A Faerie Fated Forever (11 page)

He got up and strode to the window, unable to face his friend as he bared his soul in a manner that the other man would see as a weakness. “Heather is my fate and the key to my happiness and my future. I love her. I would kill for her and I would die for her. I would give my life and my soul for her happiness or welfare and consider that I had made the better bargain.”

“Boz,” he turned to face the other man. Although his cousin was not a full-blooded Scot, he would understand what Nial was about to say. He would know it was an admission the laird could make to no other person on earth. “I'd give up my clan for Heather. I'd betray my clan for her.”

"Damn," Boz swore. "Two shots of whiskey but you hold a hell of a lot more than that. You're still sober. I intended to stay out of this, but I've enough Scot's blood to know that to a Highlander, clan is life. You're the laird entrusted with responsibility for your clan's well being and survival. For you of all men to make such an admission, well, you're right, I can't comprehend it. Yet, it signifies a love so immense, a commitment so profound, that I must respect it."

"So you'll help?"

In reply Boz smiled.

Nial didn’t. He poured yet another glass of the potent whiskey and paced. Then he downed it in a single gulp and threw the glass on the floor, where it shattered loudly.

“What the hell does it matter anyway? You said she hated me,” he stared at the glass with satisfaction. He felt a lot like those broken shards.

“That’s right. I saw the hate. The hate was visible.” He stood and walked over to his cousin and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t have the faeries but I do have the dratted Sedgewick sixth sense, and with that I also saw the love. It’s still there too.”

At the word, at the possibility that some of her love for him survived, Nial's whole expression changed, like the Angel Gabriel's decision had gone the right way. A knock came at the door and the footman brought Boz a note. He read it and crumpled it up and threw it on the floor, beside the shattered glass.

“Bloody hell. Bloody everlasting, eternal hell.”

“What’s wrong?” Nial’s face clenched. He stood, about to rip the note from his friend’s hands. She hadn’t eloped or something had she?

“Almacks,” said Boz, with the expression of one who has just eaten something particularly nasty.

“What’s so bad about Almacks?” Asked Nial, surprised to find that he was still able to smile. A few days ago, he hadn’t thought he would ever smile again.

“Marriage Mart Central, that’s what it is all right. When I show up there it’ll be all over the
ton
in no time that I’m looking for a bride. For the rest of the bloody season I’ll have title hunting females tracking me like wild game. Worse, when I show up there with you, who somehow exudes sex from your pores, we just might get trampled.”

At that, Nial found he could still laugh too. “I exude sex from my pores?”

“It must be sheer animal magnetism, old boy,” said Boz, who knew better than to try to put into words the aura his cousin wore not only without effort, but actually contrary to his own wishes.

Being a Highlander, Nial would rather inspire fear than desire. Yet he was savvy enough to be aware of his appeal and to use it, along with his formidable skill with weapons and warfare, to conquer his enemies. Once, the laird of a rival clan had butchered a newly wed couple of the Clan Maclee because the bride had rejected his advances. Nial seduced the laird’s mistress and got her to open a hidden passageway to his castle. He was able to avenge his clansmen by killing the laird without even raising the alarm in the butcher's castle.

“I hope you have a suit I can borrow that will do for tonight. I’d better get over to a tailor to order some clothing made, if I’m to run with your fashionable set,” said the laird, conscious suddenly of a need to dress to impress that he had never felt before. He’d not be bloody outdone by Badgerton.

“I’ll ask Mother to scout something out and send for a tailor to come in and take measurements and do the immediate alterations. Mum will make sure you are in the nick. We should turn our attention to the question of strategy,” Boz commented, stretching his long legs out on the sofa.

“Strategy for what?’ Maclee asked, seating himself in a rocker that would allow him to move while he sat – he was starting to feel a wee bit antsy again.

“For getting a lady who professes to hate you beyond all else to admit that all the passion she spews at the mention of your name arises from another emotion entirely.”

The other man sighed deeply. “Can’t I just apologize profusely, kiss the stuffing out of her, and carry her away on my horse?”

“Sure. If you don’t mind risking a knife in your back, but I'm way too aware of the uncertain quality of the female temperament to allow you to take that chance."

“It would put a damper on the honeymoon I have planned – the long honeymoon.” Nial shook his head regretfully, but gave in with good grace, saying, “Do you have any suggestions?”

“If you chase her she might run whether or not she wants to. She may run because she thinks she is supposed to. Amorous pursuit is not the answer. You can sneak under the defenses she has erected against you as a husband by presenting yourself as a friend. Two friends from Skye on the marriage mart in merry old London would certainly spend time together.” Boz stopped in mid thought and started laughing, and said “of course.”

“What?” The Scot found the suggestion intriguing, but went into the conversation doubting he’d be able to pull it off, thanks to those claws of passion.

“If you were looking for a worthy bride to take home to Kilcuillin, you would naturally seek the advice of a female friend from Skye, if she just happened to be right here, wouldn’t you?”

Nial started to smile, “Of course I would.”

“A little jealousy, an accidental kiss or two…”

“Or three or four or five.”

“A mere slip up, an accident that could easily happen with a friend who is a female --- and Heather will decide that she should be the wife by your side, and in your bed on that isle that you both love so much.”

“Boz, you are devious, underhanded and positively Machiavellian,” Nial admired the strategy.

“It’s a gift,” said the duke, all false humility.

“Must be why we’re so close,” said Maclee as he quirked a brow. “One word of caution about your outstanding plan, cuz” he said in wry self-appraisal. “I can’t promise anything. I’m not at all certain of my control with her. While it is a grand plan, I think it is doomed to failure. ”

“Not certain of your control?” Sedgewick asked. “The man the cyprians adore because he ‘tends their gardens o’er and o’er’ before seeing to his own? The man who pontificated to me on his last visit that ‘a man without control can’t call himself a man’.”

“I need her so badly, that when she is finally within reach, I'm pretty damn sure I won’t be able to control how my body reacts. However, I will try,” Nial added, preparing to take off upstairs to subject himself to modeling various outfits for the dowager duchess, and to await the tailor for alterations. "Where are you headed?"

"I'm going to see Lady Sarah Jersey, one of the famed patronesses of Almack’s, to get a stranger’s ticket for you, which is not a big deal." He wiggled his eyebrows as he added, "My lofty ducal consequence will stretch to a stranger's ticket easily enough."

"But you stopped and sent a note to someone a bit ago. Are you going to see someone else or will you ask something that you fear your mighty consequence won't cover?"

"I'm going to ask a huge favor. I'm going to ask Lady Jersey to misplace Heather's dance card. That way your lady-to-be won't know that you're slated to partner a couple of her dances. Because such a favor violates the code that the bastion of society rules itself by, I sent a note to ask that Lord Jersey join our little conversation."

"Do you have some hold over the husband?"

"The man makes a bloody pest of himself begging me to allow him to invest in one of my shipping ventures which tend to turn rather a handsome profit. I don't take partners because I prefer to underwrite the ventures alone. That way, all the risk and all the profit are mine. However, it seems that Lord Jersey’s ship is about to come in."

CHAPTER TEN

“Viv,” Heather said, grasping her cousin’s arm, “I now know what a target feels like.”

“I’ve never heard of anyone’s dance card being misplaced at Almack’s. How does it feel to make history?”

“It feels like I’m the bull’s eye, waiting for some unknown male to strike,” she said with a grimace. “Tonight, when he does, I am commanded by your etiquette to pretend not to notice that the man’s eyes rarely look away from the neckline of my gown,” she said, rolling her eyes at her idiocy in wearing the cream silk gown that just barely hid her nipples.

“Well, I say your mother's right. If you’ve got a great lure, you’re silly not to use it. Besides, lots of other girls are wearing lower gowns. You just feel bare because you are so used to those wretched sacks,” Viv said, rolling her eyes.

She didn’t disagree verbally, but she was pretty sure she felt awkward because men were looking at her and thinking her odd.

Geoff joined them, which was not unexpected. Lately, he was either with her or somewhere nearby. At the Craymont ball, a number of the men had been particularly attentive. When she and Viv exited the lady’s retiring room, he was standing against a nearby wall and hopped to attention as soon as he saw them. He followed them back to the ballroom. Viv swore that every time she opened a door she expected Geoff to pop out.

“Are you quite sure that gown is proper, Heather?” Badgerton asked. He'd spent his entire night threatening every man about to walk on the dance floor with her. It hadn’t bloody helped.

Viv didn’t particularly like the man, which might account for why she said, “I’ve noticed you enjoying the view. Isn’t it hypocritical for you to complain if others look?”

His eyes narrowed to slits. “You wouldn’t know this personally, Viv, but when a man finds a special lady, he doesn’t want to share the views he may enjoy with any others. Take heart, maybe someday, someone will find you special and you will understand.”

Seeing the hurt in her friend’s eyes at the accusation, which wasn’t even true – many had proposed to Viv but all had been rejected - Heather grew angry, and whirled on him, “Apologize to her right now.”

He did, but all the while he watched Heather. She didn't know that passion sparkled in her eyes, or that her rapid breaths made her breasts thrust forward. All she knew was that his eyes heated, which made her uneasy. She feared his passion because she couldn’t muster any of her own for him. In truth, she had felt more passion from Nial holding her hand than from Geoff’s embrace.

She felt a prickling of the hairs on the back of her neck, and a sudden burst of warmth that she hadn’t experienced since she fled Kilcuillin. Had she summoned Nial by thinking of him? She didn’t have long to ponder for the musicians returned and her new arrow, errr, partner approached. She stepped into the dance with the prickling feeling persisting.

******

When Nial and Boz entered the room, every debutante and her mother went on high alert. It was impossible not to notice the attack of primping, pointing and panting.

“It feels much like the moments right before a battle with a rival clan,” Nial noted impatiently, because all the fussing was keeping him from his goal.

“Actually,” Boz said, clapping a hand on his shoulder, “an enemy clan would show more mercy than this group.”

The posturing of the campaigning females held little fear for the Scot. However, he did grow annoyed when the first one who snagged his arm managed to accidentally rub her breasts against him twice in less than a minute. Then she gave up on subtlety altogether and put her hands on his bottom, but he gave her an angry glare and the Maclee swipe, which removed the offending appendage. After that, he gave up any attempt at politeness and walked away in the middle of her second comment about the weather.

He needed to see Heather this minute. It had become a physical necessity. He stalked over to an area near some potted plants. He was scouring the chairs along the wall looking for her when she whirled by in the arms of a dancing partner. He stopped breathing, his heart stopped beating and it seemed that the universe itself paused for a moment as he beheld her in her new glory. She was moonlight and magic on a wildflower-strewn peak of the Cuillins. She was the whisper of the ocean in the still of the night. She was the hidden loch after a day when every person he encountered demanded something of him. She was the repository of his soul.

How had he missed this?

He realized that his spirit had overtaken his eyes in reacting to her. Too bad it was several months late, or they would be wed by now, and he wouldn’t be standing here thinking about how many ways there are to geld a tall Englishman. She was a panther in a room full of tabby cats. The damned
Sassannach
who held her too close might have missed the qualities of her spirit that made her unique, but the ass missed nothing about the body that the spirit inhabited. Maybe he’d have to pluck the bastard’s eyes out before he gelded him.

Normally Nial wouldn’t blame any other man for looking because he looked often enough himself. This time, he felt ready to kill a man for looking, and he bloody well would if the son of a bitch didn’t keep his eyes off Heather’s neckline. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. He’d heard other men describe jealousy, but this was his first personal experience with the emotion.

Dear Lord, she was spectacular.

The silk hugged her as closely as he would in the years to come. Her full breasts swelled above the neckline of the gown, and it fit her hips, highlighting their graceful sway. When she twirled in her partner’s arms, he saw that the gown cupped her rear like a lover. He ached to cup it with his hands. He burned for her and…..

He felt himself being dragged behind a tall fern. He darted half a glance at Boz who wore a fierce expression.

“Bloody hell. She can’t see you like that! If the heat in your eyes doesn’t give the game away, the fit of your pants will warn her that it isn’t friendship you are interested in.”

Cheerful again just because he was in her presence, Nial said, “I do want friendship – among other things. I already told you I don’t believe your plan will work. I’ll try but I think I’m too bloody jealous to give it a real chance.” He returned to watching Heather. “Is that the bastard, Badgerton?”

“No, and again, I tell you that Badgerton is a nice chap.”

“Which one is he?” He scanned the men watching the dance floor, until he spotted a tall blonde watching the leering Englishman holding Heather with nearly as much malevolent intent as he. “Never mind, I see him.”

“Where?”

“There. The blonde who would be second in line to kill the lecherous fop holding my Heather.”

“Yes,” Boz smiled at the description, “that’s Geoff, ” he agreed a moment before he seized Nial’s arm to drag him out of the foliage. “Now get a hold of yourself, man. I’ve spotted your first dancing partner and your number is coming up.”

“You engaged me to dance with someone other than Heather?” He was aghast at the thought. He only wanted Heather.

In the same tone he would use with a toddler, Sedgewick said, “It will be difficult to convince Heather that you need friendly advice on courting if you are not doing any of it.”

“She's too sharp to believe that the fire that is only in my eyes when I look at her is for other women.”

“Either way, you’re booked to dance with other ladies. For God’s sake, you can try to damp down the fire.”

“Bloody hell,” was Nial’s less than enthusiastic reply as he approached Lady Elizabeth Montwell, who was to be the first act in the private play they would stage for Heather.

Boz grinned at Nial's grim expression. Most men would view dancing with the lovely blonde with some degree of anticipation. He nodded approvingly as Nial managed to assume an acceptably bland expression as he took her hand and headed for the dance floor.

When a familiar bottom swirled by Heather's face blanched. She put a hand to her throat as a twirl of the blonde turned Nial to face her. “My God,” she murmured “It can’t be. Why would he be here?”

“Who? Are you all right?” Geoff followed her eyes. "What's his deal? Most men would be dragging her off to a quiet corner." As the hands on the dance floor grew bolder in their caresses of the tall black-haired bloke, he asked, "What on earth is wrong with Liz? She has her hands all over him.”

Heather huffed in exasperation. “He has that effect on women.”

Geoff succeeded in attracting her attention away from the man momentarily by asking about the man Viv was dancing with.

“He is another of her cast offs. She vows that she will never marry because she doesn’t want any man to control her future. Viv says….” She broke off in the middle of her story when the voice that haunted her dreams nightly whispered in her ear.

“Hello, Heather. I had to speak with the panther in this room of tabbies.”

She turned to him. “Nial! I saw you dance by a moment ago. What are you doing in England?”

He gestured and she held out her hand to be kissed. He told himself to plant a polite kiss on the back of her hand and back off. When his lips touched her fingers a strong physical jolt traveled through his body, vibrating between his heart and his manhood. It felt like he had slept all of his life and awoke just now, at her touch. Even the insipid English ballroom felt like a brand new adventure because she occupied it. He had felt a smaller connection before but had been stupid enough to discount it.

He didn’t discount it now. He allowed his tongue a brief caress of her fingers before he released her hand. It could have been accidental, though it wasn’t. His eyes held hers in that moment, and when he saw her blush as her lips parted slightly as though she had to draw in more air to breathe, he knew that at least she wasn’t immune to him physically. He almost fell to his knees in gratitude.

He smiled then, a seductive knowing smile that dazzled Heather. Such a small thing, but she had dreamed for years of having him look at her thus, even once.

They were drowning in each other and could see nothing else. Certainly, they could not see Geoff, but he was about to take some pretty drastic action. To prevent the imminent social disaster that would ensue, Sedgewick spoke up.

“Lady Heather, you are all that is lovely tonight, and I see you do know my cousin Nial. Skye is such a small place, that I thought you might.” Boz kept his tone casual in an attempt to deflect the charged atmosphere between the other two men that Heather wasn’t even aware of.

“Certainly I know Nial. We are friends. My family has known his for many years,” she said carefully, trying not to look like her world had just been upended – even if that was exactly how she felt.

Hearing her describe their relationship that way was a sucker punch to the gut. His jaw tightened in response. Now she wanted to be just friends? Not on her life. Any charade would be short lived, assuming he could play it at all. It would have to be, because he didn’t know how long he could refrain from smashing Badgerton into tiny bits.

It eased him a bit that Heather still held his arm, although the wariness in her eyes knifed his soul. She had a thick wall protecting her heart. His task would not be easy. But she held his arm, his heart, and his future. He was finally in her presence again. It was a start.

When Nial made a point of telling her how well young Fergus was doing, her eyes lit up wildly. “How did you come to see him, Nial?”

“I’ve been stopping by to check on him and his family to be sure the lad was well,” he said generally, not telling Heather how astounded the crofters had been by each visit. He especially didn’t mention how it bewildered them that the laird spent most of the visits staring at an empty stool beside the boy’s bed.

At those words, he was her prince again – albeit Nial knew it would only be seconds before she recalled that she now thought him to be a frog instead. The entranced expression Heather wore at his words told him how much the gesture meant to her.

She stood up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek and give him a hug as she whispered, “Oh Nial. What a sweetheart you are. Thank you.”

“Heather, you have been with the
Sassannach
too long if you think that is how a Highland lass says thank you.” He quirked a brow in challenge, never expecting her to take up the gauntlet because he was still having trouble reconciling the shy odd lass who had been his friend with the panther who stood before him.

The twinkling mischief in her eyes told him otherwise only a moment before her lips met his in what would have been a quick kiss, except that he was starving for a taste of her. He lengthened the moment, even as he ordered himself not to. His starving senses seized control of his will. For an all too brief frozen moment, his arms held her to him tightly as he sipped at her lips. When the kiss ended one of his hands remained on the small of her back in a gesture that Heather never thought to protest because it felt so natural and because, well, it was Nial.

His free hand twirled a loose curl that was both sandy and chocolate, as he leaned close to her ear and said, “
Ho ro mo nighean donn boidheach.”

Boz glared at Nial, who shrugged apologetically. Boz glared harder, for the apology was supremely insincere. The duke stood close to Geoff, which was a good thing as it happened. He had to put out a restraining hand when Geoff moved forward, intending to physically separate the couple.