MacLachlann hesitated for only an instant before inclining his head in acquiescence. “Jamie says you have a remarkable memory.”
“Because I’ve trained it,” she replied, trying not to feel so very pleased by his compliment. It was secondhand, after all, based on something her brother had said about her.
MacLachlann reached for the present earl’s will, obviously intending to open it. Appalled, Esme grabbed his forearm to stop him.
“We can’t open that. It’s sealed,” she protested, nodding at the red wax blob with the earl’s insignia pressed into it.
MacLachlann raised a brow and, taking a penknife from the desk, slid it beneath the seal.
Esme had felt a twinge of guilt slipping into the locked library. Accepting that as necessary, she had even felt a sense of victory when she’d found the hidden documents. But to open and read a sealed legal document…
She had tried to stop him, she reasoned as her curiosity got the better of her. “Bring it to the window so I can see it in more light.”
He handed her the will and stayed beside her as she read it as quickly as she dared, lest she overlook something important. The will was detailed, exact, clear—as well-written and precise as anything she or Jamie could have created.
“We can’t stay away from the drawing room much longer,” MacLachlann said as she neared the end.
“This is an excellent will. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better one, and although it names Gordon McHeath as executor, he is not to receive a percentage of the estate. It names a clear sum for the task and it’s less than Jamie would ask for in a similar situation.”
“You think this means McHeath is innocent of any wrongdoing?”
She wanted to answer in the affirmative, but had to be truthful. “I think if he’s involved in anything illegal, it’s nothing to do with the will, which has to be resealed somehow.”
“Oh, ye of little faith,” MacLachlann said as he took the document. He sat in the chair, folded the will and laid it down on the table with the seal on the top of the desk, then blew hard on it.
“It won’t be well-sealed, but good enough,” he said as he put his palm over the paper and pressed down.
“Won’t that damage the seal?”
“If it’s a bit cracked, who’s to say that wasn’t because the earl’s been sitting on it?”
That was true enough, she supposed.
“Do you recall the order the papers were in?” he asked as he rose.
“Yes,” she said, blessing her retentive memory.
She put them in the right order, then returned them to their hiding place. “Ingenious, really,” she murmured. “It was by mere chance I sat on the chair and heard that noise.”
“Perhaps you should take up gambling.”
She was about to reply that she had no desire to wind up penniless, but the memory of his past losses stopped her tongue. Meanwhile MacLachlann closed the drapes, plunging them back into darkness.
She put her hand on the desk for a guide and started toward the door, then hesitated, unsure, until she felt his hand on her elbow. “Good God, Esme, you have been reading too much. You’ll go blind if you don’t take better care.”
Here, in the dark and close beside her, he sounded sincerely worried about her.
Very aware of his body, hearing the soft sound of his breathing, inhaling the masculine scent of his cologne, as well as starch and wool, she could easily believe they were all alone in the house and there was nothing and no one to prevent him from taking her in his arms and…
“You won’t be much help to Jamie if you’re blind,” he noted, his matter-of-fact tone like a splash of cold water, waking her up and bringing her back to reality as he guided her forward.
He eased the door open and peered into the corridor. “The way is clear. You go first and I’ll follow.”
She slipped out of the room and waited as he, too, made his exit. She relaxed and let her breath out slowly as he locked the door.
Until she heard people talking and footsteps coming toward them from the drawing room and more voices coming from the other end of the corridor, trapping them in between.
She looked at MacLachlann desperately. “What are we—?”
He pushed her back against the wall, then covered her mouth with his.
Chapter Nine
Esme’s stunned shock lasted a mere moment before she put her hands up to push him away.
He slid his mouth closer to her ear. “We’re supposed to be married,” he whispered as he angled his knee between her legs, creating a pressure of a sort she’d never experienced before, a pressure as exciting as his touch and as arousing as his kiss. His mouth found hers again and he insinuated his tongue between her lips.
Her protests and any thought of merely pretending to be aroused drifted away as her body responded to the sensation of his lips on hers and the feel of his muscular body against her own. Desire took hold of her. Passion consumed her as she leaned into him fully, relaxing against him so it seemed only his strong arms were holding her upright.
His hand grazed her hip, then her torso, moving to cup her breast. It was shockingly intimate and unbelievably exhilarating and—
“Well!” Lady Elvira ejaculated, the sudden explosion of sound and scorn yanking Esme out of her haze of desire.
MacLachlann let go, and Esme found that her legs were indeed capable of holding her upright. When he stepped back, there was a slight flush in his cheeks and hostile gleam in his eyes.
She wished she knew how much of his reaction was real, and how much was feigned, except…if he really was upset that they’d been forced to stop, what did that mean?
Did she really want an answer to that question?
“Ah, Dubhagen and your pretty wife, I see,” the old earl said, while Esme struggled to get her tumultuous emotions back under control.
“That’s a surprise,” Lady Elvira tartly observed.
“It’s a surprise that I want to kiss my pretty wife?” MacLachlann coolly replied, arching a brow as a pair of footmen sidled past on their way to the dining room from the back stairs. It must have been their voices they’d heard coming the other way.
“You were doing much more than kissing,” Lady Elvira waspishly noted.
“Not nearly as much as I wanted to,” MacLachlann countered without a morsel of embarrassment, while Esme blushed right down to the tips of her toes. Not only was the situation humiliating, but her own reactions were also making a mockery of her determination to be in charge of this enterprise, and MacLachlann.
“Perhaps we’d best leave,” MacLachlann continued, taking Esme’s arm. “Good night, Lord Duncombe. Thank you, and your charming daughter, too, for a most delightful evening. Come along, my dear, before Lady Elvira falls into a fit.”
Her arms crossed, frowning as only Esme could frown, Quinn’s supposed wife squeezed into a corner of the carriage as if determined to get as far away from him as she could.
If she intended to pretend he wasn’t there, he would ignore her, too. It wasn’t his fault Lady Elvira and the earl and a pair of servants all happened along the corridor at the same time. Would she rather they’d been caught in the library?
“I couldn’t think of anything else to do on the spur of the moment that wouldn’t arouse suspicion, or believe me, I would have,” he said, telling himself that was the truth.
Besides, for all her protests, Esme had responded passionately to his kisses. She might claim she was only pretending, but either she was the world’s greatest actress, or she was as excited by their embraces as much as he.
Even though he shouldn’t be. She was Jamie’s sister, after all.
“I find it interesting that you appear to think only of certain intimate activities in times of difficulty,” she dourly replied, making it sound as if kissing him was the equivalent of being forced to swallow terrible-tasting medicine. “You are either a slave to your baser nature or have a distinct lack of imagination. And I suggest you ta
ke care how you behave toward Catriona. It would hamper our efforts if her father thought you were trying to seduce her—although not as much as it would upset Jamie if you were.”
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What have I done that makes you think I have any such intention?”
“The way you looked at her during dinner.”
“By that measure, you must be passionately smitten by Mr. McHeath.”
Her frown deepened. “And you smiled at her.”
“You stared at him as if he was King Arthur come to life.”
“I have no passionate feelings for Mr. McHeath!”
“As I have no passionate feelings or seductive intentions regarding Lady Catriona. And do you honestly think me capable of such ingratitude that I would try to seduce the woman your brother loved?”
“Yes!”
Quintus MacLachlann had been insulted many times and in many ways, but none had pierced his heart as much as Esme’s answer, spoken with such conviction. “Well, I wouldn’t!”
And it was not as if she was an angel, or had any love in her heart for the woman who’d rejected her brother. “I confess myself astonished that you feel Lady Catriona deserves your unnecessary protection. Your prejudice against the woman has been obvious from the moment Jamie mentioned her name.”
“Whatever she’s done,” Esme snapped, “she’s a woman, and we women must stick together against seductive scoundrels.”
He was a seductive scoundrel, was he? And he was never going to be anything else in her eyes, either, no doubt.
Very well, then. He would teach her a lesson about seduction she wouldn’t soon forget.
“You wound me, Esme,” he said with every appearance of genuine sorrow as he moved to sit beside her. “I would never seduce Lady Catriona, and not only because of Jamie’s devotion to her. Why would I, when she lacks so much I seek in a lover? She has no fire, no spark, no passion—not like you. She would be too tame, too easily wooed and won. Not like you.”
Esme didn’t believe him. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t, as she slid back to the corner, getting as far away from him as she could.
He moved slowly closer. “I should have thought of another diversion or some other way to avoid detection, but I couldn’t. Not when you were so close to me, and so beautiful.”
Beautiful? That word told her he couldn’t be sincere. She was no beauty. She never had been and she never would be. And she would be a silly fool to think otherwise, when she had the evidence before her in the mirror every day.
“How could I not want to kiss you? How could I not want you—and I do want you,” he said softly, the words low and tender.
She wanted to believe him, oh, so much—until she recognized cool calculation in his eyes of the sort she’d seen in a fraudster’s eyes as he tried to justify his activities or blame someone else for his crimes after he’d been caught.
Anger replaced yearning and anguish killed desire.
He was, after all, like every other man who had ever belittled and patronized her, who believed himself by nature smarter and wiser than any woman could be. And like many another handsome man, he was sure she would forget everything except desire and the wish to be in his arms if he sounded keen to have her.
What he was really after, she was certain, was control. Over her, and over this task.
Well, she would show him that he wasn’t the only one who could play that sort of game. Had she not heard enough from female servants who’d been seduced by employers to know how such a thing was done?
She slid her arms around his neck. “Oh, Quinn,” she sighed as she relaxed against him, “I never knew, never dreamed that you could feel that way about me.”
She pressed her lips against his, moving them with slow deliberation, as if eager for him to deepen the kiss—something he didn’t hesitate to do. He slipped his hand inside her cloak and ran his fingertips over her collarbone, grazing the tops of her breasts.
She mustn’t succumb to the desire he aroused. She must not. She must remain in control, here and while they were in Edinburgh.
His tongue slid past her parted lips, dancing with hers, as he pulled her onto his lap. She felt his arousal beneath her, and could scarcely believe how much it excited her to know that he wanted to make love with her.
Make love, not be in love. The difference was important. Had to be. Must be.
He cupped her breast, kneading gently, brushing the taut tip with the pad of his thumb. Her heartbeat sped up even more, her breathing grew more erratic.
Control. She must have it. Must keep it. Mustn’t give in to her need. Her lust. Her longing to be in his arms.
In his bed.
The carriage stopped.
His heart racing, Quinn threw open the carriage door and leapt to the ground. Convinced Esme felt more than lust—that she must like him and must not hold his past against him anymore—he didn’t care if he shocked the servants as he reached up and grabbed Esme around the waist to help her to the ground. Once she was out of the carriage, he took hold of her hand and pulled her up the steps and through the open door of the house, where the equally surprised hallboy waited. Paying no attention to the lad, he continued to lead her up the stairs and down the dimly lit hall, as longing and desire and excitement combined within him to an almost fever pitch. How many times had he imagined this—or tried not to?
Maybe all these months, she’d only been pretending to hate him, because she thought she should. Or maybe she had hated him until she’d spent more time with him and realized he was no longer the wastrel he’d been in his youth.
Whatever Esme was thinking, she said not a word, not even as they crossed the threshold into her bedroom.
Three candles burned on the dressing table. More were on the table beside the bed and a fire burned in the hearth, leaving the corners of the room in shadow.
Holding his breath, wondering if she would order him to leave, Quinn turned to face her.
She was so lovely, so beautiful and serene, so good and true and…
Could he be less? “Esme, I should go,” he said, although it took a mighty effort.
She walked toward him. “After all those things you said to me? Stay,” she pleaded softly. “Don’t leave me alone tonight, Quinn. I’ve been alone too much.”
As had he. Alone and lonely.
Like a man crossing the desert who sees water shimmering in the distance, he moved toward her, holding his breath as she undid the drawstring of her cloak and let it fall to the ground, until she stood before him lovely and radiant in her beautiful gown that wasn’t nearly as beautiful as she.
Unable to wait another moment, he tugged her to him, taking her mouth with fervent, unrestrained desire. Oh, God, how he’d longed for this, even before they’d come to Edinburgh! He’d wanted to do this from the moment she’d first looked at him with those intelligent, vibrant eyes.
She slipped her arms around his waist and leaned into him, while he embraced her as if he never wanted to let her go. With passionate deliberation he moved his lips over hers, then parted them to deepen their kiss.
He broke their embrace to shrug off his coat and jacket, letting them fall to the floor, before he pulled her close again. She tugged his shirt from his breeches and slid her hand under and upward, gliding her palm over his naked chest before she drew back. “Would you do something for me, Quinn?” she asked softly, her hazel eyes shining as she looked at him.
It was the first time she had ever called him by his first name.
“Anything,” he replied, meaning it. Right now, here and alone with her, he would do anything it was in his power to do for her.
Her expression changed to one of speculation, as if she’d finished reading a scientific treatise and was considering the conclusion. “So that is how one uses desire to manipulate another,” she coolly remarked. “How interesting.”
He gasped with shock. This had been an experiment? A trick? Because she assumed—wrongly!—that he was simply trying
to seduce her in order to gain her cooperation?
And she then thought nothing of using his desire to hurt him?
Rage, frustration and humiliation swept through him like a tidal wave. How could she? How dare she? Who did she think she was? “It’s not wise to toy with me, Esme.”
She tilted her head as she studied him. “It’s distressing to be used, is it not? Yet you seem to think it’s perfectly acceptable to toy with women.”
“I don’t toy with women, or use them as you imply. I fulfill my natural urges, as they do with me. Any seduction is quite mutual, and it’s understood that there are no obligations, for either of us. And I would never feign desire merely to prove a point!”
With that, he grabbed up his coat and jacket, threw open the door and went out, slamming the door behind him with a resounding bang.
Hours after MacLachlann had left, Esme lay in bed, wide awake and restless. She’d only been trying to put MacLachlann in his place by the sort of means he employed, until things had gone too far—much too far. Despite her reasons for doing what she had, his anger had been justified.
But it wasn’t his anger she thought of now. It was the pain she’d seen in his eyes, beneath the rage. She had hurt him deeply, and that hurt told her that he hadn’t just been trying to dominate her. Maybe he really did think she was beautiful and perhaps he truly wanted to be with her, and she had made a mockery of those feelings. To be sure, he had teased and mocked her often enough, but not enough to cause her such anguish as she had seen in him, however briefly.
What would MacLachlann do now? Would he stay, or would he go back to London?
If he stayed, what should she say or do the next time she saw him? And if he went back to London, what should she do? If they both went back to London, she would have failed Jamie, to whom she owed so much.
Yet how could she remain in Edinburgh if MacLachlann left?
She rolled onto her side. She never should have kissed him or tried to use desire as a weapon. Why had she even considered it? She’d never been even remotely interested in doing anything like that with any other man…but then, MacLachlann wasn’t like any other man. He was both sophisticated and wild, intelligent and vulgar, unabashedly masculine, yet he could be compassionate, too.
Highland Rogue, London Miss Page 10