Joan Wolf (6 page)

Wick was in Surrey, so it was not much of a journey. Lady Mary Graham accompanied Frances. She was in favor of Robert Sedburgh’s suit and was pleased when Lady Darlington had said he would be present. She was not pleased when Ian arrived. She had not expected him. She couldn’t help but like Ian; women always did. But she did not want her niece to marry him, a younger son with no prospects. Frances could do so much better.

The first few days of the house party were tense. Frances spent a good deal of time with Lord Robert and avoided Ian. The result of this tactic was to put him into a savage temper, which he alleviated by riding hard all day and drinking more than was good for him at night. After three days of this he determined to have it out with Frances.

Lady Darlington had arranged an afternoon riding expedition consisting of herself, Lord Thorndon, Catherine, Lord Robert, Frances, and Ian. They were to go as far as Rudgwick, but after they were out for an hour the sky clouded over and darkened ominously. Lady Darlington insisted they turn around and head for home. She also managed to arrange things so that Catherine and Lord Robert rode together, with herself and Lord Thorndon following.  This left Frances and Ian to bring up the rear.

   Frances was fully aware of Ian’s growing fury, which she regarded with considerable satisfaction. She would teach him that others were willing to accede to her wishes even if he continued to be stubborn. Since she had a healthy respect for the temper she was so blatantly provoking, she took care to keep from being left alone with him. She had felt Lady Darlington’s presence as chaperone would be protection enough on the horseback expedition. She had not reckoned with the countess’s ambition for her daughter, which thrust Frances into Ian’s company, nor had she reckoned fully with his ruthless ability to go after what he wanted.

   To her dismay, she found herself alone in the middle of a wood with Ian.  The others were about a quarter of a mile ahead of them, and it would have been undignified to shout for help when he laid his hand on her bridle and brought her horse to a halt.

For five minutes she sat in speechless indignation while he told her in no uncertain terms what he thought of her manners, her morals, her intelligence, and her plans for the future. Then, her eyes flashing green fire, she shouted, “You don’t own me, Ian Macdonald!” and, wrenching her horse’s head around, hit him with her crop and galloped down the path toward the river.

He stared after her for a minute, his face black with anger, and then he swore furiously. He had been this way yesterday.
The bloody bridge is out!
he thought, and he drove urgent heels into his own horse’s flanks. There had been flooding in the area due to heavy rains, and Ian had noticed the small sign posted on the bridge yesterday. Frances, flying toward the river in full gallop, would never see it.

   Ian was in deadly fear. Her horse, hearing the sound of drumming hoofs behind, stretched himself even further. In desperation Ian turned off onto a small path that bypassed the main road. With his head down on his horse’s neck to keep from being swept off, he plunged through the undergrowth and then swung out onto the main road, positioning his horse across it so Frances had to stop. She pulled up, rocking a little in the saddle from the suddenness. He leaned forward toward her and struck her, openhanded, across her left cheek. Her horse reared a little in fright.

“You deserved that,” Ian said, his voice shaking. “You damn little fool, the bridge is washed out.  You might have killed yourself.”

She looked from his taut face to the swollen river, the bridge, and the small sign. Her eyes widened and then slowly swung back to his face. At this moment, the heavens opened and the rain poured down.

“Come on,” Ian said through shut teeth. “There’s a cottage just down this road.” He turned his horse’s head and, obediently, she fell in beside him. Neither of them spoke as they cantered toward the small, thatched-roof cottage he had pointed out.

The overhanging trees provided some cover but the rain was hard and they were both thoroughly drenched by the time they reached the shelter of the cottage. It was empty so Ian forced the door and let Frances in while he went to put the horses in the shed.

The cottage was clearly someone’s home. There was rough but comfortable furniture in the main room and wood stacked neatly by the fireplace. When Ian came in, blinking drops off his lashes. Frances was competently building a fire. It flared, up as she lit it, illuminating her rain-wet figure and tumbling hair. She raised her arms to push it off her face and turned to look at him. He crossed the room to stand beside her. The mark of his hand was still on her cheek. He reached out to touch it.

   “I didn’t mean to hit you,
mo chridhe,”
he said, speaking in Gaelic. “You frightened me.” A strand of her wet hair caught on his fingers. He looked at the pale gold tendril, then back to her face. He regarded her unsmiling for what seemed to her a very long time. Her heart was hammering in her breast. He left the fire and went over to the old sofa and picked up the blanket that was neatly folded across its back. Then he returned to the hearth and spread it on the floor.

“What are you going to do?” she asked in the same language he had spoken in. They were the first words she had spoken since he struck her.

“Make love to you,
m’eudail.
” He took a step toward her and, instinctively, she moved backwards. He stopped dead. “Frances.” His voice was very deep and she stared as if hypnotized into the darkness of his eyes. “Come here,” he said softly.

There were three steps between them. In the five seconds before she took those steps, Frances made a decision. Then she moved and he reached out and caught her against him, his mouth coming down hard on her own. She slid her hands under the wetness of his coat and held him close. She could feel the strong muscles of his back under her palms. He did not release her mouth as he swung her into his arms and then knelt to lay her on the blanket. Frances opened her eyes to look up into his passion-hard face. His hands were on the buttons of her shirt and then she felt his lips on her breast. As she closed her eyes and gave herself to the growing urgency of his passion, the thought that lay behind her surrender flickered once again through her mind
. He won’t leave me now.

* * * *

They lay close together for sometime without speaking, then Frances said softly “Ian?”

“Hmm?” he raised himself on an elbow to look down at her face, framed by the primitive splendor of her ash-blond hair. There was a very faint mark on her cheek. He bent to kiss it.

“You’ve been doing this with someone else,” she said in accusation.

“What?” He stared at her in astonishment.

“I’m not a fool,” she said heatedly. “I can tell. Who is she?”

He flopped back onto the blanket, his face vivid with amusement. “Frances, I love you. You never say the expected thing.”

She frowned suspiciously. “What expected thing?”

“Something tender,” he said, laughter trembling in his voice. “Think of all the tender things I’ve just been saying to you.”

“The point is, who else have you been saying them to?”she said inexorably.

“No one.” He was positive. “Stop being so silly.”

She sat up and stared at him. “Silly?” she said. “
I
haven’t been making love to other people.”

The amusement abruptly left his face. “You’d better not.”

“What would you do if you found out I was?” she asked curiously.

“Kill him and beat you,” he replied promptly.

She seemed to find this answer satisfactory, because she pillowed her head on his shoulder. He felt her long lashes sweep against his skin as she closed her eyes. “We should leave,” she sighed.

The rain beat hard against the window. “We can’t,” he said with conviction. “It’s raining.” His hands moved over her body with exquisite precision. After a moment she yielded to his caresses, with a quiver that ignited his passion to fever pitch. When she lay in his arms, afterwards, utterly still, utterly his, she understood too with a woman’s powerful knowledge that in some profound way she had also possessed him.

When the rain stopped they rode back to Wick. They did not discuss the future. Neither of them wanted, at that moment, to spoil the magic of the present.

Chapter Eight

And fare thee well, my only luve,

And fare thee well a while.

And I will come again, my luve,

Tho’ it were ten thousand mile!

—
ROBERT
BURNS

There were a few suspiciously raised eyebrows when Frances and Ian arrived back at Wick, together, dishevelled, and late for dinner. They were laughingly casual about being caught in the rainstorm, but Lady Mary Graham was not at all pleased with what had happened. “This is precisely the sort of behavior that can ruin a girl’s reputation,” she scolded her niece. “Really, I am quite annoyed at Lady Darlington for allowing you to fall behind like that. And you, too, Frances. You ought to know better. People have such nasty minds. There is bound to be someone ready to think the worst of you.”

They wouldn’t be far wrong, thought Frances with a flash of amusement. But she meekly bowed her head and listened to her aunt’s strictures with sweet docility. Her thoughts were elsewhere.

After dinner that evening, the whole company assembled around the piano in the drawing room. Lady Darlington urged her daughter to play, which she did very prettily. Catherine was an attractive girl and she showed to advantage at the piano, a fact of which her mother was very aware. Then another young lady played a very competent Mozart sonata. “Won’t you honor us with your talents, Miss Stewart?” asked Lady Darlington, honor-bound to include Frances in the entertainment.

The others chorused their similar wishes with varying degrees of enthusiasm, and Frances’s eyes went once again to the magnet that had drawn them all evening. Ian smiled at her very faintly and she said slowly, “All right.” She crossed to the piano and sat down, her face looking grave and abstracted. “This is a Scottish ballad about a girl who loved a boy called Geordie,” she said simply, and, striking a few notes, she began to sing. The song had all the power of the great ballads and her voice was marvelous: deep and clear and perfectly controlled. As the last note died away there was a sigh in the room, as if a great collective breath had been let out.

The faintest, briefest glint of recognition showed in Frances’s eyes, and then she sang another. When she had finished and started to get up Robert Sedburgh said quietly, “You would please us all if you would sing one more, Miss Stewart.”            She looked back at him, smiled suddenly, and said ,”Very well, I’ll do something different—something in Gaelic. This is a victory song of the clans. It should, of course, be played on the pipes.” But the wild, triumphant cry of the bagpipes was echoed in her voice as she launched into the exultant war cry of the Macdonalds of Lochaber.

 Ian’s face blazed as he listened to the fierce Gaelic words calling out the traditional invitation to the wolves of Lochaber to come feast on the flesh of the fallen enemy. The rest of the company did not understand the words, but the spirit was unmistakable. It was not civilized, Robert Sedburgh thought, as he watched Ian Macdonald’s face, but it was magnificent.

When Frances finally rose from the piano her eyes met Ian’s in a glance of such unvoiced intensity that Robert Sedburgh was shocked. Something
had
happened this afternoon; he was almost sure of it. Lord Robert loved Frances very much and his antennae were extremely sensitive where she was concerned. He observed her closely for the rest of the evening, and he did not like what he saw.

The incident that disturbed him most occurred toward the end of the evening. He and Ian were standing talking by the tall French windows. Lady Darlington had finished pouring tea and Frances was seated on a sofa next to Catherine Darlington, still holding her cup and talking about music. Lord Robert said something to Ian and Ian agreed, put his plate down and suddenly yawned. “I beg your pardon,” he apologized easily. “I have been somewhat short of sleep these last few days.”

“Perhaps you ought to seek your bed early this evening,” said Lord Robert courteously.

Ian nodded agreement, looked at Frances’s back with warm and peaceful eyes, and smiled faintly. She turned around as if he had touched her.

It was defeat for Robert Sedburgh, and he knew it. The rest of the night his face wore an uncharacteristically harsh expression, that was underlined by the unhappiness in his eyes whenever he looked at Frances.

The next day Lady Mary Graham received a letter from her sister, which caused her to pack her bags and her niece and depart abruptly for Somerset. Mrs.Treveleyn had suffered a miscarriage and urgently needed the solace of Lady Mary’s company, so wrote Mr. Treveleyn, Lady Mary’s brother-in-law. Frances did not want to go, but in the face of her aunt’s real distress she made no complaint. She went to Somerset, was helpful when she could be, and kept out of the way when she couldn’t. They stayed three weeks.

They arrived back in London on September 8. On September 9, Ian called. Frances took him to the room Douglas was using as a studio on the pretense of showing him her portrait. Lady Mary let them go. Whatever
was between Frances and Ian wouldn’t go away by keeping them apart, and she had come to the conclusion that they had better make a decision one way or another. So she refrained from accompanying them, for which Frances gave her a grateful smile;

 Ian did look at the picture. It was almost finished

- Douglas was working on background at present. Ian’s gaze went from the radiant young face of the portrait to the girl beside him. “Anyone who didn’t know you would say Douglas was a liar,” he said soberly.

Faint color stained her cheeks. He so rarely complimented her. “I think it’s good,” she admitted.

“It looks like you,” he said laconically. He turned away, dismissing the portrait from his mind in favor of the model. “God, I didn’t think you were ever coming back.”