by Susan King
"I am collecting information for Sir Edgar. I cannot just tell him that the stones are old and he should come see them. He will expect something specific."
"Tell him not to come here at all."
She regarded him through the shadow of her veil. "Are you this obtuse by nature, or is it a skill you hone with practice?"
"Have you always been stubborn and willful?"
"Yes," she said, and turned to blow dirt off the stone.
Muttering under his breath, Aedan strode away to go speak with Hector and Angus. Christina resumed her work, scrubbing furiously.
No one could ever guess that they shared delicious secrets, she thought. Wild kisses, tender embraces, coveted paintings, and hidden stairs could be conveniently forgotten in favor of snarling and snapping. But no matter what exchange they shared, she always felt hot sparks between them, like flint and fire compelled to ignite.
* * *
Christina chewed the end of her pen, deep in thought, then applied nib to paper and added to the reply she was composing to Edgar. Each word had to be carefully chosen, for Edgar had a sharp nose for the scent of an antiquity. He would come to Dundrennan quickly if he thought there was merit.
The clearing and digging is coming along well and may yield interesting results, she wrote. But it is too soon yet to declare it worth your valuable time and mental energy. She had to have enough time to search for any sort of Arthurian connection. After the digging of the last two days, she was now certain the walls had once belonged to a Pictish house.
She was unsure how to end her note—she wanted to avoid encouraging Edgar's interest in Cairn Drishan and his interest in courting her. She re-read his letter to her. I remain your faithful friend, my dearest Christina. I know you think of me with the same affection I tender to you. He had signed it, Your devoted Edgar.
"Oh, dear," she murmured. The tone of the letter was very like Edgar himself—assuming and haughty. Lately his arrogance had begun to irritate her. She realized that she had to gently disentangle herself from his affections.
Giving him permission to court her had been a mistake, she realized now, and she was glad she had not yet agreed to his marriage proposal.
After the thrill she felt in Aedan MacBride's arms, she realized she could not bear the thought of marrying Sir Edgar Neaves. No future existed with Aedan—she was no fool—but living as a bookish widow was preferable to a life with Edgar. She would forever compare Aedan's kisses, his strength and humor and depth, to Edgar's cold personality and dull kisses.
She must tell Edgar soon that she could not accept his proposal, and suggest that they remain colleagues and friends.
But she could not bring herself to write the words. The pen in her hand shook, its drop of ink spattering her hand and her white cuff.
Sighing, she looked with dismay at the black spots spreading across the fine cloth of her undersleeve, made of delicate white lacework in broderie anglaise. Her aunt Emmie had carefully made the pieces for her as a Christmas gift, and now carelessness had ruined one of the cuffs.
After folding her letter and setting the pen down, she left the library, intending to go upstairs to the black-and-white-tiled bathroom to scrub her sleeve with soap and cold water.
The housekeeper was in the foyer as Christina entered it. "Good afternoon, Mrs. Blackburn. Ye seem in a rush, mistress."
"I've spoiled my sleeve with ink." She held up her arm.
"Och, such pretty work, too! Let Effie MacDonald tend to it. She's the laundress, and it's her day to be here, in the washhoose. Go oot the side door by the kitchen, and go past the herb garden. Ye'll see a stone building. Having it oot there keeps the smell o' the bleachin' away frae the hoose," she explained, wrinkling her nose. "Show yer sleeve to Effie MacDonald, and she'll make it right. She's a guid woman, and she likes a wee chat." Mrs. Gunn smiled as Christina thanked her.
She found the washhouse easily enough, a small building in a far corner past the walled enclosure where herbs and flowers grew in profusion.
Opening the door to the washhouse, she was immediately assailed by heat and dampness and the scents of lye, bleach, and soap. The huge room, white and filled with light, held several large tables and a huge brick hearth where enormous copper urns boiled. The high ceiling was hung with racks draped in snowy linens. Two young women and a third older woman wore aprons, their faces flushed as they worked at various tasks.
The older woman came toward her, tall and gray-haired, wiping her hands on her apron. "May I help ye, mistress?"
"Yes. Are you Effie MacDonald?" Christina asked.
"Aye." The woman's eyes were deep brown and penetrating, her cheekbones pronounced, her dress dark and plain. But her earlobes gleamed with gold hoops—a gypsy's face, Christina thought.
Introducing herself and showing her sleeve, Christina explained her errand. Effie nodded and efficiently removed Christina's undersleeve, then scrutinized the spots.
"Gunnie was right to send ye here. If that ink sets, yer bonny lace would be ruined, aye." She took it to a large tub with brass spigots and flowed cold water over the spots. Then she reached overhead to a shelf filled with small bottles, taking down a bottle and a slender brush. "Some use chemists' potions for their laundry now, but I say old and cheap works best. This will take it oot," she said, uncapping a bottle.
"What's that?" Christina asked, watching as Effie clipped the brush into the liquid and smoothed it over the stained cloth.
"Horse piss," Effie said, "and lemon."
"Oh!" Christina said. Within a few moments, the delicate cloth whitened again before her eyes. Effie then rinsed it with soap and water and added a liquid from another bottle.
"Lavender water," she explained. "Did ye think I'd have ye smellin' o' horse piss?" She laughed and folded the piece inside a linen towel. "Now we'll dry it wi' the flat iron, and 'twill be guid as new. Dora," she called, "here's a wee bit o' lace for the iron!" Effie crossed the room, and Christina followed.
A pretty young girl turned, flat iron in her hand, and took the lace cuff from Effie. Christina watched while Dora carefully ironed the half sleeve inside the toweling. Her nimble fingers kept just out of the flat iron's hot range as she guided the heavy thing over the towel, steaming the dampness out of it.
Watching her, Christina realized with a small shock that the girl was blind, or nearly so. Glancing at Dora's face, she saw a strong resemblance to Effie.
The older woman poised her fists on her hips. "Mrs. Blackburn... Ah, ye'll be the laird's guest frae the mooseum, come to look at his great hill. He told me aboot ye, mistress."
"He did?" Christina asked, surprised.
"Och aye, when he came to tea last week—Sir Aedan comes to see me when he can, guid lad. I've known the laird since he was a bairnie in skirts," she confided, leaning forward. "Hector's my son. This is Hector's daughter, Dora MacDonald."
"Oh! Mr. MacDonald mentioned both of you. I did not know—"
"That I'm the laundress? Aye, and my mither and grandmither afore me. We've ay worked for the lairds o' Dundrennan. And Dora here, she makes bonny crocheted things, shawls and whatnot. Sells 'em, too, in Milngavie," she added proudly, while Dora smiled.
Dora handed Effie the newly cleaned and pressed sleeve, and Effie slipped it over Christina's hand and wrist, tying its ribbons snug under her sleeve, the cloth fresh smelling and warm against her skin.
"Thank you so very much, Effie," Christina said, relieved.
The woman smiled, her eyes shrewd. "So ye're the mistress o' that mountain, giving orders to the laird, I hear."
Christina laughed. "I doubt Sir Aedan would take orders from me or any woman."
Effie laughed with her, and nearby, Dora and the other maid chuckled as they worked. "Well, he wouldn't listen to anyone when he was engaged to my niece Elspeth, and he's still that stubborn," Effie said.
"You knew Sir Aedan's fiancée?" Christina asked.
"Och, aye. She was my niece, and Dora's cousin. She and the laird
knew each other when they were babes in arms together, and they were always good friends. 'Twas natural for them to come to marrying. Pity she took ill," Effie said, shaking her head sadly. "But sometimes 'tisna meant for such blithe souls to live long in this world, and it may be he wasna meant to be content. The lairds o' Dundrennan dinna wed for love, y'see."
"So I've heard," Christina said.
"But I do hope it proves different for Sir Aedan. He's had too much loss, too many troubles, that lad, and so bonny and braw a man, such a guid heart, always caring about others, and caring so much for his home. I like to think there's a special love for him—-I feel that there is. Perhaps he'll be the one to break that wicked curse someday." She smiled at Christina, and a peculiar wisdom seemed to glow in her crinkled, keen eyes.
Christina nodded and felt sudden, surprising tears prick her eyes. Just the lye in the air, she told herself. But she, too, wished that Aedan MacBride could defeat the curse that doomed the brides of the lairds of Dundrennan. Suddenly, she desperately wanted him to be happy. And she did not even know why it meant so much to her.
"Oot wi' ye, noo, for I've work to do, and so have ye." Effie opened the door, and Christina thanked her for her help and stepped outside. Cool air blew over her damp cheeks and through the freshly curled hair along her brow.
She gathered her skirts and hurried back to the house, wondering if she would see Aedan that day.
Chapter 14
"Tableau vivante," Amy said in a tortuous French accent, "is a game like charades, but played as living statues. We usually mimic artworks, but tonight we will act out scenes from literary works."
Lady Balmossie peeked dubiously from her needlework. Seated on the sofa, Aedan smothered a smile, although he agreed with his aunt. When Amy had suggested parlor games after dinner, he wanted to flee to his study. Her parlor games were usually tedious, but the temptation of playing any sort of game involving Christina Blackburn overruled his initial impulse.
"We'll use the hallway for our stage and the doors as our curtains. When your tableau is ready, knock on the door and we'll open it." Amy waggled the slip of paper in her hand. "Now, we've all drawn partners and have been assigned literary works from the papers in my basket. A pity that Meg and Dougal are not with us this evening, for they are both very good at this game."
"Amy, dearie, they wanted to be with their bairns," Lady Balmossie said. "We canna expect them to come with us to Dundrennan nearly every day."
Amy shrugged. "The more the merrier, Auntie. Well, Cousin Aedan, I believe you and I have the first turn."
Aedan glanced at the slips of paper in his hand. One named a Shakespearean play and the other named his partner—Christina Blackburn. Pleased with his good fortune in the draw, he looked up. "According to this, I am partnering Mrs. Blackburn." He saw Amy's expression falter.
"But you and I were supposed to—oh, mine says John. Very well," Amy said, and she had the grace to smile at John Blackburn, who had returned from Edinburgh that afternoon. "Aedan and Christina will go first, then."
Aedan rose and bowed to Christina. She stood, blushing, and he tucked her hand in his elbow. "Give us five minutes," he told the others. "Or a bit longer. This may be complicated." He led her toward the double doors.
Lady Balmossie grumbled. "Rob Campbell, you and I are partners. We may as well forfeit now, for I willna be verra guid at playing taboo." Rob laughed.
"Remember the rules," Amy called to Aedan. "You must pay the forfeit if you take too long out there. You'll stand in the corner until someone gives you a kiss to set you free!"
"A silly rule and a silly game," Aedan murmured to Christina as he escorted her into the hallway. She chuckled. He slid the pocket doors shut behind them so that they were alone in the dim, lamplit corridor.
"Here is our assignment, Mrs. Blackburn," he said, showing her the paper. "Romeo discovers Juliet in her tomb. Not very merry, I'm afraid, but Amy made the choices. It is her game."
"I suspect she wanted to be your partner and hoped for a good faint in your arms."
"Ah, well. I believe you've done that yourself, madam. Was it worth the trouble?" He cocked a brow.
"Mm, perhaps." Her hazel eyes twinkled. "We'd better hurry, or we'll pay the forfeit."
"We'll win. I never lose, actually."
"No? You must have been insufferable as a lad."
"Quite possibly." He looked around the hallway. "Shall we use a bench or chair for Juliet's tomb?"
"According to Amy, we can use only our imaginations and ourselves. And I cannot lie on the floor in this gown." She indicated her crinolined skirt of gleaming lavender blue satin.
"Very well." He dropped to one knee, raising the other, his thigh straight and firm. "Sit on the floor and lean against me."
"Oh, I must not—"
"Mrs. Blackburn, what is not otherwise permissible is encouraged in parlor games. I suspect that is why they are so tediously common. Lean on me, madam."
She sat carefully, her skirt spreading around her in a billowing, airy cushion defined by the crinoline. A frothy hint of petticoats peeked at the hem. She leaned against him.
"I doubt Juliet reclined like a Roman empress taking dinner," she said.
"Relax, madam, you look quite enchanting that way." He slid his left arm beneath her shoulders. "Comfortable?"
"Quite." She tilted her head, closed her eyes.
"I doubt Juliet wore spectacles," he drawled.
She slipped them off, and he tucked them away in his coat pocket. "Are we ready now?" she asked.
"Not yet," he murmured, cupping his fingers around her bare shoulder. Her lavender satin gown had a deep fall of lace across a low-cut bodice that revealed her upper shoulders and chest, and a demure strand of pearls looped her throat. Touching her soft skin, Aedan gazed at the lace edging that rode the luscious swells of her breasts.
A lightning strike of desire tore through him, and he drew a breath against it. Leaning forward, he rested his other hand at her slender waist, snug in black velvet. He felt the gentle rise and fall of her breath.
Lowering toward her, his face mere inches from hers, he kept his movements slow, studied, vying inwardly for control over himself. He had promised to act with better chivalry—and he had tried to be impassive toward her.
But he could not. When he had kissed her before, he had felt far more than lust—something different from any feeling he had expected, or known. Hot and exquisite as lust, but deeper, expansive, as if he felt the heat and spark of his own soul.
Realizing that he could not stop that feeling, and aware that he was vulnerable to her, he felt an odd sense of alarm.
She wriggled in his arms, settling, tipping her head back. Her breath was fruity and gentle upon his cheek. He wanted to taste her mouth, her creamy skin, round his hands over her soft breasts. Holding her, even innocently like this, worked a strange, hot magic on him.
"Are you ready, Romeo?" she said lightly.
He could not answer. She was close enough to kiss, mouth luscious, breasts rising, falling provocatively under the lace. Leaning toward her, he closed his eyes, sighed.
She sagged in feigned death against him, trailing her outer arm to the floor, tilting her head. "Here lies your Juliet, awaiting your heartbroken soliloquy."
"Mm," he said, and could not think of a quote to utter—he whose memory for poetry never failed. He kept still, fearing he might lose his restraint. Playing this game with her had been a lapse in judgment, he thought. He should have begged off.
Christina shifted, and the sweet quiver of her breasts sent desire plunging through him. He frowned.
"Romeo, do try to look passionate," she complained.
"I would, if you behaved more like Juliet on her tomb and less like Thistle, twitching and chittering."
She scowled, and Aedan chuckled. Sometimes with her, he felt at ease enough to be playful, something he had all but lost in the last few years.
Obediently, she folded her hands, dropped her hea
d back gracefully, waited in silence. Aedan noticed that she had adopted, unwittingly, the pose of the girl in the painting. But she was no longer just a fascinating model—she was now familiar to him, part of the fabric of his daily life, increasingly dear to him. And he knew now how sweet yet seductive she could be, how stubborn and calamitous, quick-witted and perceptive.
What rushed through him then had all the force of desire, yet was deeper, profound. He feared to name it.
Christina opened an eye. "Are you ready?"
"Aye," he murmured. "And how is it you are here in my arms again? The strangest of coincidences, madam."
"I will try not to fall near you again or by chance be your game partner. Will that do?"
"Hmm." It would not. He leaned over her.
She tilted her head, exposing a beautiful swanlike neck. In her satiny, seductive gown, trying not to smile, she was bewitching and innocent all at once.
"Passion, dear Romeo," she whispered.
Passion. Suddenly he was filled with it, dark and strong and ripe with it. She roused him, haunted him as no woman ever had, ever could. But he could not fall in love with her.
"Miss Burn," he said, "you know not what you ask of me."
"Take the mood," she said.
"Oh, I have the mood. I cannot think of the words."
"Say this, then, Romeo—'O my love! my wife! Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath, hath no power yet upon thy beauty.'" She quoted, leaning her head on his arm, closing her eyes.
He stared down at her, his heart slamming. He understood just how Romeo felt—and suddenly how the ancient Druid prince had felt when his princess had faltered, asleep in a briar.
Love battered the gates of his soul. He began to tremble.
Lifting a hand, he cupped her cheek. "'O my love... my wife.'" Whispering it near slayed him. This was no longer a game.