Legends (20 page)

“I’m very sorry. I won’t do it again, I promise.”

“Why did you do it in the first place?”

She cupped water to her face, washing away tears of angry self-defense. How could she have known what to do? She’d never had a chance to learn!

“I said I’m sorry, Douglas. Could you just be quiet about it?” She heard the sorrowful tremor in her voice and swallowed hard. “Damn.”

Suddenly he moved close behind her. His hands clasped her shoulders, squeezing firmly but gently. “I think you need to explain to me,” he murmured, and his voice was now soothing. “I have plenty of suspicions anyway. So you might as well confirm them.”

She groaned in dismay. “Och! I thought I was doing so well! I should have just taped a great huge sign on my forehead! ‘Beware! Bad Lover!’ ”

“El, El, sssh,” he chastised softly. His hands slid back and forth. “You’re wonderful. But I realized even when we were in Scotland that you’ve got more enthusiasm than know-how.”

“Aye,” she said bitterly, nodding. “And the lack is more obvious than I thought.”

“There’s only one reason why a sexy, loving woman would feel awkward after twelve years of marriage.” He put his arms around her and rested his cheek against the back of her head. “Jonathan must not have given you much opportunity to practice.”

Her shoulders slumped. “I don’t want to speak ill of him. He was good to me in so many ways.”

“This will be our secret, El. I don’t want to gossip about Jonathan’s faults; I’m just trying to understand you and help you feel better.” He turned her around and pulled her head to his shoulder. With his arms around her snugly he whispered, “You’re fantastic, El. What you don’t know I can teach you. I’ve never been happier or more satisfied. I hope you feel the same way.”

“Oh, yes,” she nearly moaned, the words inadequate. “But I can’t keep on upsetting you with my mistakes.”

He squeezed her in mild rebuke. “No pain, no gain, I always say. And I
love
a challenge.”

Elgiva chuckled wearily. “You could end up with permanent scars on your volcano.”

“There’s a lot more to me than Mount Vesuvius.”

“I know, dear man, but I want to be good to every part of you.”

He kissed her. Elgiva hugged him and said with painful slowness, “I’ll tell you what I was used to, Douglas. I’ll tell you.” She looked away from the bittersweet compassion in his eyes, struggling to keep her voice casual. “On our wedding night Jonathan said to me, ‘Ellie, be still, now. This will just take a minute.’ And … that’s all it took.”

“Oh, El.”

“And that was more or less his attitude for the next dozen years. He’d say, ‘Ellie, pull your gown up, would you?’ Or ‘Ellie, I’ve got a little problem that’s keeping me awake.’ Those were his ways of politely asking permission. I suppose they give you a pretty accurate picture of what followed afterward.”

“Yes. Sweet doll, I’m sorry,” Douglas whispered. He shook his head. His dark eyes were remorseful. “You went from polite sex with a mild-mannered husband to being leered at by a wild-tempered stranger. No wonder you were threatened by me up in Scotland.”

“Not threatened. Overwhelmed. There were times when I thought the bars of your cell were going to melt from the look in your eyes when you watched me. But before long I was
begging
them to melt.”

Douglas trailed his fingers down her back, then cupped her rump in his hands. He lifted her against him. She chuckled at the exaggerated lechery in his arched brows and wicked expression.

He carried her into shallower water. “Listen to your professor, you big bonnie lass, and you’ll learn everything you always wanted to know. First I’ll teach you to tame the volcano. Next I’ll teach you to swim.”

“Swim? What does that have to do with making love?”

He winked at her. “It all depends on how you learn to stroke.”

“Faith!” she exclaimed softly, and kissed him.

The little things made him love her more. Her guilt-free enjoyment of food. The cozy way she shared his toothbrush and scratched his back and purred like a big, happy cat when he painted her toenails. The fact that she didn’t pretend to understand high finance but wasn’t shy about telling him her ideas about running a small business.

He loved her for the cutthroat way she played Monopoly. She built up the block around Park Place and gleefully charged him exorbitant rents when he landed there. He loved her for her refusal to feel sorry for herself because she’d missed out on attending college. He loved her for being proud of what she was, and for knowing what she was, and for knowing what she wanted from life.

Unfortunately, what she wanted was to go back to Scotland.

It wasn’t that she said anything specific; it was the way she talked about her apartment, and her shop, and the village, and MacRoth Hall, which she was anxious to see now that it was definitely going to belong to her and her brother.

Douglas wondered how difficult it would be to coax her into living elsewhere in the world. He wanted to talk about the future, but he forced himself to wait. Her new trust was too fragile; he’d give her time to believe in him without any misgivings. After all she’d suffered in her marriage, he was afraid that she’d balk at any mention of commitment. For the first time in his life, he was content, and complete, and patient.

And afraid that he was going to lose her because of it.

When they woke up the next morning they were, as usual, halfway to making love. It was fantastic to feel her sleepy mouth nuzzling his and her body already responding to his hands.

Afterward, she lay on top of him with her knees hugging his sides and her arms wound under his
neck. “Very
instrrructive
,” she cooed. Her accent always deepened when she was happy.

Douglas kissed the tip of her nose. “How would you like to leave for London in a couple of hours?”

“Just like that? You make it sound like a jaunt to the village store.”

“It is. We’ll take the helicopter over to St. Thomas, then climb aboard my jet. We’ll watch a few movies, eat some wonderful food, take a nap, and
voilà
! We’re in London.”

The gleam in her eyes told him she was thinking that London was close to home. “And then?”

“I have some work to do at my London office. I need to meet with a few people about a chain of department stores I want to acquire in Europe.”
Where they’ll sell woolens by Elgiva MacRoth
, he added silently.

Douglas jiggled her and cheerfully ogled her bouncing breasts. “You can spend the day shopping. I’ll have a chauffeur take you to the best boutiques in the city. You can buy anything you want.”

“I don’t want to spend your money, Douglas. It would make me feel like a kept woman.”

“So? I was your kept man for almost two weeks. Can’t I get even?”

“You’re twisting the meaning of the word, you beastie.”

He tried not to push too hard, but her refusal to be drawn into his lifestyle worried him. “You’re depriving me of the pleasure of sending you shopping. At least go window-shopping, if your independent little heart refuses to let you spend a pittance of my enormous fortune.”

“Hah! You’ll tell the chauffeur to make notes about everything that interests me, and you’ll send someone to buy it for me later.”

He gave her an exasperated look. “You know me too well.”

“No.” She kissed him. “Not well enough. But I’m studying you.”

Douglas regarded her somberly.
Patience, Kincaid, patience
. “Then you probably know that I’ll fly you up to Scotland after my business is finished in London.”

“Aye!” She smiled brightly. “I’ll show you around. We’ll go to MacRoth Hall, and you and my brother can make friends. Oh, Douglas, thank you, thank you. This has all turned out so well! I can’t wait to go home!”

She snuggled her head on his shoulder and hugged him. He held her tightly, feeling jealous of a place and a heritage that might take her away from him if he weren’t very careful.

“I’ve visited London before,” she told him the next morning. “But never like this.”

Douglas watched with serene, smiling love as she moved about the main room of their enormous hotel suite, her artistic fingers absorbing the gilt and brocade of old-world elegance. She was particularly happy today—she’d called her brother and convinced him to meet them in Scotland tomorrow. Douglas nodded to himself. He’d win Rob MacRoth’s friendship as his next step in the permanent acquisition of Elgiva’s affections.

But for now he didn’t want to think about that. He simply wanted to enjoy looking at her. A floor-length dressing gown whispered around her ankles. The morning light filtered through the silk sheers covering a tall window and made a reddish-gold halo at the crown of her head.

She was her own best creation, her own work of art, and if he never wanted to share this view of her with anyone else, who could blame him? A connoisseur had a right to be selfish about a masterpiece.

Douglas fiddled with his gold cuff links and took extra time straightening his black vest. He slipped into the black jacket of an exquisitely tailored suit and sighed in dismay. He was already late for the
9:00
A.M
. meeting at his London office building, headquarters of British Kincaid. For the first time in years he wanted to skip work.

“The chauffeur will be waiting at ten,” he reminded Elgiva. “I wish you’d go shopping.”

She came to him and kissed his mouth firmly. “Off to work with you, dear man. I’m going to the museums.”

“All right. But when you get to the Fordham, at least let the curator be your personal guide. It’s all set up. Do that much for me. I mean, I ought to get
something
in return for all the money I donated to his place.”

“You’re a charitable man, Douglas,” she said with a slightly taunting smile, both amused and rebuking.

He grunted. “Unsentimental.”

“We’ll see about that.” She kissed him again, using her tongue in delicate, delicious ways, and by the time he left the suite, he was so distracted that he bumped into a waiter in the hallway and knocked him down.

Douglas helped the man rise, waved his humble apologies aside, and pressed a hundred-pound note into his astonished hand. Then he strode away, whistling the strains of a Scottish jig.

“You admire the legends connected with these gems more than the gems themselves,” the dapper little curator at the Fordham told her.

Elgiva smiled. “Oh, I’ve got naught against fine jewelry, but the legends are safer to carry about.” She nodded at the thick glass cases anchored in marble. “Wouldn’t you say?”

The tweedy little man chuckled. “Indeed.” They walked farther along the museum’s display. “This is one of the world’s finest collections of famous gems,” the curator mentioned.

They arrived at a case that held a glittering necklace
of teardrop-shaped diamonds. “They’re incredible,” Elgiva whispered in awe.

“They’re the Tears of Simone. Commissioned by the father of a French baroness, as a consolation gift for forcing her to marry a man she disliked. There’s a companion necklace called the Smiles of Simone. Her husband had it created to commemorate their tenth anniversary—a happy one, as it turned out. The Smiles of Simone are magnificent sapphires.”

Elgiva looked up quickly. Sapphires. She struggled not to grimace. “Do you have the Smiles of Simone here?”

The curator looked puzzled. “Why, no. I thought you knew. Mr. Kincaid has been negotiating to purchase them from an Arabian collector, a patron of ours. I believe the sale was finalized last week.”

Elgiva stared at him. A hollow, distraught feeling began to grow inside her chest, even as she told herself not to read too much into Douglas’s deal. But her enjoyment of London and her bright hopes for the future had dimmed. So he was still adding to his collection.

He still wanted sapphires for a blond, blue-eyed wife
. She touched a fingertip to the corner of one amber eye. Douglas had become color-blind, but not for long, it seemed.

She delayed returning to the hotel. She had the chauffeur take her to famous sites in the city, where she wandered about and pretended to be intrigued. But her thoughts were riveted painfully to the news that Douglas had purchased more sapphires.

She was no daydreaming child, she told herself; she was thirty-four, a widow, a self-supporting businesswoman, and a practical person who knew better than to weave bold threads when gossamer ones were expected. Douglas cared for her—there was no doubt of it. But he didn’t necessarily love her. People didn’t have to love each other to become lovers—even when to one of them the love was all consuming.