The Perfect Stranger (33 page)

There was a long silence afterward, and then Estrellita rose in one lithe and fluid movement, flung a gauntlet of a glance at McTavish, and stalked from the camp.

After a moment, Mac got up and followed her.

“You’ve stolen every word from my mind, lass. You’re magnificent.” Mac reached to take Estrellita in his arms.

She slapped him and shoved him away. “No, don’t touch me! I can’t! I won’t.” Her chest was still heaving from the dancing, and she looked sweaty, dusty, and disheveled. Mac had never seen anyone more beautiful in his life.

“I haven’t even tried.” Mac was confused. She had seduced him with that dance, deliberately and explicitly, and now she wouldn’t even kiss him?

She retreated back into the shadows. “I will have respect, Tavish!” Her voice rang out in the darkness. “And I choose! Me! Not the man! Estrellita!”

Mac heaved a sigh. Seduction? He’d imagined the whole thing, pathetic desperado that he was. He said heavily, “Aye, I know, lass, and I’ll no’ press ye. Why would ye want such as me, anyway? You’re so graceful and beautiful, and I’m just a big, ugly lummox, and clumsy to boot.”

She ventured a little closer, where he could see her face again, and said in a softer voice, “You not ugly, Tavish. You very manly looking man. Only that beard make you ugly.”

He stroked the offending article. “But it’s a grand beard. It took me years to grow.”

She rolled her eyes. “You man, Tavish. Of course man like beard, I am woman. We different. And you not clumsy. I watch you with knife. You have big hands, but you clever with them.” Her eyes ran over him. “And you big, but…big in man is good, sometimes.” Her eyes showed deep though wary feminine approval of what she saw, and Mac’s hopes rose again.

He reached for her, and this time she allowed herself to be drawn against his body, stiff, like a little piece of wood. He kissed her gently and she sighed and seemed to relax, so he kissed her again, deeper. She opened her mouth under his, untutored but naturally sensual, and he reached for her breast, and in a flash he had a vixen in his arms, biting, scratching, and clawing to be free.

He released her, and she stared at him, poised to flee, breasts heaving, eyes wide with fear and passion mixed.

“Gently, lass, gently,” he murmured, holding his hands up pacifically. “I’ll no’ hurt you, I’ll never hurt you, no matter what you do to me.” He reached for her again, gently, saying, “Now, let us try that again. Dinna fash yerself, lass, I’ll no do anything ye dinna want, just try—”

She stepped back and glared at him suspiciously. “Why you talk to me like this?”

“Like what?”

“Like wild animal. You think I need be tamed?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You talk to Faith about me, maybe?”

“No, I’ve never discussed you with anyone.”

“Liar!” She punched him on the arm. “You know, don’t you?”

“Know what?” He said evasively, rubbing his arm. “You pack quite a punch there, lass.”

“Know what happened to me after that battle.”

“Aye,” he admitted after a moment. “I overheard you telling the cap’n’s lady about it on the balcony, and I want to say—”

“So you know I am not virgin!”

“Aye, but that’s no’ a problem. I’m no’ a virgin eith—”

Her hand flashed out and slapped him. “Do not be making fun of me, Tavish, or I will slit your throat the way I slit his—the English pig who rape me!”

“Lass, I’d never make fun of such a wicked thing done to you, especially when ye were little more than a bairn. The man deserved killing, and worse.”

She stared at him, and he saw her throat move as she swallowed convulsively.

“You’re a brave and bonny lass, Estrellita, and as beautiful as moonlight on the mist. And whether you can ever bring yourself to suffer my hands on you or not, I want you to know I will protect you with my life, for as long as you need me.”

He heard a sniffle. “You speak beautiful, but I am sorry, Tavish. I cannot, not now.”

“It’s marriage I want from you, lass,” Mac said softly. “I’m not interested in a quick tumble. I am young and strong, and I work hard. I have some money saved. I will take good care of you.”

There was a long silence, and Mac thought he heard another sniffle. “I consider you, Tavish, that is all. I…consider.” There was a pause, and she added, “But I promise nothing!”

“Did you hear that?” Faith stiffened. “Someone slapped someone.”

Nicholas said quietly, “Unless I miss my guess, that was Miss Estrellita slapping Mac, not the other way around. Don’t worry, Mac won’t hurt her.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” Nick chuckled. “Haven’t you noticed that our misogynistic Scotsman has become deeply enamored of our little gypsy? And she knows it, too. He’s putty in her hands.”

“He cares for her? And she for him? Truly?”

“Truly. They haven’t been able to take their eyes off each other since they met. All that scratching and snarling is just part of the courtship game.”

They heard a deep Scottish rumble and and answering female murmurs, but no words were audible. Nick rose and held out his hand to Faith. “But though I hope it works out for them, I don’t feel comfortable eavesdropping like this. Would you care for a moonlight swimming lesson, Mrs. Blacklock?”

She jumped up eagerly. “I’d love one, Mr. Blacklock.”

Nick picked up a blanket, shook it out, and draped it over his arm.

“What do you want that for? It’s not at all cold.”

He winked but did not explain.

They walked down to the water’s edge. The sand was clean and white, the water gleamed like a still, dark mirror edged with faint frills of lacy foam, which caught in the moonlight. The moon was a slender crescent, low in the sky. They were a mile or so from the sleepy fishing village of Biarritz, and everything was still except for the lazy ebb and slap of tiny wavelets against the shore. Nick spread the blanket and stripped off his clothes. Faith stripped to chemise and drawers.

Nick grinned. “Now, Mrs. Blacklock, you know what’s going to happen to that chemise and those drawers, and I take leave to inform you now, if they float away, I am not fetching them.”

She glanced around her warily.

“There is nobody for miles,” he assured her. “Take them off.”

She slowly unbuttoned her chemise, then, glancing around her several more times, she pulled it off, dropped her drawers, and ran down to the water.

The sight of her naked in the soft moonlight had a predictable effect on Nick, and he followed more slowly. She stood in the shallows, turning as he joined her.

“Oh,” she said, glancing down at the evidence of his desire. She smiled a small, feminine smile.

“Yes, oh,” he said. “And what are you going to do about that, Mrs. Blacklock?”

She regarded him thoughtfully. He stood knee-deep in the water, naked and waiting, as rampant as a bull, thick with desire. She bent and examined him intently. His breath stopped in his throat. She reached out and with one fingernail gently stroked him from the underside to the tip. A shudder racked him.

The feminine smile grew, and she murmured, “My, my, if we’re going to have a swimming lesson, we really ought to do something about that first, shouldn’t we?”

“Yes, we should,” he managed to croak.

“Very well, I will.” She bent down even closer, and her rosy, damp lips pursed, then parted just inches away. Nicholas could almost feel her breath, warm and sweet, on his exquisitely sensitive skin. He might never be able to breathe again.

And then she splashed him.

It took Nick a moment to recover, and when he did, he roared, “You little witch!” and plunged after her in pursuit.

Shrieking with laughter, she splashed her way deeper into the water, fleeing his masculine wrath as best she could, but he dived under the water and pulled her down.

She surfaced, spluttering and laughing.

“For that piece of impertinence, witch, I am going to have to punish you!” he growled and planted a hard, deep kiss on her mouth. She twined her arms and legs around him and kissed him back, saying when they broke for breath, “I am your penitent servant, sir.”

He looked at her dancing eyes and snorted. “Liar, there’s not a shred of penitence in you.”

She giggled and tried to look apologetic, but it was such a hopeless failure that he was forced to kiss her again. And again.

They floated in the glassy, dark sea, kissing and caressing, when suddenly Faith became aware of an unearthly glow around them.

“Look, Nicholas! What is that in the water?” Hundreds of tiny lights, green and gold and turquoise, floated in the sea around them, like stars fallen into the water. She looked up to see if they were a reflection, but the night was dark; the shred of moon had vanished, and only a few stars were visible.

But all around them there floated a hundred tiny lights.

She dipped a hand out to try to touch whatever it was, and wherever her hand trailed, the glowing lights formed a gleaming, magical trail. She wiggled her legs and left streams of fire behind her.

“I’ve heard of this,” said Nicholas beside her, “but never before seen it myself. The sailors call it ‘fire in the water,’ and they don’t like it, because it clings to the nets and warns the fish away.”

“It’s beautiful,” she said, dipping her fingers in and swishing them around her in a circle, leaving trails of glittery sea fire behind her. “I feel like a magician or a sorceress.”

“You are a sorceress,” he murmured, but low, so she didn’t hear him.

“Look, I can write my name in the water,” she said, doing it. She wrote her name, she wrote his name, and then she wrote in the black, black water, “Faith loves Nicholas.”

And Nick felt a hard knot in his chest and said not a word and made no sign that he had seen. And after a minute the words faded.

“I wonder if it will cling to my hair,” she said in such a determinedly cheerful voice, he knew his silence had wounded her.

But it would be worse to respond, he knew. Worse to get her hopes up. Better to say nothing. Pretend he didn’t see.

She held her nose and bobbed under the water, and when she came up her hair was full of glittering sea fire and she looked beautiful and magical and more than ever of a world he knew he could never share with her.

They made love on the blanket on the beach in silence, joined, yet separate, like lovers communing across a chasm. There was a frantic edge to their lovemaking that made it the most intense and powerful Nick had ever experienced, but once it was over he was flooded with melancholy, as if it were their last time, which he knew it wasn’t. Not yet.

They returned to camp in silence, hand in hand, and went to bed for the first time since their marriage, without a good night kiss. They held each other tightly in the darkness, and it was a long time before either one of them slept.

It was raining when they arrived in Bilbao, a soft, relentless drizzle that hid the mountains behind the town in a shifting veil of gray. They sought out the town’s only inn, intending to dry out as soon as they could, but as they walked in the door, a voice rang out.

“Miss Faith!”

Faith turned, surprised to hear her name called out in such a place and blinked as a small, neat man walked toward her with an uneven gait. It was Morton Black, her brother-in-law Sebastian’s agent. What on earth was he doing in Spain? “M-Mr. Black? Can it really be you?”

Morton Black took her hands in his and, beaming, bowed low. “It is indeed, Miss Faith, and I’m delighted to see you, just delighted. And looking so well—blooming you are, positively blooming.”

“I’m very pleased to see you, too, Mr. Black, but why—how—? Nothing has happened to Hope, has it?”

“No, miss, blooming like yourself, she was, when last I saw her.”

“And the others, Prudence and Gideon? Are they well?”

“In fine fettle.”

“And Charity and Edward—nothing has happened to the baby, has it? Little Aurora?”

“No, miss, they are all perfectly well, as is young Grace and the two little girls and everyone in your family, Sir Oswald and Lady Augusta included, though strictly speaking, Lady Augusta isn’t famil—”

“Then why are you here? Is it some business of Sebastian’s?”

He gave her a troubled look. “No, miss, it’s you I’ve come to find. It’s your sister—she was that worried about you that Mr. Reyne sent me to search for you.”

“Would you introduce us, please, my dear?” Nicholas, who had listened to the entire exchange, slid a possessive hand around her waist.

“Oh, yes, of course, sorry. Nicholas, this is Mr. Morton Black, my brother-in-law’s agent; Mr. Black, my husband, Mr. Nicholas Blacklock. The most incredible thing, Nicholas, Sebastian—that’s Hope’s husband—sent Mr. Black to find me—and he did!”

The two men shook hands and eyed each other cautiously.

Faith returned to the question most puzzling her. “But I don’t understand. Why was Hope so worried about me?” She turned to Nicholas and explained, “My twin and I have a special bond and can feel when each other is upset or hurt, so she must have known how happy I was.” Blushing faintly, she turned back to Mr. Black. “And besides, I’d written to her. Didn’t she get my letters?”

“Yes, miss—and by the way, I have a fat packet of letters for you upstairs, from all your sisters. But that’s how I knew to come to Bilbao. You mentioned you were coming here. She was still anxious, though.” His glance flickered toward Nicholas and back, and Faith realized that despite all her letters of reassurance, her family didn’t believe her that Nicholas was a good man. She wasn’t surprised. His rescuing her had been almost too good to be true.

“Will you stop calling her miss—she’s a married woman!” said Nicholas irritably. “She’s my wife!”

Faith gave him a surprised look. Stevens called her missie all the time, and Nicholas hadn’t once objected.

Morton Black narrowed his eyes at Nicholas. “Excuse me, sir, but would you be the Blacklock who was a junior officer under Lieutenant-General Cotton at Talavera?”

“I was, and still wet behind the ears. I gather you were at Talavera.”

“Indeed I was, sir, with the Sixtieth Foot. Copped this at Waterloo, and I reckon you was there, too.” He rapped his wooden leg loudly. “I hadn’t made the connection until I heard you snap just then. A lot younger you was back then—and I’m not just talking years, sir. Well, well, small world, isn’t it, sir?”