The Lady Most Willing . . . (3 page)

“There are so many possible replies I can hardly bring myself to choose,” the duke
said.

“I am, as you all know, the laird of Finovair,” Taran announced. “And these are my
two nephews, Oakley and Rocheforte, but I call them Byron and Robin.”

“Byron?” Fiona Chisholm murmured.

Lord Oakley glared at her.

“You seem to be the Duke of Bretton,” Taran continued, “although I don’t know why
you’re here.”

“It was my carriage,” Bretton growled.

Taran looked back at his men, one of whom was still toting his claymore. “That’s what
I don’t understand. Didn’t we
bring
a carriage of our own?”

“Uncle,” Rocheforte reminded him, “the introductions?”

“Right. Maycott’s probably busted it up for kindling by now, anyway.” Taran let out
a sorrowful sigh. “Speaking of Maycott, though, this one is his daughter Cecilia.”

“Cecily,” Lady Cecily corrected. It was the first word she had spoken since their
arrival.

Taran blinked in surprise. “Really?”

“Really,” Lady Cecily confirmed, one of her brows lifting in a delicately wry arch.

“Hmmph. So sorry about that. It’s a lovely name.”

“Thank you,” she replied, with a gracious tilt of her head. She was remarkably pretty,
Catriona thought, although not in a flashy, intimidating way like Marilla, whose blond
curls and sparkling blue eyes were the stuff of legend.

“These two are the Chisholm sisters,” Taran continued, motioning to Fiona and Marilla.
“Fiona’s the elder and Marilla’s the younger. They’re good Scottish ladies, but they
have been down to London. Got a little polish, I hear. And that’s about it.”

Catriona cleared her throat.

“Oh, right!” Taran exclaimed. “So sorry. This one is Catriona Burns. We took her by
mistake.”

“Ye said the one in the blue dress,” one of Taran’s men protested. Catriona had met
him before. She was fairly certain his name was Hamish.

Taran jabbed a finger toward Lady Cecily. “That one’s wearing a blue dress.”

Hamish shrugged and jerked his head toward Catriona. “So is Miss Burns. And they have
the same coloring.”

It was true. Brown hair, dark eyes. But while Lady Cecily was delicate, and moved
with an ethereal grace, Catriona was . . . Well, she didn’t know what she was. But
she wasn’t delicate. And she probably wasn’t graceful, either. She generally tried
not to dance for long enough to know for sure.

Taran looked back and forth between the two brunettes for a comically long few seconds.
“Right, well, the problem is,” he finally said to Catriona, “I wasn’t expecting you.
I don’t have a room ready.”

“You will give her my room,” the duke commanded.

“I don’t have a room for you, either,” Taran said.

Lord Oakley groaned.

“It’s very kind of you to have rooms prepared,” Marilla said prettily.

Catriona could only gape. Taran Ferguson had kidnapped her and she was
thanking
him?

“I’m not really sure where to put you,” Taran said slowly. He looked over at the sofa,
frowning thoughtfully.

That was
it
. “Taran Ferguson,” Catriona fumed. “I am not going to sleep on the sitting room sofa!”

He scratched his head. “Well, now, it’d be a sight more comfortable than the floor.”

“And I am not going to sleep on the floor!”

The duke stepped forward, his eyes deadly. “Mr. Ferguson, I suggest you find a chamber
for the lady.”

“I don’t really—”

“Or you will answer to me.”

Silence fell. Catriona looked over at the duke, stunned that he would come so fiercely
to her defense.

“Miss Burns may share a room with me,” Lady Cecily said. Catriona shot her a look
of gratitude.

“Can’t do,” Taran said. “There’s only the one small bed.”

“Put the sisters together,” the duke suggested imperiously.

“Already have,” Taran replied. “You’ll be sharing a bed, lassies,” he said to the
Chisholm sisters, “but it’s comfortable enough. Never had any royal visits here, so
no need to get any of our extra bedrooms fancied up.”

“We have two very nice guest rooms at our home,” Marilla said. “We once hosted the
Earl of Mayne.”

“In 1726,” Fiona muttered.

“Well, it’s still the Mayne room,” Marilla said with a sniff, “and if any of you came
to visit, that is where we would put you. Well, except maybe you,” she said, blinking
in Catriona’s direction.

“Marilla!” Fiona gasped.

“She lives just five miles away,” Marilla protested. “She would hardly need a guest
room.”

“One apparently never knows when one might need an extra guest room,” the duke said
dryly.

“So true,” Marilla said. “So very, very true.” She looked over at him with that annoyingly
catlike tilt of her head and batted her eyelashes. “Are you always so very, very wise?”

Bretton, apparently at the end of his rope, just looked at her and said baldly, “Yes.”

Catriona choked on laughter, then feigned a few coughs when the duke turned to her
with an arched brow. Oh dear heavens, was he serious? She’d thought he was merely
trying to shake off Marilla.

“Well,” Taran declared, filling the awkward silence, “we’ll find something for everyone.
In the meantime, let’s get the rest of you settled. Where is Mrs. McVittie? Oh, there
you are!”

His housekeeper nodded from the doorway.

He flicked a hand toward every female besides Catriona. “See these three up to their
rooms. And, ah, Robin and Byron, why don’t you go as well. Just to make sure everything
is as it should be.”

Lord Oakley shook his head. “As it should be,” he repeated in disbelief.

“Give Lady Cecilia the blue room, or at least the one that used to be blue, and Miss—
Well, actually, it really doesn’t matter. Give them whichever room they want.” Taran
turned back to Catriona and the duke, who were still standing by the fire. “I’ll see
what I can find for the two of you.”

“Bretton can have my room,” Lord Oakley said, standing in the doorway as everyone
else filed out.

“No, really,” the duke responded, his voice a mocking monotone, “I couldn’t possibly
inconvenience you.”

Lord Oakley rolled his eyes and exited into the great hall.

It was only then that Catriona realized she had been left quite alone with the Duke
of Bretton.

Chapter 3

J
ohn Shevington had been the Duke of Bretton since the age of forty-three days, and
as such, he had been inflicted with a legion of tutors, each of whom had been given
the task of making certain that the young duke would be able to handle any situation
in which an aristocratic young man might reasonably expect to find himself.

Reasonably.

Astonishingly, his tutors had not considered the possibility that he might find himself
accidentally kidnapped by a stark raving lunatic, trapped in a carriage (his own carriage,
mind you) for two hours with four unmarried ladies, one of whom had groped him three
times before he used a bump in the road as an excuse to toss her across the carriage.
And if that hadn’t been enough, he’d been deposited into a barely heated castle guarded
by a roving pack of ancient retainers hobbling along with weapons attached to their
kilts.

Dear Lord, he
fervently
didn’t want a stiff wind to lift any of those kilts.

Bret glanced over at the young lady who’d been left in the sitting room with him,
the one old Ferguson claimed had been snatched by accident. Miss Burns, he thought
her name was. She seemed to know Taran Ferguson better than any of the other erstwhile
captives, so he asked her, “Do you think our host will find rooms for us?”

She huddled closer to the fire. “I can almost guarantee he’s already forgotten he’s
meant to be looking.”

“You seem to be well acquainted with our host, Miss . . . It was Miss Burns, wasn’t
it?”

“Everyone knows Taran,” she said, then seemed to remember herself and added, “Your
Grace.”

He nodded. She seemed a sensible young lady, thankfully not given to hysterics. Although
it had to be said, he’d come close to cheering her on when she’d given old Ferguson
a tongue-lashing. Hell, he’d been hoping she’d wallop the old codger.

Miss Burns returned his gesture with a smile and nod of her own, then turned back
to the fire. They’d both been standing in front of it for several minutes, but if
her fingers were anything like his, they still felt frozen from the inside out.

If he’d had a coat he would have given it to her. But his coat was back at Bellemere,
along with the rest of his things. He’d meant to stay for only two days; it was a
convenient place to stop and rest his horses on the way back to Castle Bretton from
the Charters shooting party in Ross-shire. In retrospect, he should have just remained
with his friends for the holiday; only a fool took to the roads in Scotland at this
time of year.

But he’d always had a sentimental streak when it came to Castle Bretton at Christmastime.
He might make his home in London for much of the year, but he couldn’t imagine being
anywhere else when the Yule log was lit and Mrs. Plitherton’s famous Christmas pudding
was brought to the table. He had almost no family with whom to celebrate—just his
mother and whichever of her maiden sisters chose to join them. But the lack of Shevingtons
had made the holiday a jollier, less formal affair, with songs and dancing, and the
whole of the household—from the butler down to the scullery maids—joining in on the
fun.

Now it seemed his tradition would be broken by Taran Ferguson, the improbable uncle
of both Oakley and Rocheforte.

Oakley and Rocheforte
. He’d nearly fallen over when he saw them. He’d known Oakley since . . . well, since
he’d punched him in the eye their first week at Eton and gotten a bloody lip in return.
But it had all been good since then.

As for Rocheforte, Bret didn’t know him well, but he’d always seemed an amiable, devil-may-care
sort of fellow.

Bret glanced out the window, not that he could see anything. “When you said it was
going to snow tonight,” he said to Miss Burns, “had you any thoughts as to the amount?
Or duration?”

She turned to him with frank dark eyes. “Are you asking me when we might be able to
leave?”

He liked a woman who got to the point. “Precisely that.”

She grimaced. “It may well be three days, Your Grace. Or more.”

“Good Lord,” he heard himself say.

“My thoughts exactly.”

He cleared his throat. “Has Mr. Ferguson ever done . . .
this
before?”

Her lips pressed together with what he thought might be amusement. “Do you mean kidnap
a duke?”

“Kidnap anyone,” he clarified.

“Not to my knowledge, but he did run bare-arsed through the village last May Day.”

Bret blinked. Had she just used the word “arse”? He tried to recall the last time
he’d heard a gentlewoman do so. He was fairly certain the answer was never. Then,
as he watched the firelight flickering across her skin, he decided he didn’t care.

Miss Burns wasn’t beautiful, not in the way Lady Cecily was, with her rosebud mouth
and heart-shaped face. But she had something. Her eyes, he decided. Dark as night,
and blazingly direct. You couldn’t see what she was thinking, not with eyes so dark.

But you could
feel
it.

“Your Grace?” she murmured, and he realized he’d been staring.

“I’m sorry,” he said automatically. “You were saying?”

Her brows rose a fraction of an inch. “Do you mean,” she asked with careful disbelief,
“for me to continue the story about Taran Ferguson going bare-arsed through the village?”

“Precisely,” he clipped, since if he spoke in any other tone of voice, he might have
to admit to himself that he was blushing.

Which he was quite certain he did not do.

She paused. “Well,” she said, clearing her throat, “there was a wager.”

This he found interesting. “Do many Scottish wagers involve racing about unattired?”

“Not at all, Your Grace.” And then, just when he thought he might have offended her,
the corners of her lips made the slightest indentation of a smile, and she added,
“The air is far too chilly for that.”

He smothered a laugh.

“I believe the wager had something to do with making the vicar’s wife faint. There
was no requirement for nudity.” Her eyes gave a slight heavenward tilt of exasperation.
“That was Taran’s invention entirely.”

“Did he win?”

“Of course not,” Miss Burns scoffed. “It would take more than his scrawny backside
to make a Scotswoman faint.”

“Scrawny, eh?” Bret murmured. “Then you looked?”

“I could scarcely
not
. He ran down the lane whooping like a banshee.”

For a moment he stared. She looked so lovely standing there by the fire, her thick
hair just starting to come loose from its pins. Everything about her looked prim and
proper and perfectly appropriate.

Except her expression. She’d rolled her eyes, and scrunched her nose, and he thought
she might have just snorted at him.

Snorted. He tried to remember the last time he’d heard a gentlewoman do
that
in his presence. Probably the last time one had said “arse.”

And then the laugh that had been fizzing within him finally broke free. It started
small, with just a silent shake, and then before he knew it, he was roaring, bent
over from the strength of it, rolling and rumbling in his belly, coming out in great,
big, beary guffaws.

He tried to remember the last time he’d laughed like this.

Wiping the tears from his eyes, he looked over at Miss Burns, who, while not doubled
over, was laughing right along with him. She was clearly trying to maintain some dignity,
keeping her lips pressed together, but her shoulders were shaking, and finally, she
sagged against the wall and gasped for breath.

“Oh my,” she said, waving a hand in front of her face for no apparent reason. “Oh
my.” She looked at him, her eyes meeting his with a direct gaze that he suspected
was as much a part of her as her arms and legs. “I don’t even know what we’re laughing
about,” she said with a helpless smile.

“Nor I,” he admitted.

The laughter fell softly away.

“We must be hungry,” she said quietly.

“Or cold.”

“Insensible,” she whispered.

He stepped toward her. He couldn’t not. “Completely.”

And then he kissed her. Right there in front of the fire in Taran Ferguson’s sitting
room, he did the one thing he shouldn’t do.

He kissed her.

W
hen the duke stepped away, Catriona felt cold. Colder than when she’d been in the
carriage. Colder than when she’d been standing in the snow. Even with the fire burning
brightly at her back, she was cold.

This wasn’t the cold of temperature. It was the cold of loss.

His lips had been on hers. His arms had been around her. And then they weren’t.

It was as simple as that.

She looked up at him. His eyes—good heavens, they were blue. How had she not noticed
it? They were like a loch in summer, except a loch didn’t have little flecks of midnight,
and it couldn’t stare straight into her soul.

“I should apologize,” he murmured, staring at her with something approaching wonder.

“But you won’t?”

He shook his head. “It would be a lie.”

“And you never lie.” It wasn’t a question. She knew it was true.

“Not about something like this.”

She felt her tongue dart out to moisten her lips. “Have you done this before?”

A small smile played across his features. “Kissed a woman?”

“Kissed a stranger.”

He paused, but for only a moment. “No.”

She shouldn’t ask, she knew she shouldn’t. But she did, anyway. “Why not?”

His head tilted to the side, just an inch or so, and he was peering at her face with
the most remarkable expression. He was studying her, Catriona realized. No, he was
memorizing
her.

Then his smile turned sheepish, and she
knew
. She simply knew that his was not a face that often turned sheepish. He was as befuddled
by the moment as she was.

It was amazing how much better that made her feel.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever met a stranger I wanted to kiss,” he murmured.

“Nor have I,” she said quietly.

He moved his head slightly, acknowledging her comment and waiting. Waiting for . . .

“Until now,” she whispered. Because it wouldn’t be fair not to say it.

His hand touched her cheek, and then he was kissing her again, and for the first time
in her life, Catriona considered believing in magic and fairies and all those other
fey creatures. Because surely there could be no other explanation. Something was raging
within her body, rushing through her veins, and she just wanted . . .

Him.

She wanted him in every possible way.

Dear God above.

With a gasp she broke away, stumbling back, away from the fire and away from the duke.

She would have stumbled away from herself if she could have figured out how to do
it.

“Well,” she said, brushing at her skirts as if everything were normal, and she hadn’t
just thrown herself at a man who probably took tea with the king. “Well,” she said
again.

“Well,” he repeated.

She looked up sharply. Was he mocking her?

But his eyes were warm. No, they were hot. And they made her feel things in parts
of her she was quite sure she wasn’t supposed to know about until she was in her marriage
bed. “Stop that,” she said.

“Stop what?”

“Looking at me. Like . . . like . . .”

He smiled slowly. “Like I like you?”

“No!”

“Like I think you kiss very well?”

“Oh God,” she moaned, covering her face with her hands. It was not her habit to blaspheme,
but then it was not her habit to kiss a duke, and it was definitely not her habit
to be thrown into a carriage and transported ten snowy miles across impassable roads.

“I promise you,” she said, her face still in her hands, “I don’t usually do this.”

“This I know,” he said.

She looked up.

He smiled again, that lazy, boyish tilt of his lips that flipped her insides upside
down. “The madness of the moment. Of the entire evening. Surely we can all be forgiven
uncharacteristic behavior. But I must say . . .”

His words trailed off, and Catriona found herself holding her breath.

“I’m honored that your moment of uncharacteristic madness was with me.”

She backed up a step. Not because she feared him but because she feared herself. “I’m
a respectable lady.”

“I know.”

She swallowed nervously. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t . . . ehrm . . .” She
couldn’t finish the statement. He would know what she meant.

The duke turned to face the fire, holding his hands out toward the warmth. It was
as clear a signal as any that they would put their momentary insanity behind them.
“I am just as susceptible to the strangeness of the situation,” he remarked. “I don’t
usually do this sort of thing, either.”

Delilah
.

Catriona fairly jumped. Back in the carriage, when he’d been intoxicated . . . He’d
called her Delilah.

He obviously did this sort of thing with
her
.

“Where’s Taran?” she practically groaned.

“Didn’t you say he likely forgot about us?”

She sighed.

“Oakley won’t,” the duke said.

She turned and blinked. “I beg your pardon.”

“Lord Oakley. He won’t forget to find us rooms. I’ve known him for years. The only
thing that is making this bearable is that he must be dying inside over all this.”

“You don’t like him?”

“On the contrary. I’ve long considered him a friend. It’s why I enjoy his misery so
much.”

Men were very strange, Catriona decided.

“He’s quite proper,” the duke explained.

“And you’re not?” She bit her lip. She should not have asked that.

The duke did not turn, but she saw a faint smile play across his mouth. “I’m not as
proper as he is,” he said. Then he glanced her way. “Apparently.”

Catriona blushed. To the tips of her toes, she blushed.

The duke shrugged and turned back to the fire. “Trust me when I tell you that nothing
could give him greater agony than to be party to something like this. I’m sure he’d
much rather be the aggrieved than the perpetrator.”