Alec took two deep breaths and stared at his white-knuckled grip on the doorknob. Two more breaths and he entered the room, closing the door behind him.
Joy sat in a ladies’ receiving chair, not hearing one word the physician said because the duke was barely five feet away. Sensing his presence in the room, she stretched so she could peer over the physician’s shoulder. He snapped his satchel closed and straightened, blocking her view.
“Just a slight sprain, Your Grace,” he told the duke. “I’ve wrapped it tightly, and the miss, here, can stand on it and move around without difficulty.” He turned back to Joy. “Can’t you, my dear? Here, show His Grace.” He helped her up, and she walked a short distance to the huge hearth, where Beezle slept, curled up next to a fire that crackled and burned and gave warm dry relief from the damp English air. She looked at the duke and found him looking not at her foot but at her face. Joy froze.
“Show His Grace how well you are able to move your ankle, my dear.” The physician seemed completely unaware of the eerie magic that Joy felt whenever she was close to the duke. There were moments when she felt this man’s gaze turned so intensely personal, it was as if he were inside her for a brief instant.
She lifted her skirts to just above her ankle and glanced up at the duke again. After a hesitation, he turned his gaze to her ankle, and she rolled her foot to show him her ankle was fine.
“No more pain?” the duke asked.
“No,” she replied. “Not a whit. Fit as a fiddle.” And she gave him another smile. “Thank you.”
“She should not overdo for a day or so, but after that the ankle should be strong enough to allow her to walk to Scotland if she chooses to do so.” The physician laughed, and Joy flushed, remembering the conversation in the carriage. The duke’s expression had not changed. It was just as steely, just as pensive as before.
He paid the man and closed the door behind him when he left the room. Joy held her hands out toward the fire. The innkeeper’s wife, Mrs. Hobson, had helped her off with her pelisse and spread it and her gloves out to dry on a narrow tobacco-brown damask wing chair close to the fire. She grasped the hem of her pelisse and shook some of the water drops off. It gave her something to do other than gape at His Grace.
“Have you had any contact with the new Earl of Craven?” the duke asked.
The question caught Joy off guard and she turned to face him. “No. Why?”
“I would think that, with your family gone, he would have a responsibility to you.”
“If I contacted that side of the family, my grandmother would rise from the dead. Believe me, Your Grace, there is no love lost there.” She raised her chin, remembering the stories her papa had told her of the Locksleys’ harsh treatment of his English mother. She would have been hard-pressed to believe that such a family could change radically with only the death of a great-grandfather. The whole lot of them had been cruel. Scots pride and stubbornness shone from her eyes. “I could be starving and naked and half dead, and still I would not seek anything from the Locksleys.”
“I see.” He said no more, but he seemed to be pondering her every word. She wondered what he was thinking, how this man’s mind worked, if all his thoughts were serious or if he ever let his mind wander into the fanciful world that hers so frequently visited.
The quiet sound of his boots on the wooden floor broke her thought. She watched him walk toward her, and she didn’t know if she wanted to stand there or run the other way as fast as her weak ankles could carry her. She held her breath. He rested one arm on the walnut chimneypiece and rested one booted foot on a brass andiron while he stared thoughtfully into the blazing fire.
The glow lit his silver hair and limned his profile like a halo of an archangel. He had a long, noble nose, high cheekbones, and a strong jaw dusted with the shadow of a man who had not shaved, or who needed to do so more than once a day. She found that fascinating, imagining the texture of the stubble that darkened his jaw. She decided it must be rough and masculine, and her fingertips tingled with the need to feel it. Unconsciously, she rubbed her own jaw line.
The air became suddenly warm, and the room seemed to have shrunk. Sweat pearled at her temples, neck, and chest. Her gown itched. She darted around to the other side of the wing chair to put some distance between herself and the fire.
“When were you born?” He barked the question.
She jumped, startled, then answered, “Seventeen ninety-two.”
“What day?”
“The twenty-seventh of June.”
He was silent.
“Why?”
He didn’t respond.
“Your Grace?”
“I am thinking.”
“About my age?”
“Not really.”
“What, then?”
He turned those eyes on her, eyes that held a tinge of regret, and he slowly moved toward her. “About the consequences of what I am about to do.”
“Oh.” Joy stepped back. “What is that?”
Alec moved forward, silent.
A little intimidated, she stepped back again and almost fell over the chair arm.
He caught her arms and drew her forward.
“Oh …”
His hand slid around her neck.
“… My goodness!”
And he pulled her mouth up to meet his. She watched, mesmerized by the eyes that pinned hers, watched the hard line of his lips come closer and closer until he was so close that her eyes drifted closed. She could taste his breath, feel it against her dry lips. She wanted this. It seemed a lifetime before his mouth brushed against hers ever so softly, tentatively, as if it searched for something.
Please don’t let this be a dream, she prayed. His lips brushed against hers again and again, real, tactile, with a tenderness she would have never expected in a man who didn’t smile. She was afraid the kiss might end, and she wanted just a wee bit more. When he skimmed his lips to the corner of her mouth, moving gently, she turned her head just enough so there was closer contact. His hand pressed against the back of her head so her mouth was firmly on his. She melted against his chest.
Still splayed across the back of her head, his hand held her in place, but she would not have pulled away from him for anything. She had no idea that kisses were so wonderful and warm and soft. The real thing was so much better than her daydreams. No cold, hard glass here.
His other arm slid across the small of her back and ever so slowly pressed her stomach against him, and his hand moved from the back of her head to her neck, massaging the soft tendons and muscle beneath her flesh. His lips pressed harder; his hand held her fast. He licked her upper lip, then ran his tongue along the seam of her lips. She reacted with a gasp, and he filled her mouth, searching and retreating. She chilled with gooseflesh and shivered, once, twice, and again when his tongue dueled with hers.
She thought this must be like flying, only better. He tasted of everything she’d always loved—of spicy gingerbread and sweet lemon honey, of buttery scones and tart strawberries, of fine aged wine and fresh warm yeasty bread. Her head felt light, her body weightless, and her blood seemed to speed undammed through channels within her. Her swelling heart pounded in her chest and ears and wrists. She was chilled one minute, warm and flushed the next.
This was new to her, the feeling of his tongue filling her mouth, the warm dampness of the kiss, the very intimacy of it—a physical expression of the games their eyes had played. She wondered if his heart was beating with the same urgent drumming as hers, and she tried to get closer so she could feel it. She slid the palm of her hand across his coat to the center of his chest and raised her other hand to his neck. Her knees grew weaker than her ankle, and she clung to him to keep from falling. His arm moved beneath her buttocks and lifted her up off the floor, holding her safe and secure. She dangled her feet and held on tighter, gripping his coat in her fist.
With the barest of touches, his hand moved from her head to her neck. His fingers played with the s
trands of hair that framed her face, then grazed her ear, and moved down her throat, across her shoulder, and over her arm to her ribs, where he rubbed slow circles that matched the rhythm of his questing tongue.
She didn’t want the kiss to end and gave a plaintive cry when he pulled his mouth away. Her eyes drifted open slowly, and she saw in the duke’s midnight blue eyes—a need, a flash of desperate need—the path to the treasure. Then it was gone, hidden by the mask that kept her and the rest of the world out. The hard duke was back.
“You’ll do,” he said.
“Hmm?” She looked up at him, searching his eyes for another sign of that need, still savoring her first kiss, the feel of his arms. “I’ll do what?”
She had no idea that her eyes held her heart.
“Never mind,” he said, looking away for a pensive moment, before staring at the door.
Joy was horrified to think that maybe someone else was there. She gripped his shoulders in fear, her worried eyes following his, expecting to see someone watching them, but the door was still closed, and there was no one in the room but the two of them.
He set her down, but his hands still rested on her shoulders. His look softened, and he searched her face, spending a long silent moment staring at her mouth. His hands rubbed her upper arms and then with one knuckle tilted her chin up and looked her straight in the eye.
“Marry me.”
Chapter Six
For an eternal minute she stared up at him, unable to think, unable to move or speak. She told herself her wits were wandering. He could not have said that.
“Marry me,” he said again.
“Oh--” She slapped her hand over her mouth and stepped back. He did say that. He did.
She had died and gone to witch heaven.
With little more than his thumb and forefinger, he pulled her chin forward and kissed her again and again and again, ever so gently. “Marry me,” he whispered against her mouth. “Marry me.”
“I cannot.” But her traitorous mouth sought his.
“Of course you can. You are of age.” He trailed his lips over hers again, barely brushing her mouth.
“No, I mean I can, but I cannot.”
The words were barely out before he kissed her, long and deep, wet and lazy, stroking until she forgot how to think. He moved his lips to her ear. “You’ll be a duchess.”
“I can—”
He silenced her with another kiss, pulled her against the length of his body. Then his mouth left hers—
“I cannot…”
He moved to her ear. “Marry me, Joyous MacQuarrie.”
“Ummmmmm.”
His tongue touched her ear and she shivered.
“I don’t know you.” She wanted to see his face and tried to pull back.
Kisses trailed down her neck. “Marriage will solve that. Trust me.”
“But what about love?”
He paused near her shoulder. “Are you in love with someone?”
“No.”
“Then there is nothing to stop us.”
“But we just met, and only by chance.”
“Marriages are arranged all the time between participants who have never met.”
“But you’re the Duke of Belmore.”
“I know,” he whispered in her damp ear. “And you’re Scottish.”
“But . . . but . . . ”
“Wouldn’t you like to be a duchess?” His deep voice was so soft, so quiet.
She was lost in the dreamy thoughts his words suggested.
“My duchess.”
She didn’t say a word. His lips moved in butterfly kisses.
“Hmm?” His mouth grazed her temple. “Wouldn’t you?”
“I’m not sure . . . . Well, I mean, yes . . . uh, no.”
“You have no argument.” His mouth closed over hers again.
She sighed.
“Marry me, Scottish.”
“I’m a witch.”
“Most women are at one time or another.”
“No. You don’t understand. I’m a witch. A real witch.”
“And I can be a real bastard. We shall get used to each other. I don’t care what you think you are. I want you to marry me.”
“We cannot marry.”
“We can. Now. Today.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now.”
“You cannot just … get married.”
“I’m the Duke of Belmore. I will do as I see fit.” He spoke with such conviction that Joy was stunned. He looked down at her, his face relaxed, his eyes blank. “No one will question the marriage, because I am the Duke of Belmore.”
She couldn’t counter that argument. A duke did as he pleased.
“You will live in Belmore Park.” His thumbs stroked her jaw.
“But—”
“You will have anything you want.”
“But—”
“You would like that, would you not?”
“Well, yes, but this is too quick.”
His finger ran down her jaw line so softly. His lips feathered over hers, and he whispered, “Marry me, Scottish.”
Her eyes drifted closed. She’d do almost anything to hear him call her that again. He kissed her again. A few long, tender moments later he pulled back. “As I said, you have no arguments.”
“Marriages are always carefully planned.”
He stiffened suddenly, as if something she’d said had angered him. His jaw tightened. “Not this one,” he said. An instant later, his mouth hit hers, hard, demanding, hot, as if he could assuage some deep anger by kissing the doddering wits out of her, which he did. His lips bit at hers. His hands gripped her head. He mastered her mouth, her senses, and gave her a taste of what passion was all about.
It was a kiss so different from before. The first had been soft. This was hard. The other kiss was seductive and lingering and persuasive. This kiss had power, it was the kiss of a duke—a duke who needed to prove something.
And he did. He proved that he could make Joyous Fiona MacQuarrie forget how to say no.
Joy sat before the mirror in the ladies’ receiving room and twisted a loose lock of hair back into its knot. She picked up a hairpin and slid it back into her hair, then studied her reflection. She felt as if she were daydreaming. But this was not one of her fanciful mind-voyages. This was real.
Raising her fingers to her mouth, she ran them over her swollen lips. He had kissed her. Truly kissed her. She traced the soft pink marks on her chin and cheeks where his shadowed beard had rubbed against her pale skin. The stubble had been rough and sensual. She touched her lips again as if she expected her reflection to fade like the fleeting sweet taste of sugar.
She poked her lips. Yes, he had kissed her. She smiled, then laughed a bubble of a giggle that just had to slip out. The duke had kissed her. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, remembering every tingle, every touch, every new sensation of those kisses.
A few long and wispy moments later she sighed and got up, then walked over to the wing chair where her pelisse still lay. The duke had left as soon as he got the answer he wanted. He said he had some arrangements to make and that they would be married within the hour.
Married. Joyous Fiona MacQuarrie married to a duke. She wondered what a duchess did and wondered if she would be any better at duchessing than she was at witchcraft. It worried her a bit, but somehow it was not at the pinnacle of her thoughts.
The duke was.
Odd how a man who never smiled could make her feel things she didn’t know existed. He held her heart in his hands. From the moment she saw him, some thread had linked them together. This man needed her. He needed her hope and her magic.
He needed smiles and kisses. Everyone needed kisses. And nothing else seemed to matter, not the fact that they had just met, not their differences—the fact that he was a mortal and she was a witch—not her spells, not the worry about the future. This felt so right. Something, some intuition, made her feel certain that this was where she
was destined to be, and so badly wanted to be. She’d received the gift of a fairy-tale ending. It had been placed in her hands, tied with bright ribbons of love and need and dreams that would come true.
The door opened and he entered. She took one look at his scowling face, and a sinking feeling of dread came over her. With a sadness that came from a short lifetime of disappointments, she prepared herself for the worst. She had known it was too good to be true. Nothing so wonderful had ever happened to Joy, and it was not going to happen now, either.
From his face she could see the wedding had been cancelled. He looked as if he’d eaten something that had made him ill. He was preparing himself to tell her that he didn’t want to marry her after all. She steeled herself for disappointment, something she knew very well.
“We have a problem.”
Her heavy heart was somewhere near her feet. She rose and gripped the back of a chair, trying to will away the tears she could feel burning behind her eyes. “I understand,” she said in little more than a whisper.
“Three of the ton’s most voracious gossips are waiting beyond that door. Don’t let them intimidate you. Do not volunteer any information. Let me do the talking. Just nod your head and agree with whatever I say.” He didn’t wait for an answer, but she figured one didn’t need to answer a ducal order.
He picked up her pelisse and held it for her while she slipped it on. Then he handed her her hat and gloves. “If the situation gets too uncomfortable I want us to be able to leave quickly. If we must wait for the vicar, we shall do so at the chapel.”
Joy exhaled with relief. The wedding had not been called off.
She smiled then, a great big brilliant smile that she couldn’t have hidden had she tried. He cocked his head and searched her face, as if he saw something there he could not comprehend. After an uncomfortable silence, her smile faded and she looked away, spotting Beezle still asleep by the fire. She closed the distance and picked him up.
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