Questions for a Highlander

by Angeline Fortin

  Of course, he’d also been tormented by the unwanted lust Moira inspired throughout the night. She’d been more informally dressed in a simple blue gown with long sleeves and a high collar that curved up her neck. Though high around the sides, the collar parted in the front dove down into a long, narrow V that did not end until the first button just below her breast.

  He’d been teased by the shadow of her cleavage for hours while she played the piano and bent over the game board to reach her pieces. He’d finally retired early, taking refuge in his chambers where the image of her bosom nearly bursting from her gown taunted him well into the evening. Taking his raging arousal in hand, Vin was determined to shed himself of the torment she raised in him but could only see her in his mind as he did so. It should have sickened him, but it had not, proving he was a desperate man indeed.

  He needed a new face to focus his passions on, but Moira was currently the only unattached woman he knew besides his sister. Vin rather doubted that any of his brothers would appreciate it if he directed his lust on one of their wives.

  It had taken a long while for sleep to find him. However, amid his usual fare of gruesome nightmares, the serenity he missed the night before returned, descending through the agony. He felt the calming touch of the angel who blessed him, watched over his sleep allowing him the peace to rest his body and troubled mind. The angel became Moira in those lustful dreams that followed. He dreamed of taking her full lips with his own, of ravaging them…taking her body with all the desperation he felt.

  Despite those erotic images, he slept well, leaving him feeling fresh and almost cheerful this morning…until he had seen Aylesbury.

  “I was sorry to have missed it as well, Mr. MacKintosh.”

  “No please, call me Vin, everyone does,” Vin asked in a lazily arrogant voice.

  “Very well, you must call me Harry though not everyone does,” the fellow returned with a taunting smile as Moira entered the room.

  “All right, Harry,” she called absently. “I’m ready to go now…” Moira drew up short when she realized that Vin was in the room as well. “Oh! Good morning, Vin.” A blush spread unwillingly across her cheeks. In her renewed determination to give Vin the friendship he needed, she had gone to Vin’s room again last night, sitting with him as he tossed and turned in his sleep. It hadn’t taken but a moment at his bedside for her to realize her motives were not completely altruistic. She was being selfish as well.

  Moira had come to savor those private nights with Vin. Her secret visits. When she could look at him with all the love in her heart with fear of being caught. When she could mourn the loss of the lighthearted man he had been and when she could aid in that small way of putting his demons to rest if only for a short while.

  Sometimes, when a particularly devilish nightmare was plaguing him, Vin would sit straight up in bed crying out against his demons. His eyes open but unseeing as he slept. On previous nights, she had but caressed his cheeks until he had quieted and lay back down but last night! Last night he had looked straight at her as if he saw her there. His hands had shot out clasping her head and dragging her to him. He had kissed her fiercely, his mouth devouring hers over and over again until he had laid back down pulling her over him.

  Moira had thought he must surely be awake to accomplish such a thing, but not a moment after lying back down, his arms had relaxed their tight hold and he’d emitted a soft snore. She had stared at him for ten minutes straight, her hand over her mouth in shock. Awake or not – aware or not – a kiss from Vin had been everything she’d ever imagined. She’d rushed back to her room but hadn’t been able to sleep as she’d replayed that moment over and over. As a result, she’d slept even later than she usually did and was late to meet Harry for their ride.

  “Did you sleep well?” Moira asked, curious whether he’d been aware of her presence.

  “Well enough,” he responded, shoving his hands into his pockets to disguise the arousal that had started to stir itself most inappropriately when she entered pulling on a pair of gloves. Flashes of those hands running down his chest in his dreams aroused him as he recalled the images. Scolding himself for the unseemly thoughts, Vin couldn’t help but notice how lovely Moira looked this morning. Her rich brown velvet riding habit molded to every one of her delicious curves and was trimmed with mink around the neck and wrists to warm her against the chill of the January day. “Where are you off to this morning?”

  “The weather’s been fine if a bit cold. We were just going to ride about the park,” she arched a brow at him. “Would you care to join us?”

  “My apologies, I’ve already promised to ride with Richard and Jack,” Vin responded politely. He rocked back on his heels and studied the couple where they met by the door. They were a handsome couple, he admitted reluctantly. Moira seemed content with the marquis, but despite his best effort, Vin could not be pleased by his friend's happiness with this man. Still, the reason for his ire eluded him. “I was just telling your husband that we had missed him at dinner last night. Why didn’t he join you?”

  Moira gawked at Vin so dumbfounded that she couldn’t even find her voice. He thought Harry and she were married? Where had he even gotten that idea? He had only been back for five days and had met Aylesbury only thrice. Had he taken their physical closeness that first day as more than it was? Her trip to the theater as more than it was? She focused so intently on Vin in those situations she hadn’t even realized she was standing next to Harry or how that proximity might be interpreted. “Husband?” was all she could think of to say but Harry swallowed a chuckle of amusement.

  “I apologize for not offering my congratulations before.”

  The marquis laughed outright at this while all the others present stared at Vin in amazement. Eve quirked a brow in his direction. A very knowing brow, it seemed to him. “Why, Vin," she drawled sweetly while trying not to join the marquis in his laughter. "Moira and Lord Aylesbury are not married.”

  “Not married?” It was his turn to be puzzled thinking back over the past several days and realizing his assumption. Still, he studied the pair, their comfortable proximity. They had all the mannerisms of an old marriage couple. “Why look at them! Not married? They ought to be!”

  Aylesbury laughed even more heartily, slapping his thigh in amusement. “I couldn't agree with you more, Vin!”

  “Oh, Harry! Stop it!” Moira shook her head in exasperation.

  Vin looked between the pair and shook his head, thinking he had been away too long. “So, lovey, where is your husband then? Why haven’t I met him?”

  Moira studied Vin miserably. What was wrong with him? Could he truly not see it? Feel it? How could he look at her and not know? She frowned intensely. “I'm not married, Vin.”

  Satisfaction burst inside of him. Moira wasn’t married at all! It shouldn’t gladden him but it did. Then Vin stared into her wide brown eyes, seeing the intensity there, the message in them, but not understanding. She was trying to tell him something, he knew, but what? Feeling a sudden burst of remorse, he felt he finally understood. “Widowed then?”

  Moira just shook her head wistfully, knowing beyond doubt – once again – that Vin would simply never see her as a woman who loved him. He would never read the love in her eyes as more than friendship. He would never see her spinster state as a sign that she had waited for him for all these years. All the low-cut gowns and physical seduction in the world were not going to change that. “I have never married, Vin.”

  “I have been hoping to change her mind, however,” Harry added, slipping an arm around her waist and drawing her to his side. Moira only gazed up at him in a manner that somehow seemed…sad? Vin’s lips turned down in a frown. A frown that deepened when the marquis brushed a light kiss at her temple though the man’s eyes were dancing with challenge as they met Vin’s. The fellow shouldn’t be kissing her like that if they weren’t married.

  “Moira has been living here with us these past nine months, Vin,” Eve explained, notin
g the scowl on her brother-in-law’s face and feeling encouraged by it. “I am planning on sponsoring her for a London Season in the spring.”

  “You live here?” he echoed, wondering how he could have missed that in the many days he’d been back.

  “Her room is a floor above your own,” Eve added, earning a warning look from Moira but she just shrugged innocently. She was beginning to think if Vin were ever going to act on the attraction he clearly felt for Moira then he would need a little push and a big shove every now and then. Let him think about her sleeping there. Let him wonder.

  Moira shoved away her annoyance with both Vin and Eve and turned to Harry pasting a cheerful smile on her lips. “Shall we then?”

  “Isn’t it too cold for you to be riding?” Vin protested before he realized the thought had even formed.

  The smile that Moira shot him was tight and false. “I’m a Highland lass, Vin, born and bred. A wee bit of cold merely livens the spirit.” She took Harry’s arm firmly and pulled him toward the door, ignoring the taunting smile her escort threw back at Vin before he came along more willingly.

  It wasn’t until they were atop their horses and trotting down Prince’s Street from Carlton Terrace and toward the Queen’s Park where they might have a run that Moira directed her glare at him. “What was all that about, Harry Brudenall?”

  “I’ve decided that I’m going to be the best friend I know how to be, Moira my darling,” he told her with a jaunty smile.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m going to help you land your errant love.”

  Moira drew up her horse so suddenly that it nearly reared up beneath her. Regaining quick control, Moira stared at her suitor in astonishment. “What are you talking about, Harry? I thought you were courting me? I thought you wanted to marry me?”

  Harry’s handsome face sobered as he urged his horse into a walk once more, forcing Moira to follow. “Moira, darling girl, I want you to understand this very clearly. I do want to marry and I’d like to marry you, but I also want to marry a woman who might love me one day and who I might love in return. And while the latter has definite possibilities, the former has presented cause for concern.”

  “Harry,” Moira sniffed with exasperation. “I do love you.”

  “You said as much already,” he agreed. “And again while I believe your declaration holds some truth, it isn’t romantic love.” He held up a hand to halt her protest. “I’m not saying it couldn’t be someday. We are an excellent pair, we get on superbly but I would have to say that for the moment our feelings for each other are more friendly than amorous. Don’t you agree?”

  Moira stubbornly shook her head. “We’ve kissed.”

  “Yes, we have. You’re a beautiful woman and if we are going to be honest with each other, then I will admit that I’d very much like to make love to you.” Harry waited with a wide smile while Moira fought down her flush of embarrassment.

  “That is honest indeed.”

  “Men are like that, Moira my love, we can want without the heart being involved. But my point is, with friendship and attraction and genuine liking as a basis, I could easily come to love you,” he told her.

  They reached the eastern end of the Queen’s Street Park leaving the road to make their way through the trees and onto the riding trail. The distraction gave Moira a chance to formulate a response. “I feel all those things for you as well,” she argued. “How is that any different?”

  “This might extend over the bounds of propriety, Moira,” Harry said. “But I want you to imagine yourself in bed with me. Go on, do it.”

  Moira shifted uncomfortably on her horse, fraught with embarrassment. It was one thing to imagine kisses and enjoy those kisses in reality but it was quite another to carry those imaginations further. Surely, she had always been outspoken on physical issues and had teased Eve mercilessly on the topic when she first acted on her attraction to Francis. She even had books that she had snuck from her father’s library depicting the act in hundreds of different ways and had studied them thoroughly, but Moira was still an innocent. Furthermore, any imaginings she’d ever had of that nature had always had but one man at their center.

  Kicking her horse into a gallop, Moira denied the truth and sped down the path feeling the wind pulling at her hat and the cold January winds biting at her cheeks. She didn’t want to want Vin any longer. Despite Harry’s words, she felt certain that Vin did not see her romantically. She wasn’t certain he saw any woman romantically. Sexually, yes, but not tenderly. Not with love. Moira was well aware of the past. She’d heard enough stories about Glenrothes’ first marriage - and how Vanessa had tried to seduce Vin when he was barely a man himself - to understand how Vin viewed women. He’d not waver in that outlook no matter what anyone said.

  “You see,” Harry said triumphantly when she finally slowed and they turned back up toward the east. “You haven’t yet come to that point with me and it is because you’ve held back from fully committing to me. I thought about this all night, Moira, and I know I’m right. It is because of Vincent MacKintosh. You love him.”

  “No, Harry. I don’t want to any longer. He doesn’t think of me that way at all anyway. He wants a friend, right now he needs one and I want to be there for him…as a friend. But he doesn’t love me as I want to be loved, Harry. The way I think you could. The way we could be together,” she insisted desperate not to see her plan for the future washed away.

  “And I think you’re running to me because you’re scared of him,” Harry shot back, hitting the crux of the problem straight on. “I care for you, Moira, but I don’t want to be a second choice or a back-up plan. If you’re going to marry me, I want it to be on my merits alone, not for any other reason.”

  “You have wonderfully attractive merits, Harry! Not the least of which is that you can actually imagine me in your bed. Vin sees me as nothing but a little girl, as a friend, not a lover.” That realization was still hard to accept and Moira bit her lips against the burn of tears at her eyes.

  “You think he sees you the way I think you see me,” he said softly. “But you are wrong, Moira. He sees you as a woman. I think everyone in that room was aware of it but you and Vin. The countess sees it, I guarantee it. Ask her if you don’t believe me.”

  “He doesn’t…”

  “He does. I wish he didn’t but, if you’ll excuse the crudity, the man had you stripped bare with his eyes the moment you walked through the door,” Harry explained. “At the theater the other night, I believe he wanted to pummel me for every moment I touched you…at least those moments when he wasn’t staring at you.”

  Though her heart leapt at his words, Moira could only shake her head. “I think you’re wrong, Harry. Even if Vin…wants me, it’s only because he’s been in prison for the past five years. Any woman would appeal to him right now.”

  “He didn’t look at the countess that way.”

  “Only because his brother would kill him if he did,” came her quick retort.

  Harry threw back his head and laughed aloud. “You’re a precious treasure, Moira, but extremely stubborn. I’ll make a bet with you then. I will wager that I can prod your Vin into a fit of jealousy within a fortnight if not sooner.”

  “And when you lose?” she questioned, sure that Vin would never feel jealousy over her in two weeks time when he hadn’t managed it in a lifetime.

  “If I lose and I know that you have truly let him go in your heart, then we will marry and live happily ever after,” he flashed her a roguish grin. “You see? I win either way. One way I see a good friend gain her heart’s desire and the other I will gain mine.”

  “I wouldn’t want to see you hurt, Harry,” she said solemnly.

  “You won’t, my love,” he returned in kind. “I’m not a jealous man, nor a greedy one. Some would even say that I am too blithe to have a possessive heart. We would have a good life together, Moira. I’ve no doubt about it, but – how can I say this without being unkind?”
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br />   “I’m not the one and only person you could have a good life with,” she dully finished for him, feeling her spirits dip even farther with this further proof that her hopes were crumbling with every moment. “I wouldn’t break your heart because I don’t own it.”

  “Yes,” the marquis frowned a bit. “I suppose that’s right. Though it doesn’t sound very good when you put it like that.”

  “We’re friends, Harry,” said Moira. “That is why neither of us could ever break the other’s heart.”

  “And Vin is more than a friend and that’s why he can,” he finished for her. “I will help you win him, Moira. I promise you.” They walked their horses back up Prince’s Street in silence while Moira mulled over his words and their conversation. It was difficult to grasp that while Harry cared for her, he did not love her. But it didn’t break her heart. It didn’t crush her the way one dismissive glance from Vin might, but Moira had always know those feelings were very diverse from each other. As much as she might hate it and wish it would just go away making life much simpler, she loved Vin…no matter how oblivious he might be to her feelings.

  Chapter 15

  Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

  - Mark Twain

  Moira spent the remainder of their ride trying to decide whether she should be more put out with Harry than she was and more upset over the fact that he did not truly love her than she was. While she was glad that her obvious affection for Vin hadn’t hurt Harry, it still saddened her to see her dreams for a happy contented future slip so easily away from her. But it would all work out, Moira reassured herself. Despite Harry’s assurance that he could bring Vin around, Moira had seen with her own eyes this morning how little Vin thought of her romantically. He had thought her married to Harry already! What more could the actual deed do?