One Night With the Laird (15 page)

She saw him smile again briefly. “That was a mistake,” he agreed gravely.

“Yes,” Mairi said. “It was.”

His smile faded and his gaze was very direct, intent, unsmiling now. “I cannot offer more than an affair,” he said. “Just so that we are clear.”

Mairi did not reply immediately. Her throat felt drier than sand. Her heart still beat an urgent tattoo. She knew she had to be certain because Jack was being brutally honest and she had to be honest in return. She did not know if she was able to separate out physical love and emotion, did not know if it could be so simple for her. She had no desire ever to remarry, but that did not mean that she could not explore the world of her senses, a world that had been closed to her before she met Jack. It did not mean she should turn her back on that lovely seductive passion.

The voice of reason whispered to her that she should not do this again, but hearing it did not change anything. Not when her stomach was already knotted tight with the lovely pain of arousal and when she wanted him more than anything she could remember wanting in her life.

She swallowed hard. “I understand,” she said.

* * *

A
T
LAST
.

It felt as if it had been an eternity. Jack knew he was not cut out for celibacy, least of all where Lady Mairi MacLeod was concerned. He had been on the edge of arousal for the entire day, for the entire week, if truth be told. Even as he had schooled himself to play the part of the perfect fiancé, he had been almost consumed with lust. And he had known that sooner or later he would fall.

He drew Mairi into his arms and she came willingly, eager for his embrace, and his heart leaped.

“I’ve waited all week for this,” she whispered as his lips left hers. “I wanted it. Wanted you.” She put a hand on the nape of his neck and pulled his head back down to hers.

Right from the start Jack felt desperate, almost out of control. His hand cupped the back of her head as he kissed her, his fingers delving into the satin-softness of her hair. He felt driven, wilder for her than he had ever been for a woman, and yet almost afraid that in touching her he would unlock some emotion within himself that once free could never be controlled. For a second he almost drew away, but the need he had for her was too great. He kissed her again, pulling her deeper into the shadows of the portrait gallery, giving himself up to pleasure and undeniable lust.

The neckline of her gown was low. That fact had been tormenting Jack throughout dinner. He was almost certain she had chosen the daring décolletage and the tight silk to tease him. So now it was time to pay her back for the provocation. He tugged; one of her breasts popped out very pleasingly from beneath the shimmering silver gauze, the nipple begging for the nip of his teeth. He bent his head to suckle. Mairi gasped, her head going back, her hair rippling down like a dark river over her naked skin. Briefly Jack considered pulling the bodice of the gown down to expose her breasts completely, but he thought she looked more wanton as she was, totally, deliciously rumpled, with one breast demurely covered and the other shamelessly bare.

He lifted her. Her legs wrapped instinctively about his waist, her back came up against the paneling. The gauze of her skirts was slippery and he struggled to burrow beneath it, his elbow catching the nearby bust of Julius Caesar, which rocked ominously on its pedestal. Then his questing fingers found the slit in her drawers and the warmth and wetness beneath, and his shaft hardened to epic proportions.

Mairi had realized he intended to have her right here, right now. Her body stiffened with shock and she pulled her mouth away from his.

“Here?” Her shaken whisper sounded horrified, like a maiden aunt confronted by debauchery. “Jack!”

Jack smiled, pressing his lips to the pulse that beat frantically in the hollow of her throat. Fumbling with the fastening of his breeches, he freed himself and thrust up into her, covering her mouth with his to smother her cry.

“Right here,” he confirmed, against her lips.

He broke the kiss and turned his face against the hot damp skin of her neck. He ran his tongue along it, tasted her, bit down gently, all the time driving up into her in long, hard strokes. He dipped his head to her breast again, pulling on the nipple, hearing her stifled cries and feeling her body flutter and close around his. There was no doubt that she was shocked that he had chosen to ravish her in a public place. This was taking their intimacy to an entirely new level of wickedness. Yet he could sense she was also wildly excited by the sheer wantonness of it. She never normally took risks and he had taken control and she was helpless.

Almost on cue, a door opened at the far end of the gallery. Light flared. Voices. Had Robert and Lucy chosen this frightfully inconvenient moment to show their guests the ancestral portrait collection? The thought made Jack smile.

He felt Mairi go rigid as she heard the voices too. She tried to pull away from him, but she could not move and he held her more firmly and simply allowed her to slide down deeper on his shaft. She gasped as he filled her to the hilt.

“You must stop.” She sounded breathless, her words a whisper in his ear. “Please. They might—”

Jack smiled against the hot bare skin of her shoulder. “They might see us?” He nipped her throat hard enough to make her gasp, then drove up into her again. She bit back a little keening cry. He bent his head to her breast and repeated the caress there, a nip of his teeth and a salve of the tongue. Her breath fractured.

There were footsteps on the gallery’s wooden floor.

“Jack!” She sounded frantic. She squirmed. He held her still, impaled.

“Hush.” He continued to thrust upward into her, smooth and unhurried in his strokes. “You don’t want them to hear you. Think how shocked Angus would be. Think how jealous Dulcibella would be.”

Mairi gave a little whimper. Her body clasped his; she arched upward, he rocked higher. Light bloomed closer. The voices were louder, Robert, Lucy, Lachlan, Dulcibella, the entire house party.

“This is my great-grandfather,” Robert was saying. “He fought in the Jacobite uprising in seventeen nineteen, and along here...”

Mairi gave a little moan. Her sweat-slicked skin clung to Jack’s.

“They’ll all see you in a moment,” Jack whispered, “naked to the waist with me inside you.”

The wicked words were sufficient to push her over the edge. She came hard, the violent pulse of her body taking him with her in so intense a climax that he staggered. They crashed back against the paneling, her body still gripping his whilst wave after wave of pleasure beat over him.

“Who’s there?” It was Dulcibella’s voice, cutting through the bliss, sharp as needles.

Jack straightened, lowering Mairi gently to the floor. He saw that he had knocked the portrait of the fifth Lord Methven awry and that it was hanging lopsided. Julius Caesar had tumbled to the floor, chipping his nose.

“It’s only one of the servants,” Robert was saying. “Now, over here is a portrait of Clementina, Lady Methven...”

“Quick.” Jack opened the nearest door, bundling Mairi through. One of the benefits of being the previous marquis’s grandson was that he at least knew his way around the castle. He steered Mairi through a couple of antechambers, pausing only to kiss her on the way. She was panting and beautifully disheveled, laughing, with a hectic light of excitement in her eyes.

“You are shocking,” she said. She kissed him, her lips clinging to his, her tongue sliding deep to tangle with his in a welter of heat and demand. Jack felt his body harden into arousal again. She was astonishingly responsive and it made him feel like a youth, impatient to have her all over again.

“And you like to be outrageous,” he said, pushing her against the wall to kiss her again. “Who would have guessed?”

It took them another thirty minutes finally to make it back to the landing, by which time he had taken her again on the table in the upstairs billiards room and he knew that the rest of the company would be assembling for supper and wondering where they were.

“I’ve lost one of my slippers,” Mairi complained as they came out of the warren of antechambers. Jack adjusted the bodice of her dress, tweaking it back into place. She spun around to view her image in one of the long pier glasses at the top of the stairs, and her hands went to her hot cheeks.

“Oh!” she said. “I cannot possibly go back down to the drawing room looking like this!”

“No,” Jack agreed. “You look completely ravished.”

She touched his cheek in a light caress. “I must go and make some repairs.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed him, very sweetly.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Come to my room later.” She disappeared down the corridor toward her bedchamber.

Jack checked the impulse to follow her. He felt supremely physically satiated but at the same time dissatisfied in a way he could not explain. He had told Mairi that he wanted no more than an affair with no emotional commitment on either side, and then when she had treated the sex as a meaningless if pleasurable physical transaction, he had wanted to smash his fist down on the newel post in frustration. He had exactly what he thought he wanted, yet it seemed he did not want it anymore.

There was an irony in there somewhere, but he was damned if he could appreciate it.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I
T
WAS
THE
morning of Ewan’s baptism. Jack woke abruptly, drenched in sweat and shaking. The room was dark and for a moment he had no notion where he was for the shreds of the nightmare still clung so tightly to his mind. With a groan he rolled over onto his back, shading his eyes with his forearm. There was a bitter taste in his mouth. Images still danced before his closed eyes; he was a small boy, standing in church, a huge church where the pillars soared upward so far that he could barely see the tops, as though they reached to heaven itself. His father was there, beaming, and his mother was smiling too with a tiny baby in her arms dressed in the most exquisite lace and satin christening robe. He was in his Sunday best; his collar was too tight and his jacket too small and he had been washed and polished, spick-and-span. No one took much notice of him. They were too busy cooing over the baby and his parents were too busy cooing over each other.

“You are Averil’s brother.” His grandmother had enfolded him in her scented embrace. She smelled of violets and her silk gown was slippery. He struggled because he had to pretend he disliked being hugged, but actually he adored her. “That is a very important thing to be, Jack. You are the elder. You must look after her.”

You must look after her....

The sour taste in Jack’s mouth deepened. A vast desolation filled his heart. He rolled over and grabbed the tinderbox, but in his clumsiness he knocked it to the floor. Cursing, he got up and walked to the window instead, pulling back the curtains.

Night still lay over the glens. There was no moon tonight. The clouds pressed low on the mountains. Jack let the curtain fall and reached again for a taper, managing this time to light the candle. It cast a golden glow into the room, the warm light only serving to make him feel cold and isolated.

He seldom had the nightmares these days. When he had first left Scotland to join Robert in Canada, he had been haunted by bad dreams, but the passage of the years had softened the edges of them and had almost smoothed them away. Which made the palpable sense of dread that hung over this one all the more disturbing. He suspected that it was coming back to Methven that had prompted it. A christening was a joyful occasion for most people, but for him it awoke bad memories.

He decided to take a walk; dawn would be coming soon and he could let the fresh air blow away the last of the dreams.

He dressed carelessly, not bothering to call for the valet Robert had lent him for the duration of the stay. A faint haze of rain was falling over the terrace as he went out of the conservatory door. Robert had a guard on duty at all the doors in case Wilfred Cardross decided to attack the castle itself. The man was yawning at his post and he nodded to Jack and let him through. In the gray morning light, Methven’s gardens spread out before him in elegant splendor. It was very different from when he had first come here as a child, in his grandfather’s time. The old laird had let Methven and all the rest of his estates fall into ruin, and while the tumbledown walls and neglected buildings had been an exciting playground for a child, the air of melancholy that had hung over the place had been dark and depressing. Robert had taken all of that and with Lucy transformed Methven into a family home alive and vibrant with life. He had brought love back to Methven. For a moment Jack thought of Glen Calder, his own estate, a few miles to the north. Glen Calder was equally as beautiful as Methven, an ancient stone castle with a view over the sea. The estate was efficient, it was prosperous, but it was not like Methven. It was not a home. It had no heart.

The castle was coming awake. He could hear voices, the clatter of pots and pans from the kitchen, the sound of a door opening. Jack straightened his shoulders. He needed a wash and a shave if he was to appear even remotely respectable in church.

He glanced up at Mairi’s window. The heavy velvet drapes were drawn. None of the guests would be awake yet. An urgent need to see her caught him by surprise. He wanted to talk to her. Simply being with her would steady him in some way that he could not define.

Hell.

He needed no one. Reliance on others was a weakness. He remembered the nightmare. If you opened yourself to love, sooner or later you also opened yourself to grief.

He ran a hand over his jaw, feeling the stubble rough beneath his fingers. He would grit his teeth and endure the christening ceremony, witness Robert and Lucy’s happiness, mingle with the guests, chat as though there was nothing wrong.

And then he would find a bottle of brandy and get roaring drunk. He knew he was going to do it. He knew it with a faint sense of despair and a complete sense of inevitability. There was nothing else that he could do.

* * *

“D
O
YOU
KNOW
where Jack is?” Mairi asked Lucy. It was evening and Ewan had long been taken back to the nursery along with his elder brother while his parents and their guests had dinner and talked and enjoyed some fine Highland hospitality. Mairi was exhausted. She had stood in church as her nephew’s godmother and had made her vows, promising to love and support Ewan and his family. The tears had stung her eyes and closed her throat then, tears of happiness with an edge of pain. She hoped she would be a good godmother to her nephew. But she had felt distinctly guilty when she had been standing in church since her association with Jack was so disreputable. However, it would soon be over, and then, she promised herself, she would revert to being the most proper of godmothers. Leaving aside all moral considerations, she suspected that Jack’s lovemaking had probably spoiled her for any other lovers. She would make do with needlepoint and watercolor painting as her future entertainments.

Jack had been standing with his grandmother then. She remembered how handsome he had looked, but so unsmiling and severe, his demeanor so different from Lady Methven’s joy to see another generation establishing itself in her ancestral home. When the service was over Jack had exchanged a quick word with his grandmother and then he had vanished. Mairi had seen him briefly, later, mingling with the guests, but now he had vanished again.

Lucy frowned slightly. “Jack is indisposed.”

“Indisposed?” Mairi said. “What do you mean?” It seemed extraordinary and yet Jack had been distant all day, not just with her but almost as though his mind was elsewhere.

Lucy nibbled her lower lip. Mairi thought she looked cross, and furtive and exasperated all at the same time. “Robert says I should not be angry with him,” Lucy said. “But I am. I can’t help myself.”

Mairi’s concern increased. She took her sister’s arm and led her away from the crowds milling in the hall and drawing room, finding refuge in the little book room off the library that was Robert’s office.

“Now,” she said, closing the door, “what is going on?”

Lucy subsided into a chair in a rustle of silk. “You know that Jack refused to stand as godfather to either James or Ewan?” she said. “I tried not to be too hurt because Robert explained that Jack had had a difficult time as a child. He lost both his parents young and then his sister died....” She frowned again. “And I
do
understand that....” Her tone implied that she did not understand it at all. “But I would have thought that someone without their own family would seize the chance to be part of ours. Yet instead Jack pushes us away at every turn.”

Mairi was thinking of Jack’s words to her at MacLeod, his claim that he cared for no one. “Sometimes,” she said slowly, thinking of her own experience, “it’s too painful to get close. The risk of hurt is too great. Perhaps that is how Jack feels.”

Lucy was looking at her blankly. “Well, I don’t see why he has to go off and get drunk!”

“Oh!” Mairi said. “That sort of indisposed!”

“Foxed,” Lucy confirmed. “And in a foul temper. He threw a jug at poor Shawcross when he went to take him some more brandy. Robert says...” She fidgeted, then looked up and met Mairi’s eyes half-shamefacedly. “Oh, I was not supposed to tell anyone this, but you have a right to know. Jack used to have a terrible problem with drink. After his sister died he ran mad for a while. He drank too much and ended up in a fight in which a man was killed. They locked him up in the tollbooth and Lady Methven had to go to buy him out.”

Mairi felt chilled. She remembered that Jack had drunk not wine but water at the Inverbeg Inn. She had thought it odd at the time. Now she realized that she had never once seen him take wine let alone brandy.

She sank down into the chair opposite her sister. “When did this happen?” she whispered.

“I’m not sure.” Lucy said. “Jack must have been about seventeen or so. He was very young anyway.”

Seventeen.
The horror of it made Mairi flinch. When she had been seventeen, her father had arranged a match for her with a man old enough to be her grandfather. Even now she could remember the sense of horror and powerlessness she had felt, the way she had rushed headlong from the misery of one intolerable situation only to find herself in another. She had felt very alone and very afraid. Had Jack felt the same, losing almost everyone he cared about? Jack had told her that he had run wild as a youth. She had assumed it was the typical carousing of a privileged young man, too much gambling, too much wine, too many women. She had had no idea.

“I must go to him,” she said, starting up.

Lucy looked alarmed. She caught her hand. “I wouldn’t. Really, Mairi, I think you should wait until he is sober.”

“I’ve seen plenty of men in various stages of drunkenness,” Mairi said. “Don’t you remember what Lachlan was like when first he discovered brandy?”

“I don’t mean that,” Lucy said. “I mean that Jack will hurt you. He won’t mean to but he’ll do it all the same. This isn’t like Lachlan getting drunk on a night out in Edinburgh.” She made a helpless gesture. “Drink devastated Jack’s life, Mairi. It made him dangerous. Please—”

“I have to try, Luce,” Mairi said. She knew her sister was right. Jack would not welcome her interference, but that was not a good enough reason to leave him with nothing but his bitter memories and the brandy bottle for company. “I can’t leave him to deal with this on his own,” she said.

She stood up, smoothing her skirts, suddenly nervous although she was not quite sure why.

On the stairs she met Shawcross coming down. He confirmed that Jack was in his dressing room. He echoed Lucy’s words.

“I wouldn’t recommend disturbing him, my lady. Mr. Rutherford has an uncertain temper when he is foxed.”

This was confirmed as soon as Mairi opened the dressing room door. It was a small room, cheerful with a fire in the grate and candles burning, but it stank of spirits. Jack was sprawled in an armchair, his neck cloth and jacket discarded, his long legs stretched out in front of him and a three-quarters-empty glass dangling from his hand. He looked dangerous in every way possible.

“I told you I didn’t want to be disturbed, damn you,” he said, without looking up. “But as you’re here you can pour me another glass.”

“You’ve had enough,” Mairi said.

Jack’s green gaze came up and fixed on her in a glittering, unblinking stare. Mairi felt the intensity of it down to her toes.

“You,” he said. His voice was rough and his gaze was as hard and uncaring as though she was a stranger. “What do you want?”

It hurt. It hurt a lot but Mairi gritted her teeth. She knew that he was in pain and was trying to escape it; knew too that he could not and so he was tormented.

“I came to make sure that you were all right,” she said.

That glittering gaze did not leave her face. “Well,” Jack said, “as you can see I am absolutely fine.” He reached for the brandy bottle himself, slopping some liquid into the glass, splashing it on the table. “You may leave me to go to hell on my own,” he added, turning away from her.

“No,” Mairi said.

She saw his hand check in raising the glass to his lips. He smiled mockingly at her. “No?” he echoed. “I am sorry—do you require more clarification? I said get out—if you please.”

“No,” Mairi said again. She was shaking. She went down on her knees beside his chair. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry today was so painful for you.”

His eyes narrowed on her with anger and dislike. “I beg your pardon?”

“You’re drinking to escape the pain,” Mairi said. “I understand. I know what it’s like to try to find oblivion. I know that you lost your parents when you were young and your sister too—”

He gave a harsh crack of laughter. “You know nothing.”

Mairi bit her lip hard against the smart of his contempt. “So tell me,” she said steadily.

Again he stared at her, but this time she was not sure he actually saw her at all. She waited, aware that she was holding her breath.

“I killed my sister,” he said. “It was my fault that she died.”

* * *

J
ACK
RUBBED
A
hand across his face. His head ached and his eyes felt raw. He felt as though he had lost every last vestige of protection, as though there was nowhere to hide. He was never vulnerable. He hated the sensation, but he had no idea how to escape it.

He looked at the drink in his hand and from there to Mairi’s face. She was so beautiful, he thought. It was not a simple matter of the arrangement of features, the color of her eyes or the autumn-red-and-gold of her hair. It was in the candor that made her gaze so clear and honest. It was in the generosity that made her reach out to him when he had been so unforgivably rude to her. There was a quality of brightness and sweetness about her then that drew him irresistibly. He ached for it. He wanted to lose himself in her. He wanted to take her and forget all else.

But the sympathy in her eyes would turn to revulsion when she knew the truth.

“I’m so very sorry,” she said. “Tell me what happened.”

Jack looked away from her into the heart of the fire. It might be easier to tell her if he did not have to look at her, if he was not obliged to see her disappointment and disgust.