Even that morning in church, he’d wanted her. He’d stared at the back of her head, the feeling, the smell, the heat of her controlling his mind.
Now he had her and he wanted his fill.
Portia didn’t want reason, or rules, or strictures.
She wanted him.
Wrapping her arms around his neck, she reveled in the sensation of her bare chest against his as he thrust deeper and deeper into his body.
He made her feel alive. She was on fire. The heat of their coupling threatened to consume her.
She moved with him, and yet found she had her own wants, her own desires, and only he could satisfy them—
A pinnacle of sensation started building inside her. She’d felt it the night before but this was more powerful, keener.
Portia held tight, almost afraid of what was happening to her. This was so good, too good—
And then she found what she had been searching for. She hit it.
One moment, her body was of this earth and in the next she was part of the heavens. She was a shooting star. She was the sun. She was all that was perfect and wonderful.
Had she thought last night was what the poets praised? She’d been wrong.
This was what they celebrated.
He flew with her as well. He rocked her in his arms as her body exploded into a hundred different shards of sensation. He was buried deep within her and she felt the power of life flow from him to her.
Life. Yes, that was what this was. Portia was finally a part of life. Sweet, valuable, always-to-be-cherished life.
Of course, reality, the part of life she truly belonged to, returned with the cooling of her body’s sweat, and a realization that once again she’d compromised her virtue.
What virtue?
She’d tossed that aside last night.
What she needed to do now was arrange her clothing into some semblance of normal and run from this place and this man as fast as her legs could take her—
“You had better not be having recriminations,” his deep voice said above her.
Portia closed her eyes. She wished she could blame him for her shameful behavior, but she couldn’t. She’d wanted him, and she’d had him.
“I need to go,” she whispered.
“No, you don’t,” he said, his arms hugging her closer. Her legs were still around his waist. “I’m not letting you go anywhere.”
“Please,” she said, her throat starting to close on tears.
He stopped any other pleas she could have made with a kiss.
This kiss was different from the devouring ones of only moments ago. This was gentle, caring, understanding.
Slowly, her resistance vanished. He let her down to the ground and she stood in front of him, almost afraid of what would happen next.
He cupped her face with his hands. His palm was rough. He was no dandy but a man who used his hands, who almost took pleasure in it. He traced her lips with the tip of his thumb.
“You must believe me,” he said, his voice low. “What is between us is different. It’s not how things normally are.”
Was he saying she was different to him from all the women he was reputed to have bedded?
She wanted to believe him.
He picked up her cloak. With caring reverence he placed it around her. It was then she realized her dress hung down to her waist. Her breasts were completely exposed to him. She started to pull her bodice up. He caught her hands.
“No, not yet.”
Portia looked askance. She didn’t understand.
“You are so beautiful,” he answered.
Beautiful. No one had ever called her beautiful before. Minnie was the beauty. Portia was the less-than-attractive older sister, the one who would never marry without a dowry . . . and yet, in this moment, she felt beautiful.
He smiled as he touched the bridge of her spectacles, pushing them up her nose. “I like your glasses. I like you.”
A warmth filled her that was more potent than even his lovemaking.
“I like you as well,” she said.
He smiled, the expression transforming his face. He looked relaxed, younger, carefree. But then he turned serious. “The book?”
Of course, the book.
She had been a momentary diversion. One he enjoyed before he focused on what he truly wanted.
He looked past her to where the book had dropped to the ground when they had embraced. The money bag was there as well, and Portia was stunned to realize that she’d been so embroiled with him she could have forgotten something as important as money.
The colonel left her, tucking in his shirt as he went outside, and picked up both the book and her money. He left the basket where it lay.
Portia began straightening her wardrobe. Her hair was a mess. Her curls sprang every which way. Her body was still full of him. She tried not to think on it as she started searching the ground for stray pins.
He leaned against the door and opened the book, blocking her way to escape.
Portia waited a few moments, watching him turning the pages, a frown marring his forehead.
All was silent save for the sounds of his horse grazing outside and the fragile brittleness of the pages as he flipped them.
“I should be leaving,” she said.
He raised his gaze, his eyes saying he hadn’t comprehended her words.
“I should leave,” she repeated. She did need to go now, while she had the good common sense to do so—and she would never cross his path again. Never, never, never.
The colonel might act as if this sort of explosive mating was normal for him, but it wasn’t for her. She was developing a habit around him that was quite disturbing.
He held the book out. “I don’t understand this,” he said as if she hadn’t spoken. “What is it? And where did you see the name Fenella?”
“It’s a book of recipes,” she explained. Seeing he didn’t understand, she said, “Women write down recipes for curing bacon and remedies for healing a fever or setting a bone. They pass these books down from one generation to the next. This one is a bit unusual because it has chants and spells. Magic, you could say, although I doubt if any of the spells work.” She took the book from him and turned the pages to show him what she meant. “I found Fenella’s name in the front. In this book, I’m assuming that when it was passed from one woman to the next, the woman wrote her name in it. That’s a common practice for such books, much the same as what you see in family Bibles.”
The colonel stared at the list of faded names ending with Fenella’s. “It’s an unusual name. It must be her. Why else would the cat be here? Tell me how you found the book.”
Again, with the cat.
He could make a woman question his sanity. “I need to be going,” Portia said, and would have slipped past him out the door except he placed an arm up to block her way.
“Please,” he said. “This is important.”
“My family will wonder where I am.” She shouldn’t stay here. Not alone with him.
“Where did you tell them you were going?”
Portia made an impatient sound at his commonsense response.
“Well?” he prompted.
“I told them I was taking a basket to Lizzy.”
“Crazy Lizzy?”
“You’ve met her?”
“I have met every woman people thought could be possessed in some way or the other,” he answered, and then took her arm, leading her over to a three-legged stool by the bothy’s cold hearth. “Sit here and trust me when I say I will see you home, and well before dark.”
Portia tried to turn back to the door. “That will not work. If Lady Emma catches wind of this, there will be an uproar.”
He held fast to her arm, not letting her escape. “No one will see me return you home. And as for the du
ke’s spoiled daughter, I won’t let her harm you. I won’t let anyone hurt you. Please, just a moment more of your time.”
“There is no such thing as a witch,” she said, the words bursting out of her. “And Fenella, who created your curse, is dead. Gone. She isn’t a cat and she doesn’t exist now.”
“I understand your doubt,” he said. “I would be the same way if I was not involved in this. But if I don’t find a way to break this curse, my brother will die and his son will bear the mark as well and it will continue on. Please, stay a moment and hear the story. I’ll see you home without anyone being the wiser. I promise.”
She should leave . . . but curiosity led her to sink down to the stool.
“Thank you,” he said, and he sounded as if he truly meant the words. He sat on the ground in front of her, crossing his booted legs so he could cradle the book in his lap.
“Fenella had a daughter named Rose who loved Charles Chattan of Glenfinnan. She claimed they were handfasted, which at the time, to Rose, was the same as being married.”
“I’ve heard the story. It’s common knowledge amongst the locals. They think Charles was a traitorous scoundrel.”
“I believe he probably cared for Rose but he didn’t consider them betrothed. Or perhaps he did. We Chattan men are capable of being scoundrels.”
He gave a self-deprecating smile as he said this, but Portia wasn’t so certain he wasn’t giving her a warning as well.
The colonel continued. “Charles’s parents managed to contract a marriage to an English heiress for him. He chose to do as his parents asked, which was reasonable, especially for the day and age—”
“Protesting too much?” she suggested.
“Perhaps. I wasn’t there, and I was teasing about Chattan men being scoundrels.”
“I’m not so certain,” she murmured. He frowned. “I was told she jumped from a tower.” He nodded. “She had to have been heartbroken . . .” She paused.
“What is it?”
“Let me see the book.” He handed it to her and she turned to the page with the spell and the word “Charles” written in the tearstained margin. “Could this be from her?” She handed the book back.
His reaction would have been the same if she had given him the crown jewels. “Yes, Rose could have written this.” He traced the writing as if he could divine something of that woman from centuries ago.
Portia felt her eyes fill with tears. “Hers is a terrible story.”
“It happened a long time ago,” the colonel said.
“I know, but I can imagine how she must have felt.” And Portia could, especially with him sitting so close. She barely knew him, and yet all he had to do was touch her and she threw aside convention and priorities. Of course, she didn’t love Colonel Chattan. She hadn’t known him long enough to love him . . . and she would not be so foolish as to do so.
However, she did understand how powerful Charles Chattan’s betrayal must have been, given Rose’s love for him.
“Tell me about the curse,” she said. She’d remembered the story from Mrs. Macdonald’s telling but she wished to hear what he had to say.
“Fenella was angry,” he said, “and she wanted revenge. She ordered a funeral pyre built for her daughter’s body. As a suicide Rose couldn’t be buried on church ground, so Fenella honored the old ways. They say she cursed Charles Chattan as her daughter’s body burned and then she leaped onto the fire itself and died with her daughter.”
“That’s terrible.”
“And it was very effective,” he agreed somberly. “She said that when a Chattan falls in love, he will die . . . just as, I suppose, her Rose died.” He looked down at the page of the book again.
“And the curse always comes true?”
“Yes. Charles Chattan of Glenfinnan fell in love with his English heiress and dropped dead within a year of his marriage. His wife was carrying his son, a son that fell in love, and he, too, died, and so on. The pattern has been the same. A Chattan marries, his wife is with child, and then he dies. The pattern has been almost the same for nearly two centuries. My forebears have done everything they could think possible to break it.”
“You say almost two hundred years? When has it been different?”
“With my father. Before his time, the Chattans had sought the advice of priests, cardinals, bishops, the pope, self-proclaimed witches, Gypsies and fortune-tellers. They tried not to fall in love, and have always failed. Each time they have left behind a son who bears the weight of the curse. My grandfather and his father married women they could not abide. It was a hateful life and one that led to their early deaths. My father followed in their steps, but he had a better temperament for keeping his distance from his wife. He’d been bred for that. Perhaps all of us have. You see, if death is the penalty for love, one learns not to love. One learns to guard his heart.”
“I can imagine,” she agreed.
“My father was the first of his line to have more than one son. There are three of us. My brother, Neal, myself, and my sister, Margaret. She is the first daughter to be born of our line in two hundred years. Then, after my mother died several years ago, my father did a very foolish thing.”
“He fell in love,” she surmised.
“Head tumbling over heels,” he confirmed, nodding. “With an opera dancer far younger than even myself.”
“And then did he die?”
“Within six months.” He closed the book, leaning toward her. “He wrote a letter to us to be opened upon his death. He said loving his wife, Cass, was worth death. He said life had been empty before her, that he’d done more living in the months he was with her than all the fifty-some years before his marriage.”
Portia sat a moment, studying him as she digested all that he’d said. His story was contrary to reason and nature. She could have dismissed it for a grand tale save his sincerity.
“My brother is in love,” he said. “He’s a good man, a noble one. I’m a wastrel and certainly of loose morals. I’ve cost men lives, drunk too much, had a taste for opium; I’m a sinner through and through and have deserved to die many times over. But Neal is one of the finest men in England. He doesn’t deserve this fate,” he said, tapping the cover of the book. “Especially for loving his wife, Thea. He should have a chance to see his son grow to manhood. If I don’t find a way to break this curse, his death will be on my head. I don’t know if I can live with that knowledge.”
“What of yourself? Do you carry the curse?”
“We don’t know,” he replied, his expression bleak. “Possibly. I am male; I am a Chattan. As for my sister, Margaret fears that even if she isn’t a part of the curse, she could carry the legacy of it. She fears for any children she could have.”
“She is married?”
“No, and she won’t. She and I both agree that none of us should have married and certainly we should not fall in love. We want the curse to end here, with us. But Neal didn’t agree. He wanted a son.” The colonel sounded as if he was amazed by the thought. “Thea is a widow and has two sons by her previous marriage. Neal had told me they were enough for him, but Thea got with child almost immediately.”
His brows came together. He looked up at her, and then away. “I am usually careful when I’m with a lover.”
Portia felt heat flood her face. She clasped her hands in her lap, trying to be sensible about what they’d done.
“I don’t want bastards,” he said, “and I don’t have any.”
Well, there was comfort there . . . she thought.
“I haven’t been so careful with you.” Now he was the one with a bit of color to his face. It made him appear more masculine, if that was possible. “We shall hope for the best,” he said. “However, I will meet my obligations.”
Obligations . . . a baby.
For a second, Portia knew fear.
“Well, thi
s isn’t going to happen again,” she said quickly. “I don’t understand what comes over us, but it is out of my system.”
“Mine as well,” he assured her, then paused before adding, “but if it does happen again, I shall be more careful.”
Portia wished the floor of the room would open up and swallow her whole. She didn’t have conversations with many men, let alone conversations like this. She wasn’t some sophisticated Londoner who dallied with lovers. She wasn’t even certain how he could avoid getting her with child, and her naivete embarrassed her all the more.
He shut the book and glanced toward the door. “We’d best leave if I’m to have you home before dark.” He stood and offered her his hand. “Thank you for this book and for hearing my story.”
Rising, Portia said, “I hope it may help.”
“I pray it does. My sister wrote and said that Neal is taking more and more to his bed. He grows weak quickly and so is trying to pace himself.”
The thought went through Portia’s mind that perhaps what he saw as a curse was merely a family disposition toward weak hearts or another malady. Perhaps the timing of all the deaths was coincidence?
She held her tongue.
He escorted her from the bothy and picked up the basket for her. “Hold the book for me,” he said, and went to untie his horse.
The bay had a distinct personality and let him know with a butt of his head he’d not been pleased to be left standing for so long. “I’m sorry, Ajax,” Colonel Chattan said, rubbing the animal’s nose. “I was preoccupied.” He smiled and directed the last in Portia’s direction.
She felt herself blush.
He mounted and came over to her, holding out a hand.
Portia had never mounted a horse this way. And the animal was big, larger than any horse she had ever seen or ridden. “I can walk,” she murmured.
“Take my hand,” he ordered in a tone that allowed for no disobedience.
She placed her hand in his. He’d put on his gloves. They were softer than his hands. He easily lifted her up to sit in front of him. His arm came around her waist. She had the book in the basket on her lap.
“Hold on,” he said, his voice tickling her ear. With a kick, they were off.
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