The Black Knave (24 page)

She backed up, uncertain. He had an odd gleam in his eyes, and he smelled of strong ale. And yet… yet he seemed to have complete control of his actions.

“What
do
you want?”

“I want the Forbeses to see a husband and wife together, doing what God intended to be done, creating new life.”

“I do not understand why that is so important to you.”

“It might well mean my neck as well as yours and your brother’s.”

“I do not understand.”

“Cumberland has only one lord, Bethia, and that is the king. I do not think Cumberland has a personal interest in you, which means the king does. Would you know why?”

Bethia drew in her breath. Her husband was most definitely not a fool now. She remembered Cumberland’s words when he’d pressured her into this marriage.
You have a friend at court who asked me to look after you
.

Not her. Her mother
. Her mother had been born on the English side of the border, and she’d been very beautiful. Bethia had heard she’d been promised to a highly placed English lord, when her father had won her heart and whisked her off to Scotland. She’d always thought the tale very romantic, but now she wondered. She had never known her mother’s family; her mother had been disowned when she had married a Catholic Highlander, and she never spoke of her family. But Bethia knew the name.

She was reluctant, however, to discuss it with a man she dinna trust. In fact, she had dismissed Cumberland’s reference when he’d said it. Her grief, her despair, had been too great to question exactly why she’d been singled out from other women torn from their homes and often imprisoned because of their family’s loyalties.

The marquis was watching her closely. Why did he even care as long as he received the lands he had wanted?

“Why do you always act the fool?” she said, deciding attack was the best defense.

“I like low expectations,” he replied.

“So you will not disappoint, as you feel you did as a boy?”

His gaze grew sharper. “An astute theory.”

“But not true?”

He shrugged. “You may think what you will.”

She tried to look inside him, to go beyond the various masks he wore. Whenever she thought she was reaching behind one, another appeared.

Was the cause really as shallow as not wanting expectations? Indifference? A reason not to involve himself in the difficult business of running an estate?

The contradictions kept piling up, one upon another. He had fought at Culloden. He was said to be a good swordsman. But he apparently had left the field before the end. She’d heard “coward” whispered. She heard it whispered louder after his encounter with Ogilvy and the Black Knave.

Why did she not believe it? Even as he threatened in various ways, she’d never really feared him. Nor could she think of him as a coward. Or mayhap, despite his protestations, he did have some honor. Mayhap he could not stomach the butchering Cumberland had ordered.

If so, she might have an ally. Dare she hope?

“You wish to play cards again, my lord?”

His eyes narrowed, then he seemed to relax.

“Do you still have those I gave you the other night?”

“Aye.”

“Then why not?” he asked carelessly.

Relieved he’d dropped the subject of a child even temporarily, she quickly fetched the deck of cards while he brought a second chair to the table. She studied him as he shuffled the cards with extraordinary dexterity.

She thought she was beginning to understand something about him now. Although just a little. He was a master at holding people at a distance, at keeping them from knowing him or anything about him. As angry as she had been about his behavior at supper, she realized now that there was a purpose behind it. Just as she sensed there was a purpose behind many things he did.

Now that her temper had dissolved under his wry good humor about her dog, she remembered what it was this afternoon that had so drawn her to him.

She looked at him curiously. “Do you really like gaming so much?”

He shrugged. “My father sent me to foster with an English family. He included no funds. I learned to game to purchase weapons and found it to be one of my rare talents. Then there were other things I wanted. I knew… thought… I would never inherit a pence from my father. Gaming was as good a way as any to earn my way.”

“Was there nothing you wanted to do?”

“At one time, I thought… I might enjoy the study of medicine. But my father, such as he was, was right. I had no temperament for it.”

“I disagree.”

“Only because you want to win this game.”

“I have a sweep,” she said, proclaiming her win as she claimed all the table cards.

“Do you cheat?” The marquis raised an eyebrow as he posed the question.

Black Jack whined.

“He really does not know,” she defended herself, her lips curving into a small piece of a smile.

The marquis stood and took off his coat, but he left his wig on. She ached to take it off. She wanted to reach over and touch him. She wanted to hear that rare, rich chuckle.

He won the next game, and that pleased her. She did not want anyone to pretend to lose for her sake.

She looked up and his eyes met hers. “Why do you not take off that wig?” she said.

“Must you ask? Your small protector might appropriate that one, too. After playing with you, I cannot afford to lose another one.”

“
You
are winning.”

“Aye, but you have far too quick a mind.”

For the first time in months, Bethia felt a rush of pleasure. She had loved her brothers; they had been her life after her mother died, then her father months later. But they had seen no reason for her to read, had teased her about the way she had begged their tutor to teach her. Lasses, they had said, had no need to learn such things.

She had never been praised for her wit or mind. It felt very, very fine.

The game continued. As it had before, the room became smaller, closer, hotter, despite the cold wind that blew outside the tower house and the damp, cool air that penetrated it. And then when he gathered up the cards, his hand touched hers. She felt as if her skin sizzled.

Her gaze met his. His hazel eyes shimmered with something she believed was desire. Heat crept through her body and lodged in the core of her.

He rose, kicking the chair away with a violence that would have shaken her earlier. “All of Braemoor will be sleeping. ‘Tis time I returned to my room, lass, before I break my bargain.”

She knew for certain, then, that all his earlier baiting had indeed been meant to widen the gulf between them, not narrow it. He’d wanted her angry. He’d wanted to pierce that fragile intimacy that had spun a web around them earlier. But she no longer cared what he wanted. She only knew that she needed to feel his lips again. Not that mocking, careless kiss at supper, but the earlier tender touching.

He is still Cumberland’s man. He might have killed one of my brothers. He is a gambler with no care for the people who depend on him
. She thought all that and more.
Just because he kept a bargain doesna change that. Just because he has a mistress he prefers. .
.

She balled her fingers into a fist. For a few moments, a few hours, she had not been so lonely.

Do not forget about Dougal. He needs you. You promised to get him out of Scotland. You have to keep your wits about you.

“My brother,” she said. “You said you might be able to get word to him.”

“Write your letter, madam,” he said, and just that last word reestablished the distance he had kept between them. “I will get it to him.”

“Thank you.”

He hesitated, then reached out and touched her cheek. A sweet aching awareness filtered through her.

He swore under his breath. After a long second, he leaned down. His lips met hers with a hungry longing she felt down to the marrow of her bones.

A whisper in the back of her mind warned her that he was still so many things she disliked, but it was like chaff in a furious storm of so many other feelings. She felt shivery and shaken and altogether confused at the attraction between them, the desire that even now seemed to burn out of control.

His lips moved on hers, searching, teasing. Swirling eddies of sensations enveloped her, tumbling her along in a vortex that eclipsed every caution, every warning. She wanted to touch, to feel, to explore the man behind the many masks. She wanted to feel him close to her. She wanted to prolong the dizzying, warm feelings that rocked her practical world.

The kiss deepened, his lips hard and demanding. His arms pressed her against him until she felt the hard changing of his body. She had never felt anything like it before, and she was stunned by the answering response of her own. She found herself moving into him, wanting more of those strange, compelling, glorious sensations that seemed to arc from her body.

Her arms went around him, her fingers playing in his hair and along his neck with an instinct she’d never realized she had. Her body, her hands, her mouth were all reacting completely on their own. Warm, irresistible feelings flowed through her body like a surging tide. Swelling and ebbing, then swelling again with renewed energy.

And she sensed the greatest wave was yet to come.

She felt the tension in his body, the barely restrained passion in his hands. They started moving at the small of her back, each subtle touch igniting new fires. His lips released hers, and they moved softly, seductively along the line of her cheek, down to her throat where they lingered. She thought she might explode with the growing need inside her. At the same time, she recognized his skill, his experience, and was reminded of his reputation, of his mistress.

Yet there was so much want. So much feeling. So much need. She felt a bewildering pain, a longing for something she did not understand. The strength of that need terrified her.

She trembled with the rush of unfamiliar emotions. She heard a small cry rip from her throat. Her hands fell from around his neck.

He hesitated, his body going still. Then he lifted one of her hands and brought it to his mouth, kissing each finger. She had not thought such gestures could bring about such havoc, could make her forget all the grief and loss and anger of the past year. But there was a gentleness, a tenderness to the gesture that made her heart ache.

He
did
make her forget.

She stood up on tiptoes, and this time she was the aggressor. Her lips pressed against his, and they clung together, savoring the intimacy of warmth and belonging, her body melding to his again. She opened her mouth to his with an awakening longing of her own. His hands moved over her body with poignant slowness as if exploring—and memorizing—every moment.

“Bonny lass,” he whispered as his hands caressed and aroused, their gentleness sensual and inviting.

Magic wrapped around them, a seductive, drugging sorcery. Her heart bounced against the edge of its cage, and her body tingled with anticipation, the need inside growing as his hands heated every inch they touched.

Then his hands went to the laces in front of her dress. They fumbled, and she sensed that was unusual. Her gaze met his, and the green gold in his eyes was so tumultuous, so turbulent they reminded her of the rough seas not far from home. Her fingers went up to his face, touched the small cleft in his chin and watched as his mouth widened, the ends turning upward. Then her hands took the wig from his head, and her hand caught in the short, thick strands of his dark hair.

He stilled, as if frozen, then with a groan his lips seized hers again. This time there was no hesitancy, no restraint. This time their lips met in an explosion as bright as lightning striking the earth.

It was foolish, and dangerous and destructive. Rory knew all that and yet he could not keep his hands off her. Her eyes, which had once regarded him with contempt, were soft and wistful and longing. She needed this … affection as much as he did. He would not, could not, call it love. Love was too dangerous a word, too precarious an emotion.

They were wed. They were husband and wife in the sight of God. Not, he corrected, that he really believed in God. Not after the past few months. But they were also wed in the sight of the church and state.

She had been a good facade for his activities. She was, after all, the king’s choice for him, and he had cooperated. But now he regretted his compliance. Or did he?

That was the hell of it. He stood a foot away from the gallows. Or worse.

“Rory?”

It was the first time she had said his name. It was naught more than a hoarse whisper, but it echoed throughout him. What in the hell was he doing?

Yet he could not stop. Her eyes were so very blue, so serious, so full of roiling emotions. He saw uncertainty, but he also saw desire. A desire that matched his own. He leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose, the freckles that amused and delighted and intrigued him. She truly did not understand how appealing she was, and that was an aphrodisiac. She was brave and stubborn and yet had a strong and generous heart.

He couldn’t help himself. His hand went up to her cheek, softly touching it with a tenderness he didn’t know he had. He wanted to know her thoughts, her very soul. He brushed away a curl that had fallen over her right eye, and he cherished the silken feel of it. No more anger in her eyes. No more fear. Only wonder. A wonder more seductive than the accomplished wiles of a courtesan.

Rory savored that wonder. He felt it himself. For the first time in his life, he felt no bitterness, no anger. He felt he needed to be no one but himself. For he knew it was Rory Forbes that she wanted, not the marquis of Braemoor. She already had sensed more about him than anyone ever had, including Alister and Elizabeth. He had seen that knowledge in her eyes.

Then he had no more time to think, because his mouth was moving toward her, his lips reaching down for hers.

They touched, gently at first, then with fierce need. He disregarded the familiar call of caution. He heard only his heart, greedy for what she was offering. His body heated, his blood running hot and his heart beating rapidly.