“Tell me, Makenna,” he said finally, “if you are in this much trouble, why you won’t go to Maclaren? Your brothers will nip this in the bud. If your husband is dead, you are free of the Brodies. You don’t owe them any other claim, and if you say you’re innocent of any crime, they will believe you.”
She shook her head. “I cannae. Ronan is no’ in residence. Now that my father is recovering, my brother has gone on a tour of the Continent. I have nae idea when he’ll return.”
Julien was aware. He was the one who had suggested the man visit France and Italy when he’d confided to Julien that he was sick of the constant matchmaking Lady Dunrannoch was subjecting him to. In fact, Ronan was currently comfortably ensconced in Julien’s luxurious Parisian home, which was another reason why Julien was here in Scotland. He had many other properties in France and England, but he’d opted for the brilliant idea to restore this charming pile of rubble. And he’d brought his mother here on the mistaken notion that it would be quiet and curative.
Julien pressed his knuckles to his eyes. “Niall is at Maclaren.”
“He and Aisla have a bairn and another on the way. How can ye think I’d bring this to them?”
“So you brought it to me?”
An exasperated hiss escaped her lips, her eyes flashing blue fire. “I told ye I didnae ken ye would be here, ye daft man! Or that yer precious mother would be with ye. In any case, ye were the one who offered me the bloody job. So dunnae place it all on me. I could have left after the first day. Ye wouldnae allow it.”
It was a fair statement. He had been so desperate for a competent steward or someone with knowledge of the lands that he hadn’t done much to deter her or send her away. And in all honesty, he’d also been enamored with the idea of a newly widowed Makenna, along with the mystery of her unexpected appearance on his doorstep. And as convoluted as everything was quickly becoming, he still was.
Because he wanted her.
And therein was the heart of the matter.
Julien spared her a glance, her gaze sparking and her chest rising and falling with frantic breaths. In spite of the circumstances, seeing her this impassioned made his blood heat. He suspected that Makenna had bottled many things inside, and her innate passion had been buried deep. It made him wonder, yet again, what she would be like in bed.
Submissive or a hellion?
Parts of him stirred at the tantalizing question.
He wasn’t an altruist. Neither was he a particularly generous man. If he wanted something, he went after it. He never hesitated to go in for the kill, once he understood what motivated his adversaries and competitors. Yes, he craved the reality of Makenna in his bed, and now that she was free, there was nothing stopping either of them. But Julien hadn’t gotten where he was in life by taking on bad investments, and Makenna Maclaren came with a lot more risk than he was prepared to accept. Would finally having her in his bed be worth it?
The lady in question stood and faced him. “Will ye turn us out?”
“I’m still deciding.”
“Then decide so we can all get on with our lives.”
Julien studied the virago inches away from him. She had no problem confronting him, he noticed. He liked it immensely. Her creamy skin was flushed from the drink she’d consumed, those beautiful blue eyes of hers glittering with a combination of anger and unshed tears. She’d been pushed to the edge, given a taste of freedom, and Julien could practically see her resistance squaring its shoulders. Her plush pink lips were parted, her bosom—also deliciously awash with color—trembling. Even her freckles seemed brighter as if they, too, intended to make a stand. Soft hints of feminine sweat and spring heather wafted into his nose and conspired to make his cock sit up and take notice. Not that that required any further convincing.
Dieu, he wanted her badly.
His body seemed to think she was worth the risk, though his sensible, pedantic brain advised otherwise. It’d been a long time since Julien let that part of him dictate his choices. His groin tightened as he recalled his fingers delving into that very hollow between her breasts not some hours before. If they hadn’t been interrupted, he would be well on his way to sating his lust and getting her out of his system once and for all. If he hadn’t been able to exorcise her in a year, he hated to think of how long it would take this time to forget her, now that his lips had tasted the sweetness of her skin and his fingertips had known its softness.
An eternity, probably.
He cleared his throat…and his mind. “What of the boy?”
“I’m keeping him,” she said with some defiance.
“Are we negotiating?” he asked, moving around to the other side of the table. He fully intended to let her stay, but Julien was also a man of opportunity. And admittedly, he wanted to provoke her just a bit.
“Is that what ye call it?” she countered. “Ye hold all the cards.”
If only she knew just how much power she held over him. He eyed her shrewdly. “The boy is nothing to me, and he has a father who has a legal right to him.”
“Ye would send him back to that fiend? Ye’re heartless.”
“No, I’m a realist. There’s a difference. I haven’t made it this far in life by making unsound decisions. The boy is an expense and a liability. All children are.”
Makenna placed both hands on the table and leaned over, allowing him a spectacular view of her bosom. Julien faltered at the luscious display, his brain going blank for a second. Perhaps she did know how much power she held after all.
“He can work for his keep,” she said. “He can help the grooms with the horses.”
“He’s still a child. And if you’re busy mothering the boy, what about your role as steward? What are you willing to do to earn your keep?”
Stunned blue eyes slammed into his, a barrage of emotions jostling for position there. He saw the moment she understood exactly what it was he was suggesting. Saw her reevaluate the balance of power and finally realize what she had to negotiate with. He’d meant it as a joke, to get a rise out of her. To make her retort with that sharp tongue and put him smartly in his place. But once more, her husband’s tyranny won out from the grave. Julien felt like a bastard when he saw the defeated resignation appear in her eyes.
“I’ll do anything ye want,” she whispered. “I cannae go back to the Brodie. Please, Julien, ye dunnae ken what he’s like. What he’s capable of. Colin makes Graeme look like a saint.” She drew a strangled breath, her eyes falling to the ground, her lower lip trembling with suppressed fear. “If ye require me to earn my keep, I will. I’ll do anything.”
“That won’t be necessary,” he said, self-disgust filling him. “I meant no insult Lady Makenna. It was a jest in poor taste. The boy can help me oversee the estate.”
“Truly?” she asked, biting down on her bottom lip in disbelief.
Julien was in disbelief himself. He must be going soft.
“Yes, but if his father comes looking for him, he will have the law on his side. I will be in the wrong for harboring him, no matter what his mother intended, or what you want.”
Panic flicked through her gaze, a different kind of expression overtaking her face. “He cannae have him, Julien. Colin would destroy him, turn him into a monster just like him. Just like Graeme. I cannae let that happen.” Her fear for Malcolm was entirely real, battering at the walls of composure she’d built around herself. She would sacrifice her pride and her body without a second thought, but the idea of an innocent boy being hurt made all that bravado crumble. A single tear trekked down her cheek. “Please, please, promise me ye’ll protect him.”
It was a fruitless oath, but he made it anyway. “I’ll do what I can.”
…
The funeral for Arabel had been somber and small.
Makenna’s heart had broken at the sight of the forlorn boy standing at the side of his departed mother’s grave. He hadn’t wept, but had stood there, long after the service had ended, saying his goodbyes.
“Sh
e’s in a better place, lad,” she’d heard Tildy saying. “And ye’ll be feeling happier soon, I promise ye. Ye’ll be where ye belong.”
Makenna was grateful that her maid had taken the child under her wing over the past week. Though Makenna loathed anything Brodie, she supposed that someone from the only clan he’d known would be of some comfort to him. She’d worried Arabel might not have covered her tracks well, increasing the chances that Colin would show up, but after the first two days passed with no more visitors, she’d stopped looking over her shoulder or jumping at every shout. Julien hired some more men from the nearby village to patrol the borders at night, and though no one else had followed on Arabel’s heels, Makenna couldn’t help feeling that they were being lulled into a false sense of security. Colin or his spy, or anyone tempted by the supposed reward, could have their sights on them right then.
Arabel said the Brodie women were listening and watching the men of their clan, and had intercepted letters from the spy. She’d mentioned the healer, Celia, by name. Makenna remembered the older woman had been cautious, but kind, whenever she would come to the keep after one of Graeme’s fits of temper, to tend to Makenna’s injuries. It would be a gamble, but if Celia had been willing to seize the spy’s letters, perhaps she would be willing to answer a letter from Makenna. She wanted to know what was happening at the Brodie, and whether or not Celia or the other women had any suspicions or information as to who might be Graeme’s true killer.
So Makenna penned a letter, careful not to mention anything that could expose her location should it be intercepted by Colin’s men, and sent it off with one of Julien’s trusted footmen, Brice. He agreed to the ruse of entering Brodie lands as a crofter, a man displaced by the Clearances. Brice was to deliver the letter to the healer before returning with Celia’s reply. The footman did not ask Makenna’s reason for such secrecy, and he also agreed to make no mention of his outing to Lord Leclerc. Julien might think it foolhardy, but Celia was her only possible source of information still at the Brodie, and if Makenna ever wanted to clear her own name, it was paramount she learn who had killed Graeme.
The risk, however, had not worked in Makenna’s favor. Brice returned to Duncraigh a day later, empty-handed.
“The old woman took yer letter,” he’d explained, “but told me she couldnae reply. She shut the door to her cottage on my nose and told me to leave. Said it was too dangerous.”
Makenna thanked Brice, her stomach curdling as he’d bobbed his head and returned to his duties. Celia had to be terrified of the new laird and his men, and receiving a letter from an accused murderer might have very well put the older woman in danger.
So again Makenna was left not knowing if Colin knew of her whereabouts and was watching her from afar, or if he was still searching, still circling and closing in. Every hour that passed without incident pushed her closer to the edge of her sanity. Tildy, too.
“Will the laird come, milady?” the nervous maid had asked the previous evening. “Did Arabel say?”
Makenna frowned at the improper address. She supposed Tildy had felt as she did before Arabel’s confessions. “Lady Arabel, Tildy, and I dunnae ken.”
“But what if he follows her?”
Makenna had patted her maid’s arm with more confidence than she felt. “We hide and live to see another day. Dunnae fash, Tildy, all will be well.”
She didn’t know if the maid had believed her, but it was what they both needed to hear in order to carry on from day to day.
Without complaint, a solemn Malcolm had helped Tildy with her duties, and true to his word, Julien had allowed him to accompany him on visits to his tenants and down to his ships docked in the bay. Lady Haverille had also claimed Malcolm’s time, encouraging him to help her in the garden and teaching him his letters when it rained and they could not venture outdoors. To Makenna’s surprise, those two had taken a shine to each other from the start. It was an incongruous pairing—the grubby little boy and the frail older lady—but they seemed to delight in each other’s company.
On the way back from a much-needed walk—and to see for herself that the guards were still at their posts—Makenna watched them in the garden, Malcolm’s face animated as he transplanted a rose cutting at Lady Haverill’s direction. Dirt was smudged on his nose, but he was smiling for the first time since he’d arrived, and that took away some of Makenna’s anxiety. Malcolm seemed to enjoy his time with Lady Haverille’s son, too, though Makenna wasn’t privy to what he’d done with Julien. Tildy had imparted that the pair had gone fishing.
Speaking of the man, she had not seen hide nor hair of Julien in the last few days. It was as if he were purposefully avoiding her. Though it stung slightly, she was grateful. She did not know how to feel around him. With a slow throb of her pulse, Makenna thought of the steamy interlude in the study. Julien’s lips grazing her skin, the heat of his breath against her throat, and the warm musk of him turning the blood in her veins to sun-warmed honey. The unresolved tension between them had not waned, but while Graeme had been alive, she would never have acted upon it. Now that she was free, there was nothing stopping her from doing what she wanted. She shivered with what he might have done next had they not been interrupted.
But they had, and she should be grateful. She worked for the man. Being seduced by the lord of the manor was reckless, and while a part of her wanted to bask in his attention, another rational part cautioned against it. Lord Leclerc was a man who pursued pleasure for pleasure’s sake. And she would not be used by any man again. Even a man who would not act out of malice.
She’d called him heartless, but Makenna was starting to suspect that Lord Leclerc hid a healthy, beating heart beneath those peacocky waistcoats and his playful demeanor. It was that same flippant exterior that hid a very capable brain. She thought back to the day they’d raced down the ledger columns, calculating the numbers in tandem, and frowned. He was clever and unyielding when he had to be, which she suspected benefited him in his business affairs. But when it came to matters of the heart, Julien Leclerc was a man who kept his own under lock and key. With the exception of his mother, no one got close. Not even her sister-in-law, Aisla, the man’s closest friend.
As if summoned, the object of her thoughts came striding around the side of the castle, blond hair whipping into his face. A smile tilted her lips at the sight of the garish claret waistcoat beneath the sable coat and matching trousers. The man’s predilection for the hideous things was ludicrous. But she understood it. Like his humor, it was part of his mask, much the same as the face of bland indifference she’d perfected over the years. In truth, she liked his quirky clothing. And most especially, she liked that he did not remind her of her deceased husband one bit.
In size and stature, Julien was the opposite of Graeme. Her husband had been stocky and built, whereas Julien was tall and lean. Graeme had been shorter than her own considerable height, which she assumed had also made him feel diminished in some way…as if she could control such a thing. Makenna’s lips pursed, remembering how she’d shrunk into herself whenever she was around him, hunching her back like a crone so he wouldn’t feel emasculated.
Julien was a few inches taller than she was, but not so much that she had to strain to meet his eyes. And his rawboned form—beneath those lurid waistcoats—concealed a fit body that was sinewy with muscle. She’d gotten a pleasant eyeful of that sculpted chest in the study after his bout with Brice. Makenna had been unwillingly impressed that he hadn’t been black and blue after sparring with the brawny footman. Brice wasn’t exactly a small man, but perhaps he was taking it easy on his new employer.
A pair of pale green eyes caught hers where she stood at the edge of the gardens. To her surprise, he headed toward her, instead of veering off as he’d done for the last handful of days. His valet must be remiss in his duties, since it appeared that his master had forgone shaving. Golden stubble peppered his chin, and he’d loosened his starched cravat. Sand dusted his clothing and boots. He looked windblow
n and rakish, and utterly distracting. It was because she hadn’t seen him in days, she told herself. Nothing to do with the fact that her body hummed like a top when he drew near.
“Lord Leclerc,” she greeted him as he came to a stop, smelling of the salty ocean air. She groped for something to say, anything to detract from the feelings crowding her brain. “I’ve just come from taking a walk to check on our foal.”
A smirk curved his lips. “Our foal?”
“Aye, he’s doing well.” She faltered, her mind going blank. “I’ve decided his name is Wiley.”
“Shouldn’t we decide the name together?”
She bit back a smile, responding to the amused note in his voice. “Considering I did all the work, I get to choose.”
“I unlaced your dress,” he replied. “Surely that counts for something.”
Makenna blushed at the recollection. “Very well, ye get to choose the letter the name starts with. Might I suggest W? It is a fine letter.”
“I’ll have to think on it,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back. “It’s a big decision, after all. For example, my name means soft-haired, and yours means fiery love. Clearly, our parents chose well. We must endeavor to do the same.”
Her gaze flicked to his blond strands—she knew intimately how soft they were—before narrowing on him. Was he poking fun at her expense? And how did he know what her name meant? It wasn’t that common.
“I dunnae think Wiley is going to care. Must ye jest about everything?”
He slapped a hand to his chest in mock injury. “It’s no jest, Lady Steward. A name sets the course for everyone, even a horse. I’ll have you know I take my duties as horse-namer very seriously.”
A peal of laughter drew their attention. Julien followed Makenna’s gaze, touching upon the two heads crouched together in the garden, one dark and the other fair. His tone shifted to something more serious. “How’s the lad faring?”
A Lord for the Lass (Tartans and Titans) Page 9