Some Like It Wicked (24 page)

There was no sign of the girl who had stood on the edge of that snow-swept cliff with arms spread wide to embrace the world, no sign of the woman who had kicked up her heels and danced a Highland reel to the joyous skirl of the bagpipes, no sign of the wild child who had warmed his bed and his heart throughout the long, sweet night.

She handed him her portmanteau without a word. Before he could toss it in the back of the wagon and offer her a hand, she had hiked up the hem of her skirt to reveal an enticing glimpse of lace-trimmed stocking and clambered up onto the wagon’s bench without his assistance.

She stared straight ahead. “Is this going to cost me extra?”

“Pardon me?” he replied, wary of the clipped edges that had returned to her speech.

“Since returning me to my uncle’s doorstep wasn’t part of our bargain, I’d like to know ahead of time if I’m going to be expected to perform any extra
services
as payment.”

Simon tried to clear his throat, but it turned into a full-blown cough as his lusty imagination provided painfully vivid images of several
services
he’d love for her to perform. “That won’t be necessary,” he told her when he could talk again. “You still have ample credit on account with me.”

She folded her gloved hands in her lap. “I left Robert the Bruce in his crate. Would you mind fetching him?”

Only too eager to escape the arctic chill of her profile, Simon returned to the ruins of the great hall. Robert the Bruce huddled behind the slats of the chicken crate, looking utterly miserable at being deprived of his freedom.

Simon crouched down in front of the crate and looked him in the eye. “Sorry, big fellow.

Having been in Newgate, I know exactly how you feel.”

He was on the verge of picking up the crate when he caught a glimpse of something familiar out of the corner of his eye. It was Catriona’s beloved plaid, tossed carelessly between two heaps of stone that had once been a corner.

Simon rescued the garment and draped it over his shoulder before carrying Robert the Bruce back to the wagon. After situating the chicken crate on the seat next to Catriona, he held out the plaid to her. “You left this behind.”

Catriona continued to gaze straight ahead, ignoring his offering. She had treasured the sentimental scrap of fabric with every ounce of girlish devotion in her heart. But she wasn’t that girl anymore. Simon had finally succeeded in making a woman of her—not by taking her to his bed, but by casting her out of it.

“I know I left it behind,” she said briskly. “It’s old and worn out. Why should I walk around draped in rags when my uncle can buy me all the shawls I need?”

Simon frowned. “But I thought it was all you had left of your family. Your brother.”

Catriona swung around on the seat, giving Simon his first clear look at her face.

Although her eyes still looked a little puffy, she had splashed away every last trace of tears from her cheeks. She was pale but resolute, each of her freckles standing out in stark relief. “My family is gone and so is my brother. Leave it, please.
I don’t want it
.”

Simon slowly withdrew his hand, then walked around to the back of the wagon. He fingered the soft woolen folds of the plaid, unable to bring himself to toss it away like so much garbage. Catriona had lost so much in this place. Her dream of reuniting her clan.

Her last scrap of faith in him. Her innocence.

After checking to make sure her attention was occupied by the cat, he gently folded the plaid and stuffed it beneath one of the bolts of tartan in the bed of the wagon.

He climbed up on the bench, noting that Catriona had resituated the crate so it would rest between them, abolishing any possibility of her thigh bumping against his or his elbow accidentally brushing the softness of her breast.

He flicked the reins on the horses’ backs, urging them into motion. As the wagon jolted its way down the rocky path that led to the road, it was Simon who cast a glance over his shoulder at the lonely tower standing sentinel over a pile of rubble. Catriona continued to stare straight ahead, not looking back even once as they left the ruins of Castle Kincaid and all her dreams behind them.

******************

After suffering through three days of strained silence and two nights of sharing a campfire with Catriona but not a bedroll, Simon would have given anything to hear her chattering on and on about some particularly fetching red squirrel or aspen tree. Her frosty demeanor was agony to endure when he now knew just exactly how
warm
she could be.

When they rolled into Edinburgh on the third day, the boisterous noise of the carriages clattering over the cobblestones, the draymen swearing at their massive wagons, and the street vendors hawking their wares sounded like music to his ears—a welcome reprieve from Catriona’s stony silence.

Already anticipating how heavenly it was going to feel to sleep in a real bed, he left her sitting in the wagon while he went into the Cock of the Walk Inn to arrange for their lodgings.

When he emerged, he was already dreading her reaction to his news. “We have a slight problem. I’m afraid they only have one room to let for the night.”

“And why would that be a problem? We
are
still man and wife, you know. At least until the bishop declares otherwise.” As Catriona offered him her gloved hand so he could help her climb down from the wagon, he realized it was the first time she had allowed him to touch her since they’d left the castle.

******************

Simon’s hopes for a bed were not to be realized. Catriona and Robert the Bruce claimed the handsome four-poster the minute they sashayed into the room. Unlike the modest bedstead in Gretna Green, there would have been ample room for all of them had Catriona been inclined toward generosity. Since she was not, Simon was left to spread a wool blanket over the rather musty-smelling rug in front of the hearth.

While Catriona and her cat cuddled beneath the fluffy down counterpane, Simon lay on his back on the floor with his hands behind his head, listening to the cozy crackling of the fire and trying not to think about how badly he ached to sink into both the feather mattress and his wife. He supposed he should be grateful that she hadn’t made him sleep in the stables with the nags.

The sound of her tossing about on the mattress and rustling between the sheets, then sighing with contentment, only added to his torment.

He had nearly drifted off to sleep when one of those sighs was followed by, “I’ve been thinking about our little bargain, Mr. Wescott, and I suppose I should be grateful to you.”

“You should?” Simon replied, his eyes popping wide open.

“I most certainly should. After all, how many women can claim they were tutored in the arts of love by one of the most legendary lovers in all of England?”

“There’s no need to flatter me,” he replied with mock seriousness. “All of
London
will do.

I’ve heard there’s a fellow in Bath who can tie a knot in a cherry stem with his tongue with his hands tied behind his back.”

“Hmmmm,” she said after a thoughtful pause. “Perhaps I can talk Uncle Ross into summering there.”

Scowling, Simon propped himself up on one elbow.

“I’m sure my next husband will appreciate all of the skills I learned from you, especially that clever little trick you taught me to do with my mouth.”

He would have sworn he wasn’t the jealous sort, but the thought of her putting that mouth on another man made Simon want to hunt down that shadowy figure from her future and kill him where he stood.

“Or perhaps I won’t ever marry again,” she added cheerfully. “After spending time with you, I can certainly see how it must be quite liberating to take a succession of lovers without suffering any of the ridiculous foibles of love. All pleasure and no pain, as it were.”

If that was true, Simon thought, then why did both his head and his heart feel as if they were about to explode?

He sat up. He might have been away from the gaming tables for well over a fortnight, but he hadn’t forgotten how to call his opponent’s bluff.

“Perhaps it’s not too late for you to take advantage of me,” he suggested, rising to his feet.

Catriona was reclining against the pillows with Robert the Bruce curled up at her feet. As he padded toward the bed, she shrank against the headboard, her wary eyes gleaming in the firelight. She’d tried to tame her curls into two neat braids, but several of them had escaped to riot around her face.

“Whatever do you mean?” she asked as his shadow fell over her.

“I’m offering you the chance to take full advantage of my knowledge. Over the years I’ve discovered there are very few skills within the arts of love that can’t be improved with diligent practice.” He touched one fingertip to the flawless Cupid’s bow at the top of her lips, then followed it around to the plump pillow of her bottom lip. “Including those involving that beautiful mouth of yours.”

She closed her eyes briefly and drew in a shaky breath, an enchanting blush rising in her cheeks. “Weren’t you the one who told me that enthusiasm counted for more than skill?”

“Indeed it does,” he said, lowering his voice to a husky whisper. “But just think how irresistible you’ll be if you can bring both to the table.”

Simon brushed his lips against hers before he could confess that she was already irresistible. If not, he wouldn’t be drinking of the honeyed sweetness of her mouth again, wouldn’t be straining against the front of his trousers with such force that he could almost hear the seams ripping, wouldn’t be about to make the second biggest mistake of his life.

As he lowered himself into her open arms, Catriona stretched out her foot and nudged Robert the Bruce right out of the bed.

******************

Catriona awoke on her stomach with one arm dangling over the foot of the bed. She lifted her head, shaking her tousled hair out of her eyes. Sunlight was streaming through the window, warming the curves of her naked body. Robert the Bruce was eyeing her malevolently from the blanket in front of the hearth.

“I’m sorry, old boy,” she whispered. “You know I’ll always love you best.”

He gave her the cut direct by lifting one paw for an aloof lick, no more convinced by her lie than she was.

She rolled to her back with a gusty sigh to find her husband sprawled crossways across the feather mattress beside her, lightly snoring.

She propped herself up on one elbow, a helpless smile curving her lips. The morning sunlight gilded every inch of Simon’s lean, well-muscled frame—from the whiskers that were beginning to stubble his jaw to the long, narrow planes of his feet.

She supposed he had earned his rest. He certainly hadn’t allowed either one of them any sleep during the long, luscious hours of the night. It was as if he were determined to wring every last drop of pleasure from her, leaving her limp and sated and utterly in his thrall.

At one point during the night he had left her lolling in the bed—still half dazed by their most recent coupling—while he slipped into his trousers and went downstairs to beg some fresh strawberries and a dish of cream from the innkeeper. She had thought it all madness until she discovered just what he intended to do with them.

A crooked smile touched her lips. She had never dreamed that love could be so sticky and so sweet all at the same time.

He had taught her any number of lessons in the arts of love during the night, the most decadent of them involving the bedposts and a pair of her silk stockings. The very memory sent a dark shudder of delight through her, especially when she remembered how she had taken her own revenge after he was through with her and she had wriggled free of her bonds.

She had been baiting him deliberately last night, only to end up tumbling recklessly into her own trap. She had thought to give him a tantalizing taste of exactly what he would be missing for the rest of his life, not realizing until it was too late that she was the one who wouldn’t be able to resist feasting on him one last time.

She smoothed a lock of hair from his brow, her smile fading. Although she had desperately wanted to believe otherwise, he was the same boy she had fallen in love with all of those years ago. He was beautiful. He was tender. He was utterly ruthless when it came to pursuing what he desired. And he would always choose the pleasures of making love over the perils of falling in love.

She leaned over and touched her lips to the scar on his brow, already regretting that she couldn’t be more like him.

******************

When Simon awoke near noon to find both Catriona and her cat gone, he refused to panic as he had the morning after their wedding. He scrubbed his teeth and took his time washing up and dressing. He ran his fingers through his hair, giving it the artfully disheveled look most women seemed to prefer. He tied a knot in his cravat with deliberate care, pausing to admire his reflection in the looking glass over the washbasin.

He was confident that when he went downstairs, Catriona would be waiting for him, tapping her little booted foot impatiently as she berated him for sleeping half the day away.

But what he found instead was the red-faced innkeeper holding out a folded piece of vellum sealed with a dab of cheap wax. “Yer lady asked me to give this to ye as soon as ye came downstairs.”

Simon took the missive, turning away before he could see the pity in the man’s eyes. He walked out onto the pavement, utterly oblivious to the jostling crowds or the vehicles clattering over the cobblestones only a few feet away as he unfolded Catriona’s neatly penned note and read: