Teresa Medeiros (40 page)

“I’m surprised you don’t just shoot him.”

Aunt Honora’s flustered gaze danced between them. Morgan took advantage of her confusion by seizing control of the moment.

“Do allow me.”

Whipping a handkerchief from his frock coat with a flourish, he knelt beside the divan and began to mop Sabrina’s brow, scrubbing away the thin glaze of ceruse. His fingers caught clumsily in her topknot, dragging free a soft spray of curls.

“Let’s loosen this so you can breathe, shall we?” His big, nimble hands danced down the tiny buttons of her bodice, exposing the unpainted swell of her breasts.

Glaring at him, Sabrina shoved his hands away and clutched the dressing gown closed at the throat before he could strip her nude right under the unsuspecting eyes of her aunt and uncle.

His relentless cheer was undiminished as he marched to the window and flung it open. “ ’Tis no wonder the lass can’t breathe. Being shut up in this stuffy old house would make anyone asthmatic. The only tonic she needs is some fresh air.”

“I hate fresh air,” Sabrina said weakly, already sensing defeat. “It makes me ill.” She felt very ill indeed as Morgan whipped a sinister-looking contraption fashioned of iron and wood into the room. “What on earth is that? A medieval instrument of torture?”

“This, my dear Miss Cameron, is a gift. The very latest invention. It’s called a wheelchair. Now you’ll no longer have to be carted about like a bundle of firewood.”

As it rumbled across the Persian carpet, Sabrina saw that it was indeed a chair fitted with wheels. She became even more alarmed when Morgan pulled away her blanket and folded it neatly in the hard wooden seat.

“A pleasant turn about the garden will do you well,” he announced.

She snatched the skirt of her dressing gown over her legs. “Excuse me, sir. I don’t know who you think you are—”

Morgan swept her into his arms. The giddy throb of her heart at his effortless motion reminded her exactly who he was. Her husband. At least until the end of the month, when her father would arrive with their annulment document for her to sign.

She resisted the temptation to lay her cheek against his broad chest, to snuggle into his brawny arms—the only place where she might ever feel safe again. Instead, she held herself stiffly while he lowered her into the chair. Sliding his hands beneath her dressing gown, he arranged her legs with jarring familiarity and an even more surprising gentleness. Her breath quickened at the shock of his hands against her bare skin. Their calluses betrayed his gentleman’s ruse. She refused to meet his eyes.

As Morgan arranged a pillow behind Sabrina’s head, Aunt Honora tsked beneath her breath. “I do believe I should accompany you. It isn’t proper to—”

All it took from Morgan was one pointed glance at Enid for the duke to realize that Morgan was the one kink in his plan to salvage his daughter’s reputation. Until William could reach Dougal Cameron for advice, they were all no more than pawns in the earl’s enigmatic game.

“Nonsense,” he reassured his wife. “A breath of fresh air is just what our little buttercup needs.”

“Uncle Willie!” Sabrina cried, stung by his betrayal.

Her protests were in vain, for Morgan was already whisking her down the waxed parquet corridor to the French doors that led to the garden.

Sabrina flinched as the dazzling brilliance of the sun struck her full in the face. She squeezed her eyes shut
and held her breath, anticipating the pain that would stab through her temples.

A gentle breeze caressed her skin. The sun gilded her face with warmth. She eased her eyes open, blinking rapidly to sift the foreign brightness into patterns she could comprehend. A minty green haze had crept over the clipped arbors and terrace, transforming the tame city courtyard into a wonderland of possibilities. Tender new leaves unfurled on the yew hedges. A spray of baby-pink blossoms climbed an iron trellis. Birds hopped and twittered, plucking at the fallow earth while butterflies flitted in sultry languor from bloom to bloom, their wings a gossamer whir on the jasmine-scented air.

Sabrina took a tentative whiff, perplexed when no sneezes, wheezes, or even so much as a sniffle resulted. She wanted to hate the fresh beginnings spring represented, but she could not stop her gaze from darting after a bee, the lazy beauty of its flight etched with a clarity she’d forgotten in the chill, sleepless nights of winter.

Morgan guided the chair around a chortling fountain, his silence more palpable than the crunch of the chair wheels on the flagstones. It made Sabrina jumpy. It was futile to try to make any sane conversation with him, she thought. He was obviously a madman. He might be strong enough to abduct her, but he could not make her talk.

“You never told me you were an earl,” she blurted out.

“You never asked.”

“As forthcoming as always, I see. I never could abide your incessant chattering.”

“Among other things,” he replied.

Sabrina remembered shouting that she couldn’t abide his touch, and relived every breath of his humiliation at her hands. Had he come here to return her cruelty? To take his revenge and humiliate her before all of London? A chill caressed her spine. She knew from past experience that Morgan MacDonnell was not an enemy to take lightly.

What more exacting punishment could there be than to be forced to watch as he chose a new wife from one of the simpering society beauties who would probably find it terribly romantic to wed a mysterious Highlander?

Her flippant tone sounded forced, even to her own ears. “So what did you do? Murder the real Earl of Montgarry? Steal his clothes? Ravish his wife?”

Sabrina realized too late that they were teetering on the edge of two shallow steps that led into a graveled terrace. Instead of hurling her down them as she deserved, Morgan caught the arms of the chair and tilted it back, bracing its weight against his hips. The corded muscles of his forearms imprisoned her. With her heart beating madly in her throat, Sabrina gazed upside down at him, held captive by the insolent threat sparkling in his eyes.

“I haven’t ravished anyone”—he said softly—“lately.”

The potent musk of sandalwood and pine wafted from him, drugging her starved senses. Not since her accident had Sabrina felt so powerless, so utterly at a man’s mercy. His smooth-shaven jaw was mere inches from her lips; his heated breath mingled with her sigh.

Her eyes fluttered shut, too cowardly to witness another fall from which she might never recover.

The chair thumped down the two steps, jarring her. Her eyes flew open to discover the pastoral scenery streaming by at an alarming rate.

“I wasn’t aware you’d taken up racing,” she shouted over the rumble of the wheels. “It’s a rather civilized sport, don’t you think? Probably pales in comparison to rapine and mayhem.”

Morgan’s strides showed no sign of slowing. He took a cobbled corner on one wheel, forcing her to dig her whitened fingernails into the chair arms to keep her seat.

Her voice rose, querulous, demanding, laced with the bitterness she’d nursed for months. “If you don’t slow down, I’m going to be ill all over those shiny new shoes of yours.” She jerked the pillow out from behind
her head and waved it at him. “If you’ve come to finish the job you started, why don’t you just put this over my face? It will be much neater.”

That did it for Morgan. He jerked to a halt and tilted the chair forward, dumping her into a soft bed of moss and dirt.

Sabrina landed on hands and knees. Her topknot tumbled over her face. She sucked in a breath of pure outrage.

Morgan came around to stand in front of her. “Sorry,” he said, his voice silkily unrepentant. “I must have hit a rock.”

Sabrina slowly lifted her head, infuriated anew by the arrogance of his splayed legs, the flawless cut of his breeches, the crisp, polished leather of his shoes. She felt trapped in a time lapse, right back where she had started with him, all the years between melting to minutes. How neatly they had fallen back into their childhood roles!

She glowered up at him through her tangled strands of hair and said softly, “You’ve always liked me on my knees, haven’t you, Morgan MacDonnell?”

A mocking fire smoldered in his eyes, invoking the erotic visions she had fought so hard to exorcise. “As I recall, it showed off your talents to their best advantage.”

“I hate you!” She struck blindly at his shin only to jam her fingers.

“Good,” he replied calmly as she sank back on her knees to suck her throbbing knuckles. “That will make everything much easier.”

Folding his arms over his chest, Morgan stared down at his wife, his impassive countenance hiding his roiling emotions. He wanted to hate her. He truly did. In those bleak, brandy-soaked dawns at Castle MacDonnell, when her shrill words of accusation still tore through his aching head, he’d almost convinced himself he did. Even now, if he could have found her pathetic—crouched in the moss, hair tumbled over her face like limp silk, dirt smudging her cheekbone—he might have been able to turn and walk away.

But the feral glitter of her eyes mesmerized him. Defiance was written in every delicate bump of a spine so stiff, he feared a touch might break it. Despite being toppled off her throne, she was still fighting so damned hard to be a princess. Instead of pity, another emotion knotted his gut, as intense and dangerous as a double-edged sword.

It galled him to admit that Dougal had been right. Sabrina needed him, and far more than she might ever know.

He knelt beside her in the dirt. “I didn’t come to watch you crawl. I came to watch you walk.”

Sabrina shied away from him, flinging her hair out of her face. “Don’t be ridiculous. You heard Dr. Montjoy. You of all people should know that I’ll never walk again.”

Morgan wasted no time arguing with her. He caught her shoulders and dragged her to her feet. When she would have slid down his body like a limp rag, he wrapped an arm around her, braced his hips against a low stone wall, and splayed his legs to bear both their weights.

After spending so many months keeping people at a distance with her childish fits and sarcastic barbs, Sabrina found Morgan’s nearness intolerable. The warmth of his big, unyielding male body threatened to melt the wall of ice she’d built around herself. Her hands bit into his forearms, clinging against their will, his irresistible combination of tenderness and strength making them tremble harder than her legs.

She and Morgan were pressed together so intimately that it was as if they were interlocking answers to a question neither of them dared to ask. His breath grazed her temple, stirred her tumbled curls.

She buried her cheek in his cravat. “Damn you,” she said in a broken whisper. “What right do you have?”

His voice was as implacable as his grip. “Every right. I’m your husband.”

“Not for much longer,” she dared to say.

“That depends on you.”

Her breath caught as she was flooded by a blinding mixture of fear and hope. “What do you mean?”

He captured her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tilted her face to his. “If you don’t allow me to call on you in the next four weeks, I won’t give you your precious annulment. I’ll knock on the door of every magistrate between London and the Highlands and tell them all you willingly spread your pretty Cameron legs for a wretch like me. Then you’ll be forced to divorce and your father’s noble name will be in ruins.”

The cold, merciless beauty of his face held her transfixed. “Why?” she breathed. “Why are you doing this to me? Is this your idea of revenge?”

For a brief instant a conflict raged in Morgan’s eyes. Then his lids swept down, veiling them so effectively that Sabrina might have imagined it. He swung her around and set her neatly on the wall, dusting off his hands as if she had sullied them.

A brittle smile curved his lips. “Believe what you like. Perhaps I want revenge. Perhaps I just want you off my conscience.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, curling her fingers around the smooth granite. “Everyone knows MacDonnells have no consciences.”

He straightened his cravat and headed down the path toward the garden gate. “I shall call tomorrow at two. If you don’t wish me to introduce myself as your long-lost husband, I suggest you smooth my way with your aunt and uncle. Good day,
Miss
Cameron.”

“And if I help appease your guilty conscience, what do I have to gain?” she called after him.

“Freedom,” he tossed over his shoulder. “The day you walk will be the day you’ll be free to walk out of my life forever.”

The garden gate slammed with a clang.

Sabrina exhaled sharply, realizing he’d left her perched on the stone wall as helpless as a garden worm. The terrace was hidden from the house by a narrow row of bay trees. The only sounds that drifted to her ears were the cheerful tinkle of a fountain and the sated
drone of a bumblebee staggering drunkenly from bloom to bloom. The wheelchair sat a few steps away, sleek wood and polished iron, mocking and unattainable.

She wasted no time glaring at her feckless limbs. Using her hands to balance herself on the edge of the wall, she arched her legs, stretching until her toes sank into the cool earth. Instead of the agony she expected, she felt only a dull ache. Muttering an oath under her breath, she dared to shift a fraction of her weight.

Her legs sagged. She slid down the wall, landing on her rear with a jarring thump.

Her hands fisted in the dirt. Rage roared through her, glorious and cleansing, making her feel alive for the first time in months. Her mewling tempers were no longer enough to satisfy. She would find no more contentment in railing at fate. Now her fury had a target. A golden-haired, green-eyed smirking giant of a target.

Throwing back her head to the dazzling azure of the sky, she began to bellow for help in a voice the Belmont servants would later swear was heard halfway to Edinburgh.

The mantel clock chimed twice. Sabrina started violently, earning her a perplexed look from both Enid and her aunt. Neither of them could understand why she insisted on sitting in her new wheelchair when any one of the upholstered chairs in the salon would have been more comfortable.