The Highlander's Forbidden Mistress

by Anna Campbell

  "I had my moments." In an action of breathtaking smoothness, he hooked up his breeches from the floor and slid them on. It reminded her of her nakedness. Odd how comfortable she felt unclothed in his company. It seemed natural to allow him every liberty.

  When Selina slipped out of bed, she couldn’t restrain a groan. No man had touched her in years, and today’s exuberant sexual activity set long-disused muscles protesting at the sudden movement.

  Brock paused in the act of pouring two glasses of wine from the decanter on the cabinet near the door. "Are you all right?"

  As she recalled the day she’d just spent, heat tinged her cheeks. "I’m not used to such…vigorous exercise."

  He gave an appreciative grunt and went back to filling the glasses. "I’ll get you into shape."

  Into shape? Selina had a feeling she’d leave here as a completely new person.

  She bent to collect her crumpled shift from the floor and tug it over her head. "I need to get back on the horse?"

  Humor lit his expression as he turned to face her, carrying the two glasses. "Back on something, at any rate."

  She gave a low chuckle as she accepted the wine and sank down onto a leather chair in front of the roaring fire. The room was so deliciously warm, it was hard to imagine it was snowing outside like the end of the world.

  "So where did you grow up?" she asked, unwilling to let him wriggle away from her question. He’d admitted to a hunger to know all about her. At the very least, her interest in him rivaled his in her.

  Brock wandered over to the window and pulled back the blue curtains to reveal a Stygian blackness. He sipped his wine and stared out with a pensive expression. "At Bruard. It’s quite as spectacular as it sounds. A man can breathe there."

  "You love it."

  An enigmatic smile hovered about his lips. "I do."

  "When were you last there?"

  He closed the heavy velvet curtains and turned from the window. "Five years ago."

  Shocked, puzzled, she studied Brock. More was going on here than she understood. "That seems…a long time."

  He shrugged and took another mouthful of wine.

  Selina could take a hint, even if with some reluctance. He had a right to his secrets. As did she.

  She sampled her wine, a fine claret, and stared into the fire. What a day this had been. Unlike any day she’d passed before. Sexual satisfaction was a lazy beat in her blood and for once, the constant fear that had been her companion for so many years receded. Life with all its problems lurked in wait, but something in this quiet, luxurious room made her feel safe. At least for the moment.

  "For a woman who drives me out of my mind with lust, you can be a damned restful presence," Brock murmured from where he remained near the window.

  Startled, she looked up. She was tired, pleasantly so, and she’d drifted off into a reverie crammed with memories of all the depraved things she and Brock had done. "You don’t sound very pleased about that."

  "I’m not." He sighed and crossed the room to put his half-full glass on the mantelpiece. "It makes a man devilish prone to confidences."

  If he hadn’t sounded so tolerant and so affectionate, she might have taken offense. She’d drunk even less of her wine than he had of his. She set it on the small table at her elbow. "I have no right to pry."

  He ran his hand through his mass of black hair and released an impatient exhalation. "If you did, I’d tell you to go to Hades."

  Another silence fell. When he began to speak, his voice was low and uncharacteristically hesitant. She did her best to hide her curiosity. In her experience, he wasn’t a man who was ever hesitant. "My father died when I was a boy, not much older than Gerald. My mother died five years ago."

  "I’m sorry, Brock." Selina wanted to rise and take him in her arms, but something in his bristling tension kept her sitting just where she was.

  "So am I." He paused, his features hardening. He went back to looking like the cynical, heartless rake she’d first thought him. "Not that she was ever much of a mother."

  Selina didn’t speak, just watched him steadily.

  Again, her silence lured him into explaining further. "She was very beautiful. And wild. And selfish. And destructive to anyone who fell under her spell. God knows, if I was to count the victims of her flightiness, the poor beggars would line the road from here to the Highlands. I take after her."

  Selina had already realized that Brock was a complex man with a complex past that she couldn’t pretend to understand. Even so, she was surprised and distressed to hear such self-hatred tainting his voice.

  She frowned, considering what he’d said. "Only the beauty." She paused. "And the wildness." She didn’t fool herself that this was a domesticated animal she’d caught for herself, however fleetingly.

  He shot her a half-smiling glance that cut to the quick. "I’m no hero."

  She shrugged. "Perhaps not, but you’re a better man than I think you recognize."

  A dismissive grunt greeted that statement. "I doubt it."

  She shook her head with a stubborn certainty that emerged from the depths of her being. "I don’t. You might have done a thousand wicked things in your life. In fact, I’ll warrant you have. But at heart, you’re not a wicked man. You’re kind – at least you’ve been kind to me. Nor are you only wrapped up in yourself. You also have some honor. It would be easy to ignore my request not to give me a child. I’m sure it would be more enjoyable for you if you did, and I’ve been in no position to stop you. Yet you stuck to your promise." She made a helpless gesture. "We’ve only been together a day, yet I could give you a hundred examples of your consideration."

  He looked taken aback, which made her want to laugh. It seemed praise for his character rather than his physical appearance left him nonplussed. "I’m counted a profligate and a seducer and woefully unreliable. I’ve left a trail of broken hearts all over England."

  "I’m sure that’s true." She had a horrid premonition that she’d add her heart to that list, once she left him. "But it’s not the whole truth."

  Self-deprecating humor twisted his lips. "If I was as principled as you say, I’d now try to talk you out of that unjustified assessment of my character."

  "Don’t bother. You won’t succeed."

  He shook his head with more of that fond disbelief that made her ache with yearning. She fast became besotted with Brock Drummond, heaven save her. "You’re an obstinate wee thing. I wonder if Cecil knows."

  "I doubt it," she said shortly.

  "He doesn’t know you at all, does he?"

  The reminder of what awaited once she left this den of sin wasn’t welcome. Dejected, she went back to staring into the fire. "He doesn’t care to. That doesn’t mean I won’t be a good wife to him."

  "For Gerald’s sake."

  "Yes."

  "Because you love your son."

  Something in Brock’s tone drew her attention. "You know, for a heartless rake, you talk about love a lot."

  She expected him to react to the accusation with horror, but again he surprised her. "I do, don’t I?"

  Another silence wrapped around them. Something in this room encouraged intimate revelations. Perhaps because it was warm and enclosed, and outside the world was cold and dangerous and unforgiving.

  Brock turned away and kneeled to poke at the fire until it was roaring. When he rose, he leaned an arm on the mantel and watched the flames with a moody expression. God help her, even masculine sulks looked spectacular on him.

  When at last he spoke, he didn’t look up. "My mother didn’t love me."

  Appalled, Selina stared at him. Everything in her rejected his flat statement. "I don’t believe that."

  The gaze Brock settled on her was bleak. "Nevertheless it’s true."

  "Then she was a fool," Selina said sharply.

  Because while this complicated man might have his faults, however good he’d been to her, he was eminently lovable. Too much so for her peace of mind.

  "Gerald is
lucky."

  She frowned, not following the connection. "I wouldn’t say so. His father gave no thought to his future, and it’s never lucky to lose a parent so young, however feckless that parent might be."

  "But he has you." Brock turned his attention back to the fire, she suspected for his pride’s sake. He must know how much this conversation revealed.

  "Well, of course."

  "Once you pledge your loyalty, you never falter."

  Pity flooded her. Because it sounded like his mother had never put her child ahead of her entertainment. "I try to stand by my word."

  "And you’d do anything for your son."

  "Yes." Although guilt added a rancid taste to the avowal. This affair threatened Gerald’s future, and she couldn’t pretend that she was here for anything other than selfish gratification.

  Selina studied the man who had lured her into sin and for once, her hunger for the pleasure he gave her wasn’t paramount. Instead she felt a need to comfort him that was so overwhelming, it was agonizing. Because right now, the man who brooded into the fire wasn’t the emperor of all he surveyed. He wasn’t heartless and invincible and beyond the reach of human frailty. Brock turned out to be vulnerable in a way she’d never imagined possible at the Derwents’ house, when she’d observed the handsome rake, the cynosure of all eyes. Eyes brazenly covetous or envious or disapproving. Eyes that she realized saw nothing of the real man.

  "I’m so sorry that you didn’t know a mother’s love. That’s a wound nothing can heal." She held out her hand. "Now stop looming over me and come here."

  After giving her one of those sweet smiles that always threatened to break her heart, he crossed to fold himself down on the floor at her feet. "I never talk about this."

  He leaned against her knee, warm and solid and somehow more real after sharing those reluctant revelations. She ran her fingers through his untidy black hair in an attempt to soothe his unhappiness. "Thank you for telling me."

  "I don’t know why the hell I did. My maudlin tale hardly promotes me in your mind as your irresistible demon lover."

  Keeping up the gentle stroking, she smiled. She recalled likening him to a big, predatory cat. Right now, she wanted to make him purr, although it was just as possible that he’d hiss and claw, especially if he discovered the deep well of compassion he’d opened inside her. He wouldn’t appreciate her pity. She had her own pride. She understood his.

  "You can go back to being my demon lover tomorrow," she murmured and was pleased to hear him respond with a huff of grudging amusement. "So Bruard holds too many unhappy memories for you."

  He sighed and rested against her a little more heavily. "Aye. Which is mad because Mamma spent as little time there as she could, until she was too ill to manage in London any longer."

  When she’d crawled back to the one place that wouldn’t deny her shelter, Selina thought with a flash of spite. She assumed the late Countess of Bruard had been unhappy – that was the most sympathetic view she could take of someone who neglected her child so shamefully. Unless she’d just been cold and self-centered and careless about the damage she left behind. Whatever the reasons for her behavior, Selina couldn’t forgive the woman.

  "How did your father react?"

  Another grunt of amusement. Grimmer this time. "Not well, as you’d expect. But he was a bloodless, upright, self-righteous sod. If he hadn’t tried to keep my mother on such a short leash, I wonder if she’d have gone quite so far to the bad. On the other hand, she bedded any fellow who took her fancy and flaunted her infidelities in Papa’s face. No man can countenance that."

  Selina’s hand stopped stroking him, as she struggled to comprehend the horrors of Brock’s childhood. "And you were caught in the middle. How horrid. I’m surprised your father didn’t do his best to turn you into a copy of himself. He must have wanted to counter your mother’s pernicious influence over you."

  "Aye, he did. But I’m enough like her to rebel at the whip and the spur."

  She already knew that. Brock was a man who would respond to the lure of a reward, but bullying would only drive him to greater excesses. She came to understand how the wicked Lord Bruard, who had so much good in him, had become a byword for vice.

  He went on in a hard voice. "Literally the whip. When every other effort failed, he tried to beat virtue into me."

  "Oh, Brock," she said, trailing her hand down and gripping his shoulder. She tried to share her strength, when it was too late by twenty years to save that confused, wretched child. "I think I hate your parents."

  "I think I do, too. I certainly hated my father. My mother was wayward, but at least she was alive. Papa was nothing but a dry, preachy stick, with no trace of generosity."

  "How could you help loving her? If she was as beautiful as you are, she must have seemed like someone from a fairy story. Especially to a lonely boy growing up without a morsel of kindness or understanding."

  "It wasn’t all bad. The clansfolk were good to me, and I had companions on some of the surrounding estates. My cousin Fergus is the Laird of Achnasheen. Like me, he inherited young. I always enjoyed seeing him. I would have seen more of him, if my guardians hadn’t sent me south to Eton when I was eleven."

  "That must be why you don’t sound very Scottish."

  "Aye. And of course, once I was old enough to chase the lassies…"

  She couldn’t stifle a sigh, although this part of his story wasn’t news to her. "They were good to you, too. And women have continued to be good to you."

  Had any of it made up for those early years with two unfeeling idiots who had done him such harm? She doubted it.

  He lifted his head to stare into her face. "Do you mind?"

  Astonished, she met searching green eyes. "It’s not my place to mind."

  Something in the gaze he turned up in her direction said that her answer disappointed him. But she did her best not to think of her negligible place in the long list of Lord Bruard’s conquests.

  "Forget whether it’s your place, do you mind?"

  She frowned down at him. "Do you want me to be jealous of your other lovers?"

  "Jealousy is a frightful bore."

  "Exactly."

  "So it seems mad to want you to be jealous."

  Her hand clenched on his shoulder. "I don’t understand."

  "I don’t either." He’d looked down so she couldn’t see his face, but he sounded discontented. "Yet I find myself feeling dashed possessive when I think of you. I loathe that you’re leaving me to go to another man’s bed. I was hoping that perhaps you might feel a similar proprietary interest in me."

  She lifted her hand away from him. His confession left her confused, troubled…elated. "Brock…"

  He tilted his chin and the stare he directed at her burned through to the bone. "I know it’s not fair. I know I have no rights over you, apart from the rights you grant me for the space of this week. I can’t remember being jealous before. It’s a damned nightmare."

  She linked shaking hands in her lap. However impossible it might seem, she wasn’t alone in battling to maintain some emotional detachment in this brief love affair. "We’ve only had a day together, and you promised passion with no deeper implications."

  "Circumstances make a liar of me, then." His fierce expression didn’t ease. "I find myself more involved than I’ve ever been with a woman."

  Her spread hands indicated bewilderment, even as her imbecilic heart gloated over his taut admission. "What does that mean?"

  His lips turned down with self-mockery. "For the life of me, I don’t blasted well know. But I do know that if Cecil was standing before me at this minute, I’d happily drive a sword through his gizzards to stop him putting his filthy paws on you."

  A guilty thrill ripped through her. At Brock’s words and at the fervent light she read in his eyes. Which was mad. He declared himself a savage. She should rather chide him than revel in his turbulent desire.

  "In that case, it’s a good thing he’s not."

&nb
sp; "Aye. It is. Although a touch of murder might soothe my torments."

  Her laugh was shocked, even as she struggled to stifle her feminine pleasure at what he said. "You must know you have no reason to envy Cecil."

  Disgust flattened that expressive mouth. "Except that after Wednesday, he’ll have you and I won’t."

  Unbelievable as it was, it seemed Brock was indeed jealous. She struggled to put the deplorable truth into words. "He’ll never have me the way you’ve had me. One day with you has meant more than a lifetime with Cecil ever will. I’ve never felt like this before either. You’ve had the truest part of me, Brock. There’s nobody who will ever compare with you."

  Her ardent declaration didn’t seem to give him any comfort. His stare remained austere. "It’s not enough," he said, as he’d said earlier.

  Misery clenched her throat tight. He was right. It wasn’t enough.

  She answered just as she had before. "It has to be."

  Chapter 8

  Selina’s troubled air lingered when she rose from the chair to prepare herself for sleep. She kept her shift on, Brock noticed. From where he sat on the rug near the fire, he watched her lie down in the bed where he’d recently enjoyed the most profound sexual experience of his life.

  Why did this quiet woman take such a grip on his heart and senses that he longed to feast on her endlessly? Not just as his companion in pleasure. When he moved inside her, the sensation was unrivaled. But just now he’d discovered contentment in her company, knowing he found perfect understanding in her generous heart.

  He wasn’t a fool. From the first moment he saw her, he’d recognized that his yen for the reticent Widow Martin went beyond idle attraction. But this overmastering need astonished him, especially now he’d had her. Shallow relationships had defined his life. It was convenient to keep the bonds light between him and his lovers. So when the links snapped, as was inevitable when his attention wandered, no great damage was done.

  Of course, things didn’t always work as smoothly as he’d prefer, despite the conditions he set out before an affair. Many of his paramours wanted more than a few enjoyable tumbles followed by a polite goodbye.