One Night with the Laird

“Would you like me to wake him? Give him a shave? Breakfast?” Mairi was sure she could detect sarcasm in Frazer’s voice now. She looked at him sharply. He looked blandly back at her.

“Let him sleep,” Mairi said. She could feel herself blushing at the implication. “Then show him out. Oh, and, Frazer—” She hesitated. “If he asks any questions...”

Frazer nodded. “Of course, ma’am. Not a word.”

“Thank you.” Mairi’s throat felt rough. Tears pricked the back of her eyes. Frazer might disapprove of her behavior, but she still held his loyalty. Four years now since her husband, Archie, had gone and she could still feel the pain of his leaving squeeze her heart like a vise.

Outside in Candlemaker Row the wind was sharp. A pearl-white sky was unfurling over the city of Edinburgh. Mairi drew the shawl more closely about her. By the time she reached the Royal Mile the carriage was waiting, one of Frazer’s handsome sons standing ready to open the door for her. She climbed in and set off for her house in Charlotte Square, for a bath and for clean clothes. She ached so much. Her body ached from the pleasure, but her heart ached more.

She closed her eyes. Despite the extraordinary intimacy of the night, she felt lonelier than she had ever felt in her life.

CHAPTER TWO

July 1815

“YOU LOOK BLUE-DEVILLED.” Robert, Marquis of Methven, threw down his cards and viewed his companion with amusement in his narrowed blue eyes. “Money troubles, is it?”

“Why do you say that?” Jack Rutherford placed his own hand slowly on the table and reached for his cup of coffee. It was rich, warm and exceptionally good and it did nothing to soothe his spirits. What he really wanted was brandy but these days he never drank it. He had had an unhappy relationship with alcohol in his youth and he had no intention of ever letting his drinking get out of control again.

“You’ve been playing as cagily as a spinster aunt betting a shilling at whist,” Methven said cheerfully. “Your mind is elsewhere. And it cannot be a woman who’s spoiling your game since you never let them get to you—”

Jack shifted edgily. Some coffee spilled. He looked up to see his cousin laughing at him.

“Damn you, Rob,” he said, without heat.

“Never seen you like this before,” Methven said. “I suppose it had to happen sometime. Who is she?”

Jack paused. The club was three-quarters empty and wreathed in silence, which was good since he did not fancy rehearsing his romantic disasters to an audience. It was a situation he seldom if ever found himself in. Usually he was fighting women off rather than pining for their company.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, after a moment.

Methven raised a quizzical brow. “No name?”

“We didn’t talk much.”

His cousin sighed with weary acceptance. Robert knew him well. “Description?” he said.

“She was tall,” Jack said. “She was slender and she had long hair. I don’t know,” he repeated. “It was too dark to see.”

Methven almost choked on his brandy. “Devil take it, Jack. Where did this...uh...encounter occur?”

“At a masked ball,” Jack said. “At least that was where it started. It finished...” He shrugged. “Elsewhere. Somewhere in the Old Town.”

Methven was laughing now. Jack supposed it was funny in a way; he had a reputation for leaving women before the sheets were cold, and here he was, craving a woman who had used him and discarded him with a ruthlessness that stole the breath. It had not happened to him before. He did not like it. He was always the one to walk away first.

Yet that was not why he wanted to find her. He felt unsettled, distracted. Three months. It was ridiculous. He should have forgotten her two months and twenty-nine days ago. Yet her memory lingered. Only the previous day he had let a business deal slip through his fingers because he was not paying attention and someone else had undercut him with a better offer. Women had never come between him and his work before, and the fact that this one had done so frustrated him and made him angry.

“What do you know about her?” Methven was asking.

Nothing much that he wanted to discuss, Jack thought. He knew she was lovely and lissome, with skin that smelled of jasmine and was as soft as silk. He knew her hair curled deliciously. He had traced the contours of her face and knew it was fine-boned with a straight nose and a haughty little chin. He knew she had high, rounded breasts, small but perfect, and that her stomach curved in a way that made him ache to have her again and that the skin of her inner thighs was the softest of all.

He knew he was getting an erection merely through thinking about her and that if he did not find her soon he would run mad. He was sure his determination to track her down was no more than a physical compulsion, driven by lust, and that it would burn itself out once it was satisfied. But until he could find her he remained very unsatisfied indeed.

“She was a lady,” he said, remembering the cut glass accent and the note of command. Not a virgin, for surely a virgin would not have been so utterly without inhibition. And yet for all her apparent experience, he had sensed her vulnerability. And she had been sad. He remembered the way she had cried out in her sleep and the tears on her cheek, and felt a sharp, unwelcome pang of protectiveness.

“Forget her,” Methven was saying. “You know what Edinburgh society is like. She is probably a bored wife or a predatory widow. You will only be one of many. It sounds as though you both got what you wanted.” He raised a shoulder in a half shrug. “Don’t spoil the memory, Jack.”

It was good, if unpalatable, advice. Jack did not flatter himself that his mystery seductress had bedded no one but him. The anonymous black carriage and the luxurious love nest both argued against it. He was probably only the latest in a long line of conquests. He had experienced a night of unbridled passion with absolutely no commitment given, wanted or required, the sort of night many a man would kill for. He should be grateful. And he should walk away. Most certainly he should not make a fool of himself a third time by returning to the house in Candlemaker Row in a vain attempt to find her or to persuade the steward, tight as a clam, to reveal even one tiny detail that might help him in his search.

Methven pushed the coffeepot toward him. “She must have been good,” he said. “Or bad in the best possible way.”

Jack did not reply. His mouth tightened. Oh yes, she had been good, very good indeed. He had never known a woman like her, never been so lost in carnal pleasure, never felt this ache of longing.

“Have you tried bedding a harlot for the sake of a cure?” Methven asked. “Replace one whore with another—”

Jack was already half on his feet, his hand going to his sword, before he realized what he was doing. He saw his cousin raise his brows in laconic amusement, realized that he had been set up and wondered what on earth was showing in his eyes.

“I apologize,” Methven said swiftly. “I did not realize it was like that.”

“It isn’t,” Jack growled. He subsided into his seat with a sigh and splashed some more coffee into his cup. “I don’t know...” He stopped. He did not know why he had reacted so badly when his cousin had, in all likelihood, been correct and the woman had probably been a high-class harlot. Except that somehow he knew she was not. And for some reason it mattered.

“She wasn’t a whore,” he said stubbornly.

“Have you been back to the place you met?” Methven said. His blue eyes were steady and watchful now, measuring Jack’s reaction. Jack kept his expression studiously blank.

“I have,” he said. The masked ball had been held at Lady Durness’s town house in Charlotte Square. The house was closed now for the summer and the butler had been less than helpful on the subject of her ladyship’s guest list. The anonymous black carriage had had no family crest. The house in Candlemaker Row, so opulent, had given no clues.

He had to accept that she did not want to be found, and as he was not a man who forced his attentions on unwilling women, that was the end of the affair. He was left with nothing but frustration, anger at having been used and a sense of thwarted lust.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. He summoned up a smile. “Was there something in particular you wanted, Rob? Your note mentioned a favor.”

His cousin nodded. He was staring thoughtfully into the middle distance in a way that made Jack feel uneasy. Then he raised his eyes to meet Jack’s gaze. “You know that Ewan is to be christened at Methven in a month’s time?” he said. “We would like you to be present.”

Robert had married Lady Lucy MacMorlan three years before and they already had two sons, the second baby having been born two months previously. James, the heir, had been baptised at a grand occasion the previous year. Now it seemed that the spare would be getting the same treatment.

“I suppose this will be another of your grand clan gatherings,” Jack said.

Robert played with the stem of his wineglass. “The christening will certainly be a formal occasion,” he said at last, “but the house party is a family event.”

Jack tried not to groan aloud. He hated family occasions, formal or informal, and this one would no doubt prove even more uncomfortable than the last. Traditionally the Methven and the MacMorlan clans had been enemies. Some members of the family still seemed to think that they were.

“Surely your marriage should have been sufficient to heal the rift between the clans?” he said. “Must you do more?”

Robert’s blue eyes were amused. “Yes, I must. Lucy and I have not seen Lachlan and Dulcibella since they eloped. They had the tact to stay away from James’s christening last year.”

“Well, you are not missing anything,” Jack said. “Don’t invite them. Grandmama can’t stand them. No one can. You had a very lucky escape there, Rob.”

Robert’s eyes warmed and Jack knew he was thinking of his wife. Three years previously Robert had been betrothed to marry Miss Dulcibella Brodrie when she had eloped with Lucy’s brother, Lachlan. Robert, Jack thought, had been immensely fortunate; Lucy was charming, clever and beautiful and loved him to distraction. Dulcibella was spoiled, shallow and spiteful and loved no one but herself. There were already rumors of a rift in her marriage to Lachlan.

“I have to be on good terms with Lachlan,” Robert said. There was an edge to his voice now. “Now that Dulcibella has inherited the Cardross estates, we are neighbors. I don’t want any border disputes.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “There was something else, Jack. We wondered... Will you stand as godfather to Ewan?”

The atmosphere changed; silence settled. Jack could find no words. He felt cold to his bones at what his cousin was asking. To be a godfather he would have to embrace family ties, family responsibilities. He would need to be a real active presence in his godson’s life. God forbid that anything might happen to Robert and Lucy, but if it did he might even be required to act as both boys’ guardian, a role for which he was supremely unfit. Jack repressed a shudder.

“You don’t need me,” he said lightly. “Ewan has a whole clan of relatives far more suitable than I.”

Robert’s eyes narrowed. “Jack,” he said, “should anything happen to Lucy or I, I would want you to stand as guardian to both James and Ewan.”

Cold fear seeped through Jack’s body. It was impossible.

“Rob—” he said, with difficulty.

“Lucy and I would like it very much,” Robert said gently. “If you feel able to accept.”

Jack did not look at him. He kept his gaze fixed on the dregs of the coffee that swirled in his cup.

“I am not exactly an ideal role model,” he said, striving for a light tone. “Ewan deserves better.”

“On the contrary,” his cousin replied evenly. “Ewan could not do better.” Then as Jack remained silent, his tone quickened with impatience. “Jack, for God’s sake, give yourself some credit. I know what you are thinking, but you did what you thought was best for Averil—”

Jack cut him off with one swift gesture. He never talked about his sister and he was not going to start now. “I left her to rot in that terrible school, Rob,” he said. “I did nothing for her.”

There was silence, heavy with unspoken comment. Then Robert sighed. “Very well. I respect your frankness and I do understand.” He shifted in his chair. “You will still come to Methven for the christening, though?”

“That’s not really a question, is it?” Jack said. “You are ordering me.”

Amusement gleamed in Robert’s eyes. “I can do no such thing, as you are well aware.” He allowed a moment’s quiet. “Grandmama would appreciate it. She has been in poor health lately, as you know. Seeing you would cheer her.”

“I don’t respond well to blackmail,” Jack said mildly. He let out a long sigh. “Oh, very well. As long as she has no further plans to marry me off.”

“It would make her happy to see you wed,” Robert said.

“You’re looking shifty,” Jack observed.

His cousin sighed. “Grandmama may—and I only say may—have invited a number of eligible ladies to Methven for the house party—”

“Like a cattle mart,” Jack said. His mouth twisted. “You’re not selling this to me, Rob.”

“Now that you have the estate at Glen Calder, you must surely be thinking of the future,” Robert said mildly.

“My future does not involve a wife and family,” Jack said, his voice hard. “Not every man wants such things.” He gulped down a mouthful of coffee, and another. It was not what he wanted. What he wanted—what he needed—was the fierce burn of brandy. It was not often these days that he thought of drinking himself into oblivion, but tonight the prospect was tempting. Too tempting. He knew his weaknesses, knew how little it would take. He pushed the bottle further away. He wished Robert was not drinking brandy but it was not his cousin’s fault. Robert had offered to take coffee with him and Jack had refused and ordered him the spirits. He hated anyone pandering to his weakness.

“Jack, you should not blame yourself,” Robert said. He cursed under his breath. “You should not have to bear the weight of your parents’ mistakes.”

“Let us not speak of it,” Jack said. His throat felt rough, his voice strained. He could hear his cousin’s words, but they could not touch him. He did not believe them because the truth was that he had failed. As the only son, he had had the duty to protect his mother and his sister after his father’s death, and he had failed them both shamefully.

He eyed the brandy bottle. His fingers itched to reach for it. He could feel the compulsion creeping through him like a dark tide.

It was better that he should be alone. That way there was no danger he would fail anyone but himself. He slid a hand across the table, reaching for the bottle.

“...Lady Mairi MacLeod,” Robert said.

Jack stopped, his head snapping round. “I beg your pardon?”

“I said that I would like you to escort Lady Mairi MacLeod to the christening,” Robert repeated. Then, when Jack did not immediately respond, “I know that you dislike her, but she is my sister-in-law. It would be a courtesy.”

Jack groaned. “Must I?” he said. Just when he had thought that the evening could not become worse, it had done so.

Dislike did not even begin to encompass his feeling for Mairi MacLeod. When he had first met her three years before at her sister’s wedding he had thought her fascinating, cool, beautiful, self-contained, a challenge. He liked rich widows and they tended to like him in return. He had wasted no time in suggesting to Mairi that she should become his mistress. She had told him in no uncertain terms what he could do with his proposition and after that had treated him with the utmost indifference. Jack was not accustomed to rejection, and it annoyed him that even after so clear a refusal he was still attracted to Mairi MacLeod with a powerful dark strain of awareness he could not dismiss. A week in her company escorting her over bad roads on the long and arduous journey to the Highlands would make him want to alternately strangle her and make love to her and neither option was possible.

Robert gave an exaggerated sigh. “I fail to understand your antipathy.”

“Then let me enlighten you,” Jack said. “Lady Mairi is proud and haughty. She’s too rich, too beautiful and too clever.”

Antagonism stirred in him again. It infuriated him that he could not be indifferent to Mairi MacLeod. Not even his night of outrageous passion with his mystery seductress had been able to break her spell. In fact, oddly it seemed to make the craving worse. Now there were two women he lusted after and could not bed.

Robert was laughing. “Does she have any other faults you wish to share?” he murmured.

Jack ran a hand through his hair. “I would rather not escort her,” he said. “Why can’t she travel with her family?”

“Because they are at Forres and Lady Mairi is at her home just outside Edinburgh,” Robert said with unimpaired calm. “It’s a courtesy, Jack. As I said, we are trying to heal the breach between the clans.” He shrugged. “If Lady Mairi dislikes you as much as you say, then she will refuse your escort.”

“She might accept simply to torment me,” Jack muttered. He gave a sharp sigh. “Oh, very well. But you owe me a favor.”

“I really do not think so,” Robert said dryly.

“Five minutes,” Jack said. “It will only take me five minutes to ask and for her to refuse.” He would spend no longer than that in her company. He would go to Ardglen, he would invite Mairi to travel with him to Methven, she would refuse and then he would be gone. Once at Methven for the christening, they could cordially ignore each other.

He sat back, the tension easing a little from his shoulders. He and Mairi MacLeod could surely manage to be civil to each other for so short a time. Five minutes and then it would be done.

* * *

“Tell Lady Mairi MacLeod that Mr. Rutherford wishes to see her.”

Mairi had been in the drawing room when she heard the door knocker sound with a sharp rap that was both arrogant and commanding. A moment later there were voices in the hall and one, a deep drawl she now recognized with every fiber of her being, made her jump so much that she almost snipped off her own fingers rather than the long stems of the roses she was arranging. Laying the secateurs softly on the table, she tiptoed across to the half-open door and stood poised, aware of the tension seeping through her body. The heavy scent of the roses seemed to fill the air, stifling her breath. The blood beat hard in her ears. She gripped the door handle tightly and closed her eyes as the world spun too fast.

Time had lulled her into a false sense of security. She had left Edinburgh the same morning that she had left Jack sleeping off his excesses in her bed. She had come to her country house and had dropped out of society in the hope of avoiding him. She had begun to think she was safe.

Yet here he was.

She tried to steady her breathing, to tell herself there was no danger. Even if Jack had identified her, she did not have to confront him. She had told the footmen to admit no one, and they were very well trained. Even now she could hear one of them politely refusing Jack access to her with a smooth and well-practiced rebuttal.

“I’m sorry, sir, but Lady Mairi is not receiving guests at the moment.”

“She’ll see me,” Jack said briefly.

Mairi drew back, but it was too late. Perhaps Jack had seen the flicker of her shadow across the black-and-white marble floor of the hallway. Perhaps he sensed her presence. She had only a few seconds’ warning and then Jack was striding into the drawing room and facing her. There was both authority and an easy grace in the way he moved across the floor toward her. She felt all the breath leave her body in a rush, felt the shivers chase across her skin. She realized that she was shaking and knitted her fingers together to still the betrayal.

The first thing she noticed about him was the elegance of his tailoring. He had certainly gone to a lot of trouble in his dress before he called on her. She was not sure how to interpret that. Jack always dressed well, but today he looked spectacular; his clothes were expensive and beautifully cut, the linen pristine white, the boots with a high polish. He carried it off well too, casually but with supreme elegance. So many men looked ridiculous in their fashions, impaled on high shirt points, their jackets stiffened with buckram. Jack Rutherford did not need any artificial aids in order to look good. The jacket of green superfine fit his broad shoulders without a wrinkle. His pantaloons were like a second skin, molding his muscular thighs.

Mairi felt awareness spark and flare deep inside her. Her breath caught beneath her ribs, and her heart started to race. Jack looked a little bit dangerous, more than a little handsome with the tousled tawny hair tumbling over his brow and those narrowed laughing eyes, his face chiseled and clean-shaven. The impossible intimacies they had shared made her consciousness of him so fierce that she was not sure she could hide her reaction to him.

She was staring. She chided herself for it and took a deep breath to steady herself.

He executed a perfect bow. “Lady Mairi.”

There was no apology for interrupting her, no reference to the fact that he had explicitly ignored her desire for solitude. In Edinburgh she had been the one who had driven their encounter. Now that seemed absurd. Jack Rutherford was far too forceful to be anything other than in control. His easy charm cloaked a will of steel.

“Mr. Rutherford,” Mairi said, matching his indifference with a chilly civility of her own.

His gaze brushed her face. There was no recognition at all in his eyes.

He did not know.

Relief weakened her knees and she almost had to grab the table for support. Disturbingly, beneath the sense of reassurance were other emotions. She identified disappointment and realized that everything that was feminine within her wanted him to remember her.

Madness. She should be happy to have got away with it. She should be grateful and relieved, anything but this vain and foolish dissatisfaction.

“How do you do, sir?” she said. “I hope you are well.”

Jack’s mouth twisted as though to suggest that he knew the words were no more than a commonplace courtesy. He did not even trouble to reply.

“I understand that you will be traveling to Methven for the christening of your nephew,” he said. His gaze was moving about the room as though he had no particular desire to look at her. “I am here to offer my escort.”

He was here about Ewan’s christening. Mairi felt simultaneously relieved to understand the reason for his visit and deeply irritated that his offer had been made in such an offhand manner.

“How kind,” she said. Then, stung to sarcasm by his indifference: “I had no notion you desired my company so much.”

His gaze came back to her, cool hazel, remote. “The offer is made is at my cousin’s request, madam, rather than my own inclination.”

“Of course,” Mairi said. “I knew it would not be your choice.” She smiled at him, equally cool. “Please tell Lord Methven that I appreciate his thoughtfulness but I will make my own arrangements.”

Jack nodded. She could tell he was not going to try to persuade her to change her mind, presumably because escorting her to Methven Castle was the very last thing on earth that he wanted to do. Everything about his demeanor suggested that he wished to be gone from her drawing room and preferably her life. She could understand that. While she could think of nothing but their wicked night together, Jack still thought of her as a woman who had rejected his advances and treated him with disdain, a woman he was unfortunately bound to through their mutual relatives.

If only he knew. The irony of it almost made her smile.

“Goodbye, Mr. Rutherford,” she said. “It is fortunate that Methven Castle is large enough that we need see little of each other during our stay.”