by Paula Quinn
“They are getting ready to clear the tables,” Lady Elizabeth informed him eagerly.
“In return”—Oxford smiled down at Mairi and reached for her hand, bringing Connor to his feet—“I would like to be the first to escort Miss MacGregor to the dance floor.”
“Mayhap another time.” Connor’s thick voice sliced the air and halted Oxford’s movement. “Lady Elizabeth”—he turned to her with a more polite smile—“I’m afraid my steps are still too slow fer dancing. And Miss MacGregor”—he returned his hard gaze to Oxford—“is not a slice of mutton to be haggled over.”
He wasn’t sure which of the siblings grew redder. Henry or Elizabeth. He suspected Henry was the more dangerous of the two when he remained behind to offer them all a tight, gracious smile before he followed his sister back to their table.
“The tables are being cleared.” Connor remained on his feet and reached across the table for Mairi’s hand. “We’re going fer a walk.”
“In this rain?”
Connor tipped his head to wink at Edward as Mairi fit her hand into his. “Ye call this rain, lad? In the Highlands, we call it a trickle. Aye, Mairi?”
She nodded and smiled at him as he led her out of the Banqueting Hall.
Chapter Twenty-five
Mairi tried hard to concentrate on a dozen different things as she followed Connor out of the palace. The glorious scent of the night air, fresh and crisp from the spring rain. The conversations with his men at the table. But her thoughts were scattered by the feel of Connor’s warm hand closed around hers. It was an intimate, possessive touch, almost as thrilling as his kisses; a startlingly familiar one that brought her back to their childhood when he used to come for her to take her riding with him. Only now his hand was bigger, his palm rougher with calluses from all his years of wielding a sword. She looked up at his handsome profile as they entered the Pebble Court and stepped beneath one of the upper galleries shielding them from the rain. He’d told Sedley that she was his. She believed it thanks to Edward Willingham’s validation and his guileless expression while he reminded Connor of his own words. It was an arrogant statement for Connor to have made, especially when he had had no idea at the time that she did not truly hate him, but it did not anger her. Aye, he was a bit primitive in his ways of thinking, but she liked it. It proved England had not changed him all that much. It proved he still cared for her, he still wanted her. But how much? Would he leave England for her this time?
“Captain Sedley is a Calvinist,” she said in a hopeless attempt to redirect her thoughts away from his mouth. “He may deny it, but he follows Prince William’s faith and likely wants James off the throne.”
“I know,” he said quietly.
She heard the regret in his voice and squeezed his hand, wanting to comfort him. “Have ye known him long then?”
“Aye, we arrived at Whitehall at about the same time. We fought Charles’s enemies together, and proved our skill on the field. He rose in rank with me, without envy that I had been promoted before him. We remained friends, despite his being a Protestant. It tears at me to think he does William’s bidding, even to the point of seeing me dead.”
“But ye dinna’ know if he was behind the attack fer certain, Connor. Or why William would even want ye dead. Besides,” she added, desperate to ease his troubled thoughts, “he seems more interested in the effect his military garb has on women than on his possible enemies.”
Unlike Connor, who had not bothered to tie his bows back in place. Did he know how magnificent he looked in his courtly garb? How tall and elegant he was in his stately justacorps and polished boots, or how his opened collar and discarded bows revealed a less tamed gentleman beneath? He did not seem to care all that much, which made him even more alluring. She moved a bit closer and inhaled his clean scent, slightly tinged with the fragrance of sandalwood.
“D’ye smell it?” She broke away from his hold, desperate for a moment to think clearly. She was so afraid to love him like this and lose him again. She could not survive it a second time. Could she leave Scotland for him?
She walked to the edge of the broad walk above her and looked out into the torrent a few inches from her face. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “D’ye smell the grass? The wind? I vow I can almost smell the heather.”
He came up behind her; so close she could feel the heat from his body, the soft exhalation of breath after he inhaled. “It smells like home.” His deep, languid voice fell across her nape and made her heart crash against her chest. Home.
She smiled and turned to look up into his eyes. His breath appeared to stall as he reached to wipe a raindrop from the tip of her nose.
“Ye smell good,” she told him before she could stop herself.
“Thank ye.” His smile was as slow and sensual as his tone.
Och, to hell with trying to be coy. It was not in her nature and he knew it. “And ye look quite handsome, as well. When Lady Hollingsworth saw ye, I swear she—”
“I don’t care what any other eye sees, but yers.”
She smiled and looked up at the moon. It was not full, but there was enough of it to coat his tongue with silver. “Yer words are pretty, Connor, but I am no longer a child who can be swayed by them.”
She moved away from him before she gave in to desire to be in his arms. She had let him back into her life, back into her heart. If they separated again, it would destroy her.
“D’ye know how I grieved fer ye?” She turned to look at him, needing to tell him, needing him to know the truth. “Every day I worried that ye would die fighting fer a Protestant king and I would never see yer face again.”
She drank in the sight of it now. Her Connor, older, a bit darker, but always her Connor. He listened silently while she told him her fears, and why she had become so cold and unforgiving toward him. He looked like he wanted to go to her, but instead let her have her say.
“Every time I saw a rider approaching Camlochlin I feared he carried a missive informing us of yer death. I waited day after day and year after year fer yer return, but ye did not come back—”
“I couldn’t,” he said finally, and moved a step toward her. “Not in the beginning. Ye knew that. I sent ye letters in my own hand asking ye to come to me—”
“I could not leave Scotland. Ye knew that.”
“I hoped ye loved me more than Camlochlin, Mairi.”
Och, God, she had loved him more. Had she been wrong about him all these years? Had he truly continued to love her even after he left? She had convinced herself that his asking her to come to him was nothing but an easy way to remove her from his life. Had she been wrong?
“Gossip traveled far, Connor. Ye had taken lovers. Yer prowess in the bedchamber became as infamous as yer faither’s once was.”
“ ’Twas ye I wanted, Mairi.” When he stood over her, she trembled at the potency of his gaze. “From the moment I saw ye again I knew I would never love anyone but ye.”
“But seven years, Connor…”
“Listen to me.” His breath fell softly against her face, his words, quietly and earnestly against her ears. “It didn’t matter how long I was gone. I never stopped thinking of ye, wanting ye. I still cannot think of my life without ye. Now quit yer arguing and kiss me.”
Henry de Vere stood on the upper gallery looking down into the Pebble Court and at the couple locked in each other’s arms. His heart crashed to his feet. The rain pelted down on his head, sopping his wig until he tore it off to keep the soaked curls from his eyes. He knew Grant cared for Mairi. Any fool with a pair of eyes in his head could see it. But Mairi. She’d fooled him well.
Bitch.
He hated himself for not hating her the way she deserved. Elizabeth was correct about him. He was a spineless fool, for he still cared for Mairi. He still wanted her, even knowing what she had done to his face. He wanted to forgive her. He would have, if she loved him. But there she was, kissing James’s only Catholic captain, whispering with him, laughing with him. M
ost likely, they were laughing about him. He should have killed her the moment he knew who she was.
He turned to look behind him when he heard someone whisper his name. Lizzy. He wanted her to see and beckoned her closer, keeping his finger pressed to his mouth to urge her to be silent.
He smiled at her sharp intake of breath. It was better if she knew the truth and faced it as he himself must do. When she stormed back inside, he gave the lovers one more black look, and then followed her.
She whirled on him the instant they were alone. “I thought I told you to do something about her!”
“I tried—”
“You couldn’t because you are a spineless fool, Henry! I told father as much!”
He snatched her hand as she moved to turn away. “What do you mean? What did you speak to father about?”
“That he could not depend on you without my help.”
“That is untrue,” he argued. “I will think of a way to get what we both want, Lizzy.” He looked over his shoulder at the rain outside and thought of Mairi. He would think of something.
Chapter Twenty-six
Mairi leaned against the door frame leading to the tiltyard and watched Connor practicing alone in the morning rain. She wanted to go to him and pull him in from the cold. He had just survived a grave fever. She did not want him to fall to another. But her feet would not move. She knew he had practiced every day before the attack and she had avoided watching him at all cost. Now, she could not tear her eyes away from him. His strikes were brutal and precise. His aim was sure and his steps light and determined. She thought of the night before when he swore that his heart had never betrayed her, when he kissed her and held her and made her laugh when she what she really wanted to do was weep over all their lost time together. He forgave her so easily for not trusting him. It made her feel worse for not granting him the same mercy for so long. Did she believe his words of love? She wanted to. Och, God, how she wanted to. Still, the thought of him with other women drove her mad. Watching him now, his wet hair swirling around his frosty eyes as he parried and jabbed the air with his sword, she had trouble imagining how any woman could resist him. Soaked through, his fine, gauze shirt clung to his body, defining every nuance of muscle. His damp breeches fit like a second skin over his long, powerful legs, and against the titillating fullness between them. Was it true? Had he loved only her?
His eyes found her in the entryway and he smiled and lowered his sword. He certainly had not smiled that way at any other woman in Whitehall since he had arrived—like the sun just broke through the gloom.
She watched him sheathe his sword and cross the tiltyard on his way to her, admiring the slow, casual sway of his gait. He was sensuality incarnate. Every movement, every smile, every word was given with the leisurely confidence of a patient hunter, certain of catching his prey without any overexertion. Unless, of course, his prey gave him a fight.
“How did I do?”
She blinked and stifled the sigh fighting against her lips. “Not bad fer a man with a hole in his guts.”
His dimples flashed. “The hole was sealed and is healing quite well. Feel fer yerself.” He took her hand and pressed her palm to his hard belly. When his grin widened, proving that he was enjoying her sudden discomposure, she poked him gently in his wound.
“It still has some ways to go, I would say.”
He laughed and grimaced at the same time. “I vow, wench, ye’d be happy to see me in bed fer the next fortnight.”
She looked away, flustered at the thought that he was not entirely incorrect. Unfortunately, he caught the very slight flush of her cheeks.
“Now that I think about it,” he said, his voice rumbling low in his chest and along her nerve endings, “I’m not feeling all that well.”
When she looked at him, afraid for an instant that he was falling ill again, he moistened his lips with his tongue, as if preparing them for a kiss.
“I will send for the queen’s physicians right away!” she teased, and spun around to see to the task. He dragged her back and closed his arms around her.
“Ye’re the only medicine I need.”
He planted a series of slow, soft kisses on her mouth; enough to make her insides burn for something harder and less tamed…
He groaned from somewhere deep in his chest as he pulled away. “Ye tempt me to be uncivil and take back what I want.” The something that made his eyes blaze with blue fire every time he looked at her.
She wanted to tell him to do it. Of course, she wouldn’t surrender all, not without a fight. That’s what he liked. Even a fool could see it, and she had been a fool.
“Then ye would force me to cut ye doun, and not with my tongue.”
He curled his mouth into a slow, sensual smile, so close to hers. “I’ll have ye, lass. No blade will stop me.”
Did he mock her skill with a blade? Why shouldn’t he? He’d never seen her fight with one. Mayhap it was time he learned who she had become.
“Are ye certain about that, Captain?” she whispered, tilting her lips to his ear, then poked him in the hip with the point of her dagger.
He looked down and laughed, then he released her and stepped back, stretching out his arms at his sides. “Do ye want to give this a go?” he challenged, his grin wide and challenging.
Did she want to give it a go? Hell, aye, she did! Claire had told her they should refrain from honing their skills while in England, lest they stir too much interest in the warriors of Skye. Mairi hadn’t practiced in a fortnight. She nodded and aimed her blade at him. He laughed again, and this time she smiled with him.
“Let us discover fer certain,” he drawled while pulling his sword from its sheath, “if ye fight as well as any man.”
“Likely better.” She followed the twirl of his long blade, impressed by the ease and fluidity with which he handled his hilt.
He swung. She blocked and her dagger fell from her hand. She produced another from somewhere within her English gown and had it pointing at him before he prepared for his next assault. She knew she was at a disadvantage with her metal being at least a foot shorter than his. She wouldn’t be able to hold him off for too long. She blocked another half-dozen strikes, moving quickly on her feet. She managed to slip behind him once, but he was fast, faster than any other of the men she’d fought, and blocked her knife from going through him. When he separated her from her second weapon and yanked her forward by her wrist, she reached for the pistol in his belt.
“Then”—she breathed up into his face and then pointed his pistol at it—“I willna’ stop ye with a blade.”
“Hell, Mairi.” He looked at her in astonishment and then laughed again and pulled her closer. “Ye’re a MacGregor aright.”
She smiled. The way she used to when he was the air she needed to breathe, his company and his kisses all she ever needed to be happy. He hadn’t called her a lass.
“Yer mother taught me well,” she said, holstering his pistol and making a mental note to thank Claire later for raising a son who appreciated the fight in a woman.
“I want to bring ye someplace,” he said, staring deep into her eyes, his arms coiled snugly around her right there in the tiltyard.
Thankfully, no one was yet awake.
“Where?”
“Come. We’ll need horses.”
She let him lead her to the stables, her heart beating with excitement. Where was he taking her? Was it safe for him to ride? Would they be alone? Hell, she had not done anything pleasurable since she and Colin had met with the MacKinnons last month to plan a raid on a group of Covenanters from Dumfries who were traveling to the Highlands for the games. A raid she had had to miss thanks to James’s coronation.
“Are we going to the park?” she asked, hiking up her gown and pulling herself up into her saddle.
“Ye’ll see soon enough.” He gave her rump a gentle slap, then eyed her bare calf and looked up toward the heavens as if beseeching God to give him strength.
He wince
d mounting his horse, then dug his heels into the beast’s flanks and rode past her with a twinkle in his eyes.
They rode for over an hour in the abating rain, following the Thames southward until they came to a lush countryside shrouded in mist. For one glorious moment Mairi imagined she was home in the Highlands.
“ ’Tis breathtaking,” she said, reining in beside Connor.
“Aye, I knew ye would like it here.”
“Where are we?”
“Not yet there.”
She looked around at the wild exterior of rolling hills and vast open grasslands, startlingly green against the gray swath of sky above. In the distance, tall, ancient oaks pierced the fog.
“Look.” Connor pointed to a fallow deer traipsing across the dewy meadow. “Let’s follow her.” He did not wait for her response but flicked his reins and took off after the deer as it disappeared into to the rising mist without a trace.
Not willing to be outrun in a chase, Mairi dug in her heels and gave her horse its head. Connor had to be in pain bouncing in his saddle, but if he was, he paid no heed to it. He turned twice to look behind him, his hair blowing across his eyes while he laughed at her attempts to pass his horse. She chased him, just as she had done before England had separated them.
He finally slowed his mount when they came to a secluded woodland enclosure. He dismounted with care and hushed her while she did the same. He brought her to a dense thicket of mulberry trees surrounded by currant bushes and crouched low, then turned and beckoned her to do the same.
Beyond the foliage, she saw a small group of red deer, a few does and their young, nibbling at the grass. Breath held, she watched as two does lifted their heads in her direction and then went back to eating.
“They are not as skittish as the deer in the Highlands,” she whispered close to Connor’s ear.
“There are more people here,” he explained, turning to her and almost touching his nose to hers. “They are… Hell, ye’re beautiful.”