The Lady Most Willing . . . (24 page)

She caught Cecily’s eye, her own shining with a teasing light.

Cecily’s heart trip-hammered in her chest and she found herself holding her breath,
waiting for Robin’s reply.

He had gone very still at Catriona’s words, staring at the tawdry piece of cloth he
held as though it were gossamer that might dissolve before his eyes. Carefully, almost
reverently, he replaced it on the table, smoothing a fold away. He looked up.

“I am afraid I have nothing of value with which to barter, Miss Burns. Neither goods
nor talents.”

Cecily’s heartbeat slowed to a dull, heavy thud as her throat constricted with tears
she refused to shed.

Catriona frowned, her expression uncertain. “Surely there is something . . .”

He shook his head. “Nothing. Besides, the point is moot. I would never aspire to something
so far above my touch.”

So that was it, then. He could not be more clear: she’d receive no offer of marriage
from Robin.

She didn’t even realize she had stood until the book she’d won dropped from her lap.
And then she was running out the door, Catriona Burns calling after her.

Catriona.

But not Robin.

Chapter 27

C
ecily avoided the stairs; she couldn’t go to her room. Kindhearted Catriona Burns
was bound to look for her there, and Cecily did not think she could face the other
girl’s pity. Better to be unavailable until she could mask her heartbreak.

Instead, she headed for the small family chapel next to the great hall, one of the
few other public rooms still in use in this part of the castle, though gauging from
the dust on the pew cushions, “use” was a relative word. Like many castle chapels,
it rose two stories tall, its height divided horizontally by a small second-floor
balcony that overlooked the altar so that the lord and lady could attend daily services
directly from their chambers. A wooden staircase led to the balcony so Cecily climbed
it, not wanting to be seen by anyone passing the door opening onto the corridor.

The dust lay even thicker above than below, coating a pair of wingback chairs set
well back from the wooden rail and a bench that might have served the lord’s children,
which now lay toppled on its side. Cecily sought refuge in one of the oversized chairs,
curling her feet beneath her and huddling deep into the corner.

What was she to do now? How was she to return to her former life and go about the
business of choosing a husband, when the only husband she wanted would not court her?
She had done everything she could to charm, beguile, and befriend Robin. Nothing remained
in her arsenal of feminine weapons.

Since birth, she’d been taught that whatever a lady wanted, she must wait until it
was given, be it a pony, a dress, a party, or a husband . . .

Not that a lady need be entirely passive. But Cecily
hadn’t
been. She had followed Robin, kissed him, worn boy’s clothing, tried to rouse his
jealousy in her pursuit of him. What more could she do?

And why would he not propose
? Because she was too rich, too English? Because he was too poor, his title too French?
Because she was a virgin, or because he was so patently not a virgin . . . None of
that mattered. The only reason she would accept was that he did not love her. But
he did! She knew it. Her heart could not be so blind, her soul so deaf. When he had
looked at her this evening across the room, the pitiful shawl in his hands, she had
been as certain of his feelings as she was of her own . . .

“No! I’ll not be quiet!”

Cecily lifted her head from her arms. The voice from directly below her had been Taran’s.

“Then at least do me the courtesy of coming in here and not shouting so that all the
world might hear you!”

Cecily froze.
Robin
.

“Why should you care?” Taran demanded, his voice growing louder as he entered the
chapel. “The world already knows you’re a heartless bastard. Nothing I can say will
surprise a one of them.”

Robin’s reply was terse and unintelligible.

“I know you and Byron think I’m nothing but a half savage,” Taran went on, “but at
least I don’t reduce lassies to tears.”

“Do you think I enjoyed that?” Robin ground out.

“How could a man tell with you? Always ready with a quip and a laugh, and all the
while the lassie looking as pale as the survivor of a massacre.”

“You overstate the case.” His tone was thick with emotion.

“The hell I do!” Taran shouted. “That she has feelings for you is as clear as fresh
blood on new snow . . .” He trailed off and when he spoke again, his tone had changed
from bombast to true shock. “Dear God, laddie, ye dinna
actually
seduce the poor wee creature? I know I encouraged you to do so, but only if you had
honorable intentions. If you dinna plan to marry the girl, then you are a bloodier
blackguard than I—”

“Stop! I did not seduce her!” Robin thundered. “For the love of all that’s holy, what
do you take me for?’

“Who you are,” Taran snapped in reply. “
What
you are.”

For a moment Robin was absolutely silent. Carefully, Cecily shifted in the chair,
craning toward the rail to hear better.

“My past has nothing to do with Cecily and myself,” Robin said. “I would never do
anything to harm her.
Never
.”

Cecily’s heart began to beat faster. She slipped from the chair to her hands and knees
and crept to the rail to look down. Below, she could see Taran standing halfway down
the short aisle leading to the altar. Before him, black curls gleaming in the afternoon
light streaming through the chapel’s rose window, Robin paced like a caged beast.

“Cecily, is it?’ Taran asked musingly. “Well, it looks like for all your proposed
good intentions, you’ve mucked up a grand bit, laddie, for the lady is heartsore and
that’s a surety.”

“No,” Robin said emphatically. “She’s not.”

What did he mean? How could he make such an assumption?

“You’re wrong,” Taran said flatly. “I saw her watching you this afternoon. She could
fain take her eyes from you.”

“No.” Robin stopped pacing, raking his hair back with his hand. The very set of his
shoulders suggested resignation and weariness. “This afternoon I asked her to pretend
that she loved a man like me and tell me how her father would react if that man asked
for her hand.”

“And?” Taran prompted.

“She said the point was moot, because she would never ask her father to approve someone
like me.”

What
? No.
No
. She hadn’t! Cecily’s brows furrowed, thinking back fiercely, trying to recall her
exact words before Marilla, with her impeccable sense of timing, had interrupted them.
Robin had just said, “Let us say you are in love with someone of my ilk,” and she
had agreed, and then he had asked how her father would react and . . .

Her eyes flew wide. She had said the point was moot, and been about to say she would
not ask her father’s permission because the only thing that mattered was if he loved
her. But those words were not what Robin’s imagination had supplied. He had heard
what he thought he deserved to hear.

“I don’t know why she would say such a thing when it’s so clearly a lie. Maybe she’s
afraid of her parents. But if you were man enough, you’d find the way to persuade
her to ignore her parents’ wishes and elope with you.”

“Dear God, Taran, have you not heard a thing I’ve said? Do you not understand?
I love the girl
, damn you and your plans and your machinations! I love her. I would never come between
her and her family. I would never ask her to elope. Indeed, I would never . . . I
should never have . . .”

Cecily’s heart began beating madly, a heady warmth rushing through her, filling her.
The very blood in her veins seemed to carry joy with it, suffusing her every fiber
with happiness.

Below her, Robin’s hand clenched into a fist at his side. “If she were my daughter
and a man like me pursued her, I would horsewhip him within an inch of his life. I
would sell him to a press gang and hope he died on foreign soil in some futile war.”
He laughed bitterly. “But, as has been said, the point is moot.”

“It’s only moot if ye don’t do something aboot it, lad.”

“Enough,” Robin said, his voice weary. “Your man returned a few hours ago. The pass
will be open by daybreak. I’ll stay to see that no one suggests there be any reason
I should have left, and after that, I’m gone.”

Without another word, Robin brushed past Taran and disappeared, his uncle following.

On the balcony above, Cecily dropped back on her bum with a thump. Her hands slipped
from the rail to her lap, her unseeing gaze fixed on the small marble altar below.

Robin loved her. Her heart swelled anew at the thought, became complete and whole
and filled with unlimited potential, the future suddenly an invitation to a glorious
adventure, the rest of her life a love story waiting to be told. Whatever her father’s
objections, however reasonable and heartfelt, they would somehow find a way past them.

The only question now was how she would find her way past Robin’s own objections.

Her gaze drifted to a chapel window, the bare vines outside covering it like latticework,
and suddenly, she knew: she was going to climb the ivy.

Chapter 28

Late that evening

C
ecily bullied Hamish into bringing her hot water, then washed off all the chapel dust,
then offered Mrs. McVittie her pearl ear bobs to tell her where Robin had his chambers.
The scrawny, stooped old Scotswoman cackled like a witch and asked what she would
do with pearl ear bobs and then, with a toothless grin, told her the location anyway.

But now, creeping up the cold stone staircase, shielding the flicking candle with
her hand, it occurred to Cecily that the old lady might have been teasing her, because
why would Robin stay in the abandoned part of the castle?

The corner room above the bailey tower, the old lady had said. Well, here she was
and there was the door leading into that room, a thin line of light delineating the
bottom. She pulled the blanket she’d draped over her shoulders closer and, taking
a deep breath, pushed the door open.

Beyond was a small chamber, lit by the glow from embers in a tiny hearth in the opposite
wall. It was a monkish room with only a few pieces of furniture. A large wingback
chair stood facing the hearth, turned away from her and a narrow bed had been pushed
hard against the wall.

She did not see Robin at once, and for one terrible moment thought he’d left after
all. But then she saw a man’s hand appear over the arm of the chair, the long fingers
curling over the carved end.

“If that draught is you, Taran, come to lecture me some more, go away,” Robin said
tiredly. “If it is Hamish, leave the bottle on the table, and my thanks. And if it
is Marilla, I am sorry, my dear, but I am not receiving tonight. Or any night. Or
day, for that matter.”

She took a breath. “What if it is Cecily? How is she to act?”

The fingers tightened reflexively over the chair’s arm. For a moment he did not reply,
and then in a very careful voice he said, “Sensibly. By leaving. At once.”

She smiled at that. “But it turns out I am not sensible. Or dutiful. Or circumspect.
Or any of those things for which I have been admired. So I believe I will stay.” She
let the blanket slip from her shoulders to the floor.

He stood up, slowly and without turning at once, as though carrying with him a great
burden, and once erect pulled back his shoulders. He was wearing only a white lawn
shirt, the sleeves rolled up over muscular forearms, and a pair of skintight buckskin
trousers that showed his athletic figure to great, distressingly great, advantage.
A little thrill raced through her at the sight of his tall, broad-shouldered form
silhouetted against the fire.

Then he turned and saw her. The mask he’d composed failed him at the sight of her,
for she wore only an antique chemise of the softest, sheerest linen, the deep, rounded
neckline edged in lace, the sleeves falling free to her wrists. His eyes burned in
his pale face and a muscle jumped at the corner of his hard jaw.

“Cecily. You must leave,” he said. “Please.” But in his expression she read everything
she needed to give her the courage to stay.

“No,” she said. She moved to his side, tipping her head to look up at him. He stared
silently back.

“I am cold, Robin,” she said.

Still mute, he pulled his discarded jacket from the back of the chair and draped it
over her shoulders. She shook her head, her eyes never leaving his. “Still cold,”
she said.

She stepped right up next to him and wrapped her arms around his chest and pressed
herself tightly against him. The muscles in his chest jumped into tense rigidity.
She laid her head against his shoulder. The rightness of it was startling. Every bit
of tension, every last bit of doubt dissolved into his body’s warmth and heat and
strength. She sighed, a soul finding its moorings, a homecoming and an awakening all
at once.

“For God’s sake, Cecily,” he finally rasped, “please. What is this?”

His heart thundered beneath her ear.

“I love you,” she said. “I love you, and I want you to marry me. Marry me.” She would
never have imagined herself saying something so bold, so extraordinarily forward.
A woman should make her plans and then wait for a gentleman to fall in with them.
She did not . . . climb the ivy. Yet it felt right, perfect. In fact, the only possible
thing she could say.

A shudder ran through his big body. She rubbed her cheek against him, her eyes closing
as she luxuriated in the sensation of being this close, this connected.

“How can you ask this? What has happened to make you forget your situation, your family,
your name?”

“You,” she replied simply.

He put his hands very lightly on her shoulders. “You are the most extraordinarily
forthright young lady I have ever known.”

“Not to everyone. But always to you. Loving you has made me so.”

“So many sins on my head,” he murmured, his breath stirring the hair at the top of
her head.

“I would never recognize myself in the woman wrapping her arms around you, unconcerned
with anything other than the fact that your arms are not around me. Why aren’t you
holding me, Robin?”

“Because if I embrace you, I am afraid I will not be able to find the will to let
you go.”

“Then embrace me. “

His hands slipped from her shoulder, crushing her to him.

She laughed shakily. “See? I warned you. I am without shame, capable of anything where
you are concerned. And you, what are you capable of?”

“Too much, I fear.”

“I don’t know that is true,” she said, tipping her head back to study his face, her
unbound hair cascading down over his arms. “Are you capable of living on my wealth?
Of enduring my father’s suspicion and my mother’s mistrust and society’s worst speculations?
Are you strong enough to endure the whispers that may follow us for years before they
fade, if ever they do? Because that is what marrying me will mean.”

He released her but did not step away, reaching up instead to cradle the back of her
head with one hand and tip her chin up with his other. “It was never myself I wished
to spare.”

“I know,” she said softly. “I will not lie to you, Robin. I would just as soon none
of those things happen, and everyone we loved would bless our union and be confident
of our future happiness. But the alternative is to live without you, and that I cannot
do.”

In reply, he dipped at the knees and scooped her into his arms, his mouth descending
hungrily on hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck, trying to get closer. His
mouth still closed on hers, he moved to the chair and sank down in it, holding her
on his lap.

“I have spent a lifetime training myself not to want what I could never have,” he
said, and dipped his head to feather kisses along her lower lip. She arched in his
arms and he splayed his hand between her shoulder blades to support her.

“But then you arrived,” he said, “and played havoc with my will. Every barrier, every
defense, every bit of common sense, and every hard-learned lesson has been shattered
by your smile, razed by your glance.”

She smiled, joy slowly blooming in her heart. “Then you’ll marry me?”

In answer, he covered her mouth with his own, kissing her with a thoroughness that
left her shivering in his arms. “Oh yes. There’s nothing for it now, my lass. I’ll
ask your father and then we can only hope he’s fool enough to agree, because it won’t
matter if he does not.

“He could spirit you away, wed you to another man, secret you in a French nunnery.
No matter how long it might take, no matter what I must do, I would find you.

“Because, you see, the only thing stopping me before was the idea that you would be
happier without me. But now I know you love me and so nothing will stop me until you
are mine, by fair means or foul.”

“I do not think we need to elope just yet,” she teased in a shaky voice, because if
she did not tease him she might cry, and there were far better things to do this night
then cry.

“Unless there is no other way, we are not going to elope at all,” he said severely.
“I intend to stand before your family looking for all intents and purposes like the
most brazen and bald-faced fortune hunter London has ever seen and pledge before God
and gawkers my undying love and devotion and care of you, and it will not matter to
me a whit who believes me. Except for you, Cecily. That, I own, I must have.”

“I do,” she said.

“Good,” he said, looking amazed and bemused, a man who has just heard a death sentence
commuted into an extravagant reward. Then shaking his head slightly, he gently clasped
her shoulders and lifted her upright on his lap. “And now, my beloved, you must leave.”

Her mouth dropped open. “
What?
”

“You must leave,” he said. “Because I do not want anyone in this castle saying you
were forced to marry me because I’d seduced you.”

“
You
seduced
me
?” she echoed. She scrambled around in his embrace until she sat straddling his lap,
her hands flat against his chest. “No one who’d seen the concerted effort you have
put into avoiding me these past four days would even consider the possibility.”

He stared at her, apparently having a hard time coming up with a response. She felt
the hard evidence of his arousal, and heat rose and flowed up her chest and neck into
her cheeks. It was beyond arousing. She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue and
his eyes narrowed, his gaze falling raptly on her mouth.

“No, indeed,” she said, breathless and exultant. “ ’Tis I who’ve seduced you, and
everyone here knows it. Besides,” she said, “I have discovered I do not care what
others think.”

He groaned, his eyes slipping shut and ground out, “And I have discovered that I do.
At least where you are concerned.”

She frowned, leaning forward, and pressed a soft, clinging kiss against his lips.
He shuddered.

“What matter?” she murmured. “We are to be wed anyway, are we not?”

His arms slipped around her, crushing her to him. “Yes. Yes. And yes,” he said, giving
in to the irresistible temptation of her mouth before tearing his mouth free. “But,”
he said, “and I cannot believe I am about to say this—truly, if Byron were dead I
would swear I’d been possessed by his stiff-rumped spirit—
but
I want you speaking your vows at the altar knowing that you do so only because you
love me, not because you were compelled by a rash decision made in a moment of passionate
excess and are afraid you might be pregnant.”

“I would very much like to experience your passionate excess.” She sighed, leaning
forward for another kiss.

He pulled her close and bent her over his arm, his mouth plundering hers for long,
erotic moments before, with a groan, he lifted his head. “You have no concept of what
you are doing to me, or the effort I am exercising. But I swear soon enough you shall.

“There will be a better time and better place for these things, my love,” he said,
his dark eyes narrowed but unable to hide the hunger burning within them. “Long, passionate
nights followed by languid days when we will be undisturbed while we teach each other
about desire and pleasure.” He dipped his head, once more sipping a kiss from her
lips before jerking his head back, breathing hard.

“I want to explore every nuance of lovemaking with you. Enjoy every taste of you.”
He nibbled the tender flesh at the base of her neck, traced the tip of his tongue
beneath her chin to the corner of her mouth. She arched into it, her eyes closing
in a swoon of pleasure.

With a low, strained chuckle, he pulled her upright, catching her face between his
hands and gazing deeply into her eyes. “I will not hurry one second of that maiden
exploration, my beloved. Because I have never been in love, you see, and when we do
make love, my darling, my wondrous Cecily, I do not want anything interfering.”

She burrowed her hands beneath his shirt, astonished and aroused by the satiny smooth
texture of his skin stretched taut across the hard pectoral muscles. “What would interfere?”
she asked, breathing hard, riveted by the idea of knowing him, this man she loved,
in every sense.

“Well . . .” He hissed with pleasure as she raked her teeth lightly along his jawline.

“Well?” she echoed. He tasted subtly of soap and smoke.

“Taran,” he gulped. “He might pop in for a nightcap. Then I’d have to kill him.”

She froze.

“Dear God, what a hideous notion,” she said, her ardor momentarily doused. “I counted
you a great seducer, but I see now you can kill passion as easily as you engender
it.”

But then his arms came round her once more, pulling her back into his embrace, and
ardor burst into flame anew. She wrapped her arms around his neck, whispering, “But
for now we can still practice a bit, yes?”

“Oh yes,” he said, laughing as his mouth settled over hers. “Oh yes . . .”