She took a deep breath and Struan visualized again the rise of pale, entirely female flesh. He narrowed his eyes upon her face.
“I intend,” she told him, “to organize my work into main sections, with small segments within those sections.”
“And how have you begun?”
“With”—she coughed—“with the meeting when the suitor makes his very first overtures to the female.”
Oh, God. “Are you pleased with your efforts?”
“Um … I haven’t written them yet.”
“You were writing when I came in.”
“An explanation of my intentions for the book.” She leaned earnestly forward. “This will be very useful for Ella, you know. Today I think I persuaded her to let me prepare her for the London Season next year.”
“I see.” The mire he’d made for himself only got deeper. How could Ella make a debut without the truth about her background—her lack of background—becoming public knowledge? He had kept so many secrets from so many different people, and now they all threatened to unravel at the worst possible time.
“Yes, well”—Justine was looking at him strangely—“I’m sure you’ll appreciate what I mean about the book being helpful when the time comes. I thought I’d begin each segment with a scene. A sort of example of what to expect. That way the result should be to eliminate fear of the event.”
“Innovative,” Struan said, amazed he could still form words at all.
“Perhaps the first scene should be at a ball. The man has already seen the girl and finds a way to make his interest known to her.”
“Reasonable place to begin.”
“You think so?” Her smile was radiant. “Oh, good. Let me make a note of that.” She wrote for several moments. “He dances with her and returns her to her chaperon. Then he dances with her again. Not too soon, of course. Not on the first occasion. At the next meeting, he openly monopolizes her dance card as much as possible.”
“Sounds … reasonable.”
“What does he do next?”
Struan rolled in his lips.
“After all the dancing? When he wants to make a suitable overture to the young lady? What does he do?”
“You never experienced this yourself?”
Justine bowed her head. “No.”
“I see.”
“Do you?” Her face came up and there was fire in her eyes now.
“Probably not,” Struan said, shaking his head. “It’s difficult for a man to understand how any lovely woman escapes even the simple niceties of courtship. The man would find a way to be alone with the girl, Justine.”
She frowned and dunked her pen repeatedly in the standish. “So soon?”
“He could hardly make any sort of … He’d have to be alone with the girl to let her know what he felt.”
Justine wiped the excess ink from her nib and jotted more notes.
“He might find a way to take her into a salon … or a study, perhaps. Somewhere he could close the door and be assured of privacy.”
“Without her chaperon?”
“Without her chaperon. The girl would like the thrill of it all, don’t you see? The danger. The fact that the man—who has been the soul of propriety to this point—is risking censure shows how desperately he wants her.”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”
“You should inform your readers that this is an excellent opportunity for the young lady to gauge the true character of the man.”
Justine frowned again.
“By his restraint,” Struan explained.
She continued to frown.
Gently, he took the pen from her fingers and set it down. “Observe,” he told her. “Put your hands in mine.”
He held out his own hands and, hesitantly, she rested her fingers on his palms. Struan bent to rest his mouth on the tender place between her thumb and forefinger.
He felt her shudder.
His eyes closed. He was an experienced man, yet his blood pumped because a woman shuddered when he kissed her hand.
Incredible.
Slowly, he brushed his lips over her knuckles. At the same time, he played his fingertips up and down the tendons on the soft undersides of her wrists.
And she shuddered, and shuddered. “And this … would be … appropriate?” she murmured. “Or should the young lady discourage such attention?”
“Not if she likes the man. Not if she likes what he’s doing.”
“Yes, of course that would be the case.”
Releasing her took control. “You’d better make note of that,” he told her, aware of a thickening in his voice.
Justine’s breasts rose and fell. “Yes,” she said, taking up the pen once more, a dazed expression on her face. “Yes. I shall make a note or two now and be more specific later. I mustn’t press you for too much help all at once.”
Preserve him. Someone, anyone, give him strength. “We could do a little more work tonight, if you like. Or are you too tired?”
“No! That is, no. I’d be very grateful for your insights.”
Ah, yes, his insights. His insights were making him damnably uncomfortable. He sat on the edge of the table. “Imagine if you will that this is a study in a grand house where a large ball is in progress. You are a woman being courted by a man. He has alerted you to his interest. He has, perfectly appropriately, kissed your hands.”
Justine’s hands clenched. She put the pen down once more.
“The man would want to tell the woman something of his feelings,” Struan pointed out. “If he were sincere, that is.”
“Oh, he must be sincere. I shall emphasize that unless he says something appropriate, she should turn him aside at once.”
“Quite.” He lifted a heavy escaped curl behind her shoulder. “When I look at you I almost believe there is true goodness in the world.”
Her lips parted and remained parted. Struan saw her pupils dilate.
“I am the suitor,” he told her.
Justine nodded. “Oh. Oh, yes.”
“The first time I saw you, my heart stopped beating. You stood there, tall and graceful and … distinguished. had never before looked at a woman and thought her distinguished and utterly desirable at the same time.”
“I see,” she whispered.
“Since that moment I have dreamed of this moment. I didn’t expect it to come, but I dreamed nevertheless. Is that … Do you mind that I thought of you that way?”
“I… No. I’m glad you did. I thought of you that way, too.”
His heart did stand still—just for an instant. He must remember that this was playacting for her. “I have longed to do this.” His hand shook a little when he touched her face. While she stared, wide-eyed, at him he rested his fingers on her jaw, gently slipped them over satin-smooth skin to sink into her hair. “I look at you and I see hope. I see what I thought for so long could never be mine.”
“Such beautiful words,” she breathed. “Such feeling.”
Gradually, he lowered his face toward her and saw her eyes slowly close. Her lips, when he touched them with his own, were warm and sweet—and moist. Careful of the slightest movement, he made no attempt to part her lips farther. Instead he kissed her as he might have had it been his first kiss, and she a girl being kissed for the first time. He kissed her with his heart and soul and it was the sweetest thing, sweeter with the years of his experience and the power of his restrained mastery, than any first kiss could be.
Justine’s breath caressed his face. He breathed her in, and gave himself back to her. In her innocence, she reached to mirror what he did, smoothing her cool hands along his jaw and winding her fingers into his hair. With her face turned trustingly up to his, she gave what she could not possibly know or understand.
He must stop. Now. Forcing a smile, he pulled away. “Shall you have difficulty putting that into words?”
Pink flooded her cheeks. Candlelight picked out hints of red in the curls that had now e
ntirely fallen from their coiffure. She looked young, eager, quite kissed—and ready for far more.
“Justine?”
“I shall write it all down,” she said, glancing away.
“Good.”
“Thank you for taking my work seriously.”
He had never taken any work more seriously. At this moment—with a more experienced woman—he would hesitate to stand unless he wanted her to know his shaft sprang hard with desire for her.
“Thank you,” Justine repeated, closing her book and gathering it to her breast. “Thank you so much.”
And Struan knew it was just a beginning.
The beginning of heaven?
The beginning of hell?
“The pleasure, I assure you, is entirely mine.” And with this pleasure, pain was almost certain to follow.
Chapter Eight
Glory Willing returned the lascivious wink of the coachman who handed her down at the Fiddler’s Rest. She was the only remaining passenger on the Edinburgh-to-Dunkeld Village run, but the customary blare of a bugle met their arrival nevertheless.
Shouting boys ran forward to divest the coach of its cargo of goods and mail from Edinburgh. The horses steamed and snorted in the lamplight and a pall of smoke from the inn chimneys hung over all.
At the stops the coach had made along the way, Glory had made certain her gaze lingered on the bulky coachman until sweat broke out on his brow and his thick tongue made urgent forays over his lips.
As he helped her to the roughly cobbled inn yard, he contrived to tip her close enough to brush her against his rotund body. He guffawed and spread a hand boldly over her breast.
“You overstep yourself a bit, sir,” she said, taking her bearings. From what she could see in the near-darkness, the Fiddler’s Rest exactly matched the description she’d been given. Glory covered the man’s squeezing hand. “You come this way often, then?” she asked him.
“Often enough,” he said, grinning broadly now. “I makes the run from Edinburgh to Dunkeld every week or so. Never remember carrying a female the likes o’ you before, though.”
She smiled up into his red face. “I’ll not be staying in these parts long. I’m to move on a bit, see. I’ve been offered a place at a fine house. But I might have use for a man such as yourself.” Under the cover of her cloak, she found his bulging rod. “If you know what I mean.”
He groaned and leaned closer. “Why not now? We could find a place easy enough. Wait for the ‘orses ter be changed and we’ll leave the village a spell. The coach is comfort enough for what we ‘ave in mind.”
Glory ignored the snickers of passing post boys. “I fancy that, too,” she said, and tucked his hand inside her straining bodice. His groping and panting quickened the need that never quite left her belly. “There isn’t time. I’m expected here. Give me a way that I can get word to you. And when I do, be ready to take us away where we can be alone. All alone. I like more space than a coach. There are things I know that can keep a man very happy for as long as he can spare.”
They held still while the team from the coach was led by. Too spent to do more than blow, their hoofs clopped wearily on the cobbles. Glory wrinkled her nose at the ripe scents in the yard. Her days amid the straw in stable lofts were past, and she didn’t mourn them.
“I can’t wait fer ye,” the coachman said.
“You’ll have to. How can I send for you in Edinburgh?”
Glory saw a shadow separate from a dim corner of the yard. A man, his right arm upraised. It was the sign.
“I have to go now,” she told the coachman. “Give me an address. Quickly.”
“The Running Footman,” he said, pinching her nipple. “Every man knows the place. Hard by the market in Old Town. ‘Ave one of the lads ‘ere bring me word and I’ll come for ye in this yard four days after—of this time of a night—or as close in day and time as I can. It’d be a day later mayhap, but not a day before.”
“And you are?” She rubbed the swollen handful inside his rough wool breeches.
“Len Bottwell. They all knows me.”
With a theatrical sigh, Glory stepped away. “Until we make our rendezvous, then, Len Bottwell. Be sure you think of me.”
“I won’t stop thinkin’ of ye. Who should I be expectin’ to ‘ear from?”
“A lady. You’ll get a message from a lady and you’ll know to come.”
“Well … Fair enough, then, lady. I’ll be waitin’.”
Glory dimpled at him and sped lightly over the cobbles to the place where a boy stood beside her trunk. With a single backward glance at Len Bottwell—a possible boon in future plans—she waved for the boy to carry the trunk into the inn.
“Ye can go in by the front door,” the lad said in the Scottish brogue Glory found irritating. “I’ll tak’ this to your accommodations direct.”
“I’d like that,” Glory told him, pressing a coin into his palm. “Tell the innkeeper it’s Mrs. Smith who’s arrived. Remind him that the best room in the house was reserved for me and my husband.”
Ducking his head, mumbling thanks, the boy struggled into the building under the considerable weight of Glory’s trunk. She pretended to fuss with her reticule, glancing to be certain the coachman no longer watched. He was in conversation with the farrier and the two walked toward the smithy’s shop.
“Come closer.”
The familiar voice had lost none of its power to thrill her. Glory stepped into the black shade close to the inn and a hand closed on her arm.
“There’s a room,” she said breathlessly. “I’ll go and—”
“You’ll do nothing until I tell you to do so. And you will call me by no name other than the one we have used on previous occasions. And you’ll offer no opinions, Glory.”
“But I—”
“Silence.” His fingers dug into her arm—jerked her deeper into the shadows. He said, “Whore,” and thrust her against the rough wall.
“I didn’t have to come,” she whined.
“Didn’t you?”
Fear, an old, never-to-be-forgotten fear, curled about Glory’s heart. She tentatively said, “No. I came because I wanted to help you.”
“Liar,” he said, bringing his face close to hers. “You have no choice but to do as I tell you. You will never have any choice. I am your master. I own you. I can decide if you live or die.”
Glory’s blood pumped in her ears. Even as he uttered the words he’d used over and over through the years, words that meant he could be planning to prove his domination over her, the place at her center burned hot and wet with need.
“They’re keeping a room—”
“I have no interest in a room here, you fool. I am known.”
“Yes, but—”
“Dear God! I see I must teach you again who it is who makes decisions in this matter. There is no one in these parts who would not take note of seeing me in your company. The ends we desire would be lost forever.”
Glory trembled. She touched his sleeve tentatively. “I’m very glad to see you … Mr. Smith. I’ve missed you.”
He laughed, an awful, cold laugh. “Missed me so much you rutted with a foul, bloated coachman to help pass your journey?”
“No!” She tried to pull away. “No. I swear I didn’t. There’s no man for me but you. You know that.”
At least his blow to her mouth was delivered with an open hand—an open hand that smothered her scream and ground her head into the wattled wall.
“You rutted with him,” he said. “Nod your head and confess it.”
Stunned, tasting her own blood, Glory shook her head. She knew the rules. No matter how badly he hurt her, she must deny ever bedding another man.
“I saw you leaning on him. I heard him groan. Tell me you didn’t have him by the cock. Tell me you weren’t letting him touch you.”
Again she shook her head.
“Filth,” he hissed. “Filthy whore. I have no time for your lies. We have work to do. Come. You shall tell me wh
at I want to know soon enough.”
She knew better than to argue. She also knew a moment’s wild panic. He sounded—desperate? That was new. Mr. Smith never lost control, never made a move he didn’t intend to make, and never failed to be certain he would prevail.
He pulled her arm through his and told her, “Look down. Keep your face down and say nothing until I order you to do so.”
Swelling thickened her lower lip. It wasn’t like him to mark her face. While he hurried her between the main inn and an outbuilding, she kept her eyes on the shiny cobblestones.
The ground beneath her feet became more uneven, and she stumbled. A whip-tense arm shot around her waist and she was borne along at a great pace to a gig and pair tethered at the side of the deeply rutted lane.
“Mr. Smith?—”
“Get in.”
He didn’t attempt to help her scramble into the open carriage. “My trunk.”
“Your trunk will be retrieved soon enough,” he said, untying the pair and leaping up beside her. “You will have no need of it tonight.”
Glory shivered, but she also smiled—and winced at the pulling apart of split skin on her lip. “We are about to come into our own,” she said. “At last. I cannot tell you how I look forward to what lies ahead.”
“I told you to be silent.”
She knew better than to press him.
The small carriage swayed and rattled, its wheels grinding over rocky earth. The pair, both black, ran gamely. There was no moon, and with only one small lantern lighted, the cattle seemed to draw their burden into a cavern fashioned from trees that met overhead and dense hedgerows that all but touched the conveyance on either side.
Glory could not guess how much time passed while they traveled. She clung to the seat with both hands, fighting off the exhaustion of days on the road since she left Bath in response to a summons she could not ignore.
What felt like many miles of lanes gave way to a track that rose steadily into hilly country. The scents were of damp earth and furze. By day the heathland would be ablaze with yellow blossoms.
“Our destination,” Mr. Smith said.
The sudden breaking of the silence jolted Glory fully awake. She looked around but could make out no dwelling. “Where?”
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