Highlander in Disguise

by Julia London

  “And why would ye think this gold thing would interest me?”

  Actually, that was the part Anna was hoping he could answer, but as he did not seem the least bit disposed to do any answering whatsoever, she pressed her trembling hands to her abdomen and said, “I don’t know, really. But I also know you are not the first Scotsman to seek it.”

  That proclamation was met with a wintry silence, during which Anna pretended to be looking at the figurines on the mantel, but had closed her eyes to summon the courage that had been so damnably present not a half hour ago.

  When it was apparent it had escaped her, she opened her eye, glanced over her shoulder—and jumped with a shriek. She’d not heard him move so close, but there he was, at her back, those glacial eyes boring through her.

  “Describe this thing,” he demanded.

  “I-I don’t know what it is,” she said, pushing down another lump of fear. “It’s an ornamental gargoyle of some sort, but it’s frighteningly hideous, with this gaping mouth,” she exclaimed, gesturing wildly at her mouth, “and clawed feet, and a tail—”

  Ardencaple moved so quickly that Anna could not react; with one lunge, he forced her against the wall, planted his arms on either side of her head, and glared down at her. “Where. Is. It?”

  The veins in his neck and temple were bulging, his jaw was clenched, and Anna felt as if she’d been cornered by a raging beast. But as she was literally in a corner, there was nothing she could do but hold fast to her plan, or risk, by the look of him, certain death. “I won’t tell you,” she said low. “Not yet.”

  “WHERE IS IT?” he roared.

  Anna shrieked, closed her eyes, and dipped her head, hugging herself from his fury. “Put away for safekeeping.”

  He cried out as he slammed his fist into the wall. Anna twisted away, buried her face in her hands, and slid helplessly down the wall. But she felt him move away, and lifted her head as he turned back toward her, his chest heaving with fury. “Ye’ve no notion what ye do!” he railed at her. “Ye are a bloody fool!”

  Her hand went to her throat as she tried to quell her panic, and she pushed herself up the wall.

  Honestly, she didn’t know what she had expected when she came here—but it had not been this. She had imagined he would be somewhat peeved, perhaps even ironically amused. She’d never expected such intense fury, not for a moment. He was always so… cheerful.

  “On my word, I intend to give it to you,” she said earnestly, and started again when he whirled about, pinning her to the wall with a pointed finger and a rabid glare.

  “I don’t mean you any harm!” she cried, darting to refuge behind a wing-back leather chair. “Truly, I don’t!” she insisted as his eyes narrowed menacingly. “But…I am in need of your help, and I need that… that thing to assure you will give it to me!”

  “Mo chreach—”

  “If you will help me, Ardencaple, I will give it to you!”

  “Help ye what?” he cried furiously. “Help ye torment me, aye? What could I possibly help ye with?”

  “God in heaven,” she said weakly, and in a moment of overwhelming regret, she covered her face with her hands. She wished she’d never been so foolish as to come here, wished she’d once, just once, listened to her practical nature.

  “Diah,” he muttered at last, and in a voice that was perhaps a tiny bit softer, he asked, “What sort of help is it that ye need, then?”

  This had been a horrible idea, a wretched idea, but Anna had created an appalling quagmire from which she had no idea how to extract herself.

  Except to go through with it. Walk on, as it were, into the fires of complete humiliation, for which she had no one to blame but herself. And it was the only course open to her, because she knew, looking at him now, in all his fury, that he’d never allow her to walk out of here now.

  She drew a breath to steel herself. “I would like to, ah… sort of gain the, ah… affection of Mr. Lockhart,” she stammered, and risked a glance at him. “And I would like for you to, ah …I mean to say that what I hope is…”

  He was getting impatient. His hands were on his hips, his head down.

  “I suppose there is no polite way to say it,” she said, more to herself than him, and took another breath and said in a rush, “I would like you to teach me how to seduce him. A-And… keep my sister quite occupied.”

  The anger bled from Ardencaple’s face and was replaced with a ghastly look of shock. He blinked rapidly, as if he were seeing something quite hideous. His mouth dropped open and he gaped at her for what seemed an eternity before he lowered himself into a chair, released his breath in one long whoosh, and dragged both hands through his hair. “Ye’ve lost yer bloody mind,” he groaned.

  Her fingers dug into the wingbacks so tightly that they cramped, but Anna could not move, could not even think.

  “God blind me, lass,” he said quietly, “but ye are indeed às a chiall,” he continued, and as he made a whirling gesture at his head, there was no need for him to translate that he thought she was impossibly daft, gone completely around the bend.

  This was not exactly the way she’d pictured things when she’d imagined sailing into this man’s home, imperiously informing him that she had determined what he was about, then smoothly suggesting she’d allow him to go scot-free (pausing there to laugh lightly at the scot part of that) in exchange for a little help.

  Instead, she was standing behind a chair, feeling ridiculously childish and terribly spinsterish …so much so that she sighed and let go the chair, wearily walked around and fell into it, across from Ardencaple, sullen and gloomy.

  He, too, had given up all outward appearances of decorum, and had turned in his chair, slung one muscular leg over the arm, and had propped his chin on his fist as he stared blankly into space. He looked rather ragtag, really, what with the blood and bruises, and his square jaw was shadowed by the growth of his beard. But he also looked potently masculine; his body, all long and muscular legs and arms, seemed almost animal-like in its strength, and now Anna wondered what in heaven’s name she’d gone and asked this lusty, robust man to do. Perhaps she was mad.

  A soft groan escaped her; like a wild animal, he jerked his head toward the sound. “How did ye find it, if I may ask?” he said, the shock and fury gone, replaced with something like surrender.

  “I’ve heard you ask after Lady Battenkirk and someone named Amelia. And…I knew that Lady Battenkirk was abroad, so I paid a call to her niece… and that was when I saw it.”

  “Saw it,” he repeated, shaking his head. “And how, then, would ye know what it was?”

  “Because,” she said quietly, “during the Season just past, I had occasion to meet Captain Lockhart—at the Lockhart ball, actually. I, ah…found him in a small study, where he was… well, standing before an open armoire looking at the contents, and… and I saw it then. And when I saw it again in Mrs. Merriman’s house, I recalled it immediately, because it was really rather…grotesque,” she said. “Mrs. Merriman had taken possession of it when Lady Battenkirk’s good friend, Amelia Litton, died last year. She was more than happy to sell it to me for a few crowns.”

  Ardencaple sighed wearily.

  “And I knew instantly what you’d come for—”

  “And why, exactly, did ye ever think I’d come for anything?” he sharply interrupted her.

  “Because,” she said softly, “you resemble Captain Lockhart. And you wouldn’t tell me where Ardencaple was—as if I were incapable of understanding…so I was quite determined to find it on my own, in my books. But I couldn’t find it, and when I researched the name Ardencaple in my father’s peerage papers, I discovered that the name was no longer in use—that it had been subsumed by the titles of the duke of Argyll.”

  For some strange reason, that made Ardencaple— or whoever he was—laugh. It was a bitter laugh, and he swung his leg off the arm of the chair and leaned forward, his arms braced on his knees, his hands dangling between his legs, and smirked at Anna. �
��Have ye any idea, then, how hard we endeavored to establish that name?”

  “Who?”

  He laughed again and stood abruptly, and walked to the window. “What, did ye no’ determine who in all yer nosing about?”

  “No,” she said truthfully. “Not entirely, that is.”

  “And ye thought, did ye, that ye’d stroll into me house, and casually barter with what rightfully belongs to me and mine?” he asked, turning partially to see her.

  Actually…in a word, yes. She nodded.

  He was suddenly moving toward her, and Anna instinctively jumped up, tried to get away, but once again, he was far too quick, and grabbed her upper arm, jerked her around to him, and then grabbed her nape with his hand so that he could force her face close to his. “And ye thought, did ye, that ye’d practice yer bloody seduction on me, aye? Are ye so pathetic that ye must stoop to this?”

  It sounded so contemptible, so reprehensible, that it sparked a flash of anger in her. What she’d done was ill-advised—all right—perhaps the most ridiculous thing she’d ever done—but it didn’t change the way she felt about Drake, or her sense of desperation that he’d offer for Lucy if she didn’t somehow prove herself to him, and she felt a shock of indignant outrage that this… this liar would judge her.

  “Yes!” she cried, and tried to jerk her arm free of his grasp.

  He tightened his grip on her arm as he moved her head closer to his face. His gaze dipped to her lips and he whispered, “Are ye certain ye know what ye ask?”

  That question stoked something wildly hot inside her; she looked into his glittering eyes and answered breathlessly, “No.”

  He laughed and put his mouth against her cheek. With a soft, long sigh, he held her tightly and moved, slowly and languidly, grazing her ear with his lips, flicking his tongue against her lobe.

  Heat rapidly spread through her; Anna gasped at the sensation, but that only made him chuckle coldly, and he dipped his head lower as he forced hers to one side. His lips touched her neck—burned it, actually— moving slowly to the line of her jaw while Anna shuddered in his grasp. Her breath was coming faster, in little shallow pants, as his lips moved closer to hers, dangerously close to hers, and her head filled with the memory of that kiss on the veranda.

  And then his lips touched hers, landing softly, full, and wet against her dry lips, and as he casually drew her bottom lip between his teeth, she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t catch her breath, and felt precariously close to collapsing.

  “No, I think ye donna know,” he murmured. “Ye’ve no idea what ye’ve done, Anna Addison,” he murmured, and kissed her again, only deeper this time, dipping his tongue into her mouth and sparking an inferno within her. One hand slid up her rib cage to her breast, and he cupped it, kneaded it carefully, dragging his thumb over the thin fabric that covered her nipple and back again.

  Anna felt as if she were floating beneath him, riding on some cloud of burning sensation, hurtling down some slope into debauchery.

  Then Grif suddenly lifted his head and pushed her away.

  His abruptness stunned her; she felt her pulse racing, felt her heart leaping in her chest.

  He looked at her darkly, the glint in his green eyes hard. And then he pivoted about, strode to the door, and flung it open. “MacAlister!” he shouted.

  The dark-haired man she had seen fighting with Ardencaple came striding in, eyeing Anna suspiciously “Aye?”

  Hands on hips, Ardencaple shook his head and said something in his language. MacAlister’s eyes bulged at whatever he said, and they had what sounded like quite a colorful exchange, Ardencaple’s voice rising, the other man’s brows going higher and higher, almost to his hairline.

  When Ardencaple finished, a long moment passed before MacAlister could look fully at Anna.

  And when he did, he burst out laughing.

  Fourteen

  T hat evening, a morose Dudley, a resigned Grif, and a highly amused Hugh dined on a delicious roast, arguing about what Grif was to do.

  “Ye canna go through with it,” Dudley pleaded. “’Tis no’ right! ’Tis untoward, sir!

  “What choice have I? If she is truly in possession of that accursed beastie, what can I do? We bartered Mared for it, Dudley! And we canna afford this charade forever—our funds run low as it is,” he said, with a frown for Hugh. “What we’ve no’ lost to Hugh’s gambling—”

  “Aye, rotten luck,” Hugh muttered.

  “We’ve spent on clothing and food and horses and appearances,” Grif continued. “We pass each day in danger of being discovered and carted off to Newgate Prison to walk the treadmill. So I ask ye again, what bloody choice do I have?”

  “None,” answered Hugh without a moment’s hesitation, and grinned. “Ach, but what a fortunate man ye are! She’s a bonny lass—I’ll teach her if ye like.”

  “Ye’re a bloody scoundrel,” Grif muttered. “But donna be fooled by her pleasing shape—’tis the shape of the diabhal, I swear it!” He pushed his plate aside, propped his face in his hands. “The worst of it is I’ve no’ the slightest notion of how a woman seduces a man.”

  “Quite simple,” Hugh opined, leaning back and casually clasping his hands behind his head. “’Tis all in the way she moves, lad.”

  “How so?”

  “Ye know what I mean—the way she moves.”

  Grif exchanged a look with Dudley; Hugh sighed and came to his feet. “Watch me, then,” he said, and stepping away from the table, he proceeded to walk the length of the table, jerking his hips in a motion that looked almost painful.

  “Mi Diah,” Dudley moaned.

  But Grif burst out laughing. “Mary Queen of Scots, ye look as if ye’ve something lodged in yer arse!”

  “’Tis no’ the walk,” Dudley said, waving a hand at Hugh as he resumed his seat in something of a huff. “’Tis the voice. A woman’s voice is soft and soothing as a sweet dream. And her laugh… so delicate, like the wee flowers that sprout after a spring’s rain.” With a sigh, the old man looked longingly into space.

  Grif and Hugh exchanged a look of surprise.

  Dudley suddenly seemed to remember himself, and looked sheepishly at the two of them before straightening up in his seat, tugging at his waistcoat self-consciously. “Aye, I’m an old man, that I am, but I’m a man nonetheless.”

  “As for me… I’m partial to the skin,” Grif said, still grinning at Dudley. “Smooth like velvet, pale as moonlight.”

  “And her scent,” Hugh added wistfully. “A woman’s scent will make a man’s blood boil, aye? And her shape, mind ye—there’s naugh’ more pleasing than the shape of a woman’s bum. Or her bosom.”

  “Or her delicate hands,” Dudley added.

  “Aye, and donna forget her neck,” Grif added in a murmur. “And her smile. Ye’d think the sun rose in a woman’s smile, ye would.”

  “What of the eyes?” Hugh asked, motioning absently to his own eyes. “A woman has a way of looking at ye that makes ye believe she can see all the way to yer toes, aye?”

  All three men sighed then, lost in their individual thoughts, their contemplative silence broken only by the entry of Miss Brody, who walked through the service door only to stop dead in her tracks. She looked at the three of them. “What’s gone on?” she asked in a lilting Irish brogue. “Did the roast no’ agree with ye?”

  The three men turned and looked at her, each of them smiling wolfishly.

  Later that night, Grif lay awake into the morning hours racking his brain for a way out of his latest predicament with Anna Addison. And when no solution came to him, he lay awake until dawn trying to think exactly how he might go about teaching a woman to seduce a man.

  It wasn’t that he hadn’t been seduced in his life, for certainly he had. But even in those instances he had been blatantly seduced, the complete seduction had been more of an air, an unspoken, impalpable aura of sex that engulfed him, than it was a single act.

  And he could not, for the life of him, imagine that aur
a surrounding Miss Addison.

  He was waiting for her promptly at three o’clock, the agreed-upon time, anxious to have it over and done with. Dudley showed her to the main drawing room, where they would commence this loathsome task.

  Grif was seated in an overstuffed damask chair when she came in, his legs crossed, his fingers templed when she entered.

  She looked, he thought, remarkably improved from yesterday’s unpleasant encounter—meaning, of course, the demon sparkle had returned to her copper eyes. She was dressed in a somber brown gown with sleeves puffed up at the shoulders and a demure neckline that hid her bosom. The gown was not quite floor-length, and he could see delicate slippers peeking out from underneath the heavily ribboned hem. In spite of knowing little about the art of seduction, he knew this—she did not look like a woman who intended to seduce a member of the opposite sex.

  Nevertheless, he nodded curtly as Dudley shut the door behind her, and kept his expression carefully indifferent. “Miss Addison.”

  “My, ah…lord,” she said, and tossed her gloves, bonnet, and reticule to a settee. “I beg your pardon, but now that we have embarked on a new arrangement, might you have another…perhaps authentic… name?” she asked.

  “Ah,” he said pleasantly. “I see ye’ve wasted no time in removing yer gloves, as it were. If ye feel ye have a need to address me at all, then ye may as well know me as Lockhart.”

  That prompted a narrowing of her eyes and she flashed a devilish smile like the spawn she was. “I knew it,” she breathed, her voice full of self-righteousness. “I knew there was a resemblance!”

  Grif shrugged. “Yer suspicions are thus confirmed.”

  “And your Christian name, might I ask?”

  He sighed. “Griffin. Griffin Finnius Lockhart. Grif, as I’m known.”

  “You’re the captain’s brother, aren’t you?” she asked, grinning triumphantly at his nod. “And Drake Lockhart’s cousin, then?”

  “Aye,” he said wearily.

  Her smile faded into a puzzled frown. “I don’t understand—why doesn’t he know who you are?”