Waking the Princess (36 page)

"Mrs. Blackburn—" He hesitated.
I love you,
he burned to say.
I love you.
"You're wet as a frog," he said instead.

She made a weary face, and he laughed, leaning toward her. He meant to kiss her endlessly, as he wanted, as she deserved, amid the rain and the thunder and the pounding of his own heart.

"Christina," he said. "I—" God, he could not say the words.

"Halloo! Mrs. Blackburn!"

Aedan jerked up his head to see a closed carriage hurtling toward them. A man's arm in a black coat waved from a narrow window. Then a top hat showed.

"Damn,"
he muttered. "I think dear Edgar is here."

Christina gasped, looked around. "Oh! It
is
Edgar!"

The vehicle, a hired chaise by the look of it, drew up and stopped. The top hat poked partway through the window, and a smartly gloved hand and cane showed.

And he saw a face he remembered all too well, slickly handsome, masking a sly and covetous man. Aedan scowled.

"Christina!" Sir Edgar Neaves called out. "My dear, what are you doing out here in this weather?"

Aedan leaned to look at her. "Christina, my dear?" he murmured. "He's a familiar fellow, isn't he?"

"So are you," she retorted. "Oh, Edgar, what a surprise!" she called back pleasantly, as if she stood in a candlelit ballroom and not clinging to a man on horseback in the pouring rain.

"My dear girl! Have you had an accident?"

"I'm just caught out in the rain, sir." She smiled.

"And who is this fellow? Your rescuer?" Edgar looked at him with cool blue eyes, his long, perfect features pulled in a critical frown. "Are you Dundrennan's factor, sir? I hardly think you should ride with the lady like that, even if she was caught in the rain. I shall have a word with the laird of Dundrennan."

Aedan removed his hat. "Then have that word with me, Sir Edgar. I am the laird of Dundrennan, Sir Aedan MacBride."

"Great heavens, Sir Aedan, I did not realize! We've met only briefly, once or twice. You looked like a farmer or a laborer, sir, in that exceedingly plain suit and... low bowler."

"I sometimes do a little idle work about the estate," Aedan drawled. "Just now I was assisting the lady, who was walking back to the house when the rains hit."

The rain increased, slanting so hard that he nearly lost his apparently unfashionable bowler. He put a hand up to save it, feeling absurd as he sat in the rain exchanging pleasantries with a man who sat neat and dry inside his carriage.

"Thank you for assisting my fiancée." Edgar smiled, showing long, perfect teeth beneath his long, perfect nose. Aedan felt a primitive urge to put his fist through that chiseled countenance.

He glanced at Christina, whose cheeks flushed. "Ah, fiancée," he said expansively. "May I extend my congratulations, madam. Sir." He touched his hat.

"I never accepted his proposal," she said between her teeth.

"But he did propose," Aedan answered in a murmur, sending her a stony glare. "He knew you well enough for that."

"You know me better," she said.

"Ah," he replied. He did not vary his stare.

Edgar beckoned as lightning split the sky. "Christina, come into the carriage." He opened the door from inside. "Driver, help the lady," he directed.

Aedan noted that Neaves had no intention of helping her himself. The rain might have spoiled his top hat, frock coat, and pale kid gloves. As the driver got down from his perch, Aedan slid a leg over the horse's head, dismounted, and lifted Christina down to the muddy ground himself.

With a quick, almost frightened glance, she grabbed her bedraggled skirts and climbed into the carriage with the driver's help. Edgar slammed shut the door and nodded farewell.

As the carriage rolled off toward Dundrennan, Aedan sat his horse, rain dripping from his hat brim, and watched them go.

* * *

"My dear, your gown is a dreadful mess," Edgar said as he handed her a folded carriage rug. "I would kiss you, but we will save that until you are presentable. Whatever possessed you to climb into a saddle with MacBride? He ought to know better than to share a horse with a young lady."

"He meant only to save me from a drenching," she answered, drawing the rug over her skirts. Sniffling, she dug into her pocket for a handkerchief, found none, and dabbed at her nose with her gloved hand. "Excuse me," she said.

Edgar made a disparaging sound and handed her his handkerchief. "You are always forgetting something," he said, "either gloves, or handkerchief, or losing your spectacles." He tilted his head. "Although you are always fetching, regardless. It is good to see you again." He smiled.

"Thank you, Edgar," she murmured flatly.

"I am anxious to hear about your discoveries here. I read your letters carefully, but you gave little detail away. Saving the best to surprise me, are you?" He smiled.

She used his handkerchief. "I told you as much as I know about the hillside. I sent you the measurements and sketches of the foundation walls, the dimensions of the souterrain, the number of clay jars in it, their shape, and the nature of their decoration."

"Have you found any artifacts yet?" he asked. "Have you instructed your workers to dig farther to look for valuable pieces?" He leaned forward. "Did you open those jars yet?"

"No, I decided to wait—"

"Yes, wait for me, as you should."

"—I decided to wait until digging revealed more of the site," she said, bristling. "If you believe me to be an incompetent, sir, why did you send me here?"

"My dear, you can be so prickly at times, but that's just your charming feminine nature. You are not incompetent, of course, and you have the Reverend Carriston to advise and guide you. Have you written to ask the reverend's assessment of this? I am curious to hear his opinion."

"I have not troubled Uncle Walter with much of this as yet. He is ill, as you will recall."

"Indeed. A pity. Tomorrow we will go to the site and have the men dig deeper. Perhaps there is something to bring out."

"You would do that so soon? I proceeded slowly, thinking caution the wisest course."

"It is in some things, but I will decide what is best now that I am here. You ought to return to Edinburgh in the next day or so, my dear. I told Lord Neaves that you would call on him in his office at the museum. My father is anxious to learn more of our progress. If your father can accompany you, all the better."

"Father is still in Italy," she murmured. Lord George Neaves, Edgar's father and the high director of the museum, was a close friend of both her father and her uncle.

"Dear Christina," he said. "I confess I am anxious to know if you have considered my proposal, and if you are ready to give me your answer." He smiled confidently—smugly, she thought—and crossed one gloved hand over the other on his knee.

She hesitated. "Oh, Edgar. You've only just arrived, and I'm chilled through. I really need to rest."

"Of course."

"We will have time to talk. I wish to stay at Dundrennan a little while longer."
I want to stay here forever,
she thought. Even a few minutes with Edgar, now, made it profoundly clear that she had made a grave error in allowing him to court her. He seemed even more imperious now that she knew Aedan.

Needing affection, and doubting herself greatly, she had accepted Edgar's criticisms and controlling ways as the best that she deserved after her tragic marriage. Edgar was fond of her in his way, but now she knew, really knew, what love could be.

She watched the rain, unable to look at Edgar. Even if staying with Aedan was impossible, she knew with chilling certainty that she could not be with Edgar in the future.

"Why do you want to stay here?" Edgar asked coldly.

"I am translating an early document from the Dundrennan Folio, which my uncle worked with years ago. It's not done."

"Oh." He leaned back, looking at her with interest. "Are these pages of any historical significance?"

"So far, they are just part of the family records." She watched the angled, silvery rain.

Smooth thou, soft thou,
she heard in the rhythm of the carriage wheels. They were the ancient, timeless words of a lover.

Smooth thou, soft thou, well I love thee under the plaid....

Chapter 24

"A pity Miss Thistle is not here," John murmured to Aedan while they sat at a game of cards with Christina and Amy. "It would be such a diversion for her to meet Sir Edgar. Perhaps we should invite her for tea tomorrow."

Smiling, Aedan tossed down his next card. "What a truly excellent idea," he said in a droll tone. "Thistle has been languishing in her palm tree in the conservatory at Balmossie House, hoping for an invitation to Dundrennan. She would adore Sir Edgar."

"She might particularly enjoy his hat," John said.

Aedan grinned as he examined his cards. Beside him, Amy giggled and turned to look at the man who strolled the drawing room arm in arm with Lady Balmossie.

"Stop behaving like bairns," Christina said tersely.

"Well, he's an insufferable boor," John said, low enough that only they could hear him. "He's spoken only of himself all evening. Lady Balmossie told him that he was a blatherskite, and he did not even realize she called him a braggart." He laid down a card after Amy did. "Seven of hearts. Trump suit. That stops your eight of clubs."

"I am allowed to lay mine down if I want to clear my hand," Amy insisted primly, while John reached out to spin the round painted tray used to play the game Pope Joan.

"Minx." John wiggled his eyebrows at Amy.

"Will you need me to model again soon?" Amy asked.

"Not quite yet, sad to say," John replied, and Amy blushed. "Though I might need Aedan and Christina for one or two more sessions, if that could be arranged."

"Perhaps," Christina murmured.

"When might the mural be done?" Aedan asked, glancing at Christina. Her mood had been subdued ever since she had returned in Edgar's carriage.

"Several months at least," John answered. "Such things take time. But I will have the color washes done for the queen's visit. The finished project will take longer."

"Of course. Take as long as you need, sir," Aedan said. "It promises to be an extraordinary piece of work."

"How wonderful to have you both here for an extended stay." Amy smiled, her glance trained on John. Aedan watched with interest, remembering Amy's earlier confidence to him.

"Thank you, Miss Stewart," John said. "Although I believe my sister plans to return home to Edinburgh soon."

"Sir Edgar feels I should return, now that he is here," Christina said. "There seems little reason for me to stay."

Aedan frowned. He could think of many reasons for her to remain, none of which he could voice here. "What about the translation?" he asked. "You will want to finish it."

"That will be done very soon." She finally looked at him, and he felt it like a blow to his midsection. He was sure he saw need, and fire, spark in her eyes.

"We will be sorry to see you go, Christina," Amy said.

"Indeed," Aedan said, as Amy deposited a card. He resolved to find a chance to talk to Christina soon, tonight. He hungered to hold her, to make love to her again in that hidden stairway—but she had to want it, too.

She looked enticing tonight in the brown plaid skirt and a matching bodice, her shining hair pulled back in graceful wings, her bare shoulders like silk and cream. Knowing the taste of her, the feel of her, beneath those fetching garments, he pulled in his breath sharply.

A slow burn filled her cheeks, and her eyes glimmered. Aedan was sure she felt more than indignance toward him. Tonight he would sort this through with her, he thought, remembering that John had said he needed them to pose again.

Christina laid a card on the table. "Knave of hearts."

"Oh! Christina won 'intrigue' in this game," Amy said. "So she gets some game counters." Dipping her fingers into the tray, Amy rained mother-of-pearl pieces into Christina's hand.

Aedan turned his own card over. "Queen of hearts."

"Good! That is 'marriage,' in Pope Joan," Amy said.