Julia London - [Scandalous 02] (11 page)

She watched him go, then picked up her skirts. “This is no’ to be borne,” she muttered angrily, “and I will
no’
bear it!” She marched off in the direction of her greenhouse, the only place she could find a moment’s peace.

While Lizzie tried to find her way out of her quandary, Charlotte sat alone, brooding before the hearth.
She heard the creak of the door and assumed it was Mrs. Kincade with her afternoon tea, which the elderly woman served every afternoon at five o’clock. But the footfall was too heavy, and Charlotte twisted in her seat and groaned when she saw Newton moving across the carpet.

“You were no’ given leave to enter!” she said crossly.

“Aye, so ye’ve said on more than one occasion,” Newton said wryly, and proceeded to take the seat across from her. Charlotte cried out in protest, but he flippantly ignored her and settled his big hands on his knees, as if he and she were close acquaintances.

Truly affronted, Charlotte exclaimed, “Why do you question my orders?”

“Ye donna give me orders. The laird does. And I am to stay with ye.”

“I donna want you here!” Charlotte cried.

Newton sighed. “Do useless legs give ye the right to be so ill-mannered?”

Charlotte could feel her face mottling with impotent rage. “How dare you say such a thing to me!”

“I think it high time someone spoke to you in such a manner,” he said quietly, and stood up. “And I think it high time ye came out of this room.”

Charlotte could hardly catch her breath she was so angry, but when he stepped behind her chair and began to move her, she cried out with fear.

“I donna intend to harm ye.”

Charlotte cried out for Lizzie, but no one came. Newton pushed her to the door. He paused there and picked up a thick tartan blanket, which he wrapped around her shoulders.

“Stop this!” Charlotte screamed. “Stop this at once!
Mr. Kincade!
Help me! Someone help me!”

“Mr. Kincade is in the barn,” Newton said, and proceeded to push her chair out the door.

It was no use. Only the dogs had come at the sound of her cries and they seemed more interested in her destination than in her abduction.

Newton maneuvered her down the corridor as Charlotte railed at him and tried to catch on to anything with her hands. The best she managed was to knock a vase to the floor. She was on the verge of tears—no one came to her aid and she was left to her own devices, as helpless as a fish out of water.

Newton wheeled her to the French doors that led to the terrace and paused to open them.

“Oh, dear God,” Charlotte said breathlessly.
“Mi Diah!”
She had visions of herself lying helplessly on the cold ground, soaked to the bone by the mists and left to die, a useless cripple who could not even pull herself into the house. When he stepped behind her and pushed her onto the terrace, she screamed with terror.

“By all that is holy!” he exclaimed.
“Charlotte…”
He put his hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently as the dogs loped down the steps and onto the grass of the lawn. “Surely ye know by now I will no’ harm ye.” And with that, he slipped his hands beneath her arms and lifted her up, off that godawful prison of a chair. He caught her by the waist with one arm and held her against him, her back to him, as if she were standing before him.

He just stood there.

“What are you doing?” she asked anxiously. “What do you mean to do?”

“To give you a breath of fresh air. How long has it been, then? Take a breath, Charlotte,” he urged her. “Take it, lass.”

Her heart pounding, Charlotte drew a breath. It felt cool and fresh in her lungs. In spite of herself, she lifted her face to the cold gray sky. Newton stood silently as she breathed in the scent of the pines, of wet leaves and smoke.

She took another breath.

With Newton solid behind her, Charlotte relaxed and closed her eyes, and for a few moments, she soared high above the hills and the Scots pines.

S
ometime after Jack had eaten the watery soup Dougal had fetched him, Lizzie returned to the room, slipping inside and standing against the wall. She was considerably calmer, but fatigue ringed her eyes.

“Lizzie,” Jack said gruffly.

He was seated before the hearth; Lizzie looked at the book he held. So did Jack. “You are reading,” she said, sounding quite incredulous.

“Aye,” he said, and shut the book. “It is an occupation of last resort when there is no society to occupy me. And as there are no festive games, no one to ravish…” He shrugged.

“Well, then, perhaps you might do what others do when they find they’ve no occupation,” Lizzie said. “Go to bed.” She pointed to the door to the old sitting room. “In
there
.”

Jack smiled. “You’ll no’ force me to sleep in an ice-cold sitting room, aye?”

If the narrowing of her lovely eyes was any indication, she would.

“Diah,”
he said crossly. “After all we’ve endured, you’d put me in the bloody sitting room?”

Her expression changed from frustration to supreme confidence. “And after all we’ve endured you’d see me ruined even further? You should be thankful for any ac
commodation,” she said, folding her arms. “Charlotte wanted you in the shed.”

“Aye, but what did
you
want?” he demanded irritably. He tossed his book aside and stood up. “I rescued you from Castle Beal!”

“
Rescued
me?” she cried. “You did no’ rescue me! I rescued myself, I did!”

“And how is that, lass? By crawling out a window? I spotted you instantly, as did Dougal! You’d no’ have gotten past the gate!”

“I certainly would have, and with no thanks to you!”

He snorted with disbelief. “You canna deny that I helped you out of a rather tight scrape, Lizzie! No one else! And in the course of it, I respected you as a gentleman ought to respect a lady, and
this
is the thanks I’m to have?” he exclaimed, gesturing angrily at the sitting-room door.

“This notion that I am somehow responsible for your comfort is absurd! I’ve my own worries, Jack. How do you think this will appear to Mr. Gordon?”

“If it does no’ appear to him that I’ve been a veritable saint of patience, I may shoot him,” Jack said testily. He meant to sit once more and resume his book, to simply ignore her, but she was too damned alluring in a provincial way, strangely seductive swaddled in wool and standing there in a high dudgeon with glittering blue eyes.

“I suppose you want to be congratulated for behaving like a gentleman, aye? That’s a rogue for you! You behave yourself and think you deserve the master suite for it!”

“No,”
he said angrily. “But at the very least I deserve…” He momentarily lost his train of thought as his gaze fell to her lips, dark and ripe against her pale skin. He was standing close enough that he could see the pearly hint of teeth, the tip of her pink tongue between them.

A strange thought occurred to Jack, and the thought was that he’d not been as aroused as this in a very long time.
Very
long.

“What?” she demanded, squinting up at him. “You deserve
what
?”

He felt himself on the verge of saying something profound, something to put this unruly lass in her proper place. But what came out of his mouth was a thick
“This,”
and in one swift and powerful movement, he caught Lizzie and hauled her into his chest. He gave her not even a fraction of a moment to react before he planted his mouth on hers. Firmly, possessively, hungrily.

He was not surprised when she shrieked into his mouth, but it hardly mattered.
This
was what he deserved, the taste of her succulent lips, the feel of them, soft and surprisingly warm beneath his. He deserved the kiss of this woman who had vexed him, perplexed him—even if there were mounds of wool between them.

Lizzie robbed Jack of all rational thought. Good sense, propriety, and decorum drained out of him. The cold seemed to crack around them, a large sheet of ice breaking under the heat and pressure of that kiss. Jack was aware of nothing but her and a desire in him that was growing more tempestuous by the moment.

He heard her little whimper of protest as he pushed her up against the bedpost, but he also felt her body drift into his. He dipped down, tightened his arm around her as he touched his tongue to the seam of her lips, and then her teeth.

The moment his tongue slipped in between her lips, Lizzie hit his chest with both fists. Jack did not let go; he was scarcely even conscious of the blow. Lizzie hit him again, harder, and solidly.

The gentleman in him forced the man to let her go.

Lizzie shoved him away. She stared at him wide-eyed, full of shock as she wiped the back of her hand across her mouth.

And then she slapped him across the cheek.

The slap stunned Jack, but only for a moment. He chuckled low. “Donna tempt me, lass, for you will surely part with your blessed virtue.”

“Will that happen after I beg you for your affection?” she asked breathlessly.

That was the moment his restraint snapped. Jack grabbed the ends of her wool shawl and yanked her to him. For a brief but highly charged moment they glared at each other. Her eyes narrowed dangerously, but he could still see the blue glittering like tiny little crystals, openly daring him to touch her again.

Oh, he touched her. He touched her with his hands and his mouth and his body. He crushed her to him in his arms and kissed her soft, warm mouth as his hands ran over her body, over the curve of her hips and the swell of her breasts.

Lizzie made a sound deep in her throat, a sound of stark, unabashed desire. He plunged his tongue into her mouth, caught the back of her head in his palm, holding her there as he kissed her, as he caressed the velvet curve of her ear with his fingers, the slope of her neck, the line of her jaw. Lizzie grabbed his face, cradling it in her hands, returning his kiss with the same raw desire that was beginning to consume him.

Jack twirled about with her and pushed her up against the mattress. He slid his hands down to her bottom, cupping it, and up again, to the sides of her breast. Lizzie’s fingers splayed across his ears, sinking into his hair. She was the only warmth in this room, a fire so hot and spirited that it sparked a deep, bone-melting heat in him.
Diah,
the
need to feel her beneath him was almost primitive. Jack was on the verge of bursting with all that want, only moments away from putting her on her back on that bed when Lizzie suddenly wrenched herself free of his grasp.

She was panting and laid her hand across her heart, as if she sought to contain it.

Jack knew the feeling. His own heart felt as if it might burst through his chest at any moment.

She was staring at him with stark desire, for Lizzie was not one to mask her feelings. But then her gaze went hard. “Get out!
Out!
” she cried, pointing to the sitting room.

“Lizzie—”

“Go now, or I shall call the men to my aid!”

Jack’s breathing was still ragged, the sensation of that kiss still raw. Something had just happened to him, something fundamental that rattled him and even alarmed him.

Lizzie pointed to the adjoining room again. Jack angrily swiped at the bed hangings and stalked across the room, slamming the door between them.

He sat on the bloody pallet, his back against the wall, his legs stretched before him, brooding about what had just happened between them.

A half hour later, maybe longer, Jack heard the door open. He knew one very hopeful moment, until a pillow was tossed in his direction. He snatched it angrily. A blanket followed and, with a sigh, he took that, too. A moment later, his book was slid across the floor and a candle placed carefully just inside the door, along with a flask of what he soon discovered was whisky—hardly a substitute for what he really wanted, but at least it numbed him past the point of caring for a short time.

A
cold rain began to fall shortly after midnight and turned to sleet shortly before dawn. The sound of it against the glass panes woke Lizzie. She rose and washed quietly in the ice cold water, taking care not to make the slightest noise. When she’d dressed, she allowed herself only a glance at the door to the sitting room, which she’d left ajar to provide a little heat. She rather imagined it was freezing in there, and put another block of peat on the hearth and lit it.

She left the room very quietly, drawing the door closed with much care, only to forget about Dougal and trip over him in the dark.
“Dougal,”
she whispered, and squatted down beside him, put her hand to his shoulder. “Go inside, then, lie by the fire.”

“Thank ye, lass,” he said sleepily, and lumbered to his feet.

Lizzie made her way to the kitchen to help Mrs. Kincade.

“Now, Miss Lizzie, you ought to have Mr. Kincade do that,” Mrs. Kincade said as Lizzie tried to force her frozen fingers to strike a match. She wore wool gloves with the tips of the fingers snipped out of them so she might at least feel the things she touched. She tried again.

Mrs. Kincade moved stiffly about the kitchen. The el
derly woman wore her hair in the same severe bun she’d worn as long as Lizzie could remember, only it was completely gray now, not burnished brown. Mrs. Kincade was a wee bit heavier than average, and in the last few years she’d begun to complain about her back. She could scarcely stoop to pick things up any longer, and helping Charlotte in and out of chairs or beds or baths was very difficult for her. Lizzie did most of that now, and worried how much longer Mrs. Kincade could continue to work in the kitchen.

It was one of many things that worried her.

“Mr. Kincade has enough to do with the horses,” Lizzie said, managing to light the match, which she quickly put to the kindling beneath the block of peat. She fanned the tiny flame that sparked until the block caught fire, and when she was satisfied it would not die, she stood and stretched her fingers to the flame.

“I feel snow in me bones.” Mrs. Kincade sighed. “Me body aches all the way to me toes.”

Mrs. Kincade’s bones could be trusted to predict the weather, which meant there’d be no hunting or fishing for a day or two. And with a house suddenly full of people to feed! “We must have a pair of birds, aye?” Lizzie asked. They had a rooster and six chickens, only two of them laying hens. Lizzie had hoped to make it through the winter with all the birds.

“Aye, two if you can spare them, Miss Lizzie,” Mrs. Kincade said apologetically. “We’ve got plenty of leeks yet. I’ll make a stock.”

“I’ll fetch them as soon as it is light,” Lizzie said. But first, there was something much more pressing she had to do. With the peat now blazing and warming the kitchen, she picked up a paraffin candle and walked down the dark corridor, Fingal and Tavish following behind. She
picked up the estate’s account ledger from the library, then made her way to her father’s study. Normally, Lizzie could not bear to use her father’s study—it remained just as it was the day he’d died.

But it was the only place in the entire house that Lizzie could go to be left completely alone without threat of interruption. She had her little greenhouse, which she dearly loved. She grew medicinal herbs and flowers and the time she spent there was a little bit of heaven. But everyone knew they could find her there, and she was rarely left alone for very long.

In her father’s study, papers were still stacked high on his desk and his books scattered about the room and table surfaces, as were the curious little things Papa had found in walking about the Thorntree estate. There was a tree root that had curved into the shape of a heart, a rock with an impression that Papa swore resembled the profile of the king.

And there were the milestones of their lives. Crude pictures made with hand paints when they were wee girls, still tacked to the dark paneling of the wall behind the desk. A pair of portraits Papa had commissioned when Charlotte was twelve and Lizzie ten years old. A panel of gold drapes, still bearing the stains of an unfortunate accident with an inkwell.

Lizzie saw none of that this morning, however. She paced, walking around Papa’s cluttered desk, trying to stay warm, alternately pressing her hands to her cheeks and then clutching her hands into fists as she tried to make sense of what had happened last night in her room with Jack Haines.

That kiss…that
kiss!…
had amazed her. Even this morning she could still feel it tingling through her limbs and in her chest. Lizzie had been kissed before, but
they’d been chaste little pecks in comparison to what she’d experienced in Jack’s arms. His kiss had not been of this world. It had been ardent and fierce and oh, so arousing. She’d felt as if she were the most desirable female between two shores.

She
liked
it. She liked the heady kiss of a rake, a felon, a man who, undoubtedly, made a sport of kissing as he’d kissed her!

“Bloody rogue!” she whispered hotly, and paused a moment, hands pressed flat against her belly to still the butterflies that still swarmed there, staring blindly at the dusty drapery as his enticing visage danced before her mind’s eye. Even though the hearth in this room had not been lit in an age, and it was ice cold, Lizzie was strangely warm, almost hot. It made her cross, and she impulsively began to strip layers of a wool shawl and arisaidh from her shoulders until she was standing next to the greatcoat and a pile of wool shawls, wearing only an old wool jumper over an older shirt.

Almost unthinkingly, she rolled her sleeves up past her elbows and folded them across her body. “Donna be fooled, Lizzie,” she cautioned herself. That may have been an arousing kiss, but she had no doubt he passed them around like sweetmeats. That kiss may not have been of this world, but
she
certainly was. To entertain a fanciful notion of something more was insupportable. It was madness!

Mr. Gordon was her only hope now. She had to write him quickly, for the sooner Gavin came the sooner that…that man would be dealt with properly. And his kiss—his insupportable, outrageously presumptuous, knee-bending kiss, would be forgotten.
Entirely
forgotten. “Insufferable man,” Lizzie muttered. “Forgotten!” She would continue on as if it had never happened.

She picked up her arisaidh, threw it around her shoulders, and sat on the wobbly old chair before the desk. She blew on her fingertips and opened the ledger on the desk.

Nothing had changed. The figures had not miraculously transformed in her absence. The state of their household was pronounced in black and white on those ledger pages: they had four hundred and seventy-three pounds to their name. Four hundred and seventy-three pounds to provide for four adults, a menagerie of farm animals, and an entire estate for the foreseeable future, with not a bit of income. They’d sold the last of the ewes just two weeks ago.

Without any income from the estate, their situation was dire.

Lizzie bit her lower lip, put aside the ledger, brushed the errant curl from her eye, and opened the drawer of the desk. She withdrew a piece of foolscap and blew on her fingers once more. She had no choice but to summon Mr. Gordon.

She withdrew the pen from the inkwell. It felt strange in her hand. She was not the sort of person to ask for help. Mr. Gordon would certainly help her if he could, for he was a proud man. He was quite intelligent, too, Lizzie thought. He would be laird of the Gordons one day, she believed. He’d made great strides in building the clan’s resources after economic hardships at the turn of the century, and in fact, he was in Crieff this month learning about the wool trade.

She could imagine Mr. Gordon in the wool markets. He was handsome, she mused. He was strong, too, and had won the caber toss during a Gordon clan gathering last fall. He was truly a perfect match for her; Charlotte was right about that. Lizzie had thought so, too, until…

Until she lost her mind recently.

Lizzie stuffed down the madness and put the pen to paper. She was not in the habit of writing letters to gentlemen, and was uncertain how to proceed.

“Appeal to his vanity,”
Charlotte had counseled.
“Men are most susceptible to praise, whether it has been earned or not.”

Lizzie rather assumed Charlotte would know, as there had been a time before the accident when she’d been quite sought after by the gentlemen in the glen.

Dear Mr. Gordon,
she wrote, and stared at that a moment. “Dear Gavin,” she muttered. “Mr. Gordon, sir. Dear sir.”

She stuck with Mr. Gordon.

“
Diah,
how very tiresome!” she muttered. He’d not give a fig about the weather, given what he may or may not have heard about her. Papa always said it was best to be straightforward in matters of business. This was a matter of business, at least in part. Lizzie scratched over what she’d written—even foolscap was too expensive to waste—and began again.

She paused to consider her wording. Was it praise enough? Did it appeal to his vanity?

Honestly, she didn’t believe for a moment that Mr. Gordon could help her now. No one could help her. She and Charlotte were beyond hope.

She studied the letter again, determined there was really nothing she could say that would soften it or improve the truth in any manner. She signed it and sealed it. And then she stuffed it into the pocket of her gown and went in search of Mr. Kincade so that he might find someone to deliver her letter posthaste.