The Black Knave

by Patricia Potter

He leered at his wife, which, unfortunately, was not at all difficult. Her eyes widened, and her back stiffened with outrage.

  He ignored her and drank some more, eating heavily from the food on the table. It was better than it had been. Much better. She was obviously making the best of a very bad game.

  Rory hated what he was doing, but a doting husband just didn’t fit his needs at the moment, nor did the appearance of a chaste one. He did not doubt for a moment that Cumberland had a spy somewhere about, and Rory had been warned about the need for a babe. He still wondered why the girl meant so much to someone, but the Marquis of Braemoor would never inquire into such matters.

  The meal seemed endless to him. The role of fool had once appealed to him. It no longer did. And the reason was sitting next to him, stiff and withdrawn. She had barely touched her food while he had sat at the head of the table, smirking like some half-wit. For the first time, he did not enjoy his role. He did not like his game. For the first time, he wanted to be … respected.

  Hell and damnation. She had him in knots. He took another long drought, then pushed his chair out. “’Tis time for my bride and me to retire.”

  He nodded to the men and two ladies sitting at the table. They all stood as he did. He felt their eyes on him as he took Bethia’s arm and led her from the room toward the stairs. She said nothing as they climbed them, but then at the door of the room, she paused, her eyes as angry as any he had ever seen.

  With no warning, she swung her hand up. It connected with his cheek in a loud crack. His face stung. Hell, it hurt. He stepped back and regarded her cautiously. One hand went up and fingered his cheek. Even his jaw ached.

  “You should have been at Culloden,” he said.

  ’Twas the wrong thing to say, and he regretted it the moment the words were out of his mouth. He was accustomed to making sharp retorts, particularly when attacked.

  Her face clouded, and he saw the hurt he had just imposed.

  “I am sorry, madam. I should not have said that.”

  She stood even stiffer. ’Twas as if a steel rod had been inserted in her back. “You purposely humiliated me,” she said.

  He had no answer for that, no explanation.

  He saw her swallow as if a stone was caught in her throat. “I was wrong earlier, when I thought …”

  “I do not ken your meaning.”

  “I thought you were actually human.” She turned around and opened the door, starting to slam it behind her.

  But he caught it. “Oh, no, madam. That will not do. That will not do at all.”

  Fourteen

  She despised him. She had lowered her guard, and he’d swooped in with his sword and plunged it into a vulnerable place.

  She had never been so angry.

  She was, in fact, trembling with that anger. And she hated that even more. She did not want him to see it. She could not stop him from entering her chamber, but she certainly could make it unpleasant for him.

  “You plan to break your promise?”

  “It was a bargain, not a promise.”

  “You play with words as you play with cards,” she said bitterly. “Lives mean no more to you than the next wager.”

  “You are right, my marchioness. However, I must warn you that Cumberland wants a bairn, and your brother’s life could depend on whether or not he believes that one might be in the making.”

  She stared at him in horror. “What do you mean?”

  “Surely you must have suspected he had something more than a simple marriage in mind. Why do you think he wanted proof of consummation? His goal has always been a bairn, a child. He is waiting very impatiently,” he said, his gaze raking her. “He stressed that to me days ago when I delivered a small gift of brandy to him. I told him I was well pleased with my bride.”

  “Why did you not tell me that earlier?”

  He shrugged. “I did not wish to spoil my homecoming.”

  “You are truly loathsome,” she said, her voice breaking slightly.

  “That is probably among the mildest adjectives applied to me,” he replied mildly.

  “What do you want? Tell me and end the torment.”

  “Is marriage to me torment?”

  “Your incessant games are.”

  He bowed. “Then I apologize.”

  He entered and closed the door behind him. Black Jack stirred from his basket where he had dragged the wig and made a nest of it. He ran over and started nipping at her slippers, asking to be picked up.

  The marquis looked at the wig ruefully.

  “You can have it now,” she said helpfully.

  “Ah, he has taken possession, and that gives him the legal right to it.”

  She was fascinated at those fleeting instants of whimsy he allowed himself. But then, they were always so very fleeting.

  “You care about legality?”

  “When I have nothing at stake.” He took a step toward her.

  She leaned down and picked up Black Jack, using the squirming black puppy as a shield.

  “It will not work, Bethia.” He took a step toward her.

  “I do not ken your meaning.”

  “Distraction. I do not believe I wish to be distracted.”

  She backed up, uncertain. He had an odd gleam in his eyes, and he smelled of strong ale. And yet … yet he seemed to have complete control of his actions.

  “What do you want?”

  “I want the Forbeses to see a husband and wife together, doing what God intended to be done, creating new life.”

  “I do not understand why that is so important to you.”

  “It might well mean my neck as well as yours and your brother’s.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “Cumberland has only one lord, Bethia, and that is the king. I do not think Cumberland has a personal interest in you, which means the king does. Would you know why?”

  Bethia drew in her breath. Her husband was most definitely not a fool now. She remembered Cumberland’s words when he’d pressured her into this marriage. You have a friend at court who asked me to look after you.

  Not her. Her mother. Her mother had been born on the English side of the border, and she’d been very beautiful. Bethia had heard she’d been promised to a highly placed English lord, when her father had won her heart and whisked her off to Scotland. She’d always thought the tale very romantic, but now she wondered. She had never known her mother’s family; her mother had been disowned when she had married a Catholic Highlander, and she never spoke of her family. But Bethia knew the name.

  She was reluctant, however, to discuss it with a man she dinna trust. In fact, she had dismissed Cumberland’s reference when he’d said it. Her grief, her despair, had been too great to question exactly why she’d been singled out from other women torn from their homes and often imprisoned because of their family’s loyalties.

  The marquis was watching her closely. Why did he even care as long as he received the lands he had wanted?

  “Why do you always act the fool?” she said, deciding attack was the best defense.

  “I like low expectations,” he replied.

  “So you will not disappoint, as you feel you did as a boy?”

  His gaze grew sharper. “An astute theory.”

  “But not true?”

  He shrugged. “You may think what you will.”

  She tried to look inside him, to go beyond the various masks he wore. Whenever she thought she was reaching behind one, another appeared.

  Was the cause really as shallow as not wanting expectations? Indifference? A reason not to involve himself in the difficult business of running an estate?

  The contradictions kept piling up, one upon another. He had fought at Culloden. He was said to be a good swordsman. But he apparently had left the field before the end. She’d heard “coward” whispered. She heard it whispered louder after his encounter with Ogilvy and the Black Knave.

  Why did she not believe it? Even as he threatened in various ways, she
’d never really feared him. Nor could she think of him as a coward. Or mayhap, despite his protestations, he did have some honor. Mayhap he could not stomach the butchering Cumberland had ordered.

  If so, she might have an ally. Dare she hope?

  “You wish to play cards again, my lord?”

  His eyes narrowed, then he seemed to relax.

  “Do you still have those I gave you the other night?”

  “Aye.”

  “Then why not?” he asked carelessly.

  Relieved he’d dropped the subject of a child even temporarily, she quickly fetched the deck of cards while he brought a second chair to the table. She studied him as he shuffled the cards with extraordinary dexterity.

  She thought she was beginning to understand something about him now. Although just a little. He was a master at holding people at a distance, at keeping them from knowing him or anything about him. As angry as she had been about his behavior at supper, she realized now that there was a purpose behind it. Just as she sensed there was a purpose behind many things he did.

  Now that her temper had dissolved under his wry good humor about her dog, she remembered what it was this afternoon that had so drawn her to him.

  She looked at him curiously. “Do you really like gaming so much?”

  He shrugged. “My father sent me to foster with an English family. He included no funds. I learned to game to purchase weapons and found it to be one of my rare talents. Then there were other things I wanted. I knew … thought … I would never inherit a pence from my father. Gaming was as good a way as any to earn my way.”

  “Was there nothing you wanted to do?”

  “At one time, I thought … I might enjoy the study of medicine. But my father, such as he was, was right. I had no temperament for it.”

  “I disagree.”

  “Only because you want to win this game.”

  “I have a sweep,” she said, proclaiming her win as she claimed all the table cards.

  “Do you cheat?” The marquis raised an eyebrow as he posed the question.

  Black Jack whined.

  “He really does not know,” she defended herself, her lips curving into a small piece of a smile.

  The marquis stood and took off his coat, but he left his wig on. She ached to take it off. She wanted to reach over and touch him. She wanted to hear that rare, rich chuckle.

  He won the next game, and that pleased her. She did not want anyone to pretend to lose for her sake.

  She looked up and his eyes met hers. “Why do you not take off that wig?” she said.

  “Must you ask? Your small protector might appropriate that one, too. After playing with you, I cannot afford to lose another one.”

  “You are winning.”

  “Aye, but you have far too quick a mind.”

  For the first time in months, Bethia felt a rush of pleasure. She had loved her brothers; they had been her life after her mother died, then her father months later. But they had seen no reason for her to read, had teased her about the way she had begged their tutor to teach her. Lasses, they had said, had no need to learn such things.

  She had never been praised for her wit or mind. It felt very, very fine.

  The game continued. As it had before, the room became smaller, closer, hotter, despite the cold wind that blew outside the tower house and the damp, cool air that penetrated it. And then when he gathered up the cards, his hand touched hers. She felt as if her skin sizzled.

  Her gaze met his. His hazel eyes shimmered with something she believed was desire. Heat crept through her body and lodged in the core of her.

  He rose, kicking the chair away with a violence that would have shaken her earlier. “All of Braemoor will be sleeping. ’Tis time I returned to my room, lass, before I break my bargain.”

  She knew for certain, then, that all his earlier baiting had indeed been meant to widen the gulf between them, not narrow it. He’d wanted her angry. He’d wanted to pierce that fragile intimacy that had spun a web around them earlier. But she no longer cared what he wanted. She only knew that she needed to feel his lips again. Not that mocking, careless kiss at supper, but the earlier tender touching.

  He is still Cumberland’s man. He might have killed one of my brothers. He is a gambler with no care for the people who depend on him. She thought all that and more. Just because he kept a bargain doesna change that. Just because he has a mistress he prefers …

  She balled her fingers into a fist. For a few moments, a few hours, she had not been so lonely.

  Do not forget about Dougal. He needs you. You promised to get him out of Scotland. You have to keep your wits about you.

  “My brother,” she said. “You said you might be able to get word to him.”

  “Write your letter, madam,” he said, and just that last word reestablished the distance he had kept between them. “I will get it to him.”

  “Thank you.”

  He hesitated, then reached out and touched her cheek. A sweet aching awareness filtered through her.

  He swore under his breath. After a long second, he leaned down. His lips met hers with a hungry longing she felt down to the marrow of her bones.

  A whisper in the back of her mind warned her that he was still so many things she disliked, but it was like chaff in a furious storm of so many other feelings. She felt shivery and shaken and altogether confused at the attraction between them, the desire that even now seemed to burn out of control.

  His lips moved on hers, searching, teasing. Swirling eddies of sensations enveloped her, tumbling her along in a vortex that eclipsed every caution, every warning. She wanted to touch, to feel, to explore the man behind the many masks. She wanted to feel him close to her. She wanted to prolong the dizzying, warm feelings that rocked her practical world.

  The kiss deepened, his lips hard and demanding. His arms pressed her against him until she felt the hard changing of his body. She had never felt anything like it before, and she was stunned by the answering response of her own. She found herself moving into him, wanting more of those strange, compelling, glorious sensations that seemed to arc from her body.

  Her arms went around him, her fingers playing in his hair and along his neck with an instinct she’d never realized she had. Her body, her hands, her mouth were all reacting completely on their own. Warm, irresistible feelings flowed through her body like a surging tide. Swelling and ebbing, then swelling again with renewed energy.

  And she sensed the greatest wave was yet to come.

  She felt the tension in his body, the barely restrained passion in his hands. They started moving at the small of her back, each subtle touch igniting new fires. His lips released hers, and they moved softly, seductively along the line of her cheek, down to her throat where they lingered. She thought she might explode with the growing need inside her. At the same time, she recognized his skill, his experience, and was reminded of his reputation, of his mistress.

  Yet there was so much want. So much feeling. So much need. She felt a bewildering pain, a longing for something she did not understand. The strength of that need terrified her.

  She trembled with the rush of unfamiliar emotions. She heard a small cry rip from her throat. Her hands fell from around his neck.

  He hesitated, his body going still. Then he lifted one of her hands and brought it to his mouth, kissing each finger. She had not thought such gestures could bring about such havoc, could make her forget all the grief and loss and anger of the past year. But there was a gentleness, a tenderness to the gesture that made her heart ache.

  He did make her forget.

  She stood up on tiptoes, and this time she was the aggressor. Her lips pressed against his, and they clung together, savoring the intimacy of warmth and belonging, her body melding to his again. She opened her mouth to his with an awakening longing of her own. His hands moved over her body with poignant slowness as if exploring—and memorizing—every moment.

  “Bonny lass,” he whispered as his hands caresse
d and aroused, their gentleness sensual and inviting.

  Magic wrapped around them, a seductive, drugging sorcery. Her heart bounced against the edge of its cage, and her body tingled with anticipation, the need inside growing as his hands heated every inch they touched.

  Then his hands went to the laces in front of her dress. They fumbled, and she sensed that was unusual. Her gaze met his, and the green gold in his eyes was so tumultuous, so turbulent they reminded her of the rough seas not far from home. Her fingers went up to his face, touched the small cleft in his chin and watched as his mouth widened, the ends turning upward. Then her hands took the wig from his head, and her hand caught in the short, thick strands of his dark hair.

  He stilled, as if frozen, then with a groan his lips seized hers again. This time there was no hesitancy, no restraint. This time their lips met in an explosion as bright as lightning striking the earth.

  It was foolish, and dangerous and destructive. Rory knew all that and yet he could not keep his hands off her. Her eyes, which had once regarded him with contempt, were soft and wistful and longing. She needed this … affection as much as he did. He would not, could not, call it love. Love was too dangerous a word, too precarious an emotion.

  They were wed. They were husband and wife in the sight of God. Not, he corrected, that he really believed in God. Not after the past few months. But they were also wed in the sight of the church and state.

  She had been a good facade for his activities. She was, after all, the king’s choice for him, and he had cooperated. But now he regretted his compliance. Or did he?

  That was the hell of it. He stood a foot away from the gallows. Or worse.

  “Rory?”

  It was the first time she had said his name. It was naught more than a hoarse whisper, but it echoed throughout him. What in the hell was he doing?

  Yet he could not stop. Her eyes were so very blue, so serious, so full of roiling emotions. He saw uncertainty, but he also saw desire. A desire that matched his own. He leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose, the freckles that amused and delighted and intrigued him. She truly did not understand how appealing she was, and that was an aphrodisiac. She was brave and stubborn and yet had a strong and generous heart.