But he was a man. He had given his word. And he would keep it.
His angel was in a frenzy by then, her body starving for she knew not what. She only clung to him, and moved against him, as if she might sate that hunger on his body with all their clothes on.
He could do that for her. She was close to the peak of pleasure, and he could take her there without even raising her skirts. He might offer his wide thigh for her to perch on, and show her how to move against him so that she might assuage her own lust, that she might shatter the quaking terror that filled her now, and find a modicum of peace.
The temptation beckoned, and he knew in that moment that he was too far gone. To think of doing such a thing with a gently reared virgin was simply not to be borne.
At every point in his life, at least once a day, the question presented itself: was he a real man, or a false one? Did he hold in his actions to the principles he claimed to bear as a standard before him, or didn’t he? It was a simple question, with an answer of yes or no. For the first time in his life, he was tempted sorely to answer in the negative.
But he would not hurt her that way. He had too much respect for her. He had too much respect for himself. Whatever came, he would have to soothe her out of this, and find a way for both of them to live with it.
So he drew back, taking his lips from hers.
His angel whimpered when he pulled away, and tried to follow him with her mouth. He spoke to her soothingly, a little in Gaelic, a little in English, whispering softly, running his hands over her waist in an attempt to appease her need for his touch, even as he pressed his lips to her temple.
“Leannan, we must stop. Please, my angel, listen to me.”
She seemed to hear him, for she stopped writhing in his arms. She froze, as a deer might before the hunter, and she opened her wide green eyes.
“Dear God,” she said, blaspheming. “What have I done?”
* * *
Catherine could still taste the sweetness of his tongue. She wondered at herself, at her behavior, at the wildness of her lack of decorum, at her complete disregard for self-preservation, for common sense, for the decency she had been raised to. Her grandmother would have had her beaten, eighteen years of age or no.
But he had tasted so good.
His body was even harder than it looked, harder than his forearm had been under her hand, than his upper arm had been against her breast in the open carriage. She had never been kissed before. She had certainly never kissed a man before, and never would again until she was engaged. But that kiss had been perfect bliss, a touch of heaven in the midst of her daily worries, her fear, and her helplessness. She had felt delicate and vulnerable in his arms. She had also felt safe, almost cherished.
She could not get the taste of him out of her mouth, no matter how hard she swallowed.
The earlier warmth brought on by Mary Elizabeth’s odd drink had burned away in the heat of Alexander’s touch. So now Catherine had nothing to dim her humiliation, nothing to draw her mind from her embarrassment as she stood and faced him in that darkened corridor. Catherine rallied, and stepped back, her eyes on his.
“I apologize, Mr. Waters, for my behavior. It was unconscionable, unthinkable to act as I have done. I can only rely on your discretion and your honor.”
The handsome Scot drew himself to his full height, well over six feet. He had bent down to kiss her, had leaned down to cradle her between his hands like an egg that might break with too much rough handling. She caught herself looking at his large hands encased in leather gloves, and wondered what those gloved hands might feel like against her skin. She swallowed hard, and could still taste him.
“It is I who must beg your forgiveness, Miss Middlebrook. A true gentleman would ask for your hand in marriage this very moment. As I am not free to wed, I can only beg your indulgence in my folly, and confess that your sweet charms overwhelmed me.”
All Catherine heard out of that pretty speech was that he would not marry her, then or ever.
Did he have a wife tucked away somewhere in the Highlands, some huge woman as hulking as himself, with dark red hair and a passel of children? She realized then that she did not truly know this man. She saw in that moment of cold clarity that she never would.
The pain in her heart was like a blade tearing her chest asunder. She forced herself to breathe. She had been a bigger fool than she had previously thought. She loved this man, and he did not love her back. Her grandmother had not warned her against this folly, no doubt thinking it impossible for her cherished, favorite granddaughter to behave with so little good sense, with so little decorum. A lady was not allowed to touch a gentleman who was not her husband, because a lady’s heart moved as her body did: in the direction of the man who had kissed her, who had taken her virtue, however much of it she offered him.
In the dim light of that corridor, she saw how badly she had behaved. It would ruin her if anyone ever found out. She drew on her grandmother’s pride, since she could not find her own, and met Mr. Waters’s eyes.
“I think it best if you leave, sir. I bid you good day. I thank you for your discretion, both now, and in the days to come.”
She heard her own voice, and her grandmother’s strict tones reflected in it. She saw Mr. Waters flinch from her as if she had struck him, and her heart started to bleed. Still, he was the one who had said they could not marry, who had openly spoken in bald terms of what they both already knew. No further discussion was necessary.
She moved past him and opened the front door. She was deeply grateful for the first time that Jim was not at his post, but busy elsewhere in the house. Where was that warm sense of well-being now, the one brought on by the strange drink Mary Elizabeth had poured over her ice? Whatever warmth she had felt had fled as soon as Mr. Waters stepped away from her and took his hands from her waist.
He stood staring at her now as if she had wounded him. She found she could not apologize. She was glad that perhaps, in spite of that potential hulking wife tucked away in the Highlands, he hurt just a little, too.
He left her then without another word, and she closed the door behind him. She leaned against it, and let her tears come. But she did not weep for long, her grandmother’s stricture clear in her mind. No man was worth a woman’s tears.
She went upstairs to change her gown, and to put up her hair once more. Her bonnet was a bit crushed, but still serviceable. Much like her heart.
Thirteen
Alex managed to get the duchess’s gig home before the downpour. He could only imagine what Ian would have to say if he had to replace the leather interior of a ducal carriage with the proceeds of the family’s next shipment of furs from Nova Scotia. Best not to find out.
He was out of sorts, fuming at himself for being a cad, and then for handling his caddishness with such a lack of finesse. The girl had kissed him, he had kissed her back, and that should have been the end of it. He should not have drawn her against him. He should have stopped her at the first touch of her lips. She was not that drunk, and he should not have been that foolish.
Or that cruel.
After seeing to the duchess’s horses, he let himself in the kitchen entrance of the house. The cook turned from her stove brandishing a large carving knife, but when she saw it was him, she simply smiled and went back to her cooking. The young kitchen maid smiled at him too, but her smile had a bit of a different light in it. His body responded with a jolt, and he realized how aroused he still was from a simple kiss from his angel’s lips. He was not one to dally with servant girls though, that day or ever. He nodded at her for politeness’s sake and took himself upstairs to find his brother.
Mary Elizabeth found him first as he entered the first floor hallway outside the music room. He heard the lovely sound of Robert playing the fife, and knew that his brother had been at the whisky already—and it wasn’t even dinnertime yet. No doubt his brother had
fallen into one of his funks from being too long in the south.
“Did you do something to annoy Catherine?” Mary Elizabeth asked, barring his passage into the room where Robert was playing and no doubt drinking.
“No doubt I did,” Alex answered. “Why is that any business of yours?”
Mary Elizabeth glared at him. “Alex, she’s my only friend in this benighted city, and I won’t have you deviling her. You’ll go and apologize first thing in the morning, or I’ll write to Mama.”
“And tell her what? That I’m deviling English girls?”
“That you’re annoying my only friend.” He saw tears in his sister’s eyes then, and he stopped being cruel. It was not her fault he was ill behaved and a rascal and a varlet. Those faults lay square at his own door. She was right. He would have to apologize again, when he and his angel were both less…overwhelmed. And after that, he would have to leave Miss Catherine Middlebrook well alone.
He took his sister’s hand gently in his. He watched as she blinked her tears away with difficulty. She hated to cry, but she was a girl after all. Alone in the south, save for him and Robbie, and lost without her fishing, her hunting, and her sword. He leaned down and kissed her forehead, and this time, she blinked in surprise, her tears all but gone.
“I am sorry, Mary Elizabeth. You have my sincere apology. And Miss Middlebrook will have it as well on the morrow.”
Mary Elizabeth swallowed hard before she answered. She was not one to hold a grudge. “All right then, Alex. But don’t forget. Catherine is important to me.”
“I promise you. I won’t forget.”
As if he could forget her. If Catherine Middlebrook slipped from his mind like an outgoing fog, his life would be the simple, straightforward place it had been less than a week ago—when right was right, left was left, women were for fun alone, and whisky was for drinking. Now, very little made sense. But he did not have to take his own angst out on his little sister.
He kissed her forehead again, as he had when she was small, and sent her upstairs to change for dinner.
“I don’t need to change, Alex. This gown is perfectly clean.”
“It’s not about clean down here among the English, Mary. It’s about what’s fashionable. It was fashionable to go to Gunter’s, and it is fashionable to change for dinner. So that’s what we’ll do.”
She turned to go, but before she headed to her second floor bedroom, she said, “Alex, I am sorry I gave Catherine a tot. Was she ill when you took her home?”
“No, don’t trouble yourself over it.” Before she left, he raised a finger at her in warning. “But don’t ever do such a thing again. English girls can’t handle Scotch whisky.”
“Not even the smooth stuff from Islay?”
“Not even that.”
Mary Elizabeth sighed and nodded and went on upstairs. Alex did not realize until she was gone that she had not promised anything.
He had more to worry about than his sister. He opened the music room door and found Robbie with his fife in his hand.
The music had stopped and his brother sat brooding, a glass of whisky at his elbow.
“What’s her name?” Alex asked, a half smile on his face.
Robbie laughed out loud at that, his usual good humor showing through his rare malaise. “God forbid! I’m not sick with love. I’m sick for home. When are we leaving again, Alex?”
“Tired of the ducal palace that surrounds you already?”
“I’m tired of London, and London dirt, and London coal smoke, and London people.”
Alex poured himself two fingers of Islay whisky, the only stuff they drank. “That’s quite a list. Anything else?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
Alexander raised one dark brow and Robert sighed. “The food’s not so good here.”
“Don’t let the cook hear you say that.”
“Oh, she’s a good sort, and at least what she makes tastes like something, but every time we eat outside this house, I find I want my mother’s bannock, and a slice of decent rye.”
“So it’s home-cooked bread you’re after.”
“Don’t joke, Alex, this is serious. When can we leave?”
“You know the answer as well as I, Robbie. The day our sister is wedded and bedded to a decent man.”
Robert’s mouth quirked in a grin. “Only decent? Can’t the poor lass hope for a good man?”
“We’re among the English, Robbie, don’t forget.”
His brother laughed out loud at that, as he meant him to. Alex did not join in. He downed his whisky in one gulp and went to pour himself another.
“And what ails you, Brother? Drinking before dinner, and not a head cold or a whore in sight.”
“I wanted to go to a whore yesterday,” Alex confessed. “I wanted to. I just couldn’t.”
“Oh, Holy Mary, full of Grace, as Mama would say. What’s this, then? Have you lost your keen edge?”
Alexander glowered as his brother laughed at him. When Robbie saw he meant business, he stopped laughing.
“It’s worse than that, is it? Though God alone knows what could be worse than that. What the hell’s the matter with you?”
His brother’s thickening brogue brought Alexander a little comfort. It reminded him of his brother Ian, of his father, of the smell of salt on the open sea, of the taste of clean burn water down from the mountains. It reminded him of home.
When Alex didn’t answer, his brother asked, “What’s her name?”
Alexander did not dissemble or try to hide his foolishness. He and Robbie were one year apart. They had lived together, fought together, chased women together all their lives. His brother knew him so well that he had only to read his face to know when something was wrong with him. And something was wrong with him now.
“Her name is Catherine Middlebrook.”
Robbie smiled. “That sweet-faced girl from Devon? Mary Elizabeth’s friend?”
“That’s the one.”
“Hmmm.” Robert contemplated the last of his whisky, then set it aside. “She’s a bit young for my taste, mind, a bit grassy green, you might say.”
Alexander felt his temper rising like a flash tide, and he caught it before it exploded, but barely. “She is a beautiful girl with everything to recommend her. A good girl, a sweet girl who deserves better than the likes of me, God help her.”
Robert examined his brother carefully, but he did not hesitate to say what he was thinking. “She’s as poor as a church mouse. I think her sister said she sews her own clothes.”
“And what of it? No girl can help what money her father left her, or the lack of it.”
Robert squinted at him, becoming even more cautious, watching him as he might watch a ravening beast on a rampage. “True enough, true enough. And you like her well enough to take her from her home, to bring her to the Highlands, to let Mother look after her for the rest of her life among the ice and the heather?”
Alexander knew that despite his brother’s glib tone, he was bringing forth real objections. Their mother was English, but she was not a fan of English girls for her sons. She had told them under the strictest terms that they were not to marry themselves off while down south, that she would beat them herself if they did so.
Not that Alexander waited on his mother’s opinion in the matter of the fairer sex. He never had and he never would. But he did listen to his brother.
He was listening to him now.
“I am a damned fool,” was all Alex said.
Robert grinned and Alexander felt his heart lighten a little. One reason he loved Robbie was that he kept him from being so serious about every single thing on God’s good, green earth.
“Well, if you’re thinking of marriage, and marriage to an English girl, you’ve gone a bit mad, that’s certain. But you look pretty calm for a madman. Perhaps
you’re not in love with her after all.”
“I have no idea.”
It was Robert’s turn to raise a brow. “Really? Well, that’s the first order of business, isn’t it? Before you can do anything else, you’ll have to decide. Do you love her, or not?”
Fourteen
Catherine did not sleep at all that night. After enduring prying looks from her mother all through dinner, she claimed that she had a headache and retired early. Once trapped alone in her room, even Mrs. Radcliffe’s latest novel could not distract her from her oppressive thoughts. She ended up blowing out her candle and drawing the bed curtains closed against the firelight in her grate, wishing that she might suddenly sleep, and wake as someone else.
She went back over the events of the afternoon again and again in her mind, as if they were a river flowing through her thoughts that would not be dammed or channeled elsewhere. She remembered the sad old lion, and how she had wished she might set him free. She thought her gaffe in the royal menagerie, and of how Mr. Waters had dealt with it coolly, in a way that had left them both with their dignity intact. Her feelings had been hurt at that point, but at least it was an answer to the question she had been asking herself in her deepest dreams and wildest imaginings: could she and Mr. Waters ever consider a future with one another? And he had answered her with a resounding, quiet no.
If that had been all, she would only have a moment of wounded pride. But she had been schoolgirl foolish enough to accept the odd drink Mary Elizabeth offered her, not knowing how it would make her feel. Warm, and wonderful, as if the world were new, as if she were truly young, and need not fear the lack of money, or her future, or even think of the next moment. She had simply felt the need to draw close to Mr. Waters in that hour after she had taken that drink, and sit with her arm over his, and feel the strength of his firm muscles beneath her hand.
How to Seduce a Scot Page 9