Elaine Coffman - [MacKinnon 04] (30 page)

A moment later he stood, and taking her into his arms, he
carried her from the kitchen. By the time he reached the stairs, Maggie,
although still groggy, whispered his name once, then settled her face against
his throat, her arms going around his neck. Adrian felt his mouth go dry.

He pushed open the door to her room with his foot, then
kicked it shut behind him. He carried her to her bed. He stood over her for a
moment, feeling dumbstruck when she opened her eyes.

“I want you,” she said.

Adrian thought he had misunderstood her. Elegant, refined
ladies did not say things like that. The daughters of earls did not speak that
way. Nor did duchesses. He saw her eyes were bright and clear and staring right
at him.

“Make love to me, Adrian.”

“You’re tired. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I ken what I’m saying. I dinna feel ashamed. I want you. I
dinna want to think anymore about sickness and death. I want to feel alive. I
want you to make love to me. I want to know that I can still feel.”

The sun was setting, the last long shadows stretching across
the floor and over the bed. His face was hidden in shadow, but she knew him
well enough to know the look of resolve that would be on his face. Words seemed
to desert her. She held out her hand to him, her fingers stretched out and
trembling.

He stood stiff and silent, looking down at that hand for
what seemed to be an eternity. He might have stayed there forever if he hadn’t
glanced at her face and seen the pain of rejection as she began to draw her
fingers back. He dropped down on his haunches, taking her hand in both of his.

“I want you.” She paused and swallowed. “I wanted you before
the children came, but I didna know how to ask you. But now… Oh, Adrian, I want
you so much, I canna think.”

“Don’t,” he said, taking her in his arms and rolling over
the bed with her, pinning her beneath him.

Adrian had never seen a woman look at a man with such honest
need, and his entire body reacted to it with such violence, it unarmed him. He
no longer wanted to resist her, for he knew he never really had. Desire for her
had always been there. She was his and she wanted him. Everything else seemed
to fade into oblivion.

She smiled up at him, her arms coming around his neck.
Without speaking, he kissed her brow, then her eyelids. Her lashes fluttered,
then her eyes closed. He heard her moan low in her throat as his mouth closed
over hers.

Adrian groaned, kissing her deeply, his tongue seeking hers.
He no longer had control of himself. The hunger in him for her was too potent,
too strong, to call back. She wanted him, and he sure as hell wanted her.

Her hand slipped between them, touching, pressing, as he
groaned with need. His body trembled, and his words, too. “Maggie, I can’t…I
can’t hold back. I can’t be gentle. Not now.”

“Good,” she said, helping him with his clothes before
turning to remove her own. “We can be gentle after…”

“Dear God,” he said, parting her legs and driving into her,
pressing himself until he could go no further. “You drive me and drive me until
I’m insane with wanting,” he said, his body coming against hers, again and
again.

“I dinna ken insanity could feel so good,” she said,
groaning as she felt the heat of each stroke deep in her belly. Panting with
exertion, she lifted her hips to meet each thrust, feeling as if her body no
longer belonged to her. Again and again he drove into her, and mindless with
the need to torture him as he was torturing her, she rose to meet him.
Something wild was happening to her, something that teetered on the edge of
pain.

“No,” she cried out, pushing against him. “Stop, Adrian.
Please. I dinna want any more.”

A drop of his sweat fell from his face onto hers, his grip
tightening. “You wanted it, Maggie, and I won’t stop until you’ve gotten
exactly what you asked for.”

Her breathing was wild and out of control, coming in short,
gasping pants, her body gripped in tension, trying to hold the invasion of its
tender parts at bay. She had never felt like this, and fear gripped her. Was it
possible to die like this?

She opened her mouth to deny him, hearing herself whisper as
her mind spun away, “Yes, Adrian. My God! Yes!”

They were drenched in sweat, but he showed no signs of
tiring, her words seeming to, if anything, urge him on. She felt her body twist
in agony, and she knew she had crossed over the threshold of pain. Her body
jerked, then opened to him, drawing him inside her. On and on the feeling went,
past fear, past pain; gripping, convulsing, clutching in spasms that seemed to
take her over the edge into another existence, a place of pure sensation and
keen awareness. Agony. Ecstasy. She wasn’t sure which. Perhaps it was both.

“You feel it now,” he said, responding to her body and
stopping her words with his mouth. His thrusting was harder, deeper, and she
answered the fury of his passion with a fury of her own. Her teeth sank into
his shoulder, her nails raked his back, as the exquisiteness of it gripped her.
She felt wild, savage, desperate with the need to go beyond mating with him, to
go beyond anything save the fusion of their souls.

Something shattered within her and she arched upward, a cry
ripping from her throat.

Reality returned slowly, and Maggie found herself lying
beneath Adrian’s arm, his leg thrown over hers, his body limp and heavy in
sleep. His breathing was steady and slow. She turned her face in to his neck,
breathing in the smell of his flesh, his sweat, wondering as she did if this
was the last time she would lie with him.

She remained there, without moving, afraid to do so, knowing
it would wake him, and wanting to the point of desperation to prolong the
closeness, to preserve for as long as possible the pleasure of lying with him
like this.

At last she shifted her position.

He opened his eyes and looked at her. “Was this some sort of
a contest?” he asked, his eyes as teasing as the smile on his face.

She smiled back. “I dinna ken. Do you feel like a
contestant?”

“What I feel is exhausted. And I feel like I’ve run through
a briar,” he said, his hand coming up to his shoulder. “What did you do? Bite
me?”

“Aye, and hard, too.”

“You’ve got claws like a badger,” he said, rolling to his
back, cradling her against him.

“I didna want you to forget.”

“Forget? Not damn likely. I’ll carry these scars to my
grave. Is this going to become a habit?”

Her fingers played with the hair on his chest. “I don’t
know,” she said lightly. “Want to try it again and find out?”

“I couldn’t move if you built a fire in the bed.”

“I ken I could do that,” she said, her hand coming from
nowhere to close around him.

“Maggie…”

“Remember, if you canna take it, think of England,” she
said, laughing softly as her hand stroked and touched, feeling the gentle pulse
of blood that made him grow large and hard in her hand.

“Liar,” she said with a muffled laugh.

“That’s the only part of me that wasn’t tired,” he said.
“The rest of me is plumb wore out. I couldn’t, Maggie, no matter how much I
wanted to.”

“Then I will,” she said, rolling over him, taking his face
between her hands, and kissing his astonished mouth. “Don’t worrit,” she said
softly, pressing her body against him, “I promise to be verra, verra gentle.”

A moment later he said, “I feel sufficiently rested now.”
Then he rolled over and pinned her beneath him. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,”
he said.

“I willna.”

He made love to her again, and this time it was as easy and
gentle as the first time had been desperate and wild. Drowsy and contented
beyond belief, she closed her eyes, feeling she could sleep, really and truly
sleep for the first time since Ainsley’s illness.

Sometime during the night, she felt Adrian stir. A moment
later he leaned over her and called her name.

“Maggie?”

“Aye.”

“Are you awake?”

“l am now.”

“Did you mean what you said?”

She stretched and looked at him. “When?”

“When you said you were in love with me.”

“Aye, I meant it,” she said. “Now, go to sleep.”

“Not on your life,” he said, rolling over her and searing
her with a heated kiss.

“Maggie…” he said. “Sweet, sweet Maggie. Don’t tell me you
thought you could say something like that and have me fell asleep.” He drew her
against him; her palms flattened against his chest. Beneath them, she could
feel the warm skin and hard, contoured muscle of his chest, the steady rhythm
of his heart, which seemed to beat faster with each breath. She understood
that, for her own heart was tapping out a song, and her love for him seemed to
grow with each escalating beat. His hands burned over her back, her buttocks,
where his palm seemed to know instinctively just where to touch. His face
nuzzling hers, she felt his lips seeking her own. She sighed, feeling his
breath, fragrant and warm, on her skin. His lips moved softly, silently, over
her, as if slowly searching for something too precious to miss.

His hands fanned over her breasts, his thumbs moving in
scorching circles over her nipples. Her breath caught in her throat; her skin
trembled from the gentleness of it. Desire swam in thick, gushing pools beneath
the surface of her skin. Is this what it was like to die? Her hands dug into
his hair, and she felt the hammer of his heart as she pulled him against her
for a kiss. The languid warmth of his hand slid across hot, trembling flesh,
moving around gentle folds, teasing, bringing the dull, throbbing ache to a
consuming outburst.

“But what about you?” she whispered, when she found her
voice.

“Maggie. Sweet Maggie. How like you to ask a question like
that at a time like this. Can’t you see that I get pleasure from just touching
you?”

Show him death, and He will be content with fever.

Those words were Maggie’s comfort and solace during the long
days and nights of Ainsley’s illness, and although it was difficult to forgive
herself for leaving her children behind when she came to California, she wasn’t
so bent upon self-condemnation that she could not see that Ainsley’s illness
was not her fault.

There were many times of fear, moments of stabbing agony
when Ainsley lay between life and death, times when her small body seemed so
close to perishing from the prolonged high fever. And then there came that
blessed moment, that beautiful, rain-drenched evening that reminded Maggie so
much of Scotland, when Ainsley’s fever broke.

When it was over, when the danger of dying was past, Maggie
crumpled into a silken heap at Ainsley’s bedside, her other children, Molly,
and Maude standing at the foot of the bed, looking helpless and yet relieved.

“Sickness comes on horseback and departs on foot,” Maude
said.

“It comes on a
winged
horse,” Molly added, “and it
tiptoes out…barefoot.”

“Is Ainsley dead?” Barrie asked.

“No, lambkin, she isna dead,” Maude said. “She willna die
now. She will only get better and better, you ken?”

“If she isna dead, then why is Mama crying?” asked Barrie.

“They are tears from the heart,” Maude said. “Your mama is crying
because she is happy.”

“She doesna look verra happy,” Fletcher said, narrowing his
eyes in speculation.

“Weel, she is happy, and you can take my word for it,” Maude
said, taking Fletch and Barrie by the hand and leading them from the room,
talking as she went.

“Off we go,” she said, “to bed with you. We’ve an early day
tomorrow. It’s lax I’ve been with your studies and other things, but that
willna be happening anymore.”

“You mean we’re going to have to do our studies tomorrow?”
Fletcher asked.

“Aye, that’s what I mean. Elocution and reading willna wait
any longer. Did you finish reading James Thomson?” she asked, taking Fletch by
the ear.

“Aye.”

“And you remember the verses I told you to learn from
The
Seasons
?”

He didn’t answer, and Maude gave his ear a twist, getting a
yelping response.

“And your numbers, didna you study them either?”

“I studied, but I dinna remember,” Fletch said.

“You’ve always the knack for studying and no remembering.”

Leading Fletcher from the room by his ear, she said to Barrie,
“What has your brother been doing while your sister has been sick?”

“Playing, mostly,” Barrie said.

“And play will get him a fine education, sure enough. Weel
now, my fine laddie, your life of leisure is over. Tomorrow it is nose to the
grindstone.”

“What about Barrie’s nose?”

Maude gave Barrie a side look, then winked. “Hers, too, I
ken, but it willna be easy to do,” Maude said, “since she doesna have much nose
to begin with.”

At last Ainsley slept cool and peaceful, and the strain of
it all finally caught up with Maggie. Like a crazed person, she ran through the
house and down the stairs, yanking open the front door, inhaling the scent of a
world washed fresh and new before rushing out into the rain, holding her hands
out as she spun in a circle, the rain washing down upon her, drenching her hair
and clothes, her slippers growing heavy with mud.

“Thank you,” she shouted heavenward. “I had much need of a
blessing.” She spun around and around, faster and faster.

Standing in the doorway, Molly and Maude looked first at
each other and then back at Maggie. “She’s letting off a little steam,” said
Molly.

Maude watched Maggie, who by this time was soaked to the
skin. “Aye, but she’s taking on water.” Without another word, Maude shook her
head, and Molly shrugged. They closed the door.

Adrian, who was just riding up, pulled his gelding to a halt
and watched her. Maggie stopped short when she saw him, looking up in
astonishment. He was tall and erect in the saddle, his hands loosely holding
the reins; the rain ran in rivulets from the brim of his hat and dropped onto
his slicker. He simply stared at her for a moment, then grinned. “You’d better
go in,” he said, “or people will be thinking you don’t have enough sense to
come in out of the rain.”

Maggie lifted a soggy wad of hair that had fallen across her
face and peered up at him. “I dinna,” she said, feeling delirious with
happiness, her teeth chattering from the cold. “I ken if a Scot went in every
time it rained, we wouldna get any exercise.”

Looking at him, she saw Adrian’s blue eyes look her over
slowly, as if he liked what he saw. “Want me to join you?”

“This is a solo,” she said, laughing when he urged the
gelding into a trot. The heavens seemed to open then, the rain coming down in
cold, gray sheets, but Maggie didn’t seem to mind.

When Adrian reached the stables, he dismounted and, with a
laugh and a shake of his head, led his horse into the dark interior.

“And a good day to you, Your Holiness,” Maggie said, giving
a low-sweeping curtsy, losing her balance and falling face-forward in the mud.
She immediately rolled to her back, flung her arms straight out from her body,
and looking skyward, let the rain wash the mud from her face. “This,” she said
with soft satisfaction, “is what I call living.”

When some semblance of normalcy returned, Maggie went
inside, bathed and washed her hair, then changed clothes and hurried to
Ainsley’s room. Maude was sitting with her. After giving Ainsley a sponge bath,
they had just put her into a clean gown when Molly brought her a bowl of potato
soup.

Ainsley turned her head away.

“If you dinna eat, you canna see Barrie and Fletch,” Maggie
said.

Ainsley hesitated, the small, pale face contemplative, then
she drew herself up, thrusting out her small chin. Determined blue eyes met determined
hazel eyes. At last Ainsley opened her mouth.

When the soup was gone, Molly went after Barrie and
Fletcher. When she brought them with her into the room, Maggie had just poured
a spoonful of the opium drops and brought it up to Ainsley’s mouth.

She turned her head away.

“Come on, my little silkie, take your medicine. You’ll sleep
better tonight if you do.”

“She dinna like it,” Barrie said. “It tastes bad.”

“If it didna taste bad, it wouldna be medicine,” Maggie
said, smiling and caressing Ainsley’s cheek when she swallowed it.

Maggie was sitting in a straight chair beside the bed,
Barrie and Fletcher coming to sit on the floor beside her. Ainsley poked her
thumb into her mouth as Maggie began to tell them a story of how the MacCodrums
were descended from seals, nodding at Maude and Molly when they departed.

“From seals?” Fletcher asked, frowning as his mental gears
cranked out the improbability of that. “They canna.”

About that time, Adrian stepped, unnoticed, into the room,
leaning against the doorframe, listening.

“Aye,” Maggie said, “they can.”

Fletcher looked skeptical. “How?”

“Well now, it isna easy, you ken, but fairies change
themselves into seals—we called them silkies when I was a little girl. Now,
these seals swim along the shore looking for a lad or lassie to steal for a
mate. When they find one, they send something beautiful floating on the tide,
something the person they have picked will admire. When the lad or lassie steps
into the water to pick it up, the fairy seal pulls them beneath the water, ye
ken?”

“And they drown?” Barrie asked.

“No, they marry the fairy and live in fairyland.”

“What if the seal canna get the person to come into the
water?” asked Fletcher.

“Then they take off their seal skin and change themselves
into a beautiful human, so they can marry the one they have chosen.”

“Do they live on land, like we do?” Barrie asked.

“Aye, just like humans.”

“Do they ever go back?” Fletcher asked.

“Aye. It may be years and years, but sometime it will happen
that the fairy will find his shed seal skin has suddenly appeared before him,
as if by magic. The puir fairy is helpless and must put on the skin and return
to the sea and fairyland, to be seen no more.”

“Was Father a fairy?” Barrie asked. “Did he change himself
into a seal and leave?”

“No, my little kelpie, he didna. Your father was a man. A
real man,” she said, looking up, her eyes locking with Adrian’s, her face
registering her surprise at seeing him standing there. Before she could say
anything, he was gone.

After she sent Fletcher and Barrie to their rooms to get
ready for bed, Maggie sat for a while holding Ainsley’s hand, watching her
eyelids droop as the opium drops took effect. When Maude came to check on them,
Maggie kissed Ainsley and tucked the blanket around her.

“She should sleep through the night now,” Maggie said.

“Just the same, I ken I would feel better sleeping in here
with her.”

Maggie put her hand on Maude’s arm. “I know you would, and
it’s probably best for you to stay with her some now that the worst is over. I
ken I’ve neglected Barrie and Fletcher terribly. I need to spend a lot of time
with them to make up for it.”

“They’ve been busy learning about their new home, and that
yellow beastie, Israel, seems to have taken to them. Hout! I dinna think they
have missed you all that much.”

“I’m thankful for that, at least,” Maggie said. “I’ll put
them to bed now and see you in the morning.”

“Good night, ma’am.”

“Good night, Maude. Sleep well.”

“Oh, aye, I will do that, ma’am, now that the little one is
doing ever so much better.”

Maggie nodded, then picking up her lamp, crossed the room,
closing the door softly behind her.

“Was I ever sick like Ainsley when I was little?” Barrie
asked when Maggie walked into her room.

“No, you were sick a time or two, but I dinna ken you were
ever that sick.” Maggie looked around the room. “Where is Fletcher?”

“Under the bed.”

“I didna want you to tell her!” a disgruntled voice said
from beneath the bed. “You said you wouldna tell,” Fletcher said, coming out
from under the bed.

“I dinna,” Barrie said. “You asked me, but I didna say I
wouldna.” Leaning over, her hands on her hips, her face just inches from his,
she wagged her finger and scolded, “Mama said we should always tell the
truth…even if we have to lie.”

A small mouse ran along the baseboard of the wall next to
the bed, stopping and standing on its hind legs when it saw Fletcher, its eyes
black and shining, its whiskers twitching.

“It’s watching you,” Barrie said. “I ken it thinks you’re a
giant mouse.”

“It wouldna if you didna crawl around on the floor like
one,” Maggie said, leaning down and taking Fletcher by the arm. “Up with you,
laddie. What were you doing under the bed?”

“I was going to scare you,” he said, “but not bad.”

The mouse ran when Fletcher came to his feet.

“I need to cut your hair tomorrow,” Maggie said, giving
Fletcher’s hair a fluff or two.

“It’s all right,” he said, raising his shoulders,
protectively drawing his head in, like a turtle, and tilting it out of the way.

“It is not all right,” Maggie said. “It’s too long.”

Barrie laughed. “Aye. You look like a lassie.”

Fletcher turned to Barrie and stuck out his tongue.

“I hate you!” Barrie said. “I don’t want you in my room.”

“There now,” Maggie said. “You don’t hate your brother.”

“I do,” Barrie said. “I do. I hate my brother. I want a
different one.”

Maggie smiled. “It willna do any good to wish for a
different brother. All men are the same, you ken. They just have different
faces so you can tell them apart.”

“Do I
have
to have a brother?”

“No, you don’t have to have one, but you do, and you should
be happy for it,” Maggie said for the tenth time since the children had come to
California, and the hundredth time since Barrie could talk.

Over the next few days, Ainsley’s appetite returned, and
along with it, her color. Even her laughter returned.

But one thing did not return.

Since the onset of her illness, Ainsley would not talk.

At first Maggie thought this was something temporary, that
her speech would return along with her health, but long after she recovered,
Ainsley remained mute. When she wanted something, she would point or make
gestures with her hands, and whenever Maggie asked her why she would not speak,
Ainsley would simply look at her, a blank expression on her face, and turn her
head away.

Maggie discussed it with Molly and Maude, each of them
trying to think of ways to persuade Ainsley to talk. They tried not giving her
what she wanted, but she would either get it herself, rely on Barrie, or do
without.

“I ken the puir little lassie would starve herself to death,”
Maude said.

“Aye,” Maggie said in agreement, “I ken she would at that.”

“I’ve heard of things like this happening a time or two,”
Molly said. “I knew of a young girl what lost her whole family in a fire. She
didn’t say another word for almost ten years, and then suddenly one day she
started talking.”

“It was brought on by some disturbance in her life, then?”
Maggie said.

“Yes,” said Molly.

“If it’s a reason she needs, Ainsley has plenty, I ken,”
Maggie said at last. “She was never as talkative after Bruce’s death. Perhaps
the close call with her own death affected her mind in some way.”

“Aye,” Maude said, “if the wee lassie thought she was going
to die, she couldna help but remember the day they brought her father home.”

Maggie’s face turned white. She was suddenly remembering
that day, and how Ainsley had been changed. Never would she forget Ainsley’s
face that day—the color of the whitest ivory, it was, and her eyes were so
wide, they seemed too big for such a small head. She remembered, too, how long it
was before Ainsley would talk.