Rivals of Fortune / The Impetuous Heiress (41 page)

Cairnyllan froze, still angry but also appalled at his own loss of control. He had never laid a hand on a woman in his life. Unable to move, he looked down at Alicia. Her pale blue eyes flashed with rage; several of her silver-blond curls had come loose and fallen over her forehead, and her cheeks glowed from the exertion. Something in him turned over at such beauty, and without thought he bent and kissed her full on the lips.

Alicia struggled against his iron grasp and against a rising tide of response that made her want nothing more than to relax within it. Her sensations were those of their long-ago encounter in the ravine; the events of the intervening weeks had not altered them one whit, seemingly. At last, overcome, she allowed her arms to encircle his neck and gave herself up to the kiss.

For an endless moment, they remained thus, enraptured by their matching passion, then Cairnyllan stiffened and thrust her away. Alicia, dazed by the strength of her emotions, fell against the wall and rested there.

The earl stared at her, his brain whirling. It seemed to him that he must be somehow bewitched. This woman had just accused him of unconscionable sins; he had been goaded into a physical attack, and yet had ended up kissing her deeply and passionately. It was mad. And it must be her fault. She was, after all, everything he disapproved of. Thus conveniently forgetting his own gradual change of opinion, Cairnyllan backed several steps into the room. “Get out,” he said again, his voice low.

Alicia's breath was still coming quickly. She was confused by his behavior, and her own reaction, but even more, she was hurt. “I was only trying to help,” she said softly, all her strengthening anger gone.

“I do not require the ‘help' of the sort of woman who calls at a man's rooms unchaperoned,” replied Cairnyllan. “And who stays for half an hour with no appearance of uneasiness. But I suppose you are used to it.”

His tone was so cutting that Alicia cringed. Her desire to argue was gone, and it was apparent that she could not sway him. She wrenched open the door and ran down the hall, out of the house, and across to her carriage, ordering it home.

Cairnyllan slammed the door savagely behind her and strode to the desk once again. But seated there, he merely glowered at the letter paper for a space, then tore it across with an oath and departed as well.

In the safety of her carriage, Alicia dissolved in tears. All the tensions and emotions of the preceding scene poured out, and she was helpless to stop. When they reached the house, she bent her head, threw her shawl around her throat, and ran through the front hall and up the stairs to her bedchamber, the servants staring after her. There, she collapsed on the bed and gave way to her grief.

It was some time before the sobbing died away and she felt able to sit up and take off her bonnet. As she did so, she caught a glimpse of her face in the dressing table mirror—reddened and blotchy with tears. She swallowed and fetched a fresh handkerchief.

Why did she continue to endure such humiliation, she wondered? Almost every time she spoke to that man, he insulted or belittled her. What made her try again?

Abruptly, Alicia remembered the first time they had met, the correspondence she had sensed between them, a match of abilities and temperament that drew her as no man had before. Yet she had been mistaken—hadn't she? When she joyously threw herself into that connection, he had rejected her as if she were mad. He did not feel it. He simply disapproved of her life and her character and would not see that she did not conform to his prejudices. The only subject they had ever discussed pleasantly was horses!

Despondent, Alicia rubbed her hot forehead. She was a fool. Why could she not stay away from a man who did not want her? Then she remembered his kiss today. She had not invited
that
. It had been his doing entirely. This recalled other similar moments over the course of their acquaintance, and briefly cheered her. But the memory of his eyes as she left him crushed her again. He had looked almost as if he hated her.

This thought was so dispiriting that Alicia shivered. She must not
care
what he thought. Why must she go over and over such painful recollections? Searching for an answer to this conundrum, she was suddenly overwhelmed by the realization that she had not ceased to love Ian MacClain since the moment they met. The knowledge left her gazing bleakly into the mirror and wondering what in the world she could do.

The night did nothing to dispel Alicia's despondence, and it was made more acute by the fact that she had always been such a strong personality. She was accustomed to asking for what she wanted quite freely, and to receiving it, either through her position or her persuasive power. A situation in which she was helpless to do anything but make it worse was new. This had been one of the intriguing characteristics of Ian MacClain all along, she realized; he was the only person she had ever met who could oppose her will with equal strength. Even her father chose to avoid confrontation with her. Cairnyllan was indeed her counterpart. Had he been only a little more open-minded…but he wasn't.

Alicia tossed through the night, posing one course of action after another and rejecting each until she finally lapsed into fantasy. A host of “if onlys” paraded across her brain, and she imagined what her life would be now if the earl had felt as she did from the start. Not bliss. But every moment would be filled with the exciting knowledge that her complement was there, to join her favorite pursuits, to sharpen her thoughts by his agreement or opposition, to heighten her senses as she had seen he could. Theirs would be no syrupy sweet happiness—their interactions so far had amply demonstrated that—but who would want such banality, wondered Alicia. She had had countless adoring suitors, but never before had she encountered a man to match her.

The vibrancy of this picture made its dissolution more painful, but Alicia's common sense soon asserted itself and pointed out that her rosy imaginings were just that. Lord Cairnyllan did not see in her the affinity she found in him. In fact, he was only too likely to depart for Scotland very soon, and she would probably never see him again. This thought made her leap out of bed, though it was still early, and hurry to her wardrobe. But before she was half dressed, she stopped. She could not go to him; there was nothing more to say, and he would no doubt refuse to see her. All was ruined.

Alicia might have felt better had she known how Cairnyllan had spent his night. He had returned home from Bentham's restless and irritable, and the routines of the household grated on his nerves so that he left it again almost immediately. Visits to his club and a chop house proved equally intolerable, and even a brisk bout at Jackson's boxing saloon did not entirely relieve his feelings. At last, about dinnertime, he started pacing the streets of London, hands clasped behind him, face grim. His size and forbidding expression kept him safe from the many perils of the night alleys; heedless of location, he walked through areas where gentlemen rarely ventured, and elicited no more than sidelong looks and shaken heads. A few of the street women dared to accost him, but when he noticed their blandishments at all, he merely waved them aside and kept moving.

Indeed, he was hardly in London. His mind was leagues away, among the moors where he often walked ten or fifteen miles at a time. As a boy, he had discovered in this rambling a good way to think and an escape from the palpable signs of his problems. It had grown from a necessity to a pleasure with the years, and tonight, the steady movement calmed him as the hours passed. By midnight, he was thinking that he had not felt so well since he left home.

With this peace came a clearer view of recent events. He had been a fool to challenge Sir Thomas, he admitted. He would write and apologize tomorrow. Whatever he felt about his mother's character change, a duel was far too public a reaction.

This solution of the immediate problem led him on to deeper ruminations. Alicia's arguments were fresh in his mind, and he set out to consider and refute each. That he could not simply dismiss them, nor banish the image of Alicia's vivid beauty, he put down to outrage at her injustice.

Very well, then, he told himself, his scowl shaking a fledgling pickpocket to the roots of his soul, the question of scandal can be passed over. The duel would not take place. And as for Sir Thomas Bentham's character—that must be looked into later on. Perhaps he was everything Alicia claimed; she would know, after all, that her assertions were easily checked. But this left two vexing questions—his mother's happiness and his own behavior.

Lord Cairnyllan thought back. His mother's life had certainly not been easy, he knew. She had been isolated in a strange country at the age of nineteen, neglected and periodically abused by a much older husband.

Cairnyllan recalled his father's unheralded visits vividly. There was never the least warning, merely a sudden incursion of plunging horses and mud-spattered chaise. His father, a large ruddy man like himself, would stride through the house shouting for ale, his family, his bailiff. He expected all to be in readiness for him, and for whatever cronies he chose to bring for shooting or fishing, at a moment's notice. Yet, even when the household was at its best, he was never satisfied. Nothing in Scotland could match London standards, including his wife and children. His visits were punctuated by long drunken nights when Ian lay rigid in his bed waiting for cries or the sound of blows, and the burning spurt of rage that hurled him out to face his father's temper, standing between him and a cringing servant, or Lady Cairnyllan. How he had hated them!

The earl shook his head and drew a long breath. He had not thought of those years in a long time; he had made a point of stifling such memories. Could his mother do so as easily, he wondered now? And had his notion that they were happy after his father's death been illusion? Their lives had been peaceful, certainly, and he had reveled in the sole possession of his estate and position. But what did his mother and sister have to rival these absorbing occupations? Nothing—he saw now. Marianne had retreated into deviltry of various kinds, and his mother had been increasingly taken up with her recollections of a happier past. A past she was now in a way reliving, he realized; yet this was real.

With a wrenching pain, Cairnyllan admitted that he had been blind to his family's true needs. Concentrating all his faculties on shielding them, he had refused to see that they also required the chance to exercise their own abilities, and even make their own mistakes. He could not stand between them and the world as he had done between them and his father.

This admission did not come rapidly. Cairnyllan wrestled with the idea for some time, trying various rationalizations and being forced by his own sense of justice to reject them. In the end, he was exhausted and dispirited; it was hard to find that his benevolent impulses of the last few years had been misguided, for he indeed loved his mother and sister deeply.

Having gotten so far, however, the earl was forced to consider Alicia's most hurtful accusation—that he had acted like his father himself. Here, he balked. He refused to equate his own loving impulses with the latter's careless coldness, no matter how mistaken he had been. It was
far
different, he argued with Alicia in his mind, to command another from love and from selfishness. And
he
had never enacted a scene such as his father invariably created.

Except with Alicia, he amended then, and the thought chilled him. Did he, in fact, have elements of his father, awaiting only the proper circumstances to emerge? Why did Lady Alicia Alston make him behave so violently? He thought back over the course of their acquaintance. It still made no sense to him. She had seemed one sort of woman, and then another, and he could not decide which was real. He was ready to believe that he had misjudged her, but what was the correct assessment? He still had no idea.

And yet he did, he had to admit. If he evaluated her solely on the basis of her recent behavior, he was forced to a favorable conclusion. And never in the course of the Season had he seen evidence that she allowed anyone the liberties she had allowed him at Perdon Abbey. The memory roused feelings so strong that he stumbled on a cobblestone. That kiss today had been the same. What could cause a well-bred lady to…in one blinding moment, he saw it, and was shaken to the depths.

She loved him! And he loved her, more than he had ever loved any creature in his life. This was the explanation for everything that had passed between them since the beginning. And but for his own stupidity, they could have joyfully proclaimed that love weeks ago.

Cairnyllan looked up, aware of his surrounding for the first time in hours. He must get to Alicia at once. But the street in front of him was unfamiliar, and gazing about, he saw no landmark that would lead him to known parts of the city. No obliging strollers were about in these early morning hours.

Looking at the stars, he made a guess and started moving again. But as his emotions calmed slightly, he was overwhelmed by the realization that he had no right to go to Alicia. He had treated her disgracefully. Indeed, he could not see how he could possibly face her again. She would be perfectly justified in scorning his apologies and protestations and sending him on his way. Had he not done something similar himself only a few hours ago? She must be cursing his name by this time. He had thrown her love back in her face—he grimaced at the memory—and had no right to expect anything. How could he have been such a pompous idiot?

At this moment, his agonies were pierced by the alluring smell of fresh coffee, wafting through the damp predawn atmosphere. It brought his head up again, and he followed it around a corner to a dilapidated wooden shed dwarfed by three empty hackney cabs.

Entering, he found the cab drivers standing around a small fire on which a fourth man was brewing a large can of coffee. The smell revived him amazingly. “May I buy a cup?” he asked.

The men turned to stare at him. It was obviously unheard of for a gentleman to enter their sanctuary.

“I've been walking,” he added, “and lost my way. I'd be grateful for a cup of coffee before I ask one of you to drive me home.”

“Sure, guv'ner. Here you are.” The fourth man held out a large, battered tin cup steaming in the cool air. “Like a bun as well?”

Cairnyllan realized that he had missed his dinner and was ravenous. “Yes, indeed. Two, if you can spare them.”

The proprietor chuckled, revealing stained, broken teeth. “Oh, aye. I reckon I can.” He winked at the cabbies, who grinned and nudged one another.

Uncaring, the earl ate the doughy buns and drank the coffee. It was scalding and very strong, and his spirits seemed to rise with each sip. When he had finished, he paid the outrageous sum asked without a murmur and engaged one of the hackneys. As he rode back toward the West End, he determined to call on Alicia as soon as possible. She could do no more than throw him out, after all. And perhaps she wouldn't. Shoving his hands deep in his pockets and leaning back on the greasy cab seat, Lord Cairnyllan began to whistle cheerfully.