Edith Layton (22 page)

Never, never, never, she thought dazedly, never had she known a man’s kisses could turn her inside out like this. She yearned to give him more, be closer still, be part of him. He did his best to accommodate her.

He slid her gown from her shoulder, and when she shivered, closed his hand over her breast, and felt her shiver more. Her breast fit into his hand, the nipple crested. No power on earth could have stopped him from bending his head and tasting the small hot point that had been boring into his palm. It was incredibly
sweet, as was the sound of her stifled gasp and tiny moan. Her body tensed, and he knew it wasn’t yet ecstasy, so he put his lips on her outflung neck and murmured all the reasons why this was so good, for him, and her, for them.

She clung to him and looked down as his mouth found her breast again. His hair was clean and shining, dark as moonlight on still water, soft and clean against her lips. His scent was faint, but sweet and spicy, dizzying as two glasses of hot Christmas punch. She discovered that her breath in his ear made him shudder, and that made her shake. He radiated heat, he made her head spin and her body tingle. Nothing she’d ever known had ever been this exciting.

“Yes,” he murmured as his hand slid to her bottom and pressed her tightly to his yearning body.

She gasped at the unfamiliar feel of his muscular body straining against hers. A woman with three younger brothers had to know what was happening to him. A woman who’d grown up on a farm knew what might happen to her next, too. And a good woman ought to worry. But she couldn’t. This man was
Alasdair
, and he wanted her. He was experienced and wise, and surely he’d stop this before the unimaginable happened. That would be too bad, she thought, as his lips met hers again.

She was lost in a world of his making, and he was disappearing into a world where only she existed. They heard their own hearts beating, their own breath catching, the blood thundering in their own ears. But then the real world intruded.

“Kate!”
Lord Swanson cried.

“Alasdair!”
Leigh said in exasperation.

Kate sprang away, saw the two men standing in the taproom, saw the direction of their stares, and gasped.
She ducked her addled head and burrowed into Alasdair’s arms as he pulled her close again. He turned her so she could pull her gown up over her exposed breasts, as he mildly regarded their dumbfounded gazes. He didn’t look embarrassed. He ignored his outraged friend and the shocked Lord Swanson. Instead, he turned his full attention on Kate. The look he gave her was suddenly grave, and full of inquiry.

They stared at each other. She’d doubted, but now she knew exactly what he was asking. Her eyes widened. He gave her a small smile, and nodded. A dozen objections rose to her lips, so many they crowded each other out. She stood silent, trying to choose the right one to say first.
He was only being gentlemanly, he’d been trapped as surely as Lady Eleanora had tried to snare him when they’d met, he could do better
….

And then, in spite of the staggered company watching them, he lowered his head and gave her a long and tender kiss.

Kate was stunned, but after a second, comforted against all reason, and flung her arms around his neck again. When he lifted his head he gazed at her, humor, affection and understanding gleaming in his eyes.

She knew what he’d asked and what she’d answered. The time for talking could come later. Because, Lord! how she wanted this. She closed her dazzled eyes, and nodded.

He grinned.

“Congratulate me, gentlemen,” Alasdair said, smiling widely. “I found Kate, as you see. And being lucky beyond my merits, as you can also see, I’ve found my future wife, too.”

“A
re you certain about this?” Lord Swanson asked Kate.

They were sitting at a table in the taproom of the Excelsior, apart from the others in the room. The innkeeper, his wife, son, a few excited travelers who had been guests, and the Excelsior’s serving staff, were otherwise occupied, explaining their adventure again to Alasdair, his friend Leigh, some neighbors, and the local magistrate, who’d been rousted from his dinner table to hear the dreadful tale.

This was the first time Lord Swanson had had a chance to speak to Kate alone. She was profoundly embarrassed and looked everywhere but at him. After all, he’d seen her half-naked in the arms of a man, and utterly absorbed in what she was doing with that man. But she discovered that didn’t bother her as much as the thought that he’d seen her naked breasts. In fact, she was glad he’d seen her with Alasdair. It made everything simpler.

“I’m certain,” she answered. “I’m sorry we were seen in such a compromising situation, but not because of the reason for it. He’d just asked me to marry him, you see.” That wasn’t precisely true, but Kate decided to worry about that later. She’d say anything to take that troubled look from her cousin’s face. His brow was furrowed, his eyes concerned. “It was an emotional moment,” she added, because that was certainly true.

“Asked you to marry him! Aha!” Lord Swanson said, sitting back as though that explained everything, which gave Kate a much better opinion of him and his marriage. No wonder the Swansons could put up with their daughters. Kate reasoned a man could put up with almost everything if he still had that sort of reaction remembering when he’d proposed to his own wife.

“He’d just proposed, had he? But had you accepted him?” he asked shrewdly.

She looked at him with new respect. “Not exactly,” she answered slowly, “so perhaps this is for the best then, isn’t it?”

“Only if you want him.”

She smiled because this time at least she could answer the whole truth. “Oh, I do,” she breathed. That sounded so matrimonial she blushed.

“You don’t have to marry him just because we came upon you at an…emotional moment,” Lord Swanson went on doggedly. “You’d been through much. I know you’ve said those dastards didn’t hurt you, but you must have been wild with anxiety and overjoyed with relief when you were freed at last. A person does strange things at such times. I’m not saying Sir Alasdair took advantage of the situation. But I am saying that his reputation implies that he might have, and so
neither Leigh nor I would breathe a word of this—or think worse of you—if you were to tell me it was only the excitement of the moment that stirred…other excitement. It happens, Kate. I don’t want you penalized for it.”

“You’re kind, cousin,” Kate said with heartfelt emotion. “But ‘penalized’ is the last word I’d use. It’s Sir Alasdair who might be that. Because, you see, I’ve come to care for him very much.”

He studied her. “Very well. But if you change your mind, there’ll be no harm done, I just want you to know that.”

Her gaze flew to his. “Oh, no! There’d be much harm done! At least, to me!”

Then he smiled and looked relieved at last.

It took another hour to get things sorted out, and then the innkeeper wouldn’t hear of them not staying to dinner as his guests.

“It’ll be raining soon again,” he told them after the magistrate had left with a description of the offenders. “Hear that rumbling? Another storm’s coming, unless I miss my guess. Fact, my feet tell me it’ll be a night of rolling storms. Fine thing to send you out into it without a good dinner after all you’ve done, Sir Alasdair. Or let you leave so sudden, miss, after the fright you took. Nor have a chance to reward you gentlemen,” he told Leigh and Lord Swanson.

“You’re ready to reward the immediate world,” Alasdair told him with a smile, “but your head must ache, and there’s no need.”

“Every need!” Mrs. Babbage exclaimed. “My old man here can rest his head, the cooking’s half-done. We’re a working inn here, sirs, and a fine one, too. We’d like to show you that. And we don’t want you
bearing away sad memories of the place, miss,” she told Kate seriously.

“As if I could!” Kate said, smiling up at Alasdair.

“Yes, then we’ll stay,” he told the innkeeper, not taking his eyes from Kate, “but only if you bring us your best wines as well as your best food, because we’ve something extraordinary to celebrate—something much more important than a lucky escape. I’m going to celebrate a luckier capture. I’m to be this lady’s prisoner for the rest of my life. So we’ll have your finest champagne, if you please.”

They had that, and more. They sat and shared toasts with the innkeeper and local gentry who’d come in to hear the exciting story, and then they had a more intimate party, an enormous feast, in the private dining room. Their hosts sent in wave after wave of soups and stews, masses of roasts, shoals of fish, soup dishes filled with custards and jellies, while thunder and lightning harried the night outside their snug parlor.

Lord Swanson had sent word home of Kate’s recovery, and now he sat and expanded in the warmth of relief, made merrier by the fine wines and food, and the laughter of his companions. He’d always thought of Sir Alasdair as a formidable fellow, a man of dark depths and wicked ironies, a man to watch carefully. He’d never been easy in his company. But his niece had wrought a miracle. Because though Sir Alasdair was no less masterful tonight, now he was overwhelming in his geniality. He was gracious, warm, full of charming and clever jests. His voice was deep and rich with affability. Even his craggy face looked milder, and it wasn’t just a trick of the cheery firelight. It was especially so when he gazed at Kate, which he did constantly.

They all dined so well and drank so many toasts
that when dinner was finally done they sat like a collection of stuffed ducks, unwilling or unable to rise from the table.

“Look at us!” Leigh laughed. “Gentlemen. Kate, I, for one—because I can’t be two like you and Alasdair”—he grinned at this sally, because he’d had enough wine to think it was wonderfully droll—“suggest we take the opportunity to test the Babbages’ inn further. I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’ve been filleted. Neat as a haddock, not a bone left in my body. It’s the food, the wine, and the result of our frenzied ride here, plus the enormous relief of finding everyone whole and well when we got here, and the further pleasure of discovering how well we could celebrate that…what was I saying? Ah, yes. What do you think of our staying the night and setting out for London in the morning?”

“You may, certainly,” Alasdair said. “I’ll do whatever Kate prefers. She might feel the need of a friendly female to confide in after her adventure. What do you say, Kate? Would you be more comfortable going home? Or would you want to stay on here?”

“Thank you,” she told him with a warm and only slightly woozy smile. “I’d like to go home, to share the good news with my parents. But that home’s too far from here. So I’d just as soon stay on and start back to London in the light.”

Her cousin stirred himself enough to summon a worried frown. “You may be engaged to marry, but you aren’t wed yet. I don’t know about you staying on here without a chaperone.”

This made everyone else at the table laugh, though Lord Swanson frowned because he couldn’t understand why.

“Cousin,” Kate said, taking pity on his confusion,
“I’ve been abducted. Gone from home in the company of strangers for a full day and everyone must know that by now. I doubt staying on here would make much difference to the gossips, and you, dear sir, are the best chaperone Society could want.”

“And she’s engaged to marry me,” Alasdair said softly, looking at her as though he couldn’t quite believe his good fortune, “so I’m afraid her reputation will be in tatters anyway.”

“Nonsense!” Lord Swanson exclaimed. “Marriage mends reputations. Well, what do you say, Kate? Mind,” he said, frowning again, “we’ll get a maid to stay with you, and no hopping out of your chamber on any excuse. And no wandering into any chambers neither,” he cautioned Alasdair. They knew how much he’d had to drink when he added, to Kate, “A man’s not the father of seven daughters without learning a thing or two. Surest way to snag a husband, but you’ve done that already, and it would only make me feel guiltier.”

“I’ll stay,” Kate said, “because I feel absolutely boneless, too! I could do with a good night’s rest. Though I think I’m still too excited to sleep!”

They decimated a tray of tarts, reduced the fruit and nut bowls to shambles, and finally, as another round of thunder rolled overhead, rose from the table and, after many groans and stretches, began to make their way to the guest bedchambers.

Kate hesitated at the door to the private parlor. “I’d like a word with you,” she told Alasdair, her eyes searching his, estimating his mood and sobriety.

But he was clearheaded, because his smile immediately faded. “Of course,” he answered, and to a frowning Lord Swanson, added, “Surely you’ll permit that, sir? There’s not much I can get up to in here now, what
with servants coming in to clear every other moment. I promise I’ll hand her over to the care of a worthy maid as soon as we have a chance to speak. Come, my lord. I do have a sense of propriety. And we are an engaged couple now. Surely that gives us a chance to speak privately for a few moments?”

Reluctantly, Lord Swanson nodded. And yawned. “Very well. Good night, then. I’ll see you all at breakfast—I hope,” he added darkly, watching Leigh make his way up the stairs, singing a school song he said he’d got “stuck in his head,” and walking like a blind man on ice.

Alasdair smiled. “Don’t worry. Leigh’s the most amiable drunk I ever met. The only thing alcohol does to him is improve his mood. Don’t worry about his safety, or our plans. He can find his way in the dark with a blindfold and his ankles shackled together. He’ll be fine in the morning. He rises with the larks with a clear head. I don’t know how he does it.”

“And you?” Lord Swanson asked.

“Don’t worry about me, or Kate,” Alasdair said. “I’ve a hard head. Besides, I don’t drink to excess. It’s too dangerous a habit for a cautious man. Whatever else I am, my lord, believe that I’m that.”

“Cautious indeed!” Kate told Alasdair the moment her cousin had gone. She and Alasdair went to the fireside so they could speak privately as the Excelsior’s staff cleared the table. “How cautious can you be?” she whispered, “You got trapped into offering for me.”

“What nonsense is this?” he asked, smiling down at her.

“You never actually asked for my hand,” she said, her face as filled with worry now as her cousin’s had been when he heard she was going to stay in a room alone with Alasdair. “Don’t think I don’t know that.
Such things are important. One can’t
surmise
a proposal, and that’s just what I did, because we had to when my cousin walked in, I know. But I am not a Lady Eleanora! We were both carried away, and happened to be caught when we were.”

She took a breath. “So,” she said a little grimly, “I wanted to tell you now that this doesn’t have to go much further.” She frowned. “Well, it has to go a little further or my cousin will suspect the truth. So, after we get back to London—give it a week, I think. Then we can announce that we found out we don’t suit.” She looked everywhere but at him as she hurried on: “That’s acceptable, people do that all the time, and their reputations remain intact. But before we do that, I can see that you meet my other cousins, the Scalbys, and do what you have to do.
Then
I can go home and you can…What are you doing?” she gasped.

Because the formidable Sir Alasdair had dropped to one knee in front of her. He captured the hand she’d been waving as she’d tried to explain herself. His hand was dry and warm, her cold one trembling in his. He raised it to his lips.

“My dear Miss Corbet,” he said, “I know that I am unworthy, but will you do me the exquisite honor of becoming my wife?”

The maidservant who had been clearing the table gasped, and Mrs. Babbage paused with an armful of dirty linen, gaping at them.

But Alasdair went on imperturbably: “I am a man of moderate means and small appeal, but I devoutly hope you’ll overlook that. My past doesn’t bear speaking of, so I won’t. But I’m not yet ancient, and have every hope for my future—but only if you share it with me.”

He was smiling, but his expression grew serious as
he looked up into her eyes and added, “I’ve made many mistakes in my life, Kate. Believe me, this is not one of them. And I vow, here and now, that if there are any in the future, they’ll be just that—mistakes. Of time, or fortune, or nature. Because I’ll never do anything to hurt, embarrass or dismay you, not of my conscious will. That, I promise. I’ll earnestly try to be the best husband you could want. Because I know you deserve even more than that. So. Kate. Will you marry me?”

“Oh, Alasdair,” she whispered.

Mrs. Babbage smiled. Then, chivvying at her gaping maid, she hurried her out the door as Alasdair rose to his feet and took Kate in his arms. The door gently closed behind them. Only then did Alasdair lower his head to Kate’s. But he paused, his mouth an inch from hers.

“Your answer, please,” he said softly. “You’ll get no kisses from me, you wicked thing, unless I have your promise. I have a newborn reputation to consider, and it’s whole and good and chaste as an egg right now, so I don’t want to blemish it by trading kisses with an unprincipled hussy. So, Kate? No moans or sighs, or whatever, now. A simple yes will do.” He hesitated, and she saw the gravity in his eyes as he added, “A yes, because I don’t think I could survive a no—or at least, would want to—even if it might be the better choice for you.”

“Oh, Alasdair,” she said, with one of those sighs that he’d said he didn’t want. “Alasdair,” she added, with tears in her voice, “yes, of course, yes. Indeed, yes. I will, I want to, though I can hardly believe any of this.”

She gave herself up to his kiss and soon gave him one of those moans that he’d also specifically said he
didn’t want. But since it was against his mouth as she squirmed in his arms trying to get even closer to him, and he himself groaned low in his throat at the fiery touch of her tongue on his, he didn’t mind at all.