He casually entwined his fingers with hers.
Her cheeks flushed a little. “Perhaps it was nothing more than a walkabout,” she suggested, and shifted away, disentangling her fingers from his and trailing them across the open page of the atlas. She rounded the corner of the table, her gaze on the map. “A diversion.”
“No,” Jack said firmly, watching her. “Grown men who possess normal responsibilities do no’ go traipsing about the Highlands for the sake of diversion. It has to do with this estate, Lizzie. Your uncle is determined to have it. But why should he no’ make a claim for it as the closest surviving male heir? One would think he’d have better luck with a claim before a magistrate than with his handfasting.”
“Oh, that’s simple, really,” she said casually. “The magistrate spends his winter in Inverness. He’ll no’ come round to the glens until spring. And besides, a Beal man can no’ inherit land.”
She said it as if it were a well-known fact. “Pardon?” Jack asked, certain he’d misunderstood her.
“Beal men canna inherit land,” Lizzie said again.
“What precisely do you mean, a Beal man canna inherit land?” Jack demanded.
“It’s an old story,” Lizzie said dismissively. “There was a royal decree of some sort issued after the Jacobite rebellion of forty-five.”
“Go on,” Jack urged her.
“The Beals of Glenalmond fought on the wrong side of the Crown, and when the rebellion was over, King George retaliated by forfeiting their lands to the Crown. There are many Beals who still hold a firm grudge against the king today, and I can assure you a Beal will no’ hand you to a royal bounty hunter,” she said proudly.
But Jack hardly cared at the moment. “Am I to understand that all Beal lands were forfeited?”
“No’ all of them. Those lands that were in possession of William Beal—my father’s grand-uncle, or something near to that—were saved, for William Beal was married to the king’s cousin, Anna Beal. The king allowed that Anna might possess land, but no’ her traitorous husband and his kin. So he gave the lands to her, prohibited Beal men from inheriting property, and decreed that only Beal women may inherit.”
Jack was stunned. “That means you’ve inherited Thorntree free and clear? Carson canna claim a sister, a mother?”
Lizzie shook her head. “He had only a brother, my father. Really, there are precious few girls born to the Beals. Charlotte and I are the only ones in our immediate family.”
“Diah, Lizzie, do you see?” Jack said eagerly. “This might explain why Carson does no’ want to see you married so much as ruined for a Gordon, aye?”
“Why?” she asked.
“If your Gordon cries off because of the handfasting—which any man of sound mind would do—and you donna marry, the lands will remain in possession of a Beal. Carson might force you to marry one of his men—a Beal man, that is—so that he might have control of Thorntree.”
Lizzie snorted at that. “Who? Dougal?” She laughed but quickly sobered. “Mi Diah, perhaps he is planning something precisely like that. Yet…yet there is naugh’ to control. You’ve seen it yourself, Jack: Thorntree requires more income to operate than what we manage to bring into the coffers.”
“Aye, but that is precisely the question, Lizzie. What exactly is it you’ve inherited?” Jack asked, trying to sort it out. “Thorntree could only be a drain on his accounts. I should think Carson would be happy to put the burden of it on a Gordon.”
“Perhaps he does no’ want a Gordon to reside so close to him,” she suggested.
Jack shook his head. “Carson Beal does no’ strike me as the sort of man who would value principle over coin.” He thought a moment, then looked at Lizzie. “You said it was a royal decree, aye?”
“Aye.”
“Can you locate it? Perhaps there is something there that might clarify matters for us.”
“My father showed it to me once,” she said. “He was worried someone might take advantage of us after he was gone, and Charlotte in particular.” She smiled wryly. “Perhaps he knew Carson better than I realized, aye?”
“Do you think you might find it, then?”
“It would be in my father’s study.” She hesitated, folding her arms tightly across her body. “That was the room he preferred, his private space. We’ve left it as it was the day he died.”
“I understand,” Jack said, and he did. It was many months before he’d been able to disturb his father’s sanctuary after his death. Clearly not for the same reasons as Lizzie’s—Jack had needed time to convince himself the old man was truly gone. His father had told Jack from his deathbed that he’d never amount to much. Jack had been a young man then, and there was a part of him that feared his father would rise up from his grave. But he’d been forced to face it sooner rather than later—he’d become an earl at the age of eighteen, and there were matters that needed his attention.
To Lizzie he said, “I rather think your father would want you to discover what Carson is about, to keep you and Charlotte safe.”
Lizzie bit her bottom lip and nodded. “Aye, he would. I think I can find it.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Her father’s study was filled with stacks of papers and books and estate ledgers even older than Charlotte, and perhaps older than the Kincades, by the look of them. Lizzie had to think hard about where the document might be. She strained to see by the light of a single candle.
Jack followed her about, leaning over her shoulder, his hand brushing hers, his shoulder pressed against hers, making it difficult to concentrate on the task at hand. As Lizzie searched through stacks of papers, he began to complain of the cold. “It is ridiculous to be looking for something when one cannot feel the tips of one’s fingers,” he groused. “And by the light of a single candle! You will ruin your eyes, lass. We need light and warmth.”
Handfasting notwithstanding, Jack had a tendency to be imperious. “I’ve told you, we canna afford either,” she reminded him. “There’s no’ enough peat to warm the entire house, and candles are a precious commodity in the winter while the bees are dormant.”
“You can spare one block of peat,” he insisted.
“We can no’.”
“Where is it, where is the peat? I’ll no’ have you freezing unto death.”
“Have you heard a word I’ve said?” Lizzie exclaimed impatiently. “We canna spare the peat!”
“Mi Diah,” Jack muttered under his breath, and then something else about stubborn women she didn’t quite catch. He put down the candle with a thwap and strode from the study, leaving the door wide open. Lizzie blinked after him, wondering if she’d just witnessed a vainglorious man in a snit.
A quarter of an hour later, Jack returned with a block of peat on his shoulder.
Lizzie clenched the papers she was holding and pointed them at the block of peat. “You donna mean to light it!”
“I do indeed.” He kicked over a footstool that stood before the cold hearth, pushed aside the fire screen with one hand, and tossed the peat inside. From his pocket he withdrew a match and a flint, and Lizzie watched in angry astonishment as he lit the block of peat. It flared, filling the small study with light, and began to burn. He stood up and turned around to face her victoriously.
“You have no…no authority to use that peat!” she cried.
“Aye, I think I do,” he said confidently. “I am handfasted to you, lass. That makes me king of a sort in this little castle, and I will no’ tolerate your freezing for no other reason than that you are stubborn and fearful of squandering a block of peat when it grows in abundance all over this glen!”
“You are entirely too arrogant! It hardly matters what you will tolerate, for this is my home, and that…that bloody handfasting is a farce. It gives you no rights here!”
“Does it no’, indeed?”
“It does no’!”
Jack smiled wickedly and withdrew two tapers from the pocket of his greatcoat. He held them up just out of
her reach, wiggling them playfully. “Then you best tell Mrs. Kincade so, for she gave them over the moment I asked.”
Two beeswax tapers! Lizzie used them sparingly, and only when Charlotte complained of the smell the cruder tallow candles emitted. She lunged for the candles, but Jack held them high above his head, just out of her reach. She gasped with outrage and tried to slap his arm down and Jack…
Jack…
The color of his eyes changed before her very sight, turning a dark, smoky gray that snaked through her body like a trail of smoke. “Ask me,” he said huskily.
He confused her—Lizzie wasn’t certain what he meant.
“Ask me,” he said again. “Beg me. If you want it, Lizzie, you must say it.”
Say it. Say it. “I want it,” she said softly.
“Want what?” he pressed her.
Lizzie looked at his mouth, words failing her. The moment was powerfully magnetic; Jack let the candles drop carelessly from his fingers and grabbed her up in both arms at the same moment his lips found hers. He did not ask her permission, just kissed her passionately as he tightened his embrace, crushing her to him as if he were afraid she would fly away if he let go.
Lizzie didn’t recognize herself—the thing between them that had been building since their first night in the turret, the thing that had vexed her, disturbed her, but had also given her a sense of security on a narrow ledge today, erupted. The tormenting touch of his lips on hers jolted her to the core and rattled every bone, lit every patch of her skin that he touched. Her body seemed to blend into his before her mind could register what was happening. She clung to the warmth of his lips, to the breadth of his shoulders, the strength of his arms.
A moan rumbled deep in Jack’s chest; he crushed her to him, nipping at her lips, sucking them, licking them, his tongue swirling around hers. Lizzie forgot the cold, the candles, she forgot everything but Jack. She was emboldened by the clash of his hunger, her emotions and her desire.
Lizzie’s heart was pumping furiously, her breath snatched from her lungs. She eagerly explored his mouth with hers, his body with her hands, dragging through his hair, stroking his face, cupping his chin.
He groaned again and suddenly lifted her off her feet, setting her on her father’s desk and dipping down to the hollow of her throat, the only bit of skin he could see outside all the wool she wore. “I can feel your heart beating here,” he said roughly.
“It’s beating too fast,” she whispered fearfully, for it felt as if it would fly out of her chest.
“No, no,” he said, and took her hand, pressed it against his chest so that she could feel his heartbeat. “Your heart leads all else,” he said. “It is life, it is instinct, and it is the essence of a woman, aye? What you are feeling is quite normal. But when your heart moves, it causes mine to move. When it beats so quickly, it warms your skin, and I…” He drew a breath, brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “I must touch it. You lick your lips, and I canna resist kissing them.”
Lizzie’s lips parted; Jack kissed her tenderly.
“You close your eyes,” he said softly, “and I must wake the woman in you. You feel the desire for it between your legs, and I must satify it. I am a man, and that is what a man must do for a woman.”
Let a man be a man…. Mungo Beattie’s words came floating back to her, and as a bit of peat flared bright and hard, Lizzie dropped her head back.
Jack ravished her neck, his mouth exploring, his hands caressing. His lips seared her skin; his tongue scorched her earlobe, and his warm breath on her neck sent a white-hot shiver of anticipation shimmering down her spine. His hand swept the swell of her hips, pushed her body into his. The hard ridge of his erection excited her and she inhaled a ragged, ravenous breath.
“Mi Diah, Lizzie,” Jack said, cupping her face with his hands, pressing his forehead to hers. “Mi Diah. Do you know the power you possess? Do you know that with a look, a sigh, you can reduce a man to such need?”
He kissed her again, slid his hands to her shoulders, then her rib cage, sliding them down to her hips. One hand slid down her leg, to her ankle, his hand beneath the hem of her gown and her cloak.
His hand on her leg. Her skin shivered where he caressed her. She should stop him, stop him before it was too late, before she did the very thing she would surely regret all her days, the thing that would lead her to complete ruin.
“I shouldn’t,” she whispered.
“But you can no’ stop yourself, aye? The power you hold over me excites you and makes you mad with desire. You can no’ stop because you take pity on my need to bring your release; and by your kiss, you show me mercy.”
Oh, he was a rogue, a rogue with the poetry to seduce her! But he was correct that her response to him was instinctive, flowering inside her, freed by Jack’s masterful lips, by his words and the way he said her name, the way his hands glided over her body as if she were fragile.
She encircled his neck with her arms, pressed her lips to his cheek, to his ear, his jaw, teasing him with the tip of her tongue. She kissed him as if she’d kissed a million times before, when in fact he was the first man she’d ever truly kissed.
As his hand moved up her leg to the soft flesh of her inner thigh, she felt almost frenzied. She wanted to breathe, to laugh, to cry out and demand he stop all at once. He stroked her thigh, kissed her face and neck, but when his fingers brushed the apex of her legs, Lizzie gasped at the sensation.
“You must allow me this,” he said breathlessly and stroked her again, the sensation of it running through her like a river. “Leannan, have mercy. Allow me this,” he whispered, and sank his fingers into her folds and began to stroke her.
It was astounding and searing. She fought for breath, clinging to his shoulders. Jack was transporting her away from Thorntree, away from the hardship of her life, from Carson, from debt, from everything but him. She could feel the pleasure building in her, the damp warmth. He anchored her with one arm around her waist as his strokes grew fevered. His dark eyes were intent on hers as he watched her succumb to his touch.
“Jack,” she said, her voice rough and hoarse and strange to her own ears.
He whispered something, words she couldn’t grasp as he moved his hand boldly and intimately between her legs until her body shattered with physical pleasure. Over and over again she felt the waves of it spilling over her, and as she tried to find her bearings, she was certain she heard him say, “For you…”
When at last she could breathe, Jack slowly removed his hand from beneath her skirt. He was as breathless as she. He pulled her hands from his neck and kissed them both.
Blood was pumping through her veins again, and Lizzie’s senses slowly swam to the surface. She was captivated, entranced by what had just happened to her, but she was also mortified by her behavior. How could she have allowed it to happen? “Jack—”
“No,” he said, and pressed his palm against her cheek. “Donna say a word, lass. Donna deny what you are feeling.”
She did not deny that she was feeling elation. Adoration. And shock at her headlong fall from virtue without so much as a whimper of protest. Lizzie did not speak, for if she did, she feared she would ask for more, far more than Jack could or should give her.
She looked away and pressed the rumpled decree that she still held in her hand against Jack’s chest.
He covered her hand with his. Lizzie slid her hand out from beneath it, leaving the decree pinned against his chest, and looked at him from the corner of her eye.
Jack offered his free hand to her and helped her off her father’s desk.
“I’ll have a look,” he said, indicating the decree, watching her closely. But that was all he said. I’ll have a look. There were no declarations of esteem, no smiles. “I’ll work here, if you donna mind.”
She was more than happy to let him do so—she had the urge to flee, to think. But as she walked out of her father’s study, there was one thing Lizzie was entirely certain of—Jack might regret what had jus
t happened, but he had seen the heavens shimmer a little too.
She walked away without looking back, her arms folded tightly across her, her curls, having come out of the ribbon, bouncing around her shoulders. An exquisite warmth still tingled through her and the feel of his hands on her body still lingered.
So did the very real fear that she was in serious trouble because of it, that she’d made a horrible, irrevocable mistake.
If she’d looked back, she might have seen Jack sink heavily onto a chair, grasp his head in his hands, and stare dumbly at the decree, for his heart was still divining, still seeking her, and that had sent him into a vortex of discomfiture.
Chapter Twenty-five
In the sitting room, Jack fought the urge to slip back through the door into Lizzie’s bedroom and finish what he’d started. Heaven knew his body was desperate for him to do so. But as he stood at the door, one hand on the knob, he knew he could not take her virtue, the only thing she had left to her.
He couldn’t do that to himself for that matter. He’d have a difficult time leaving her if he did, and he would eventually leave. He could not remain here. Lizzie could not come with him, not with a sister who needed her, and London was impossible for Charlotte. It would never work.
Jack removed his hand from the doorknob and moved away.
He crept out the next morning, stepping over a sleeping Dougal. He had his horse saddled before dawn and spent the better part of an hour waiting for the day’s light to show itself.
He was feeling uncommonly restive, his emotions and actions increasingly unmanageable. He’d told himself after the first kiss in her bedroom that he was a bloody fool. But after last night…
After last night he felt his head and his heart engaged in some internal war. He couldn’t sleep for it, and had decided, somewhere in those predawn hours, that he should find something to occupy his hands and his thoughts other than Lizzie.
He’d toyed with the idea of riding on, leaving the handfasting behind. But he obviously didn’t like the idea of encountering bounty hunters, who, if Dougal’s brother Donald could be believed, were nearing Glenalmond. But, more important, Jack didn’t like the idea of leaving Lizzie with Carson’s scheme. He didn’t trust that man, and believed Carson had an evil streak. He was afraid what might happen to Lizzie if he didn’t discover Carson’s scheme first.
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