Jules stared at the woman before him. He had intended to deny Claire’s claims privately, then send her away. He had created her. He could uninvent her just as easily. He would simply fabricate some reason for her slipping into the night. But with his senses still reeling from the kiss they had shared, he could do no such thing.
Instead, he reached for Claire’s hand, led her to a chair, and bade her sit while he talked with the others—Nicholas and Jane, Hollister, and Margaret. David joined them as well after settling the horses in the stable.
For a moment Jules ached at the sight of Jane and her gently rounded belly. “You look well, and happy,” he said to the only woman he would ever love.
Jules quickly forced his emotion deep inside himself. Jane had chosen another. Contentment with her husband shone in her eyes as Nicholas moved behind Jane and pulled her against his chest.
“We are so happy to see you, Jules. Especially in light of your secret courtship, engagement, and marriage,” Jane said with a soft smile.
“We were quite concerned after we learned your father and brother both passed away three weeks ago. It could not have been easy to lose them both so suddenly,” Nicholas said as he narrowed his gaze on Jules. Did Nicholas still see him as he was seven months ago—weak and physically diminished from his imprisonment in gaol and sorrowful after losing Jane’s hand to him?
Jules felt none of those things. He had worked hard over the last several months to rebuild the strength that prison had robbed from him. He was in the best shape of his life, if truth be told. And sorrow? That emotion had shriveled in the darkness of his prison cell each and every day that he had waited for his father to come and release him, until finally it had existed no more.
“Let us not talk of the past,” Jules said, perhaps a bit too brightly, for his words brought a frown to Jane’s lips. “Sit, relax.” He turned to Fin. “Will you bring us some tea and refreshments?”
The aging servant nodded, and was gone only a short time before he returned with the tea. Fin hesitated for a moment as he looked from one woman to the next. A frown pulled down the corners of his mouth.
“Why not allow Lady Kildare to serve her guests?” Jules said, interpreting Fin’s hesitation of uncertainty as to which woman should serve. At that suggestion, Fin’s frown vanished, and he proceeded toward Jules’s supposed wife.
Jules paused at his own admission. His gaze lingered on Claire as she accepted the task of pouring the tea and serving freshly baked scones to their guests. Who was this pretender? This interloper in his life?
The woman was unknown to him, but he could not fault her impeccable manners as she finished her task and returned to her chair. She met his gaze. Her large almond-shaped eyes, their color a mixture between brown and gold, challenged him to publicly renounce her in front of his friends.
He met her gaze with a nod of thanks for treating his friends well for the moment, yet a growing restlessness surged inside him to get her alone and ask her what she was about. Why was she using his friends to get close to him? And why had she assumed the identity of a woman who did not exist?
She dropped her gaze to the delicate teacup in her hands—a teacup he had purchased only a day ago from a widow in the village with funds he had secured by selling every carpet in the manor house. That cup didn’t belong in her small hands; she’d no right to make it seem appropriate. But even as she sipped serenely, Jules could see a vibrant energy that exuded from her wide eyes to every line of her svelte and attractive form. She set down her cup, then reached up to brush an errant strand of copper hair away from her high, chiseled cheeks set in an oval of perfect porcelain skin.
He did not choose her, but he could not deny that she was beautiful, despite the tight chignon that pulled her hair off her face. Perhaps the woman had a pleasant form—if her colorless gray dress did not conceal too many faults. The virginal gown marked her as a cosseted, easily dismissed woman of society—a society he wanted no part of.
Jules closed his eyes and took a deep breath. If this woman wanted to be part of society, then why attach herself to him? All he desired was to rebuild what his father and brother had destroyed. He wanted to be left alone to deal with the estate and try to carve out a living for himself. It wasn’t that much to ask, was it?
He opened his eyes and, almost against his will, his gaze returned to his “wife’s” eyes—eyes that sparked with intelligence. The thought brought a moment’s pause as her gaze connected with his. She did not look like a schemer. In fact, she looked very much like someone he and his friends might actually befriend.
She did not react to his bold stare. Instead, she folded her hands in her lap. What secrets lay behind those wide, golden eyes? Why would a woman of her obvious good breeding and education pretend to be the wife of a man she did not know?
He tried to look away from her and the mystery she presented, to shift his attention back to Jane, but something about this woman drew him in. Despite her horrible dress, and her severe hair, she had a presence that was hard to deny. It was as if she were unaware of her own energy, or how the slightest shift of her movements could fix any man’s attention.
Jules frowned. What was he thinking? The woman was a fraud. She wanted something from him. Why else would she pose as Claire MacIntyre? He needed to figure out what that “something” was, and quickly, before she attached herself to his friends and his life.
He moved to Claire’s side, offered his hand to help her stand. She set her cup aside and accepted his outstretched fingers. When she stood, he slipped his hand about her waist, drawing her against his side. She startled at the contact, but did not object. Instead she tossed him a half smile and released a light laugh.
Jules forced a look of fondness mixed with hunger into his expression. The hunger part was easier to feign as his supposed wife’s soft body pressed against his own. It had been years since he had held a woman this intimately. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath of lavender mixed with vanilla. The combination sent a jolt of fire to his loins. He snapped his eyes open, no longer having to feign desire for the woman in his arms.
“Friends, if you will forgive us, Claire and I have much to discuss. We have been apart too long.” Jules did not wait for an answer from his guests as he guided Claire toward the door and out of the chamber. He shut the door behind him, then guided his “bride” to the main hallway, then up the stairs.
“Where are we going?” Claire asked with only a hint of distress in her voice.
“To your new chamber.”
She stiffened, but did not break her stride. “The master’s chamber?”
“No, you will have to earn your way there, my dear.” Annoyance tugged at him as he drew her down another hallway and toward the rear of the manor. He could not merely send her away, not with his friends here to witness such an act. He was obliged to play along with this farce for a time.
At the end of the hallway, he waved the woman at his side up another spiral stairway and into the tower room. She came to a stop in the middle of the tiny, dusty chamber, so different than the one downstairs, while he moved to the hearth and lit a single candle with a strike from the flint and steel.
Pale, golden light illuminated the room, making it appear less neglected. The only furniture in the chamber was a small, sagging bed. She could find some comfort here. Jules frowned and pushed the thought away. He turned back to the woman. She clutched her hands together, her nervousness palpable. She exuded fragility and weakness.
“You no longer need to pretend with me, Claire. If that is your real name.” Jules gazed into her face, searching for the duplicity he was sure to find in her large, golden eyes.
She held his gaze. Met it boldly. “My name is Claire. And I am your wife.”
“Yet how can that be? I never stood before the minister. Have you, Claire?” The sound of her name lingered on his tongue longer than it should have. He had pulled that name from the air when he had created his false wife, not from anyone he had ev
er known or cared to attach himself to.
“Ours was a wedding by proxy, or have you forgotten what you requested of your solicitor?”
Jules frowned. “Of what do you speak?”
She returned his frown. “Our marriage arrangements.”
Jules stared down at her. She was as good a player as he had ever seen upon the stage, he would give her that. “We,” he paused, allowing the word to hang between them, “never had anything between us until this day.”
She did not acquiesce to his rebuttal. Instead, she straightened. Her spine stiffened. She might be a head shorter than he, but she stood her ground, met his gaze, then raised her brow in a coolly superior way. “I refuse to be offended by your lack of memory.” She leaned forward and sniffed him. “I smell no spirits about you, but your family does have a reputation . . .” She turned away.
He had no intention of being so easily dismissed. He reached for her hand and held her captive. “What is your name?”
“Claire MacIntyre, Lady Kildare.”
He frowned. “Before that.”
She lifted her chin. “Claire Elliot of Edinburgh. I was the only child of the notable Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist known for his philosophical empiricism. My mother was a commoner. They both died when I was fourteen.” She frowned at him. “Really, Lord Kildare, I would have thought you’d have checked on my background before asking me to be your bride.”
“No more games. Tell me the truth. Why are you here?”
Her gaze moved to where his fingers held her, then moved to his face. A faint flush touched her pale cheeks, and her eyes blazed, her anger obvious.
He took a slow step toward her, looming over her as his own temper stirred. “Answer me.” His nerves flicked at the soft scent of lavender, and he leaned back slightly.
She did not retreat from him, did not react in any way to his blatant intimidation other than to take a quick breath. “If you recall,” she said, her voice steely, “you sent your solicitor to me with your offer of marriage.”
Jules frowned. “My solicitor?”
“A Mr. James Grayson. If I recall correctly, he is located near Parliament Hall.”
“Grayson had no such orders.” Jules narrowed his gaze. He knew his solicitor well enough to know that he would never betray his client in such a way.
Damn, the woman was good at her deceptions. She had done her research well to discover his solicitor’s name and his place of business. He studied her eyes; at such close proximity and in the dimly lit room they gleamed like burnished gold, shadowed and mysterious. Her eyes gave him no insight into her thoughts.
“Your solicitor stood as your proxy at St. Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh. He then sent me directions to your friends so that they might escort me here, to you.”
Her breathing had quickened, but she seemed otherwise at ease with her lies. The air between them all but crackled. “That cannot be.”
“Oh but it is,” she said, her voice smooth.
“Let us pretend for a moment that what you say is true.” His own voice deepened. “Why would you accept the proposal from a total stranger, marry by proxy, then come to some unknown location to meet your new groom? What kind of woman does such a thing?”
“The kind of woman who has no other choice.” Her face paled and her expression closed.
Jules remained silent. He was not sure what he had expected her to say, but it was not that. “Why did you have no other option but to marry me?”
His anger ebbed and sympathy took its place for a moment before he forced it away. He clenched his hands at his sides as memory surged. There had been another time in his life when he had simply accepted a woman at her word. He had been filled with hope and possibility at the idea of finally having a mother in his life. But that illusion had taken him down a long, dark path. A path that ultimately led to his being accused of murder.
“Life for a woman is very different than it is for a man.” Claire’s eyes narrowed as she noted his change in demeanor, but she did not back down. Instead, her voice lowered, her tone as provocative as it was challenging. “With no family to support me, or wealth to my name, my options were few. When Mr. Grayson approached me with your offer—” She looked away. “Let us just say it was the lesser evil to marry you.”
The barb stung. “Are you certain about that?”
Her gaze returned to his. In her eyes he saw a momentary shadow.
“You cannot scare me, Lord Kildare. I know more about life and the vile places it can take a person than you ever will.”
At the unexpected response, he pressed his lips together. Was she a wanton, then? A fancy woman thinking to entrap him? She looked like an angel, but a comely appearance could hide a dark soul.
Jules clenched his fists at the direction of his thoughts. He could not lose himself to his past troubles. He had to stay focused on Claire—why she was here, what she intended with him.
He would not know until he did his own investigating. But before he spent the time and energy on his so called “wife,” he intended to speak with Grayson about her claims. Why would Grayson betray him, betray his creation of the “perfect” wife by finding a real woman to play the role?
As if sensing the direction of his thoughts, she said, “I am who I say I am. You will not deny me my rights as your wife, will you?”
He let a moment tick past before he answered her. “Until I have proof of our marriage, I cannot claim you to be anything but an interloper.”
Her lips curved into a cynical smile. “Very well. If that is how you will play this. But be aware that I am not going anywhere while you determine the truth behind my words. In the meantime, I intend to make our guests comfortable.” She turned away, heading toward the stairs.
He caught her hand and pulled her around, not harshly, as her fingers threaded with his before the touch ended. In that brief contact, an awareness arced between them, left him tingling and off balance. “And what about me, Claire? Will you act the part of wife for me?” Jules asked, attempting to sound fierce. Instead a husky timbre resonated in his voice.
Claire’s posture infused with unexpected steel. Her features hardened. The weakness he had seen earlier was no longer evident, and he realized there was more to this woman than he’d first thought. “There is room in this tiny chamber for only one of us, milord,” she said.
“Is that a challenge?” Ignoring all the warnings in his head, Jules reached for her hand once more, knowing as he did he was playing with fire.
She stepped out of his reach. “Think of it however you will, husband. I might be a woman who had no option but to accept what it was you or your solicitor offered on your behalf. But the marriage agreement I signed was very real. I am your wife.”
Her declaration goaded awake a long-dormant devil within him, a misplaced part of himself he had managed to temper over the years to a polished sheen of civility. Slowly, his eyes never leaving hers, he moved toward her. She tensed as he crept ever closer, until he was rewarded with her faint, intoxicating fragrance.
A flicker of surprise flared in her eyes and her breath whispered across his cheek a heartbeat before he pulled her forward, crushing her petal-soft mouth beneath his. For one heady moment her mouth was pliant, and then she fought, pushing him away.
The innocence of this exchange startled him. She had no audience before which to perform. And yet the kiss felt almost real . . .
Hot color flooded her cheeks. “You may only kiss me when I allow it,” she said, drawing back, her chest rising and falling with each rapid intake of breath.
“Well, then. If you are to remain here and impose on my hospitality, then you’d best get used to allowing me to kiss you frequently. For I will have some payment for my generosity.”
She gasped.
He smiled, feeling once more in control of the situation. “You are not my wife. You are a creation of my own making, and one I intend to rid myself of as easily as you were created.”
&nb
sp; She frowned. “I will not make that easy.”
His smile increased. “Yet another challenge, my dear?”
She delivered him a sharp, angry glance. “You cannot drive me away.”
Again, that devilish side of himself reared and without hesitation he acted. He grasped her hand, spinning her around, and pulled her backside against his chest, pinning her free arm to her side.
“Consider your challenge accepted,” he breathed against the back of her ear.
She struggled in his grasp, but her movements were hampered by her heavy skirts. Still, one booted foot came down on his instep, drawing a hiss of pain from him. And as quickly as the pain came and went, so too did the sudden realization of how intimately he held her. As her buttocks pressed against his loins, desire, slid down his spine. For a heartbeat he allowed the indulgence, basked in the sensation of feeling alive again, feeling lust, desire, and physical need like he had not in so many years. He might have a reputation as a reprobate thanks to his stepmother and her gossip amongst the servants, but the reality was nothing of the sort.
In that moment of relaxing his guard while his thoughts wandered, Claire pulled out of his grasp. And with a rapid intake of breath and a swish of her skirts, she disappeared down the stairs.
He stared after her, and a sensual image of Claire reclining naked upon the small, sagging bed ambushed him, flooding his mind, filling his senses. He breathed sharply. Her scent lingered in the room. His body tightened further at the sweet torture she had evoked. The woman was an intruder in his life, yet she bewitched him like no other woman before.
Even Jane.
His heart raced at the realization. How could he possibly be bewitched by such a scheming interloper as Claire Elliot, when Jane, in all her perfection, was in a room belowstairs?
One exchange with Claire and he had forgotten all about the woman he’d loved since he was twelve years old.
Jules released a heartfelt groan. For that very reason, he had to get rid of Claire.
But before he could do that, he had to summon Grayson. Perhaps his solicitor could shed some much-needed light on exactly what had transpired. That also meant he would need to hire a messenger to summon him.
Highland Bachelor 02 - This Laird of Mine Page 3