“He struck her?”
Gil’s head came up. “I am not a liar, Ian MacGregor. I’m a fool and a barbarian and a Highlander strutting around in a gentleman’s clothes, but I do not dissemble with me own laird.”
Ian lowered himself beside his brother, trying to make sense of information that appalled even as it roused his curiosity.
“I believe you. What did you do?”
“Fetched him up against the wall and threatened his miserable titled ass if he ever raises a hand to another female under our roof again.”
“You didn’t strike him?”
“Genie intervened. Said it was a family matter.”
“We can have you halfway to France by morning if you think the baron will press charges.”
Gil shook his head. “No more deserting. When Asher stopped writing, it about killed you.”
Three letters they’d had from Asher over the course of several years—only two Ian could tell his family about—then nothing. He pushed that thought away, as the brother beside him was the one he could assist.
“When was this?”
“Two nights ago. I’ve been waiting for the Queen’s man to fetch me to the gaol.”
“You can cease your waiting.” Ian considered the line of his brother’s shoulders, shoulders that had been bearing a significant weight in silence, when it was the laird’s responsibility to keep his family members safe.
“What? Of all Scotsmen, I’m suddenly granted the right to assault titled Englishmen with impunity?”
“You were set up, laddie. He wanted you there for an audience, to shame his daughter, to make sure I knew, firstly, that he was willing to go to significant lengths to ensure the match, and secondly, that I am not his daughter’s choice. As a negotiating tactic, it’s brilliant.”
Gil shot to his feet. “Bugger negotiating tactics, Ian. He enjoyed hurting her, enjoyed even more humiliating her, and enjoyed most of all that I was powerless to intervene on her behalf.”
“What did you do when you’d sent him packing?”
Gil glared at the hearth, where peat had been added to the fire now that guests were abed. They might smell the peat smoke in the morning, though the maids would be by early to air out the room.
“I did nothing. I fetched Mrs. Redmond, went to the icehouse—Genie didn’t want the servants alerted—and I spent the rest of the night riding so I wouldn’t drink myself into a temper.”
“Good thinking. You acquired a witness to testify that Genie’s face was sporting a welt, that she was upset, and that she’d just bid her father good night. Moreover, Mrs. Redmond could testify that Genie was not in fear of you, so even if Genie refused to implicate her father, the constables won’t be visiting us any time soon.”
“This is not a matter of criminal defense, Ian. This is not even a matter of a lady’s honor. For all legal intents, her father can strike her at will.”
“I know, lad. It’s a matter of her safety. I’ll deal with it.”
Gil shifted so he was leaning one arm along the mantel, which allowed Ian to see his brother’s face again. Of the three of them, Gil was quickest to laugh, the quickest to anger. He was beyond anger now, having literally galloped past that familiar territory into something that looked to Ian like bewilderment. Or despair.
“I don’t like it, Ian. I don’t like that we’re marrying into a family that thinks treating women in such a fashion is allowable, not for any purpose.”
“We’re not marrying the baron, Gil.” For that matter, we weren’t marrying anybody.
“If you proposed, he’d have to leave her alone.”
“And that is just what he wants. I told him I was doing more digging into his finances, and this is his response. A harrying tactic and a shrewd one, but it won’t be effective at achieving his goals.”
“Why not?”
“The baron has no allies in this house. Not even his own son—whom I will tell of this encounter—would countenance this behavior. Then too, the women are on our side as well.”
“The women? What can they do?”
“They’ve been dealing with stupid, violent men for generations. Genie and Julia might not enlist the aid of the others, but I will.”
Gil looked doubtful but placated. “You’ll tell Mary Fran? She’s diabolical when it comes to giving a man regrets.”
“Mary Fran, Hester, Augusta. They’ll look after Genie when we can’t, and the negotiations are going to become even more plodding.”
“Keep her safe, Ian. It did pass through my mind to whisk your fiancée off to France.”
“What stopped you?”
“I don’t know.”
Interesting answer, but Ian didn’t ponder it. In the five minutes following Gil’s departure, Ian instead tried to dissuade himself from his next maneuver. When that mental exercise proved fruitless, he blew out the library candles and headed for the door on the terrace leading to Augusta’s bedroom.
Eleven
Augusta found, in just a few weeks in Scotland, she’d lost the knack of sleeping well. At home, she’d crammed as much productivity into her day as possible and fallen into bed exhausted, only to repeat the pattern day after day, week after week.
But in Scotland she had leisure time, time to read and time to relearn Gaelic, time to wander, and time to desire a man she was increasingly convinced needed rescuing from his own tenaciously held misconceptions about honor and family duty.
Not that Augusta would be marrying him. He was still an earl, and she was a poor relation well past her come-out. He needed coin, and she had none. But he also needed love and companionship, things Genie couldn’t give him, though some other wealthy young lady might.
A shadow glided past Augusta’s French doors. A big, man-shaped patch of darkness that started Augusta’s heart thudding in her chest. “Who’s there?”
“Come out to the terrace, Augusta.”
Ian spoke just above a whisper from right inside her doors, his shape barely discernible in the moon shadows.
“Not the terrace,” she said, hiking up on her elbows and keeping her voice down. “I’ve a suspicion Altsax sits out on his balcony, smoking cheroots. Come away from the door.”
And by all that was holy, she wanted Ian MacGregor in her bedroom. Wanted him in her bed, wanted his hands and his mouth and his very breath on her body.
He didn’t move, so she tossed her covers back, locked the door to the corridor, and drew Ian by the wrist away from her French doors. When he stood frowning down at her in a shaft of moonlight, she closed the doors behind him and went up on her toes to kiss him.
Not his cheek. She’d kissed his cheek before. Cheek-kissing was for spinsters content to feed their chickens and weed their beans. Cheek-kissing would not create the type of memory to warm her heart for years to come—much less warm his. She pressed her body to his, sealed her mouth to his.
“You’ve gotten so bold, Augusta Merrick.”
“You come climbing in my bedroom windows, and you call me bold?”
She saw his teeth gleam in the darkness. “You hauled me through your door.”
She shifted a few feet to sit on the bed, lest she become bolder still and inspire him to flee from the room. “What brings you here, Ian? You’ve been avoiding me generally, which is silly when Genie’s equally bent on avoiding you.”
“She is.” He glanced around the shadowed room then took a seat on the bed beside Augusta. “Have you any idea why?”
“Julia and I have discussed this. Genie has observed her father’s example as a husband for years. That is argument enough against matrimony on general principles.”
“Aye, ’tis.” He took her hand in his, his tone distracted, though how he expected her to think clearly when he rubbe
d his thumb over her palm like that was a mystery. “And yet, her papa is dead set on getting us wed.”
“Why do you say that? You are by no means the only title in want of coin, Ian.”
“He’s considering others?” He shifted his grip to brush his thumb back and forth across Augusta’s knuckles, a small caress that made talk of plans to marry him to poor Genie feel blasphemous.
“My aunt has a whole list, but I don’t know about my uncle.”
“Your uncle is a sly bastard, Augusta Merrick. He struck Genie while my brother Gil was helpless to aid her, and I’m sure this was calculated to hasten the nuptials.”
“Because even Uncle would not attempt such behavior if Genie were your fiancée.” She shook her hand loose from his, rose, and got settled leaning back against her headboard, the covers over her legs. “So why are you here, Ian?”
The topic was enough to give even Augusta’s burgeoning desire pause. Of course he’d protect a young lady as defenseless as Genie. It was a part of Ian Augusta found irresistibly attractive. And of course nothing less than such a mission would bring him to Augusta’s bedroom in the dark of night.
“I’m here because I need your help.”
He did not sound pleased to be admitting this. Augusta drew her knees up under the blanket and linked her arms around them as she sat back against her pillows. He was powerless to refuse Genie help; Augusta was powerless to refuse him anything he asked.
“How can I help you, Ian?”
“You, Julia, Hester, and Mary Fran, even Fee, you can keep Genie safe. You don’t let her be alone, you don’t let there be a moment when Altsax can pull the same maneuver again. Keep the footmen near at hand as much as you can. I’ll cozy up to the girl, but I can’t be alone with her for more than a moment here and there. You explain to her these stratagems are my doing and not an attempt to coerce her into marriage.”
“But she is being coerced.”
“Augusta, I know that, and because she’s being coerced, I’m more certain than ever Altsax is hiding something. If anything, I’m more inclined to caution over the engagement than I was before I met the baron.”
Augusta nodded, trying to keep the relief from her eyes. When she looked up, Ian had shifted closer, so he was sitting at her hip.
“I have no right to ask this of you,” he said, reaching out a hand to tug her braid over her shoulder. “And I had no intention of getting into any mischief when I came skulking in your door tonight, Augusta, but the thought of being wed for years without even affection…”
He fell silent, his hand still on her braid. He used it to gently tug her forward into what Augusta hoped and prayed and wished was kissing range.
“I won’t put demands on you, Ian. I won’t develop expectations, I won’t ever…” He silenced her descent into pleading and begging by settling his mouth over hers.
He touched his mouth to hers glancingly at first, as if a little taste might do, but then on a groan, he was back, his mouth on hers.
“I wasn’t going to…” He spoke against her teeth. “God… Bloody… let me in, Augusta.”
She smiled, and he was there, tasting her, smiling in return, and looming up closer until without breaking the kiss, Augusta was on her back amid the pillows, Ian’s chest and his kiss pinning her to the mattress.
“Overdressed,” she muttered, pulling at his shirt.
“Aye.” He levered up to untie the bows of her nightgown, and it was as if a referee had rung the bell at the end of a bare-knuckle round. They separated enough to make eye contact, both breathing deeply, hands tangled in the other’s clothing.
The smile died from Ian’s eyes, but not the heat. “Augusta, if we do this…”
“If we…” was such a long, wonderful way from “we can’t…” but Augusta kept her expression solemn.
“If we do this,” she took up the thought, “it can’t mean anything but some comfort stolen against the circumstances. It can’t lead to anything. It can’t mean anything, whether you marry Genie or some other woman.”
His hand settled against her cheek. “It will mean worlds, Augusta. Between us it will mean worlds, but it cannot go any further, and I’m still not convinced—”
“Shirt off, Ian. Everything off, in fact. If we’re only to allow ourselves one lapse with a bed, pillows, and privacy, then let it be a glorious one.”
Except in the back of her mind, where she had to be honest with herself even when it hurt, she admitted she was thinking one lapse might lead to a few more. She was committing that folly no sane woman of limited means and accumulating years allows herself: she was hoping.
“Don’t look at me like that, Augusta.” He stood to pull his shirt over his head. “I don’t deserve it. No mortal man could deserve such an expression.”
His hands went to the waistband of his trousers, and Augusta watched, even as his fingers stilled. “Shall you do this, lass?” One corner of his mouth kicked up wickedly. “I feel like a present wrapped up and waiting for my lady’s gleeful reception of what lies beneath all the decoration.”
“My hands would shake, Ian. You do it.”
“The things you say…” He sat to yank off his boots and socks, then stood again right beside the bed. He turned his body so he was facing Augusta and waited. She pushed the covers aside, divining his purpose, and swung her legs over the side of the bed. While she sat before him, Ian undid the bows down the front of her nightgown. An eddy of night air cooled the heated skin of her breastbone, then lower, until her clothing was parted from throat to hem, the material pooling in her lap.
And yet, he didn’t push it aside, didn’t draw it off her shoulders.
She met his gaze in the moonlight, knowing even in the shadows, her blush must be evident. He held the back of one hand against her cheek as if to confirm it.
“Please, Ian.”
His hand dropped. At a casual pace, he unfastened his trousers, pausing occasionally to glance at her.
As if she could have looked away.
“Unwrap your unlikely treasure, Augusta. I certainly intend to do the same with mine.”
He wanted her naked too. Ah, bless him, bless him. Augusta slipped her hand into the fabric of his loosened clothes, finding her way down the plane of his lower abdomen, over flesh taut with muscle and warm with life. Her knuckles encountered hair—soft, springy, then…
She worked his clothing down another couple of inches and went exploring again. She found the thick column of his erect flesh, rising from a nest of down. Carefully, she extracted him from the clothing, until his penis was angling up along his belly—thick, hard, and oddly beautiful in its unabashed arousal.
“I’d light candles for you if I dared,” he said. “Indulge your curiosity, Augusta. I want you to learn this of me.”
“To learn this part of you?” She drew a finger up the length of him, watched as the muscles of his belly rippled in response.
“That too, but I want you to learn it with me. Touch me again.”
“Get on the bed.”
He stepped out of his clothes, becoming a piece of animated sculpture rendered alive by moonlight. There was not a spare ounce on him; he was all muscle and bone, efficient movement and conserved strength.
And he was climbing into her bed. “On your back.”
His was so big, he made the entire bed shift and jostle as he moved. The mattress bounced as he flopped onto his back and crossed his arms behind his head. “Do we need terms, Augusta?”
“Terms?” She was becoming drunk on the bounty before her. He ranged the length of her bed, making a large piece of furniture abruptly much cozier. He’d stayed above the covers, so she saw everything from the soft hair of his underarms to the geometry of his chest and ribs, to that lovely, lovely man-part of him, on dow
n to legs thick with muscle and feet larger than any Augusta had studied before.
She leaned in to sniff at his chest.
“Terms, my lady, like nothing said or done, no act or omission between us in this bed tonight will be cause for regret or recrimination. This is a gift we give each other.”
“I get a much larger present than you,” she said, surveying him.
“Give me your hand, Augusta.”
Curious, she did. He took her hand, and without letting her pause or draw back, wrapped it around his erection. “Stroke me, and I’ll tell you how it feels.”
“Stroke?”
He showed her, showed her how tightly to hold him, showed her the parts that were particularly sensitive, the same parts he liked to have touched and cupped and fondled. He showed her how God put together the male organs involved in procreation and explained their functions and habits to her.
It was an initiation of sorts, and she treasured him for making the time for it. She was going to leave her bed in the morning a far wiser and more confident woman—also much sadder, but she pushed that realization firmly to the side.
“I like this,” she said, stroking a finger over the hair at his armpit. “It’s very soft and very dark.” Incongruously soft. “Particularly compared to your chin.” She ran the pad of one thumb over his shadowed jaw. “You are hard in so many places, Ian.”
“While you are soft.” He held her gaze as she traced her hands for the dozenth time down the stair-step muscles along the outsides of his ribs. Lean, powerful, and utterly open to her for these few hours. She’d gathered her courage long enough.
“You want to see me, don’t you?”
“Of course I want to.” He smiled but didn’t shift his position. “If you’re feeling too modest, I’ll content myself with learning the feel and taste and touch of you. A canny Scot learns to improvise.”
The Bridegroom Wore Plaid Page 21