Indiscretion (7 page)

"Lock my door?" She sounded incredulous. "No one is going to hurt m
e in the tower, Patrick. It's…
unthinkable."

He stared at her slender shoulders and reflected on how fragile s
he was, how ridiculous for some
one her size to believe she could defend herself. "Lock your door," he said again.

"If I do," she retorted, half-turning, "it would only be to keep you out."

M
rs. Forbes was a tiny fairy of a woman with gray-streaked red hair and green eyes; she loved people and animals and her position with frightening passion. A spot of grease would not splatter her cast-iron stove for a full second before she blotted it into oblivion. Her scullions were practically trained from birth to swipe, wipe, chop, and clean like an army of furies.

She was as gracious as a duchess. She believed in the order of things, and quite frankly things had not been right since the old butler retired. It was good to have a new man in the house.

"Will you take tea, Mr. Sutherland?" she asked cordially from the hob where a kettle steamed.

"Hell, no." He plopped down onto a stool. "Give me a whiskey."

"Whiskey?" She clapped her hand to her heart, her voice weak. "Whiskey?"

Sandy, the head gardener, who was one of the elite few allowed into her "Pugs Parlour," raised a straggly white eyebrow. "That's what the man said."

Grim-lipped, she darted around the table to t
hrow the latch on the door. Graci
e, th
e upper chamber
maid, yanked the Nottingham-lace curtains closed with an air of gravity.

"Are we about to hold one of those
séances
?" Patrick asked politely.

"The staff only takes spirits on Christmas and Hogmanay," Mrs. Forbes informed Patrick when the parlor was secured against eavesdroppers.

He gave her a charming smile. "Well, I'm not the staff. I'm the butler."

"One must set an example," she replied, not entirely unmoved by his smile.

Sandy shook his head in sympathy. "There are always your days off, Sutherland. A man learns to wait
.
"

"Did her ladyship let you imbibe in London?" Mrs. Forbes asked worriedly.

"She neve
r told me not to," Patrick said.

Mrs. Forbes and Graci
e exchanged knowing looks. "It's worse than we thought," the housekeeper whispered.

"We've got our work cut out for us, 'tis certain," the girl agreed.

"It's not hopeless, though," Mrs. Forbes said. .

Patrick looked at Sandy. "Do you have any idea what the two of them are talking about?"

The old Highlander propped his tartan-stockinged legs up on the hearth and pulled out his pipe. "Your fate, Sutherland. Resign yourself to it, lad."

Patrick stared through the cloud of fragrant smoke that wreathed the older man's head. He seemed an earnest enough soul. He would probably have a good idea of
what, if anything, had hap
pened to Uncle Edgar.

H
ow could you mourn someone you had never really known? Anne
sat in bed, staring out the win
dow at the stars. Once she had believed that a new star emerged every time a person died. If her papa were a star though, he was as cold and distant in death as in life.

He had been dead for four years, her mother for three, but it seemed longer, as she hadn't had any contact with them since they sent her away. She believed her mother had loved her, but not enough to protect either of them from her father's constant belittling or his infrequent outbursts of violence. Anne knew a wife was supposed to submit to her
husband in all ways, but she would never have let anyone harm her child, should she ever be so fortunate as to become a mother. Still, Anne had always been a rebel, and in that way, she was not at all like her mother.

She jumped, startled, as her hairbrush fell off the bed. The sound briefly disoriented her; she flopped onto her stomach to find it, her mind returning to her troublesome thoughts. It was too late in this life now to please her parents or hope for their forgiveness. She should have accepted that fact the day she married David. She didn't even know why she thought of them now, except for Patrick stopping at the old house and disturbing the ghosts.

He was already stirring up trouble; masses of it were piling up in the air like thunderheads. It seemed to be in his nature, a congenital affliction, just as Anne seemed
to be afflicted with an attrac
tion to what would hurt her, and the problem was that even if she could believe Patrick had changed, she wasn't at all sure of herself.

12

P
atrick was aware a small audience of servants watched him in secret
as he ascended the gloomy slab
staircase to Anne's room. Mrs. Forbes had stated in no uncertain terms that the old butler would never have brought up a tray of whiskey to her ladyship. Why, no one had even seen Lady Whitehaven take more than a sip of the powerful drink at one sitting, and th
e staff worried the griev
ing widow had lapsed into a state of moral decay with the new butler taking advantage of the situation.

Anne had ignored his order to bolt the door. When he entered she was lying across the bed with her head and arms dangling on the floor, her bum in the air.

"Lovely view," he said, kicking the door shut with his foot. "Do you always sleep like a bat?"

"Hell's bells," she said, struggling around to sit up.

"
I believe that is the first obscenity I have ever heard from you."

"Well, give me another week with you, and I'll bet you'll hear them by the bucketful."

He didn't pretend to look away as she pulled on a silk dressing robe. He stared avidly. He could see the shape of her breasts before she covered them, sensual and womanly, the areolas dusky. Her backside was plumper than he remembered; she had always been so thin, but then she had been a young girl when he had known her, and suddenly he was fascinated by the notion of seeing her woman's body ripen with his seed.

"If you tie that robe any tighter, Anne, you're going to cut off the circulation to your lower extremities."

She perched on the end of a Grecian couch, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Never mind my lower extremities. I want to know what you're doing in my room. What did
you just put down on the night
stand?"

"I have brought her ladyship her evening whiskey."

"I don't take whiskey before bed," she said indignantly.

"You do now." He pulled an extra glass from the pocket of his tight cashmere trousers. "So do I. In fact, it's going to be a nightly ritual between us."

She leaned forward, holding her hairbrush like a hammer. "It is not."

"Yes, it is. For one thing, I need a drink at the end of the day if I'm going to succeed at this masquerade, and we need time alone to plan our strategy in private." He settled his big frame on the massive bedstead. "I have begun to infiltrate the kitchen."

She shot to her feet as he poured himself a drink. "Oh, you are too much. Get off my bed."

He ignored her orders, examining the striped floral curtains, the cabbage-rose carpet, the carved mahogany wardrobe with a mirror on the door. "Did you sleep in this room with David?"

"That is none of your damned business."

He shook his head. "You're swearing again."

"No wonder! What if someone sees you?"

"Anne, I am being the best butler I know how to be." He sat forward with the glass in his hand. "I came all the way upstairs to bring you a drink to settle your nerves. Are you going to repay me with insults?"

"Settle my nerves?" Her voice was rising. "What sort of butler drapes himself across a woman's bed like an old blanket, I ask you?"

"An old blanket?"

"Patrick." She gave the sash of her robe another yank for good measure. "Your duties at the end of the day are to secure the house and make sure the fire grates are in place."

"Your door was not locked, Anne," he pointed out. "You should thank me for catching that oversight."

She drew a breath. "A butler is to concern himself with such things as the arrangements of the dinner table and supervising tea. He is to set an example to the lower servants."

"Did you and David always sleep in separate rooms?"

She paused, giving him a withering look. "I never said we slept apart."

He took a sip of whiskey. "You didn't have to. I took note of the adjoining rooms when I made my inspection of the lodge. I know David was not exactly a man's man, but I doubt even he could stand all the lace and feminine embellishments in this room. My hair is curling into ringlets just sitting here."

She was astonished at his audacity. "David had an artist's eye, and I am disgusted that you would sink to prying out the details of my married life. Even for you that is outrageous behavior."

"I was not snooping to satisfy any prurient curiosity," he said coolly. "I have long suspected you and David did not share a great passion, and contrary to what you think, I was merely exploring the lodge to see if I might unearth any clues to Uncle Edgar's death. That is, after all, why I am in this ludicrous position."

She felt suddenly foolish; there was no one else on earth who could stir her up into such a storm. "Fine. You said you had already spoken with the staff. Did they tell you anything about Edgar?"

He took another swallow. "Yes."

"What?"

"He's dead."

She threw her brush down on the couch. "Brilliant
work."

"What did you expect, Anne? I am forced to pretend I am a mere servant, and I could not exactly start asking questions about a man I'm not supposed to know."

The candle on the nightstand went out unexpectedly. She glanced up, shivering a little. "How did his name come up in this conversation? I hope that you were subtle."

He laid his head back on the pillow. "I said that you were planning on giving another party this year and that you hoped to continue in the same tradition."

Another candle expired on the dressing table. Anne looked up again with an uneasy smile. "Do you think we have a ghost?"

"Either that or you might try shutting the window," he said. "Anyway,
when I mentioned the party, Graci
e said the only tradition she didn't want repeated was another guest turning up dead."

She watched the breeze lift the curtains at the windows, but she didn't intend to shut them, ghost or not. She liked listening to the autumn wind at night and the stags calling to their mates in the morning. She had missed the wilderness more than she realized. "What did you say then?"

He emptied his glass and closed his eyes, so comfortable he looked as if he might fall asleep. "I asked who had died and Mrs. Forbes said it had been Lord Kingaim, and his heart had
given out from rowing, but Graci
e seemed to think there was more to it than that
.
"

A shiver raised the hair on Anne's nape. "Such as?"

"She didn't offer anything substantial." He yawned loudly. "Said his ghost was seen once or twice since
…"

His voice drifted off. Anne turned from the window as she realized the scoundrel was dead asleep on her bed. Her lips in a flat line, she marched right up beside him. She plucked the empty glass from his relaxed fingers, set it on the nightstand, and leaned over to shake him.

"Wake—"

He grabbed her before he even opened his eyes and threw her across the bed. Anne landed on her back with the wind knocked out of her. He was sitting on top of her upper thighs, his startled look giving way to a sheepish grin.

"It isn't a good idea to awaken a former soldier that way, Anne. I might have taken you for a rebel and overreacted."

She didn't say anything to that. She was too overwhelmed by his strength and her own weakness. She was aware of his virile scent and the width of his shoulders and his sinfully beautiful blue eyes, not to mention the numbness of her lower body where the blood could not flow.

"This was a very bad idea, Patrick, and it is obvious to me it isn't going to work." She spoke in soft ladylike tones. She was proud of how composed she sounded, how mature and detached even though the arrogant giant was constricting every blood vessel in her body, even if she noticed a certain pleasure tingling through the numbness. "We shall have to tell the Queen that certain circumstances arose over which we had no control. We shall—"

His laughter interrupted her.

She arched her brow, determined to remain calm. "I have made an unwitting joke?"

"Aye." He grinned, resting his palms on his massive thighs. "Although it's true enough. My 'circumstances' are rising uncontrollably as we speak."

Anne made the mistake of glancing downward and seeing for herself exactly what he was talking about. She closed her eyes with a delicate shudder of disapproval. "You have until the count of three to remove your oafish body from this bed," she said in an icy voice. "One—"

His lips grazed hers, and her gray eyes flew open. "What do you think you're doing, Sutherland?"

"Securing her ladyship for the night. Give me a nice kiss before I leave."

"I am not kissing you." She pursed her lips like a prune.

"You kissed me at Windsor Castle."

"Only because you caught me by surprise. Now kindly get up before I lose the sensation in my legs. I can no longer feel my toes."

He glanced around. "They're still there." He turned off to the side, keeping her trapped by throwing his thigh around hers like a shackle. Indignant, she felt him slide his arm under her backside. "What are you doing now?" she whispered.

"I'm holding you."

"Well, don't. No kissing. No holding." She
bounced up and down to dislodge his hand. "The closest contact you may have is handing me a teacup."

He wasn't paying her the slightest attention.

He ran his free hand up and down the curve of her hip, relearning the shape and softness. "Time has done verra nice things to your body," he said quietly. "You would bear strapping bairns."

"That might prove a little difficult without a husband."

"Aye, you need a husband too." He exhaled a whiskey-scented sigh into her hair. He rubbed his chin on her collarbone. "Someone strong enough not to die on you the first time he stubs his toe."

"Patrick."

She hit him in the eye with her elbow at the precise moment he remembered it was always a mistake to bring up David's name.
"Ouch.
That was a bit unkind, Anne."

She wriggled out from beneath him and dropped to her feet, her black curls cascading down her back. "Get out of my room."

He rolled off the bed, resigned but certainly not defeated. "I think I'll leave the whiskey," he said wryly. "You've forgotten how to enjoy yourself."

"I haven't forgotten anything." She had backed into the window, her small shoulders stiff with tension, her silhouette insubstantial against the darkened hills outside.

He picked up his tray to leave, suddenly at a loss for words. "Call me if you need me. Especially if you get lonely in the night."

As he closed the door, he heard her answer in an undertone, "When hell freezes over, Sutherland."

Which wasn't the encouraging reply he had hoped for, but it was only their first night in the house, and it proved that his beloved hellion was still hiding somewhere inside her haughty shell, waiting for him to find the key to unlock her wounded heart.

H
e walked around David's pinewood-paneled bedchamber and discovered books piled in every available space. Books collecting dust on the walnut davenport. B
ooks on the marble-topped wash
stand, piled on the floridly c
arved Jacobean bed. The only corn
er free of literature was occupied by a large easel.

He winced as he lifted the sheet that covered the canvas and stared at an embarrassingly bad portrait of Anne rising from a sea shell. Her breasts were uneven. Her hands had been painted to hang like hamhocks, and her hips could have spanned a continent, let alone the width of the canvas.

"Botticelli you were not, cousin," he murmured. "I imagine her gardener could have done a better job of painting her with a trowel."

But then perhaps David hadn't had anything else to work from but imagination. Patrick deduced from the painting that David might had viewed Anne as a goddess, but he'd hardly demonstrated a realistic perception of her physical charms. Still, they had lived together in apparent harmony for years, they had been faithful to each other, even if
they had slept apart. David had been Anne's husband, no matter how unpalatable Patrick found that fact.

And what did all these books mean? He pushed a pile onto the floor to make room for himself on the bed. Such scintillating titles as
Sheep Husbandry in the Highlands
and
The Art of Ciceronian Oratory
stared up at him. Why would any man in his right mind spend his time reading and painting a naked woman when the woman slept only a few feet away in the next room? Why had he not availed himself of her every night?

Perhaps because the man had won her by default, and he knew it? An unassuming man like David would never have attracted a woman like Anne on his own merit in a thousand years. The poor fool must have thought he had died and gone to heaven when their marriage had been arranged. Hell, he'd probably read to her on her honeymoon, not knowing what else to do. The man appeared to have lived like a monk even after marriage.

He closed his eyes, thinking of the time
he'd
made love to Anne, kissing her as he tore off her dress. Why had he not married her the very day he'd laid his big clumsy paws on her? Why couldn't he erase the past and undo the damage? But, oh, she had been so irresistible, so eager to please him. Even as he had deflowered her, taking her
virginity in a cruel thrust, she hadn't cried out, and he had seen the shock in her eyes, his invasion of her young body robbing her of breath. Had she given herself so eagerly to her husband?