The Last Debutante

by Julia London

  She sagged into his side, burying her face in his chest. “She’s lost her mind, and I don’t know what to do.”

  “Aye, she has,” he agreed. “Or she is trying very hard to hide something. Here now,” he said, slipping two fingers under her chin, forcing her to look up at him. “Let her go to Nairn, and let us think on how we might discover what she is hiding.”

  She nodded, then stepped back and wiped her eyes. “I will discover what she is about,” she said determinedly. Then she peeked up at him. “How will I do that?”

  Jamie smiled. “First, I’ll have a man watch her, aye? Second, I’ll have another man find the gentleman she spoke to this morn. Perhaps he might shed some light.”

  “Yes. Thank you, Jamie,” Daria said. “That was no casual encounter. Did you recognize him?”

  “No.” It surprised him. He knew most men around here, and if he didn’t know them, he could identify them by their plaids. But that man was not wearing a plaid. “I’ll find him, Daria. And I will see that your grandmamma doesna come to harm.”

  She smiled gratefully. “Thank you.”

  He offered his hand to her. “Come, lass.”

  She slipped her hand into his, allowing him to lead her out of the cottage.

  Nineteen

  SOMEWHERE ON THE road to Dundavie, the dogs disappeared, racing into the forest after prey only they could smell. Their progress was slow, and Jamie had to turn about from time to time to reassure himself that Daria followed. The young woman who had nattered on this morning was silent, lost in thought this afternoon.

  At the top of the hill, near the cairn, he drew Niall to a halt and dismounted. Only then did Daria seem to notice him. “I am famished,” he said, and took the bundle Young John had given him from the back of his horse. “Are you hungry?”

  “A little,” she agreed, and slid off her horse.

  She followed him up the hill to a flat, grassy hollow between two large, rocky knolls. A lone rowan tree provided a bit of shade, and Jamie spread the cloth open there to find cheese, dried meats, bread, and berries that had stained the cloth blue.

  Daria stood looking out over the hills below them. Tendrils of rich gold hair danced around her face on the afternoon breeze. He could picture her looking out over this vista every day, taking stock of the changing landscape. The thought startled him—he’d not thought of her at all past the ransom.

  “I think you are right,” she said, as if they had been talking. “She is hiding something.”

  “Aye.”

  “I am determined not to mope, Jamie. My parents will soon arrive, and together, we will discover what it is she hides.” She dropped her arms and looked at him as if she expected him to argue.

  He did not. “Come and eat something.”

  Daria walked over, then knelt to examine the contents of the cloth. “Is it a picnic?” she asked, and made a sound of delight. “Berries!” She popped one in her mouth.

  Jamie stretched out on his good side and propped himself up on one elbow. He opened the collar of his shirt, then helped himself to some dried meat. “I’d wager you’ve no’ picnicked like this before, aye?” he asked, glad to change the mood.

  “Never.” She reached for some cheese. “In England, if one attends a picnic, there are servants to put up the tents and tables and to serve.” She laughed softly and put another couple berries into her mouth. “It seems so pretentious now. I think all of England should be made to picnic precisely like this, out in the open, without tent or servant or even utensil to help them.”

  “Perhaps you will be the one to introduce all of England to the Highland picnic when you return.”

  “I shall be in high demand, I’m sure.” Daria laughed again, then eased down on her side, facing him. “Perhaps you might try the English way of picnicking,” she suggested, smiling impishly. “One never knows—it might improve your chance of matrimony,” she added coyly, and popped another berry into her mouth. “Ah, but yours is all but finalized.”

  He smiled at her blatant attempt to ask him.

  Daria examined the dried meat. “Do you miss your fiancée?” she asked casually.

  “Isabella?” He thought about her. Or rather, he thought about the recent blows to the Campbell coffers. There was no denying that a union between them was the easiest way to keep intact the little corner of the world they’d inhabited for more than two hundred years.

  But surely it meant more to him than that—he’d been set to marry her, by God. He’d been genuinely fond of Isabella, had he not? Did he not miss her company, if only a little, even now? “A wee bit, aye,” he admitted.

  Daria dropped her gaze. “What is she like?”

  He found the question strangely discomforting. Isabella was everything a man in his position might have hoped for. She was beautiful. She was charming and clever and knew how to manage a very large house. She was the daughter of the Brodie laird, the equivalent of a Scottish princess. She had seemed to care for him—and yet, there was something about Isabella that seemed to pale compared to Daria. She didn’t have that same quality of being that Daria seemed to possess—a lightness about her, an ability to greet any situation with charm and grace. Daria was like summer: light, air, warmth.

  He could not say the same for Isabella.

  That he was even thinking such things about the wee English rose was most disconcerting. It was imprudent, dangerous, and unwise. His fate, his destiny, was Dundavie, and he had a duty to maintain the clan. A dalliance with an English rose would be nothing short of disastrous. Yet he could not seem to think of anything else. She was here before him, her countenance bright and warm, her body a man’s fantasy.

  “Hmm. You hesitate,” Daria said lightly. “I think you do not care to tell me that she has a wart on the end of her nose and eats puppies in her soup.”

  He grinned. “No warts, no, but I canna vouch for the puppies.”

  Daria laughed.

  Jamie sobered. “In truth, Isabella is bonny and kind.”

  “Ooh, bonny and kind,” Daria said with mock gravitas. “It is a wonder that an entire continent of gentlemen have not offered for her.”

  “What would you have me say?”

  “Truly, must I tell you? You were to marry her, Jamie Campbell! Did you not love her? If you did, I think you would say that she is beautiful beyond compare, and that her smile lights the entire northern sky, and her eyes are the source of great poetry, and her lips are the pillows on which yours might rest for an eternity.”

  He arched a brow in surprise. “I should have said all of that?”

  “You loved her, did you not?” Daria asked again, looking him directly in the eye.

  “Aye.” At least he hoped that he had, in some way.

  He noticed Daria’s smile was not as bright as it had been, and he dipped his head to catch her eye.

  But Daria did not allow her feelings to show. She smiled. “Mark me, Laird, one day you will thank me for my tutelage in love, in dancing, and in managing your vast estate,” she said gaily. “I cannot bear to think what you will do without me when I am ransomed.”

  “I donna know,” he said softly. “Walk about in a stupor, I should think. Drink too much of the barley-bree to ease my pain.”

  She gave him a playful shove of his shoulder and then flopped onto her back, her arms folded beneath her head, her ankles crossed as she gazed up at the blue sky. “What will you do when I am gone? Who will play the pianoforte? Who will your dogs adore? What, in heaven’s name, will Duffson do without me to follow about each day?”

  She was smiling, but the questions made Jamie feel strangely empty. What would he do?

  “I suppose you shall go about the business of Dundavie,” she mused. “You will no doubt marry Isabella, and you will produce the heirs all the Campbells so desperately want, and you will find Geordie a wife, and you will drain your bogs and plant your grains and chase sheep from your fields . . .”

  It sounded very tedious to him in that moment. But it
was close to the truth—he had a duty to do all of those things, and sooner rather than later. Still, he didn’t like to think about it. “And what of you, leannan? What will you do when you are properly ransomed?”

  “I imagine I shall attend teas and balls, waiting for something exciting to happen and for a gentleman to over-look my dubious summer and offer for my hand.” She suddenly lifted up, propping herself up on her elbows, and looked down the length of her body. “I quite like pantaloons,” she said, deliberately changing the subject.

  He laughed. “I quite like them on you.”

  “Do you?” she asked, seeming pleased by it as she turned a leg to view it fully.

  “Aye. Very much.”

  She glanced at him with a sunny smile of pleasure, and suddenly something snapped. Apart or together, Jamie wasn’t certain, but he could feel it, physically feel the draw between them. The moment was charged, full of unspoken questions and possibilities that rose up like a sea around them.

  Daria rolled onto her side to face him. “You are so very different from any gentleman I have ever known,” she said softly. “I will truly miss you when I am gone.”

  That feeling began to pull at Jamie, dragging him down into a desire so great it pulsed in his veins. “I shall miss you as well.”

  “Will you truly?” she murmured. Her gaze moved to the open collar of his shirt. “You wouldn’t say that merely to soothe my wounded pride, would you?”

  He leaned forward, reached for the tail of her braid, and tugged her closer. “Never,” he said low. “I will indeed and truly miss you, leannan.”

  “What does it mean, ‘leannan’?” she whispered.

  “It means . . . sweetheart,” he said, and kissed her.

  Daria leaned into him, delicately cupping his jaw and sending a thousand tiny little flutters of pleasure through him. He forgot the food between them and wrapped his arm around her waist, rolling onto his back and bringing her with him. Daria wiggled out of her coat, then put her hands on his shoulders, her fingers scraping against the skin at his open collar, and kissed him back.

  She was killing him, filling him with powerful desire, the need to feel her body beneath his, to enter her. With a low groan, he rolled again, putting Daria beneath him, and kissed the hollow of her throat, his lips feeling her sharp draw of breath, the slow release of it.

  “Diah, Daria, you have captured me,” he said roughly as he slid his mouth down her neck to her collarbone. “I donna know how you’ve done it, but you have captured me.”

  She grabbed his head, forced him to look up, and kissed him on the corner of his mouth. “You captured me first,” she said, her voice seductively rough. “You capture me over again, every day.”

  This woman disarmed him as easily as four men at once. He wanted to feel her tongue against his. He wanted to feel her warm breath on his bare skin, to surround her body with his. He wanted to fill her up, to take her places she’d never been. He wanted to love her.

  He wanted to love her.

  He dipped his head again, his fingers fumbling with her shirt buttons, undoing them. Then he dipped his hand into her chemise and filled his hand with her breast.

  Daria sighed longingly and dropped her head back as he pressed his lips to the succulent skin of her neck and kneaded her breast, rolling the tip between his fingers.

  Then Daria—brave, courageous Daria—pulled her shirt and chemise down from her breasts, exposing them to him. With a groan of longing, Jamie gazed down at the perfect orbs, her skin the color of clotted cream. He slid his hand to one, then took the other into his mouth.

  A deep sigh of pleasure escaped her; she dug her fingers into his shoulders. She arched into him, her legs moving against his, pressing against his erection, sliding over it until he was aching with need. He slid his hand down her body, caressing the flare of her hip, her leg, and then sliding between her legs.

  Daria gasped. She put an arm around his shoulders and found his mouth as he began to move his hand against her, stroking her through the buckskin.

  Daria’s breath quickened, warm and moist against his cheek. Jamie couldn’t bear it; with his thumb he unbuttoned her trousers, then began to inch them down her body. She lifted her hips, helping him, kicking free of the buckskins when he pushed them down to her ankles.

  Jamie was beyond rational thought. With his mouth and his hands, he slid down her body, leaving a hot, wet trail. He pushed her thighs apart, kissing first one, then the other. Daria’s fingers sank into his hair, anchoring her. But when Jamie closed his lips around her sex, she made a strangled cry. Her legs squeezed against him, but Jamie hooked his hands around her legs and pulled them apart, and began to lave her with his tongue. Her taste and scent were arousing him to madness; her body seemed to throb against him, matching the beat of his own blood. He was adrift on a sea of physical sensation so sweet that a dragon couldn’t have pulled him free. He covered her with his mouth, stroked her with the urgency he felt thrumming through him. She pushed against him yet held him tightly at the same time, writhing and gasping.

  He felt her release shudder through her body, heard her soft cry of ecstasy, and felt something explode in him. It wasn’t physical, although he craved that release like a drowning man craved air. It was something bigger than that, something in the center of him that made him feel tender and warm. Protective. Possessive. Light. Free.

  He felt like summer.

  He skimmed her breast, laid his palm against her heart, and felt its wild beating. She covered his hand with hers.

  As the moments slipped by, Jamie became aware of how exposed they were. He shifted out from between her legs and smiled down at her. Her hair had come undone from her braid and lay in a halo of disarray around her head. Her eyes were closed, and one arm lay limp across her middle.

  And she was smiling.

  Jamie picked up her coat, then leaned down to kiss her as he covered her with it. “Maise,” he said softly. “You are beautiful, lass.”

  She smiled wider, opened her eyes, and gently touched her fingers to his chin.

  BY THE TIME Jamie had picked up their food, Daria had dressed, combed her hair with her fingers, and rebraided it. She looked a wee bit as if she’d tumbled down a mountainside. It was incredibly arousing.

  She glanced at him shyly. “I must admit that I haven’t the slightest idea what to say.”

  “Nor do I,” he admitted. So many thoughts, so many strange feelings were rumbling through him that Jamie felt almost incapable of rational speech. He was cautious when it came to women, due to his position and the number of mothers who would like to see their daughters married to him, but this was different. Something had happened to him in the last hour that had never happened before, and he didn’t know what it was.

  Jamie retreated into his thoughts, choosing to say nothing of what had happened between them until he could sort it out. He held out his hand to her. “Come then, leannan, we’ve been gone too long, aye?”

  She nodded and took his hand. He squeezed hers affectionately and slung the bundle of food over his shoulder as he led her back to the horses. When he’d secured their things to his saddle, he helped Daria up onto hers, then put his hand on her knee. He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to return to the reality of his life, which was beginning to seep back into his thoughts like a deep fog overtaking all the light. He would be perfectly content to spend the rest of his life on this grassy hill.

  Daria leaned forward and smoothed her hand over the side of his head. “I will never forget you, Jamie Campbell. Not as long as I draw breath will I ever forget you.”

  Somehow, he managed to put himself on his horse. Somehow, he managed to direct Niall to the path, and saw that Daria followed.

  But he wasn’t really seeing. He was hearing those words over and over again in his head. I will never forget you.

  That’s not what he’d wanted to hear, not with her scent still surrounding him, the feel of her body still embedded in his skin. But damn the sai
nts if he knew what he had wanted to hear her say.

  He brooded about it all the way down the hills into Dundavie. Daria seemed not to take notice; she nattered incessantly on. He realized it was her way of putting aside what had happened, filling the air around them with words. She was enlightening him about something—her father’s orchids, he thought—as they entered the bailey, but he was lost in his own thoughts, trying to sort out feelings that had sprung up from some hidden, unused ground. His own private bog, now drained, now ready to support new growth. He didn’t even notice the others in the bailey—he could see only Daria, hear only his jumbled thoughts.

  He dismounted, helped Daria down, and then stood there, his hand on her waist. “Daria,” he said quietly, thinking of precisely how he would voice what he was feeling. “I—”

  “Madainn feasgar math,” he heard a familiar voice say, and it was only then that he noticed the people who had arrived at Dundavie.

  Jamie turned his head and looked directly into a pair of green eyes. “Isabella.”

  Twenty

  DARIA, I . . . WHAT?

  Daria wanted to catch his arm, twist him about, and hear him say what he was feeling. She wanted to believe it was something profound, something that would help her make sense of her whirlwind emotions. She hoped he would say that he, too, had fallen headlong off that windswept hill, and that, like her, he didn’t know if he should stop his fall and claw his way back to where he’d been, or just keep falling.

  Daria was still falling.

  In the moments after the utterly glorious interlude with him on the hill, she’d seen the hunger in Jamie’s eyes and she’d understood for the first time the power a woman held over a man. She’d felt gloriously wicked and desirable, almost giddy with a new sort of lightness.

  But as they’d begun the trek to Dundavie, doubts had begun to creep into her thoughts: doubts about what she’d done, doubts about where her morals had skipped off to and what might happen if she continued down this path. Fall or fly?