Teresa Medeiros (19 page)

Sabrina opened her mouth and closed it again, robbed of all speech by shock. She’d never imagined Morgan’s brain storing so many words, much less uttering them. His masculine arrogance both astounded and fascinated her. She resisted the temptation to drop down and genuflect at his bare feet.

He took advantage of her stupefaction to stride toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

He tilted his jaw to an imperious angle as if explaining something to a rather stupid child. “To my chamber. Your parents kept separate chambers, did they not? All the fine folk do.”

Sabrina massaged her temples, wondering if hunger had driven her mad. Morgan was not a man given to graceful surrender, yet there he stood, giving her exactly what she had wanted. A marriage of convenience. So why did she feel so inconvenienced? And how did the man expect to get a son from her if they slept apart? Surely he wasn’t
that
unschooled. A disgruntled glance at him vanquished that question. This was a man born knowing what to do, a green-eyed rogue destined to be every lass’s forbidden fantasy and every papa’s nightmare.

“Most have separate chambers, I suppose,” she muttered. “Although often in the winter, Mama and Papa would—”

“Verra well. Good night.” His hand closed on the doorknob.

Sabrina was shocked to realize she didn’t want him to abandon her to the bleak solitude she had suffered all day. A note of desperation touched her voice. “Morgan!”

He paused.

She could think of only one way to postpone their parting. If he had so generously accepted the terms she had offered, then what harm would there be in making a small concession to his own ego?

She darted her tongue out to moisten her lips and sidled toward him. “There’s more to marriage than chess and singing, you know. A true gentleman would never bid his wife good night without first offering her a parting kiss.”

His brows drew together in a wary line. “Your father
kissed
your mother?”

She nodded primly. “Every night. Without fail.”

“His own wife?”

Sabrina resisted the urge to kick him in the shins, knowing she’d only get a broken toe for her effort. “His very own wife.”

A groan escaped Morgan as if he were suffering mightily beneath the weight of civilized custom. “If ’tis the proper thing to do …”

Sabrina had no time to prepare herself. His arm snaked around her waist, snatching her clear off the floor. His mouth clamped down on hers. His attack ended as abruptly as it had come, leaving her staggering.

She shot him an accusing look and knuckled her lip. “You bit me!”

He ducked his head. A grin lurked behind his rakish fall of hair. “Now, lass, you can’t expect a MacDonnell to know how to kiss. Barefoot savages we are, the lot of us.”

Sabrina remembered only too well that the insult he threw back in her face now had preceded a kiss of drugging tenderness in her mother’s solar.

“Perhaps I should let you do the honors,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest and staring straight ahead.

Sabrina approached the flesh-and-blood monolith with trepidation, unable to forget that a man’s heart beat hot and strong beneath his golden skin. Her teeth
worried her tender lip. Drawing in a breath for courage, she closed her eyes, pursed her lips and …

 … kissed his plaid.

Scowling, she plucked a wool fuzz from her lip and tried again. Even by arching her neck and bouncing up and down on her tiptoes, she could do no more than graze his throat. Morgan remained impervious to her struggles; his stony jaw cracked in a yawn.

Determined to wring a response from him, Sabrina dragged the stool over and climbed on top of it. Morgan’s lips were set in a stern line, but his eyes glittered with mischief. Remembering her mother’s wedding-night lesson, Sabrina softened her demure pucker. Framing his rugged face in her hands, she pressed her lips to his. Their firm, silky contours parted beneath her coaxing, and she allowed him a teasing taste of her tongue.

Morgan’s growl blended with a roar of warning in her ears. The world swayed, but Morgan caught her before she could fall. “What is it, lass? Are you ill?”

She laughed shakily, clinging to his plaid. “Just hungry, I fear. I haven’t eaten today.”

His face darkened with displeasure. “Damn Alwyn anyway. The lazy wench was supposed to bring your meals to your chamber.”

Sabrina had to do no more than arch one eyebrow before he nodded sheepishly, conceding it an ill-conceived idea from the start.

He gently set her on her feet. “I’ll have somethin’ sent up right away.”

“Morgan?” she asked shyly. “Will you be expecting a good-night kiss every night?”

It seemed a much greater struggle for him to affect a stern expression. “Aye, lass. Every night. Without fail.”

The door closed in her face, then swung back open, giving her barely enough time to hide her triumphant grin. “I’ll strike a bargain with you, lass. I’ll keep Alwyn out of the kitchen if you’ll steer Enid clear of the garden. Her stewed mushrooms are pure murder.”

She snatched at the door before he could close it
again. “But how did you know it was Enid who poisoned you?”

His grin took on a devilish slant. “I didn’t. Until now.”

Morgan was gone before Sabrina realized he had tricked a confession of innocence from her. She didn’t know whether to bless or curse his canny wit. She slumped against the door, pressing her cheek to the rugged wood and knowing it wasn’t hunger making her heart beat with such wild abandon.

On the other side of the door, Morgan fought every masculine instinct that commanded he march back into the chamber and seize what was his. Patience was a virtue a true warrior must possess. But the sweet, intoxicating taste of Sabrina still flavored his mouth, making him hunger for more. Much more. He would have sworn her ethereal scent had followed him into the corridor. He bunched his plaid beneath his nose. The haunting fragrance of roses clung to it, planted there in the moment she had swooned in his arms, not from ardor, but hunger.

His hand clenched the tartan as if mere brawn could preserve such an elusive prize. He could not afford to let Sabrina know how badly he wanted her. A MacDonnell could never humble himself before a Cameron. Tonight had been a small triumph to savor, but others would soon follow, he promised himself. Damn his own pleasure for now. He would court her and tease her until she was begging for the pleasure he could give her. Never had the prospect of battle loomed so gloriously; never had victory been so wickedly anticipated.

When Sabrina’s surrender finally came, it would be made all the sweeter for the waiting.

Sabrina awoke the next morning to the beguiling sensation of someone stroking her hair. “Mama,” she mumbled, rolling to her back.

But when she opened her eyes, she saw the rounded blur of her cousin’s face.

Enid twined a stray tendril of Sabrina’s hair around her finger. “My hair has always been too thin to curl.”

Sabrina sat up and leaned against the headboard, hugging her knees. Wary silence hung between them.

“I never meant—”

“I came to tell—”

They both lapsed back into silence.

Enid twisted a loose fold of the coverlet. “There’s something you should know. There was more to my being sent to Cameron than my father let on.”

“I thought it was simply so we could get to know each other before my visit to London in the spring,” Sabrina lied, wanting to spare her cousin’s feelings.

She was surprised to realize how distant her dreams of London seemed. She had spent hours envisioning handsome suitors falling at her feet. Now she would trade all of their imagined gallantries for the shadow of a smile from one man.

Enid shook her head. “I had a suitor in London,” she confessed shyly. “Philip Markham. A Cambridge graduate. Tall. Handsome. Very proper, even a bit severe, but Mother and Father were delighted. They had begun to despair of ever marrying me off.” Her faint shrug revealed more than she intended it to. “I truly believed he cared for me. Perhaps he did in the only way he knew how.”

As she continued, Sabrina took her hand. It was clammy and cool. “The day he came to ask my father for my hand, he did the only unconventional thing I’d ever known him to do. He waited until the family had gathered in the salon. Then he tore the ribbon off a box and drew out a gown, a stunning gown with a narrow waistline stitched into gathered pleats.” Enid’s fingers tightened. “He told them all that the day I could fit into that gown was the day we would wed.”

Tears of anger and empathy stung Sabrina’s eyes. “That wretch! I hope Uncle Willie sent him packing.”

“They were all very quiet for a moment, then
they jumped up to offer their congratulations. Not even Stefan could look me in the eye. It was the longest evening of my life. I managed to smile my way through supper, then I retreated to my room.”

“Where I hope you wrote a scathing letter dressing that scoundrel down to his stockings!”

“I vomited,” Enid said starkly. “Then I ate an entire box of chocolates. The day the engagement announcement appeared in the
Gazette
, I ate the turkey the cook had dressed for Sunday’s dinner.” A sad, triumphant smile played around her mouth. “Within three weeks I couldn’t fit into my own gowns, much less the one Philip had chosen. So he broke off our engagement in disgust.” A fierce pride lit her pale eyes. “But I learned something in those weeks. I learned there were men in the world who cared nothing about a woman’s weight. Underfootmen. Delivery boys. Barbers.”

The light in her eyes died. “When my father caught me on the desk in the library with his very own solicitor, he banished me to Scotland until the scandal of Philip’s rejection could die down.”

Swallowing her shock at her cousin’s blunt confession, Sabrina stroked Enid’s downy cheek. “Oh, Enid. I’m so terribly sorry.”

“All my life I’ve been told how pretty I would be if I weren’t fat.”

“But you’re not fat,” Sabrina dutifully protested. “You’re—”

Enid laid two fingers against her lips. “Fat. Not pudgy. Not plump. Fat. But Ranald is one of those men who finds me pretty anyway.” Patches of pink tinted her cheeks, but Sabrina sensed that she needed to say what would come next. “When I expressed a fear that in my ardor I might crush him, he only laughed and said that any man who couldn’t handle a magnificent lass such as I was was no man at all.”

Sabrina had a thousand questions to ask, but was ashamed to admit she hadn’t allowed her own husband to teach her the answers. Enid stiffened as she awaited her response.

Sabrina tucked a wispy strand of hair behind her cousin’s ear. “I don’t think you’re pretty.” Enid’s eyes darkened. Sabrina started to smile. “I think you’re beautiful.”

Enid opened her arms and Sabrina fell into them. Their tearful embrace was interrupted by a bloodcurdling scream from Enid. Her hand trembled as she pointed over Sabrina’s shoulder.

Clutching her ringing ear, Sabrina swiveled to find a huge black beetle frozen on the wall behind the bed. His antennae quivered in apparent terror.

A giggle burst from her. She met Enid’s eyes and they both started to laugh as they realized Enid possessed the courage and recklessness to bed a wild Highlander but could still swoon at the sight of a harmless bug.

The chamber door flew open to reveal a corridor of curious MacDonnells, rabid for excitement. They gaped at the puzzling sight of the two young women collapsed in each other’s arms, howling with mirth. Their dumbfounded expressions sent Sabrina and Enid into fresh gales of laughter.

An old man, bald except for a shock of white hair above each ear, scratched his shiny head. “Why, I’ll be damned! Ye never know which bed ye’re goin’ to find these young lassies in. And they say we MacDonnells are a randy lot!”

Sabrina chose the following night to teach her husband the intricacies of chess.

She didn’t even blink when Morgan’s fist came down on the board, overturning it and sending the pieces rolling to all corners of the chamber. With a long-suffering sigh, she knelt to gather them into her skirt. It was the third time he’d upset the board and she’d yet to explain the movements of bishop or rook.

Morgan paced the chamber in angry strides, his hand clenched around the object of his contempt. “How?” he raged. “How can the king be so bloody powerless? Has he no honor? No pride? Where lies the glory in hidin’ behind a woman’s skirts?”

Pugsley stretched out his little legs, rolled over on the hearth, and yawned.

“You’re missing the point.” Sabrina plucked the toes of a hapless knight from the fire. “The king is the most important player on the board. You can play without a queen, but you can’t play without a king. When
he is captured, the game is lost. He must be protected at all costs.”

“Protected? By a handful of foolish pawns and a mere woman! What manner of chieftain is he? He should be stoned and cast out of his clan.” To illustrate his point, Morgan hurled the cowardly monarch toward the fire. Pugsley caught the piece and worried it between his merciless gums.

Sabrina rolled her eyes as Morgan absently helped her flip over the heavy board. “A mere woman? There have been many women throughout history who have given their lives protecting their own. What of your very own Queen Mary?”

He slammed his palms on the table, his scowl deepening. “Whose head was forfeit to
your
very own Queen Elizabeth”

Sabrina thumped down a rook. “She wasn’t
my
Queen Elizabeth. I’m as Scottish as you are, Morgan MacDonnell!”

“Then why do you talk like a bloody Sassenach?”

They found themselves leaning over the table, nose to nose. Sabrina’s breath caught as Morgan’s gaze dropped to her lips, his eyes the minty color of a raindrop suspended on a new leaf. His gaze held her mesmerized for a timeless moment before falling to the chessboard. He picked up the graceful figure of the dark queen.

His burr softened, losing the sharp edges of anger. “Women are delicate creatures. Fragile. Gentle. Made by God to be sheltered from the harshness of this world.”

Sabrina was riveted by the sight of his hands, impossibly large, impossibly gentle, caressing the translucent jasper. She had seen his hands move with that same dreamy grace over the petals of the Belmont Rose an instant before it had snapped.