“Aye, lass.”
She laughed at his ridiculous attempt at a brogue, and then he had her in his arms, her waist under his hands as he spun her up and over a useless ottoman. A few of the mothers clucked and gasped, but the young people did not wait long before following behind, joining the dance, as he knew they would. Without bothering to lift up the carpets, he and his guests, at least all those under thirty, spent the next half hour jigging and leaping and drinking like lords. Which he supposed was what they were.
Mary Elizabeth was breathless with dancing and laughter. When the reel was over, the entire company applauded Catherine, even the duchess. Harry looked to see what reaction Lady Anna might have had, but when he scanned the room for her, he could not find her. It seemed she had already retired.
“Come into the garden,” Harry whispered, leaning so close that he caught the scent of roses on her skin.
Mary Elizabeth cut her eyes at him. “What for? I’ve seen the moon and the flowers. Both are pretty, but why see them twice?”
He laughed a little, a low sound that vibrated in his chest. He kept quiet, so as not to draw too much attention, but he watched as Mary Elizabeth shivered at the sound of it.
“Come outside so that I can seduce you in the moonlight.”
She laughed a little herself, but she was breathless as she looked up at him. “All right,” she said. “I’ll meet you by the fountain in the rose garden in ten minutes. But you won’t seduce me.”
“No?”
“No. It can’t be done.”
Harry did not remind her of their stolen hour on his library sofa the night before. He simply smiled, and watched her eyes change from maple to darker hazel as she looked at his lips.
“We’ll see,” he said.
She disappeared through the door to the hall, which Billings closed discreetly behind her. Harry went to his mother’s side and made his excuses, but from the gleam in her eye, she knew exactly where he was going, and why.
Twenty-two
Mary Elizabeth had managed to hold her own at dinner and after, which was more of a victory than she had ever been able to expect when dealing with her mother. But she knew her mother well, and knew that the lady had not given up her goal. She would see Mary and Harry engaged by week’s end, or there would truly be hell to pay.
Mary Elizabeth sighed as she sank onto a bench tucked inside the duchess’s folly. The rose garden spread itself below, the moonlight casting the petals in shades of silver and gray. There was nothing wrong with marrying Harry, save for the facts at hand: he was an Englishman, and he lived four days’ drive by the swiftest coach from the only place in the world she called home.
Mary Elizabeth had grown up free on her father’s lands, forgotten by her mother altogether until her sixteenth birthday. Only then had her mother brought her indoors, given her a bath, and made her learn to be a lady.
She had listened to the lessons, most of them, though she had not always heeded them. And when her mother had dragged her down to Edinburgh, she had gone willingly, even though, as always, she would rather have been at home.
Her mother was English, and thus could not understand the love Mary Elizabeth felt for the land that had borne her. Her father’s people had lived at Glenderrin since before the Vikings had come, and would live there forever after, God willing. Mary Elizabeth knew that she was a girl and, as such, should marry and move away. But to do so would be to leave her heart behind, along with the best part of herself. Mary Elizabeth might be considered wild among the English, but since she had come away, she had been only a shadow. She would never possess the whole of her soul anywhere but Glenderrin.
Harry came upon her in the moonlight and caught her brooding. She was in his arms before she thought, taking comfort from the only man in the world who would ever make her consider leaving her home behind. He seemed to sense her urgency and her desperation, and that they had nothing to do with desire. Harry held her close and caressed her hair, kissing her temple, all the while keeping her tight against him, a bulwark against the world.
“You’re sorrowing, Mary.”
“I am.”
“I brought you out here to woo, not to weep.”
She drew back just far enough to smile up into his face. The harsh planes of his cheekbones were softened in the moonlight, making him even more beautiful, if such a thing were possible. She kissed his jaw, the only part of his face she could reach, before she laid her head back on his chest, resting over his heart. “I am sorrowing for home, Harry. Do you love this place as much as I love Glenderrin?”
“Yes.” He answered without hesitation, and she leaned back to look at him again. “There is no place on Earth so fine as here, nowhere I find the sky as blue or the sea as beautiful. The roses elsewhere never bloom as they do in my mother’s garden, and now that my father is dead, there is no ogre to loom over the castle keep and darken any corner of it.”
Mary Elizabeth felt tears come into her eyes. When one slid down her cheek, her man kissed it away. “Is that how you feel about Glenderrin?” Harry asked.
She nodded and swallowed hard, so that she would not sob. “Yes.”
He drew her away from the bench, deeper into the shadows of the folly. His mother had ordered it built, he had told Mary Elizabeth, to resemble a Greek temple that had long since fallen to ruin. The duchess had built not the ruin, but the temple in its glory, smaller than the Parthenon by far, but an elegant place, fit for the goddess Aphrodite. Harry did not give Mary time to admire much of the interior by moonlight, but kissed her.
Mary Elizabeth felt his lips on hers, a fiery caress that teased at her sorrow, drawing out a bit of her inherent joy. It seemed her reaction was not what he had hoped for, however, for his arms tightened around her, and his lips slanted over hers until her mouth opened beneath his. Mary Elizabeth shivered then, and felt his hand on her breast, caressing her flesh through the silk of her royal-blue gown. His long, callused fingers teased the fabric down and the lace beneath that, until there was only her breast, swelling to fill his hand.
Mary Elizabeth felt as if she had lost the last bit of her reason, that she would let him touch her, there, like that, in the middle of his mother’s garden. But that thought flitted away like the flight of a butterfly as his hand moved to her other breast to free it, as his lips came down on her, drawing her straining nipple into his mouth.
She gasped in pleasure and felt her knees begin to weaken. She shored them up, but had no self-possession other than to cling to him as he kissed and caressed her by turns. Before long, she was writhing against him, moaning his name. It was his name on her lips that seemed to bring him back to himself. He stopped kissing her, and his caresses grew less demanding and more soothing.
Mary Elizabeth’s body would not be soothed. She shook and strained against him, reaching for the place he had taken her last night, frustrated, knowing that she could not get there.
“I’m sorry, Mary,” Harry said. “I did not mean to take this so far.”
She drew on her reserves of pride and inner strength and forced herself to stop writhing. His body was hard against hers, and when she pressed herself against him one final time, she felt him stiffen against her, his breath hissing between his teeth.
The fact that she was not the only one suffering calmed her down as his caresses and his apology had not. “Harry, I love you. But you can be a right pain in my arse.”
He laughed at that and held her close, but not too close. She could no longer feel the evidence of his desire for her against her belly, but she could hear it in his breathing, which was still as ragged as her own.
“Marry me, Mary Elizabeth Waters, for the love of God.”
As if a wave of cold seawater had swamped her, Mary felt the warm desire and her joy in it disappear in a trice. She sighed. She should not encourage Harry’s attentions until she gave him her answer—if her
answer ended up being yes. She was tempted to tell him yes in that moment just to have the matter settled.
But when she closed her eyes, she saw not Harry’s face, but the sun rising over the burn, the mist rising off her river. She tried to move her tongue, but it would not obey her. She could not do it.
She loved him, but she loved herself, too.
Her silence was his only answer. He sighed against her, and she could feel the edges of his seemingly infinite patience beginning to fray.
“I’m sorry, Harry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “You haven’t said no. Until you say no, there’s nothing for either of us to be sorry for.”
Mary Elizabeth kissed him then, pouring all of her love, if not her desire, into it. He kissed her back, but she knew from the taste of his lips that he was not satisfied, and she knew how little room there was between her love for him, and her love for home. She tried to push the opposing thoughts of Glenderrin and of her mother out of her mind, but they both seemed to weigh on her, even as Harry walked with her back into the house, his hand on hers. There was a shadow over them, and she needed to dispel it, one way or another.
She must choose which part of her heart to live with.
But not yet.
* * *
Mary Elizabeth woke early the next morning, as she always did. And as always, no matter the crisis in her life, she woke hungry. She dressed in a gown, though an older one, out of deference to her mother’s sensibilities. She knew that the Lady Anna would take a tray in her room as she planned her day, and as such, Mary Elizabeth had at least a half hour to eat and to get out of the house.
At worse, she could cadge a bit of bread and flee. At best, she could devour some eggs and a rasher of hot bacon.
Mary Elizabeth was surprised to find a pile of English up and milling about in the entryway and down along the front steps of the palatial house. They had their horses ready to mount, and every gentlemen and lady were dressed as for a hunt. She asked a young buck who seemed eager for the saddle, “What are you riding out for this morning? Will you be hunting deer, then?”
The boy smiled at her, his excitement clear in every muscle of his body. He fairly shook with the need to be gone and riding, just at the hounds outside bayed and called for their freedom. “No, indeed, miss. Today, we are hunting fox.”
Mary Elizabeth frowned. “Are foxes a great trouble to the farmers hereabouts?”
He almost started to laugh, but swallowed it down, so as not to offend her. “No, miss. The gamekeeper raises foxes, and we hunt them.”
She felt a chill when he said that. “So one of you will shoot this fox?”
“No. The dogs will tear it up once we’ve run it to ground.”
Mary Elizabeth felt cold again then, but it was the cold of fury. She turned on her heel, her breakfast forgotten, and walked straight to Billings, who was handing out cups of mulled wine in silver goblets.
“Where might I find the gamekeeper, Mr. Billings?” she asked.
The stately man blinked at the title she gave him, but he did not comment. “He might be found in the stone building closest to the stables.”
“I thank you.”
She did not leave by the front door, but slipped through the duchess’s sitting room, which was empty this early in the morning. She let herself out by the terrace door and went out into the rose garden. Once she was well clear of the house, she lifted her skirts and started to run.
* * *
Harry greeted his guests, dressed in his red hunting coat, as his valet had remembered that there was a hunt that morning. He had been so consumed with his pursuit of his Scottish bride that he had forgotten all about it, though he had planned the entertainment himself.
He greeted the company, speaking with each man he saw and bowing to each lady. He was surprised to find Mary Elizabeth absent and not dressed in the mythical habit he had yet to see. He was thinking of how she might look with a jaunty feather trailing over her shoulder from her riding hat and her long skirt hitched up over her arm when Billings came to stand beside him.
“My lord duke,” Billings said.
“Yes?”
“I believe we are in for a bit of trouble.”
“Why, man? Has some horse thrown a shoe?”
“No, Your Grace. Miss Waters asked after Mr. Bartlett.”
“The gamekeeper? What on earth for?”
Billings only raised one brow, but Harry had his answer.
“She’s after the foxes.”
“I fear so, sir.”
“Has Sampson been brought up?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have him brought around to the path by the rose garden. And keep these people here for at least another ten minutes if you can.”
“They were hoping you might lead the hunt, my lord.”
“So was I, Billings. But I fear Miss Waters has other plans.”
“She often does, sir.”
Harry mounted Sampson out of view of all his guests, grateful that his best horse had been returned to him the day before. He slipped away so that no one would see him and follow, thinking that the hunt was on. Harry rode hell-for-leather to the stalls where the foxes were raised. Sampson thought a morning gallop through the primroses great fun, and took joy in leaping one of the duchess’s boxwood hedges. Though Sampson was the fastest horse he owned, Harry was still too late.
Mary Elizabeth stood in front of the empty cages. A bit of fur was left behind in one of them, but every living fox was gone.
Harry simply stared and wondered what on God’s green earth he was going to say to his guests.
“Your prey is gone,” Mary Elizabeth said. “If you hope to kill them, they’ve got a fair chance, seeing as all twelve of them are free now, and even your pack of dogs won’t find them all.”
“My God, Mary Elizabeth.”
She did not speak again but waited in patience for his judgment.
“I love you, Mary. But you are a pain in my arse.”
She smiled at him then, and he leaned down and offered her an arm. She swung up onto Sampson behind him, and they rode back to the house together, that he might tell his guests the hunt was off.
Before he could open his mouth, however, Mary Elizabeth waved to the company and shouted them down. “Gentlefolk! Gentlefolk all! One moment, if you please.”
The entire company fell into a dead silence. It was Harry’s presence alone that kept them from turning their noses up at her, and their backs to her. She was his choice as duchess, and they knew it. So they swallowed their irritation at being shouted at by a Highland barbarian and listened to her.
“Your foxes are run off,” she said. “I freed them all myself.”
“All?” Lord Grathton asked, looking dazed. Harry knew, as the entire ton did, that Grathton had run into Mary Elizabeth and her wild ways before.
“Aye,” she answered. “Your prey is scattered, so there will be no easy kills today.”
The company murmured among themselves, milling about a bit restlessly, but it seemed Mary Elizabeth was not finished. “The good news for the true hunters among you is that there are now twelve foxes where before there would have been only one. If you’ve skill or luck, you might get a muff for your lady.”
The men laughed at that, and the few women who were awake at that hour smiled a little at the mad girl Harry wanted as his wife.
“So good luck to you. The man who bags a fox will get a silver cup as prize, courtesy of our grand duke here.”
The gentlemen, none of whom needed a silver cup but all of whom loved a chance to compete for any reason whatsoever, applauded her largesse. Harry sighed as he watched the men ride away, the hounds released in all directions, after different foxes or perhaps simply just happy to be freed from their restraints.
The Earl of Grathton rais
ed his hat to her before he rode away. Mary Elizabeth smiled as if she had been awarded a great prize, and Harry felt a little jealous.
“Mary,” he said. “I think I will turn you over my knee again.”
She smiled at him and kissed his ear quickly, clearly hoping that no one else would see. “I’d like that, Harry. If it turns out as well for me as it did the last time you tried it.”
Twenty-three
After letting Mary Elizabeth down off of Sampson, Harry left to ride out with a few of his guests. Mary Elizabeth wandered into the breakfast room, where a giant repast still waited for the hungry folk returning sporadically from the hunt. She lingered over her tea and a chocolate brioche, talking with the English guests as they ate. If she was considering living among these people for the rest of her life, she supposed she should try to get used to them.
Some of the English, preferring the ease of a controlled kill, came back right away. But others stayed out for hours, chasing foxes and their phantom tails all over the countryside. The Earl of Grathton was one of these, and he smiled as he took his seat beside her.
“You gave us good hunting today,” he said. “I never saw a fox, much less shot one, but it was a roaring good time.”
“I’m glad, my lord,” Mary Elizabeth answered. “I’ve been meaning to apologize again for threatening you with a claymore in the park.”
Grathton laughed out loud at that, spearing a bit of egg with his fork. “No apology is necessary, Miss Waters. You were contrite on the day, and there was no harm done. I was reintroduced to an old friend through the encounter, so it was all to the good.”
He looked a bit forlorn, and Mary Elizabeth realized that he meant her friend and companion Lady Prudence, who had lately married Robbie. Mary Elizabeth did not know him well enough to interfere with his affairs, but for a moment, she wished that he was one of her kin, that she might find a decent girl for him. He was too kind a man to be alone.
Mary Elizabeth was distracted from her quarry by a summons from Billings.
“Miss Waters,” the stately butler said. “Lady Anna of Glenderrin requests your presence in the blue drawing room.”
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