Heather and Velvet

by Teresa Medeiros

  He gazed at their interlaced fingers as if hypnotized. “Mmm?”

  “Are there other ways to make love without making babies?”

  Sebastian’s breath caught in his throat as he stared down at her, lost in the curious brilliance of her eyes. “Aye.”

  She eased the tip of his thumb between her lips. “Show me.”

  His resistance melted beneath the sleek, wet heat of her mouth. Groaning hoarsely, he tangled his hand in her hair, forgetting MacKay, forgetting everything but the temptation to play with abandon at the game they had created.

  Rosy shafts of late-afternoon sunlight pierced the arrow slits in the hall. Holding her breath, Prudence eased herself from beneath the weight of Sebastian’s thigh.

  His long fingers wound in her hair. “Going somewhere, Duchess?”

  She winced. Didn’t the man ever sleep? She rested her fingertips lightly on his chest. “I’m parched. Would you care for some ale?”

  He twirled a strand of hair around his finger. “We shouldn’t have sent Jamie away. He could have fetched ale and dropped grapes in our mouths.”

  “He already believes himself a slave. We mustn’t humor his delusions.” She wiggled out of his grasp, tucking a blanket under her arms.

  Sebastian’s gaze swept her from head to toe as she rescued the flagon of ale they had left warming on the hearth. His lazy grin disarmed her. “Decadence becomes you, Miss Walker.”

  She curtsied, holding the blanket high enough to show off her shapely calves. “Thank you, my lord. I’ve been practicing.”

  She twirled away from him and knelt by the hearth, her motions hidden by the folds of the blanket. Her hands were oddly steady, she noticed, as she splashed ale in a goblet, then twisted the lid off the tiny vial she had slipped from her trunk earlier. She dared a glance over her shoulder. Sebastian sprawled on the blankets like a contented satyr, a swath of wool riding low on his hips. A flush of satiation touched his cheekbones. Decadence also became him, she thought. Too well for her peace of mind.

  Five. Ten. Fifteen drops. She paused, then tilted in two extra drops of the laudanum. Sebastian’s frame was much larger than Tricia’s.

  Her hands did not falter until she knelt beside him and pressed the goblet into his hand. It swayed, dribbling ale in the sandy hair scattered across his chest. She inclined her head to hide her burning cheeks and dabbed at his chest with a strand of her hair.

  He drank deeply. “Mmm. Hot and sweet.” His eyes studied her with smoky intensity. “Like you.” He cupped her nape and drew her down for a long, wet, open-mouthed kiss.

  Prudence wanted to weep. Not sweet, she thought. Bittersweet. She slid down, resting her cheek against the fleecy warmth of his chest. His hand stroked her hair, then fell still. His fingers uncurled against her cheek. When she had measured the rise and fall of his chest for several heartbeats, she rose, dressed quickly, and slipped out into the misty Highland gloaming.

  The sinking sun had streaked the sky with pink. As Prudence left the path, her skirt caught on the thorny spines of a hawthorn bush. She jerked it free, ripping a jagged swath from the faded velvet. She had no way of knowing how long Sebastian would sleep. If he awoke before she returned, she would have more than explaining to do.

  The sky deepened to lavender as she plunged through a burn swollen from the melting snows. Icy water plastered her skirts to her ankles. A chill nipped the air, drying the sweat at the nape of her neck. She climbed the rocks on the opposite bank, tearing her fingernails on their jagged faces.

  She paused to catch her breath. Bowls of mist melted over the glen. The trembling boughs of the birches seemed to mock her. She pulled her shawl up over her hair and darted into the waiting arms of the forest.

  A strand of pines streamed past in a blur. She pounded the rich earth beneath her slippers, stumbling only when the rocks bruised her tender soles. A hot blade of pain stabbed beneath her ribs, and she bent double, grasping her side. The agony slowly abated. Her vision cleared. She blinked, believing her bleary eyes deceived her. She wished she had thought to bring her spectacles.

  Silhouetted against the darkening sky was a castle of legendary splendor. As she crept nearer, she expected to hear the skirl of bagpipes or see kilted men-at-arms rush out to raise the drawbridge. Only the neatly clipped topiary and mullioned windows assured her she hadn’t stumbled through some portal in time. She hastened her steps. This was no time for dallying. She had to reach MacKay before Sebastian did, to warn him that she hadn’t yet been able to soften Sebastian’s heart toward him.

  She pounded on the iron-bound door with her fist, bracing herself to meet the shocked gaze of a proper English butler. The door was snatched open and a strong hand jerked her into the shadowy entrance hall. She gasped as brutal fingers tore the shawl from her hair.

  She gazed upward into a face alight with some unnamed emotion. As MacKay’s gaze traveled her features, the brilliance in his slate-colored eyes slowly dimmed. He let her go. His color was pasty in the candlelight and sweat tinged his brow. She could smell the staleness of whisky on his breath.

  “Sweet Lord, child, I’m sorry. For a moment I thought …” He passed a trembling hand over his face.

  “That I was her?” she asked softly. “That I was Sebastian’s mother?”

  MacKay would not look at her.

  But Prudence’s curiosity was unrelenting. “She came to you, didn’t she? Out of the night. Out of the mist.”

  MacKay ran a hand through his hair. His broad shoulders were stooped as he ushered Prudence through a doorway beamed with crude timber into a study in cozy disarray. A fire crackled on the stone hearth, holding the darkness at bay. Oil lamps scattered pools of light across the polished wood floors. A virginal sat in one corner, its keys furred with dust.

  MacKay sank down in an overstuffed chair, hugging his plaid around his shoulders like a shawl. A plump white cat twined between his ankles. He absently scratched behind her ears with his gnarled knuckles. Prudence sat on the edge of the settee, sensing MacKay needed her silence more than her questions.

  He poured himself a tumbler of Scotch and lifted it to his lips with a shaking hand. “Seeing you and the lad together today brought back so many memories.”

  “You saw us?”

  “Briefly. I’ve never been so close to him. It was as if I could just walk up and …” He fixed his eyes on her. The whisky had burned some of the sharpness back into them. “Sebastian’s mother did come to me. Much as you did tonight.”

  “To beg for your help?”

  His even tone shamed her. “If she had asked for my help, do you think I would have denied her?”

  Prudence stared into her lap.

  MacKay continued, his words dispassionate. “Ours was an arranged marriage. D’Artan sent her here a few months before the ceremony so she could get to know me and my family. She was little more than a child—huge eyes in a gamin face. My father was already ailing, but my mother adored her.”

  “As did you.” It was not a question.

  MacKay gazed into his glass. “She fought so hard to hide her fear. She was sweet and brave and funny. And, oh, so tempting. I thought it best to put some distance between us before the wedding. I was in Greece when she was abducted. It took them months to find me.”

  “Why didn’t the law do anything?”

  The look in his eyes chilled Prudence. “With my father ill, I was the law. I was in this very room loading my pistols to go after her when she came pounding at the door. To tell me she had fallen in love with Brendan Kerr. To beg me not to intervene. To show me she was already with child—his child.”

  “What did you do?”

  “What could I do? I went a little mad inside. Then I let her go. I let her walk right back into that misty night. Oh, I saw her after that. On the mountain. In the village. But I always cut her coldly, turned away. I also saw the way she wore her shawl pulled up over her face, the bruises on her ankles, the welts on her wrists …”

  Prudence
poured herself a shot of Scotch and downed it in one swig, welcoming the raw path it burned along her throat.

  The cat jumped into MacKay’s lap and began to knead his kilt with her claws. “But even then my poor wounded pride wouldn’t admit that she had lied to me.” He lifted his tumbler in a bleak toast. “My godforsaken pride.”

  Prudence knelt beside him and put a gentle hand on his knee. “Come with me to Dunkirk. Tell Sebastian what you just told me. He believes you abandoned his mother. That you never even tried to help her. Perhaps if you tell him, he’ll understand.”

  MacKay’s red-rimmed eyes focused on her. “How can I make him understand when I don’t?” He shook his head. “No, lass. ’Tis far too late for me. But not for you.”

  He stood and shuffled over to a large desk, his steps weighted by the liquor. He pulled a sheaf of vellum from one of the cubbyholes and held it out to her. “The lad’s pardon. He’ll be expected in London in two weeks to testify against his grandfather before the House of Lords.”

  She touched the rich paper as if it might burn her. “I wanted you to hide it,” she confessed. “But Sebastian’s been a prisoner long enough. Tonight I’ll give him his pardon. Even if he chooses to be rid of me, at least he’ll be free.”

  MacKay cupped her cheek with a trembling hand. Prudence hadn’t seen a mirror since she’d left Edinburgh. She had no inkling of her own transformation beneath the wild, loving caress of both Sebastian and the Highlands. Her hair hung soft and loose down her back. Misty air and hard work had flushed her fair skin with good health. The wind had put a new sparkle in her violet eyes.

  MacKay’s fingers steadied. “He’s a lucky man. You’ve finally become as beautiful as your aunt always feared you would be.”

  Prudence plucked a cat hair from his plaid. She despised leaving him alone steeped in guilt and solitude. She wanted to share with him the hope beating in her heart, the joy stirring despite her fear. Beneath his questioning gaze, she went to the desk, uncapped an inkwell, and scribbled something on a card. She pressed it into his hand, then stood on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear.

  His weathered face cracked in a smile. “An excellent suggestion. I shall send for my seamstress tonight.”

  Prudence tucked the pardon in her shawl. MacKay draped the cat over one arm and followed her to the door. She paused. “Tell me, Laird MacKay,” she said solemnly, “did you offer for my hand just to save Sebastian, or were you really willing to marry me?”

  The cat’s gray-green eyes surveyed Prudence unblinkingly. MacKay inclined his head. “Bella and I could have found a place for you in our hearts, had you chosen to stay.”

  She gave his hand a hard squeeze, then started across the lawn at a run. MacKay watched until she was only a shadowy wraith among the trees, then buried his face in Bella’s fur.

  Prudence pelted through the trees, praying she would not lose her way. Moonlight dappled the forest floor, sheening off rocks and ferns. A blinking vole scurried out of her path as she rushed on, afraid but unable to squelch the hope that sang with each shuddering breath. She clutched Sebastian’s pardon to her breast. Even when she tripped and fell flat, she kept her palm curled around it. As she scrambled to her feet, her shawl caught on a branch and fell away.

  She burst out of the woods into a meadow. The swollen moon laved the grasses with silver. A red deer lifted his head from a gurgling stream, his brown eyes knowing and passive, as if wild-eyed English girls plunged through his meadow every night.

  Stars winked to life like icy shards against an inky pelt. They looked so near, Prudence would have sworn she could reach out and capture a handful. The land shifted, steepening beneath her feet. The mist curled damp fingers around her skin. Even it seemed welcoming now, like cool clouds banked at the peaks of heaven. She was going home. Home to Dunkirk. Home to Sebastian.

  She stumbled into the courtyard, then stilled her headlong flight. Dread quickened her pulse and slowed her breathing.

  A solitary light burned in the window of the tower.

  The light was an ugly flare against the darkness, as piercing and relentless as a blade through the soft underbelly of the night.

  She staggered forward, then stopped again, teetering on the brink of the ugly gash in the earth where Sebastian’s coffer had once been buried.

  Thirty-one

  The leather-bound coffer lay on its side like a wounded creature. Shovel marks gouged the hinges and splintered the panels. The crude lock had been shattered as if by one blow of rage. Or one clean pistol shot. Prudence knew if she had any wits left about her, she would turn around and march straight back to England.

  Something stopped her, though. Staring up at the tower, she took one step, then another, hypnotized by the paralyzing inevitability of that light. It profaned the darkness, scarred the beauty of the night, burned her hope to ashes. The main door was partly ajar. She slipped through the crack, holding her breath.

  The signs of their lovemaking were scattered across the hall—the rumpled blankets, the dying embers on the grate, the flagon overturned in a puddle of ale. Those warm, rosy hours might have been a lifetime ago. Sebastian-cat was draped across the warm stones of the hearth. He lifted his head in drowsy curiosity.

  Prudence’s gaze traveled upward to the spill of light on the landing. It beckoned her forward, melted the stairs beneath her feet.

  She stepped into the light, crumpling the pardon in her hand.

  Sebastian sat with his hip propped against the windowsill, his back to her. He swung around as she stepped through the doorway. For an instant, the eerie reflection of another man shaded the planes of his face. Then it was gone, nothing more than a trick of the light.

  He held out his hand with a mocking smile. River rock streamed through his fingers, crumbling to dust as it struck the floor. “Our future together, my dear.”

  Prudence steadied her voice with effort. “A future should be built on more than rocks … or gold.”

  “Spoken like a true optimist.” He stood, wiping off his hands. “It all comes to the same end, doesn’t it? As do we.”

  “Spoken like a true fatalist.”

  “Or a realist.”

  The torchlight brushed his tousled hair with gold. He walked toward her with lazy grace, his movements slowed but efficient. The laudanum, she thought. His gray eyes were as piercing as the light.

  “That’s right, dear,” he said, seeming to read her mind. “I fear you miscalculated. Such a minute amount of laudanum only makes me tipsy. When we lived in Paris, my grandfather used to feed me opium as if it were candy.”

  She quailed before the knowledge of such decadence, such heartless corruption, and kept her eyes lowered, knowing her sympathy would only bait him.

  He reached around her and pushed the door shut. “Where have you been, my Prudence? Were you off having tea with your fiancé?” He stood directly in front of her, his breath a whisper of warmth against her temple.

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I shouldn’t have drugged you. It was wrong.”

  “Au contraire, ma chérie.” His voice was musing, almost gentle. “It was brilliant. Have I ever told you how very much I admire your mind?” His hands twined through her hair, cupping her skull. She closed her eyes against the power restrained in his elegant fingers. “Even when you betrayed me to Tugbert, a tiny part of me stood back and cried, ‘Bravo! What a canny lass she is! What wit! What courage! She sees what must be done and she does it.’ ”

  Her eyes flew open. She tried to twist out of his grasp, but his fingers tightened in her hair. “Stop making sport of me!”

  He blinked in childish innocence. “I haven’t the wit. You must remember I’m only an ignorant Highlander. I didn’t even learn to read or write until I was almost twenty. And I’ve never learned to spell.” He pressed his lips to her hair and whispered, “I find your brilliance exotic … and erotic.” His tongue flicked across her ear, scorching her like a live flame. “The gold, Prudence. Where is it? Did you give it to
MacKay? Or have you another swain in the wings? Prime Minister Pitt, perhaps? The governor general?”

  She stared at his chest, her wit working sluggishly at best with his mouth so sweet against her hair, his thigh flexed so casually between her legs. He might still be harboring the idea that she had hidden the gold to spite him. What would he do to her when he discovered it was lost forever?

  “Gold?” she said brightly. “What gold?”

  Sebastian did not dignify that with an answer. His lips grazed the fluttering pulse at the hollow of her throat. She could not abide his fraudulent tenderness when she could feel the raw anger boiling through him, the relentless nudge of his knee between her thighs.

  She shoved at his chest. “Oh, for God’s sake, stop torturing me! I gave your precious gold to the poor children in Jamie’s village. I was sick of you using me to further your greedy ambitions. I gave it away and I’m glad I did. I’d do it again if I had the chance.”

  She faced him, her chin tilted in defiance. Her nose betrayed her with a nervous sniff.

  Sebastian went utterly still. A muffled snort escaped him, then another. She stepped forward in alarm, fearful his rage might be choking him. He waved her away as a raw whoop of laughter burst from his throat. He stumbled over to lean against the bedpost, clutching his stomach. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

  She backed against the door. Had the laudanum unhinged him? She had read of such things. Perhaps the shock had been too great.

  “How rich,” he gasped. “How very fitting. All the spoils of years of highway robbery given to the needy. I’d be willing to bet you and MacKay had a good laugh over that one.” He swiped a hand over his face. “It seems I’m back where I began. At Dunkirk. With nothing but the clothes on my back.”

  And me. She longed to say the words aloud. But if he started laughing again, she knew the tears stinging at the back of her eyes would spill over. Her fingers knotted. Paper crinkled. She stared down at her hand, remembering the pardon for the first time.