Teresa Medeiros (42 page)

Then he let her go.

Sabrina clenched her fists, standing but refusing to attempt so much as a step. “I shan’t play your silly game.”

Morgan gave her a little push. She listed forward like an unbalanced bowling pin. He caught her by the starched bow of her gown and set her upright again.

“There we go. That’s a good lass. One step is all I ask for today. Let’s try it again, shall we?”

She pinched her lips in a mutinous line and locked her knees. He gave her another gentle shove. This time he wasn’t quite quick enough to catch her. She toppled forward, forced to break her fall with her gloved hands.

Morgan’s smug silence echoed louder than the amused howls of the monkeys.

As Sabrina lay there, studying the stones beneath her hands, she said in a small, tight voice, “They really ought to sweep more often. The dirt is atrocious.”

In the following week Sabrina was to become acquainted with every inch of flooring in London. The smooth, cool expanse of marble at Westminster Abbey, the luxuriant Persian rugs of the shops on Ludgate Hill, the mosaic tiles at the Academy of Music whose pattern she would later trace in expert detail on a stray scrap of her aunt’s stationery. Only the thick grass of the newly restored pleasure garden at Vauxhall afforded her aching rump any relief.

And always above her, behind her, surrounding
her—Morgan, pine and sandalwood, persistent, yet distant, his manic good cheer in the face of her failed attempts to walk making her want to scream.

Morgan MacDonnell was twice the monster the first Earl of Montgarry had been. Halbert only took his victim’s skin; Morgan wiggled beneath it with diabolical skill. He became her own green-eyed Satan wrapped in finely tailored knee breeches and lace-edged cravats. He taunted her, prodded her, rolled her through a genteel hell of his own devising.

This was the Morgan she remembered from childhood—stubborn, crafty, mischievous, his eyes never losing their amused glitter at her expense. His humor was brittle, his sarcastic ripostes leaving scratches so invisible, she never had the solace of crawling off to lick them. His mocking smile haunted her dreams.

She despised him.

She loathed him.

She lived for the moment when he would stroll through the door of her uncle’s town house and start her heart thundering again.

She was no longer allowed to languish on the divan in her dressing gown. She was expected to sit, fully dressed, spine rigid and muscles throbbing, on the hard wooden seat of the wheelchair. No matter how horrid, surely not even Halbert could have devised such a torture for his hapless enemies.

Morgan called each afternoon at two without fail, courting her aunt’s and uncle’s goodwill, charming a smile from Enid, infuriating Philip Markham, whose own calls were thwarted when he arrived only to discover Lady MacLeod chaperoning her cousin and the enigmatic earl on some new adventure.

London society buzzed with gossip about Morgan’s slavish attentions to her. He escorted her to card parties and afternoon theatricals. At the balls they attended, he remained steadfast at her side and was never caught stealing so much as a yearning glance at the dancers. His tender benevolence toward one as unfortunate as herself elicited adoration from the women, admiration
from the men, and hissed retorts from Sabrina.

More than once when they were out, Sabrina felt again that wary prickle at the back of her neck. She would turn only to find nothing more than a fleeting shadow, an illusion of darkness in the bright spring sun.

One afternoon as Morgan’s carriage rounded a curve, she saw a bearded man and a veiled woman standing on the teeming corner. A startled cry welled in her throat, but by the time she could turn around, they had been swallowed by the crowd. Morgan simply lifted an eyebrow as if to comment upon her sanity. She settled back in the seat, shaken, and wondered if she wasn’t more homesick than she realized.

She still could not fathom why Morgan chose such public liaisons. By the end of the second week they’d visited every amusement in London save for a public hanging and Bedlam. Surely it couldn’t be scandal that concerned him, she thought. Any man who had grown up under the cloud of notoriety cast by Clan MacDonnell probably didn’t give a fig about what others thought of him. Besides, it was her reputation at stake, not his.

Between Morgan’s visits, Sabrina fumed, too obsessed with her new tormentor to waste her malice on the servants. She began to massage her legs each morning upon arising, rubbing them until the blood rushed like spring sap through her veins. She attempted her own simple steps in the privacy of her bedroom. The servants soon learned to ignore the odd thumps, crashes, and oaths that came from behind her locked door at all hours of the night as she met with no success.

By the beginning of the third week, Sabrina was starting to panic.

Morgan simply wouldn’t go away. No matter how nasty her temper, how acid her wit, he kept popping up on the doorstep. He shrugged away insults that would have sent the servants into tearful fits.

In the bleak months since the accident, she’d managed to drive a wedge between herself and everyone
she had ever loved—Enid, her brothers, even her parents. But Morgan stood immovable in her path, six feet three inches of taunting male, giving off a flame so volatile, she feared it might thaw even her frozen heart.

She lay in her cold bed one night, heart pounding, body seized with trembling at the thought of him.

Her hands clenched into fists. She had failed once to drive him away, but now she’d had months to practice her art. All it would take was a few well-placed digs, a dagger between the ribs in a vulnerable spot.

Her plan should have given her some satisfaction. Instead, she pulled the quilts up over her head, burrowing like a small, frightened animal into a darkness of her own making.

“But, miss, her grace asked me to tell you—” The maid slammed the door just as the vase crashed into it and shattered.

Sabrina heard the slap-slap of fleeing footsteps. She had been terrorizing the servants all day, knowing word of it would reach Morgan before the night was done.

She swung back to the mirror, the first weapon in her rebellion against him. She had painted her skin stark white, emphasizing the hollows beneath her cheekbones and the rouged bow of her lips. Her hair was drawn up so tightly that it gave her eyes an exotic slant. A frivolous scrap of eyelet crowned her topknot. Frothy lappets trailed from it like gossamer cobwebs. She knew very well that her filmy white dressing gown edged in flounces of lace made her look frail and pitiable, as fragile as the Meissen vase she’d just destroyed.

She saw her future in the flat blue eyes of the woman in the mirror. A future without Morgan. A future without hope. A future spent wrapped in this shroud of girlish lace, her hands withered, her skin shriveled over sunken bones. The neighbors would speak of her in whispers.
That eccentric maiden niece of the old duke’s. Came to spend the spring and never left
.

For she could never again return to the Highlands.
Would never even dare to dream of the mist hanging low over the heathered hills, the cascade of a waterfall tumbling through a lush glen, the heady scent of wild roses clawing their way up a barren hill.

The door behind her inched open a crack. Stefan eased his head in, obviously prepared to snatch it back in the event of flying pottery. “Mama sent me to fetch you. Are you ready, coz?”

“Aye,” she said softly to her reflection. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

Sabrina reclined on the plush divan, propped up by a mountain of fluffy pillows. A champagne glass dangled from her pink-tipped fingers. She had charmed the champagne from one of the guests, since the petrified servants had taken to giving her a wide berth. She doubted if any of them would have offered her a glass of water had she plucked a candle from one of the standing candelabrum and set herself afire.

She scanned the milling crowd. Still no sign of Morgan. Aunt Honora was fluttering about, the dim light giving her the appearance of a frazzled angel. She clapped her plump hands for all to take their seats, as excited as a child over her private theatrical.

Sabrina suppressed a groan as a slender man garbed in alternating patches of white, red, and green took the stage. She had never cared for pantomime and was only too familiar with the oft-told comedy of Harlequin and his shrewish wife, Columbine. Brian and Alex had acted it out for her birthday last year. Her chief amusement had been derived from how ridiculous Alex’s hairy knees had looked peeping out from under one of her mother’s petticoats. She felt a pang of nostalgia at the memory.

A stir by the door caught her attention. Without realizing it, Sabrina abandoned her languishing position and craned her neck. A blade of raw yearning stabbed through her as Morgan worked his way through the crowd, flashing his devastating smile like a weapon.

The guests whispered behind their fans and
snuffboxes, more entranced by the imposing earl than by the story unfolding on the stage. Sabrina wondered if he realized how effective his late entrances were. Or how taxing on her poor heart.

As he nodded his greetings, his hair gleamed gold in the candlelight. Knowing she might never have another chance, Sabrina drank in the sight of him. When he had first arrived in London, she had believed the tailored clothes had given him his confidence. But now she realized he had always had the grace and bearing of a king. Not even a tattered plaid and bare feet had been able to hide it. She bowed her head, steeling herself against the emotions welling in her throat.

When she looked up, Morgan had been brought to a halt by a frowning footman. The man’s nervous gaze darted toward the divan. Sabrina collapsed against the pillows, drawing the back of her hand across her brow in a gesture of abject frailty.

She was rewarded by the briefest slip of Morgan’s mask of civility. His jaw clenched in the brooding scowl she remembered so well. But he recovered quickly, giving the footman an encouraging wink and winding his way toward the divan.

Ignoring the chair beside it, he sank down at the foot of the narrow couch, narrowly missing Sabrina’s toes.

She jerked them out of harm’s way and sneezed. Dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief, she said, “I do believe your shaving soap is vexing me, sir.”

“It could be the pillows. Perhaps you sucked a feather up your nose.”

Morgan stared fixedly at the stage, fighting the urge to give Sabrina a blast of his temper that would scatter feathers from London to Glasgow. A woman seated in front of them swiveled her long neck and peered over her fan, reminding Morgan of why he had chosen a public forum for their battles. He did not trust himself alone with Sabrina. He was afraid of giving in to his guilt, of coddling her as all the rest had done.

He was even more afraid of giving in to his desire,
of surrendering to the dangerous temptation to still her shrewish tongue with a thrust and parry of his own.

That temptation was even stronger with her wrapped in a gauzy confection more suited for trysting with lovers in her bedchamber. The lush scent of lilacs drifted from her skin, making a mockery of the clean, sharp roses he remembered. He wanted to lay her back on that divan in front of them all, rake his fingers through that silly topknot, part her creamy thighs and bury himself deep …

The audience roared as a leering Harlequin tossed a shrieking Columbine over his shoulder. Morgan couldn’t say he blamed the man. He was beginning to understand the terrible temptation of using brute strength to master a woman against her will. Shaken, he clenched his fists, blinded to the antics on the stage by a rush of new fury and old shame.

Sabrina’s foot lashed out, striking his hip. “Scoot over! I can’t see. You’re blocking the stage.”

A loud “shush!” came from the row where Aunt Honora was seated. Several more necks craned in their direction. Harlequin paused in his silent tirade to shoot them an annoyed look.

Morgan reached behind him and caught her foot. His thumb played over its sensitive contours with ruthless skill. “A bit stronger today, aren’t we, dear?”

Her foot immediately went limp in his grasp. “It was probably just a spasm. They’re quite painful, you know.”

Instead of releasing her foot, Morgan pressed his thumb deeply into the valley between its pads, probing with a suggestive rhythm that quickened Sabrina’s breathing. He was so attuned to her that he could feel it like a whisper against his back.

Her foot came to life again. She jerked it away from him.

“Your spasms seem to be worsening,” he said. “Perhaps it’s not too late to reconsider amputation.”

Hoping to buy some time to compose herself, Sabrina said, “My throat is sore. Would you fetch me some champagne, please?”

But a lazy crook of one of Morgan’s fingers brought a footman scurrying over. “The lady would like some champagne.”

With obvious trepidation the footman proffered a glass to Sabrina, his hand shaking so hard that the golden liquid sloshed over the rim into her lap.

“You clumsy wretch!” She dabbed the stain with her handkerchief. “My uncle should fire the lot of you.”

Still staring at the stage, Morgan shot out one laconic word. “Apologize.”

“I’m sorry,” the footman blurted out.

“Not you. Her.”

“Her?”

“Me?” Sabrina said in unison. “I should think not!”

“You were insufferably rude to the man. Now, apologize.”

“Pardon me, my lord,” Sabrina said with scathing sarcasm. “I’d forgotten the MacDonnells were the last bastion of good manners in the Highlands. If he’d have spilled champagne on you, you’d have probably just whipped out a pistol and shot him.”

As the confrontation on the divan showed signs of escalating into full-scale warfare, the terrified footman hastened away.

Morgan swung around to face her. Sabrina recoiled from his thunderous expression. Even Harlequin and Columbine paused to gape as Morgan’s voice rose to a roar.

“I won’t tolerate your bloody tantrums!” Fury broadened his accent, sending the r’s rolling and the g’s flying. “Puir wee lass! Puir pathetic princess! It was easy enough to play angel of the manor when everythin’ you’d ever wanted was shoved into your greedy wee hands, wasn’t it?”