Scotsmen Prefer Blondes (22 page)

But when he raced back across the courtyard and flung himself through the kitchen door, she didn’t look angry. She looked oddly thrilled, with a flush across her cheeks that made him think she’d caught a fever.

“Have you taken ill already?” he asked, stopping just short of running her over.

She laughed at him again. “Really, Malcolm, it’s only rain. Unless some dread pestilence lives here, I’m sure we’ll be quite safe.”

She had found the tinderbox on the ancient wooden trestle table and lit a candle. The reek of cheap tallow wasn’t enough to cover the damp, musty smell of disused rooms, but Amelia didn’t seem to mind.

He stripped off his gloves and ran his hands across his scalp. He’d lost his hat somewhere, and the water he wrung from his hair trickled down his neck.

Amelia watched him, oddly sympathetic given the censure he expected. “Your shirt is soaked through, Malcolm. Is there anything here you might change into instead?”

He took the candle from her and caught her arm with his other hand. “I’m more concerned about you — we must remove your gown before it chills you completely.”

“You usually don’t need an excuse to undress me.”

She had been oddly tense after leaving her friends, but her voice still held heat for him. The last two weeks had felt entirely like a honeymoon, even though they hadn’t left the estate — a blessed few weeks before real life would begin again.

Would her comfort with him survive? Or would they subside into the bloodless political marriage he’d claimed to want?

He didn’t allow those thoughts. He pulled her through the empty rooms instead, seeking something that would make her comfortable. After all, if she didn’t survive his stupidity, any question of their future would be meaningless.

The dower house had been old before Malcolm was born, built on earlier plans in which each room connected to the rest. The furnishings had long since been removed, other than a few pieces that were too large to be transported easily or too out of fashion to be bothered with.

He didn’t like seeing houses in this state of decay. Amelia, however, had no such aversion.

She stopped to run a finger over the intricately carved wooden doorframe connecting the old dining room and drawing room. He handed her the candle and left her to her examination. The drawing room held two chests of extra clothes and linens, as well as a heaping pile of firewood in the far corner. He threw one of the chests open and found several plaid blankets. Like the house, they were musty and cold, but dry enough.

He took the blankets back to where she still surveyed the door. It bore an intricate combination of snakes and knots, an old Gaelic motif that had survived the centuries.

She looked up at him. In the dim light, her eyes sparkled. “This is lovely, Malcolm. Think of what it must have been like to live here.”

“Cold, damp, and depressing,” he said, unfurling one of the blankets. “Or so my grandmother thought. It should have been hers when my grandfather died, but she refused to move into it. My father built her a more modern cottage, and this house was left to rot.”

“It’s far from rotting,” Amelia said, sidestepping the covering he offered to walk into the drawing room. “All this stone — it’s like the castle in miniature. With tapestries and carpets, it would be quite charming.”

He finally caught her and began undoing the buttons down her back. “You can tell yourself all the stories you like about the charm. But when you are widowed someday, I hope you have enough sense to live somewhere warmer than this.”

Her shoulders tensed under his hands. He softened his tone. “Don’t worry, darling. I don’t intend to leave you for at least a few decades.”

She bowed her head. Her hair didn’t glow in the candlelight — it was too wet for that — but the curls that had escaped from her chignon had a burnished edge. He needed to start a fire so her hair would dry, but clothes had to come first.

“You seem sure that I will outlive you,” she said.

She was somber — a tone she rarely used. As the final button slipped free, he tried to reassure her. “It seems likely, after all. The men in my family live long enough, but I am older than you.”

Amelia didn’t respond. She stepped out of her gown, picking it up to drape it on one of the chests. The dress had once been white, but the hem had turned black from the dust she’d trailed through in the dower house.

“Are you upset about your dress?” he asked, trying to read her pensive look.

She snorted. “I’d rather have my writing desk than a thousand dresses.”

“Who are you in such a rush to write to?” he asked.

“Oh, just my acquaintances in London.”

She let him unlace her stays, but that bit of obedience wasn’t enough to quiet the doubting voice in his head. Amelia wasn’t the type to sound vague — which meant her letters might be the first clue to whatever it was she was hiding.

“You haven’t asked me to frank anything yet,” he said.

Her stays came away. She turned around to face him. “Alex franked the postage for my letters. Old habits die hard.”

Something about her tone was off, even if her answer made sense — with another peer in residence, she didn’t need Malcolm for free postage. But he forgot the question when she reached down and grasped the hem of her chemise. When she pulled it over her head, he sucked in a breath. Even after two weeks spent more in bed than outside of it, the moment when he saw her body made him want her again.

He draped her in one of the blankets, tucking it around her like a makeshift dress and cloak rolled into one. She raised an eyebrow at him. “Do you really intend to act as a nursemaid, Malcolm? I’m not even sick. And I’ve never seen you want to cover me up before.”

Her voice wrapped around him, warming him more thoroughly than any blanket. The heat in his blood urged him to follow her lead.

Instead, he turned his back on her and gathered an armload of firewood. “You’re not sick, but you won’t get sick on my watch,” he said, dumping the wood beside the fireplace.

He found another tinderbox and a small pile of kindling, sealed in a barrel against the damp. As he started the fire, Amelia came to kneel beside him. “You can’t stop me from becoming ill, you know.”

He struck the flint and steel together savagely, showering sparks onto the hearth. “I made a vow to protect you, Amelia.”

“I know,” she said, stroking his thigh. “But not every vow can be kept.”

“I keep my vows, whether you do or not.”

The kindling caught flame. Her hand stilled. “What do you mean to imply?”

“Nothing, darling.” He moved away from her, grabbed a piece of wood and laid it in the kindling.

She sat back on her heels. “You don’t think I intend to keep my vows?”

“You could barely say the word ‘obey,’ let alone mean it,” he said.

He didn’t know where the words had come from — he hadn’t meant to bring it up, certainly not now. But even though he didn’t look at her as he built the fire, it felt like his whole life hung on her answer.

The fire was roaring by the time she responded. “I never thought it was a vow I would have to make. Or one a stranger could hold me to.”

His temper flared. “Am I still that much of a stranger?”

“No, of course not. And you should know, Malcolm, that I do intend to honor you. If I had to make these vows, marry someone, I am glad it is you.”

The beast within was slightly mollified, just enough that he could pause to strip out of his shirt and breeches and wrap himself in the other blanket. When he turned back to her, she wasn’t looking at him — she was staring into the fire as though she could see visions within the flames.

“If such things matter to you, I intend to honor you, too,” he said.

She looked up at him. Wearing his plaid, smiling that sad smile, she could have been any Scottish bride from centuries past — anticipating the day she would lose him. “You may feel differently when we reach London. It’s
de rigueur
for powerful men to have mistresses.”

He sat down beside her and pulled her against his chest. The stone floor chilled him, but she was warm and alive in his arms — more alive than he could have hoped, when he was searching for the perfect hostess.

He kissed the top of her head. “Not this powerful man, darling.”

“Do we have to go to London?” she asked. She sounded strangled as she said it, as though she hadn’t meant to address the subject any more than he had planned to question her vows.

“I thought you would want to return to your friends,” he said, trying to sound neutral.

“I’ll miss them, but there aren’t so many that I can’t bear to be parted with. And Prudence...”

She stopped herself. He squeezed her shoulder. “You cannot make things right with her unless you see her again.”

“That’s what I am afraid of,” she said. But she dropped the subject, tried to inject lightness into her voice, even though her attempt to seem nonchalant was unsuccessful. “The Highlands are compensation enough. Everything here is absolutely lovely. I could write about this place for decades and never tire of it.”

“Your correspondents will tire of hearing about it long before then,” he said.

She sighed. “How can you leave, though? I understand now why you never went to London before. Surely you don’t want to go?”

“I don’t,” he said. “But I must. I’ve made my decision.”

She toyed with the edge of her plaid blanket, matching the pattern’s lines to the edge of his. “Politics isn’t a nice game, you know. And there are very few men in Parliament who will give a farthing for the problems of the Highlanders. They can barely be bothered to care for the working classes right under their noses, let alone crofters hundreds of miles away.”

“I’m aware of that. But if I don’t try...”

He trailed off. The fire popped, sending sparks up the chimney. Behind him, rain still pounded against the shutters that protected the aging, fragile glass.

She waited for him to speak again. When he finally found the words, they didn’t feel like the right ones, but they were the best he could deliver. “I want this place to exist for our children, and our children’s children, and every generation beyond that. If that means I must spend all my time in London, creating policies that enable our clan to stay on this land, then so be it.”

“All things come to an end,” she said softly. “Even Rome fell.”

“This isn’t Rome,” he said, suddenly snapping. His voice rang against the bleak stone walls. “This is my home — our home. And I will save it.”

Some part of him wanted her to apologize, to soothe him, to tell him that he could save her.

Instead, she dropped the edge of his plaid. “I hope the ending of this story is the one you want, Malcolm. But you can’t save everyone. No one can ever save everyone.”

He kissed her then, if only to shut her up. The kiss turned into more, as most of their kisses did, and their lovemaking warmed even the stones around them.

But it wasn’t enough to ease the fist around his heart. He would save them all, or lose everything trying.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Hours later, Amelia held a torch aloft so Malcolm could lead the horses into their traces. The storm had long since subsided, but he insisted on waiting until her dress was dry, unwilling to risk either her health in a damp dress or her modesty in a blanket. Prudence’s note in her reticule tugged at her thoughts, and the knot in her belly hadn’t subsided. But at least Malcolm’s company could distract her, even if it wasn’t enough to make everything right again.

As Malcolm hitched the horses, Amelia considered her latest manuscript. Her heroine, Veronique, had been captured and kept in an ancient stone manor by her evil uncle, and was quickly losing all hope of a rescue from her lost fiancé, Gaston D’Ambergris. The story sounded good on paper. But now that she had an actual image of a stone manor in her mind, there was so much she could add. Veronique needed to feel the cold cutting to her bones and the damp air sticking in her lungs. She also needed to feel the heat searing her skin when her fiancé rescued her, and the knowledge that he had scoured the earth to find her.

Amelia couldn’t write everything she had felt at the dower house, and she certainly couldn’t have the fiancé strip Veronique to the skin — even anonymously, she wouldn’t publish such sentiments. But the feeling that someone would do anything to save her, would sacrifice himself for her comfort, was a notion Amelia had never really believed before.

Malcolm went back into the house and returned with their blankets. He wiped down the seats of the curricle with one, then spread the other over Amelia’s seat. “Are you ready, darling?” he asked, extending an arm.

She nodded. He lifted her into the curricle, then tucked her cloak and the edges of the blanket around her. “We are less than two miles from the castle. Unless the road has washed out, we should be home within the half hour. I hope Graves had the sense to save our suppers.”

“I really haven’t minded,” she said as he joined her on the seat. “Rain and hunger aside, I thought the dower house was lovely.”

“Wouldn’t you rather have a nice townhouse with wooden floors? Perhaps some wallpaper? Or the gaslights that I hear are the next advancement in London?”

She laughed. “Give me a castle any day, my lord. Townhouses may be comfortable, but they have none of the magic of your library.”

He drove them down the lane toward the main road. “Perhaps I should have married Miss Etchingham after all. I had no idea you were so intrigued by history.”

The reminder of Prudence, and the note she’d sent, sucked the humor out of Amelia’s voice. “I don’t care for history the way she does. The stories, though — much of the time I would rather live in a fairy tale than the horrid realities of London.”

“Well, there are stories aplenty in the Highlands, although few of them are fairy tales.” He turned onto the road. The horses slogged through the muddy rivulets running down toward the valley in front of them. The village lay between them and the castle, glowing orange.

But the glow was strange — the sun had set three hours earlier, and the moon was just a sliver in the sky. “What is that?” she asked.