Elise (12 page)

“I see punctuality is another of your virtues.”

Colin stepped from behind her, interrupting the other woman’s inspection. Elise turned to look up at him and found her eyes admiring the man beside her with every bit as much fervor as the squire’s wife was. In tight-fitting, black-checked trousers, superbly tailored jacket, and starched white bow tie, he was every bit a gentleman.

She tried not to show her surprise, for he couldn’t have picked a better match to herself. She no longer looked out of place or too richly dressed. She looked like she was the Duke of MacGowan’s duchess. She was proud to stand beside him and introduce him as her husband.

She hoped it didn’t sound in her voice.

He had their complete attention as he lifted her hand to his lips in seeming adoration, before turning to the squire and his wife. Then his conversation went immediately to the MacGowan stables.

Elise pursed her lips. She should have known.

She noted that the wife’s eyes were on her now for a completely different reason. Elise recognized envy, and she looked sidelong to the man at her side, who was causing all of it. He seemed unaware of what was transpiring beneath his nose, although he should have been. There wasn’t a bit of that elegant ensemble that was hiding a bit of the man beneath it all.

“That is a lovely piece of jewelry.”

Elise didn’t realize he’d finished his conversation. She started, tipped her head, and then skittered away from his glance. The twinge came again, in full force, startling her into a gasp as she dropped her gaze to the floor and owned the entire flame of her blush.

Oh no. No.

Never
.

It was horror fighting with giddiness, while anger, fear, and dismay sidled right alongside anticipation and such a feeling of euphoria that her eyes burned with unshed tears at the beauty of it. Elise had to close them on the stone flooring of Ipswich Manor’s dining room.
This is the absolutely last thing that can happen!
Her heart hammered in fear. She wasn’t going to allow it. She refused to feel anything for a MacGowan! Ever. Never. She wasn’t finding him stirring her senses, and he wasn’t anything other than the stranger she’d been tricked into wedding. Nothing more. Ever.

“A souvenir from some love-struck swain, I gather?”

Elise reached to touch the stones, grateful for his words, for her thoughts had stalled the moment he’d spoken again.

She’d selected the necklace when it was presented for her inspection. Very few knew that the Dowager Duchess of Wynd bought her own jewels, usually on a whim, but sometimes with her eye to a good investment. That came from another of her past friendships. She’d been helping one of her previous amours catch another lady’s favors with baubles very much like these. Elise twined her fingers in the topaz-studded gold chain and smiled glassily at the little scar on his chin.

“I’m pleased you like it,” she answered.

“The MacGowan gems will look splendid on you. Perhaps that will compensate.”

“For what?”

“For being unable to wear the ones you have on now, or the rubies, and let’s na’ forget those little purple ones from the first night.”

“You recall... what jewels I wore?” Elise’s head was spinning with what he’d just said. He remembered a small thing like that? Her heart stumbled, pumping more blood into her face than she could staunch, and she didn’t even have a fan to hide behind.

“Of course na’. You were described in one of the papers.”

She deserved the look he was giving her. Elise took several barely noticeable breaths to calm herself. Such a reaction belonged to the girl she’d been, not the woman she was. How stupid of her to have forgotten it. She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips sweetly at the man parading as her husband. “You live in the past, Your Grace. I have every intention of wearing my own jewels in the future, just as I do now.”

His lips thinned, and the nerve twitched in his jaw as he seated himself beside her. “Must you fight me at every turn?”

“Until you release me from this farce, yes. I’m finding it immensely entertaining, too.”

“How do you know that you will na’ like Scotland? You have na’ seen the green of the moors, felt the wind on your face, fished a burn—”

“All delightful pursuits, I’m sure,” she interrupted him.

“You know, unlike most of the clans, the MacGowans fought against land clearances. That means there’s a lot of old-fashioned Scots for you to meet.”

Elise knew what he was really saying. If she insisted on such stubbornness as wearing her own jewelry, she’d not find Scotland a very welcome place.

“Land clearances, Your Grace?”

The squire’s wife claimed Colin’s attention. Elise listened as he explained how once landowners had found out how profitable raising sheep was, they’d cleared their own people out of their crofts and forced them off the land. Some of the clansmen had been sent, ill-prepared, out into the night without so much as a warning. Some had even had their possessions burnt to the ground as they watched, to make them leave.

“It sounds barbaric and horrid, Your Grace,” the squire’s wife said.

“Perhaps I should also explain that most of the affected properties belonged to English-leaning landowners, then.”

Elise used every repertoire in her book to keep the grin from settling on her mouth at the woman’s expression. She knew her lips would betray her eventually, though. She cupped a hand over her mouth to hide it. Then she caught Colin’s eye. He was suffering the same thing, she was certain of it.

Elise didn’t have any experience of the thrill sharing amusement with him was causing her. It was like being doused with cold water, yet set afire at the same instant. As if he knew it, Colin’s grin slowly faded. She had to restrain herself from bolting from the table.

“How is it that your clan survived and prospered, then?”

Elise thought it was Howard asking it, but the question simply joined the humming sound in her ears.

“The MacGowans have always wed well, my lord.”

Colin didn’t turn his head to answer. He didn’t let go of her gaze. His eyelashes were fairly lush and shaded his eyes to deepest brown. How had she missed that? His glance moved from hers, down her nose to her mouth, and back again, in less time than it took to catch another breath. Then he did it again, only this time he licked his lips.

Someone cleared their throat and her eyes widened before she choked on the reaction. Colin saw every bit of it, too. She looked hastily to her lap. Those were the same fingers, the same nails, the same rings: everything was the same, yet different.

She was acutely aware of Colin seated beside her. Unless she kept her eyes closed, she had no choice but to be. What could only be very large thigh muscles were clearly defined beneath his trousers. He had small diamonds on his cuffs, and his hands were tanned against the starched white of his shirt. She caught her lower lip in her teeth.

She twisted her napkin without thinking. She wished she dared to dip it into her water goblet and dab at her temples.

“... on your honeymoon, Your Grace? Your Grace?”

“Elise?”

Colin was whispering it, and Elise concentrated on untwisting the linen square in her hands. She lifted her head and looked toward the head of the table. Lord Ipswich seemed the safest, and she thought it had been he speaking.

“Forgive me, I must have wandered,” Elise spoke up. “It has been ... a long day. You were saying?”

The squire’s wife now was looking at her with what could only be dislike and real jealousy. Elise studiously ignored looking that way again. She couldn’t meet the woman’s eyes. She’d thought herself born to the art of the double entendre. She’d been six years in society, and was a master of the quick, brutal set down. She was known for her wit. She was never without partners at any social gathering because she had a rapier tongue and a quick mind.

It was laughable. She felt as shy and insecure as a schoolgirl.

“... the continent? Nae. We’ve na’ any plans except returning to my home. We were wed so quickly, we dinna’ have time to think on it. Did we, my dear?”

Elise mumbled something after Colin answered for her. It was all she was capable of.

Chapter 12

It was a relief to get out of her finery, but Ida’s chatter was giving Elise a headache. Perhaps it was only intensifying the one she already had. She listened to how lucky she was, how charming her new husband was, what a lovely couple she and Colin were, and felt like screaming.

How could I have been so brazen?
She asked it of herself for the hundredth time. It didn’t help that her reflection wasn’t answering. Ida noticed nothing amiss. If she did, it didn’t stop her prattle. Elise waited placidly while the maid brushed her hair into a waterfall that reached the seat of her cushioned chair. Then she dismissed the woman. She couldn’t stand for one more idle remark or complaint about the sufferings of the Ipswich family.

Elise had her own demons to face.

She stared at her reflection. She hadn’t changed, although it felt like she should have. She should look older. She should have dark circles beneath her eyes and lines of dissolution about her nose and mouth; but she had neither. With her hair down and her face bare of cosmetics, she looked more like a girl of twenty-one. She looked like the fresh-faced country girl she’d been. It was a shame Colin MacGowan would never see it.

As if she’d called him, the door opened. His Grace walked in, pulling the tie from his neck as he shut the door behind him. Elise met his eyes squarely in the looking glass, although the girl in the mirror flushed. The heat spread up her neck to her cheeks. There wasn’t anything Elise could do to stop it.

No one ever saw her this way. She wouldn’t have been able to act the part of the imperious, heartless duchess if they had.

She watched as he took in the length of her hair, the plain cotton of her high-necked nightgown, and the hand she clasped to her throat. What she wouldn’t give for a bit of rice powder to temper the blush staining her cheeks!

He smiled and cocked his eyebrows. “This is a becoming change.”

“I wasn’t expecting you.”

“That much I can see for myself.”

“What do you want?”

“You’ll have to forgive me, but it will look strange if I waste any more time away from my bride. Forget I asked that. I doona’ think I want your forgiveness, after all.”

She didn’t answer.

“You’ll na’ run in terror or shriek in fright, will you?”

“I’m not afraid of you, Colin.”

“You’re afraid of every man, myself included. I’m bright enough to guess that and experienced enough to know it. Next lie, please?”

He slung the tie onto the dresser without leaving her gaze. Her eyes widened a hair. Not enough for him to notice, but enough that she knew of it. She picked up the brush for something to do.

“Do I have your assurance?”

He was undoing the buttons of his jacket as he spoke. Elise started brushing her hair. She needed both hands to do it properly. She had to consciously force her hand to let go of the ribbon tie at her throat. Colin put his hand to his sleeve as if to pull his arm free.

“You can’t sleep here.” Her words stopped him.

“Why na’? Are we na’ hopelessly in love with each other? So much so that we could na’ even wait for a proper ceremony to wed?”

She shut her eyes to still the emotion he’d see. She had no right whatsoever to be hopelessly in love with him, or even pretend to it. He was a MacGowan, and she’d sworn to hate them forever. Yet the longer she knew him, the harder it was. Colin MacGowan wasn’t supposed to be charming. He wasn’t supposed to have greenish brown eyes that had sun-enhanced laugh lines at the edges. He wasn’t supposed to make her laugh. He wasn’t supposed to make her feel like her feet weren’t touching the ground. He certainly wasn’t supposed to be undressing in her bedchamber while she couldn’t seem to move her eyes.

Elise had some thinking to do about it. She didn’t want to. That much was obvious. Colin had already given her the time, and she’d wasted it. He was right about one thing, though. He’d said it was too late, and it was.

Elise was beginning to understand how her sister had felt. She knew now why Evangeline had tossed everything away in order to be with a MacGowan. Elise was stupid to flirt with the same feeling. She didn’t wish to know how the betrayal and rejection felt, too. Yet here she was, ignoring every vow she’d made. It was amazing how small and wretched it made her feel.

Not only was Colin a MacGowan, but he was
the
MacGowan. He was the laird of their clan. As such, he was the imperious judge of who was acceptable and who was not. He was the epitome of everything Elise hated and feared.

Her sister, Evangeline, was probably turning over in her grave.

Elise opened her eyes and met his. He shrugged out of his jacket next and hung it on a peg beside the door. Inside, Elise was screaming at him to stop; outwardly, she smoothed the brush through a lock of hair that ended in her lap. She had to lift it with one hand as she did so.

“You’re showing remarkable restraint. My compliments.”

She didn’t answer. He didn’t seem to be expecting one. His evening attire included a stiffened, pleated-front shirt, too. Elise watched as he unclasped the diamonds at his cuffs and set them atop the dresser. Then he began slipping the buttons on the front of his shirt from their holes. He wasn’t watching what he was doing, either. He was watching her.

He wasn’t wearing proper attire, after all. He didn’t have anything on beneath his shirt. He also had more muscle than she’d ever seen, or had known existed. Parts of his chest flexed strangely as he pulled off the shirt. His flesh wasn’t wasted and white. He was lightly tanned and had a line of chestnut hair up his belly to the two mounds of his chest. He looked every inch a man, and an extremely virile one at that.

Elise couldn’t hide the width of her eyes. She knew he’d spot it but was beyond that. She put the brush back with a hand that trembled so badly it clattered on its tray.

“Your lack of courage is showing.”

“Colin, please?”

He sighed, and it lifted the hair from his forehead. It also moved everything on his chest. That, she could have done without noticing.

“Believe it or na’, I’m na’ fond of rejection. Hard to believe, I know. I have a suggestion for you. Have you ever heard of a bolster?”

She shook her head.

“I’ll explain.”

She had to turn from the mirror to watch him, which was worse.

“We roll up the top covering, like this, until it makes a long divider.”

Elise tried to follow along, but the humming sound in her ears was making it difficult. She was afraid it had something to do with the sight of the Duke of MacGowan, clad only in tight, black-checked trousers and standing about six feet from her.

‘Then we place it between the sheets, making a nice wall between us. Will that suit, do you think?”

He was putting action to word, and Elise watched his thigh muscles moving with that motion, too. The Duke of MacGowan wasn’t a man of leisure; that was a certainty.

“Will this meet with your approval?”

She knew he was asking something, but she hadn’t actually heard any of it. Maybe if he’d put his shirt back on, she’d find her mind functioning again. Elise had to force herself to look from the ropelike structure of his stomach, up his chest, to his face.

He was grinning. She looked to the floor, where it was safer.

“Well?”

“I’ve never heard ... of such ... a thing,” she stammered.

“That’s because you hobnob with the elite classes. You have to come down a peg or two in the company you keep if you want to find common sense. It’s sadly lacking in the upper crust.”

“But—”

“I know, I’m a member now. I’ve been dutifully informed of it, too. It will take some time to polish myself enough. I’m a bit rough about the edges.”

A bit?
she wondered.

“I told the solicitor fellow as much. Everyone will just have to bear with me in the meantime. You included.”

She was glad she was looking at the floor. He wouldn’t be able to spot her smile. She didn’t want him to know she shared his humor. She already knew where that had gotten her. She bit her lip and tried to find her voice.

“Your bed awaits, Madame. I hope it meets with your satisfaction.”

The plain wood flooring below her was hard to focus on. He sounded so friendly and so safe. How she wished she were naive enough to believe it!

“I suppose it will have to do,” she said, with her haughtiest voice.

His quick intake of breath was her answer. Elise avoided what that meant as she walked to the opposite side of the bed from him and slipped beneath the covers. She turned toward the wall and tried to ignore him.

She knew by the shadow on the wall that he hadn’t moved. For some reason she was ashamed at her own actions. Angry tears filled her eyes. She blinked rapidly. She didn’t need a conscience at this late date. Maybe Colin should have paid better attention to some of the cartoons about her. The Dowager Duchess of Wynd didn’t have a conscience, and she didn’t have a heart.

“If I had another option, I’d take it. I want you to know that.”

“Very well, I know of it,” she told the wall.

His answer was in the same strange language she’d heard him use before. His shadow was moving, too. Elise shut her eyes tightly, squelching every emotion. When she opened them again, she couldn’t see any shadow. She didn’t know where he was, and it was making the flesh on her back tingle. She turned her head as quietly as possible, found him, and caught the cry before it sounded.

Colin was standing before the cheval mirror, brushing out his hair. He had to bend down in order to do so, and he wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to her. He put the brush back and bent to check something on his face. Elise fought the smile. She hadn’t known that men primped.

He’d shed his evening trousers and was wearing only skin-tight drawers. Either his wardrobe was too small, or men’s under-drawers were supposed to end at the calf, she decided. Then he stood and stretched, lifting his arms above his head and making his shoulders and back undulate. He had entirely too much muscle, and in too many places.

She wondered if it felt as hard and strong as it looked, and could swear her fingers tingled again with the same sensation of want. Elise couldn’t believe what she was doing, nor could she imagine the reaction in her entire body. The same inferno was igniting every nerve, including those in her feet. She was in serious danger of having to consider revamping her viewpoint of what handsome was.

Colin dipped at the waist and began doing some strange contortions as he rolled himself back and forth like a pendulum. She imagined he was exercising, but it didn’t look like anything she’d ever seen or heard of.

With his legs bent perpendicular to the floor and his arms clasped in front of him, he began bending and circling. He wasn’t in any hurry to finish his movements, either. Each time he lifted a leg or held out an arm, he did it with precision and grace. It looked like some strange dance, without benefit of music.

Or was there music?
She asked it of herself, trying to still her heartbeat so she could hear.

It wasn’t the humming sound. Elise sharpened her ears, for it was a very light melody. Then she knew; it was Colin. He was making strange singsong noises as he moved. She was so spellbound, she forgot to blink, until her eyes watered. Such a mundane thing as blinking didn’t occur to her.

He’d finished and stood, his chest heaving as he looked to the floor. Then he lifted his head and looked straight at her. Elise strangled a cry, threw her head back down, and slammed her eyes shut. It was too late, though. The image was burned onto her eyelids to resurface without any effort of will.

She knew the heated goosebumps covering her were from the embarrassment, but it was something else, too. He was so stirring! He hadn’t been His Grace, Colin MacGowan, whom she’d sworn to hate. He’d been some strange creature she didn’t know enough about to name. She’d been lost in some erotic realm of fantasy and desire, and he’d gone and caught her at it.

There wasn’t a hole big enough to hide in.

She didn’t open her eyes when he dimmed the oil lamp. She refused to acknowledge that he was there. She was doing her best to stop the dry sobs that shook her.

~ ~ ~

Something wasn’t right. It was good, though.

Elise snuggled closer to the warmth behind her back and ignored the lighting of the room. She felt rested and secure, although she was lying in a strange position and on her left side. Always before she had slept on her right, curled into a small ball. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept this way. She also couldn’t remember ever feeling so protected and warm. Then she knew why. Her eyes flew open in alarm.

Colin’s right arm encased her, scooping her into the enclosure he’d made with his body. She tried not to feel the contours of his legs against hers, or his stomach against her backside, or his chest against her shoulders, but her skin was awakening to every inch of him. She even had her head pillowed on his outstretched left arm.

Elise blinked once, and then again. The view wasn’t changing. Her eyes widened at the sight of the bolster roll in front of her nose. She was the one on the wrong side of the bed.