His grasp tightened, his eyes darkened. Still, he said nothing.
“If I touched him like this?” She rested her palm over his pounding heart and leaned into him, her eyes searching his. “If I kissed him?”
He caught her by the shoulders and held her firmly in place to thwart the demonstration. She’d feel more deterred if his breath wasn’t coming in short pants and his body weren’t pulsing in time with the beat of his heart.
“Ye’d give a man the wrong idea if ye were so bold,” he ground out.
Brontë lifted a hand and traced the line of his jaw with one finger. The muscles jumped and flexed beneath her fingertip making her glad she’d forgotten to don her gloves after lunch. She longed to touch him. “What if it wasn’t the wrong idea?”
He closed his eyes, a whispered curse on his lips. Or was it a prayer?
Nevertheless, he didn’t move. Even more encouraging.
“Am I going to have to be the one to initiate a kiss between us again?” Her own heart was racing. Her throat tight with longing and trepidation. “I don’t want to.”
He opened his eyes, the green depths ablaze with fire. “Ye dinnae?”
“No. You didn’t kiss me back last time. I was afraid it was because you didn’t want to.”
His heartfelt groan bespoke denial. No matter. She needed him to say it.
“Didn’t you want to?” she whispered. “Don’t you want to? Even a little?”
“A man would be a fool if he dinnae.”
She shivered as his knuckles brushed her cheek, his fingers curled around her ear and down the side of her neck. She exhaled slowly, the breath shaky and uneven. Tipping her head back, she closed her eyes and savored the light caress of his fingers as they tickled a path back up, under her chin. He grasped her chin between his fingers. His breaths came in soft puffs, fleeting against her cheeks. “Oh, Tris,” the words escaped on a trembling sigh.
“Brontë.” Spoken in his thick, rough brogue, her name took on new meaning. “Open yer eyes, lass.”
Blinking, she found him inches away. A breath away. God, her heart quivered in anticipation! Her lips buzzed, her head swam. Her breasts were pressed tight against his chest, his arm around her holding her close. Holding her upright. For the first time in her life, she thought she might faint. No, there was no chance she was going to miss this.
Eyes holding hers, he dipped his head and brushed his lips across hers. The lightest touch. An echo of their previous kiss. Again, he swept them over hers.
He lifted his head and a moan of frustration rumbled from deep within her. As devastating as it was, she wanted more than this tender caress. With a low groan, he kissed her cheek, his lips skimming a path to her ear. His tongue touched below her earlobe, setting her whole body aquiver. Brontë clung to his shoulders, biting her lip to keep from wantonly begging for more. Grasping for restraint. She’d never wanted a guy so bad that no other would do.
No matter how she teased him, no other could take Tris’s place.
This was her time to stop and smell the roses. To enjoy the little things. To embrace and leap. With Tris. When this moment was gone and set in the past, she might never know another like it.
He kissed her hard and set her away from him. Though it took a second to regain her footing, it was obvious he was none too steady either. His muscular body taut and hard, hands fisted now at his sides. Breath deep and unsteady. Mind fogged with passion, her body answered with boneless wanting, she stared up at him. A fleeting downward glance confirmed what she knew and felt.
Yes, he wanted her.
Again, he wasn’t going to do anything more about it.
“Ye’ll no’ be sharing yer kisses wi’ another,” he growled softly, pulling away.
He turned to continue up the path, leaving her behind. No gentlemanly arm offered now. As if he couldn’t get away quick enough. The truth was out, however. She wouldn’t let him get away that easily.
“You’re not the boss of me.”
He stopped in his tracks at her deliberate taunting and looked back over his shoulder. “What?”
“I said —”
“I ken what ye said, lass. What do ye mean?”
Brontë strode toward, then past him. Proud she managed a straight line while her passion-induced imbalance would have her wobbling. “It means I do what I want, when I want,” she called back. “You have no say in it. If you don’t want me, maybe I’ll find someone who does.”
Fire ignited in his gaze and he followed after her in long strides. “Ye’ll no’ be kissing my uncle, lass.”
Biting back the wicked grin that tugged at her lips, she took up the challenge. “Yeah? Try to stop me.”
Snatching up her skirts, she took off at a run thrilling at the chase when she heard his footfalls behind her. Holding her dress, parasol and hat made it hard to provide much competition. Her laughter made it even more difficult. Not that she was trying to escape him.
No, she wanted to be caught.
Wanted him to realize how much he wanted to catch her.
He snatched her up a few steps before she broke through the tree line separating them from the lawn. With the same dexterity that irked her once before, he clasped her close before she could stumble or fall and spun her around until her back pressed against a tree. Staring down at her panting hard, expression conflicted between amusement and ire, he sent a look heavenward as if praying for divine assistance. “Ye’re the most vexing minx I’ve ever known.”
“And you enjoy it, don’t you?” She laughed up at him, content in her victory.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph have mercy upon me,” he murmured under his breath before kissing her hard and fast. “How is it ye’re no’ a wee bit winded?”
“Are you saying I take your breath away?” The words teased and tempted the truth.
His expression softened and he gave it to her. “Aye, that ye do.”
The pleasure of his words brought an undeniable smile to her lips. She ran a palm up his chest, to his shoulder until she could stroke his bare neck with one fingertip. “You’re still able to talk. I’ll have to see if I can do better.”
On her tip toes, she kissed his jaw, his chin. She nipped on his bottom lip and he groaned in surrender, sweeping her into his arms.
“Lass...”
“Help!”
The scream came on the wind and they leapt apart, turning toward the house. People were running from every direction toward one central location near the croquet course. There were more cries for help. Others of dismay.
Then above them all, a thin wail of panic. “Henry!”
Heart pounding, she clasped Tris around the wrist and held him back before he could leap forward. “It’s Henry,” he rasped.
Yes. This was it. What she’d been watching for, waiting for by the morning room door when Tris had come around and distracted her. Thankfully their walk hadn’t lasted so long they’d arrived for the aftermath and news of Henry’s sudden death, requiring another set back in time to right the wrong.
“I need to get to him.” He didn’t move. Brontë grabbed him by the jaw and forced him to turn. His eyes were dark with fear. “Look at me. Look,” she demanded. He focused on her with a shake of his head. “I can fix this. I can help him, okay? But I need to get to him. Next to him. Do you understand? Tris!”
He swallowed and nodded. “Aye. Aye.”
He caught her by the elbow and hauled her across the lawn at a run. Trotting alongside him, she dug into the pocket she’d tied on under her skirt and wrapped her hand around what would become a miraculous life saver in less than a minute. It was there. Anticipating the moment she’d need it. Tris shoved a path through the melee surrounding Henry, pushing everyone who crowded around him out of the way. “Back away, everyone. Back, I say. Give him some air.” For a moment, he stared with horror at Henry who gasped for each lungful of air, however when he turned to Brontë, his gaze was steady and calm. “What do you need?”
“Space. An
d a distraction.”
He nodded curtly.
“Tris!” Hazel cried out. She crouched at her husband’s side as he was lowered to the ground. “He can’t breathe!”
“Hazy...” Tris caught Hazel around the shoulders and lifted the sobbing woman into his arms. “We need Sung-Li! Fetch him straightaway.”
“He’s coming,” Hannah told him, her voice wavering. “Papa went to fetch him.”
“Calmy doony, lass. All will be well,” he crooned to Hazel as he turned and set her closer to her husband’s shoulders and fell to his knees beside her. The move created room enough for Brontë to kneel next to Henry.
Tris unknotted Henry’s tie and unbuttoned his shirt collar, yelling his name. Henry was sweating now, shaky and pale. Still red in the face, not blue. Some measure of air continued to find a path through his constricting throat. Thank God.
“Let me see. Let me see!” An elderly Asian man knelt across from Brontë. “What happened?”
“A bee sting,” Hannah supplied. Mr. Wyndom, by her side, added, “While we were playing croquet.”
Sung-Li probed Henry’s neck and looked into his eyes, shaking his head. “He is suffocating.”
Actually, it was anaphylactic shock. But not for long.
Hazel’s diary hadn’t included much detail on the day other than Henry had suffered a horrendous reaction after being stung by a bee. Brontë and Aila had interpreted it as an allergic reaction. While Sung-Li tilted back Henry’s head to better open his airway, she pulled the EpiPen out of her pocket. Aila had stolen it from her brother’s medicine cabinet a few days before. It wasn’t a tiny, easily hidden solution, so they’d painted the tubular casing white and sewed a handkerchief around it to disguise it as best they could to avoid detection.
She’d been carrying it all day, touching it repeatedly to assure herself that all would be well in the end. Uncapping it as discreetly as she could manage, she bowed over Henry with a grief-laden moan to justify the motion and brought it down on his thigh to inject the epinephrine as the instructions directed. Thank God for Aila’s brother’s prodigious allergy to tree nuts.
Killed by a bee sting! What were the odds?
She could only hope it was enough. The medicine was fast acting though not long-lasting. If it weren’t enough to completely counteract the reaction, all she had left to help was a bottle of over-the-counter antihistamine.
Almost immediately Henry drew in a ragged breath. Then another. Labored, but deeper. Brontë drew back to look at him and caught the penetrating gaze of the Asian gentleman instead. His dark eyes were probing, cautious. He reached out to catch her hand, fisted around the expended hypodermic. Shit! He was going to call her out. What could she do?
A split second later, he released her. Quick enough, she doubted anyone had noticed. Panicked, heart pounding like a bank robber on his getaway, she shoved the casing back in her pocket as Hazel crouched over Henry again, crying big sloppy tears of relief that splashed on his splotchy face. He inhaled again, easier than before and went limp with a sigh.
Of relief, she thought. Hoped.
“Henry? Henry?” Hazel cried. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, dear lass. Fine,” he assured her and tried to sit up.
“Whoa, now.” Brontë pushed him back down. “Not yet. Take a few minutes. How are you feeling?”
“Well enough,” he said. “A tad embarrassed but otherwise in the pink.”
“Liar,” she whispered, grateful for the tired grin he offered in response.
Sung-Li checked him over: pulse, heart and throat. “You’ll live, I think.”
Henry thanked him and Hazel repeated the same over and over.
“I’ve done nothing,” the man assured them, looking to Brontë again.
What could she say?
“A BEE STING, HENRY?” Tris asked once Henry was taken to his room to rest. He added a mocking cluck of his tongue to diffuse the tension in the room.
Henry refused to go to bed despite his wife’s fretting. Rather he laid back on a chaise near the window. Trembling and rather pale, but breathing, nonetheless. Mission accomplished.
Again.
Triumph failed to infuse her.
“Aye, I know we all thought it would take an ancient warrior wielding a sword to fell me, but...” He shrugged with a faint chuckle that Hazel didn’t appreciate. She continued to fluctuate between berating him and fussing over him.
Hanging back with Hannah near the door, Brontë watched as they settled Henry in. Though Tris delivered her a baleful stare at steady intervals, no one thought to ask them to leave. Good thing. She wanted to be close in case the symptoms reemerged and further medication was needed.
Thankfully the Asian gentleman seemed to have things well in hand. He’d sent a servant to fetch a leather case containing different containers of medicinal herbs and sorted through them with educated haste, his efficiency reassuring.
Bonus, he didn’t push her for an answer to the question that lingered in his dark gaze.
Pressing his fingers around Henry’s throat and neck one more time, he hummed, low in his throat. A noise that sounded suspiciously uncertain to Brontë’s ears. “He is going to be all right, isn’t he?”
He nodded. “Yes. Yes. I’ll make a poultice for the sting. He’ll be right as rain.”
“This is Sung-Li,” Hannah told her. “He’s been my mother’s majordomo of sorts since I was a little girl. He knows what he’s doing.”
Sung-Li bowed and moved to the washstand, where he took some of the herbs and mixed them in a small ceramic bowl from his bag with a few drops of water until it formed a thick paste. When he finished, he handed it to Brontë. “Apply to the wound while I make him a tea.”
Glad to be of help, she returned to Henry with the herb paste and knelt at his side. “Lift your arm so I can see it.”
He turned to expose his upper arm, his shirt sleeve loose and already rolled up for Sung-Li’s inspection. Expecting to see a flaming red welt, she was surprised that there was no more than a pallid bump with a dab of crusted blood at the center. More like a mosquito bite than a bee sting. With a frown, she made sure the stinger was completely gone and not embedded inside. It wasn’t, so she dabbed on the medicine.
When she rose, Tris pulled her aside. “Nothing more to worry over then?” The question was strained with tension.
Brontë looked up at him with a reassuring smile. “Everything’s fine. Didn’t I tell you it would be?”
He nodded though the furrow of his brow and downturn of his mouth told her he remained troubled by the day’s trials. As was she, in all honesty. The addendum he’d added the other day but had never been addressed hung heavy in her heart and mind.
Until the next time.
There was no sense in the continual threats to Henry’s life. Or at least nothing that made sense to her.
“We’ll leave you to rest.” Hannah bent and kissed Hazel’s cheek then squeezed Henry’s hand. “You already look much better.”
“Thanks to Sung-Li,” Henry said, and Hazel echoed the appreciation.
“I did nothing,” he demurred once again.
They assumed his words were mere modesty. The looks Sung-Li shot Brontë assured her he knew the truth of the statement, if not the extent. He’d seen what she’d done.
Tris lingered at Henry’s side, visibly hesitant to leave his friend until he was assured once more that the danger had passed. Once they were in the hall and the door closed behind them, Tris shook Sung-Li’s hand heartily, offering similar words of gratitude. “I appreciate all your assistance. I should’ve known you’d be around when we needed you most.” Tris turned to her with an explanation. “Sung-Li has always cared for our bumps and bruises. He also taught me and most of the lads the martial art of Qigong when we were growing up. As he did my uncles years ago.”
“He taught the ladies a thing or two as well,” Hannah added with a mischievous smile.
“Yes, yes.” Sung-Li agre
ed brusquely. “Too bad none of you were patient enough to learn simple medicine. I wager Miss Hughes would have had the foresight to have learned.”
“I doubt it,” she answered, musing his curious phrasing. “I have almost zero patience in most matters. May I ask where you’re from, Sung-Li?”
“San Francisco,” he said, his grin broad and tooth-filled. “After that, Boston before my mistress came to Scotland and married Lord Merrill.”
“My stepfather,” Hannah clarified for Brontë’s benefit.
She nodded. “And before then?”
“Nanjing.”
“Oh.” She smiled and executed a proper bow, adding in Mandarin. “It is very nice to meet you.”
Sung-Li blinked in surprise. As did both Tris and Hannah. “You speak my language?” he asked in Mandarin as well.
“I learned it at school.” She’d taken it as her language elective in college only because her father had wanted her to take French and she’d been determined to spite him after abandoning her mother for his young new girlfriend. Mostly students studying international business took the class. She’d never imagined she’d have a chance to employ the knowledge outside of her classroom. “I’m afraid I don’t know much.”
He nodded, taking her hand in his and turning it to expose the inside of her wrist. “Enough to translate this, I imagine?”
Her tattoo. She’d forgotten her gloves after lunch, but with the long sleeves of her dress hadn’t thought anyone would notice. Again, Sung-Li’s powers of observation had seen what all the others had missed.
“Peace and healing,” he translated for her, tracing a thumb over the inked kanji.
Another byproduct of her parent’s divorce when she’d moved from anger on toward forgiveness.
“May I ask what you injected him with?” he asked in Mandarin.
“Medicine to counteract the sting.” There was no point in lying to him.
He nodded again, slowly. His expression thoughtful. “I would like to ask many more questions, but this is not the time. Tris is a most curious lad. Always.”
A Scot to Remember Page 18
