One Night With the Laird (16 page)

“Our parents were desperately in love with one another,” he said. “It was almost as though Averil and I did not exist, except as a proof of their love. When my father died my mother could not bear the grief. She took her own life a few months later. I found her body. She had taken an excess of laudanum one night and simply did not wake the following day.”

He heard Mairi’s soft gasp of shock. “Jack,” she said. She put a hand on his arm, but he shook her off, rejecting the comfort because he knew he did not deserve it.

“I had tried to help her,” he said painfully. “I knew she was desperately unhappy, but I had no idea what to do and I knew that whatever I could give her would never be enough. The love my parents had for each other...” He shook his head. Love was a dangerous, destructive force and he wanted nothing of it. He and Averil had been excluded from the enchanted circle of his parents’ love, and there had been nothing that he could do about that.

“She left us alone,” he said.

“You must have been very young,” Mairi said. “Too young to carry such a weight of responsibility.”

“I was sixteen when she died,” Jack said. “Averil was twelve. We were sent to live with my father’s sister and her husband, but they did not really want us. They sent us both away to school.”

He saw Mairi flinch. Her face was very pale. “That seems harsh,” she said. “When you had both suffered so great a loss.”

Jack shrugged. “We brought no money with us and were a burden on them.” He raked his hand through his hair. “Well, I expect you can imagine what happened. I rebelled. After a while the school expelled me, my aunt and uncle washed their hands of me and for a time I ran wild and ungovernable.” He looked at the brandy bottle. The taste of the spirit was sour on his tongue, but he wanted more. He ached for it, for oblivion. He was drunk but nowhere near as drunk as he needed to be.

“I drank too much,” he said. “I fought and stole. I was no more than seventeen years old....” The misery and bitterness twisted inside him. “And throughout it all I abandoned Averil. I thought she was safe in school and that she would be well cared for. I knew she was better off there than she would have been with me. What could I do for her? I had not even been able to help our mother. I had not been able to make her happy, to stop her from deserting us. I knew I would be no good for Averil, no good at all.”

He drained his glass. The bottle clinked against the rim as he topped it up again.

“And then one day I heard that she had died.” He took a deep breath. “She had died in a typhoid epidemic that swept the school. It was only then that I discovered that it was a terrible place—cold, dirty, with little food and what there was poorly cooked and rotten.” He stopped. “She died alone, lonely and afraid, because no one gave a damn, least of all me.”

“Jack,” Mairi said. “That isn’t true—”

“It is!” The fury and guilt in him was like a live thing, making him want to lash out at her. “I failed my mother and I failed Averil and that is why, my sweet—” he spoke mockingly and saw the blood sting her cheeks “—you should get up now and leave me and never look back because I will be no good for you either.”

He saw Mairi close her eyes. For a second a tear dampened her lashes, but she rubbed it away angrily. “I don’t want to hear you say such things,” she said. Her gaze was stormy. “You were little more than a child, Jack. You should not have to bear the responsibility for this. It was not your fault.”

“Are you trying to comfort me?” It was the last thing he wanted from her. “I am afraid that there is only one thing I want from you and that is what I took last night in the gallery.”

He heard her catch her breath and saw her eyes open wide as the cruelty of his words struck home. She recoiled from him, stumbling backward, almost falling over her skirts with the haste that she stood up.

“I don’t understand why you have to be so brutal,” she said. “Why are you trying to hurt me?”

He was hurting her because he hated himself. He very nearly hated her too for refusing to walk away from him. Jack’s throat closed. There was a burning pain in his chest. He would not answer that. He could not. Why could the damned woman simply not leave him? She reminded him of his grandmother coming to the tollbooth, stepping daintily through all the filth and squalor to save him when he deserved to be abandoned. Mairi had the same strength and the same indomitable spirit. She refused to leave him too. She was far, far too good for him.

She stepped forward, but before she could speak he turned on her, grabbing her by the shoulders.

“I warn you, Mairi,” he said, “that if you stay a moment longer I will take you and use you, just to forget.” He cocked his head toward the door. “Now go while you still have the chance.”

* * *

M
AIRI
’
S
HEART
WAS
pounding. She was afraid of Jack in this mood and yet she was not; beneath the cruelty was a man who was in so much pain that she wanted to help him. If this was the only way to reach him, then so be it.

He did not move. His fierce, angry eyes scanned her face, yet he made no attempt to touch her. She put one hand on the back of his neck and drew his head down to hers, kissing him gently. She could feel the resistance in him. For a moment he did not respond at all and then he gave a despairing groan and his arms went around her. His mouth crushed hers. She opened her lips to him at once and he kissed her with desperation and frantic need. She held nothing back, offering kiss for kiss, clinging to him as the room spun about her and the floor seemed to shift beneath her feet.

He was shaking as he shed his clothes and pulled hers haphazardly from her. They sank down onto the bed, his hands roaming over her body like those of a man starved of touch, starved of love. There was nothing of gentleness in him; his lovemaking was starkly physical. He rolled her beneath him, spread her, plunging into her without tenderness. She held him, smoothing her hands down over his shoulders and back, drawing him close, sensing the tumult of emotion driving him. She whispered endearments as he took her. She knew that her body was nothing more to him in this moment than an escape from pain, but it was enough that she could give him that.

When it was over he rested his cheek against her breast, eyes closed, panting.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He sounded wretched. “So very sorry.”

She stroked his hair and held him close as he fell asleep. She understood now why Jack was afraid to love anyone and why he did not want the responsibility of a wife and a family. Her heart ached for him and she drew him closer into her arms. She did not know how she could convince him that he had not failed. He had been so young and had lost so much. It was hard to heal such old and deep scars. She was afraid that it might be impossible. And she was even more afraid that he would not want her to try.

* * *

J
ACK
WOKE
STIFF
and aching, with a headache hammering his temples and a vile taste in his mouth. He eased himself out of Mairi’s arms, stood up and slid out of the bed. Cold air washed about him; he missed the warmth of the bed but even more the comfort of Mairi’s touch.

Pulling on his trousers and shirt, he walked over to the dresser and splashed water over his head and neck, welcoming the cold shock it gave him. He slicked back his wet hair, reaching for a towel. He felt deathly tired and bitterly ashamed. He had not drunk so much in years. It had not helped him escape the brutal memories. Only Mairi had tried to help with that and in return he had been cruel to her and had taken her without consideration for her feelings while she had shown him nothing but sweetness and generosity. The guilt and shame in him deepened. There was no excuse for his behavior. Nothing could justify it.

A tray stood on the dresser with a carafe of fresh water and a vial of a thick plum-colored liquid. Shawcross had left it earlier on one of the many occasions when Jack, with unforgivable rudeness, had told him to bring a fresh bottle of brandy and then get the hell out of there. He drank the tonic down in one gulp. It tasted so vile that for a moment Jack thought that the valet had taken a very sweet revenge and poisoned him. Then the mixture started to work, the pain in his head lessened, the dregs of drink and tiredness started to lift and he tasted the freshness of mint rather than the sourness of alcohol on his tongue. Only the sense of shame remained and Jack suspected there was no cure on earth for that.

In the big tester bed Mairi shifted in her sleep and burrowed more closely beneath the covers, murmuring something unintelligible. Jack walked across and sat down beside her. He felt odd. He wanted to touch her and hold her close. At the same time there was a sick dread underlying his need for her. He could not understand why he had told her about his mother and his sister. He was not given to confession, least of all on the subject of his family. He had never even spoken to Robert about it, nor his grandmother. He did not want to disinter the past, talk about his failure or why he could never trust himself to love again.

Why he had spilled his secrets to Mairi was weak and inexplicable. He was skilled at protecting himself. Over the years he had built defenses he had been sure no one could breach, and yet Mairi had demolished them.

She opened her eyes and he felt a strange sense of shock deep inside and a longing so acute it shook him. He touched her cheek very gently.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked gruffly.

Mairi smiled and his heart clenched again. “No,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” Jack said.

She gave a tiny negative shake of the head. “There’s nothing to apologize for,” she said. Then: “Jack, you do know that it was not your fault?”

Jack shook his head. He could hear the words, but he could never believe them. Something was broken, wrenched apart deep inside him.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, and saw the light go out of her eyes. They both knew that this time he was not apologizing for his behavior toward her but for the fact that he could not accept her words. He did not want to hear them and least of all did he want to need her the way he had the previous night.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

M
AIRI
WAS
SO
emotionally exhausted that she slept very late, heard nothing of the housemaid when she came in to light the fire and did not even stir when Jessie brought the breakfast tray. Eventually she woke when Lucy knocked at the door and came into the room, pulling back the curtains and letting in the sunshine.

“I am sorry to disturb you,” Lucy said, sitting down on the edge of the bed, “but I was worried.”

“About Jack?” Mairi said. She sat up, rubbing her eyes. “He is not drunk anymore and I think he is back in his right mind.”

“Well, I’m sure we will all be glad to hear that,” Lucy said crisply. “But actually I meant I was worried about you.” She took Mairi’s hand in hers. “Did he hurt you?” she asked, her blue eyes suddenly serious.

Mairi startled herself by bursting into tears. She felt Lucy’s fingers tighten on hers and then her sister was hugging her close and Mairi was surprised to discover that it felt like one of the nicest things in the world.

“I take it that he did,” Lucy said. Her voice was muffled, but she still sounded ferocious. “Blackguard. I’ll kill him. I don’t care if he is Robert’s cousin—”

“Please,” Mairi said, releasing her. “There is no need for family warfare. It’s fine. Really it is.” She was not sure that it was, but she did not want to examine her heart too closely this morning. It felt very sore.

Lucy looked dubious. “You do know,” she said seriously, “that the best sex in the whole world is not worth it if it comes accompanied by so much grief? It might seem as though it is, but it isn’t.”

Mairi giggled despite herself. “So now you are the expert,” she said. “Yes, I do know that.”

“Did Jack tell you what happened to his mother and his sister?” Lucy asked.

“Yes,” Mairi said again. “He told me.”

Lucy’s expression had brightened. “Oh. Well, that
is
good because he has never talked about it before. Not even with Robert.”

“I’m not sure that it will do much good,” Mairi said honestly. “Jack was regretting it as soon as he had told me.”

Lucy was watching her sister’s face with her shrewd blue gaze. “A few days ago I was worrying that your engagement to Jack was a pretense,” she said slowly. “Now I am worrying more that you will fall in love with him.”

That was something else that Mairi was not prepared to think about this morning. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Even if I lose a lover I will have found a sister.”

Lucy squeezed her hands again and stood up. “That’s a lovely thing to say,” she said, misty-eyed. She smiled, suddenly mischievous. “I am afraid that you have found a sister-in-law at Methven too, whether you wish it or not. I am relying on you to take Dulcibella on at the archery butts this morning.” Pausing in the doorway, she added, “Oh, and if you could manage to hit her rather than the target, I think we would all be grateful.”

* * *

J
ACK
SAT
BESIDE
the bowling green watching Mairi roundly trounce her sister-in-law Dulcibella in the game. Normally he disliked being inactive, but he took a curious pleasure in watching Mairi. She rolled her bowls towards the jack with such strength, elegance and lethal accuracy. Dulcibella, in contrast, had no skill whatsoever and a weak wrist, and after losing two games to Mairi’s ruthless proficiency, she was sulking.

Jack had told himself that he was dancing attendance on Mairi in order to ensure her physical safety, but he knew full well he lied. Here within Methven’s walls she was as safe as anywhere and he had no need to follow her around like a lapdog. It only served to disturb him that he was doing it because he wanted to; he enjoyed watching her, he enjoyed talking to her and he adored making love to her. After the night when he had appalled himself by getting disgracefully drunk, he had tried to stay away from her in order to demonstrate if only to himself that she did not have any power over him. He had failed shamefully. In the past week he had gone to her room each night and made love to her with a wrenching need that would have disturbed him had he not resolutely refused to think about it. He had thought he would soon be sated, that boredom would set in as it had done with every woman in his life before, and yet it did not matter how many times he had her. He felt a renewed need each night—and day—and just about every moment in between.

In a vague attempt at discretion he made sure never to visit Mairi’s room before the house was quiet for the night and never to be found by the maid in her bed in the morning. With his past affairs this had never presented any sort of problem. With Mairi, though, this had been becoming increasingly difficult, much to his chagrin. He actually wanted to stay with her, to sleep with her, and the fact that he could not felt frustrating. Even more exasperating was the fact that during the day they were obliged to preserve a perfect facade of a respectable betrothal. This was proving fatal for Jack’s self-control as it just seemed to make the entire situation all the more seductive and made him want Mairi all the more. He realized with a sense of disbelief that he had not even looked at another woman since he had first slept with Mairi.

The arrival of tea provided a welcome distraction. The servants set it up under a huge tented pavilion to the left of the green, shaded by the tall pines. Slowly the members of the house party started to arrive; Lucy, with her sister Christina and various other members of her family came through the terrace doors from the house; Robert and Lachlan came from the stables, Lady Methven from the rose gardens. There was also a new arrival, a tall, fair, solid-looking gentleman with a serious air and a document case tucked beneath his arm. He paused on the edge of the bowling green to greet Mairi and Jack saw him kiss her hand. Mairi was smiling. Clearly they were well known to each other. Jack immediately got to his feet and went down to join them. Mairi’s laugh rang out. Jack observed that the visitor was still holding her hand and they were smiling and chatting together like old friends.

“Jack.” Mairi turned to him as he reached her side. Her blue eyes were bright with laughter. “May I introduce Mr. Cambridge, who manages Lord MacLeod’s affairs and is an old friend of mine. Jeremy, my fiancé, Mr. Rutherford.”

Jack bowed. “Cambridge.” He had enough sense not to show any animosity toward the other man, although judging by Cambridge’s expression the antipathy was entirely mutual.

“Rutherford.” Cambridge’s gray eyes were chilly. “Congratulations on your betrothal, my lady,” he added to Mairi. Then, with a glance in Jack’s direction, “Lord MacLeod has told me all about it.”

That, Jack knew, was designed to make it explicitly clear that Cambridge was aware that the engagement was both temporary and false. He felt a flash of anger and drew closer to Mairi’s side.

“Thank you,” he said coolly. “I am the most fortunate of men.”

Cambridge’s gaze cooled still further. “Why, so I think,” he said.

Mairi either had not picked up on the hostility between them or was determined to ignore it, for she drew Jeremy Cambridge toward the tea table. “Jeremy,” she said, “come and sit by me and tell me all the news from Strome.”

“Have you come from Strome now on business, Cambridge?” Jack asked. His implication was that if so, Cambridge should get on with whatever business that was and then leave. He knew it was discourteous of him and he did not care.

“I have,” Cambridge said, without even according Jack a “sir.” “I shall discuss it with Lady Mairi later.”

That was pointed. Jack saw Mairi glance at Cambridge’s face and frown slightly. “Mr. Rutherford will join us for that,” she said, and Jack felt a flare of pleasure that startled him. He caught Mairi’s hand and she gave him a little shy smile that made the sensation in his chest tighten.

The others were taking their seats around the big table. Dulcibella was already making a fuss, insisting that Lachlan set a chair for her in exactly the right place, sheltered from the breeze and where the sun would not be in her eyes. Dulcibella could have been very pretty, Jack thought, with her rich brown hair and bright brown eyes, but her mouth turned down at the corners as though she were perpetually disappointed with her life. He glanced from her face to Mairi’s. Mairi too did not give the impression of warmth at first glance because her beauty was so classically perfect that it looked cold, like a statue. Remembering how she warmed under his hands, though, Jack felt both his collar and his breeches grow tight.

As though drawn by his gaze, she looked up and their eyes met. She smiled and Jack felt a tug of emotion he could not identify.

“You smell of the stables,” Dulcibella was saying disagreeably, wrinkling her nose up at her husband. “Pray sit downwind from me!”

“You are looking a little flushed yourself, my love,” Lachlan responded through gritted teeth. “Was the game more than usually exerting?”

“Your sister approached it as she does all things,” Dulcibella snapped, “with a great deal of energy.”

“I always say that if you are going to play, play to win,” Jack said, his lips twitching.

Dulcibella shot him a limpid look. Jack could tell that she wanted to dislike him but her vanity was too great to allow it. She could not bear not to be admired. She patted the seat beside her.

“Do come and sit by me, Mr. Rutherford, and tell me which of Lady Mairi’s many talents first drew you to her,” she cooed. “Was it her proficiency with watercolors or her skill on the harp? But no...” She paused. “That cannot be it, for she has so little merit with either. Do tell.”

Jack glanced at Mairi and caught the flash of amusement in her eyes. He could tell she was preparing some devastating set-down for Dulcibella—assuming he did not administer one first. Lucy was looking pink and uncomfortable at such open discourtesy over her tea table. Lady Methven was looking at Dulcibella as though she were some unpleasant form of insect she had found lurking in her cake.

“Perhaps it was Lady Mairi’s charm and exquisite manners that Jack admired,” Lady Methven said sharply. “Good manners are in all too short supply.”

Dulcibella flushed a dull brick-red and fell silent for one long and blessed moment.

Seeing that Jeremy Cambridge was holding a seat for Mairi, Jack sat down beside Dulcibella and passed her the cup of tea that Lucy proffered. Cambridge, he thought, as he watched the man spread a variety of cakes and sandwiches before Mairi, was entirely too attentive to his fiancée. He knew very little of the man and he had no urge to learn more. He was aware of disliking Cambridge intensely while simultaneously knowing nothing about him, a lack of logic that only made him more annoyed. He watched Cambridge talking to Mairi and discerned a strangely possessive attitude in the man. It was not that he appeared to admire her, more that he seemed to think she was in some way his property. It was odd but perhaps it was because Mairi was a MacLeod by marriage and Cambridge was the MacLeods’ man of business. Or perhaps, Jack was obliged to admit, it was simply that his judgment seemed to be shot to pieces where Mairi was concerned.

Rather than torture himself by watching Mairi smiling at Cambridge, he turned to her elder sister, who was on his other side. Lady Christina MacMorlan was the eldest of the Duke of Forres’s daughters, a dull brown mouse of a woman whose life had been dedicated to keeping house for their father and helping to raise the younger children after the death of their mother. She did not resemble Lucy, who was tiny and fiery, or Mairi, who was cool and elegant, but seemed insipid, as though she deliberately chose to melt into the background.

“Do you enjoy visiting the Highlands, Lady Christina?” Jack asked.

Christina jumped as though someone had set a fire under her seat. She blushed. “Oh! I—”

“The country is so dull,” Dulcibella interrupted. “Nothing but ugly mountains and bad roads. I cannot bear it.”

“You will have to ask Lachlan to take you home as soon as possible, then,” Lucy said. “We cannot have you suffering.”

“I wouldn’t dream of venturing out through the castle gates,” Dulcibella shuddered. “Not with dangerous wild men on the warpath! I shall be staying here until my cousin Cardross is recaptured.”

Jack saw Robert and Lucy exchange a look. Robert rolled his eyes.

“How beautiful the rose gardens are looking at the moment,” Mairi said to Lady Methven. “Mr. Rutherford tells me you are a keen gardener. You would have had much to talk about with my late husband. He was a noted botanist.”

A small breeze stirred the pines and set the tented pavilion flapping. Jack was aware of a feeling of extreme bad temper. The last thing he wanted was to sit here and listen to Mairi sing the praises of the sainted Archie MacLeod, damn him. He resisted the urge to kick something. Their engagement must seem as shallow as a puddle compared to the complexity of Mairi’s feelings for MacLeod. And why that should bother him was anyone’s guess.

He drank his tea—which he hated as a tasteless drink—and ate a piece of the Dundee cake, which was very fine. Mairi and Cambridge were now deep in conversation, his fair and her auburn head bent close together. Jack gritted his teeth.

He stood up abruptly. “Robert,” he said, “do you wish to mount another patrol this afternoon? I thought I would go out riding before dinner.”

This announcement was met with exclamations of shock by most of the ladies.

“Oh, Mr Rutherford,” Dulcibella quavered, “do not even think of it! You might be shot, maimed, killed!”

“I’ll take my chances,” Jack said.

“You wouldn’t catch me doing that,” Lachlan muttered.

“I imagine not,” Jack said.

“There is a detachment of dragoons at Kinlochewe now,” Robert said. “By tomorrow I am confident that Cardross will be back behind bars.”

“I hope so.” Dulcibella pushed her plate away. “So very distressing to have such a renegade in the family!”

Jack caught sight of Jeremy Cambridge. He was following the conversation, eyes intently narrowed. When he caught Jack’s gaze he said self-importantly, “I was telling Lady Mairi that Lord MacLeod was greatly concerned to hear of the attack on her carriage. He pledges all possible support in the capture of the Earl of Cardross.”