London, Julia - The Perfect Stranger

by Radha

  To his great surprise, a flood of unfamiliar but intense emotion was all at once crashing through him, making him feel oddly tender. Kerry seemed to sense it; she suddenly opened her eyes and smiled brilliantly. Arthur, she whispered, stroking his cheek, and he was suddenly plunging deep into the tidal pool of her longing. His strokes took on greater urgency now; one of Kerrys arms flailed above her head, clutching at the linens, while the other raked his back. She tossed her head to one side, oblivious to the dark hair that covered her face as Arthur drove into her again and again.

  It was an extraordinary journey, the press of his body into hers, extraordinary feelings, vague but earnest feelings he recalled having felt as a young man so desperately in love. But this was different somehow, so bloody earthy. As with everything in her life, there was no pretense with Kerry in this bed. She moaned without self-consciousness, moved just as fiercely as he each time her body rose up to meet him, and just when he thought he could bear no more, she shoved him, pushing him onto his back and rolled on top.

  Her hair fell like a curtain around them; she smiled seductively as she braced herself with her hands against his chest. Youve unleashed a beast in me, Arthur Christian, she whispered, and began to move. Ah God, did she move. Arthur grasped her hips, pushed her down and tried to reach the heart of her. As his strokes began to quicken, she collapsed onto his chest, clinging to him, her breath hot and panting in his ear. Reach for it, Kerry, he muttered as he reached for his own.

  The pressure in his groin suddenly burst into a thousand shards that poured into the warm pool of her body. In the fog of that shattering climax he heard her cry from somewhere above and felt her body convulse tightly around him, drawing the life from him. With a final, powerful thrust, a guttural moan erupted from his throat as he released the last of the life into her.

  Gasping for breath, Arthur slid his arms around her body, holding her close. Neither of them spoke; it seemed to him that they were both quite simply stunned by the sweet sensation, the flame ignited between them. He stroked her hair, the silken skin of her back. It was several moments before he realized that the dampness of his shoulder was not perspiration, but her tears.

  He turned his head toward her, but Kerry slid off him, burying her face in the crook of his arm.

  He silently gathered her into his arms and pulled her back into his chest, wrapped his legs around her.

  She said nothing, but her hand covered his that anchored her to him. They lay there for what seemed like hours to Arthur, each lost in their own thoughts, staring at the moonbeam streaming in through the window. When at last she spoke, he had to strain to hear her. You must know that I love you.

  The admission hit him square in the gut. No, he said. Its just that its been a terribly long time since you

  She stopped him by chuckling softly. Arthur, a blind man could see how much I love you. She paused; the chuckle died in her throat. Doona say anything. Just promise me that youll go before the sunrise, will you? And and doona wake me. I canna bear to see you walk away.

  No more than he could bear to walk away. He tenderly kissed the top of her head. I promise.

  And once youve gone home again, youll send word, promise that too.

  I promise that, too.

  She sighed, a softly tortured sound that made his heart ache.

  Kerry this has been an extraordinary fortnight. I shall never forget my experience here.

  Then perhaps you will think of me from time to time.

  Aye, lass, Ill think of you; every day Ill think of you, he murmured into her hair.

  She turned in his arms then, seeking his mouth. They made love again, slowly and surely, taking their time to feel one another completely, prolong the experience. She whispered her love again just as they reached a glorious fulfillment together. Only then did they drift off to sleep, entwined in one anothers arms.

  Arthur woke well before the sun had risen, unable to sleep soundly. Thankful that she was such a heavy sleeper, he carefully extracted himself from her limbs and quietly donned his clothesalthough he struggled with the restrictive waistcoat. When he was at last dressed, he picked up his boots and turned to gaze one more time at Kerry McKinnon. He stroked her long black hair, tried to brand the image of her in his minds eye, the same lovely visage he had first seen on a bed of pine needles in the Scottish forest, and one that he would carry with him all his life.

  He longed to kiss her one last time, to hold her, to hear her whisper that she loved him once more, but true to his promise, he walked out of the room without waking her.

  He tiptoed to the kitchen, only to have the wits startled from him by Thomass presencethe ornery Scot looked half-dead. His head hung over a bowl of coffee he gripped tightly in his hands. He frowned when Arthur sat on the bench to don his boots. Ye be leaving, he said flatly.

  That I be, old chap.

  Why, then? Ye seem to like it here well enough.

  Arthur smiled at Thomas as he worked his second boot on his leg. McKinnon, I suspected you to be a sentimental goat all along. I like it here quite well indeed, but it is time I was about my business. Ive an appointment in Dundee that must be kept, and my family will be expecting me in London shortly.

  Thomas snorted and slurped at his coffee. Yell not find such heaven on this earth as Glenbaden, mark me.

  I know that, he agreed solemnly and stood, helped himself to several biscuits piled high on a plate in the middle of the table, which he stuffed into a woven sack May had given him. He turned and walked to the door and paused to glance over his shoulder one last time. You should try your hand at a little wandering yourself, Thomas. There are many treasures to behold on this earth that you will not find in Glenbaden. Mark me, he said, and with a wave, walked out the door and into the cool early morning air.

  And he kept walking, cutting through what was left of the barley field, his stride brisk and strong. He kept walking, kept forcing one foot in front of the other.

  Not once did he look back, lest he crumble right there in the middle of this heaven on earth they called Glenbaden.

  Chapter Thirteen

  In hindsight, the journey to Dundee reminded Arthur of one of the bawdy burlesques that often played in Covent Garden, beginning with the stage right entrance of a little man possessing a manner highly reminiscent of the ubiquitous Richey Brothers. The troll had extracted a grand fortune from Arthurs pocket for the dubious pleasure of floating down Loch Eigg on little more than a piece of wood.

  From the southern edge of Loch Eigg, Arthur walked to Perth, where he was once again subjected to an outrageous price for a less-than-desirable piece of horseflesh, which required the last few crowns Arthur had in his purse. He would have to survive on berries and tree bark, he supposed, until he could reach Dundee and the Bank of Scotland where he had, fortunately, put away a goodly sum. How the Scots normally procured their horses baffled Arthurin the two instances he had been forced to buy, the seller had reacted as if he were quite mad to want to purchase a horse. Which really should not have surprised him, seeing as how he had yet to see a horse he would deem a suitable mount. This particular one had a bowed back, clopped along at an excruciating pace, dipping and heaving, and responded so testily when Arthur pushed her forward that he had named the old nag Thomas.

  The journey to Dundee seemed to take weeks instead of days. For every hill Thomas managed to climb, there was another one just behind it, rising higher than the first. Worse, the mild summer weather suddenly turned foul. Thick gray clouds hung low and a cold, steady rain seemed to have no end. His disposition was hardly improved when he asked a farmer for directions to Blairgowrie. The man stroked his red beard very slowly, pondering the request for what Arthur swore was at least a quarter of an hour, then slowly extended a bony hand and an even bonier finger to the right.

  And then he proceeded to explain his pointing with an accent so heavy and so quickly spoken that Arthur had no idea what he said. Instead of asking the farmer to repeat himself, he had simply followe
d the bony finger in the wrong direction. A fact, naturally, he did not realize until he entered the same hamlet he had left just that morningfrom the opposite end.

  In the daylight hourswhen he was in fact able to distinguish them from the nighthe encountered a passel of odd people that convinced him he had ridden straight into the middle of a fairy tale. There was the young man he encountered digging a hole next to the road. He paused so that Thomas might have one of her seven daily meals and watched the young man. He in turn ignored Arthur completely, never broke his rhythm in digging and attended it so fervently that Arthur finally asked, What, are you digging through to the Orient? And he chuckled at his own jest.

  The man hardly paused in his work. No.

  A well, then? he asked, more seriously.

  The man flicked his gaze over Arthur, but kept digging. No, he answered again.

  The couple Arthur encountered near Lundie eclipsed that young mans odd behavior, however. He had stopped to water Thomas, naturallythe old hag could not walk more than forty feet without needing some sort of sustenanceand asked if he might let his horse drink of their stream. Upon hearing his accent, the woman clapped her hands and the man flashed a toothless grin at Arthur. They eagerly invited him to let his mount drink her fill, and just as eagerly urged him to come into their little cottage for a bit of stew while she did. At last, Arthur thought, a pair of Scots who actually liked the English. They had seemed perfectly normal, and he had gladly climbed down from Thomas, had walked into the cottage, expecting to find something as neat and cheery as Mays cozy rooms, but stopped dead in his tracks. The main room of the cottage was filled with the presence of an enormous cow, steadily chewing from a pile of hay.

  With the exception of that batty pair, who seemed to think nothing unusual about having a cow in their cottage, everyone he encountered greeted him with a thinly veiled disdain every time he opened his mouth. A Sassenach was not welcome in these parts, that was made sufficiently clear to him. The more miles he traveled, the more he came to understand that the universal contempt of the English had less to do with history and more to do with the perception that the English were behind the wholesale push of the Highlanders from their glens in favor of sheep. The Highlanders that could, eked out a living selling kelp from grossly overharvested seas. But when the coasts became too crowded to support them all, many were forced to sell everything for passage to America.

  Arthur had no idea if it were truly only English investors behind the sweeping agrarian change, but by the time he reached Dundee, he was beginning to dislike the English, too.

  However, in Dundee, any sympathetic feelings he might have had for the Scots rapidly evaporated.

  First and foremost, Mr. Jamie Regis, Esquire, had not deigned to keep his appointment, which irritated Arthur to no end. If there was one thing he could not abide, it was for a man to give his word and renege. Jamie Regis had done exactly that in Arthurs opinion, and twice if he were to count his negligence in performing the eviction.

  He did not, however, count the eviction. Secondly, he could not find suitable lodging in the town. There was no grand hotel, no coaching inn where people of the Quality might reside for a time. The Wallace Arms, the best Dundee apparently had to offer, was a dilapidated old building in which he would not have housed even his mount. In the days he spent waiting for the stout little solicitor, he moved from public house to public houseDundee seemed to have an ample supply of themin search of a room where he might sleep without having to listen to boisterous laughter and song all through the night.

  Fortunately, he was able to ascertain from the only solicitor offices in town that Mr. Regis was expected within a matter of days. He sorely wished he might have known that earlier, as he had not been able to shake the thoughts of Kerry that had plagued him from the moment he had walked into the mist of the half-shorn barley field and left her behind. It was worse nowthere was nothing to occupy him; he seemed to dwell on the image of Kerry lying naked in bed the morning he had left. To know that he might have stayed on watched her sleep

  Lord God, but she was often on his mind during the lonely, uncomfortable hours he spent on the swayed back of the contrary mare, and his memory fared no better in Dundee.

  At first, he tried to ease his mind by writing to friends and family. He wrote what seemed to be dozens of letters, each one detailing his experience thus far in Scotland a little better than the last. When he had exhausted his mental roster of everyone he would even remotely consider sending a letter, he took to wandering the narrow streets of Dundee. But the pungent scent of jute and flax from the textile factories mixed with the heavy odor of fish drove him back to the public inn du jour, where he grew increasingly restless and increasingly obsessed with the fair memory of Kerry.

  He dreamed of her. Night after night it seemed, her image slowly and steadily overtaking Phillips in the nocturnal visage of his mind. Kerry laughing, Kerry walking, Kerry just being thereand always, always out of his reach.

  Just like Phillip.

  After a few days of that, Arthur determined he must absolutely have a diversion while he waited or else he might literally lose his feeble mind to those dreams.

  So he took up golf.

  He had seen the strange game played a time or two in England, but in Dundee, he noticed entire troops of people marching out to the country, the hardwood sticks they used to knock the ball about stuffed securely under their arm. One day, he saw three young boys, each carrying three such sticks. Having nothing better to do, Arthur followed them.

  They led him to the top of a grassy hill, where he could see some sort of course, which he learned the Scots called links, had been laid out among the sand barriers and hills overlooking the Firth of Tay. One boy withdrew a small leather bag and placed it on the ground directly in front of him. Selecting one of three wooden clubs, he braced his skinny legs apart, put his head down, and swung the club at the ball. All three boys stood in silent, rapt attention as the leather bag arched high into the sun before landing in the middle of a water hole. That earned a cry of disgust from the boy who had swung the club and a round of laughter from the other two.

  When a second boy took the place of the first, they noticed Arthur standing a few yards behind them.

  By the time the sun had set that afternoon, Arthur had swung the club one hundred and fourteen times.

  The next morning, he paced impatiently, waiting for the lads to appear, hoping that the black-headed one had remembered to bring along the stick with the hickory shaft and applewood head that Arthur had determined he preferred, along with the leather ball they called a featherie.

  After another day of following the lads about, Arthur bought the sticks from oneat an extravagant price, naturallybut managed to talk him out of two of the featheries, and struck out on his own. He discovered a peaceful, pretty course a half-days ride away, near Affleck Castle. And it was that course for which he struck out early every morning, then spent the better part of the day whacking away at the featherie, waiting for Mr. Regis to show himself and trying not to think.

  Unfortunately, not even striking the featherie tens of hundreds of times could put his mind to rest.

  His dreams never fully left him when he awoke each morning and chased him through the course of the day, making him question everything he had ever known. There was Phillip, his nocturnal visitor, and the anger Arthur could not, after three years, quite seem to release. Particularly not the anger over this impossible venture why had Phillip invested so carelessly? It was ridiculous, just one more thing Arthur could add to Phillips list of transgressionsa bad investment mangled by incompetence, the ultimate price being Kerrys livelihood.

  If Phillip hadnt done what he did, he never would have met Kerry and would never have been so bloody tormented by her memory.

  Yes, but how could he blame Phillip when he was guilty of having looked away when he might have helped? What sort of man was he, then, if he could turn away when Phillip needed him most? Phillip, the one person in
his life who had ever wanted Arthur to lead him, the one person who believed he could lead him. Oh, he had lead him, hadnt heright into his grave.

  Arthur hated who he was, what he had become.

  Would that he had become someone like Kerry.

  Heaven help him, because he could not stop thinking about her or the exquisite sensation of her skin beneath his lips, her body beneath his, the warmth of her womb. He could not stop envisioning her walking across that barley field, her hand trailing along the top of the grass. Nor could he purge even simple memories of her talking gaily with May, her laughter running over them all like sunbeams, dancing to Red Donners fiddle, smiling through her daily visit to the old crone Winifred, or stripping the grain from the barley stalk. He had never known a woman like her, never admired a woman so. Of all the women of the ton whom he had courted or had courted his favor, he had never seen one who possessed a fraction of the natural beauty Kerry possessed.

  Ironic, wasnt it, that she was so unattainable? Kerry hailed from the wrong country, the wrong social strata, the wrong breeding. He might as well set his sights on the fictional moon queen-Kerry was just as elusive.

  And he hated the world for it, hated more the legacy of his birth. He envied the modest and uncomplicated life of Thomas, a hard-working man who had nothing to clutter his mind but the desire to travel and see the world. But Arthur was neither a Scot nor a farmer of any sort. He was the son and brother of one of the most powerful dukes in the realm, hailed from the highest reaches of society, had entry to the most sought-after homes in all the British Isles. He could not, under any circumstance, real or imagined, picture himself in Glenbaden.