Eternal Flame

by Cynthia Eden

  Finally, after what felt like an infinity, she broke the moment. “You didn’t answer. Why are you here? After all these years?”

  He chose the most convenient truth. “A funeral. Two weeks ago.” A bleak, rain-soaked funeral that couldn’t be forgotten.

  “Oh. I am sorry.” Her voice lost its languid bite.

  He looked back and met her eyes. Such sincerity had never been one of Lizzie’s strong suits. No, that was wrong. She’d always been sincere, or at least truthful-painfully so as he recalled-but she rarely let her true feelings show.

  “Thank you, Lizzie. But I didn’t lure you into a temptingly darkened room to bore you with dreary news.”

  “No, you came to proposition me.” The mischievous little smile crept back. Lizzie was never the sort to be intimidated for long. She had always loved to be doing things she ought not.

  A heated image of her sinuous white body entwined in another man’s arms rose unbidden in his brain. Good God, what other things had Lizzie been doing over the past few years that she ought not? And with whom?

  Marlowe quickly jettisoned the irrational spurt of jealousy. Her more recent past hardly mattered. In fact, some experience on her part might better suit his plans.

  “Yes, my proposition. I can give you what you want. A marriage without the man.”

  For the longest moment she went unnaturally still, then she slid off the chair arm and glided closer to him. So close, he almost backed up. So close, her rose petal of a mouth came but a hairsbreadth from his own. Then she lifted her inquisitive nose and took a bold, suspicious whiff of his breath.

  “You’ve been drinking.”

  “I have,” he admitted without a qualm.

  “How much?”

  “More than enough for the purpose. And you?”

  “Clearly not enough. Not that they’d let me.” She turned and walked away. Sauntered really. She was very definitely a saunterer, all loose joints and limbs, as if she’d never paid the least attention to deportment. Very provocative, although he doubted she meant to be. An image of a bright, agile otter, frolicking unconcerned in the calm green of the river Dart, twisting and rolling in the sunlit water, came to mind.

  “Drink or no, I meant what I said.”

  “Are you proposing? Marriage? To me?” She laughed as if it were a joke. She didn’t believe him. “I am.”

  She eyed him more closely, her gaze narrowing even as one marmalade eyebrow rose in assessment. “Do you have a fatal disease?”

  “No.”

  “Are you engaged to fight a duel?” “Again, no.”

  “Condemned to death?” She straightened with a fluid undulation, her spine lifting her head up in surprise as the thought entered her head, all worldliness temporarily obliterated. “Planning a suicide?”

  “No and no.” It was so hard not to smile. Such a charming combination of concern and cheek. The cheek won out: she gave him that feral, slightly suspicious smile.

  “Then how do you plan to arrange it, the ‘without the man’ portion of the proceedings? I’ll want some sort of guarantee. You can’t imagine I’m gullible enough to leave your fate, or my own for that matter, to chance.”

  A low heat flared within him. By God, she really was considering it.

  “And yet, Lizzie, I think you may. I am an officer of His Majesty’s Royal Navy and am engaged to captain a convoy of prison ships to the Antipodes. I leave only days from now. The last time I was home, in England, was four and a half years ago and then only for a few months to recoup from a near fatal wound. This trip is slated to take at least eight … years.”

  Her face cleared of all traces of impudence. Oh yes, even Lizzie could be led.

  “Storms, accidents, and disease provide most of the risk. Don’t forget we’re still at war with France and Spain. And the Americans don’t think too highly of us either. One stray cannonball could do the job quite nicely.”

  “Is that what did it last time?”

  “Last time? I’ve never been dead before.”

  The ends of her ripe mouth nipped up. The heat in his gut sailed higher.

  “You said you had recovered from a near fatal wound.” “Ah, yes. Grapeshot, actually. In my chest. Didn’t go deep enough to kill me, though afterward, the fever nearly did.”

  Her gaze skimmed over his coat, curious and maybe a little hungry. The heat spread lower, kindling into a flame.

  “Do you want to see?” He was being rash, he knew, but he’d done this for her once before, taken off his shirt on a dare. And he wanted to remind her.

  And keep an eye out for Donna Kauffman’s latest,

  OFF KILTER, coming next month!

  Turn the page for a fun, flirty preview …

  “Man up, for God’s sake, and drop the damn thing.”

  He supposed he should be thankful she could only turn his heart to stone.

  “We’re not sending in nude shots,” Roan replied through an even smile, even as the chants and taunts escalated. “So, I don’t understand the need to take things to such an extreme—”

  “The contest rules state, very clearly and deliberately, that they’re looking for provocative,” Tessa responded, sounding every bit like a person who’d also been forced into a task she’d rather not have taken on. Which she had been.

  Sadly, that fact had not brought them closer.

  She shifted to yet another camera she’d mounted on yet another tripod, he supposed so the angle of the sun was more to her liking. “Okay, lean back against the stone wall, prop one leg, rest that … sword thing of yours—”

  “'Tis a claymore. Belonged to the McAuleys for four centuries. Victorious in battle, ‘tis an icon of our clan.” And heavy as all hell to foist about.

  “Lovely. Prop your icon in front of you, then. I’m fairly certain it will hide what needs hiding.”

  His eyebrows lifted at that, but rather than take offense, he merely grinned. “I wouldnae be so certain of it, lassie. We’re a clan known for the size of our … swords.”

  “Yippee,” she shot back, clearly unimpressed. “So, drop the plaid, position your … sword, and let’s get on with it. It’s the illusion of baring it all we’re going for here. I’ll make sure to preserve your fragile modesty.” She was no fun. No fun ‘tall.

  “The other guys did it,” she added, resting folded hands on the top of the camera. “In fact,” she went on, without even the merest hint of a smile or dry amusement, “they seemed quite happy to accommodate me.”

  He couldn’t imagine any man wanting to bare his privates for Miss Vandergriff’s pleasure. Not if he wanted to keep them intact, at any rate.

  He was a bit thrown off by his complete inability to charm her. He charmed everyone. It was what he did. He admittedly enjoyed, quite unabashedly, being one of the clan favorites because of his affable, jovial nature. As far as he was concerned, the world would be a much better place if folks could get in touch with their happy parts, and stay there.

  He didn’t know much about her, but from what little time they’d spent together this afternoon, he didn’t think Tessa Vandergriff had any happy parts. However, the reason behind her being rather happiness-challenged wasn’t going to be his mystery to solve. She’d been on the island for less than a week now, and her stay on Kinloch was as a guest, and therefore temporary. Thank the Lord.

  The island faced its fair share of ongoing trials and tribulations, and had the constant challenge of sustaining a fragile economic resource. Despite that, he’d always considered both the McAuley and MacLeod clans as being cheerful, welcoming hosts. But they had enough to deal with without adopting a surly recalcitrant into their midst.

  “Well,” he said, smiling broadly the more her scowl deepened. “Tis true, the single men of this island have little enough to choose from.” The crowd took a collective breath at that, but his attention was fully on her now. Gripping the claymore in one fist, he leaned against the stacked stone wall, well aware of the tableau created by the twin peaks that framed
the MacLeod fortress, each of them towering behind him. He braced his legs, folded his arms across his bare chest, sword blade aloft … and looked her straight in the eye as he let a slow, knowing grin slide across his face. “Me, I’m no’ so desperate as all that.”

  That got a collective gasp from the crowd. But rather than elicit so much as a snarl from Miss Vandergriff, or perhaps goading her so far as to pack up and walk away-which he’d have admittedly deserved-she shocked him instead. By smiling. Fully. He hadn’t thought her face capable of arranging itself in such a manner. And so broadly, too, with such stunning gleam. He was further damned to discover it did things to his own happy parts that she had no business affecting.

  “No worries,” she stated, further captivating him with the transformative brilliance of her now knowing smile. She gave him a sizzling once-over before easily meeting his eyes again. “You’re not my type.”

  This was not how things usually went for him. He felt … frisked. “Then I’m certain you can be objective enough to find an angle that shows off all my best parts without requiring a more blatant, uninspired pose. I understand from Kira that you’re considered to be quite good with that equipment.”

  The chants of the crowds shifted to a few whistles as the tension between photographer and subject grew to encompass even them.

  “Given your reluctance to play show and tell, I’d hazard to guess I’m better with mine than you are with yours,” she replied easily, but the spark remained in her eyes.

  Goading him.

  “Why don’t you be the judge.” Holding her gaze in exclusive focus, the crowd long since forgotten now, he pushed away from the wall and, with sword in one hand, slowly unwrapped his kilt with the other.

  He took far more pleasure than was absolutely necessary from watching her throat work as he unashamedly revealed thighs and ass. He wasn’t particularly vain or egotistical, but he was well aware that a lifetime spent climbing all over this island had done its duty where his physical shape was concerned, as it had for most of the islanders. They were a hardy lot.

  There was a collective gasp from the crowd as he held a fistful of unwrapped plaid in front of him, dangling precariously from one hand, just on the verge of—

  That’s it! Tessa all but leapt behind the camera and an instant later, the shutter started whirring. Less than thirty seconds later, she straightened and pushed her wayward curls out of her face, her no-nonsense business face back on track. “Got it. Good! We’re all done here.” She started dismantling her equipment. “You can go ahead and get dressed,” she said, dismissively, not even looking at him now.

  He held on to the plaid-and his pride-and tried not to look as annoyed as he felt. The shoot was blessedly over. That was all that mattered. No point in being irritated that he’d just been played by a pro.

  She glanced up, the smile gone as she dismantled her second tripod with the casual grace of someone so used to the routine and rhythm of it she didn’t have to think about it. “I’ll let you know when I get the shots developed.”

  He supposed he should be thankful she had saved him the humiliation of publicly rubbing her smooth manipulation of him in his face. Except he wasn’t feeling particularly gracious at the moment.