The Recruit (28 page)

He pushed her out with a playful pat on the bottom. She giggled and turned around,
reaching up to place a kiss on his cheek, whispering for him to be safe, before scattering
through the gate in the fading darkness.

Kenneth turned and started walking back toward the Hall. He’d taken only a few steps
when he felt the unmistakable weight of someone’s gaze on him. He looked across the
courtyard and saw a woman rushing down the stairs and across the courtyard toward
the donjon.
Lady Mary
. He knew it was her, just as he knew she’d seen him.

He swore, wondering how much she’d seen.

If her pace was any indication, it was enough.

He hoped to hell she hadn’t recognized Helen. At the same time, he realized what she
would think if she hadn’t. His mouth fell in a grim line. He had nothing to feel guilty
about. He had every right to be with another woman. It was she who had made clear
exactly what she thought of him: a good tumble. He was just playing to profligate
form.

But he still wished she hadn’t seen him.

He let her go. For now. But this wasn’t over. Not by any measure.

It doesn’t matter
. Unshed tears blurred her eyes, and all Mary could see was dark green as she pulled
another gown from the ambry and tossed it on the bed. The dresses that had been hung
only a few days ago were going right back into her trunks. The maidservant scrambled
to keep up with her.

“Are you sure everything is all right?” Lady Eleanor asked with obvious concern.

Mary nodded, forcing herself to smile though her throat was tight and her eyes prickled.
“I’m just tired, that’s all,” she said, feigning chirpiness to cover the high emotion
in her voice.

What did she care if he was with a woman? It didn’t matter that her chest had felt
like a boulder landed on it when she’d seen Sir Kenneth exit the stables with the
red-haired creature on his arm.

The stables
. She knew only too well what he did in the stables. It shouldn’t have hurt so much.
She knew the kind of man he was. It should simply prove that he wasn’t for her. But
the burning in her chest, the crushing weight of disappointment, didn’t seem to want
to understand.

They were nothing to one another. Just because they’d shared a night of passion, just
because she’d felt something more, just because he’d asked her to marry him, just
because there hadn’t been a night that passed that she hadn’t
thought of him, just because she was carrying his child, and just because her heart
had jumped to all kinds of silly conclusions when she’d seen him here didn’t mean
anything. The one night that had meant so much to her probably meant nothing to him.
Despite what he’d said, he probably hadn’t given her a thought until he saw her dancing
with Sir John.

When she’d heard what he’d done for Davey, she’d been so overwhelmed with gratitude,
she might have confessed everything to him and been ready to believe anything he said.
Thank God she hadn’t. Heroic feats on the battlefield wouldn’t make him a good husband.
In fact, in her experience it was just the opposite. She was grateful, but it had
nothing to do with them.

“You’re sure you do not wish to go to the meal?” Lady Katherine said.

Mary shook her head, a wave of nausea that had nothing to do with her pregnancy and
everything to do with the prospect of seeing him rumpled and satisfied having risen
inside her. “Beth can bring me something to eat if I get hungry.”

The girl nodded eagerly. “Aye, my lady. I will have a platter sent up from the kitchens.”

And a big pitcher of wine, she wanted to add.

“See,” Mary assured the two women who were looking at her with troubled expressions
on their faces. Apparently her acting ability wasn’t as strong as she’d thought. “I
shall be fine. Beth will take care of me. Go to the meal. I believe the earl has arranged
for some minstrels tonight. I will probably fall asleep right after I finish packing.”

The ladies hesitated, but eventually she was able to push them out of the room. By
the time she and Beth had managed to finish packing her trunks and bags, she was indeed
ready to retire. Beth helped her remove her gown and gave her a plush velvet robe
to put on while she sat by the brazier to finish her embroidery.

As soon as the girl left to fetch her something to eat, Mary took out the tiny piece
of linen. Her chest tightened. It was a cap she was working on in secret for the baby.
Sometimes the need—the desperation—for this child rose up so hard inside her she couldn’t
breathe. All the love she’d wanted to give to her husband and son.

She perched the glasses on her nose and went to work, trying to put what she’d seen
out of her mind and focus on the baby.

No matter what else had happened, she could not regret what she’d done. Her one night
of sin with Sir Kenneth had given her this child.

But it didn’t lessen the hurt any. She was a fool. What had she expected? She was
nothing to him, and he should be nothing to her. She gnawed on her bottom lip. If
only the woman hadn’t been so young and pretty. Even from a distance she could detect
the fine features and gorgeous red hair. She was vaguely familiar, but Mary figured
that she’d probably seen her around the Hall before.

Her hands seemed incapable of managing the tiny stitches, so she removed the glasses
from her nose, put the embroidery aside, and closed her eyes for a moment.

When the knock came, assuming it was Beth, she bid her to enter. She heard the door
shut, and when the girl didn’t say anything she opened her eyes to tell her just to
leave the tray. Instead she jumped to her feet in shock.

She stared at the man who’d invaded her chamber—who’d invaded her sanity. Sir Kenneth
Sutherland stood—lazed, actually—with his back against the door and his arms crossed
against his chest, watching her. The relaxed pose didn’t fool her. She could feel
the danger emanating from him.

Dread sank to the bottom of her stomach like a stone.

“What are you doing here? Get out!” She hoped she didn’t sound as scared as she felt.

He smiled, glancing toward the trunks. “Running away
from me again, Mary?” His gaze slid down her ready-for-bed-clad form, and she hastily
clenched the edges of her robe tighter even though she knew he could not see anything.
He let his arms fall to his sides and made a tisking sound. “For someone who purports
not to care or have a thought about what happened, you seem to be very anxious to
get away from me.”

He took a few steps closer to her. Why had she never noticed how small the room was?
And who had lit the fire so high? The temperature seemed to have gone up twenty degrees.
But the blast of heat wasn’t coming from the brazier. The pounding in her heart told
her exactly who was the source of the heat.

“I have to ask myself why,” he said idly. He took another step, and she almost yelped
like a frightened pup. He smiled as if he’d sensed it. A big, lazy, knowing smile
that set alarm bells ringing up and down her spine. “You know what I think? I think
you’re scared about how I make you feel. I think you’re scared not because it meant
nothing to you but because it meant a lot. I think that if you didn’t care as much
as you say you don’t care, you would be sitting down for the evening meal right now,
not hiding up in your room.” He held her gaze. “I think you want me.”

Mary gasped with outrage. He was arrogant, overbearing, and so cocksure of himself.
It didn’t make it any better that he was also right. Not that she would ever let him
know that. “I’m not hiding, I’m packing. Not that it’s any business of yours, but
I am not leaving to avoid you. There is a pressing estate matter to which I must attend.”

He laughed. “Very pressing, I’m sure.” She looked up, terrified to realize how close
he was standing to her. No more than a foot separated them. “Is that why your pulse
is fluttering, your cheeks are flushed, and your heart is beating so hard I can hear
it?”

Her eyes widened in alarm. That wasn’t possible, was it? But he only smiled, her reaction
giving her away.

She started to retreat, backing away from the chair she’d been gripping like a lifeline.
Only then did she remember the baby cap. She sucked in her breath. It lay in the middle
of the chair with her glasses like a beacon. All he had to do was look down. If he
hadn’t heard her heart pounding before, he surely heard it now. She prayed …

Too late. “What are you doing?”

He reached for it, but she snatched it and the glasses from him before he could pick
it up. “Careful! You’ll break the glasses.” Praying her cheeks weren’t as hot as they
felt, she added, “It’s a piece of embroidery I’m working on.” She tucked it in the
basket she used before he could look at it closer.

His eyes narrowed at her odd behavior, and for a minute she feared he might reach
in after it. “For whom?”

She said the first thing that popped into her head. “I sell them at the market in
Newcastle.”

He arched a brow, and she felt her defenses prick. “It is a perfectly acceptable way
of earning money. How else should I have provided for myself when my husband was executed
and my dower lands confiscated?”

He gave her a long appraising look. “I wasn’t judging you. I’m merely surprised, that’s
all.”

Having avoided disaster, she just wanted him to leave.

“Why are you here? Why are you doing this? Why does it matter to you what I do, when
you have so many other women to choose from? Was your tumble in the stables this afternoon
not enough for you?”

He showed no shame at what she’d seen. Nor did he deny it. Had she really hoped he
would?

Instead, he merely arched a dark brow wickedly—good God, even his brow was sensual!
Was there any part of him that was not? “Jealous, little one?”

“No!”

But her protest was too strong and too quick. He closed the gap between them in one
stride. She tried to step back,
but all she could feel was the hard press of stone. He’d backed her against the wall,
and there was nowhere for her to go.

“You don’t care?” he challenged, his eyes locking on hers.

Everything inside her was racing. Her heart, her pulse, her blood. “I don’t.”

He leaned down, his face inches from hers. Their bodies weren’t touching, but she
could feel the heat, feel the weight of him pressing down on her.

Mary couldn’t breathe, conscious of the soft swell of her stomach between them. Despite
the fact that the bump was still barely noticeable—fortunately, the weight she’d gained
had been distributed fairly evenly so far—she was so certain that he would somehow
sense it. That he would know the moment he touched her. Every inch of his body was
so engrained on her memory, she assumed he would notice the changes.

But he didn’t. His hand slid around her waist, and he pulled her up against him. Even
though he had the use of only one arm, she would have been hard pressed to escape
if she’d tried.

“Then prove it. Kiss me.” His lips hovered just above hers. “Kiss me, Mary,” he groaned,
right before his mouth fell on hers.

Her heart slammed into her chest at the contact. She dissolved into the heat. Melting
against the hard granite of his body and the warm, velvety softness of his lips.

She descended—nay, plummeted—into a vortex of pleasure. Hot, mindless pleasure that
pulled her into a molten whirlpool of madness. The fierceness of the passion that
exploded between them claimed them both. She kissed him back. Clutching. Her fingers
digging into the hard muscles of his arms as she fought to get even closer.

She moaned as his tongue licked into her mouth, as he
bent her to him and plundered the deepest reaches of her soul, leaving no part of
her unclaimed. Untasted.

Her heart beat wildly in her chest. Blood pounded in her ears. She was hot and weak
and needy, her body clenching and quivering in anticipation.

He groaned, a deep guttural sound that made her heart flip, and dug his fingers through
her hair to grip the back of her head, shifting the angle to kiss her even deeper.

She could feel the hardness of his manhood pressing against her insistently. He started
to circle his hips to hers, and she made a sound of pure pleasure at the sweet friction.
Heat clenched between her legs. She could feel her body softening, weakening, opening
for him.

The memories of passion were visceral and immediate. She wanted him inside her, right
here, right now. She wanted him to lift her skirt, press her up against the wall,
and surge deep inside. She wanted to feel him moving, thrusting, slamming harder and
harder. She wanted to feel the sweet crest of passion, feel her body spasming around
him. And she wanted to hear him cry out. To see him stiffen. To see his face tense
with the force of his passion.

And he wanted it, too. His hand was on her hips, her bottom, sliding up over her stomach
to cup her breasts, her—

Stomach
. Her mind caught up a fraction of a second too late to stop him.

He stilled.

For one long heartbeat nothing happened. She waited. In a moment of desperate self-delusion,
she wondered if perhaps he hadn’t noticed.

But the calm was only a harbinger of the strength of the storm to come. When he lifted
his gaze and his eyes fell on hers, the wrath was upon her.

Fifteen