The Lady Most Willing . . . (7 page)

“Still think you can toss it?” Catriona said daringly.

He stepped forward. To the rest of the observers, he must have looked furious, but
she could see the mirth dancing in his eyes. “Not . . . even . . . an . . . inch.”

And then she lost herself entirely. She laughed so hard she doubled over, so hard
she feared she might faint from lack of breath. “Your face! Your face!” she gasped.
“You should have seen your face!”

“Catriona!” Marilla exclaimed, horrified. And it was true, Catriona supposed. One
wasn’t supposed to talk to a duke in such a way.

But his face! His face! It had been priceless.

She laughed even harder, grabbing on to Fiona for support. The other men had ambled
over, grinning at her uncontrollable mirth, and out of the corner of her eye, Catriona
saw that Lady Cecily had joined the party, too. The poor girl was clad in some sort
of antique mourning gown, the heavy black bombazine dragging through the snow.

“Miss Burns needs air,” the duke announced, and before anyone could offer an opinion,
he scooped her up in his arms and said, “I’m taking her inside.”

And just like that, all the chill left the air. Catriona allowed herself the indulgence
of resting her cheek against Bretton’s chest, and as she lay there, listening to the
steady beat of his heart, she could not help but think that this was where she was
meant to be.

But then, of course, Lord Oakley had to spoil the whole thing. “You’re taking her
inside so that she might get air?”

“Shut up,” the duke said.

Catriona had a feeling she might be falling in love.

“Wait!” Taran yelled, tramping over through the snow. “She needs a chaperone!”

“I’ll go,” Fiona offered.

Taran blinked in surprise. “You will?”

“I’m cold,” Fiona said with a deceptively placid smile. “And I still have sewing to
complete before supper.”

“Do you think you might help me?” Lady Cecily asked, fidgeting beneath her cloak.
“Nothing they brought down fits, and I am a terrible hand with a needle.”

“Of course,” Fiona said. “Why don’t you come with me? We’ll take tea in my room and
see to the gowns.”

“You’re supposed to be chaperoning Miss Burns,” Taran reminded her.

“Oh, but Catriona will take tea with us as well,” Fiona said. She looked over at Catriona.
“If that is amenable.”

“I would be delighted,” Catriona said, although not, perhaps, as delighted as this
very moment, wrapped as she was in Bretton’s arms.

“Marilla, you must stay and watch the caber tossing,” Fiona instructed. Marilla looked
about to argue, but then Fiona added, “The gentlemen must have an audience.”

Marilla must have decided that one earl plus one French comte equaled something more
than a duke, because her expression quicksilvered into one of utter enchantment. “I
cannot imagine a more pleasing activity.” She placed a delicate hand on Lord Oakley’s
muscular arm. “It is all so very, very exciting.”

“Very,” Catriona thought she heard Lady Cecily say under her breath.

“Back to the caber, then!” Taran hollered. “The old laird and his nephews,” he chortled,
elbowing Mr. Rocheforte in the ribs. “The way it should be, vying to impress the fairest
maiden in the county.”

Mr. Rocheforte smiled, but it was a queasy thing, quite unlike his normal expression.

“That’s the one I wanted for you in the first place,” Taran said in a loud whisper.
“Prettiest girl in town. She’s got some money.
And
she’s Scottish.”

Mr. Rocheforte said something Catriona could not hear, and then Taran’s bushy brows
came together as he grumbled, “It was a whisper! Nobody heard me.”

And then, before anyone could contradict, Taran pumped a fist in the air and once
again yelled, “To the caber!”

“To the house,” Fiona Chisholm said in urgent response, and she hurried off, Lady
Cecily right at her heels.

As for the duke, his pace back to Finovair was much more measured. Catriona, snug
and warm in his arms, could find no reason to complain.

Chapter 7

B
y the time Bret reached the drawing room, Miss Chisholm and Lady Cecily were nowhere
to be found. “Your friends seem to have deserted us,” he said to Catriona as he set
her down upon an ancient chaise longue.

“Perhaps we were meant to follow them to Fiona’s room?”

“Oh, but I could not venture into a lady’s chamber,” Bret said, placing one hand over
his heart for emphasis.

Catriona gave a look that was dubious in the extreme.

“And at any rate,” he added, “I don’t know where her room is.”

Catriona cocked her head, then said, “Do you know, neither do I.”

He grinned at that. “We seem to be stuck here, then.”

“On our own,” she said, a small smile touching her lips.

“You’re not concerned for your reputation?”

She tilted her head toward the door. “The door is open.”

“Pity, that,” Bret murmured. He perched on the table directly across from her, testing
it first before settling his entire weight; like everything in Finovair, it was chipped
and rickety.

“Your Grace!”

“I think you should call me by my given name, don’t you?”

“Absolutely not,” she said firmly. “And at any rate, I don’t know what it is.”

“John,” he said, and he tried to remember the last time anyone had called him such.
His mother did, but only occasionally. His friends all called him Bret. He thought
of himself as Bret. But as he looked at Catriona Burns, who had already shifted herself
to a sitting position on the chaise, he wondered what it would be like to have someone
in his life who would call him John.

“I heard Lord Oakley call you Bret,” Catriona said.

“Many people do,” he said with a small shrug. He looked down, finding it suddenly
awkward to meet her gaze. The conversation had made him wistful, almost self-conscious—a
sensation to which he had never been accustomed.

But this feeling that seemed to wash over him whenever he was with Catriona—it was
growing, changing. He’d thought it lust, then desire, and then something that was
far, far sweeter. But now, swirling amid all this was an unfamiliar longing. For her,
certainly for her, but also for something else. For a feeling, for an existence.

For someone to know him, completely.

And the strangest part was, he wasn’t scared.

“I couldn’t possibly call you Bret in front of the others,” Catriona said, pulling
his attention back to her face.

“No,” he agreed softly. It would be improper in the extreme, not that anything in
the past day had been proper, normal, or customary.

“And I should not call you Bret when we are alone,” she added, but there was the tiniest
question in her voice.

He brought her hand to his lips. “I would not want that.”

Her eyes widened with surprise, and—dare he hope it?—disappointment. “You wouldn’t?”

“John,” he said, with quiet determination. “You must call me John.”

“But nobody else does,” she whispered.

He gazed at her over her hand, thinking he could stare at her forever. “I know,” he
said, and at that moment something within him shifted. He knew—and by all that was
holy, he hoped she knew, too—that their lives would never be the same.

C
atriona stopped at her small garret before making her way to Fiona’s bedchamber for
tea. She needed a moment. She needed a thousand moments.

She needed to breathe.

She needed to think.

She needed to find a way to face her friends and speak like a normal human being.

Because she did not feel like a normal human being, and she very much feared that
Fiona and Lady Cecily would take one look at her and know that she’d been kissing
the Duke of Bretton in the sitting room with the door open, and before he’d finally
pulled away, his hands had been on her skin, and she’d liked it.

Good God above, she’d liked it.

If he hadn’t stopped, she didn’t know if she could have done so. But he had lifted
his lips from hers, cradled her face in his hands, and looked into her eyes with such
tenderness. And then he’d whispered, “Say my name.”

“John.” She’d barely been able to make a sound, but he was staring at her lips; surely
he’d seen his name upon them.

He’d taken her hand, helped her to her feet, and said something about her joining
the other ladies before they became concerned. Then he bowed and headed to the nearest
exit.

“You’re going outside?” she asked. “It’s freezing out there.”

“I know,” he replied, his voice a little strange. He bowed, then said, “Until supper.”

And so Catriona made her own way through Finovair’s twisty halls, gathering her thoughts,
tidying her appearance in her room, and then finally locating Fiona’s sparse bedchamber.

Tea had already arrived, and Fiona and Lady Cecily were deep in conversation. Fiona
was expertly pulling a seam out of an ancient blue gown. Lady Cecily was sucking on
her finger.

“I’ve stabbed myself,” Cecily said.

Fiona shook her head. “I told you to let me do it.”

“I know,” Cecily replied. “I just didn’t want to feel so useless.”

“I should think,” Catriona opined as she took a seat next to Fiona on the bed, “that
given all we’ve been through, we’re entitled to feel anything we please.”

The two ladies turned to her with identical expressions. Expressions which, Catriona
was alarmed to realize, she did not know how to interpret. Finally, after she could
no longer stand it, she turned to Fiona (since she could hardly be so rude to an earl’s
daughter she’d met only the day before) and said, “What?”

“You’ve fallen in love with the Duke of Bretton,” Fiona said.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Catriona tried to scoff. But her voice did not come out
as briskly as she would have liked.

Fiona stared at her from behind her vexing little spectacles, lifting her auburn brows
as if to say—

Well, Catriona didn’t know what she might be saying, or rather, implying, since it
wasn’t as if Fiona could speak with her eyebrows. Still and all, Catriona knew she
had to nip this in the bud, so she said, very firmly, “You can’t fall in love with
someone on so short an acquaintance.” It was what she believed. It was what she’d
always believed.

“Actually,” Lady Cecily said softly, “I think you can.”

That got the other ladies’ attention, so much so that Lady Cecily blushed and explained,
“My parents have a love match. It has made me a romantic, I suppose.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Catriona, grateful for a change of subject,
voiced the obvious question. “What do you suppose they are all thinking?”

“Our parents?” Fiona asked.

Catriona nodded.

“They’ll be angry, of course,” Fiona said slowly, “but once they realize it’s only
Taran who has taken us, they won’t worry for our lives. Or our virtue,” she added,
almost as an afterthought.

“They won’t?” Lady Cecily asked.

“No,” Catriona agreed. “Taran may leave our reputations in tatters, but we will be
returned every bit as alive and virginal as when we were taken.”

And then, with an aching gasp, she realized what she’d said. But if Fiona took offense,
she did not show it. In fact, Fiona’s voice was completely unaffected as she explained,
“It is well known that while Taran’s sense of honor is unique, it does exist. He would
never allow us to be harmed in any way.”

Catriona wanted to say that she had never believed the gossip about Fiona, but she
could hardly bring up the subject in front of Lady Cecily. Now she felt a little knot
of shame in the pit of her stomach. Why hadn’t she gone out of her way to offer Fiona
her support? It was true that their paths hadn’t often crossed; Catriona had always
been much more likely to come across Marilla at local gatherings.

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to have a dress altered for you before supper this evening,”
Fiona said to Lady Cecily, expertly steering the conversation back to mundane waters.
She frowned down at the ice blue brocade in her hands. “I promised Marilla I’d finish
this one first. Then I’ll do yours.”

“Surely Marilla can wait,” Catriona said. “Didn’t you already see to that red dress
she was wearing today?”

Fiona snorted. “If I had seen to that red dress, you can be sure I’d have yanked the
bodice up a few inches.”

“But what about you?” Lady Cecily asked. “I insist that you see to your own gown before
mine.”

“Nonsense,” Fiona replied. “I can—”

“I will not take no for an answer,” Lady Cecily said forcefully, “and even if you
alter a frock for me, I won’t wear it until yours is done.”

Fiona looked up at her and blinked behind her spectacles. “That is very generous of
you,” she finally said.

Lady Cecily shrugged, as if walking around in ill-fitting gowns was nothing to the
daughter of an earl. “There is nothing to be gained by complaining about our situation,”
she said.

“Try telling that to my sister,” Fiona muttered.

Catriona and Lady Cecily looked at her with identical expressions of sympathy.

Fiona just rolled her eyes and went back to her sewing. A few moments later, Lady
Cecily turned to Catriona and asked, “Have Mr. Ferguson’s nephews visited Finovair
before?”

Catriona shook her head. “First of all, no one calls him Mr. Ferguson. It’s always
Taran. I don’t know why; it’s not as if we’re so shockingly familiar with anyone else.
And secondly, I’m not sure.” She glanced over at Fiona. “We were talking about that
earlier. Certainly, I’ve never met them.”

“Nor I,” Fiona agreed.

“Do you know them?” Catriona asked Cecily. “I would think you would have been much
more likely to cross their paths in London.”

“I know of them, of course,” Lady Cecily said, “and I’ve been introduced to Lord Oakley.
But not the Comte de Rocheforte.”

“Why not?” Fiona asked.

Lady Cecily appeared to hesitate, and a faint blush stole across her cheeks. “I suppose
our paths did not cross.”

That was a clanker if ever Catriona had heard one. But she certainly wasn’t going
to say anything about it.

Fiona, however, must not have shared her reticence, because she murmured, “He strikes
me as a bit of a rake.”

“Yes,” Lady Cecily admitted. “I imagine that’s why our paths did not cross.”

“It seems to me that he ought
not
to be a rake,” Catriona said.

Lady Cecily turned to face her with wide, interested eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Just that his is such a ready smile. I haven’t shared more than two words with him,
but he strikes me as being altogether too
nice
to be a rake.”

“He is very handsome, of course,” Fiona observed.

“Well,
perhaps
,” Catriona murmured.

Fiona grinned. “You’re just saying that because you have fallen in love with the duke.”

“I haven’t!” Catriona insisted.

Fiona replied with an arch look, then said, “You may thank me later for securing you
time alone in the drawing room.”

Lady Cecily pressed her lips together—presumably so as not to laugh—then said, “I
have
been introduced to the Duke of Bretton.”

“Really?” Fiona asked with great interest, saving Catriona the trouble of pretending
that she wasn’t dying for more information.

“Oh yes. Not that I would pretend any great friendship, but our fathers were at Cambridge
together. The duke generally pencils his name on my dance card whenever our paths
cross at a ball.”

Catriona wondered what it would be like to dance in John’s arms, to feel his hand
pressing gently at the small of her back. He would hold her close, maybe even a little
too close for propriety, and she would feel the heat of him rippling through the air
until it landed on her like a kiss.

She felt herself growing warm, which was ludicrous. It was the dead of winter, barely
a week before Christmas, and she was trapped in Taran Ferguson’s underheated, crumbledown
castle. She should be freezing. But apparently, the mere thought of the Duke of Bretton
sent her into an overheated tizzy.

“Would you like some tea?” Fiona asked.

“
Yes!
” Catriona responded, with perhaps more eagerness than the question called for.

“It only just arrived before you got here,” Fiona told her, “but it wasn’t hot even
then.”

“It’s quite all right,” Catriona said quickly, thinking she could almost do with an
iced lemonade right now, she felt so flushed. She set to work preparing her cup, moving
slowly and methodically, needing the time to compose herself.

“Do either of you know what our plans for supper are?” Lady Cecily asked.

“Mrs. McVittie’s already laid the table,” Catriona said. She’d seen it after she’d
left the duke—
John
, she reminded herself—in the sitting room. She’d been discombobulated, but not so
much that she hadn’t stopped to inspect the seating arrangements. Taran had been at
the head, with Marilla on his right, followed by Mr. Rocheforte, Fiona, the duke,
Lady Cecily, Lord Oakley, Catriona, and then back to Taran.

Catriona had switched with Lady Cecily, certain no one (except possibly Taran) would
be the wiser.

“Please tell me I’m not seated next to Taran,” Fiona said.

“Marilla has that honor,” Catriona replied. She gave a sympathetic look to Lady Cecily
(but not so sympathetic that she regretted having switched their spots). “And you,
I’m afraid.”

“That’s all right, I suppose.” Lady Cecily took a sip of her tea. “Did you by any
chance see who was on my other side?”

“I think it was Lord Oakley, but I’m not entirely positive,” Catriona fibbed. There
was no need for anyone to know she’d memorized the seating arrangements.

“Oh.” Lady Cecily brought her cup to her lips again. “How perfectly pleasant.”

The conversation stalled at that, and then, after Fiona had put her attention back
to her needlework, Lady Cecily blurted, “Are either of you chilled? I’m chilled.”

“The tea isn’t very hot,” Catriona said, since the sudden statement seemed to call
for some sort of reply.