by Julia London
She tossed her head. “I haven’t the slightest idea how to perform this dance.”
“Follow my lead,” he said gruffly.
“I don’t want to,” she said, glancing at him sidelong.
He was unable to take his gaze from her slender neck, the color in her cheeks. He couldn’t bear to think of Spivey’s hands on her. Cailean shrugged as the music began. “I donna care if you do.” He startled her by skipping twice and twirled her away from his body. She cried out with surprise as he did, and when he twirled her back, she clumsily slammed into his chest, wide-eyed.
“Skip,” he said.
“Skip!” she echoed with alarm, but she managed to do it. He repeated the steps, then dropped her hand, passed behind her, came around again. And this time, he lifted the opposite arm in the air.
“Again,” he said.
After several missteps, and one unfortunate heel to the top of his foot, and some swaying that was not in time with the music, she seemed to understand the dance and began to move with him. But she refused to look at him.
Around and around they went. Daisy began to smile. She laughed, the sparkle returning to her eyes. She kicked up her heels a little higher and seemed to truly enjoy the dancing.
When the music came to a close, the dancers began to set up for a reel. Cailean held out his arm to Daisy; she put her hand on it and wobbled beside him out of the dancing area. He tried to escort her in the opposite direction of Spivey, but Daisy removed her hand from his arm and sank into a curtsy. “Thank you. Your duty is done.”
Cailean sighed. “Verra well then, lass. Would you prefer if I said only the things you want to hear and then kiss you in dark corners?”
“Yes!” she said, then groaned and shook her head. “No.” She sighed. “You shouldn’t ask me what I want, Cailean. You’ll not like the answer.”
She turned from him, started to walk away, but Cailean caught her hand. “Pardon?”
She tugged her hand free of his. “You heard me.” She tried to go forward, but there were so many people, her hasty exit was thwarted.
“Aye, I heard you, but it doesna make a wee bit of sense. Why donna you tell me instead of making me guess?”
“No,” she said as she slipped between two couples. “I won’t confide in a hardened scoundrel.”
“Oh, I’m a hardened scoundrel now, am I?” he said, exasperated, and barreled past the two couples.
“So I’ve heard,” she said over her shoulder.
“I can well imagine that you have. And I can imagine you were quick to point out, to whomever might have had your ear, that we are no longer friends, aye?”
“Yes, I hinted at that to Mr. Somerled.”
Somerled! “He’s a fool,” Cailean said. “And no doubt he assured you that his friendship is superior to mine, aye?”
“Well,” she said airily. “He might have implied it.”
Cailean paused to let two loud men with their arms around each other pass before them. “Did your admirer say more?”
“Hmm,” she said, pretending to consider it. Then said, “Yes.” She walked on.
And Cailean followed the woman like a hopeless puppy, unable to stop himself. He caught her again, his hand on her arm. “You will listen to me, woman—”
She whirled around, her brows dipping into a V over eyes glittering with vexation. “Listen to you?” She meant to say more, but they both heard someone call Cailean’s name.
He looked over his shoulder to see Catriona darting through the crowd toward him. “I’ve been looking for you!” she said. “I want to play whist, and Rabbie refuses. Partner with me, will you, Cailean?”
“Och, lass,” he said and glanced back to where Daisy was standing. Or where she had been standing.
But she had disappeared into the crowd.
And in her wake, the smoldering inside of Cailean turned to glowing embers. One waft of a breeze, and he would be consumed with the fire.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
DAISY WAS STILL very cross with Cailean, and not because she was slightly inebriated, which she definitely was, as whisky seemed to flow with the force of a river through Balhaire.
It wasn’t because he’d refused to kiss her and had made her feel incomparably foolish for that desire, the bastard. Yes, all right, she supposed she might perhaps consider that his actions were noble and that he had more of a care for her virtue and place in society than she did.
He was maddening. So was her desire for him, which raged beyond her control and only deepened when she watched him take his victory kiss from that beautiful young Scottish woman. And again, when he made her dance with him and she enjoyed it as much as she had.
Rake.
But she wasn’t cross with him because he was a rake. She was cross with him because he didn’t love her. If he loved her...if he loved her...he would kiss her, and he would take her and Ellis from here. He would save her if he loved her.
Oh, but she was bereft. There was a gaping wound in her. She was reminded of a chemise she’d once had, in which she’d somehow managed to put a small hole in the fabric. Without her notice, the hole had begun to stretch and grow into something much larger and quite noticeable in that inferior piece of cotton. Daisy felt a hole just like that had opened inside her. A tiny one, at first unnoticed, but now stretched and pulled by her desires and her duty into something much larger and painful.
“Daisy?”
She hadn’t realized how far away from the dancing she’d wandered until she felt Robert’s hand on her back. He’d appeared at her side like a sentry while she tried to make desperate sense of her feelings. “Rob,” she said and smiled with a bit of relief. “There you are.”
“It’s time that we retired. They are all deep in their cups,” he said, glancing around them. His hand held her elbow, as if he thought she might flee.
“It’s not very late, is it?”
“Daisy, please,” he said and pulled her around to face him. “We are not welcome here. Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but they look at us as if we are the enemy. It’s your safety that concerns me.”
He looked truly concerned. She looked around them—the crowd was growing more raucous. And it was true that Daisy had noticed some vaguely hostile looks cast her way today. “Yes, all right,” she acquiesced.
Robert sighed with relief and instantly began to move her along, exiting the hall as quickly as he could maneuver her through the crowd.
He escorted her through the maze of hallways, and when they reached the wing of rooms the Mackenzies had so graciously granted her family, Daisy slowed. “I want to look in on Ellis.” She paused at the door of her son’s room and knocked softly. Hearing no response, opened the door quietly and looked in. She could just make out Ellis’s form on the bed, and from somewhere deeper in the room, she could hear Uncle Alfonso’s heavy snoring.
She pulled the door closed. “They are sound asleep.”
The next door was Daisy’s room, which adjoined Belinda’s. They paused there, and Daisy tried to think of something to say, something encouraging or, at the very least, kind...but her thoughts were miles from that door. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for agreeing to come.”
She couldn’t read Robert’s expression in the dimly lit hallway, but he said, “I am still of the opinion that this was a foolish thing to have done. I shan’t sleep at all tonight, for fear of foul play.”
Foul play? She didn’t believe that for a moment. Her hosts had been gracious, and Ellis had enjoyed it so. “You are too suspicious,” she said and caressed his arm.
Robert sighed wearily, as if he’d explained this to her dozens of times and she still didn’t understand. “I can’t fault you for not understanding the darker side of men, darling. But I shall be quite relieved when we take our leave in the morning.”
He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “Good night,” he murmured, then reached around her and opened the door at her back. “I’ll wait until I hear the latch.”
“Good night,” Daisy said and stepped inside. She closed and latched the door, likewise feeling relief—the relief of being free of him this evening.
She turned about and started. Belinda was in her room.
“I beg your pardon, did I frighten you?” Belinda asked cheerfully as she laid out Daisy’s bedclothes. “I rather thought you’d be quite late to bed.”
Daisy waited for Belinda to continue with some dire warning of some horrible fate that had befallen someone who had stayed too late at the dancing. But she didn’t. She was humming. Humming.
“Belinda? Is everything all right?” Daisy asked. Belinda smiled, and Daisy gaped at her.
“I sold my painting,” she admitted excitedly. “A nice gentleman from...oh, I don’t know where. I could scarcely understand a word he said! But he paid me fairly and carried it away.” She held up a small pouch and shook it so that Daisy could hear the coins clicking. She beamed, her face illuminated with happiness.
“Darling, that’s marvelous,” Daisy said.
“Yes, it is, isn’t it? I can’t think of a single reason I should be unhappy.” She made a sound of delight and laid Daisy’s slippers at the end of the bed. “There you are, all ready,” she said. “Shall I help you undress?”
“No, thank you,” Daisy said. “Go to bed, Belinda. Sleep well. Dream of your next piece of art.”
“Oh, I don’t think I’ll sleep a wink,” Belinda said excitedly. She hugged Daisy on her way to her room, jingling the pouch of coins in her hand as if it was a toy.
Astonished, Daisy sank down onto the edge of her bed. Robert feared the worst, but no one could deny that Ellis and Belinda had changed here. They had found a piece of themselves at Auchenard and had grown from it. Shouldn’t that count for something?
The window behind Daisy rattled with a gust of wind, and rain began to patter against the panes.
Daisy had found something here, too, hadn’t she? She’d found love, something she’d never expected to experience again, not like this. It was unrequited, but it didn’t matter—she felt it in every bit of her, and she wasn’t ready to let go of it just yet.
She stood up, smoothed her gown, pinched her cheeks, and with only a twinge of conscience, knowing that Robert would be very unhappy with her, she left her room.
She followed the sounds of the merrymaking and managed to negotiate the maze of hallways to find the great hall. Now that it was raining, the people from the meadow were coming inside, crowding into the hall, making the crush of bodies even greater than before. There was scarcely room to move about.
She tried to find the table where Mr. Somerled had been seated, but people were looking at her, some of them leering. This had been a mistake. She scarcely knew anyone, and she hadn’t realized how vulnerable she felt without a man at her side.
She pushed through the crowd to a door and went out. But she found herself in an unfamiliar corridor that was so crowded, she was forced up against the wall. She looked down the hallway, to her left, then to her right, searching for an escape, not realizing at first that two men were towering over her, speaking to each other as they leered at her. Their glassy-eyed expressions made Daisy’s stomach clench. She was suddenly reminded of all the things she’d heard about Scots and Englishwomen, and tried not to panic. It was so loud—would anyone really notice if she screamed?
One of them was speaking to her in Gaelic. She shook her head, and the two men, now joined by another, laughed.
“Lost?” she heard a familiar voice say, and her relief was so swift and great that she sagged against the wall at her back.
“Yes,” she said, finding him now.
Cailean stood beside the two men. He was taller than the others and glowered down at them. One of them spoke, and Cailean responded heatedly. Dear God, she was safe. Daisy pressed her hand to her heart to quiet it.
“Lady Chatwick,” he said, leaning over her. “They mean no harm, aye?”
“I didn’t... I didn’t know what they were saying.”
“It doesna matter,” he said as the two men dispersed into the crowd. “There is gaming here—do you mean to play?”
“No, no... I was looking for my room,” she said vaguely. Her blasted heart was racing again. Not from fright as it had been only minutes before, but from his nearness. From that cauldron of emotions that mixed and stewed in her whenever he was near.
“Aye, I’ll show you the way.” He picked up her hand, slipped it into the crook of his elbow. He proceeded to escort her from that corridor, calling for people to step aside and let them pass, turning into this corridor, and into that one, in that never-ending maze.
At last the crowd began to thin, and with the exception of a servant or two, they were alone in the corridor that led to the suite of rooms where Daisy was staying.
“Where is your guard?” he asked as they moved at a slower pace.
“He thinks I have retired for the evening,” she admitted.
“Why have you no’?”
Because of you. “There will be time enough for retiring when I return to England.”
He chuckled and squeezed her hand. “Sounds a wee bit like death.”
“It feels a wee bit like it,” she said and glanced up at him.
He was looking at her, his gaze sympathetic. “Had you come looking for me, then?” he asked.
The man understood her better than he should have. “I don’t know. Perhaps,” she admitted.
He smiled. “I thought you were cross.”
“I am cross,” she assured him, then sighed heavenward. “But it’s not your fault. I can’t fault the one man on earth who refused to take advantage of me, can I?”
Cailean didn’t answer. She glanced up at him again. The space between them was magnetic, the lure irresistible and heated.
They had come to her door, Daisy realized. She opened the door and pushed it open. She glanced back over her shoulder; Cailean leaned insouciantly against the wall behind him, his head lowered, his gaze dark and riveted on her.
“I must apologize,” he said.
Daisy took a step backward. “For what? You owe me no apology.”
“Aye, I do. For disappointing you,” he said.
Daisy took another step backward; Cailean pushed away from the wall and walked to her door. “It could not be helped,” she said softly. “I was destined to be disappointed.” She took another step backward. He moved to the threshold. In the low light of the corridor, and in that pleasant state of being between a dram or two of whisky, he looked almost dreamlike. “You shouldn’t come in.”
“No,” he agreed. “I shouldna kiss you, either.”
She stepped back again, so that she was now very much in her room. “You keep saying that,” she said and lifted her arms, pulling the pins from her hair.
Cailean watched her hair tumble down around her shoulders. “I keep meaning it,” he said quietly.
“Do you mean to torment me?” she asked.
“No, never, lass. If I have, you must tell me what I might do to ease you,” he said and stepped just inside her room.
Daisy’s heart was in her throat. “There is only one thing that will ease me, Arrandale, and you know perfectly well what it is. But I think you are too fearful.”
“I’m no’ fearful, leannan. Donna mistake my reluctance for fear. What of the man you mean to marry?”
“He is asleep in another room. And he has not yet offered. I’ve not yet accepted.”
“You are dividing your words now, aye?” he scolded her. His expression was predatory, as if he were assessing the prey he would soon devour.
Daisy’s pulse raced in her vein
s; she was breathless, anticipating what would come, her body straining for it. “Not my words. My life,” she said. “I want to be here now, with you. Is that so wrong? Is it so wrong to have been widowed and feel desire again? Is it so wrong to separate my true desires from my duty as a mother?”
Cailean shook his head. “I’ll no’ be your conscience, leannan, any more than I’ll allow you to be mine, aye? I willna be your diversion. If I touch you now, I willna kiss you. I will possess you. You’ve gone too far down this path and now you’ve awakened the beast in me. Do you understand?”
What she understood was that her heart was racing so hard that she feared it might burst. She nodded.
His gaze turned even darker. Prurient. “Shall I close the door, then?” he asked, his voice low and calm. It sent a shock through her.
She nodded.
With his boot, he shut the door behind him. He locked it shut, then began to advance on her, his approach slow and catlike. When he reached her, he sank his hands into her hair, whispered, “How mad you are, leannan. How mad you’ve made me,” and kissed her.
All rational thought vanished with that kiss. She slid her arms around his neck and kissed him back with the demand of the many years she’d endured simply wanting.
Cailean twisted her about, pressing her against the wall, his mouth hungrily devouring hers. His need was just as evident as hers. She could feel it in his touch—demanding yet restrained. In his body—hard and long against hers. In his kiss—insistent and reverent. This, she realized, would happen. She was almost frantic for passion. True passion. The sort of passion she would rush headlong into and then abandon herself in the pool of it. She wanted to savor every moment. She wanted to feel his body against hers, in hers.
Cailean’s mouth was warm and wet and agonizingly pleasurable. He slipped his tongue into her mouth, and the fire of desire spread so quickly there was nothing that could douse it. She clung to Cailean, felt his muscles moving beneath her hands, felt his erection pressed against her belly. This was what she wanted; these were the arms she wanted around her.
He was moving her backward now, his hands working the ribbon ties that fastened her gown around her. He threw the mantua aside. Her stomacher came off next, discarded on the floor. She wore a coral petticoat and a corset over her undergarments. Cailean paused, his hands sliding delicately down her shoulders as he took her in. “Boidheach,” he said and untied the waist of the petticoat, helping her step out of it. He then began to work the laces of her corset while Daisy tried frantically to free him of the neckcloth and plaid sash.