“Ella is sixteen—approaching an age when she must be brought out, Struan. Those qualities expected in the wife of a suitable husband must be encouraged. A fine seat on a horse is certainly noticed.”
Struan glanced sideways at her, barely hearing what she said. Much more of interest was her reaction to the lodge’s main hall. Generations ago men had gathered here after long days of hunting to eat and drink and brag about their marksmanship and the prizes they’d bagged.
To please Ella he’d removed the animal heads with their gaping jaws. A fortunate decision. He doubted Justine would have been more comfortable with the trophies than his young charge.
Drawing Justine with him, Struan made a circuit of stone walls, raising his candle to light others held in iron brackets every few feet. Gradually the colorful, curiously eclectic assortment he’d amassed emerged from shadow.
Justine said nothing at all.
“You must be utterly exhausted,” he said rapidly. “And chilled into the bargain after I’ve dragged you through such a night. I’ll make you comfortable and light the fire.”
If he kept looking about him he’d start apologizing. In that direction lay danger, since he’d then have to explain himself. He could not explain his circumstances to Justine. Never.
An ancient Italian giltwood daybed upholstered in silk damask the color of old amber and emeralds pulled easily from its place beneath a high, heavily draped window. Struan situated the piece near the fireplace. He had found the daybed in a small salon off the ballroom and decided it might appeal to Ella.
“Rest here,” he told Justine, guiding her to sit against the pillows and lifting her legs onto the elongated seat. “This will keep you warm.” She still wore her cloak, but he took off his own to cover her and added an armful of jewel-toned silk shawls quickly snatched from their positions draped over a gold Chinese screen encrusted with mother-of-pearl figures.
The first clatter of rain sounded on windowpanes. Wind moaned between turrets and roared in the chimney.
Pushing aside velvet pillows—Max’s favorite thinking spot—from their station before the hearth, Struan heaped up kindling and started small flames leaping in a fireplace tall enough for a man to all but stand upright.
He added larger pieces of wood and soon the blaze crackled. “There.” Perhaps he could negotiate this difficult situation and send his friend forth without her truly noticing how extraordinary his circumstances were. “Now we shall soon be quite warm enough. Are you hungry?”
“No.”
Thank you, God. He had absolutely no idea what food might or might not be in the kitchens. The maid Moggach had supplied, Buttercup Likely, or some such name, appeared infrequently enough to please him and said very little. When he’d told her he required no formal attention she’d seemed inordinately pleased and quite satisfied to spend her time primping a profusion of blond curls—and casting fluttering-lashed glances at him whenever the opportunity presented. Buttercup supposedly cleaned. She did not cook. Supplies were delivered from the castle regularly enough, he supposed, but he took little interest beyond asking Ella and Max if they’d eaten … when he saw them.
Struan pulled several of Max’s vibrant pillows close to the daybed and lounged in what he hoped was a nonchalant attitude. “So,” he said, smiling brightly. “Now there’s a new Duchess to deal with Franchot Castle and you’ve decided to do a spot of traveling?”
The firelight turned Justine’s large, heavily lashed eyes to a color that would rival the finest cognac. “I’m not particularly fond of traveling,” she said, unsmiling.
Struan propped an elbow and rested his head on a hand. “On the way to another destination, are we?” he asked, aware of an odd, turning sensation in his belly. He should not care that Justine undoubtedly had a life of which he knew little. “I expect you must have any number of friends in Scotland.” He did care.
“None I’d bother to visit, actually. Apart from Grace and Arran—and you.”
“None …” Struan ran his tongue over his teeth. Surely she must have known Arran and Grace were in Yorkshire with their daughter Elizabeth and Arran’s ward, Roger Cuthbert. Would she have come purely to see him? Madness was finally claiming him. He said, “I don’t think I—”
“What’s troubling you, Struan? The maid at the castle made mention of certain … She said you were hiding out here.”
He sat up abruptly and rested a forearm on his knee, “I am not hiding out,” he said sharply. “I am simply a man who prefers his privacy. There are those of us who do not care to spend their days and nights falling over flunkies at every turn.”
“You told the flunkies not to let anyone know you were here at the lodge. Anyone who might happen to come looking for you, that is.”
“I—” He looked into her deep golden eyes and away. If she could see the darkness in his soul she’d run from him, and he couldn’t bear that. “Very well, Justine. There is no point in trying to hide truth from you, even if I wanted to.” It was imperative that she leave before she learned even more of his dreadful secrets than those she now sought.
Justine pushed aside the shawls but kept his cloak wrapped about her as she swung her feet to the floor. “Share your burden with me, Struan. Let me help you.”
He almost laughed aloud. “I am in some small difficulty with someone who has decided they have a hold over me. Nothing more.” Nothing more? The horror of it was almost more than he could bear to allow shape in his mind.
“Blackmail?” she whispered. “Is that it, Struan? You are being blackmailed?”
“No!” Or was it yes? He still didn’t know exactly what the bounder wanted, dammit. “Nothing so dramatic. A simple case of someone pressing for favors I choose not to extend. Please—don’t concern yourself further with this, dear lady.”
Her dark brows drew together. “Earlier you told me you needed my help.”
He studied her. The ride had dislodged the smooth coiffure and red-brown curls—so like her brother Calum’s—tangled with the long, dark fur that lined the hood she’d pushed down.
A remote woman, some might say. Untouchable. How would it be to touch and be touched by Justine Girvin? How soft would her pale skin feel against his—beneath his?
She looked at him directly, unblinking, the faintest of smiles turning up the corners of her almost too wide mouth. In fact, Justine’s mouth was a feature well worth a great deal of consideration. Naturally pink, the lower lip was full and the upper graced by definite points. Parted, those lips revealed the edges of small, straight, exceedingly white teeth. A man’s tongue would pass easily along the moist skin that glistened just inside that mouth, would find pleasure in the sharp edges of those teeth, would thrust beyond with such exquisite enjoyment while other parts of him leaped in readiness to echo the small, sweet preludes to release.
“Struan? Are you angry with me for being direct?”
“Angry?” He shifted, conscious that his unruly brain had sent signals that must not be noted by this lady. “Absolutely not, my dear. You could not possibly make me angry.” Damned uncomfortable, but never angry.
“Good.” Her right hand went to her cheek and she smoothed back an errant strand of hair. “Is there … That is, have you perhaps met some lady who appeals to your higher senses?”
Struan stared at her, narrowed his eyes, and concentrated. “I beg your pardon?” His mind was truly suffering.
“A lady,” she said. “Is there someone who has spoken to your heart, perhaps?”
Oh, good God. She assumed he had somehow managed to find a mate in the middle of the disaster that was his life. “No, Justine. No—no lady has spoken to my heart.” Other than you and I cannot have you.
“Surely you must be considering the advisability of marrying again for the sake of your motherless children.”
Naturally it was time for yet another of his damnable lies to surface—albeit a lie that began with the most honorable of intentions and which protected the children. “Actually, I
had not been considering that particular matter.”
“But you must,” Justine said, moving forward in her earnestness. She set aside his cloak and undid her own. “You build a fine fire, Struan. I declare I grow exceeding warm. It is essential for Ella and Max to be schooled in those areas that will ready them for the life of a viscount’s offspring.”
Struan felt suddenly truculent—and trapped. “They do well enough as they are.”
“You have a tutor for them?”
“No.”
“A nanny?”
“No.”
“A dancing instructor for Ella?”
“No.”
“You take them to church yourself?”
He shuddered. “No.”
Justine shrugged free of her cloak and leaned even closer. “Struan, Ella is sixteen?”
He began to feel particularly bloody. “When last I checked, yes, she was. Just.”
“And Max must be eleven.”
“Eleven follows ten. So you must be correct.”
“Sin’s ears. This is worse than I had imagined!” The neck of Justine’s black gown was demure, but the faintest hint of her breasts, trembling with ire now, showed above pleated velvet trim. “Get the children from their beds.”
“Get the …” His mouth remained open, but he couldn’t recall the rest of what he’d intended to say.
Justine swept wide her arms to take in the gaudy room with its collection of outrageous furnishings from every country Struan’s grandfather had ever visited. “I wish to see Ella and Max and assess the exact scope of the task that lies before me.”
Struan glanced from her glittering eyes, to her moist and parted lips, to the rapid rise and fall of her breasts. Outrage did wonderful things for the cool Lady Justine. It made her absolutely irresistible—particularly to a man who hungered for emotion from a woman he admired. He truly admired Justine.
And he must send her back to Calum and Cornwall before the entire Franchot clan—together with his own egotistical, judgmental brother—descended like an army with sabers drawn. If he set a hand on this woman, they’d draw lots for the honor of running him through.
“Get them!”
“I can’t … I mean, absolutely not, Justine. I would not consider disturbing their rest. Let that be the last I hear of such an irresponsible suggestion.”
“Oh.” She pressed her fingers to her mouth, and for an awful moment her eyes seemed to brim with tears. “Forgive me.” She blinked rapidly, loading her lashes with moisture but blessedly saving the tears.
Struan ignored the battering of his own heart and patted the hand that rested on her knee. “You’re tired, dear one. And a little overwrought, I shouldn’t be surprised. You’ll see the children soon enough.”
“There are things I want,” she said, sounding strangled and entirely unlike herself.
There were things he wanted—the devil take it. “You must rest, and then we’ll see about getting you on your way wherever you’re going.”
“I’m going to write a treatise for young women.”
Now he was puzzled.
She went on. “Do you realize that everything that has been written about women—about women and men together, that is—has been written by men?”
Oh, the hour grew very late. “That does not seem particularly surprising to me.”
“No, no, of course it wouldn’t. Well, that is to change, and I am the one to change it. I have already begun a volume intended to revolutionize the lot of young females faced with the terrifying prospect of marriage to creatures so entirely different from themselves, creatures about whom they know absolutely nothing.”
“How … I mean why would you undertake such an unnecessary venture?”
Justine’s fingers tightened around his on her knee. “Struan, because I know you are merely a product of what you have been taught by unfeeling men, I shall forgive you that question. I know you well enough to be certain that when I have explained my project to you, you will not be able to wait to assist me.”
She would benefit from being taken in his arms and soothed—and kissed soundly. “Hmm. Assist you, Justine? I fear I—”
“It is too complicated to clarify entirely tonight. I simply hope that you will agree to help me explain certain elements of the male-female—urn—experience, in such a way as to make the entire process sound pleasant to prospective brides. It is my intention that every young woman who reads my work will go to her marriage bed with alacrity! After reading the revelations I intend to set out, my girls will enter their bridal chambers triumphant in the knowledge that they are their new husbands’ equals in the matters about to unfold.”
Struan’s head had gradually bowed while he watched, her mouth form words. He shook himself slightly and said, “Unbelievable.” Surely she could know almost nothing of what she spoke. And she wanted him to help her remedy that situation?
He must send her home. At once. “I’d help you if I could, Justine. You know that. Unfortunately, the matter of running Kirkcaldy is weighty. Perhaps at some other time. Meanwhile, I’ll ensure that you are well rested before you continue your journey.”
“Absolutely not,” she said, straightening. “Do you think I would shirk my duty to a friend?”
Struan looked at the rising color in her face. “I fear I don’t follow you.”
“You are a man besieged.”
He was tired. And she could not possibly know just how besieged. “Thank you for your concern, my friend. I cope well with my lot.”
“You are too brave.”
I am a monster in retreat. “I do what I must.”
“And you no longer must at all.”
“Justine?”
“It is decided.” She smiled, but there was the faintest tremble about her mouth. “I shall take the children in hand and attend to their training.”
No, no, no. “I could not possibly allow you to undertake such a burden.”
“I will not listen to your selfless protests.”
Dear God. “I will not listen to your selfless offer.”
“Sin’s ears, what posh!”
“Sin’s … Does Calum approve of your colorful language, my dear?”
“I don’t care a fig for Calum’s approval. I simply decided to design my own means for venting irritation. Resourceful, I think. And satisfying. I plan to suggest the measure in my book.”
Extraordinary. “Quite so” was the only response that came to mind. “You cannot give your valuable time to the training of my children.”
She squared her shoulders. “My hitherto useless time will become meaningful while I coach and teach Ella and Max. And you will provide me with a sanctuary in which to write my instruction manual for young women. And—if you agree—you will instruct me in those matters so difficult to ascertain from the male viewpoint.”
Never. “It will never do. Your reputation—”
“Because I will be spending time alone with you? My dear Struan. Your reputation as a gentleman and my age—I am thirty-five, a year older than you, remember—the facts will overcome any obstacle.”
Her age did nothing to stop his increasingly pounding desire. Neither would her age stop her brother, or his own, from killing him if he did not treat Justine’s reputation like a crystal egg. Then there was the question of his reputation. He’d laugh about that, if he didn’t feel laughter might choke him.
“We shall speak no more of this, Justine,” he said at last. “I’ll return you to the castle.”
“No.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said no. I must be completely honest with you, just as you have always been completely honest with me. My main reason for coming here was to look after your motherless children. I need to be needed. There. I have told you the way of things.”
Involuntarily, he touched her cheek. “You are needed.” He stroked that soft skin and saw the tears spring again. This time they did not trouble him. “Your grandmother—”
“My g
randmother, pah!” Justine said of the formidable Dowager Duchess of Franchot. Tears overflowed and coursed downward. The tip of her tongue darted out to catch one.
Struan watched her tongue and felt something close to a blow in his gut. “Yes, your grandmother needs you.”
“That is not the kind of need I require.” She turned her face away. In profile, the moisture on her cheek shone silver in the firelight. “I shall never have children of my own—a source of great disappointment I’ve been forced to accept. But in the short time I spent with them, I fell in love with Ella and Max. And they need a female’s care, do they not?” She turned back and stared hard at him. “A gentle guiding hand in all things?”
“Well …”
“Do they not?”
“I suppose …”
“Of course they do. And I shall be the provider of that care until you marry again. We’ll send for my things in the morning. I shall be living here with you.”
Chapter Three
Slouched in a chair near her side, Struan watched Justine sleep.
With her legs once more stretched out on the daybed and her head turned so that her chin rested on her shoulder, she looked very young—and very vulnerable.
He got up from the deep leather wing chair he’d pulled close as soon as her eyes had shut, and piled more wood on the fire. Beyond the circle of its warmth, the big room was chilly. Outside the lodge, the storm raged.
Struan eased down into his chair, rested his elbows on its worn old arms, and steepled his fingers. The woman who slept on could not begin to guess the dilemma she’d presented him—or the battle she forced him to wage with his own selfish desires.
Her thick lashes rested, quite still, upon her cheeks. Although fatigue had made her pale, there was a bloom on her skin. In repose, her features were soft, the tumble of hair curly about her face. He’d already pulled his cloak up to her neck. She’d said, finally too sleepy to be quite clear, that she would “wait exactly here until the children got up.”
She deserved to know the truth. All of it. But if he told her, she’d flee and never want to set eyes upon him again. Perhaps, since there could never be anything deeper between them, at least that much—the truth—would be best.
Bride Page 3