Always aware of his presence, Alex felt his eyes on her and glanced up with a quick smile. He'd been lovely tonight, actually. His eyes had glowed at the sight of her in the dress she'd chosen so carefully. He'd swept the silver crepe with an appreciative look and had even come near to whisper compliments and kiss her neck. Alex shivered at the memory.
His lovemaking had not changed anyway. He still worshipped her with his hands and his mouth and all the rest of his wonderful body. But always in the dead of night. Always so late that she wondered if he slept at all. He would wake her with tenderness and need and speak Gaelic melodies into her ear as he slid his body into hers.
She had no idea what words he spoke, but they never failed to bring tears to her eyes. She'd asked Jeannie once, about one thing he whispered over and over again, though she'd blushed in horror of what it might be. Maith dhomh, he always murmured.
"Forgive me," Jeannie had translated for her, with a telling look, but Alex had said no more.
Forgive me, he offered her, in a language he knew she couldn't understand. What did it mean? She wanted to ask him, prayed that he wanted to try again at loving her. She had worked up her courage over the past few days, to talk to him during the long, private carriage ride to the Kirk-lands', but all that had changed this morning.
A youth she didn't know had come sneaking out of the trees to hand her a note as she walked Brinn along the edge of a forest. He'd handed her a slip of paper and, ignoring her questions, had slunk back into the firs.
Her stomach still clenched at the thought of it, and she glanced around as if she would see Damien St. Claire watching her from the edges of the crowd.
My Dear, he had written, You are sleeping with the enemy. How could you marry the very man who hunts your lover? I demand restitution for your inconstancy.
She would have scoffed at such a grievance a year ago, even a few weeks ago. If he had tried to blackmail her when she'd first come to Scotland, she would have gladly set him up again, participated in whatever trap her husband set to catch him. But not now. Oh God, not now. For he'd known exactly how to threaten her.
The word in the Lowlands is that your husband is a jealous man, a man who in no way trusts you. How would he respond to a few stories about your past? How would he feel if I set the neighbors abuzz with tales of your talented lips? Could I adequately describe the slick heat of your quim ? I would dearly love the chance.
Fortunately for you, my silence comes cheaply. £20,000. Do not deny me this or I will give your husband something to be jealous of. You have two days. Leave it in the place you received this note. Jewels will do nicely if gold is not at hand.
He had not signed it. Why bother? There was no question of who had penned it.
So now she could not enjoy her husband's compliments. She could not enjoy the party. She could not even enjoy the way Collin had cradled her hand in his on the ride toward Kirkland Hall. Instead, her stomach lurched each time she looked in his direction, for she had finally betrayed him. She had betrayed him the moment she'd received the note and hidden it beneath her linens. She had betrayed him when she'd spread her jewels out on the dresser and tried to calculate the value of each piece.
She had lost all the certainty she'd carried with her through life. She no longer knew who she was or how to behave.
Fergus was her husband's best friend and so she'd thought of him as a brother and treated him as such. It must have been wrong to do so. It must have been improper, for even Fergus avoided her now.
Improper. Always improper. Alexandra Huntington Blackburn was an unnatural girl. She had finally come to believe what her governesses had told her and what her Cousin Merriweather had screamed at her. Really, it had been obvious to everyone else. Why had it taken her so long to realize?
Collin turned her toward another introduction and she tried her best to be bright and lovely. She wanted to make him proud. She wanted him to watch her and see a lady and a wife. She wanted things to settle into place.
Why wouldn't they just settle into place?
Another gentleman approached her husband and, even in her musings, Alex blinked and stood straighter. The man had tears in his eyes. She was quite sure she had never seen the like. The older gentleman took Collin's hand in a hearty hold, shaking his head as he did so.
"Lord Waterford?"
"We had to put her down, Westmore." "What?"
"Devil's Drop. She snapped her foreleg right in half in a post hole. Just a week ago." His jowls trembled. "A damn shame, I tell you. Pardon the strong language."
"My wife," Collin murmured, placing his hand beneath the man's elbow. "A mare of ours," he explained, meeting her eyes and angling his head toward the library.
Alex nodded, cringing as the man pressed his hand to his chest.
"By God, she was a fine one. You should have seen her, Lady Westmore."
Still nodding, she watched her husband stride away, his head bent close to Lord Waterford, the better to hear the details of the accident. Her heart ached in sympathy as she remembered the pain she'd felt when her first pony had been put down, remembered looking into her sad, wise eyes and knowing they'd soon be lifeless.
Tears welled at the memory, and she blinked hard to force them away as a sudden weariness descended. It must be after one, hours past her normal bedtime, but the guests plowed on, bright and cheerful around her. Jeannie's smile flashed toward her through the crowd of dancers, drawing a quick lift of Alex's lips before her friend disappeared again, swallowed by the festive storm.
The relative quiet of the foyer beckoned, and she slipped past the milling people toward the realm of quiet conversations and murmured laughter. Relief cooled her warm cheeks for just a moment. . . The barest moment of calm before she saw him, before she watched in shock as his blond head came up and his eyes focused on her with narrow pleasure. Blond hair, cold eyes. But not St. Claire. Not the threat she'd half expected.
Robert Dixon. Heat returned to her cheeks like a gust of bellowed flame, and the feel of that blush only made the warmth prickle. He would look at her pinkness as a sign of guilt, when she felt nothing more than disconcerted. He would relish the thought of her embarrassment.
She watched him smile, watched his eyes sweep down to delve the shadows of her cleavage as he made a quick excuse to his companion and stepped away. Alex turned a foot, began to pivot, but pride stopped her from fleeing. She had no reason to run from this scrap of a man, she told herself as he approached, but she truly did not wish to speak to him. Not when his hazel eyes were so coldly lit.
So pride would not let her leave, but now, as he took his time approaching, it looked as if she waited for him, as if she gave him permission to join her. Her flat glare of disgust did nothing to dim his satisfaction or the curl of his lip.
"Lady . . . Westmore, is it now?" She pressed her lips hard together. "A pleasure to see you again."
She neither spoke nor offered a hand. A cut of the utmost dignity. It only served to brighten the amusement in his eyes.
"Come now. Aren't you happy to see an old friend from home? I insisted to Lord Bonnet that we attend as I was sure you'd be here."
"I think I made clear that you were not to come near me."
"A misunderstanding, I believe." "How so?"
"How so?" He leaned in, eyes darting down her bodice as his lips crept close to her ear. "I can see now that you were only disappointed at my lack of persistence."
Alex inched to the side and did her best to look down her nose at a man taller than her. "Move away from me."
"Imagine my shock at finding out that the oh-so-demure Lady Alexandra had given herself over to no less an animal than an illegitimate Scotsman."
Her fan struck his elbow with a satisfying whack. "You go too far."
"On the contrary."
She felt the hot slide of his fingers curling around her arm, gripping too tightly, but she dared not pull away— two faces had turned in their direction. There was enough talk already
about Collin's wife. She would not cause a scene over this snake's injured pride.
Smiling at the woman nearest her, she hissed through her teeth, "Unhand me."
"You'd give yourself to that scoundrel St. Claire and fall into bed with a damned stud farmer, but you turned me away like a supplicant, you little bitch."
"Let go."
"I hear tell that Blackburn is little pleased with you. Does he resent paying such a high price for ill-used goods?"
"Let go this instant or you'll regret it." Alex felt limp with shock when his fingers actually loosened and fell away.
"You're damned lucky your brother is a duke. You wouldn't be so—"
"Will you introduce me, Lady Westmore?"
Her husband's voice sounded so close that Alex jumped, spinning to find him only a yard behind her, his gray eyes flat. "Collin!"
"Yes."
She blinked, wondering if he'd heard, but no . . . He would be hot with rage if he knew. He stepped forward to join her and his eyes were positively icy when they swung toward Dixon. A thumping like a rabbit's heart took up inside her chest. What was she to say? Not the truth, certainly, not unless she wanted a husband on trial for murder.
"Um." A glance showed her Mr. Dixon's pale face. "Yes. Of course. Mr. Robert Dixon, this is my husband, Collin Blackburn, Lord Westmore. Mr. Dixon is a friend of my brother's."
Collin did not take the man's hesitant offer of a handshake. In fact, he looked at the hand so fiercely that Dixon yanked it back and gave no more than a murmured pleasantry before spinning away.
Alex's nerves hummed with anticipation of some-thing dire.
"Are you ready to leave?"
"Yes!" she gasped and slid her hand over his hard arm. "Yes, let's go."
They slipped past the guests, Alex trailing behind his straight back, mind spinning for a way to deflect his anger. It didn't matter, really. She wanted to leave. And perhaps he'd only sensed her dislike of the man she'd been speaking with.
Her heeled slippers pinched her feet and provided no cushion against the granite underfoot as they hurried past the milling crowd. By the time Collin retrieved her cloak and called the carriage, she could do nothing more than collapse into the cushioned seat with a sigh.
"I forgot to say good-bye to Jeannie."
"Who was that man?"
"What?"
"Don't play dumb, Alex." "Why are you angry?"
"I don't know, perhaps it has something to do with stumbling upon my wife in an intimate conversation with a man I've never met."
Her teeth ground hard together as she searched his face in the dim light of the carriage lamp, looking for a sign of. . . of something. Something that wasn't there.
"Was he one of your lovers?"
"What? Collin—" A hard shake of her head freed a spark of anger from all the guilt and self-pity she'd been hiding under. "That doesn't even make sense." She watched the frantic working of his jaw, the muscles that clenched and released, thrown into prominence by shadow. "Why are you asking me this?"
"Just answer the question."
"I will not! That question is not relevant."
"We both know you were no innocent when you came to my bed."
"I was a virgin!"
"Do not play coy."
"Coy? Am I speaking to an idiot? Why are you so suspicious? How could you ask me of lovers when you know you were my first?"
His eyes filled with harsh passion and his flat mouth thinned even further until the lips that had kissed her disappeared. "The first, yes. The first to have you there."
Her heart beat once, twice. Rage froze, crystallized with a suddenness that chimed like glass in her chest. "What?"
"You know quite well that there is more to making love than just sex."
Her teeth clattered together, a hard click in the quiet rumble of the space. Heart tearing, she worked words past her lips. "What are you . . . What are you asking me?"
"Just tell me who he is, and don't repeat that shit about him being a friend of the duke."
"No. No, I want you to tell me exactly what you mean. Put your ugly thoughts into words so we can both hear them, so you can finally taste them on your tongue."
"Alex—"
"No! Are you asking if I have ever . . . If I have ever taken that man into my mouth? Or, or. . ."
"Alex—"
"Or perhaps you mean something more vile yet? Perhaps you're asking me—your own wife—perhaps you're asking if I played at sodomy?" She watched with sick satisfaction as his body twitched. His eyes widened from their slits of rage and she thought she saw pain. Good. It couldn't begin to approach what she felt.
"What, did you think I didn't know about that trick? Perhaps there are other things I know that you're not aware of. I am a wee whore, after all." A throng of emotions played over his hard face, but Alex saw it all through a steady blur of hatred.
"You'll never tell me about your past, even when I ask."
"Oh, and how many women have you had, Collin? And what parts of their bodies did you stick yourself into?"
"It's not. . . You never asked. I'll tell you about my past if you like."
"No, I'm not a beast like you. What do you want to know? You want to know who that man was to me?"
"I just. . ." He threw his big hands up into the air before crossing his arms tight over his chest. "Yes."
"Well, let's see. Mr. Robert Dixon. Yes, I did kiss him, I remember that. He stuck his tongue into my mouth. What else? Oh, then he decided that I had granted him the liberty to do what he wished and he pulled up my shirt, dropped his trousers, and tried to have me."
She smiled at his sudden shift, smiled as he sat forward with a shout.
"Oh, yes. Of course, I encouraged him and I am a whore after all, so I can only be glad he was too much of a gentleman to give chase when I fell to the ground and crawled away, else I might have lost my virginity to a different bastard entirely."
Her eyes narrowed as his fist rose, but she did not cringe, not even when it swung toward her to pound on the roof of the carriage. "Turn this damn thing 'round!" He pounded again.
"Stop it," she growled, bouncing in her seat as they shuddered to a halt. "Stop it. You have no right to play my defender now."
He closed his eyes. Opened them again.
"Sir?" a voice called.
Alex leapt to her feet and slid open the window. "Go! Drive on!" They drove.
"You cannot ask me to ignore him."
"I am not asking for anything. If I want to beg protection from a man, I will go to my brother and send him after you. You are the only man who has done me injury, my lord. You have revealed yourself." Her words stirred laughter in her mouth. Revealed yourself. She saw again the red jut of Dixon's manhood. A giggle escaped. The sound seemed to wound her husband. He cringed, rubbed a hand hard over his eyes.
"Alexandra. Wife. I'm sorry. I don't know why—"
"The same reason you always have, I suppose. Your suspicion of my very nature. Your hatred of me."
"Oh, God. I don't hate you. I love you. It is eating away at me."
"You love me?" Those precious words twisted from her lips like the vilest poison. "How dare you."
"Caitein, I'm sorry. I just, I feel mad with you sometimes, as if I have no control over my life."
Thank God for her anger. She could feel terrible things lurking beneath it, not yet revealed. Some piece of her had broken off in a jagged chunk that scraped and wounded. My God, could she never make a wise choice in her life? She had given everything to this man. Everything. And he thought her no better than a rutting cat, rubbing herself against every male in her reach. Caitein, he called her. Caitein.
"When I saw you with that man, and I knew there was something between you. . . Please, will you forgive me my words?"
"And what of your thoughts? Shall I forgive those also, do you think? A lot of forgiveness for how often you think them."
The familiar heat of his fingers took h
er hand and pulled her toward him. She yanked away.
"Don't. And don't speak anymore, I can't stand to hear it." She met his eyes dead on and saw a twinge of panic spark from their silver depths. "Tomorrow perhaps," she hissed when his lips parted, "when I don't wish to scratch out your eyes."
Looking away to fight that very temptation, she turned to the window, wide open to the cold night air. Her skin burned even in the cool of a hard frost, just as her eyes burned, dry and rough with the need for tears that would not come.
She was aware of his every move across from her—his gradual shift from anger to resignation, body easing back to slump against the seat; the occasional shift of his knee too close to hers. For some reason she did not want him to see her move, did not want to reveal even a breath to him. She was a statue, cool and rigid and utterly immune to his wild insults. She needed him to look at her and see nothing close to vulnerability.
Fighting even the rocking of the carriage, she thought her neck might snap at the next rut in the road. And perhaps that would be best for all involved, particularly her. What a mess she'd made of so many lives. This was what came of trying to do the right thing for once. At least when she did the wrong thing, she could expect the worst outcome, anticipate it and brace herself. But this . . .
Minutes passed. Then miles. The cold seeped into her as they rolled on, furthering her fantasy that she was made of stone. Smooth and hard and lovely, her skin froze in the caress of the bitter wind, and she hardened her mind as well, sculpted it until all her thoughts focused on the fascinating clouds of her breath escaping into frost.
Collin snapped the window shut with a crack and a curse and ruined that for her too. He leaned forward to rummage beneath his seat for a blanket, but the carriage was already tilting right, taking the hard turn that led toward home, no more than three minutes . . . maybe four in the pitch black of the moonless night.
To Tempt a Scotsman Page 22