Bride (19 page)

“It might if there were a particular reason for a man to hold a woman especially close.”

“What reason could there possibly be?” Her Voice sounded as if it belonged to a quite different woman.

Struan hummed on. His hands smoothed gently yet firmly over her back. He swayed, and she swayed with him.

All of her body touched his. And his touched hers—leaned into hers. He was big. Solid bone and muscle. Hard angles that, miraculously, accommodated her softer lines—her softer curves.

“The dress becomes you,” he said. “Rose-colored. And there is rose bloom in your cheeks now.”

“Thank you. You did not explain why a man would hold a woman thus.”

“Because he wants to feel her.” His tone lost its softness. “This is part of what you want your readers to know, Justine. A man wants to feel a woman. Feeling her quickens his blood—and other parts.”

Her heart thumped. “I see.”

He leaned away to look down at her. “Now it's your turn to see? Does that mean you're confused?”

She raised her chin. “When you say it—does it mean you're confused?”

The corners of his mouth jerked down. “I do believe you're learning to banter with me. Yes, dear Justine, it does sometimes mean I'm not sure what you intend or what I'm supposed to say.”

“I see.”

He laughed, but the laughter stopped abruptly. “We are in a pretty fix, y'know.”

“I know.”

“Everyone telling us what we ought to do.”

“Or have to do,” she told him.

He gazed into her eyes, then at her mouth—then downward.

Justine grew even hotter.

Struan spanned his big hands about her ribs. His thumbs came to rest against the sides of her breasts. “Your skin is lovely,” he told her. “Rosy wherever I look.”

He looked at the tops of her breasts where they rose and fell far too noticeably above the neck of her gown.

“A female becomes accustomed to a man paying her such compliments,” he said. “You'll remember that, will you?”

The next breath she took made her breasts feel they would swell free of her bodice. “I'll remember,” she whispered.

“I do believe you will.” His thumbs smoothed flesh suddenly grown sensitive, grown raw to the touch.

“I don't think you should—”

“Absolutely, I should. This is natural, Justine. Don't you like the way it feels?”

His hips, braced against hers, distracted Justine. What she had so unsuitably observed on certain other gentlemen was happening to Struan. She could not contain her own small cry.

“What is it?” He frowned. A pale line formed around his compressed lips. “Have I hurt you?”

“No.” Her own hips moved. She felt powerless to stop herself from thrusting against the solid length of the ridge within his breeches. “You surprised me. I feel what is happening to your body, Struan.” Oh, she was cursed with a careless tongue.

“And it makes you cry out with horror?”

“It makes me cry out with … I feel… Struan, is it because you are touching me that this happens to you?”

“Yes.” He covered her breasts, very carefully, keeping his gaze on her eyes as if he could see into her very soul. “If you wish me to stop, I will.”

If she took her arms from his shoulders she would surely fall. “Do not stop,” she said. “Please do not stop.”

“Justine.” He said her name the instant before his lips brushed hers. Slowly, his mouth caressed hers, moved over hers.

Her eyes closed tightly, only to fly open again.

Struan pushed one thigh between hers and drew her up the length of rigidly flexed muscle. Deep within her heat licked. She tried to push away, but he held her fast.

And he kept on kissing her. His clever lips made hers tingle. Then he did another extraordinary thing. With the very tip of his tongue, he sought the sensitive inside of her mouth and slid over moist skin until the heat at her center and the tingling in her mouth—and the swelling ache in her breasts—convulsed her in his arms.

“I want you,” he murmured against her ear.

Justine heard but no longer understood.

With warm lips, Struan kissed her jaw, her neck, the hollow above her collarbone. And he kissed the tops of her breasts so softly that his mouth might have been a passing breeze, a breeze that did not cool but rather set her skin afire.

“This is the beginning of what you call closeness,” he said, returning his attention to her neck. “Or so I believe.”

“The beginning?” she asked him breathlessly. “Surely there cannot be much more.”

He chuckled and nipped at her ear. “Much, much more, sweet lady. We have barely begun.”

She should insist he set her from him this very instant.

She should protest his intimacy at once.

She should never, ever, allow him to touch her again as he touched her now.

“Barely begun?”

“Absolutely. There is so much more. And we shall ensure that you gather every possible detail. For your book, of course.”

“Of course.”

She would die if he never touched her this way again.

“When … when, exactly, would things such as this occur? In the courtship? Or whatever?”

Austere concentration settled on Struan's bold features. His dark brows drew lower over his eyes while he regarded her face. “These things happen when a man has decided he must have a woman—a particular woman—no matter what the cost.”

She should not be all but riding his thigh.

“When a man reaches such a pass, there is usually little question but that … Passion is almost certain to follow. Ardor, Justine. The satisfaction of those urges you mentioned.”

Filling her hands with his jacket, she attempted to slide from his leg—with disastrous results. Wonderfully disastrous results.

A burning dart speared through her very center. “Struan!” She clutched at him and pulled his stock loose.

“Yes, dear one,” he said through his teeth. “Oh, yes.”

“No!”

“Yes.” Surrounding her with one arm, he slipped his other hand beneath her skirts and found the pulsing core that held the root of the marvelous pain.

He pushed a finger inside her.

“Oh!” Justine bucked. “You must not.” She could not control her body.

His finger eased in and out. His thumb worked at the little place that swelled with a need she knew with her being but not with her mind.

“Let go,” he told her. “It is time for this.”

With parted lips, Justine drew in great gulps of air. All she saw were his eyes, his intensely dark eyes.

And a tide ripped through her, opened her, rendered her bare and helpless.

In the wake of the tide came searing ripples. Amazed, she struggled to collect herself. “Struan? What?”

“Passion, sweet. The fulfillment of urges. Closeness.”

It?

No. “Not all, though, Struan? There is still more?”

His smile was cynical. “More indeed. There is the matter of my urges. Of my body.”

Without thinking, she felt for the hardness between his legs.

Struan's smile died. His teeth came together. “My lady, I do not advise you to persist with that.”

She drew her hand away. His flesh had sprung into her fingers.

“Very wise,” he said. Muscles bunched in his jaw. Gradually, as if reluctant, he set her feet on the floor but drew her into a tight embrace. “This afternoon's work has not served to ease my dilemma,” he said, his cheek resting against her temple.

Where she had been hot, Justine experienced the slipping in of unnatural cold. When he released her, there was in his expression a deeply troubled cast.

“You mean that the contact with me caused you to be left unfulfilled in some way?” Of course that's what he meant. “Naturally. It would be so with any female, wouldn't it?”

The pallor of his face, the tension, shocked her. “There are physical reactions that are inevitable,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “What occurs elsewhere is a different matter.”

Did he mean in the heart?
A lover? Old fool!
He'd told her to forget Grandmama's words. She never would. “You have certainly kept your end of the bargain. Now I shall have a great deal to write about.” Even as she said the words she knew how absurd they sounded. “Max's accent must be attended to at once.”

“To hell with Max's accent. Don't you understand—don't you feel my struggle?”

Already troubled, he was now the more troubled because of her. “I do understand. Truly, Struan, I shall go if it will be easier.”

“It would be easier,” he almost shouted. “I intended to come to you today and insist you leave. But I cannot! No, it's not possible. There has to be another way.”

She put a hand over her eyes. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. Do not ever be sorry. It is I who should apologize, and I do. But I am a match for whatever may come my way. We shall marry. There are grave considerations, but I will suffer them. I will control them.”

Justine dropped her hand.

Struan strode away and sat at the piano once more. “We will proceed with the arrangements at once.”

The music that flowed from beneath his hands was harsh. Harsh, angry music.

“Grave considerations, Struan?” she said. “I would not think of you dealing with grave considerations on my account.”

“There is nothing more to discuss. There are certain provisions and precautions I must consider. Please allow me to think awhile.”

The only reason he was saying this was that he and his brother—and her own brother now—had decided propriety and their damnable family honor demanded it.

Struan hated the idea of marriage to her, hated the prospect of the derision that would be heaped upon him by disbelieving friends and acquaintances. And why wouldn't he when he could have his pick of beautiful and suitable women?

But unlike many of those women, she was not simpering, blushing, or slavishly compliant. “I am not chattel,” she said clearly.

A great clash of jangling notes came from the piano. Struan stared at her. “I beg your pardon?”

“I said, I am not chattel. This is demeaning. Who asked me what I want?”

He braced his arms against the piano. “That is hardly an issue here, is it?”

“Sin's ears!” Hair had slipped from her chignon. She pushed the locks angrily behind her shoulder. “It is an issue to me! I do not want a man who doesn't want me. I do not want a man to marry me because he feels forced to do so.”

He shook his head. “You really don't have any idea, do you?”

“Oh, I think I have a great many ideas. Thanks to you. And they will be most useful as I proceed with my work.”

“The hell with your work. It is not your work we're discussing here. It's the matter of our marriage. It's the matter of certain things I must consider and control after that marriage.”

“Really?” Her dress was outrageously rumpled. “I do not regret what I have experienced with you. I will not lie. You mean a great deal to me, Struan, and I shall forever remember this afternoon. But although I am inexperienced, I believe we did rather more than was wise—for scientific purposes. We shall, if you agree, return to our original arrangement.”

“Sin's … Agh, you almost have me using your frothy epithet! I do not agree, dammit. Your honor is my affair. And I refuse to have you surrendered into the clutches of some pinching old pervert. I have considered all aspects of the problem and decided I will have more peace if you are where I can control what happens to you at all times. You will be my wife, and that's an end of it.”

Her head began to pound. “Thank you for your assistance in my project. Be assured I'll fulfill my promises to you and your children in return.”

“Justine. I have decided—”

“What you have decided is immaterial.”

“I don't believe this.”

“Of course you don't.” She swung away. “I'd appreciate your help in finding my way back to my apartments.”

“I think we should go directly to Kirkcaldy and speak with the minister Arran—”

“You simply cannot accept fact, can you?” Justine looked at him over her shoulder. “I am not a box of cigars to be purchased and used or discarded, depending upon how well my taste pleases you. I am a woman, an intelligent woman who can make up her mind what she wants.”

“In most things, yes,” Struan said, as if she were a child and he a particularly patient parent. “But there are those areas where—”

“Where men behave like peacocks and consider themselves supreme?”

“Justine”—he came toward her—“forgive me. I forgot myself. Under other circumstances I should approach your father at such a time, but—”

“But I'm too old and my father is dead.”

“I intended to say that you are mature enough to make most of your own decisions. Anyway, it is Calum to whom I must speak, of course.”

“No,” Justine told him archly. “No, you said it almost right. I am mature enough to make my own decisions. Not just most of them, but all of them.”

“Well—”

“And I have decided that marriage to you is out of the question. Thank you, but I refuse your offer, Struan.”

Chapter Twelve

“W
omen are a damnable inconvenience,” Struan said, slamming shut the door of his brother's study at Kirkcaldy. “Completely addlepated and incomprehensible. To be avoided at all costs. The audacity. The
audacity,
I tell you!”

Arran, his chair pushed back, sat with his booted feet propped on the desk. Calum occupied a leather chair to Arran's right.

Tall, silent Caleb Murray stood behind his master's chair with a large ledger open across his sinuous forearms.

“The less we have to do with them, the better,” Struan continued when neither Arran nor Calum responded to his outburst. “Use them and ignore them. Only way to deal with the situation. And never—never
ever
allow them to think. Thinking is one of the greatest evils when it comes to women.” He dropped into a chair that matched the one Calum was using and steepled his fingers.

“I think Struan's out of sorts,” Arran said.

Calum puffed up his cheeks. “Would seem so. What d'you suppose may have brought about that situation?”

Arran frowned thoughtfully and motioned for dark-haired Murray to close the ledger. “Hard to say. Always been a difficult fellow to read, Struan. Pulled the wool over everyone's eyes so many times in the past, we all tend to think he's still at it”