by Sara Ramsey
Malcolm’s eyebrows slammed together. She heard Sebastian’s laughter, Sophronia’s clucking, even Sir Percival’s murmured exclamation of adoration. But she kept her eyes on Malcolm’s face.
He was angry, yes.
But he wasn’t defeated.
“I’m not inclined to wait,” he said.
She lifted her chin. “You’ve waited a week — surely another three hours won’t be the death of you.”
“I only need three minutes.”
From his vantage point a few feet away, Ferguson snickered. “I would have wagered less than that.”
Some of the women tittered. Malcolm’s scowl deepened. “Three minutes, without this helpful audience you’ve assembled.”
“Do take your time, Lady Carnach,” Ellie said, gesturing at the door. “You can use the salon across the hall. Dinner can wait three minutes.”
From the expectant air in the room, Amelia suspected they would wait even longer if they got the show this dinner suddenly promised them. She scowled. “Very well. Three minutes. If I don’t return by then, send a rescue party.”
She walked forward. The five feet separating them had seemed unbridgeable, but suddenly his hand was on her shoulder as he turned to walk with her. It wasn’t heavy, or angry, or even demanding, though.
For the crowd, he was a lord asserting his rightful authority. But his touch on her shoulder was tentative, as though he worried he could break her.
The first cracks split across her armor. If he had lashed out at her, she would have hardened. But the soft graze of his fingers across her arm was a greater threat to her composure than any accusations.
The salon was smaller than the drawing room, but not as intimate as the room upstairs that Ellie used for their private Muses of Mayfair meetings. The room was empty, but lit candles abounded and a fire burned merrily in the hearth. Ellie spared no expense when entertaining, making sure all the public rooms were open even when the party didn’t intend to use them.
Amelia wanted to pace, but she forced herself to stand still. She needed to keep her composure — and keep from begging — long enough to hear what she needed Malcolm to say.
“Will you sit?” he asked.
“No. What do you wish to say?”
He ran his hands through his hair. If he’d worn a hat earlier, it was missing, and the dark tendrils were damp from the day’s rains. He clasped his hands behind his head, as though to keep from touching her. The gesture, and the taut lines of his arms and chest as he looked at her, only emphasized his air of barbaric suffering.
“I’m sorry, Amelia. For everything.”
He ground the words out through his teeth.
She waited.
He waited.
She sighed. “Is that your apology?”
He dropped his arms and crossed them on his chest. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? An apology?”
“Is that why you said it? Because you think that’s what I want?”
“I have no bloody idea what you want,” he said. “I thought I knew when we were in Scotland. But you’ve changed.”
She laughed, but it sounded just as ragged as his words. “I haven’t changed. You just saw what you wanted to see.”
“Isn’t that what you did?” he countered. “Saw me as the amusing lapdog you would have preferred?”
Her laugh had been pained, but her snort was genuine. “You’re no one’s lapdog. Where did you get that idea?”
“You’d prefer it, though. If I waited at your feet, accepting whatever scraps you give me when you’re not too busy with your ‘correspondence.’”
He said the word contemptuously. Her anger flared. “That’s your dream, not mine. For me to be at your feet, waiting for you to have a free moment after Parliament, letting you have a quick fuck before you go back again.”
Her vulgarity shocked him, drove the dark look off his face and replaced it with something closer than pain. “God, Amelia,” he sighed. “Where did we go so wrong?”
She was tired, suddenly — achingly weary, and wanting nothing more than to lean into his arms and let him cradle her as she wept. “I don’t know, Malcolm. I’d take it back if I could.”
She paused. In the flickering candlelight, she saw the same desolation on his face that had swept away everything else in her soul.
“But I can’t take it back,” she whispered. “Perhaps we should accept that this wasn’t meant to be.”
“I don’t believe that.”
His voice was firm. No matter what he thought of her, no matter how angry he was, he wouldn’t concede that point.
“How can you be so sure?” she asked.
“Call it intuition.”
The same intuition that had ruined her in his library so many months ago — the same fate he’d seemed to want then was still glimmering in their future.
But she couldn’t see how to grasp it. Maybe it was a fairy light, always dancing just out of reach, leading them on to destruction.
“There’s no such thing as intuition.”
“I’ve read your books, Amelia. You believe in fate. You believe in destiny. And your destiny is here, with me.”
He stepped forward, pulled her into his embrace. “Tell me what you need. Tell me what I can do to win you.”
His voice rumbled in his chest, against her cheek. His lips brushed her hair. That soft touch was back, the one that would undo her.
No schemes, she reminded herself.
But even though she would tell the truth, it was too hard to look at him while she did it. So she buried her face in his chest. “I want to believe that you see me when you look at me. That you see me, not your countess, not your hostess, not your broodmare. That you’ll love me even when I fail you.”
She wanted to stop. But she owed him the rest, even if she could do no more than whisper it. “I want to believe that someday you’ll love me as much as I love you.”
* * *
Malcolm tightened his arms. She felt so right within them. Even if she had lied. Even if she’d made him a laughingstock.
Even if he didn’t deserve her.
He didn’t know how to confess his feelings, but he knew how to seduce her. One of his hands moved down her back, a prelude to the delicious battle he would wage. He could show her how he felt, even if he couldn’t find the words to tell her.
She pulled away. In her eyes, he saw her heart transform from a bleeding offering to a hardened wall. “You cannot kiss me into submission, Malcolm.”
“I wasn’t,” he protested.
The lie was too obvious. She took another step back. “Either say how you feel — how you really feel, not what you think I want to hear. Or set me free.”
He panicked. He never panicked. But his life hung on a string. She held the scissors, as effective and as merciless as the fate that had driven him there. He couldn’t get this wrong. He couldn’t lose her for want of the right phrase.
“You belong to me, Amelia. Always. I meant it when I made those vows. Let me take you home and prove it.”
He knew the words weren’t right, but she must have heard the feeling behind them. Her eyes flickered. He thought, if he had another moment, he might be able to convince her...
But someone knocked on the door. “Are you alive, Amelia?” Alex called through the door.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He reached out to grab her, but she evaded him. “When you went looking for a wife, you wanted something bloodless. You wanted something that would save your clan, not yourself. I’ll be married to you regardless — it’s too late for anything else.”
Then she leveled a glare at him that should have destroyed him. “But you must decide what you want. I’ll be your cold society wife. Or I’ll be your lover. But you can’t ask me to switch between the two — neither of us can live like that.”
She stalked over to the door and threw it open. Alex waited, glaring daggers at him as he offered Amelia his arm.
Amelia’s
words were combative — but her eyes had said she still wanted him.
Which was good, because Malcolm was damned sure he wanted her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
When Amelia opened the door, Alex offered her his arm. “Shall I escort you in to dinner?” he asked.
The other guests milled as close to the doors of the drawing room as possible, casting blatantly speculative glances at them. She held her head up high, as though she spent every party closeted in a room discussing the fate of her marriage with her stupid husband.
“How lovely of you to offer,” she said.
She felt Malcolm come up behind her, even before she saw the hostility flare in Alex’s eyes. She wouldn’t turn to face him. She wouldn’t let him affect her this badly, so badly that she was having trouble remembering what she needed to hear from him.
It was a coward’s decision to leave before they were finished, but she was glad Alex had knocked on the door. If he hadn’t knocked, she might have accepted Malcolm’s apology — and only later realized that saying she belonged to him wasn’t an apology at all.
Malcolm wouldn’t let her off so easily, though. His hands settled on her shoulders. “Three more minutes, Amelia,” he demanded, his voice a low growl in her ear.
She started to shake her head.
He leaned in. “Please,” he said.
It was funny, how one word could undo her.
She dropped her hand from Alex’s arm. “Go on to dinner without me,” she said.
Her brother crossed his arms. Behind him, Sebastian stepped up to lend support. “Do you need me to show this blackguard out?”
Sebastian was wild enough to do it. Amelia scowled at him, warning him away.
Then she turned to Malcolm. He pulled her back into the salon, slamming the door against their audience and turning the key in the lock.
“Well?” she asked, crossing her arms.
He looked like he wanted to seduce her. And she might have let him, if she thought it would help. But they’d solved all their previous arguments with lovemaking, and it had turned out that their arguments weren’t solved at all.
Perhaps he finally recognized that fact. He moved away from her, slowly, deliberately, just far enough that they couldn’t touch even if they both stretched their arms toward each other.
She kept hers crossed, denying the temptation. He ran a hand through his hair, gripping the back of his head, and she felt the tension rolling off him in waves before he finally spoke.
“Listen to me, Amelia. You want to believe that I see you for who you are. And I want you to know that I do. I see a lovely woman at the height of her beauty, who could have any man in Britain with a single gesture. I see a headstrong, stubborn schemer who will do anything to get what she wants. I see someone whose intellect and sense of humor are so delightful that she could only be bored with the ton — there’s no challenge here for you.”
His words were an odd mix of compliments and near-insults. She opened her mouth, not sure whether to accept his praise or deny his condemnations.
But he held up a hand. “I see a woman who will always help her friends, even when her plans don’t come off perfectly. I see a woman whose passions are so boundless that she can only contain them by putting them onto the page. I see a writer whose talent grows with every book, whose artistic pursuits will get her shunned in some circles even as others adore her even more for it.”
She leaned against the doorframe behind her to keep from falling. Her husband still wasn’t done. “I see the only woman I ever could have married, the only woman I will ever love. The only woman I would happily lose everything for. The only woman who could destroy me if she walked away.”
He finally stepped forward, like a penitent and a conqueror rolled into one, a king in the unfamiliar act of penance. With his disheveled appearance, he looked like he had crawled through hell to get back into her arms.
When he was inches from her, he gently took her hands. She held her breath.
Then he sank to his knees. “I didn’t ask you to marry me, Amelia. But I can beg you to stay with me. And I can vow to you that no matter what happens, no matter how many books you write or how many duels I have to fight because of them, I will only love you more.”
Those last words were the end of her. It wasn’t just that he’d found the right sentiment to share — it was that he meant it, so honestly and so scorchingly that it was written across his face as though etched there by a divine hand. There was nothing but love in his eyes, nothing but need on his lips.
Despite all the odds, and all her denials, she’d found what she needed. And it wasn’t in the pages of a book. It was in his heart, bleeding on the ground in front of her, waiting for her to pick it up.
She pulled him to his feet. “You’re the maddest, most demanding man I’ve ever met. But I’ve never laughed as much as I have with you — never felt as much, never realized how much I had missed until I found you. And I’ve never been as desolate as I was when I thought my past had driven you away.”
She knotted her fingers with his. “I love you, Malcolm MacCabe. No matter who you are and no matter what you want to do.”
His eyes lit up, fiercely ecstatic. He kissed her then, claiming her lips with tender hunger. That moment, when they finally recognized each other’s hearts, was worth any scandal that could come from it. And her memory of it, carried in her heart like a little fire, could rekindle her love on the days when she needed a reminder. That flame would outlast anything that might come between them.
When Alex knocked on the door again, she groaned. “Let’s pretend we’re dead so they leave us be,” she murmured against Malcolm’s lips.
He ran his thumb across her cheek, then pulled her in to kiss her again.
Alex’s knocking grew more insistent.
“Damned persistent beggar, isn’t he?” Malcolm said.
Amelia laughed. “It’s a Staunton trait, I believe.”
“If that’s what gave me another chance with you, then I suppose I am thankful for it.”
She slid her hands off his shoulders, down his muscled chest, until they came to rest on his backside. “We should go, shouldn’t we?”
“No.” His hands trailed down to settle on the curve of her hips. “You’re right. We’ll pretend we’re dead. Then we can go back to Scotland and be free of the lot of them.”
Alex tried the handle.
“Go away, Alex!” she shouted through the door.
She heard Ellie laugh, but at least Alex stopped pounding on the door.
Amelia rested her head against Malcolm’s chest. She was right where she wanted to be. Scotland, London, the smallest house party, the grandest ball — it didn’t matter, as long as she was in his arms.
He brushed a kiss across her hair. “I mean it, darling. Let’s return to Scotland.”
She tilted up to meet his eyes. “But I thought you needed to be here for Parliament? I don’t mind staying.”
“We’ll come back. There is still work I can do in Parliament, even if it’s just voting against every measure Kessel supports.”
His grin made her laugh. “Better that than breaking his nose again, I think.”
“Say the word, and I’ll break it every week.”
This was the man she’d married — the sorcerer from the library was back.
And the light in his eyes said he would never hide from her again.
“We don’t have to return to Scotland for my sake,” she said.
He kissed her, slow and deep. When he pulled away, his breath was heavy. “I’d rather spend my life saving you than the Highlands.”
“You don’t need to save me,” she said.
“I know,” he replied. “If anything, you’re the one who saved me.”
By the time they emerged from the next kiss, neither of them could breathe — and Amelia’s only thought was to find the nearest bed.
Malcolm must have felt the same way. “Shall we go home, Lady Carnach?”
She smiled as he reached around her to unlock the door. When they walked through it, the assembled crowd took one look at the smile on her face and started clapping.
But she didn’t blush, not even when Malcolm said they would leave immediately. The rumors would spread through the ton. They would say that the mad Scottish laird had won the Unconquered. Or they would guess that she had conquered him.
It didn’t matter what stories anyone told about them. All that mattered was that she and Malcolm would write the rest of their story together.
And that was the best ending of all.
EPILOGUE
MacCabe Castle, the Scottish Highlands - 23 December 1812
Amelia laughed as Malcolm entered her bedroom an hour before dinner with a dark silk muffler and a look of mischief in his eyes. “Must you really? Your infernal brothers are still teasing me for the last time we missed dinner.”
“I think you’ll be happy for the diversion,” he said.
She laughed as he stepped behind her and kissed the side of her neck. He wound the silk around her eyes. Neither his inventiveness nor his tenderness surprised her.
But she was surprised when he scooped her up into his arms and strode forward. And even more surprised when he opened the door to the hallway. “Malcolm, you devil,” she said. “Are you really taking me out in front of our families like this?”
Amelia’s mother and brothers had joined them for Christmas, as had Prudence. Ferguson and Madeleine were supposed to join them the following day if the snows allowed them to visit. With Malcolm’s family in residence as well, their holiday had been merry despite the weather.
“I suspect most of them already know what I have in store for you.”
“I suspect most of England knows, after that display in London,” she muttered.
He laughed. “I don’t care if most of the world knows. But I’m not carrying you off to ravish you — or rather, that may be a hoped-for addition, but not the main event.”
Amelia relaxed against his chest. He wouldn’t let her down until they’d reached their destination. But really, there was no place she would rather be than in his arms. She’d finished her latest manuscript before leaving London, and so there was no need to return anytime soon. And that meant she could spend the winter months focused on a more exciting project.