Forgetting the Scot (Highlanders of Balforss) Page 12

  “No!”

  Virginia held Charlotte by her shoulders and gave her a little shake to get her attention. “Calm down. You look fine. Beautiful as ever. Take a deep breath and tell us, who is Mr. Howard?”

  Charlotte closed her eyes, and Virginia saw her lips move is if she were counting silently to herself. When she opened her eyes again, she had regained her cool composure.

  “He is my solicitor’s son.”

  “The one you’re in love with?”

  Charlotte gave her a look of warning that said, Tread lightly, my friend.

  Jemma woke and pointed at the pond. “Uck?”

  “In a minute, darling,” Lucy said. “This Mr. Howard said he was your solicitor.”

  “Terrence is a partner in his father’s firm. So, in a way, he represents me.”

  “Well, come on then. Let’s go see him,” Caya said.

  “No! Stay here. I’ll go alone.” Charlotte took a deep breath, lifted her head high, and marched off toward the house.

  They waited silently for a moment or two. Even Jemma remained quiet for once. Then Lucy said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m not missing this for the world.”

  They followed, careful to stay out of sight. Once Charlotte disappeared inside the house, they practically sprinted across the yard.

  Lucy handed Jemma off to Flora just inside the back door. “Where are they?”

  “I believe they went for a walk in the front garden. What are you ladies up to?”

  “Nothing.”

  The dining room windows offered the best view of the front garden. Virginia fumbled for her spectacles then pressed her nose to the glass, as did Lucy and Caya. The ripples and imperfections of the window pane warped the figures of Charlotte and a tall blond man. He fidgeted with his hat in his hand.

  “What do you think they’re talking about?” Caya asked.

  “I don’t know, but he seems to be doing all the talking,” Lucy said.

  “He looks like he’s apologizing,” Virginia ventured. “See the way his right hand goes to his heart?”

  “Wait. He just tossed his hat on the ground,” Caya said. “What’s he doing now?”

  “He’s searching for something in his jacket,” Lucy said. “No, his trousers—no, his jacket.”

  “There. He’s found it.” Virginia hadn’t been this entertained since the last pantomime she saw in London.

  “Oh, my goodness,” Caya gasped.

  “Look,” Lucy said. “He’s gotten down on one knee. He’s…he’s…”

  “He’s asking her to marry him.” Caya bounced up and down on her heels.

  “Wait-wait-wait. Hush, everyone. We don’t know if she’s said yes or no.”

  The three of them pressed their foreheads to the glass, breathless. The man stood and the two figures melded together as one.

  “They’re kissing!” Caya cried. “She said yes!”

  When Virginia turned to look at her companions, she realized that, like her, they were both laughing and crying at the same time. Such was the joy they had in their hearts for Charlotte.

  …

  Magnus tied Finbar to the paddock fence. He should go home and wash. He was filthy from two days riding and no doubt smelled like a horse, but Alex had invited him and Declan in for food and ale. They hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and he was famished. Some of Mrs. Swenson’s victuals would not go amiss.

  Near the house, they heard some awful female screeching coming from within and dashed inside, hearts pounding and dirks drawn. Alex pulled up short at the dining room door, groaned, and sheathed his dirk. No emergency. Just female excitement.

  “Alex,” Lucy called.

  He stepped into the room and gathered up his wife.

  Caya cried out for Declan, and they embraced as well.

  That left him and Virginia standing ten feet apart staring at each other. At that moment, everything else disappeared from view, the furniture, walls, floor, people—everything faded away. All he saw was her standing by the window, glowing in the afternoon light. The look on her face warmed him from inside. She was happy to see him. He would have reached out and swept her into his arms and kissed her if he hadn’t run into the chair.

  “Och.”

  She laughed. “Perhaps we should get you some spectacles, too.”

  “Nae,” he chuckled. “Just temporarily blinded by you—by your bonnie blue gown.”

  “Ah ha! Did you hear that, Virginia?” Lucy said. “We are vindicated. They heard the wolf howl last night.”

  Virginia looked to him for confirmation.

  “Aye. You were right. We heard your wolf.”

  “You didn’t kill it, did you?”

  “Nae, lass. I couldnae. God would never forgive me.”

  Sadness tinged her smile. He wanted to touch her, tell her not to worry for the beast. She was only a few feet away, yet they could as well have been miles apart for all the good it did.

  Someone had entered the house. Shouts of congratulations and introductions echoed in the entry hall, but he wanted no part of that chaos. He wanted his viscountess.

  “Can I have a word with you? Alone.”

  She nodded.

  He led the way quietly through the back of the house and held the kitchen door open, hoping she followed. She swished past him without a word. The rustle of those skirts. Why was the sound so arousing? She kept even with him, two steps for every one of his long strides, seeming to sense his urgency. He stopped outside the stable door and looked around. No one from the house could see them. They were sheltered from casual glances by the building’s shadow. Virginia watched him. Was she wondering what he was thinking the same way he wished he could read her mind?

  The temptation to take her in his arms was strong. He clasped his hands behind his back.

  You can look, but you cannae touch.

  He’d lied. He didn’t want to have a word alone with her, just wanted to be alone with her. Now that he had her, what the bloody hell was he going to do with her?

  “You…and me…this thing between us… It can never be.”

  “Yes. I know.”

  “I think about you all the time. You’re all I think about.”

  “Yes. I know.”

  “And I ken I’m being foolish. It’s useless to want you because I can never have you.”

  “Yes. I know.”

  “You’re elegant and cultured and beautiful. Bloody hell, you’re a viscountess and I’m just a farmer. I’m nothing.”

  He clenched his fists, wishing he could hit something, smash whatever had him by the balls. “Jesus, woman. I want…I want…argh. If you want me to leave you be, I will. Tell me to go away and you’ll no’ see me again. Even if it kills me.” He closed his eyes and waited. He didn’t want to see the pity in her eyes when she told him she didn’t want him.

  “Magnus,” she said, in that deep, bedroom voice of hers. “Look at me.” He opened his eyes and saw a reflection of his own desire in hers. “I’ll do no such thing.”

  He released a sob of relief. Then another feeling, more powerful than the last, overtook him with a force he hadn’t anticipated.

  “Bloody hell, I need to kiss you. Now.” He spun a full circle. Seeing no one about, he grabbed Virginia by the hand, and dragged her with him behind the stable.

  To his surprise, she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him first. A long, fierce kiss. And then his heart tipped like a bucket of honey, and feelings he hadn’t known he possessed poured out, coating his insides with warmth and happiness like he’d never known.

  He pulled her against his body, and he hardened instantly. She tasted like cinnamon and strawberry jam, and he had that crazy desire to lick her face again. His Goddam nose bumped her spectacles. She groaned and tore them off, then captured his lips. She kissed him like she was starving, like the world might end any moment and she might die in his arms if he stopped kissing her.

  He circled his hand around her neck to cradle her head, and his thum
b rested on her pulse. He would have to kiss her there. Her eyes were closed, and their long, light brown lashes rested on her cheeks. He would have to kiss them, too. He would kiss her everywhere. Even in her secret places.

  Guilt wormed its way into Magnus’s conscience. This was wrong. So good, but so wrong. Wicked and unfair. Especially to Virginia, to her reputation. He broke the kiss.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, breathing hard from the force of her passion. “I was supposed to look, not touch.”

  She beamed. Glowed. Christ, if a kiss lit her up, imagine what she would be like when—

  “I’m not sorry. I’ve never been kissed like that before,” she said.

  That gave him pause. Really? Never? Was that what a prat was? A man who didn’t know how to kiss a woman properly?

  “Do it again,” she said.

  He was tempted. So Goddamned tempted. “I swear, I didnae bring you out here to kiss you.”

  “Then what?”

  “I wanted to tell you that I place myself at your service. Whatever you ask of me, anything at all, I will do.”

  “Then kiss me again.”

  He fell upon her lips, not caring if it was right or wrong, only that it was her command. He’d just promised to do her bidding, to be her servant, to answer her every wish no matter what she asked of him.

  From across the yard, he heard someone call his name.

  They separated and froze as still as rabbits.

  “Magnus, where the hell are you?”

  Shite. Declan was searching for him.

  He held a finger to his lips and motioned for Virginia to stay.

  Pretending to button up the fall of his trousers after a piss, he sauntered out from behind the stable. “Aye?”

  “Och, there ye are. Lucy sent me to fetch you for a dram. We’re toasting to Lady Charlotte’s engagement. You seen Lady Langley?”

  He hitched up his trousers for good measure. “You go on back and I’ll look for her.”

  “Looking for me?” Virginia slipped out from inside the stable. The canny wee lass must have ducked under the fence and snuck around the building through the other door. God, he worshipped the woman. He could no longer turn a blind eye to his need for her. She might never be his, but he was hers. Hers for the taking, if she’d have him.

  Magnus washed and joined everyone in the dining room, the walls echoing with chatter about Lady Charlotte and her guest, Mr. Howard. He gathered the couple were recently engaged, an event that had the entire household whirling with excitement. But that wasn’t what had Magnus’s heart thundering in his chest.

  The one responsible for his current state of internal disorder was seated across the table from him, looking serene, completely unaffected, as if that kiss had never happened. As if the world had not shifted on its axis, toppling mountains and empires. He was certain he had heard them fall.

  Magnus ate. That is to say, he put food in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. He tasted only her or rather the cinnamon and strawberry jam that had lingered on her lips when he’d kissed her. The chorus of high and low voices, the chink and clatter of china and cutlery, and the occasional burst of laughter faded into an insignificant hum. All that interested him were her lips. How even now, a quarter of an hour after that mind-numbing kiss, they remained slightly swollen, bee stung, bitten.

  A burst of laughter made him surface from his stupor to discover he was the butt of the most recent joke. He gathered his wits enough to laugh along with everyone else at the table. The direction of the conversation floated toward something other than him, and he settled back into his besotted fog.

  Yes. He was besotted. Like any ordinary fool. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as bad a condition as he had imagined. No wonder men wandered into walls when under the spell of a woman. His senses were dulled to anything but her. Just like a—shite. Just like a rutting deer. Easy to bring down during mating season.

  That sobering thought brought him back around. Declan and Caya were excusing themselves from the table. Probably wanted to rush right home and make up for lost time. That familiar stab of jealousy slipped into his side like a slender knife. Odd that the pain would feel good.

  Magnus rose from the table along with everyone else. He mumbled his thanks to Auntie Flora and Uncle John. It was time for him to leave, as well. No opportunity to get her alone again. Not tonight. Not even a possibility for a private word of goodbye. Instead, he settled for brushing past her, letting his left hand graze her right. Had anyone else noticed, they would have thought it an accidental collision. But he heard the catch in her breath. She knew.

  She knew.

  She knew.

  Later, at home in his cottage, he opened the shutters to let in the evening breeze and the summer dim. He lay naked on his bed, arms folded behind his head, thinking clearly now. He’d broken the rule: You can look but you cannae touch.

  His mother’s fear had been that Magnus, a clumsy lad of seven or eight, would drop the tiny crystalline princess and break her. He was a man now. He was big, yes, but not clumsy. At least not with a sword. He handled a sword with skill and grace. And Virginia, though a noblewoman, was not made of glass. She’d survived nearly three months on that pirate ship. She would not break. And besides, he’d never drop her.

  They had agreed he could never have her. At least, he could never have her how he wanted her. She would never be his woman. He would never be her husband. He’d become something greater than her husband. Magnus was Virginia’s protector.

  She was determined to return to England, face her husband, who by her account was cold and uncaring. By Magnus’s estimation, the man had no honor and did not deserve Virginia, nor any wife. He suspected Langley of additional crimes, acts Virginia had not yet told him about, things she was hiding from him out of fear or shame. Until she told Magnus everything—the whole truth about Langley—he would protect her. He would fix this for her. Just as he had saved her, just as he had found her spectacles, he would see that she was safely restored to her fortune, her title, and her position in Society. Virginia’s purpose was to save orphans. His purpose was to save Virginia. He would fix this.

  When the Tigress was ready, he and Virginia would sail to Chatham with Ian and Peter. From there, Magnus would accompany her to London where he would remain in her service.

  The Englishman will kill you.

  Yes. He believed the gypsy woman’s prophecy. Just as he believed his dream of making love to Virginia foretold his demise. Just as he believed Declan had dreamed of his death. Declan, whose dreams never lied.

  Magnus would die in a loathsome place—England—but he would take Langley with him. And Virginia would be safe.

  …

  Early July 1817, Bromley Hall, Kent, England

  Langley rose from bed at the fashionable hour of two in the afternoon, dressed, and took his coffee in his library. He’d celebrated his most recent financial coup late into the night at his club, The Black Harness, and hadn’t returned home until six this morning. He’d received word earlier yesterday that Sir Henry had convinced his daughter to marry him. Normally, Langley would never stoop to dealing with a man like Sir Henry, a mere baronet of insignificant standing, but for the fact that the man had one notable asset, his eldest daughter Lady Ellington. The young widow of Lord Ellington was recently dowered of her deceased husband’s obscene fortune, a fortune that would soon be Langley’s, once the marriage vows were taken.

  Lord Ellington had passed in December, and though such a hasty second marriage might be considered untoward, Sir Henry assured Langley that Jemima would be his by the end of July. He consulted his calendar and made a note.

  3 August. Marry wife number two.

  He selected a cheroot from his humidor, ran it under his nose, and was about to light it when Cutter entered the library.

  “I beg your pardon, Your Lordship. There is a lady to see you, a Miss Mina Whitebridge.”

  Drat. What was that dried up spinster doing on his doorstep? “Tell her to bugg
er off.”

  “Sir?” the butler asked.

  “Damn. Send the meddlesome baggage in.”

  He refused to stand for her when she scurried into the room, looking like death.

  She curtsied. “Your Lordship.”

  “If you’ve come to ask me not to sell the house, you can save your breath.”

  “That is not my primary reason for this visit,” Mina said. “I’ve come to tell you that I’ve received a letter from my niece, your wife.”

  “Nonsense. She’s dead. Someone is trying to trick you.”

  “The letter is authentic. My niece is alive and living in Scotland.”

  Langley kicked his legs off the desk and sat forward. How could that be? He’d seen her with his own eyes. Her broken glasses, her coat, her ring, her bonnet…her smashed face—damn. Plague take those two imbeciles, Mudd and Pismire. They were supposed to kill her.

  His hand itched for a riding crop. He needed to thrash someone—anyone. The spinster would do. “You’re absolutely sure?”

  “I’m positive. She’d been kidnapped by pirates. Lord knows how they must have used her. Death would have been a blessing. Unfortunately, someone rescued her.”

  A seething, all-consuming rage threatened to overtake him. Mudd and his pox-ridden lackey must have sold Virginia and used a substitute body, thinking they could scrounge a few more pounds.

  “And why do you come to me?”

  “I came to offer you my services. A trade, so to speak.”

  Langley stormed toward the crone. He would kill Mudd and Pismire, but first, he’d kill the messenger.

  She held up a hand, and he stopped himself from reaching for her throat. “Show me the letter,” he growled.

  “When I have your assurance that you won’t sell the St. James house.”

  “I want the letter. Where is it?”

  “It’s in a safe place,” she said and lifted her chin.

  Blast it, he hated the smug look on the witch’s face.

  “I want your promise. In writing.”

  “Fine.”

  Ten minutes later, Mina Whitebridge left the library with his written promise not to sell St. James, for all the good it would do her. He read the information she had left him. Laird John Sinclair of Balforss, Caithness, Scotland. Damn the Highlands. Damn the Scots. Damn Virginia. He reached for his cup and hurled it at the mantel. It made a satisfying crash, spattering coffee on the wall and skittering shards of china across the floor.