How to Seduce a Scot (15 page)

He closed the door behind them, and for a moment, neither one of them spoke. They stood looking at one another, the heat of a flash fire rising between them. Catherine did her level best to keep her head, to keep her breathing even and her heart calm, but her breathing was quick and light, and her heart thundered in her ears like a runaway horse. She wanted to turn away from him. She wanted to touch him. She did neither. It was Alex who came to her.

He crossed the music room in three long strides and his lips were on hers in the next instant. He had to bend down to kiss her, for he was almost a foot taller than she was. Before she met him, she would have thought such an arrangement inconvenient at best, but he curled around her, succoring her, protecting her from everything in the world but himself.

He smelled delicious, as he always did, and his lips tasted of cider. She wondered where he had been before he came to her house. But then his tongue asked hers to dance, and all her thoughts fled, save for how he felt against her.

She pressed her body to his, reveling in the hard muscles of his chest and thighs against her softness. She tried to burrow closer, but did not know how. It was Alex in the end who kept a clear head. His black-gloved hands took hold of her upper arms, and he pushed her away.

“Catherine, we must stop.”

She blinked up at him, all thought gone, knowing only that her prize had been taken from her. “Why?”

“It is my duty to protect you, Catherine, even from yourself. We stop here. You must trust me.”

She took a deep breath and felt the thunder of her heart begin to slow, along with her breath. She ached, both in body and mind, though she did not know for what. It seemed there was a great deal she did not know about herself. A great deal it had never occurred to her to learn, save when she was in Alex's arms.

She stepped away from him then, and he let her go. She crossed to the pianoforte and picked out a small tune. She had not the passion Margaret did, but she loved music too, as an amateur might, a girl who had learned to play in the schoolroom and who would never be any good at it.

The bit of Beethoven brought her back to her good sense. She turned back to him. “I lured you in here not for kisses, but for talk.”

“More's the pity,” he said, shifting where he stood.

She smiled at him, for she heard the laughter in his voice. It was odd that she felt so comfortable with him. She had never dealt with a man like him before, and likely never would again. She would enjoy him for this short while, and remember him always. In so many ways, he was unique.

She felt a pang at the thought of putting him aside, as she knew she must. He stood, wearing a dark blue coat over buff trousers, his boots polished to a high sheen, though she knew he did not keep a man to tend them. His cravat was tied as all men should tie them, without fuss but with a hint of style. His dark hair was drawn back in a ribbon of blue to match his coat, and his brown eyes watched her even now, bemused, as she stood there simply taking him in. She spoke, trying to break the moment between them, and failing.

“You have news of my mother's suitor,” she said.

“I would rather speak of us,” he answered.

She raised one hand, and felt her heart clench. She knew what she owed to Lord Farleigh. She also knew what she owed to herself, and to Alex. But she could not speak openly of it. She knew she could not bear it.

“No. Please. Not today.”

“What better time than now?” He stepped toward her, and she backed away, almost stumbling over the piano bench. He saw she was in earnest then, and the smile drifted away from his face. He took her in, as if trying to read the thoughts behind her eyes. She was grateful that he could not.

“Please, Alex. What of my mother?”

He sighed, staring at her for one long moment—a moment during which she wondered if he would hold his knowledge hostage until she dealt first with him. But he was a gentleman, if occasionally a rascal, and he gave her what she sought.

“I fear I know very little. He is a military man who has now turned to trade, and has done quite well. He deals openly and honestly with all, which bodes well. He has made a great success of it. Some might call him a nabob.”

Catherine smiled at that outlandish term, but would not be distracted. “And what of his intentions toward my mother?”

“Those I do not know.”

“Did you ask his butler? His valet?”

Alex laughed outright at that. “Did I ask his servants to spy for me? No, indeed, Catherine, I did not.”

“But servants know everything. You would have to pay them, of course. If it is a question of money, I can give you some of my allowance—”

He raised one hand before she could finish her thought. His eyes darkened, along with his countenance, and a strange thrill ran through her. For a moment, he looked almost dangerous. For some reason, that danger did not frighten her, but made her think of delicious things, like hot chocolate, and his kisses.

“I do not take money from women. I certainly would not take money from you.”

Catherine felt an odd buzz of excitement underneath her skin, something akin to the way she felt when he touched her. She had to stop herself from smiling for fear of offending him, and perhaps irritating him more. She kept her tone even and her voice cool, though she feared her eyes were dancing.

“And your honor will not allow you to purchase information from servants,” she said.

“No, Catherine. Not even for you.”

She felt her heart lift then, though she had no idea why. There was something beautiful about this man that went far beyond his good looks, far beyond his soft, dark hair, wide shoulders, and dark brown eyes—all the things that had first drawn her to him. He was a man of honor in a world without, and she found that she loved that about him, more than she would have thought possible.

She loved him.

It did not matter that she could not keep him. Her love was real, and a blessing to her, as all love was.

She felt tears rise in her eyes. She blinked them away.

“You are a good man, Alexander Waters,” she said, her heart aching but, at the same time, filled with joy.

He looked bemused, befuddled at the sudden change of topic. He stared at her, as if once more trying to see behind her eyes to her thoughts. She knew that he could not.

“We must talk, Catherine. And not about your mother and Mr. Pridemore.”

“About us?” Catherine asked, though she knew the answer to her question already.

“Yes.”

“Not today,” she said again.

“Tomorrow then?”

“I don't know.”

“I must speak with you soon, Catherine.”

She did not answer him this time, but crossed the room instead. He followed her and stopped close as he met her in the doorway. She took in the sweetness of his scent, wishing that she might press her face to his linen, that she might tell him her troubles. But she knew that she could tell him nothing. For his part, Alex kept watching her as if he might discover her thoughts among the curves of her face. She knew he would not find them there, or anywhere. They would have to talk, she owed him that much, but not that day. She leaned up, straining on her tiptoes, and kissed his cheek.

“I am going upstairs now,” was all she said. “Please give my regards to your sister, and tell her that I will see her tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“We are picnicking in Richmond Park. I believe you are invited.”

She left him flat. She did not even go back outside to say good-bye to his sister. He watched from her marble foyer as she climbed the stairs, most likely to go to her room.

The room where she slept.

The room that had her bed in it.

As he began to fantasize about whether or not such a room was done in lace or silk, muslin or lawn, he shook himself and went outside into the back garden. Perhaps one day, once they were married, they would come back to this house at the holidays, say, and sleep in that room. He would know then what it looked like. For now, his speculation was pointless and only served to give him pain.

He shifted in discomfort, and strode outdoors to collect his sister.

Mary Elizabeth, fully recovered from her tears over their mother, was sitting with Mrs. Angel and Mr. Pridemore, regaling the company with tales of fishing in the Highlands. As Alex towered over them, he heard Pridemore ask, “And must the line be so long, then?”

“Indeed it must,” Mary Elizabeth answered. “The trick is to make the fish at home, until the barb is sunk and you have him in your grasp.”

“Then you reel him in,” Mr. Pridemore said.

Mrs. Angel clearly could not care less about fly-fishing, but she seemed to be listening to whatever he said, simply because he said it. Margaret was not listening to the adults talk, but was running through the grass, chasing butterflies. He knew that she would have more space to do so in Richmond Park on the morrow. She seemed a sweet girl. Since she was soon to come under his protection, it seemed he had better to get to know her. Did she like to read? Was she fond of sewing, as her sister was? Was she good at math? Was she a clever girl who might one day want to go away to school? Or would she prefer a decent tutor at home?

The last question gave him pause, for they had engaged a tutor for Mary Elizabeth, and look what had become of her.

He pushed all such thoughts out of his head and raised one eyebrow at his sister. She stopped her story of fishing flies in mid-speech, and rose to her feet.

“It is time we were off,” Mary Elizabeth said. “My brother Robert is waiting dinner for us. He is a bit bored in London.”

Alex winced at that indiscretion. Their brother wasn't bored. He simply hated the city and all the English in it. And as it turned out, there were quite a lot of English.

Mr. Pridemore stood and helped Mrs. Angel to her feet. Margaret stopped chasing butterflies in the slanting light, and they all trooped to the garden gate, where the older couple waved them off.

Alex drove the duchess's open carriage into the busy street. He was grateful that it was the fashionable hour, and everyone who was anyone was already clogging the roadways of Hyde Park.

“You love Catherine,” Mary Elizabeth said without preamble. She did not look at him, but took in the greenery of Regent's Park as they passed it.

“I do,” Alex answered. He was many things perhaps, but he was not a liar.

“You'd better marry her then,” his sister answered, looking at a towering elm to their left.

Alex only grunted.

* * *

He found Robbie in the music room. This time he was not playing the fife, but drumming a strange tattoo out on the top of the pianoforte. He would drum, listen to the lingering silence that followed, and then drum again. Alex stared at him for a long time, but finally interrupted him when he realized his brother was not going to stop doing whatever it was that he was doing.

“I don't think you realize what that instrument is for.”

Robbie turned back to him, his blue eyes slowly losing their faraway look. Like the old ones, he never wrote down a note of his compositions, but he always remembered them.

“I am working on something for the gathering in August. This thing gives the closest tone to a bodhran.” He looked at his brother. “We will be home before August, won't we?”

“Dear God in His heaven, I pray we will.”

“Prayers don't get us far,” his brother answered. “As men, we have to do for ourselves.”

“I suppose we could hog-tie Mary Elizabeth to an unsuspecting Englishman until she agrees to marry him.”

“I wouldn't do that to him, whoever he is. Poor bastard.”

The brothers laughed together, and Alex poured them both a finger of Islay whisky.

“So you're going to marry her, then?” Robbie said with no segue. His brother always knew what he was going to do, even before he did.

“Aye.”

They drank their whisky in silence. Good whisky required silence to be appreciated, a truth Mary Elizabeth seemed incapable of grasping. But then, Alex did not know a woman who did.

“I'm buying a special license tomorrow,” Alex said at last. “We'll need to have a Church of England marriage, to make it legal, but I'll marry her in front of a true priest as soon as I get her home.”

“You'd best go to Uncle Richard,” Robbie said. “The other damned English will make you wait a month.”

They never mentioned the fact that their mother had been born an Englishwoman. She was Scottish now, by clan and kin, and by choice, but she kept up with her English relatives, including her brother, the Bishop of London.

Alex grunted in agreement, and finished his whisky. Robbie stood when he did, setting his glass down on the pianoforte he had just been drumming on.

“Does your girl know she's to be married?” Robbie asked.

Alex smiled. “Not yet.”

“That'll be a sight, watching you run her to ground.”

“You think I'll have to chase her, then? How do you know she won't come running to me?”

Robbie laughed out loud. “Because,
mo bràthair
, the good ones never do.”

Catherine knew that she was being unconscionably rude to her guests, but she could not bear one more moment in Alexander's company. His beauty struck at her bruised heart. She'd had enough for one day. She went upstairs and let him find his own way out.

She went to her bedroom, but the moss green of her curtains and bedding did nothing to soothe her. Nor did the wood violets she had brought in from the garden. A new bouquet from Lord Farleigh rested on her bureau also, a perfectly respectable bunch of beautiful white roses and baby's breath, roses that held just a touch of pink along their edges. Buds ready to open, just as she was.

She found next to the bouquet Lord Farleigh's response to her invitation to Richmond Park on the morrow. Not only was he coming, but he also insisted on driving her mother, her sister, and herself in his open phaeton. It seemed he would also provide the food in a cart that would meet them there. He signed the missive,
Arthur, Lord Farleigh
. The use of his given name was the sign. He was going to offer for her while they ate his cold chicken and drank his white wine.

Her time was up.

Of course, she had known that already. Why that signature made her feel so miserable, she could not say.

Of course, she did love Alex, more than she would ever love another. But full-blown roses were not for every day, and even the most beautiful flowers wilted and died. Much better to cultivate plants that, while less beautiful, offered more green stability and nurturing fragrance. Lord Farleigh was a boxwood plant that would stay green all winter long, and cheer even her gray days with brightness.

One day, she would come to love him. Not as she loved Alex, of course, but a different kind of love. A love that would last into old age, a love that would keep her warm until death.

She thought of the grandchildren she would one day have, watching them frolic on the lawn at her father's home in Devon. She watched them run to her, and saw that they bore not her blonde hair, nor Lord Farleigh's, but Alex's dark locks.

She said half a rosary, but the image of her grandchildren would not change. So instead of dressing for dinner as she knew she should, she climbed the long, narrow staircase to the servants' quarters. There was only one man who could help her.

“Miss Catherine,” Giles said. “You must not visit me alone. It is unseemly.”

Her family's butler struggled to sit up, but his leg was shackled by its splint. He had five more weeks to go before the doctor said the splint could come off, and he could use a cane to go from place to place. At that time, she would move him into a room on the first floor, so that he would not have to climb stairs, but for now, the only way to get him to stay in bed was to keep him in his usual room. The stairs to the fourth floor were so narrow, only an able-bodied man could navigate them.

“It is perfectly seemly, Giles. Do not fuss.”

Catherine left the door standing open behind her and plumped his pillows. She dumped his old water mug out, and poured him fresh from the pitcher by his bed. She was pleased to discover that the water was still cool in its earthenware jar. Mrs. Beam was taking good care of him.

“I find myself at odds, Giles. I have need of your counsel.”

The older man nodded solemnly, his bald pate glinting a little in the light from his open window. His view of the back garden was obscured by the tall oak, but the shifting leaves sounded like peace in the early evening air, filtering the last of the sunlight through their green. Catherine took a deep breath of the fresh air, imagining herself home in Devon, and her loved ones with her.

In her imaginings, her father was always still alive. This made her sad, so she stopped thinking of Devon at once. But her sadness seemed to linger in the room between them.

Giles nodded, as if to acknowledge the passing of Mr. Middlebrook through the silent room.

“Your father was a good man. He is still a good man, no doubt, wherever in heaven the Lord has seen fit to put him. I have no doubt he looks in on you, whenever he can. But I know that just as the dead tell no tales, neither do they offer advice.”

Catherine smiled wryly. “Indeed, they do not.”

“You are torn between two young men,” Giles said.

She blinked at him. “How on earth do you know that?”

“You will find that there is very little that happens in this house, or in Devon, that I am not privy to.” He smiled a mysterious smile, and Catherine had to swallow a laugh, so as not to offend him. “I know what I know. Let us leave it at that.”

“I am torn between two gentlemen. One is calm, reasonable, kind, honorable, everything that is respectable and good.”

“And you favor the second one.”

Catherine did laugh then, and Giles nodded solemnly as if she had spoken.

“It is a difficult question you pose, Miss Catherine. For all I understand, both gentlemen are equals in breeding and in fortune. One has a title, of course, but that does not signify. Not to a sweet, unspoiled girl like you.”

Catherine felt her hated blush rise, and she wished it away. It stayed as it always did, and she looked at the polished wooden floor and took in the edge of Giles's warm, braided rug.

“So there is something else,” Giles said. He did not speak again, but waited, knowing that she would answer him, as she knew she must.

“I am bound to one in honor. I am bound to the other in love. I do not know what to do, Giles, or how to choose between them. I tell myself that I know my duty. I must do as honor dictates, but I find my heart does not wish to do it.”

“This is a difficult question, indeed, Miss Catherine. One I fear I am not fit to answer.”

They sat in silence, and she waited, knowing that he was not finished yet.

“I had the privilege of knowing your father all the years of his life. He grew up in the house while I was under butler, and he was always a man of discernment and integrity. He has raised you to be his equal in this, I think.”

Catherine did not answer, for her throat was too tight. Giles nodded and went on as if she had spoken, and agreed.

“I think you do not need my counsel at all, Miss Catherine. I think you came to me only that I may remind you of what your father would say, if he were here.”

Catherine felt her tears come then, but she did not swallow them down, or wipe them away. They made tracks on her cheeks, and she let them flow, two tiny rivers of wasted salt.

“I am a woman of honor,” Catherine said. “I did not need to ask you. You are right, Giles. I knew the answer already.”