"And you've spent a lifetime choosing only the most prime dishes on the menu. So you took one look at the hag and wrote her off in any romantic sense. You decided that she wasn’t good enough for you and so you never looked below the surface, even after she became the only female you've ever considered a friend. In making that judgment, you committed the same offense as all of the women whose pursuit you disdained as selfish and false." Boz nodded, as though hearing an inner voice confirming his analysis.
"Like I said earlier, I proved myself to be a kindred soul to the bitch witch. How can I expect her to forgive me for that?"
"Okay, I'm sure it upset the hell out of her to see your wand making magic with the widow. But you're right, that's not the seat of this dilemma. It would piss her off but it wouldn't give her that sad, lost expression. She saw the package but kept looking until she reached the person and then she wanted the man. You saw the package and reached the person but rejected the woman. For that, she will have to forgive you but she won't do it until you first forgive yourself. But you're nothing like Sorcha. It doesn't sound like she'd walk across a room out of concern for another person. You've crossed a country."
"I've crossed nothing with motives as noble as you attempt to ascribe. But, yes, I've crossed a country to get to her. I'd cross hell to claim her and forsake heaven to keep her." He faced his cousin with hands curved into fists at his side.
“You mentioned a letter from Lady MacIver that spoke of Badgerton kissing Heather in the garden at his parent’s ball,” Boz said.
“Badgerton the bastard. Yes, I hear he has been pursuing her. I shall end that. I shall end that right away,” Nial said, his tone threaded with unmistakable vehemence.
“It may not be as easy as you think. In a one-dimensional world where there was only black and white, you would be the good guy and he would be the bad guy and I would know who to root for. But the fact is, Geoff Ramsgate is a friend of mine and he is a good person. I believe that he genuinely cares for Heather and I am convinced he will come up to the mark for her.”
“Heather is mine,” said Nial immediately and without hesitation. His claim was firm and unshakable.
“There are others, but from what I've seen Geoff is your biggest competition. It won’t be an easy match for you, because he has a great deal to recommend him. In addition to which, he never shoved her aside or betrayed her.” Boz wasn’t one to pull his punches, and his friend should know what he faced.
Maclee leaned forward on the couch and put his empty glass down on the occasional table. He sensed that his kinsman still hadn’t chosen sides and intended to stay out of the fray. Nial couldn’t have that, for he was certain he would need all the help he could get.
“You say that Badgerton cares for Heather. Well, let me tell you how I feel about her. I know you have not yet been in love and somehow you seem to believe that you are too logical for it to ever happen to you. I promise you that it will because you care too much for it not to. Maybe you won’t understand or believe what I am about to tell you today. But someday, when you least expect it, you will fall madly in love and then you will know that I have told you the truth.”
He got up and strode to the window, unable to face his friend as he bared his soul in a manner that the other man would see as a weakness. “Heather is my fate and the key to my happiness and my future. I love her. I would kill for her and I would die for her. I would give my life and my soul for her happiness or welfare and consider that I had made the better bargain.”
“Boz,” he turned to face the other man. Although his cousin was not a full-blooded Scot, he would understand what Nial was about to say. He would know it was an admission the laird could make to no other person on earth. “I'd give up my clan for Heather. I'd betray my clan for her.”
"Damn," Boz swore. "Two shots of whiskey but you hold a hell of a lot more than that. You're still sober. I intended to stay out of this, but I've enough Scot's blood to know that to a Highlander, clan is life. You're the laird entrusted with responsibility for your clan's well being and survival. For you of all men to make such an admission, well, you're right, I can't comprehend it. Yet, it signifies a love so immense, a commitment so profound, that I must respect it."
"So you'll help?"
In reply Boz smiled.
Nial didn’t. He poured yet another glass of the potent whiskey and paced. Then he downed it in a single gulp and threw the glass on the floor, where it shattered loudly.
“What the hell does it matter anyway? You said she hated me,” he stared at the glass with satisfaction. He felt a lot like those broken shards.
“That’s right. I saw the hate. The hate was visible.” He stood and walked over to his cousin and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t have the faeries but I do have the dratted Sedgewick sixth sense, and with that I also saw the love. It’s still there too.”
At the word, at the possibility that some of her love for him survived, Nial's whole expression changed, like the Angel Gabriel's decision had gone the right way. A knock came at the door and the footman brought Boz a note. He read it and crumpled it up and threw it on the floor, beside the shattered glass.
“Bloody hell. Bloody everlasting, eternal hell.”
“What’s wrong?” Nial’s face clenched. He stood, about to rip the note from his friend’s hands. She hadn’t eloped or something had she?
“Almacks,” said Boz, with the expression of one who has just eaten something particularly nasty.
“What’s so bad about Almacks?” Asked Nial, surprised to find that he was still able to smile. A few days ago, he hadn’t thought he would ever smile again.
“Marriage Mart Central, that’s what it is all right. When I show up there it’ll be all over the ton in no time that I’m looking for a bride. For the rest of the bloody season I’ll have title hunting females tracking me like wild game. Worse, when I show up there with you, who somehow exudes sex from your pores, we just might get trampled.”
At that, Nial found he could still laugh too. “I exude sex from my pores?”
“It must be sheer animal magnetism, old boy,” said Boz, who knew better than to try to put into words the aura his cousin wore not only without effort, but actually contrary to his own wishes.
Being a Highlander, Nial would rather inspire fear than desire. Yet he was savvy enough to be aware of his appeal and to use it, along with his formidable skill with weapons and warfare, to conquer his enemies. Once, the laird of a rival clan had butchered a newly wed couple of the Clan Maclee because the bride had rejected his advances. Nial seduced the laird’s mistress and got her to open a hidden passageway to his castle. He was able to avenge his clansmen by killing the laird without even raising the alarm in the butcher's castle.
“I hope you have a suit I can borrow that will do for tonight. I’d better get over to a tailor to order some clothing made, if I’m to run with your fashionable set,” said the laird, conscious suddenly of a need to dress to impress that he had never felt before. He’d not be bloody outdone by Badgerton.
“I’ll ask Mother to scout something out and send for a tailor to come in and take measurements and do the immediate alterations. Mum will make sure you are in the nick. We should turn our attention to the question of strategy,” Boz commented, stretching his long legs out on the sofa.
“Strategy for what?’ Maclee asked, seating himself in a rocker that would allow him to move while he sat – he was starting to feel a wee bit antsy again.
“For getting a lady who professes to hate you beyond all else to admit that all the passion she spews at the mention of your name arises from another emotion entirely.”
The other man sighed deeply. “Can’t I just apologize profusely, kiss the stuffing out of her, and carry her away on my horse?”
“Sure. If you don’t mind risking a knife in your back, but I'm way too aware of the uncertain quality of the female temperament to allow you to take that chance."
“It would put a damper on the
honeymoon I have planned – the long honeymoon.” Nial shook his head regretfully, but gave in with good grace, saying, “Do you have any suggestions?”
“If you chase her she might run whether or not she wants to. She may run because she thinks she is supposed to. Amorous pursuit is not the answer. You can sneak under the defenses she has erected against you as a husband by presenting yourself as a friend. Two friends from Skye on the marriage mart in merry old London would certainly spend time together.” Boz stopped in mid thought and started laughing, and said “of course.”
“What?” The Scot found the suggestion intriguing, but went into the conversation doubting he’d be able to pull it off, thanks to those claws of passion.
“If you were looking for a worthy bride to take home to Kilcuillin, you would naturally seek the advice of a female friend from Skye, if she just happened to be right here, wouldn’t you?”
Nial started to smile, “Of course I would.”
“A little jealousy, an accidental kiss or two…”
“Or three or four or five.”
“A mere slip up, an accident that could easily happen with a friend who is a female --- and Heather will decide that she should be the wife by your side, and in your bed on that isle that you both love so much.”
“Boz, you are devious, underhanded and positively Machiavellian,” Nial admired the strategy.
“It’s a gift,” said the duke, all false humility.
“Must be why we’re so close,” said Maclee as he quirked a brow. “One word of caution about your outstanding plan, cuz” he said in wry self-appraisal. “I can’t promise anything. I’m not at all certain of my control with her. While it is a grand plan, I think it is doomed to failure. ”
“Not certain of your control?” Sedgewick asked. “The man the cyprians adore because he ‘tends their gardens o’er and o’er’ before seeing to his own? The man who pontificated to me on his last visit that ‘a man without control can’t call himself a man’.”
“I need her so badly, that when she is finally within reach, I'm pretty damn sure I won’t be able to control how my body reacts. However, I will try,” Nial added, preparing to take off upstairs to subject himself to modeling various outfits for the dowager duchess, and to await the tailor for alterations. "Where are you headed?"
"I'm going to see Lady Sarah Jersey, one of the famed patronesses of Almack’s, to get a stranger’s ticket for you, which is not a big deal." He wiggled his eyebrows as he added, "My lofty ducal consequence will stretch to a stranger's ticket easily enough."
"But you stopped and sent a note to someone a bit ago. Are you going to see someone else or will you ask something that you fear your mighty consequence won't cover?"
"I'm going to ask a huge favor. I'm going to ask Lady Jersey to misplace Heather's dance card. That way your lady-to-be won't know that you're slated to partner a couple of her dances. Because such a favor violates the code that the bastion of society rules itself by, I sent a note to ask that Lord Jersey join our little conversation."
"Do you have some hold over the husband?"
"The man makes a bloody pest of himself begging me to allow him to invest in one of my shipping ventures which tend to turn rather a handsome profit. I don't take partners because I prefer to underwrite the ventures alone. That way, all the risk and all the profit are mine. However, it seems that Lord Jersey’s ship is about to come in."
CHAPTER TEN
“Viv,” Heather said, grasping her cousin’s arm, “I now know what a target feels like.”
“I’ve never heard of anyone’s dance card being misplaced at Almack’s. How does it feel to make history?”
“It feels like I’m the bull’s eye, waiting for some unknown male to strike,” she said with a grimace. “Tonight, when he does, I am commanded by your etiquette to pretend not to notice that the man’s eyes rarely look away from the neckline of my gown,” she said, rolling her eyes at her idiocy in wearing the cream silk gown that just barely hid her nipples.
“Well, I say your mother's right. If you’ve got a great lure, you’re silly not to use it. Besides, lots of other girls are wearing lower gowns. You just feel bare because you are so used to those wretched sacks,” Viv said, rolling her eyes.
She didn’t disagree verbally, but she was pretty sure she felt awkward because men were looking at her and thinking her odd.
Geoff joined them, which was not unexpected. Lately, he was either with her or somewhere nearby. At the Craymont ball, a number of the men had been particularly attentive. When she and Viv exited the lady’s retiring room, he was standing against a nearby wall and hopped to attention as soon as he saw them. He followed them back to the ballroom. Viv swore that every time she opened a door she expected Geoff to pop out.
“Are you quite sure that gown is proper, Heather?” Badgerton asked. He'd spent his entire night threatening every man about to walk on the dance floor with her. It hadn’t bloody helped.
Viv didn’t particularly like the man, which might account for why she said, “I’ve noticed you enjoying the view. Isn’t it hypocritical for you to complain if others look?”
His eyes narrowed to slits. “You wouldn’t know this personally, Viv, but when a man finds a special lady, he doesn’t want to share the views he may enjoy with any others. Take heart, maybe someday, someone will find you special and you will understand.”
Seeing the hurt in her friend’s eyes at the accusation, which wasn’t even true – many had proposed to Viv but all had been rejected - Heather grew angry, and whirled on him, “Apologize to her right now.”
He did, but all the while he watched Heather. She didn't know that passion sparkled in her eyes, or that her rapid breaths made her breasts thrust forward. All she knew was that his eyes heated, which made her uneasy. She feared his passion because she couldn’t muster any of her own for him. In truth, she had felt more passion from Nial holding her hand than from Geoff’s embrace.
She felt a prickling of the hairs on the back of her neck, and a sudden burst of warmth that she hadn’t experienced since she fled Kilcuillin. Had she summoned Nial by thinking of him? She didn’t have long to ponder for the musicians returned and her new arrow, errr, partner approached. She stepped into the dance with the prickling feeling persisting.
******
When Nial and Boz entered the room, every debutante and her mother went on high alert. It was impossible not to notice the attack of primping, pointing and panting.
“It feels much like the moments right before a battle with a rival clan,” Nial noted impatiently, because all the fussing was keeping him from his goal.
“Actually,” Boz said, clapping a hand on his shoulder, “an enemy clan would show more mercy than this group.”
The posturing of the campaigning females held little fear for the Scot. However, he did grow annoyed when the first one who snagged his arm managed to accidentally rub her breasts against him twice in less than a minute. Then she gave up on subtlety altogether and put her hands on his bottom, but he gave her an angry glare and the Maclee swipe, which removed the offending appendage. After that, he gave up any attempt at politeness and walked away in the middle of her second comment about the weather.
He needed to see Heather this minute. It had become a physical necessity. He stalked over to an area near some potted plants. He was scouring the chairs along the wall looking for her when she whirled by in the arms of a dancing partner. He stopped breathing, his heart stopped beating and it seemed that the universe itself paused for a moment as he beheld her in her new glory. She was moonlight and magic on a wildflower-strewn peak of the Cuillins. She was the whisper of the ocean in the still of the night. She was the hidden loch after a day when every person he encountered demanded something of him. She was the repository of his soul.
How had he missed this?
He realized that his spirit had overtaken his eyes in reacting to her. Too bad it was several months late, or they would be wed by now, and he wouldn
’t be standing here thinking about how many ways there are to geld a tall Englishman. She was a panther in a room full of tabby cats. The damned Sassannach who held her too close might have missed the qualities of her spirit that made her unique, but the ass missed nothing about the body that the spirit inhabited. Maybe he’d have to pluck the bastard’s eyes out before he gelded him.
Normally Nial wouldn’t blame any other man for looking because he looked often enough himself. This time, he felt ready to kill a man for looking, and he bloody well would if the son of a bitch didn’t keep his eyes off Heather’s neckline. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. He’d heard other men describe jealousy, but this was his first personal experience with the emotion.
Dear Lord, she was spectacular.
The silk hugged her as closely as he would in the years to come. Her full breasts swelled above the neckline of the gown, and it fit her hips, highlighting their graceful sway. When she twirled in her partner’s arms, he saw that the gown cupped her rear like a lover. He ached to cup it with his hands. He burned for her and…..
He felt himself being dragged behind a tall fern. He darted half a glance at Boz who wore a fierce expression.
“Bloody hell. She can’t see you like that! If the heat in your eyes doesn’t give the game away, the fit of your pants will warn her that it isn’t friendship you are interested in.”
Cheerful again just because he was in her presence, Nial said, “I do want friendship – among other things. I already told you I don’t believe your plan will work. I’ll try but I think I’m too bloody jealous to give it a real chance.” He returned to watching Heather. “Is that the bastard, Badgerton?”
“No, and again, I tell you that Badgerton is a nice chap.”
“Which one is he?” He scanned the men watching the dance floor, until he spotted a tall blonde watching the leering Englishman holding Heather with nearly as much malevolent intent as he. “Never mind, I see him.”
A Faerie Fated Forever Page 11