The Highlander's Yuletide Love (15 page)

And now I must
go; I hear Glencairn calling my name, for he has promised to drive out with me
this afternoon to visit the village of Luss on Loch Lomond! Such lovely names
they have here, so musical. I wonder sometimes how I will be able to leave it!

Your loving
sister,

Harriet

Sophy stood in
her studio, staring at the painting occupying the easel in front of her. It was
very clearly a portrait of Ranulf Stirling, but she felt discontented with it. Something
was missing, though she could not decide exactly what. She sighed and dropped a
cloth over it, feeling a strange discomfort with it. She turned to gaze at
another painting, a charming watercolor she had begun based on her sketches
from the day spent on the banks of Loch Katrine. It was beautiful, but she
could not shake the notion that it was insipid. With a sigh, she turned back to
the portrait and lifted the cloth covering it, staring again into the deep
brown eyes that she found there.

“Am I disturbing
you?”

Sophy squeaked
and dropped the cloth, looking up wide-eyed to find Ranulf standing in the
door.

“Oh! No! You are
welcome here, of course. It is your home, after all! I was merely thinking.”

Ranulf raised
his eyebrows and approached her. “About me?”

“About your
portrait,” said Sophy primly.

“Ah. I am
becoming rather jealous of it. You seem to find it far more interesting than
you do me.”

Sophy gave him a
severe look. “I would hardly know it. Since the day I arrived, you’ve not---” she
broke off.

“I’ve not what?”

Sophy detected a
glint of amusement in his eyes, and she turned away. “You know very well.”

“I do indeed. I’ve
been nothing but a gentleman, making unexceptionable conversation, escorting
you and your family about the countryside, and sitting docilely for a portrait
you refuse to show me. Yet somehow you seem annoyed.”

“You said you
wished to spend time with me.”

“I did, and I
have. Those times I kissed you, Sophy—that is not what I wonder about. I know
how lovely you are, and I know how sweetly you respond to me and how much I
want you. But I also wish to converse with you, and understand you better. I
watch your face when you paint. You are so intent, so fierce, and I can see
every emotion in your eyes—frustration, pleasure, anger, excitement.”

Sophy frowned. “But
the way you behave now—it is just as all the gentlemen in London do.” She noted
his raised eyebrow, and hurried on. “Of course, you are far more amusing than
they are, but you are so polite, and gentle, and you speak to me as though I
were a child.”

“Compared to me,
you are,” observed Ranulf. He folded his arms across his chest and gave her a
steady look. “What would you have me do, Sophy?”

She colored. “I
don’t mean to marry, you know.”

He nodded. “So
you’ve informed me.”

“If I don’t mean
to marry, then my—my—well, it is not necessary for me to—for me to not—”

After watching
her struggle for some moments, Ranulf came to her rescue. “Ah, I think you take
your meaning.”

“After all,”
continued Sophy airily, “It is not as though times have not changed. We can
very well do without the morals of the past.”

Ranulf smiled. “The
morals of our king and his set, who are all a great deal older than either of
us, would appall you, my dear. But I take your meaning.”

“Precisely. I
can do as I please.”

Ranulf gazed
down at her, his expression enigmatic. “Sophy, I want nothing more than to do
as you suggest. But I cannot take advantage of you, here in my home with your
family as my guests, and maintain my honor.”

“First you
refused me in my home, and now you do the same in yours!” protested Sophy. “Why
do you toy with me this way?”

Ranulf ran a
hand through his hair. “I have very little experience with virginal young
women, Sophy.” He watched as she flushed, and tamped down the desire to take
her in his arms. “I realize that the way I have dealt with you has not been all
it could be, and I think it best not to overstep my bounds. I don’t want to do
something for which you could not forgive me.”

“I find it
difficult to forgive you now,” said Sophy heatedly. “You led me to believe that
you—” she broke off angrily.

Ranulf looked
shamefaced. “I regret angering you, Sophy. I want nothing more than to take you
in my arms this moment, but it would be wrong.”

“Wrong.” Sophy
spat the word out. “I had no idea you were so conventional, Colonel Stirling.”

“Please try to
understand--you aren’t like the other women I know.”

“I do
understand,” said Sophy bitterly. “You will give pleasure to them, but not to
me.”

“I’m trying to
treat you as you deserve,” protested Ranulf. He paused a moment, then blurted
out, “Sophy, marry me.”

Her mouth fell
open slightly as she processed his words. “Marry you?”

“Marry me.” Ranulf
took her hand in his. “Why not?”

“Why?” Sophy asked
flatly.

“I have need of
a wife, and you would be more than appropriate. It appears you very much wish
to be with me, and I know I want to carry you off to my bedchamber this very
moment. If we wed, both of our needs will be met.”

“Except that
neither of us mean to marry, nor do I wish to be anyone’s appropriate wife,”
said Sophy stiffly. “I have told you over and over that I mean to be a painter.”

“I will not keep
you from your work,” said Ranulf. “I have more of an understanding of it than
you are aware.”

“How generous
you are,” said Sophy with barely concealed anger. “You are willing to marry me
so that you may produce an heir, and you are kind enough to say that my silly
ambitions will not bother you.”

“I didn’t say
that—at least not in that way.”

“Oh, I think you
did.” Sophy pulled her hand from his grasp. “I thank you, Colonel Stirling, for
your very generous offer, but I cannot agree to marry you.”

Ranulf stepped
back. “I regret that I have offended you, Lady Sophia,” he said coolly. “I will
not importune you so again. If you will excuse me, I imagine the portrait has
progressed far enough that I no longer need to sit for you. I’m sure your
brother and father would be happier with my company than you appear to be.”

Sophy watched
angrily as he strode from the room, but as the door closed behind him, she was
horrified to feel tears welling up in her eyes.

“I do not wish
to marry,” she muttered defiantly. She turned back to her paintings, studiously
avoiding the portrait under its cover, but found that she could not
concentrate. She had offered herself to him, and he had turned her away. She
reached for a brush and her colors, and dabbed angrily at the watercolor for a
few minutes, not caring that she was ruining it. An overwhelming sense of
embarrassment flooded through her, and, with an angry exclamation, she flung
down her brush and ran from the room.

She hurried
blindly down the hall and, turning a corner abruptly, ran directly into Isobel.
Her friend gave a little cry of surprise but then stepped back, looking at
Sophy closely.

“Whatever is
wrong, my dear?” she asked, concern in her voice.

Sophy turned her
face away, hoping Isobel could not see her tears. “Nothing,” she said sullenly.

Isobel placed
her hands on Sophy’s shoulders and turned her towards the window. “It’s clearly
something. Why are you crying on such a beautiful day as this?”

Sophy tried to
turn her face away from the light. “I’m not crying.”

“Of course you
are, and I imagine I may be able to guess the cause. Is it Colonel Stirling?”

Sophy shook her
head, but said nothing.

Isobel put an
arm around her and whisked her through a nearby door into a sitting room. “What
a very tedious child you can be,” she said. She sat down on the settee, pulling
Sophy down next to her. “Tell me all about it.”

“I am not
tedious!”

“I should not
have said that,” said Isobel placatingly. “I forget what it is to be newly in
love.”

“I am not in
love!”

“You are.” Isobel
looked at her severely. “You would be better off to acknowledge it now. It took
me months to admit to myself what I felt for Francis, and those were months I
might have spent happily in his company.”

Sophy raised a
hand and dashed away her tears. “You don’t understand.”

“I understand
far more than you think. I’ve watched you and Colonel Stirling these past
weeks, and hoped the two of you might come to some accommodation. But neither
of you appear to be willing to acknowledge what is between you.”

“There is
nothing between us!”

Isobel laughed. “You
see? I am right.” She looked at Sophy’s crestfallen face and took pity on her. “Tell
me about it. Perhaps I can help.”

Sophy clasped
her hands in her lap and stared down at them. “He is hateful.”

“I’m sure it
seems that way to you now. Tell me, has he kissed you?”

Sophy’s head
popped up and she stared at Isobel wide-eyed. “What?”

“I’m not a fool,
Sophy. The two of you seem to think no one has noticed, and I certainly hope
your parents have not, but I am no innocent when it comes to these things. Surely
you don’t think that Francis never kissed me before we married.”

Sophy blinked. “I
never thought about it.”

“Of course you
didn’t. It must seem to you as though we have always been married. But we were
at cross purposes for many months before we came to terms. It was a confusing
time, but also very exciting.” Isobel gave a little sigh. “Sometimes I miss it.”

“You do?”

“We are not here
to talk about me,” said Isobel. “What is the problem with Colonel Stirling?”

“He—I—we—”

“Then he has
kissed you,” said Isobel.

Sophy nodded her
head silently.

“And has he done
more than kiss you?”

Sophy nodded
again.

“I see.” Isobel
viewed her gravely. “Is it possible you are with child?”

Sophy jumped. “Isobel!”

“Well, is it?”
asked her friend patiently.

“No, we have not
done that,” said Sophy miserably. “Though I told him he might, and he did not
want to.”

Isobel gave a
quick sigh of relief before asking in a surprised tone, “What do you mean, he
didn’t want to? If ever I’ve seen a man panting after a woman, it is Ranulf
when he sees you.”

Sophy’s eyes
widened. “Do you think so?”

Isobel laughed. “I
know so. He might as well be a pointer faced with a quail.”

“Then why did he
become unbearably stuffy and tell me that my father’s presence precluded such a
thing? And say that he had overstepped his bounds, and that kissing me was
wrong?”

“Oh my. That
does sound stuffy.” Isobel patted her hand. “But he is right, you know. You are
the daughter of a noble family, and if he were to—well, to despoil you—then it
would be the act of a cad.”

“But I asked him
to despoil me! He not only said no, but he asked me to marry him!”

Isobel looked
startled. “He proposed to you?”

“Yes,” Sophy
spat out. “It made me so angry!”

“Angry?”
repeated Isobel, bewildered.

“Yes! I have
made it quite clear that I mean to be a painter, and no man’s wife. He proposed
only because he needs an heir, and he knows that I—I want to—that I want him to
despoil me, and he thinks he can thus satisfy both our needs.”

Isobel looked
perplexed. “Did he say that?”

“Yes,” said
Sophy flatly.

“I find it
difficult to believe he said something like that.”

“I hate him,”
stated Sophy.

Isobel fought
back the urge to laugh again, and took both Sophy’s hands in hers. “Listen to
me, my dear. I see that you and Ranulf have gotten yourselves into a tangle. I
think it might rival even the situation Francis and I created for ourselves. Tell
me, do you want to marry him?”

“No.” Sophy
hesitated. “Or maybe I do—but not because I would be an appropriate wife!”

Isobel sighed. “I
suppose he said that as well?”

“He did.”

“The two of you
seem to have handled this very badly.” Isobel shrugged. “I will tell you
something in the hopes that it might help you. I allowed Francis to—to despoil
me—before we were wed.”

Sophy’s eyes
grew very round. “You did?”

“I did. Indeed,
I asked him, just as you seem to have asked Ranulf. Of course, I was older than
you are now, and living my own life. My parents were dead and I had my own
home. Francis obliged me, and very exciting it was, too.” She gazed off into
the distance for a moment, a dreamy expression on her face, but then pulled
herself back to the present. “I do not say it is the right course for you to
take also, but if you truly wish to experience that with Ranulf, I think it
would take very little effort on your part to convince him.”

Sophy face
reflected her shock. “Are you telling me to seduce Colonel Stirling?”