“Isabelle, this is my brother Dubh,” she said, focusing on the voice beside her. “He’s just arrived from Scotland.”
“I’m pleased to meet you,” the blonde said with a smile.
“I’m more than pleased to meet ye,” Dubh replied, returning her smile.
“Isabelle is the Earl of Eden’s niece and a countess in her own right,” Rob interjected, but neither her brother nor her friend spared a glance for her.
“What a coincidence,” Dubh remarked, raising his brows at the blonde. “I’m the Earl of Dunridge’s heir . . . May I call ye Belle?”
“Please do,” she answered.
Dubh gestured to the dancers and asked in a husky voice, “Would ye care to partner me, Belle?”
Without saying a word, Isabelle placed her hand in his.
Surprised, Rob watched her oldest brother and her only friend join the dancing couples. She turned to speak with the others at the high table, but they seemed engrossed in their own conversations. Even her cousin Blythe still danced with Roger Debrett.
Standing alone in the midst of that noble crowd, Rob felt as conspicuously out of place as she had in the Highlands. Was she forever destined to play the outcast? Old Clootie’s flower made her different, set her apart from others.
And then Rob thought of Henry. If only he had returned from Hampton Court in time for the party. Rob knew she could brave anything with Henry by her side.
What she needed was a breath of winter’s fresh air to clear the old worries from her mind. Wending her way slowly around the perimeter of the dance floor, Rob reached the hall’s entrance and stepped into the deserted foyer.
As she reached for her cloak, a hand covered hers, and a voice behind her said, “Dinna leave, bright angel.”
“Great Bruce’s ghost,” Rob cried, startled.
She whirled around and found herself staring into piercing gray eyes. And they belonged to the black-clad stranger.
Like a proper English lady, Rob steeled herself against his smoldering look and tried to withdraw her hand, but the stranger refused to release her. When he spoke, his sensuously husky voice conspired with his disarming gray-eyed gaze to hold her in thrall.
“If my unworthy hand profanes yer angelic shrine,” the stranger said, “consider my lips as pilgrims to smooth the roughness of my touch.” At that, he pressed his warm lips to her hand and then gifted her with a devastating smile.
Enchanted by his chivalrous speech and gesture, Rob ignored the fluttering riot in the pit of her stomach and returned his smile in kind. She felt safe enough; some part of her mind heard the northern accent that announced his identity as her brother’s Edinburgh acquaintance. Out of habit, she hid her left hand within the folds of her gown.
“Ye do wrong yer hand, gentle Scotsman,” Rob told him. “With true devotion do pilgrims’ hands touch statues of angels and saints. ’Tis the way they kiss.”
“Dinna pilgrims and angels and saints have lips?” the stranger asked, inching closer.
“For prayer.”
“Why dinna we let lips do what hands do?” he suggested in a seductive whisper. His face came dangerously close, and he lightly brushed his lips across hers.
Shocked and excited, Rob kept her eyes open. The oh-so-gentle touch of his lips on hers sent a heated shiver coursing down her body to the tips of her toes. The delicious sensation ended in an instant.
What possessed her? She had an unwanted husband in the Highlands and a would-be betrothed at court. How did she dare stand in her uncle’s foyer and allow this stranger a liberty she’d denied both husband and suitor?
“Yer holy lips have absolved mine of sin,” the stranger teased, drawing her attention from troubling thoughts.
“Do my lips now possess yer sin?” Rob asked with a smile.
“God forbid,” he said. “Give me back my sin again.”
He moved to capture her mouth with his own, but Rob held him off with the palm of her right hand pressed against his chest. “My lord, I do protest —”
“— but not overly much.”
The stranger reached down, and capturing her hands in his own, brought them to his lips. He kissed the back of her right hand. After gazing for a long moment at the delicate devil’s flower staining her left hand, he pressed his lips on it.
His tender action nagged at an elusive memory. “Though rudeness to my brother’s friend troubles me,” Rob said, yanking her hand out of his, “I must inform ye that ye are maulin’ a married lady.”
“Madam, I’m better acquainted with yer marital state than any man,” he replied.
Rob heard the rueful tone in his voice and narrowed her gaze on him. “Who are ye?” she demanded, arching one perfectly shaped ebony brow at him. “Identify yerself.”
He leaned closer, and as a smile slashed across his handsome features, said, “Call me . . . husband?”
“Great Bruce’s ghost,” Rob cried.
The foyer spun dizzyingly, and the floor rushed up to meet her. For a few moments, Rob found refuge from shocked disappointment in a faint. All too soon, she began to swim up from the depths of unconsciousness, and a strange floating sensation permeated her senses. Then Rob heard the voices reaching out to her from a great distance, recalling her to cruel reality.
“Why won’t she awaken?” a man asked.
“She’s had a bad shock,” a woman answered.
“Why dinna we pitch cold water on her face?” suggested a second man.
“No.” Both Earl Richard and Lady Keely rejected the Marquess of Inverary’s idea.
Almost reluctantly, Rob opened her eyes and focused on her uncle’s and her aunt’s concerned expressions. In the background behind them rose a wall of books, and Rob realized she reclined in a chair within her uncle’s study. And then she saw the piercing gray-eyed gaze fixed on her.
“Oh, God,” Rob moaned. “Yer real.”
Gordon refused to smile at her insulting impertinence, though his lips twitched with the urge to laugh. Silently, he offered her a dram of whiskey.
Rob shook her head and looked away.
“’Twill revive ye,” he said.
She flicked him a sidelong glance and said, “I dinna want to revive.”
The absurdity of her remark made Gordon smile. “Drink it,” he ordered in a pleasant voice, “or I’ll force it down yer throat.”
Of all the arrogant, insufferable — Rob looked at her uncle and then her aunt. No help there.
Lifting the dram of whiskey from the Marquess of Inverary’s hand without actually touching him, Rob pinched her nostrils together with her left hand and gulped the whiskey down in one suicidal swig. Her reaction to the dark amber liquid was swift. First, her emerald eyes widened in pained surprise; and then she coughed and wheezed as the potent whiskey blazed a path to her stomach. When she finally recovered herself, Rob passed the empty glass to her aunt.
Gordon grinned, seemingly amused by her gesture. “My wee kitten has grown into a sleek, temperamental she cat,” he drawled.
“I’m not yer anythin’,” Rob insisted, then turned a pleading gaze upon her uncle.
“Let us sit in front of the hearth and discuss this gently,” Earl Richard suggested, succumbing to her silent plea for help.
“Verra well,” Gordon agreed, moving to assist his bride out of the chair and escort her across the chamber.
“I’ve revived,” Rob said, yanking her arm out of his grasp.
Gordon and Rob sat in the two chairs placed in front of the hearth. Peeking at him from beneath the thick fringe of her ebony lashes, Rob saw him staring at her hands. As casually as she could, Rob moved her right hand to cover the devil’s flower on her left hand. When his piercing gaze traveled from her hands to her face, Rob quickly fixed her own gaze on the flames in the hearth. Though she refused to gift him with a glance, Rob felt the marquess’s overpowering presence with every fiber of her being.
Standing beside her husband. Lady Keely wore an ambiguous smile while Earl Rich
ard stood directly in front of them and folded his arms across his chest. He cleared his throat and said, “We seem to have a problem here.”
“I dinna perceive any problem,” Gordon replied, stretching his long legs out as though he hadn’t a worry in the world. “I’ve come to collect my wife.”
“Dinna call me that,” Rob said, her voice tinged with barely suppressed panic.
“Yer the Marchioness of Inverary, angel, whether ye like it or no,” Gordon said with an easy smile.
Rob felt like screaming but forced a sweet patience into her voice when she replied, “My lord, I do desire an annulment.”
“’Tis impossible, angel.”
“We never consum—” Rob broke off, her complexion reddening with hot embarrassment. She dropped her gaze to her lap and informed her white-knuckled hands, “’Tis possible, I say.”
Gordon chuckled huskily, the sensual sound of it flustering her even more. “I ken yer meanin’, hinny, but ’tis Highland tradition for the Marquess of Inverary to wed the MacArthur laird’s daughter whenever possible.”
“Yer own father married a Gordon,” Rob said, forcing herself to look at him though it disturbed her to do so. She felt as though his piercing gaze could see into her soul.
“Aye, but the MacArthur laird — namely, yer grandfather — had no daughters,” Gordon replied. “Our parents desired this union. Failin’ to honor our vows can only cause a breach between the two families and dissension within the entire clan.”
“Ye needn’t concern yerself with my parents,” Rob assured him. She forced herself to smile, but her lips trembled with the effort. “They wish for my happiness, which I can never have if married to ye.”
God’s balls, Gordon thought, bristling beneath her innocently spoken insult. The lass could test the patience of a saint, which he damned well wasn’t.
“Ye dinna know that, angel,” Gordon replied in a deceptively quiet voice.
“I do,” Rob insisted. “I’m an English lady and no longer belong in the Highlands.”
That a Highlander would forsake her native land appalled Gordon. Unable to control himself, he snorted with angry contempt and said, “I see that a white ram may sire a black lamb.”
“What d’ye mean by that?” Rob asked. There was no mistaking the challenge in her voice.
Gordon opened his mouth to answer, but Lady Keely stuck a fortifying dram of whiskey in front of his face. Accepting the glass without a word, Gordon downed its contents in one healthy swig, but his anger numbed him to its burning sensation. He handed the countess the empty glass and then rounded on his bride.
“I slew yer damned monster,” Gordon reminded her.
“To what are ye referrin’, my lord?” Rob asked, surprised by his words.
“The monster that was livin’ beneath yer bed on the day we married.” Gordon cocked a dark brow at her. “Dinna ye recall him?”
Rob flushed with angry embarrassment. She flicked a humiliated glance at her uncle and her aunt who appeared to be enjoying themselves.
“Shame on such a fierce Highland warrior as yerself for takin’ unfair advantage of an eight-year-old bairn,” Rob said, her voice filled with scorn.
“I do believe a compromise is in order.” Earl Richard intervened before the marquess could respond to his niece’s insulting accusation.
“I agree,” Lady Keely said, then turned to Gordon. “My lord, you cannot expect my niece to ride to Scotland in the company of a man she hardly knows, albeit her lawful husband.”
Rob smiled with relief. “Thank ye, Aunt Keely.”
“And you cannot expect the marquess to forsake his marriage vows so easily,” Earl Richard said to her. “’Tis obvious your parents desired this union.”
“Ye married for love,” Rob argued.
“And so will we find a fondness together,” Gordon said, drawing her attention.
“Ye dinna ken,” Rob tried to explain, her voice an aching whisper. “I canna love ye. I love —”
“Lord Campbell will winter in England,” Earl Richard interrupted. He looked pointedly at the marquess and added, “He will allow people to believe that you were betrothed as children, and he will not seduce you into his bed, which would void any chance for annulment.”
“Nor force me either,” Rob added.
“Yer safe with me,” Gordon snapped, losing patience, thinking his bride was a viper masquerading as a desirable woman. This whole scene was humiliating. Unexpectedly, he gave her a lazy smile and added, “Ye may not believe this, but women have always dropped most willin’ly into my arms.”
For some unknown reason, that bit of unsolicited information irritated Rob. She narrowed her gaze on him, and her usually sweet expression became a mask of disgust.
“You will spend as much time with Lord Campbell as he desires and become acquainted with him.” Lady Keely spoke up before her niece could level another insult at the marquess.
“On or before the first day of spring, Rob will decide whether to return to Scotland or to remain in England,” Earl Richard told the marquess. “Do we have an acceptable understanding?”
“She’ll behave without any trace of sullenness?” Gordon asked, purposefully perverse.
“I guarantee it,” the earl replied without bothering to glance at her.
Gordon stared for a long moment at his beautiful, reluctant bride but perceived no real contest in this battle of their wills. The chit would be sighing in his arms and begging for his kisses before Hogmanay, which wasn’t such a terrible way to greet the new year.
“I agree,” Gordon said finally.
Rob sagged with relief in her chair. The longer she remained in England, the less chance there was she’d be forced to return to Scotland. Soon, Henry would return from Hampton Court and set the arrogant Marquess of Inverary in his place. In fact, she could hardly wait to witness the womanizer’s comeuppance. That satisfying thought brought the hint of a smile to her lips, and without thinking, she traced a finger across the devil’s flower staining her left hand.
“Verra well,” Rob agreed, looking up at her uncle’s expectant expression. Abruptly, she rose from the chair and announced, “I have the headache and wish to retire for the evenin’.”
“We’ll begin our courtship in the mornin’,” Gordon announced, standing when she did. “Be ready to go ridin’ at ten o’clock.”
“As ye wish.” Rob turned and, feeling that piercing gaze on her back, crossed the chamber to the door. A distant memory surfaced, and she paused. “My lord?”
“Yes, my lady?”
“Ye never sent the doll,” she said in a soft, accusing voice.
Gordon raised his brows. “What doll?”
Without bothering to answer him, Rob lifted her upturned nose into the air in a gesture of dismissal and walked out the door. Dubh and Isabelle stood outside in the corridor, but Rob ignored their presence and headed for the stairs. Tears welled up in her eyes as soon as she reached the privacy of her bedchamber, but she held them in check through sheer force of will.
Dinna cry, Rob told herself. Weepin’ willna gain ye an annulment.
Rob stared out the window at the night sky. A crescent moon hung overhead, and thousands of glittering stars winked at her from their bed of black velvet. Mysterious night shrouded all manner of flaws, and Rob loved it.
’Tis imperative I remain in England, she thought, desperation rising within her breast.
Changelin’-witch. Loch Awe Monster.
The crushing taunts of the MacArthur clansmen’s children came rushing back to her in a flood of memory. For over a year those painful memories had lain dormant within the deepest recesses of her mind, but Gordon Campbell’s unexpected appearance had awakened them.
Rob sighed raggedly. The devil’s flower had rendered her unacceptable to the Highlanders. How could she return to that land of lonely misery? Was she forever doomed to play the feared and distrusted outcast?
The Marquess of Ludlow loved her, and the English acc
epted her as one of their own. Not once had she noticed anyone make a protective sign of the cross when she passed by. She just had to marry Henry and remain in England. Living in Scotland would destroy her.
An elopement was out of the question. She already had a husband.
Adultery leaped into her mind, but Rob banished that sinful thought without any consideration. In good conscience, she could never compromise her virtue and integrity in order to save herself from heartache. What she needed was an honorable solution to her problem. An annulment was the only thing possible, but she needed his permission to get it.
As she stared out the window and pondered the bleakness of her future, Rob spied the dark figure of a man walking across the snow-covered lawns toward the Dowager House. Mist, sheer as a bride’s veil, crept up the banks of the Thames and swirled around the Marquess of Inverary’s legs.
Gordon Campbell’s piercing gray gaze and chestnut brown hair conspired with his rugged features to make him an unusually attractive man, the kind about whom maidens dream. Too bad he hadn’t been born English. Rob knew she wouldn’t have minded being his wife. On the other hand, the marquess admitted being a womanizer and did seem overly proud.
That was it! No self-respecting Highlander would keep a woman who loved another. In the morning, she would explain — ever so gently and tactfully, of course — that Henry and she shared true love. Campbell would bow out with his pride intact and, hopefully, return to Scotland posthaste to annul their marriage. If he wished, he was welcome to use Old Clootie’s mark as the reason.
That dim hope buoyed Rob’s sagging spirits, but it was a long, long time before sleep seduced her into sweet oblivion.
Chapter 3
“Good morning.”
Rob awakened to the cheerful greeting but refused to open her eyes. In a futile attempt to shut the intruder out, she yanked the coverlet over her head.
“’Tis time to awaken,” the insistent voice told her. “I’ve brought you a breakfast tray.”
Reluctantly, Rob pulled the coverlet off her face. Lady Keely sat on the edge of the bed. Brilliant, blinding sunshine streamed into the chamber through the window behind her aunt.
Courting an Angel Page 5