The Bodyguard (32 page)

“I’ll fight you in court.”

“Don’t waste your time.”

“I canna believe you would let us starve, knowing all of us as you do.”

“Once I’ve hired a new steward, the rents will be returned to a fair rate. You don’t need to own—”

“Castle MacKinnon—Blackthorne Hall—belongs to my family. I want it back.”

Alex sneered. “What will you give me for it? Will you offer yourself as barter again? I might be tempted.”

Kitt flushed. They had crossed the dry moat and entered the bailey at Blackthorne Hall. The shadow of the keep fell across them, shutting out the sun. She shivered with foreboding. Grooms came to take their mounts. Kitt would have slid off her horse, but Alex was there to help her down. She felt the heat of his hands even through her riding clothes.

She noticed he didn’t bother to knock on the thick wooden door that led inside the keep, simply opened it and stepped inside beneath the forty-foot-high vaulted
ceiling as though he belonged there. The two knights still stood guard beside the mammoth fireplace built of stone that had been gathered by her ancestors.

“Excuse me, sir,” the butler protested.

“I am Blackthorne,” Alex announced.

“But—”

He stepped past the gape-mouthed servant and headed down the hall toward the library with Kitt in tow. “I don’t want to be disturbed.”

It would have been useless to make a scene. She had no allies here. Kitt’s heart began to race when the library door closed behind her with a heavy thud.

“Well, my dear. What do you have to say for yourself?”

She clasped her hands in front of her to hide the fact they were shaking. She looked around her at the Sheraton desk, at the portraits in gold-painted frames, the mahogany shelves filled with leather-bound tomes, at the wealth and comfort to which he had been born and to which—because of Culloden—she had not. “I’m not sorry for anything I’ve done.”

“I expected as much,” he said bitterly.

“I made a vow to my father on his deathbed. I only did what I had to do.”

“As I recall, you would have married the devil himself, if necessary. In fact, you married an Englishman. It must have been difficult to convince your clansmen to go along with the ruse.”

“They were never a part of it, Alex. ’Twas my father’s plan that I should have Blackthorne’s child.”

“So the child could inherit along with my legitimate heirs under Scottish law.”

She nodded.

“What if the babe was female?”

She shrugged. “The gamble would have been lost.”

“As it turned out, you never got pregnant. Too bad, my dear.”

“Not for want of trying!” she snapped.

“No. You were ever willing. Perhaps you would like to give it one last try.”

“What?”

“I am returning to England as soon as I can. Tomorrow morning, if at all possible. To put it plainly, my dear, our marriage is at an end.”

Kitt felt several things at once. Rage that he could dismiss her so carelessly. Despair that she had failed her clan. And desperation. It was the last of these that led her to accept his offer.

“Very well,” she said, letting out a shuddering breath. “I will lie with you one last time.”

Alex was stunned. He hadn’t expected Kitt to take him up on his offer, and now that she had, he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to take such a chance. What if, this time, his seed took root?

But it had not for many months, and he would be a fool to deny himself the pleasure of bedding her one last time. Alex knew he had been lucky so far. That he was playing with fire. But he wanted her. And this way he would be able to get his fill of her before he left.

Her callous acceptance of his offer made it obvious
to him that Kitt had no feelings for him, that during their time together she had displayed only what fondness was necessary to deceive him into coupling with her.

“Come with me,” Alex said, taking her by the hand.

“You want to couple here?
Now
?”

“Right now. In my bed upstairs.”

Alex had a flashback to a time when he had dragged Penthia up the stairs, demanding that she lie with him. By then, he had known she cared nothing for him. He had appealed to the only reason he could think of to persuade her into his bed.

“It is your duty to give me an heir.”

He had been more than a little foxed, but he had managed to bed her, much to her disgust. The next morning he had been ashamed of his behavior.

His marriage had been miserable and filled with deceit. He would never have let Kitt get so close to him if he had remembered it sooner. He would never have put himself in a position to endure that sort of pain again. But Kitt had deceived him when he was most vulnerable. He had let himself love her. Even though he knew she did not love him back.

It was too late to avoid the pain, which seemed somehow worse this second time. To his shame, he still wanted his Scots wife. Even worse, he still loved her.

It was small comfort to feel Kitt’s frightened hand trembling in his, as he escorted her up the stairs. He was weak in the knees. Alex knew exactly where he was going. He opened the first door to the right on the second
floor and found the master suite. The canopied bed was much larger than he remembered, but he had been a child of ten when he was last here.

He closed the door behind Kitt and watched as she looked around the room. “I believe these are the original furnishings. My grandfather saw no need to replace such a splendid bed.”

Her eyes looked enormous in her pale face. “Alex, I …”

“No apologies are necessary, my dear,” he said as he unbuckled the belt that held up his trousers. “Just undress yourself and lie down.”

He had wanted to hurt her, and he saw from the fleeting look on her face that he had. Her chin tilted up in defiance. Her lips firmed in determination. And her eyes narrowed with scorn.

“I see you have decided to show your true feelings at last, my dear.”

“I will hate you for this, Alex.”

“It is only one more sin to add to the list you have long since laid at my door.”

“What do you expect from me?” she spat. “You murdered Leith.”

“The only man you could ever love, as I recall.”

“When I said that, I believed I would never love again. I didna know I could. But I did fall in love again, Alex. With you. I couldna help it. It just happened!”

“You need not pretend with me, Kitt. You’ve already told me all your secrets. How you hate the English, especially Blackthorne. Come. Lay yourself down for your
enemy one last time, my dear. Make the great sacrifice for your people.”

Every movement was filled with pride and defiance as she undressed herself before him in broad daylight. Alex’s breath caught in his chest. His heart was pounding like the drums on St. Bride’s day as she exposed her high, firm breasts, her narrow waist and flat belly, her broad, childbearing hips, and the lithe legs that had more than once been wrapped around his waist.

It was only when his eyes returned to her face that he saw her hunger. And something else that might have been regret.

Alex pulled his shirt off over his head and yanked off boots and socks before stripping off his trousers and smalls, leaving him as naked as she. When he looked up again, he found that her gaze was as avid as his. She might hate him, but by God, she wanted him.

Good
, he thought.
Let her suffer as I do
.

“Come here,” he said in a dangerously soft voice.

“No, you come here,” she replied, tipping her chin an inch higher.

He could afford to be generous. He had what he wanted. She was his, if only for one more day. Alex took the three steps that put them body to body and brushed her hair back over her shoulders to fully expose her breasts. He leaned down and kissed her breast, then sucked the nipple into his mouth. She made an angry sound as her hands clutched at his hair.

But she did not force him away. She held him where he was. Alex released her and looked into her deep
green eyes. The defiance was gone. What he saw was pain.

He should have stopped then. He knew what he was doing to them both. Some demon drove him to pick her up in his arms and carry her to the bed and lay her down.

He did not tarry with her, afraid he would change his mind and send her away. He slipped his hands beneath her buttocks, spread her legs with his knees, and thrust inside. She was hot and wet and ready for him. He met her gaze as he stroked inside her and saw the guilt. Because she wanted him. Despite who and what she knew him to be.

He closed his eyes to shut out what he could not change and drove toward his climax inside her. All the time he was aware of keeping himself—his inner self—from her. He did not kiss her. He did not touch her, except as his body surged into hers. This was not an act of love. It was an act of anger.

Filled with self-loathing, Alex withdrew before spilling his seed, anxious to remove himself from a situation he could no longer control.

Kitt’s legs encircled his thighs to keep him from retreating. “No! You promised! One last time!”

He sank back inside her, but grasped her chin with his hand to force her to look at him. “You hate me, and yet you want this?”

He watched her swallow hard. “I want a child, Alex. Our child. I never meant to hurt you. I wanted to tell
you the truth so many times, but I was afraid. Because I love—”

“Bloody hell!” he raged, cutting off the lie before she could speak it. “Very well, madam. We will finish it.”

When she tried to close her eyes, he said, “Look at me. I want to see your face when I do this.”

He looked at her but he didn’t see her, because a red rage had clouded his vision. He preferred anger over the pain that threatened to overwhelm him and make it impossible for him to do what she wished. Why did she profess to love him? Why perpetuate the lie?

Oh, God, he wished he could believe her! But he could not. He was a fool to take the chance of getting her pregnant. He should stop this now, while there was still time.

When he hesitated, she reached out and touched him in a sensitive spot she knew would arouse him, then pulled his head down to hers and kissed him full on the mouth.

He kissed her back, their tongues dueling as their bodies skirmished. Her hands moved over him, touching and scratching and arousing him to unbearable heights, while he caressed her satiny skin, loving the softness, the uniqueness of her.

Because he had prolonged the coupling, the moment of climax was all the more powerful when it came. As he spilled his seed, he heard her cry of joy and for one single instant he wished he were not leaving on the morrow. More than that, he wished … for a fairy tale. For happily ever after.

He sank on top of her, loving her curves, her warmth, the texture of her skin. He forced himself to withdraw from her heat and rolled over onto his back, then covered his eyes with his forearm.

“You can leave,” he said.

“What?”

“I said get out.”

He could feel her hesitation, her disbelief, her humiliation. She deserved it, didn’t she? Hadn’t she deceived him? Tricked him into a handfast marriage? Had carnal relations with him for a reason other than love or even mutual pleasure?

He sat up and met her stricken eyes and said, “Are you deaf? I said get out!”

She was proud even in defeat. Unhurriedly she slipped off the bed and dressed herself while he watched her, wanting her, and God help him, aching with love for her.

There was no mistaking her loathing for him when she said, “When your son is born I will be back to claim what’s mine.”

A moment later the door closed behind her and she was gone.

The afternoon sun was gone by the time Alex dressed himself and went downstairs to the library to examine his accounts. He decided to appoint a young man who worked at Blackthorne Abbey as his new steward and wrote a letter asking him if he would accept the position. He then wrote to his solicitor authorizing him to pay amounts back to each and every tenant equal to the rent increases Mr. Ambleside had charged them.

By the end of the day he had written three additional missives. One to arrange for the Bow Street Runners to find and arrest Mr. Cedric Ambleside, a second to begin the criminal proceedings against Carlisle, and a third to inform his brother that he was alive and would be returning home with all possible speed.

He collected the missives and sought out his butler.
“Please have these posted immediately. I’ll be leaving for London tomorrow morning.”

“You might consider carrying the letters yourself, Your Grace,” Harper suggested. “If you intend to leave so soon.”

“I have at least two stops to make that may delay my journey.” He needed to repay someone for the loan of a shirt and trousers and a pair of shoes. And he wanted to offer a position to Michael O’Malley, the one person who had offered him assistance when he was plain Alex Wheaton.

“But perhaps I’ll take this one with me.” He plucked out the letter to his solicitor authorizing the refunds to his tenants. If he carried it himself, he would be certain it arrived. “You can take the others.”