The Husband Hunt

by Jillian Hunter

  "Lionel's cousin." He bit out the words. "She wandered away from the house and got lost."

  Arabella looked at Catriona with one eyebrow lifted questioningly. "I thought you meant someone much younger."

  "No." He stared hard at Catriona, wondering just how much she had heard.

  "I didn't wander away, either," Catriona said. "I needed to be alone to think."

  "She has Lionel's eyes," Arabella said gently, her anger dissipating at the reminder of a man who had never said a mean word about anyone in his life. "Oh, my. Look at that. It's uncanny."

  Knight wasn't sure how he had gotten into this situation. "She doesn't have Lionel's temperament, does she?"

  "Well, I shouldn't wonder," Arabella said thoughtfully. "You could have bruised her bones the way you pulled her out of that tree. There isn't much to her. Did he hurt you, my dear?"

  Catriona shook her head. "Thank you for asking, ma'am. You're very kind, but I'm perfectly fine. I probably should have told him where I was going."

  Arabella cast an appalled look at Knight. "I know I broke your heart, but is that any reason to have become such a brute? This is not typical of your behavior."

  Catriona turned to regard him, feigning disbelief. "You mean he wasn't like this before?"

  "Get on my horse," he said quietly.

  "I think I prefer to walk," Catriona said, starting to edge around his tall, unmoving figure. "I really need the exer—"

  "Do as I tell you!" he shouted.

  Chapter 8

  There was little conversation between them until they were in full view of Rutleigh Hall. Catriona sat awkwardly, telling herself she really shouldn't be enjoying the ride with Knight mounted behind her, his body as imposing as a granite tower. Arabella had offered to follow along, presumably as a chaperone to ensure that he would keep his behavior under control. Never, never, never, she said aloud several times, had she seen him engage in such a shocking display of bad temper, and Catriona wondered once if the woman didn't sound the tiniest bit jealous. But surely not of her, she who was no match for Arabella's aristocratic elegance.

  Olivia came running across the park moments after she spotted them from the window. The relief on her face was painfully obvious to Knight, and he put his hand on Catriona's shoulder in warning, pinning her to the saddle.

  "Not a word to her about Arabella, do you hear?"

  "Exactly what do you want me to say?" she asked curiously.

  He slid to the ground; reaching up to lift her from the horse, he said, "Nothing. Just hold your tongue. There's no need to elaborate on what you heard eavesdropping."

  "I wasn't eavesdropping," she whispered. "I was sitting in a tree minding my own business."

  He arched his brow. "Attacking us with acorns."

  "It's hardly my fault you staged your seduction under my tree," she said quietly. "I was attempting to thwart a potentially embarrassing situation for us all."

  "I wasn't—" He broke off, his handsome face exasperated. "Why did you leave the house, anyway?"

  "I went for a walk. I wanted to think." Her breath caught as his big hands closed around her waist. "I honestly didn't think that you would miss me for an hour or two."

  "Then kindly inform me the next time. If you want to walk, I'll have someone accompany you."

  She repressed a shiver as he swung her down to the ground; the gesture seemed as effortless as if he were plucking a flower. Or rather, in her case, a nettle, she thought, examining her wrinkled skirts and sun-browned arms in distaste. Och, what a sight she was. Not the kind of perfumed, flirtatious lady who could invite a man to bite her neck and touch her breasts as casually as she drew a breath.

  He eyed her efforts to restore order to her appearance in amusement. "I want you to know you are bedeviling my life." He lowered his voice. "Furthermore, I wasn't staging a seduction, and if I had been, you should have had the decency not to watch."

  "Consider it part of my education. I learned a few choice phrases in that tree today."

  His smile was droll. "Arabella is not exactly the sort of woman I suggest you emulate."

  "Why?" she asked frankly. "Do you think a man would not want to do such things to me?"

  He frowned at the earnestly voiced question, finding it all too easy to imagine a man initiating her into the secrets of sexual pleasure. His entire body flushed at the thought. "This is not a discussion I wish to continue," he said, turning away to escape her unsettling honesty.

  "I always imagined that Englishmen were too stodgy to enjoy such things," she said in an undertone.

  "To enjoy what?" he said distractedly. He'd been about to help Arabella dismount when Wendell and two grooms had appeared to do the job. He looked around, his face shocked as if he had just realized what Catriona was asking. His dark gaze flickered over her in disbelief. "What did you say?"

  "Well, I was just wondering if you felt any peculiar compulsion to bite her neck and make her lonely—"

  "Do not say another word," he said in a strangled voice.

  She stared up at him in silence, her eyes glimmering with humor.

  "And don't look at me in such a way," he added ominously, taking a step toward her.

  Olivia bustled up between them, smothering Catriona in a hug of relief. "Thank goodness you're home. You must never let my brother's temper frighten you away again, do you hear me? You are to ignore his angry outbursts as I have learned to do over the years. You did make amends to her, didn't you, Knight?"

  "Oh, for God's sake. I found her, didn't I?"

  "I'm sure he meant to make amends," Catriona said, her gaze drifting to where Arabella stood, allowing the grooms to brush dust from her habit. "I'm sure it slipped his mind what with other, ahem, matters taking precedence."

  "Knight?" Olivia said in a worried voice. She had never really taken to Arabella and absolutely detested the manner in which the woman had betrayed him. "Don't tell me that you and Arabella have made an arrangement?"

  His chiseled mouth curled into a cold smile. "I met her by chance while I was looking for Catriona. Arabella took it upon herself to escort us home, seeing that I was not in the best of moods."

  Catriona glanced away at the penetrating look he gave her, realizing that he was unlike any of the men she had known before. Aye, aside from Thomas, her uncle, and the gentle old minister who had taught her to read, all the males in her life had been loud, immoral louts who cared only for drinking, thieving, and coaxing a girl into bed. Her brother, James, fell somewhere between the two categories, treating her with both kindness and cruelty. But this man, cultured, mature, a master of restraint, made them all seem like young boys playing at life, and even though he tried to hide it, she could sense that his feelings ran deep and strong. No, it hadn't been a mistake to come to him. Her heart had known what her intellect could not understand. Finding this man had been the best thing she had ever done.

  * * *

  Olivia took him aside in the foyer as they entered the house. "What were you thinking?" she whispered. "To meet Arabella alone in the woods? Surely you are not conducting a liaison when she is married to another man?"

  "I said it was a chance meeting."

  "And you are going to make amends to my cousin?"

  He hesitated. "And exactly how am I to do that?"

  "I suggest that you spend the evening with her in the ballroom instructing her to dance."

  "I thought Wendell offered to help."

  "He isn't as good on the dance floor as you," she whispered.

  "Of course he is. And what is the infernal hurry, anyway?"

  She bit her lower lip. "The hurry is that she just might decide her brother needs her more than we do, and she'll return to her unhappy home. She'll end up marrying a Scotsman, and I shall never see her again."

  "All right, Olivia, would that be such a tragedy?"

  "I think it might, to me. Don't you care about her in the least?"

  "I care about you," he said guardedly. Then he added, without knowing
why, "Oh, all right. I am not completely impartial to the minx, though heaven knows why."

  Olivia laid her hand gently on his forearm. She really could not remember her brother behaving like this, not even in those first months after coming home from war. What had happened to him? "Then find her and bring her to the ballroom. She's just gone down the hall."

  * * *

  He didn't have to look far to find her. She was sitting quietly in the alcove window seat. Her face was turned toward the window. She took a quick breath but did not look at him. For a moment, he was struck by the thought that Olivia had never looked as, well, sensual in that same dress. His sister had seemed merely frail and inaccessibly elegant wearing it, not in the least enticing to a man's senses. But by some mystery, some alchemy of nature, the gown clung to Catriona like gossamer, giving her the whimsical allure of a displaced wood nymph.

  Of course, a man wouldn't notice his sister in such terms, anyway. But he certainly felt a surge of masculine interest in Catriona's curves now, her pose inviting and vulnerable. He experienced a powerful urge to explore the soft body hidden from view, and yet as quickly as the sensation came, he subdued it.

  "Catriona." Good. Not a trace of unbridled lust in his voice. No hint that he had contemplated taking her in his arms and kissing her until she begged him for mercy. He sounded quite in control. "Kindly turn around and look at me."

  She gave him a quick, curious glance. "Where's your mistress?"

  "Lower your voice." He glanced around in embarrassment. Fortunately for them both, the hall was empty. "And she isn't my mistress. She's a happily married woman."

  "She certainly didn't look like one," she said wryly.

  He lowered himself onto the seat and caught her by the arms so unexpectedly that she gasped, trapped between his powerful thighs. "I think you and I need to have a little talk about the meaning of discretion, young woman."

  "What is it you would like to know?"

  He wanted to kiss her again; he really did. She was the most attractive and intriguing female he had ever known, and he would have given anything to meet her under different circumstances. "Exactly how much did you hear—or do you think you heard?"

  "Enough." She eased her arms loose, disconcerted by his overwhelming masculinity. She would die before she showed that being held against him unnerved her. How his single kiss had invaded her dreams and changed the shape of her desires. If nothing else, she refused to be put in a class with all the other women who worshipped at his feet.

  "How much?" he demanded, tightening his thigh muscles to prevent her from wriggling away.

  "I heard her asking you to make a full-course meal of her neck."

  "Olivia is right," he said thoughtfully. "You do need a social education."

  "I've learned plenty today, thank you."

  "You will not mention a word of this to my sister."

  "A word about what?"

  "That is much better," he said approvingly.

  "I saw nothing," she said, arching her brow.

  He smiled. "Good."

  "I suppose I didn't hear anything, either."

  He nodded. "Excellent."

  "You could put me in a torture chamber, and I'd never reveal what I didn't see and hear."

  He paused, scratching his chin. "I don't think we need to take it that far."

  She drew a breath as their eyes met. The air between them practically crackled with the clash of male-female energy. "I am curious, though," she said, ignoring the shiver that ran down her spine at his inscrutable smile. "Did you want to—"

  "What? Bite her neck or—it's none of your affair."

  She studied his face. He was so skilled in hiding his deepest feelings that she couldn't begin to fathom what dark thoughts lay beneath his handsome features. "Some men would have obliged her right there against the tree. I have to say that I was impressed by your self-control. I didn't think you had it in you."

  "Self-control," he said, setting her away from him with a strangled laugh. "Hmm, yes, I think we ought to change the subject."

  "Why? I find it rather interesting."

  He stared at her perfectly shaped mouth, the urge to silence her with kisses almost overwhelming. "Then you shouldn't. Or, at least, you shouldn't admit that you do, especially to me."

  "Well, you are supposed to be well versed in these matters," she said pragmatically. "Besides, who else can give me advice on personal affairs?"

  "Ask Olivia," he said with a frown.

  "Has Olivia ever been anyone's mistress?"

  "Most certainly not."

  "Not even Wendell's?"

  "Why on earth would you think that?"

  She shook her head. "I'm not sure; there's something in the way they look at each other. Anyway, I don't see any point in asking her opinion on something that would alarm her. Have you considered making Arabella your mistress?"

  "No, I have not. Arabella is a recently married woman."

  "And recently married women are permitted to take such liberties with other men in English society?"

  He gave her a dry look, reluctantly admiring how she cut to the core of the matter. "Under certain circumstances, married men and women have been known to look outside the marriage bed for satisfaction." There. He paused to take a breath. That was tastefully phrased, if a bit pompous for a man in his position to be explaining to someone who would probably leave any suitors in a dead faint with her frank questions. "I suppose things aren't much different between the opposite sexes in Scotland."

  "I can't say for certain," she said. "I suppose they are. Still, if my husband were to be conducting trysts with someone else under a tree—"

  He brought his hand to his face.

  "—I might be tempted to stab him through the gullet a half-dozen times with my dirk."

  "Don't tell me you've seen that done before," he muttered.

  "Aye, by my aunt to my uncle when he betrayed her."

  "And he lived afterward?" he asked, lowering his hand.

  She nodded. "My aunt was a healer, as was my mother. She forgave him and sewed him back together. He was faithful to her until the day he died of natural causes."

  He smiled, shaking his head. "I shouldn't wonder. Now, listen, Catriona, in all seriousness, you simply cannot repeat what you saw from the tree today. I'm sorry now that I even talked to Arabella. If I could erase—"

  "Vestigia nulla retrorsum," she said. "Horace has an answer for everything. There's no going back."

  "Not Latin again," a voice said in dismay as Olivia opened the alcove curtain to peer in at them. "There you are. Honestly, Knight, she needn't sound like a professor, you know. Latin is extremely off-putting at a party." She looked directly at Catriona. "Did the pair of you make friends?"

  Catriona glanced up at him. "I think so."

  Olivia pulled her to her feet. "Then come along, you two. We've got the ballroom lit and Howard and Smythe on the fiddle. Arabella is staying for supper, Knight. Not that I really wanted to ask her, but I suppose it was the only thing to do. I cannot quite bring myself to forgive what she did to you, but, oh, she isn't truly evil."

  "Do you think I wanted her to stay?" he asked in patent disbelief.

  Olivia glanced at Catriona, speaking in a half-whisper. "I just hope you will not yield to temptation now that Arabella has broken the silence between you, but I do believe that your meeting with her was quite innocent. That said, will you escort my cousin to the ballroom?"

  He sensed Catriona's eyes on his face and turned unwillingly to stare at her. So, she was inquisitive about love, was she? And he, through no fault of his own, was suddenly expected to satisfy her maiden curiosity. He gave her a smile that warned that he was probably the worst candidate for the job. Because he was actually amused by the situation, because he hadn't figured out how to disentangle himself, he would comply with Olivia's wishes.

  But no one had better blame him if the scheme backfired.

  ******************

  It was dark wh
en a small group began to assemble in the ballroom below; the long mullioned windows caught glints of candlelight. Howard, Aubrey, Smythe, and even the estate gardener had been commissioned to form an impromptu band in the gallery above. The ladies of the household were still fussing about upstairs. Olivia had insisted that Catriona change into one of the daringly designed ball gowns that she had worn herself before her bereavement, a diaphanous pale pink creation that framed Cat's willowy curves like the petals on a rosebud. Olivia stared at her in wistful approval; the last time she had worn that gown, she had danced with Lionel, and he had told her she was the most beautiful woman on earth. Oh, to go back to those happier times.

  Arabella entered the bedroom while Olivia finished dressing Catriona's hair, a task that proved more daunting than the older woman had expected as the mass of coppery curls resisted every effort to be tamed into a tidy coiffure.

  Then, when Catriona was announced presentable—it was, after all, only a rehearsal for the real event—she stood examining herself critically in the mirror.

  "I look half-naked. Is there not a warm wool jacket to cover me up? Something essential appears to be missing from this dress."

  "You aren't wearing any shoes, for one thing," Olivia said. "I don't suppose you brought any dancing slippers with you from Scotland?"

  "I must have left them at home with my tiaras and feathered turbans," Catriona replied, covertly yanking pins from her head while Arabella just as resolutely poked them back into place.

  "Here." Olivia's voice was muffled as she made a foray into the depths of her wardrobe. "Wear these."

  Catriona stared in chagrin at the dainty leather pumps. "They're far too wee. I'll cramp my toes. You see, I was born flat—"

  "One has to suffer for beauty," Arabella said, shoving her down onto a stool.

  Catriona endured the other woman's attentions with good grace, studying Arabella's aristocratic features in detail. She could see why the viscount had wanted to marry this creamy-skinned, blue-eyed beauty, but she didn't understand why Arabella had chosen another man in his place. She obviously still desired him, or she wouldn't have made such a fool of herself in the woods.