of years in the court of the Scottish kings, and together the two travelers had laughed over the diplomat’s witty comparisons of Scottish ways and the ways of the rest of Europe. In Ayala’s view, John recalled, only English women enjoyed more freedom than Scots women in expressing their feelings...on whatever topic was at hand. John himself had never made a study of it, but he’d been hard pressed to argue the point.

At any rate, like so many other women John had encountered in his travels, Maria was struggling to overcome the distance between herself, as a woman, and John, as a man. And there was an aloofness that graced her character, as well. An elegance in her manner that accented natural beauty, but also served to shield it.

But there was no arrogance, he thought. The arrogance and the vanity that had been displayed in Caroline Maule seemed to be completely foreign to this young noblewoman. In fact, her lack of presumption, he knew, was partly the reason he’d originally thought her so young.

But perhaps this was all a front, designed to protect her from potential harm. After all, her position was one of extreme vulnerability, and John knew she had very real reasons to be concerned. She must be wondering what fate lay in store for her, for she was completely at his mercy while aboard the
Great Michael
. And John had caught glimpses of that curiosity. Perhaps beneath all the quiet elegance and the reserve, he might find her true self. The real Maria.

He only wondered why he felt so drawn to the notion of bringing that Maria out.

Maria didn’t have to look up to know that he was studying her. The silence between them was beginning to unnerve her, but she didn’t have the courage to break it. She turned herself slightly in the chair.

This is foolishness, she thought, growing angry with herself. He is just a man. A warrior accustomed to making decisions. She glanced briefly into his face and then lowered her gaze once more.

From the blush that remained on her fair skin, he knew that his closeness made her uncomfortable. But the devil take him, he decided wryly, if he’d pull his chair back and put some distance between them. Proper or not, she had come to his cabin of her own will, and she was just too damned attractive for him to let her off the hook. She wanted something. That’s why she’d come. But she was too shy or perhaps too scared to ask. Well, he wasn’t about to make it easy for her. The longer it took for her to ask, the better it was, as far as he was concerned. Even if the fog lifted today, they would be at sea for at least a few more days, depending on the wind. And the prospect of Maria’s beautiful face to look at made the thought of this journey enjoyable for the first time.

Having Maria aboard could keep Caroline Maule at bay, John thought, and mulled over for a moment the way to accomplish it.

Maria knew she had to break the silence. But while her mind struggled to find the words, her eyes focused on the Highlander’s hands. So different from what she remembered of her husband’s soft and delicate hands, John Macpherson’s were large and strong. She looked at the soft wisps of dark hair on the back of them, the skin weathered and dark from the sun.

“I’ve never known anyone so content just sitting and studying hands,” John broke in with a low rumbling laugh. He held them to the light, trying to study them himself. “Aye, quite handsome paws, they are, I should say. With such a talent for healing. To think that these are the very same hands which I have to thank for bringing you here to my cabin.”

Maria looked up quickly, shaking her head.

“Nay, Sir John. You have it all wrong. The reason for my visit...” The young woman blurted, her eyes fixed upon his face. The openness of his gaze on her, his full mouth breaking into a wide, warm smile made her breath catch in her throat. Once again, she sat dumbstruck, lost in the deep, sea blue of his eyes. Vaguely, she took in the rest of his face–the skin around his eyes wrinkled and tan from his broad smile and from the kiss of the sun.

John lowered his hands to his lap. Her eyes right now brought to mind the young hawks his older brother, Alec, still enjoyed training. That is, when his wife, Fiona, wasn’t setting them free. Maria, right now, looked like she was ready to take flight. When he spoke again, his voice was low and gentle.

“I was only jesting, lass. You certainly need have no fear–nor any particular reason, for that matter–in coming here.” He looked into her eyes for only a moment, and then turned his gaze away, nudging one of the cups gently toward her across the table. “It’s not whisky, only barley water.”

Maria reached over and took the cup in her two hands to drink. She wasn’t thirsty. But she was in desperate need of something to shield herself from his charms, and from the feelings that were beginning to emerge within her. Feelings that had hardly flickered with life in her marriage. Feelings she had begun to think she might never again experience.

Feelings she did
not
want to experience now.

“Is your companion feeling better?” he asked in an effort to make small talk. He watched as she placed the drink back on the table.

“She is...well, no, she is not...” Embarrassed, Maria paused, staring at the cup. Concentrate, she chided herself. “What I mean is, she is in no pain while she is sleeping. But when she is awake, I believe she is in great discomfort.”

“Aye. Well, that’s understandable, I suppose, considering what she has been through.”

Maria nodded vaguely. Isabel’s words were ringing in her ears. She was to say that Isabel was in considerable pain and that she did not seem to be improving. She was to ask if there was any way the Scots could land the two woman on the nearest coast. As in, for example, Denmark.

However, if that request was not received well, then Maria was to lie and say that Denmark had, after all, been their original destination. Considering Isabel’s poor health, they would be deeply indebted to the ship’s commander. That Sir John would be richly rewarded–with their undying gratitude and with ample financial remuneration. Maria knew very well the words she was to say.