One Night With the Laird (18 page)

“I had no idea you were so frightened at storms,” Jack said. The amusement had gone from his eyes now and he looked concerned.

“It’s a stupid thing to be afraid of,” Mairi said crossly.

Jack laughed. “We all have our weaknesses,” he said. “It’s actually a relief to discover that you possess some. Most of the time you seem frighteningly indomitable.” He put his arm about her and drew her close and Mairi allowed her head to rest against his shoulder. She felt warm and safe.

They sat there quietly while the rain beat on the roof and the thunder rolled overhead and away toward the sea. Gradually the sky lightened and the rain eased and the birds began to sing again.

Mairi got slowly to her feet. She felt unpleasantly damp with her muslin gown clinging to her and her hair in rat’s tails sticking to her neck, but she also felt happy and cherished.

“Thank you,” she said, smiling.

Jack did not smile in return. He looked at her for a moment and it felt as though he had steel shutters behind his eyes. She felt the chill, felt the distance open up between them.

“It’s over now,” he said. He walked across to the door and flung it open. “You had better get back to the house and into some dry clothes before you take a chill.”

His broad back was turned to her, his manner so similar to the way he had turned her out of his room at the Kinlochewe Inn that Mairi almost flinched. Once again he was locking her out. She got to her feet and without a word slipped past him out of the door and walked away across the lawn toward the house.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

T
HE
STORM
HAD
gone by the evening, leaving the sky a faded blue. The roads were awash, though, and would probably be impassable the following day, a piece of news Jack received with bad humor since it meant that Jeremy Cambridge would in all likelihood be obliged to stay a further night at Methven. His mood improved slightly at dinner when he saw Mairi covertly rearranging the place cards so that Jeremy was seated as far away from her as possible. He wondered if they had quarreled. She had not mentioned it to him. In fact, she had spoken to him very little since that afternoon in the summerhouse.

Remembering their encounter, he found that he had lost his appetite. He put his knife and fork down slowly. The salmon was delicious and the cook would be rightly offended to see it returned almost untouched. Truth was, he knew he had behaved like a cad again that afternoon. He had not noticed the slow degrees by which he and Mairi had slipped toward a closeness that was more emotional than physical and then suddenly he had been brought up hard against it that afternoon when he had comforted her during the storm. He had recoiled from the intimacy of it. He had felt something akin to panic, and that was not an emotion he welcomed.

He glanced down the table toward Mairi. She was seated next to Robert and they were talking animatedly. She looked the same as she ever did, poised and elegant. Yet the hairs on the back of Jack’s neck prickled as though there was something wrong.

Mairi looked up and for a brief second her eyes met his and he saw beneath the gaiety something so dark and lost that he felt a pang of pure shock. It was powerful enough to have him half rise from his seat before she blinked and her gaze moved on and she was talking easily to Lady Methven about growing cabbages, of all things. Jack subsided into his seat, feeling disturbed in some way he could not quite explain, as though something had happened but he had missed its significance. The footmen cleared the covers. The meat was brought in, then the desserts. The conversation ground along; he talked about Canada with Christina MacMorlan, who proved a surprisingly astute conversationalist, and about the Edinburgh shops with Dulcibella, who did not.

It was later, much later, when the gentlemen had taken their brandy and rejoined the ladies for tea that Jack realized that Mairi was missing. Lucy, when applied to for her whereabouts, was anxious.

“I think Mairi has retired for the night,” she said. “She was not feeling well.”

Jack hesitated. This was one of those moments when his instincts were telling him very firmly to do anything other than get involved. Which did not explain why he found himself climbing the main staircase and knocking on the door of Mairi’s bedchamber. Jessie was there laying out Mairi’s nightgown, a very pretty concoction of ribbons and transparent lace, as Jack was quick to notice. “Her Ladyship went out for a breath of fresh air, sir,” she said, in answer to Jack’s inquiry. “I think she meant to take a walk on the battlements.”

That, Jack thought, should have been quite sufficient to lay his fears to rest. There was no reason why he needed to pursue Mairi to make sure that she was safe. His very solicitude annoyed him. He went into his own room and picked up a book, but after two pages he threw it aside with a smothered curse. Reaching for his jacket again, he let himself out into the corridor and took the stone staircase in the north tower that led up to the battlements.

It was cool outside with a freshness to the air that had been missing earlier. A tiny white sickle moon was rising over the mountains. It looked ridiculously romantic. He saw Mairi at once because the pale yellow of her gown reflected the faint starlight. She was standing halfway along the battlements, her palms resting on the stone balustrade, looking out over the garden. As Jack drew closer to her he saw that her shoulders were slumped and her head bowed.

He stopped and she turned her head very slightly and he saw the sheen of tears on her cheek.

She was crying.

Hell.

Jack felt cold. His first instinct was that he could not touch her, could not offer her comfort. The last woman who had cried in his arms had been his mother and he had failed her completely. He could still hear those fractured sobs. His soul shrank from them.

Mairi had seen him. She scrubbed the tears from her cheeks in a quick, furtive gesture that had his heart lurching with recognition. He remembered that gesture from his childhood, the misery that did not want to be seen. She did not turn toward him. Instead she turned away. It was clear she did not want to speak to him.

Walk away.

And yet he lingered. He could not explain why. A moment later he realized he was walking toward her rather than away from her.

“Mairi?” he said. “Are you ill? Can I fetch your maid for you?” He wondered what the hell he was doing, getting involved. His reluctance had in all probability shown in his voice. He suspected he sounded unenthusiastic at best, churlish at worst.

Walk away, Jack. Don’t get involved.

It was one of the rules he lived by.

He took her hand. She was icy cold. He felt a flicker of alarm.

“No, thank you.” She scrubbed at her cheeks again. He could feel her shaking, from cold or something else. “I am perfectly fine.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jack said. “You are not fine.”

She looked directly at him then, and the blank desolation in her eyes was shocking, stronger, fiercer than the flash of despair he had seen at dinner. Jack understood then. He had seen an expression like that before in the eyes of men who had lost everything, family, home, livelihood. He had seen it in his mother’s eyes after his father had died. He had felt it himself when he had been at his lowest. He felt shocked as he realized he must have completely underestimated the sense of bereavement Mairi still felt. In that moment he actually wished Archie MacLeod alive again, if it spared Mairi this misery.

He had not realized that he had moved, but the next moment he had taken her in his arms. She made a little sound of surprise and protest and stiffened. He smiled then. They were such a pair, he so reluctant to give comfort, she so reluctant to take it. They could make love with all the intimacy in the world, but when it came to simple emotion they were both so wary.

After a moment, though, she drew him closer, her fingers clutching the material of his jacket. She cried silently, but harder now and Jack held her awkwardly because he had no idea how to do this and he felt terrified, although that was an emotion he was trying extremely hard to avoid acknowledging. He pressed his handkerchief into her palm and she sniffed and rubbed her eyes and after a few moments the crying stopped.

She offered him his handkerchief back again, a little dubiously. It drooped between her fingers and he smiled.

“Please keep it,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said. Her voice was husky. “I’m sorry.”

“Come inside,” Jack said. He had an arm about her now and was leading her to the tower door. On the staircase it was bright with torchlight flaring from the sconces. Mairi shrank back from the light, but he kept his arm tight about her and led her down the steps.

“I don’t want anyone to see me,” she said.

“They won’t,” Jack said. He took her along the corridor to the little sitting room that linked their two bedchambers. His valet was there, banking up the fire, tidying the room with the desultory air of a man who was waiting for orders. Jack jerked his head toward the door and the man vanished discreetly. He pulled a chair forward for Mairi, set it before the fire and pushed her into it gently. She was racked with shivers; although the night had not been cold, she had had no cloak and the thin gown gave little warmth.

There was a decanter on the sideboard with wine and two glasses. Jack poured one and took it over to her. She looked up and he felt another pang of physical shock at the blankness in her eyes. It was as though she had withdrawn herself completely.

He sat down opposite her. She turned her glass round and around in her hand and did not drink it. Nor would she look at him.

“I know you want to be alone and are wishing me in Hades,” Jack said, “but I am not leaving you on your own.”

For a moment it seemed she was not even going to acknowledge his words, but then she focused on him and the relief caught him like a blow in the chest. She was really seeing him this time. She had come back.

“How do you know what I am thinking?” she said.

There was a silence. The clock ticked loudly.

“Perhaps,” Jack said, “I have been where you are now.”

Her eyes opened wide. “When your mother and your sister died,” she said slowly. “Of course.”

He had been down as far—further—as she was now, in the dregs of his life, in the gutter, in jail.

“And with the drink,” Jack said. “I was lost in it, sunk in misery. So yes, I do understand.”

Mairi nodded. She put out her hand and caught his. Jack did not pull away. Her touch was comforting. So was the fact that she said nothing but he knew she understood.

He turned the subject back to her. “That night in Edinburgh,” he said.

Her lashes fell, veiling the expression in her eyes, but a small smile touched her lips. “How you do go on about that night.”

“At least I understand your reasons now,” Jack said. “You wanted someone. Anyone who could help you to stave off this darkness.”

Her gaze came up and met his. “But it was not anyone I found,” she said softly. “It was you.”

“We are not so different, you and I,” Jack said. “We both sought to forget.”

Their gazes held and he felt again that tightness in his chest. After a moment Mairi looked away, breaking the contact. “The doctors call it a depression of spirits,” she said. “They recommended opium.” She shuddered.

“Does Michael Innes know?” Jack asked.

Alarm flared in her eyes. “No! Can you imagine? He would try to have me committed to an asylum if he knew.”

“Is this what you are trying to hide from him?” Jack asked.

For a moment she stared at him, and then her shoulders slumped. “Among other things. If Innes knew he would certainly exploit it to the full. He would claim that I was a hysterical woman, unfit to run the MacLeod estates. The courts would probably be sympathetic to him.” She swallowed hard. “They would unite Archie’s estates with the main MacLeod inheritance, and when Lord MacLeod died Innes would sell them off with no care for the people working the land. He would destroy their livelihoods for profit and he would close down all the charitable trusts that Archie established so that he could take that money too.”

“You are trying to protect everyone,” Jack said. He could see now the weight of the burden she carried and it stunned him. She had been incredibly strong but it was no wonder that sometimes the sheer pressure of it was too much for her to bear on her own. “You are very brave,” he said softly.

She blushed. It was endearing. “It’s my duty,” she said simply. She shifted. “But that is not the secret that Lord MacLeod was hiding.”

Jack took a breath. Now that the moment had come, he was not sure he actually wanted to know. Some superstitious fear breathed gooseflesh along his skin. Secrets bred emotional intimacy, and emotional intimacy was something he had rejected from the age of seventeen.

Don’t get involved, Jack
.
Don’t get close.

He looked into Mairi’s eyes and knew it was too late. He was already involved.

“Archie isn’t dead,” Mairi said. “He is still alive.”

* * *

“C
HRIST
A
LMIGHTY
.” M
AIRI
saw the rather comical look of disbelief in Jack’s eyes fade, to be replaced by a welter of anger, disbelief and disgust. He stood up; backed away from her.

Well, maybe she could have broken the news to him more carefully, but it had been one hell of a night. Sometimes this secret felt just too huge to carry alone but there was no one she could trust, no one she could tell. Except that she had done now. She had trusted Jack Rutherford, of all people.

“Dear God,” he said, and his tone jerked her out of her thoughts, “you are still married. All those times you were with me—”

“No!” Of course he would think that. It was the natural assumption. “Jack, please.” She put out a hand to him. “The marriage was void. I told you the truth. I’ve never been unfaithful to my vows even when...” Her voice faltered. She had never been false to Archie even in the deepest despair of knowing that he could not love her as a man loved a woman.

Jack walked across to the chest of drawers, poured himself a glass of water and swallowed it straight down like medicine. “You’d better tell me everything.” His tone was curt.

“Yes.” She looked at the glass in her own hand as though she had only just realized that it was there. She did not want the taste of alcohol tonight. She felt a little sick.

“Where to start?” She frowned, her thoughts a jumble.

“Try the beginning,” Jack said. He threw himself down in the chair again and fixed her with an unnerving stare. He waited in a silence that felt intimidating.

“I was seventeen when Archie and I wed,” Mairi said. “Papa had wanted me to marry the Duke of Anwoth.”

Jack’s frown deepened. “That lecher?” He sounded incredulous. “He must have been seventy if he was a day!”

“He was sixty-five,” Mairi said evenly. “The first time we met he tried to force himself on me.” She swallowed convulsively. “Papa... He was not cruel, but he did not want to be gainsaid. I think that after Mama died some spark of humanity died in him also. Anyway, he was not interested in my objections to the match and so...” She made a slight gesture. “I did the only thing I could think to do. I asked Archie to wed me.”

“You proposed to him?” Jack said. There was the faintest hint of a smile in his eyes as he watched her. It warmed her a little.

“I did.” She raised her chin.

“You did not wait for someone else to rescue you.” Jack stirred in his chair. “It is a habit of yours, isn’t it, to take your fate into your own hands?”