One Night with the Laird

by Nicola Cornick

  A tray stood on the dresser with a carafe of fresh water and a vial of a thick plum-colored liquid. Shawcross had left it earlier on one of the many occasions when Jack, with unforgivable rudeness, had told him to bring a fresh bottle of brandy and then get the hell out of there. He drank the tonic down in one gulp. It tasted so vile that for a moment Jack thought that the valet had taken a very sweet revenge and poisoned him. Then the mixture started to work, the pain in his head lessened, the dregs of drink and tiredness started to lift and he tasted the freshness of mint rather than the sourness of alcohol on his tongue. Only the sense of shame remained and Jack suspected there was no cure on earth for that.

  In the big tester bed Mairi shifted in her sleep and burrowed more closely beneath the covers, murmuring something unintelligible. Jack walked across and sat down beside her. He felt odd. He wanted to touch her and hold her close. At the same time there was a sick dread underlying his need for her. He could not understand why he had told her about his mother and his sister. He was not given to confession, least of all on the subject of his family. He had never even spoken to Robert about it, nor his grandmother. He did not want to disinter the past, talk about his failure or why he could never trust himself to love again.

  Why he had spilled his secrets to Mairi was weak and inexplicable. He was skilled at protecting himself. Over the years he had built defenses he had been sure no one could breach, and yet Mairi had demolished them.

  She opened her eyes and he felt a strange sense of shock deep inside and a longing so acute it shook him. He touched her cheek very gently.

  “Did I hurt you?” he asked gruffly.

  Mairi smiled and his heart clenched again. “No,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” Jack said.

  She gave a tiny negative shake of the head. “There’s nothing to apologize for,” she said. Then: “Jack, you do know that it was not your fault?”

  Jack shook his head. He could hear the words, but he could never believe them. Something was broken, wrenched apart deep inside him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again, and saw the light go out of her eyes. They both knew that this time he was not apologizing for his behavior toward her but for the fact that he could not accept her words. He did not want to hear them and least of all did he want to need her the way he had the previous night.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  MAIRI WAS SO emotionally exhausted that she slept very late, heard nothing of the housemaid when she came in to light the fire and did not even stir when Jessie brought the breakfast tray. Eventually she woke when Lucy knocked at the door and came into the room, pulling back the curtains and letting in the sunshine.

  “I am sorry to disturb you,” Lucy said, sitting down on the edge of the bed, “but I was worried.”

  “About Jack?” Mairi said. She sat up, rubbing her eyes. “He is not drunk anymore and I think he is back in his right mind.”

  “Well, I’m sure we will all be glad to hear that,” Lucy said crisply. “But actually I meant I was worried about you.” She took Mairi’s hand in hers. “Did he hurt you?” she asked, her blue eyes suddenly serious.

  Mairi startled herself by bursting into tears. She felt Lucy’s fingers tighten on hers and then her sister was hugging her close and Mairi was surprised to discover that it felt like one of the nicest things in the world.

  “I take it that he did,” Lucy said. Her voice was muffled, but she still sounded ferocious. “Blackguard. I’ll kill him. I don’t care if he is Robert’s cousin—”

  “Please,” Mairi said, releasing her. “There is no need for family warfare. It’s fine. Really it is.” She was not sure that it was, but she did not want to examine her heart too closely this morning. It felt very sore.

  Lucy looked dubious. “You do know,” she said seriously, “that the best sex in the whole world is not worth it if it comes accompanied by so much grief? It might seem as though it is, but it isn’t.”

  Mairi giggled despite herself. “So now you are the expert,” she said. “Yes, I do know that.”

  “Did Jack tell you what happened to his mother and his sister?” Lucy asked.

  “Yes,” Mairi said again. “He told me.”

  Lucy’s expression had brightened. “Oh. Well, that is good because he has never talked about it before. Not even with Robert.”

  “I’m not sure that it will do much good,” Mairi said honestly. “Jack was regretting it as soon as he had told me.”

  Lucy was watching her sister’s face with her shrewd blue gaze. “A few days ago I was worrying that your engagement to Jack was a pretense,” she said slowly. “Now I am worrying more that you will fall in love with him.”

  That was something else that Mairi was not prepared to think about this morning. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Even if I lose a lover I will have found a sister.”

  Lucy squeezed her hands again and stood up. “That’s a lovely thing to say,” she said, misty-eyed. She smiled, suddenly mischievous. “I am afraid that you have found a sister-in-law at Methven too, whether you wish it or not. I am relying on you to take Dulcibella on at the archery butts this morning.” Pausing in the doorway, she added, “Oh, and if you could manage to hit her rather than the target, I think we would all be grateful.”

  * * *

  JACK SAT BESIDE the bowling green watching Mairi roundly trounce her sister-in-law Dulcibella in the game. Normally he disliked being inactive, but he took a curious pleasure in watching Mairi. She rolled her bowls towards the jack with such strength, elegance and lethal accuracy. Dulcibella, in contrast, had no skill whatsoever and a weak wrist, and after losing two games to Mairi’s ruthless proficiency, she was sulking.

  Jack had told himself that he was dancing attendance on Mairi in order to ensure her physical safety, but he knew full well he lied. Here within Methven’s walls she was as safe as anywhere and he had no need to follow her around like a lapdog. It only served to disturb him that he was doing it because he wanted to; he enjoyed watching her, he enjoyed talking to her and he adored making love to her. After the night when he had appalled himself by getting disgracefully drunk, he had tried to stay away from her in order to demonstrate if only to himself that she did not have any power over him. He had failed shamefully. In the past week he had gone to her room each night and made love to her with a wrenching need that would have disturbed him had he not resolutely refused to think about it. He had thought he would soon be sated, that boredom would set in as it had done with every woman in his life before, and yet it did not matter how many times he had her. He felt a renewed need each night—and day—and just about every moment in between.

  In a vague attempt at discretion he made sure never to visit Mairi’s room before the house was quiet for the night and never to be found by the maid in her bed in the morning. With his past affairs this had never presented any sort of problem. With Mairi, though, this had been becoming increasingly difficult, much to his chagrin. He actually wanted to stay with her, to sleep with her, and the fact that he could not felt frustrating. Even more exasperating was the fact that during the day they were obliged to preserve a perfect facade of a respectable betrothal. This was proving fatal for Jack’s self-control as it just seemed to make the entire situation all the more seductive and made him want Mairi all the more. He realized with a sense of disbelief that he had not even looked at another woman since he had first slept with Mairi.

  The arrival of tea provided a welcome distraction. The servants set it up under a huge tented pavilion to the left of the green, shaded by the tall pines. Slowly the members of the house party started to arrive; Lucy, with her sister Christina and various other members of her family came through the terrace doors from the house; Robert and Lachlan came from the stables, Lady Methven from the rose gardens. There was also a new arrival, a tall, fair, solid-looking gentleman with a serious air and a document c
ase tucked beneath his arm. He paused on the edge of the bowling green to greet Mairi and Jack saw him kiss her hand. Mairi was smiling. Clearly they were well known to each other. Jack immediately got to his feet and went down to join them. Mairi’s laugh rang out. Jack observed that the visitor was still holding her hand and they were smiling and chatting together like old friends.

  “Jack.” Mairi turned to him as he reached her side. Her blue eyes were bright with laughter. “May I introduce Mr. Cambridge, who manages Lord MacLeod’s affairs and is an old friend of mine. Jeremy, my fiancé, Mr. Rutherford.”

  Jack bowed. “Cambridge.” He had enough sense not to show any animosity toward the other man, although judging by Cambridge’s expression the antipathy was entirely mutual.

  “Rutherford.” Cambridge’s gray eyes were chilly. “Congratulations on your betrothal, my lady,” he added to Mairi. Then, with a glance in Jack’s direction, “Lord MacLeod has told me all about it.”

  That, Jack knew, was designed to make it explicitly clear that Cambridge was aware that the engagement was both temporary and false. He felt a flash of anger and drew closer to Mairi’s side.

  “Thank you,” he said coolly. “I am the most fortunate of men.”

  Cambridge’s gaze cooled still further. “Why, so I think,” he said.

  Mairi either had not picked up on the hostility between them or was determined to ignore it, for she drew Jeremy Cambridge toward the tea table. “Jeremy,” she said, “come and sit by me and tell me all the news from Strome.”

  “Have you come from Strome now on business, Cambridge?” Jack asked. His implication was that if so, Cambridge should get on with whatever business that was and then leave. He knew it was discourteous of him and he did not care.

  “I have,” Cambridge said, without even according Jack a “sir.” “I shall discuss it with Lady Mairi later.”

  That was pointed. Jack saw Mairi glance at Cambridge’s face and frown slightly. “Mr. Rutherford will join us for that,” she said, and Jack felt a flare of pleasure that startled him. He caught Mairi’s hand and she gave him a little shy smile that made the sensation in his chest tighten.

  The others were taking their seats around the big table. Dulcibella was already making a fuss, insisting that Lachlan set a chair for her in exactly the right place, sheltered from the breeze and where the sun would not be in her eyes. Dulcibella could have been very pretty, Jack thought, with her rich brown hair and bright brown eyes, but her mouth turned down at the corners as though she were perpetually disappointed with her life. He glanced from her face to Mairi’s. Mairi too did not give the impression of warmth at first glance because her beauty was so classically perfect that it looked cold, like a statue. Remembering how she warmed under his hands, though, Jack felt both his collar and his breeches grow tight.

  As though drawn by his gaze, she looked up and their eyes met. She smiled and Jack felt a tug of emotion he could not identify.

  “You smell of the stables,” Dulcibella was saying disagreeably, wrinkling her nose up at her husband. “Pray sit downwind from me!”

  “You are looking a little flushed yourself, my love,” Lachlan responded through gritted teeth. “Was the game more than usually exerting?”

  “Your sister approached it as she does all things,” Dulcibella snapped, “with a great deal of energy.”

  “I always say that if you are going to play, play to win,” Jack said, his lips twitching.

  Dulcibella shot him a limpid look. Jack could tell that she wanted to dislike him but her vanity was too great to allow it. She could not bear not to be admired. She patted the seat beside her.

  “Do come and sit by me, Mr. Rutherford, and tell me which of Lady Mairi’s many talents first drew you to her,” she cooed. “Was it her proficiency with watercolors or her skill on the harp? But no...” She paused. “That cannot be it, for she has so little merit with either. Do tell.”

  Jack glanced at Mairi and caught the flash of amusement in her eyes. He could tell she was preparing some devastating set-down for Dulcibella—assuming he did not administer one first. Lucy was looking pink and uncomfortable at such open discourtesy over her tea table. Lady Methven was looking at Dulcibella as though she were some unpleasant form of insect she had found lurking in her cake.

  “Perhaps it was Lady Mairi’s charm and exquisite manners that Jack admired,” Lady Methven said sharply. “Good manners are in all too short supply.”

  Dulcibella flushed a dull brick-red and fell silent for one long and blessed moment.

  Seeing that Jeremy Cambridge was holding a seat for Mairi, Jack sat down beside Dulcibella and passed her the cup of tea that Lucy proffered. Cambridge, he thought, as he watched the man spread a variety of cakes and sandwiches before Mairi, was entirely too attentive to his fiancée. He knew very little of the man and he had no urge to learn more. He was aware of disliking Cambridge intensely while simultaneously knowing nothing about him, a lack of logic that only made him more annoyed. He watched Cambridge talking to Mairi and discerned a strangely possessive attitude in the man. It was not that he appeared to admire her, more that he seemed to think she was in some way his property. It was odd but perhaps it was because Mairi was a MacLeod by marriage and Cambridge was the MacLeods’ man of business. Or perhaps, Jack was obliged to admit, it was simply that his judgment seemed to be shot to pieces where Mairi was concerned.

  Rather than torture himself by watching Mairi smiling at Cambridge, he turned to her elder sister, who was on his other side. Lady Christina MacMorlan was the eldest of the Duke of Forres’s daughters, a dull brown mouse of a woman whose life had been dedicated to keeping house for their father and helping to raise the younger children after the death of their mother. She did not resemble Lucy, who was tiny and fiery, or Mairi, who was cool and elegant, but seemed insipid, as though she deliberately chose to melt into the background.

  “Do you enjoy visiting the Highlands, Lady Christina?” Jack asked.

  Christina jumped as though someone had set a fire under her seat. She blushed. “Oh! I—”

  “The country is so dull,” Dulcibella interrupted. “Nothing but ugly mountains and bad roads. I cannot bear it.”

  “You will have to ask Lachlan to take you home as soon as possible, then,” Lucy said. “We cannot have you suffering.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of venturing out through the castle gates,” Dulcibella shuddered. “Not with dangerous wild men on the warpath! I shall be staying here until my cousin Cardross is recaptured.”

  Jack saw Robert and Lucy exchange a look. Robert rolled his eyes.

  “How beautiful the rose gardens are looking at the moment,” Mairi said to Lady Methven. “Mr. Rutherford tells me you are a keen gardener. You would have had much to talk about with my late husband. He was a noted botanist.”

  A small breeze stirred the pines and set the tented pavilion flapping. Jack was aware of a feeling of extreme bad temper. The last thing he wanted was to sit here and listen to Mairi sing the praises of the sainted Archie MacLeod, damn him. He resisted the urge to kick something. Their engagement must seem as shallow as a puddle compared to the complexity of Mairi’s feelings for MacLeod. And why that should bother him was anyone’s guess.

  He drank his tea—which he hated as a tasteless drink—and ate a piece of the Dundee cake, which was very fine. Mairi and Cambridge were now deep in conversation, his fair and her auburn head bent close together. Jack gritted his teeth.

  He stood up abruptly. “Robert,” he said, “do you wish to mount another patrol this afternoon? I thought I would go out riding before dinner.”

  This announcement was met with exclamations of shock by most of the ladies.

  “Oh, Mr Rutherford,” Dulcibella quavered, “do not even think of it! You might be shot, maimed, killed!”

  “I’ll take my chances,” Jack said.
>
  “You wouldn’t catch me doing that,” Lachlan muttered.

  “I imagine not,” Jack said.

  “There is a detachment of dragoons at Kinlochewe now,” Robert said. “By tomorrow I am confident that Cardross will be back behind bars.”

  “I hope so.” Dulcibella pushed her plate away. “So very distressing to have such a renegade in the family!”

  Jack caught sight of Jeremy Cambridge. He was following the conversation, eyes intently narrowed. When he caught Jack’s gaze he said self-importantly, “I was telling Lady Mairi that Lord MacLeod was greatly concerned to hear of the attack on her carriage. He pledges all possible support in the capture of the Earl of Cardross.”

  “Thank you,” Robert said.

  “I’m the one that Wilfred is hunting,” Dulcibella said pettishly, as though it were better to have the dubious honor of being Cardross’s quarry than to be overlooked. “I am sure he only attacked Mairi’s coach because he thought it was me!”

  No one contradicted her. Jack suspected that everyone was wishing that Dulcibella had been in the coach and that Wilfred Cardross had put period to her life.

  “Mairi,” he said, “if you have finished your tea I should be glad of your company on the way to the stables.”

  Cambridge’s open face fell with clear disappointment. Mairi smiled and got to her feet. “Of course, Jack.” She turned to the other man. “Perhaps we could talk later when Jack has returned?”

  “There’s no hurry,” Robert said lazily. “Why don’t you stay for dinner, Cambridge? You can put up here for the night and hold your meeting in the morning.” He met Jack’s glare with a bland lift of his brows.

  “Why do you allow Cambridge to pay you so much attention?” Jack asked as he and Mairi strolled away across the lawns. “It will only give rise to further conjecture that you are a flirt.”

  Mairi raised her brows. “Are we having another lovers’ tiff?” she inquired sweetly. “You are being ridiculous, Jack. Why do you not like him?”