The Heart Queen

by Patricia Potter

  He lurched out and down the street, despite the fact that his rooms were right above. He stopped several buildings down and leaned against a wall. He’d cast his net. He could see whether it caught anything.

  Neil’s head was bobbing when he heard a voice. “Did you mean what you said about the fifty pounds?”

  He looked up. The person addressing him had been sitting at another table. Neil saw that he was dressed in plain clothes, not a uniform, but he could see little else in the fog that blanketed the city.

  “’Bout what?” Neil asked drunkenly. “Ah, the brandy. Aye. I meant it. Who are you?”

  “The name is not important,” the man said. “The information is.”

  “Then tell me where I can find some of this brandy. If it is as you say, then I will pay you.”

  “Now,” the man said. “You will pay me now.”

  “Do I look like a fool?”

  “Aye,” his companion said.

  “An honest answer. However, I am not that much a fool. I would need proof.”

  “A small keg?”

  “A small keg is not enough for my needs.”

  “Nay, but you will know I have access.”

  “I had planned to leave tomorrow.”

  The stranger’s jaw twitched. Then, “How do I know you are not an informer?”

  “My friend, I do not need to be an informer. I am rather wealthy.” He paused, then decided to play another card. “I know that my cousin often saw an actress. I thought she might know a good source of brandy. But apparently she has left Edinburgh.”

  Something flickered in the stranger’s eyes.

  Neil waited to see whether greed or caution would win.

  It was greed. “I will have the keg in an hour. Where should I take it?”

  “I have a room at the inn. It is the third left on the second floor.”

  The man backed away and disappeared into the foggy night. Neil remained where he was for a moment, still lolling against the building in the event that someone else had taken his bait.

  After several moments, he returned to the inn, passed by the taproom and went up the steps. He stopped midway, realizing he’d lost his drunken swagger. He was obviously not cut out for subterfuge. Neil wondered how his cousin had managed his charade for so long.

  He hesitated outside Janet’s room. He’d known it was awkward that she had not brought a maid with her. But he had not known if they would have to move rapidly. If she was to be arrested, he would have united her with her brother, gathered the children and tried to get them out of the country. But now they had time. Perhaps she could still salvage a life at Lochaene.

  And that was what he wanted.

  Aye, it was what had to be.

  Still, he knocked lightly on the door. If she were asleep, he hoped he would not wake her, but if she could not sleep—as he expected—he could answer some of her questions. He could not stay long since he expected a visitor, but he knew she must be anxious about Alexander. She would want to know more. She had been too stunned to react earlier.

  The door opened. She was still fully dressed.

  He slipped inside and closed the door behind him.

  She looked beautiful. Her hair was loose and fell down her back, the tawny shade catching streaks of gold from a roaring fire in the hearth. Her blue eyes appeared even darker than before and were roiling with emotion.

  He opened his arms and she slipped into them. Her body moved instinctively to nestle with his. He leaned down and kissed her forehead. It was a mistake. A second later, his lips were moving over her face with a tenderness he’d confined within himself for years.

  Their lips met. He heard her small moan, and subdued the one rising in his own throat. It was as if they both had been waiting for this all their lives. He was seized by a need so strong and powerful that he could think of nothing else. There had always been electricity between them, a smoldering fire, but now it was an inferno.

  He needed to leave. He needed to leave this moment. But just then she stood on tiptoe, her body fitting his like a glove, her lips so very inviting. He deepened his kiss, and it became something desperate and wild and abandoned. His mouth played with her lips and, feeling her mouth open to him, his tongue reached out and explored greedily. Her tongue met his, shyly at first, then eagerly, and they teased each other until all their senses reeled.

  Neil felt a craving he had never known before as his body tensed and responded to hers. They moved even closer, bodies pressing against each other with a need as elemental as a violent Highland storm and the warmth of a summer sun.

  His lips caressed her with a possessiveness that jolted him, and he drew away, his eyes searching her face. Dear God, how he wanted her. In so many ways. He knew he had been waiting for this all his life, this explosive mixture of sweetness and ferocity, of the need to give and take at the same time.

  He saw the smoldering desire in her eyes and his heart warred between craving and caution. The former won. He shook his head in defeat and saw the realization reflected in her eyes.

  Neil felt her hand on his face, exploring it, and his hand captured it, bringing it to his mouth. He kissed it simply, first the palm, then the back, and he was plunged into waves of longing he could no longer suppress.

  Janet knew the second it happened. It was as if a curtain had been lifted from his eyes. She felt his hands hesitate, then run up and down the side of her body with such gentleness that her heart ached. Her husband had never been gentle. He’d always taken her roughly.

  Neil’s touch, so tender and even reverent, wiped away any doubts she had.

  She willed him to continue when she sensed his momentary hesitation. Her hands went up to tangle themselves in his hair, to touch and caress the back of his neck. She knew now she had never stopped loving him. God knew she had tried. But they were like gunpowder and fire. Suppressed hunger radiated between them.

  All her tumultuous emotions of the past few days erupted, tearing down every emotional barrier she’d tried so hard to build. The anger was gone. The distrust had faded. After her initial anger, she realized how much he had done. Quietly, without ever asking for anything, he was risking death to save her brother. He had been willing to forfeit his own future for her safety. He had patiently tried to make her children happy and comfortable.

  She looked up at his roughly hewn face and thought how beloved it was. And irresistible to her. She loved the dark brows, the serious eyes, the hard planes of his cheeks. Her lips moved from his lips and nuzzled his ear. She felt his body respond, knew she was igniting a firestorm of desire. Her fingers unbuttoned his waistcoat, and he shrugged it off onto the floor. His neckcloth went next, leaving a plain linen shirt and breeches. His fingers were equally as occupied. They were busy untying the ribbons of her gown. He was clumsy at it, and that pleased her. But still it did not take him long to finish and the dress dropped to her feet, and she stood there in only her chemise and petticoat.

  She trembled as he moved closer to her, and she felt the throbbing of his need as their bodies met, melded. The burning inside intensified. She had never known something this powerful existed. She had been attracted to him years earlier, and they had traded kisses and embraces. There had even been a yearning curiosity, but nothing like this raging need that roared through her.

  “Ah, lass,” he whispered in her ear. It seemed almost a sigh of surrender. But she had no time to analyze it because his lips were brushing kisses along her neck, lingering at the hollow at her throat. Unfettered by the loose, low-cut shift, they moved down to her breasts, licking first the left, then the right, leaving trails of liquid fire as he went. Each new touch aroused more sensations until she thought she would explode with the exquisite need undulating within her.

  He took off her petticoat, and she stood clothed only in the short linen shift. He looked at it for a very long moment. His dark eyes were glittering with passion and yes, recklessness. It was as if he were someone else tonight. She smelled spirits, but she
did not care. She cared only about having his arms around her.

  Most of all, she wanted his body connected to hers in the most intimate way. She wanted him bound to the deepest essence of her.

  She had always wanted it. She had wanted it when he had first come to Lochaene, but she had not allowed herself to dream again, and so she had pushed him away and tried to despise him.

  She touched the thongs on his breeches.

  He stilled. “I canna stay now, lass. I am expecting a visitor.” His voice was hoarse to her ears, thick with the passion that bound them. “It may be our solution to getting your brother out of Scotland.”

  She leaned against him. She wanted him now, here. She thought for a moment she wanted it more than anything in the world. But that was not true. Most of all, she wanted him, and Alex and Colin and her daughters, safe.

  “I will come back if you agree,” he said as his hand touched her cheek.

  “Will you?”

  “It would not be wise.”

  “And you are always wise.”

  “Nay, or I would not have stopped here this night.” His fingers played with her hair, touching her shoulders.

  “I will wait for you.”

  He leaned down. “It may be late,” he warned.

  Every part of her body was crying out for him. She feared letting him go. Mayhap it would be as it had been eight years ago.

  “Nay, lass,” he said as if reading her mind. “I will not do that to you again. But I must tell you something first, and I have not the time now.”

  Ominous. It was ominous. But he was relacing his trousers, and the moment was broken. But he would be back. She struggled for the trust she needed.

  So she merely nodded and accompanied him as he shrugged on his waistcoat, then carelessly tied the neck cloth. Then he leaned over and kissed her. “If you are asleep,” he said, “I will not wake you.”

  Before she could respond he was out the door.

  Janet sat before the fire and waited. She did not need the warmth, though. She felt on fire.

  Would he indeed be back? Or would he greet her in the morning with a cool, regretful glance? Could she stand that?

  She watched the flickering flames in the fireplace. What else did he have to tell her? It could not be any worse than hiding the fact that her brother was alive.

  Because they had traveled by horseback, she had not brought a separate shift for sleeping. She felt more than a little naked, but she had no wish to put her dress back on. She went to the bed and took a blanket from it and wrapped it around her, then sat down again.

  She thought about those weeks so many years ago, when she was young and sure and ever so happy. She’d been so convinced she had found her true love, the one man who could make her happy. She remembered the way he had smiled shyly at her, at the reserved quiet way he’d courted her. He’d had a lonely dignity that had appealed to everything in her. He still had it. That, she knew, was why she trusted him now, and made her wonder why he had rejected her years ago. He had not seemed feckless then. He certainly was not today. Then why had he disappeared so abruptly?

  Was that what he wanted to explain?

  She listened for footsteps passing, then grew drowsy.

  She missed Colin. It was the first time she had ever been away from him. Her arms felt empty and she found herself listening for his garbled sounds. She curled up in the chair. Neil had locked the room and taken the key. He had also promised not to wake her if she were asleep. She had to make sure she was not asleep.

  She did nod off. But she woke when she heard the door open. She turned around and watched Neil enter. He had shed his waistcoat and carried a keg and a tankard with him. “Would you share a glass with me?”

  He had that odd reckless look again. It added another dimension to him, an intriguing one.

  “Aye,” she said. “What happened?”

  “I have a name of a smuggler on the coast. I will make a trip down there and see if I can get passage for your brother.”

  He filled the tankard and offered it to her. She took a sip, felt the rich warmth flow through her. She’d often had wine, but she had never had brandy, and she found the smooth rich taste to her liking.

  “It is a very good brandy,” he said with half smile.

  She handed it back to him. She hadn’t needed the warmth provided by the spirits and the fire. His smile did that. As did his touch as his fingers brushed hers.

  “I wish I could go with you,” she said longingly.

  “I know,” he said. “But it takes far more bravery to stay when you want to go. Your children need you.”

  “Aye,” she said. “And I miss them. This is the first time I have been away.” She was silent for a moment. “I would like to see Alex.”

  He sighed. “I will try to arrange something.”

  She studied him. She was no longer sleepy and his eyes were alert though guarded.

  Janet stood, the blanket falling from her, and reached for his hand, then led him to the bed. She sat while he still stood but he kept her fingers clasped in hers.

  His hand was warm. That heat coursed through her. She waited for him to speak.

  After a moment, he sat next to her and touched her face in a gesture so longing and so tender, that terror struck her. She knew suddenly that she was not going to like what he had to say. Her fingers tightened around his.

  She knew she should feel some kind of shame at being clad only in her thin shift. But even when she’d been so angry, she’d never felt awkward with him. She realized then that they unconsciously shared an intimacy, a bond, an attachment that had never dissipated.

  She leaned against him. “What is it?”

  His fingers tightened around her hand. “Lass, you are so very bonny.” The words hovered in the air as he hesitated, then continued. “I meant everything I told you eight years ago.” Each word, she thought, sounded painful.

  “Then why …?”

  “When I told my uncle I wished to marry you, he explained something I did not know,” he said.

  She did not ask the question. He would continue in his own way, and she feared the coming words. She felt the tenseness in his body, the hardening clasp of his fingers against hers.

  “I was taken from my mother when I was but a lad,” he said. “She was … quiet, always rocking in a chair. I canna remember her ever saying a word.”

  She was watching him. She saw a muscle flex in his cheek, the granite look of his face, the agony in his eyes.

  “I did not miss her because she had never … really been there,” he said. “My grandfather was a bitter man, and ill. One day, a stranger simply came and took me. I was trained and educated with the son of the Marquis of Braemoor and told I was to be his companion and bodyguard. It was not until much later that I learned that my father had been brother to the marquis.”

  A knot of apprehension twisted her stomach.

  After a timeless second, he continued. “The day … I asked for your hand, my uncle told me my mother had been mad and had killed herself after I left. Her mother, too, had been mad. The … illness tainted the entire line for centuries.” He paused. “I did not know. I swear it,” he said with a vulnerable catch in his voice. “I could have that taint, Janet. I could well end up mad. And I can have no children. I could not do that to you.”

  Her fingers tightened around his. His words slashed at her heart because she knew what they had cost him. And yet … something else lightened in her as she suddenly understood what had happened eight years earlier.

  She could not speak for a moment. She had not known what to expect. She had expected an explanation of why he had left so abruptly years ago. A youthful indiscretion. The loss of her dowry when her father refused her hand. So many things. But never this.

  And now she knew why her father had been so against the match and had whisked her away.

  “Why did you not tell me?”

  “Your father convinced me not to. He said you were too loyal. He said y
ou would not accept it, that you might never marry if I could not. We … both wanted you to wed and have bairns of your own.”

  “My papa?” She felt the tears well in her eyes. He had known how unhappy she had been. If only he had explained …

  “He thought he was doing the best thing for you …”

  “No one knows the best thing for someone else,” she said painfully.

  He was silent.

  She swallowed through the lump in her throat. He had loved her. He had loved her enough to make her hate him. “Why did you not tell me when you came to Lochaene?”

  “I did not think this would happen,” he said. “I thought … I could try to help, then leave. I did not think …”

  “That love lingers?” she finished.

  “Aye. At least not on your part, after …”

  She touched his face. There was so much pain in his voice. In his eyes. She knew now how much love he had to give. She had tried not to see it, but it had been there all along. With the girls. With the way he looked down at her son. With the restrained but ever so tender caresses he had given to her.

  He had so much love in him, and he’d tried so hard to smother it that he’d isolated himself from everyone. Raw pain twisted inside her and she fought a wave of quiet despair. He was telling her this now for a reason. He was telling her that they could not be together. Ever.

  But she didn’t want him to see her pain. He’d had too much himself.

  “I have children now,” she said quietly. “I do not need more.”

  His gaze sharpened. “’Tis not just children, lass. It is the fact that I might well go mad some day. I could not … inflict that on you. I remember my mother, the bewilderment when I touched her …”

  There was a finality in his voice.

  “We have now,” she said.

  “Aye,” he said wistfully. “We have now.”

  She lifted her head until her lips touched his cheek. His large hand tenderly pushed a curl from her face and his lips touched her forehead, then her eyes, now awash with tears. His hands had never been so gentle as when he cupped her face in them and lifted it toward him as if trying to memorize everything on it.