by Karen Ranney
Montgomery came out of the distillery, heading directly for her. She wondered if she was to be banished for her curiosity. She clasped her hands in front of her and attempted to smooth her face of any expression.
“You grew up around here,” he said, reaching her.
She nodded.
“What’s the weather like?”
“The weather?” she asked, surprised.
He folded his arms and regarded her with impatience. Was she supposed to just answer his questions as if she were in a schoolroom?
She folded her arms and regarded him just as impassively.
“It rains. When it doesn’t rain, the sun is shining. At night, it’s dark.”
The corner of his mouth quirked, and might have become a smile, but it disappeared too quickly to tell.
“Is it windy?” he asked. “I understand there are periodic gusts.”
“In early spring more than now.”
“The area’s not prone to storms?”
“Periodically,” she said. “Like the one yesterday, but not overly so.”
“What about birds? Have you noticed any odd patterns in their flight?”
“Are you ever going to answer any of my questions, Montgomery?”
When he didn’t answer, she unfolded her arms, frowned at him, and gripped both sides of her skirts.
“No,” she said, a touch of exasperation in her voice, “I’ve never seen any odd patterns in the flights of birds. They simply fly.”
He studied the ground as if he were taking all the information she gave him and putting it into a mental book.
“Why do you want to know? Is it because of your balloon?”
He turned and walked away without answering her.
She followed him to the entrance, but Montgomery only glanced at her as if her presence surprised him.
“What is it, Veronica?” he asked impatiently.
She took a step back. “Nothing, Montgomery. Absolutely nothing.”
He disappeared into the distillery, leaving her standing there.
She turned and began to walk back to Doncaster Hall. The façade in place since the day she became Montgomery Fairfax’s bride was in danger of crumbling. If it did, all her fears would come spilling out to be met, head-on, by all her doubts.
Until that moment, her marriage had had a hint of promise to it. She thoroughly enjoyed the marriage bed, whether or not she was supposed to, and anticipated spending nights in Montgomery’s arms. She’d thought they might be able to establish some sort of relationship, some friendship as well.
Evidently, she’d been thoroughly naïve.
He’d made no secret of wanting to return to Virginia. He wanted to go home. He wanted to surround himself with people who loved him, who understood him. God knows she didn’t understand him, and as far as loving him?
Who could love Montgomery Fairfax? He was arrogant, impossible, secretive, and silent.
Yet didn’t they both want the same things? He wanted to be home, and so did she. She wanted to stay there, in her country, not far from people who’d once known her. She felt tied to the land, to the history, to the people.
She didn’t want to go to Virginia. She’d no wish to travel to America. She didn’t want to be surrounded by strangers. Living with her uncle Bertrand’s family had been bad enough. She’d only met them twice before going to live with them, both events being strained visits between her mother and her brother, and barely tolerated by the two spouses.
When she reached the top of the arched bridge and glanced back, it was to find Montgomery standing in the doorway, watching her. A borrowed Scot, Mr. Kerr had called him.
A man so filled with pain she could feel it even from here.
Chapter 16
You were unkind, Montgomery. Caroline’s voice censured him.
She’d said the same when he’d ignored one of her cousins, a girl with a braying laugh who’d come to spend a few weeks at Gleneagle. He’d found almost any excuse to avoid her. Caroline had had fond hopes, of course, and he’d already warned her about trying to pair him with one of her many female relatives.
The woman he was watching, however, wasn’t one of Caroline’s cousins. Nor did Veronica have a braying laugh. She was, however, stubborn. No doubt a Scots trait. What about her disconcerting ability to disturb him? He suspected that was something only Veronica possessed.
Her eyes were warm, too compassionate and caring. He didn’t believe she could feel his emotions. Yet she always seemed to know when to touch him, when to lend her support.
She surprised him with both her curiosity and her passion. He suspected there’d be no sensual limits between them, and that was an arousing thought, one that momentarily took his mind from the tasks at hand.
He turned, walked back into the distillery, and tried to occupy his mind with something other than his wife. Veronica, however, refused to disappear that easily. She was as determined a ghost as Caroline, for all that Veronica was alive.
He’d have to apologize.
What did he say? That he was as uncertain of himself as he’d ever been? That he felt out of place? He hadn’t yet formulated a goal, a reason for waking every morning.
The only thing in his life that was familiar and comforting was his airship.
Resolutely, he began an inventory of the items being uncrated, pushing thoughts of Veronica away. Thanks to the fortune accompanying the title, he’d had enough money to order items he couldn’t afford since before the war: two envelopes of silk, one in an inverted teardrop, the other in an oval shape, a burner, made in Germany and boasting a paraffin oil reservoir, and three woven basket-like gondolas, two square, and one in a larger rectangular shape.
He’d utilized enough of his own fortune before the war to know how expensive it was to operate an airship. Nor had he flown in one since the War Department disbanded the Balloon Corps.
Six years ago, he’d amused his family with his love of all things aerial. He’d corresponded with the giants in the field and created an area not far from Gleneagle where he experimented with and launched his own design. The day he took Alisdair and James up in a tethered balloon and seen the expressions on their faces was when he knew they’d never ridicule him again.
Nor had they.
Two years later, he was flying high above Confederate forces, using his airship to spy on the enemy. An enemy comprised of his family and friends, people who no longer existed.
If a man lives on through the memories of others, then the whole of his family would perish when he, too, died. There would be no one to remember all his aunts and uncles, his parents, or his brothers. No one who’d known Magnus. No one would remember their names or even that they’d lived in a place called Gleneagle in Fairfax County, Virginia.
He turned to look toward Doncaster Hall again. The house had remained standing for hundreds of years, proof the Lords Fairfax existed, walked the earth. Some of the lords had performed deeds that would be forever remembered. Most simply lived ordinary lives in the house now standing as a monument to their family’s continuation.
Montgomery was one of them now, whether he wished it or not. Even if he returned home, he’d forever be known as the 11th Lord Fairfax.
The future was like a silk envelope before an influx of hot air. Nothing was destined, nothing determined. He might become anyone he wanted. He might be a despot or beloved for his kindness. He might remain aimless or possess a fire for achieving a goal yet unknown.
And happiness? How, then, did he become happy?
No one greeted her as Veronica opened the front door. She regarded the oval staircase in front of her. Such beauty, such magnificence, was wasted on a house built for only one family. Such architectural genius should have been saved for a public building, perhaps. Something that could be viewed by more than just a few people.
Two of the maids nodded to her as she passed. In England, they no doubt would have curtsied to her, at which point she would’ve felt embarrassed and unwort
hy of such obeisance. In Scotland, however, the lowest member of the clan was equal to its chief. Her father had taught her never to look at another human being as if he were subservient.
We are all here to strive and to learn, Veronica, he often said. Some of us are in different stages of our education.
What would he have said of Montgomery? Would he have been angry on her behalf? Or would he, more likely, have counseled patience on her part?
She didn’t feel exceptionally patient at that point. Yet what other option did she have?
“Your Ladyship, you’re back,” Elspeth said, peering around the landing. “Mary said she saw you in the ballroom earlier. I was wondering if you were doing a tour of the house.”
“Only my own,” she said, forcing a smile to her face.
“So Mrs. Brody didn’t take you, then?”
She shook her head.
“You’ll not have seen the secret passages, and the dungeon as well,” Elspeth said, joining her on the stairs.
“Dungeon? You didn’t say anything about a dungeon.”
“I didn’t mention the ghosts, either,” Elspeth said with a twinkle. “A drummer boy plays when anything bad is about to happen to one of the Lords Fairfax. It happened when the 10th Lord died. Granted, he was an old man, but one of the maids heard the drummer, all the same.”
“The very last thing I choose to worry about, Elspeth, is whether or not someone hears the sound of a drum. We’d be in a constant state of alarm.”
Elspeth nodded. “I agree, Your Ladyship. Plus, the girl who heard it was a silly sort anyway.”
“We’ll put off the tour of the secret passages and the dungeon for later,” she said.
“If it’s all the same with you, Your Ladyship, I’d rather not see the dungeon, and the secret passages give me the shivers. The 10th Lord was all for the maids using the passages to go from room to room, but Mrs. Brody put a stop to that when one of the girls forgot how to open the door in the study. You could hear her scream through the whole of Doncaster Hall.”
“Mrs. Brody sounds like an eminently practical woman.”
Perhaps she should emulate the housekeeper and become more practical herself. Dismiss the notion she could feel the emotions of others. Banish the thought, too, that she’d seen anything in Montgomery’s magic mirror.
In the next three hours, she met with the seamstresses and was then given a comprehensive tour of Doncaster Hall, including those rooms she’d already seen. She didn’t mention her earlier explorations. Nor did she tell Mrs. Brody, when the housekeeper asked if the Family Dining Room would be suitable for their dinners, that she was certain Montgomery would avoid her if he could.
From now on, she would either take a tray in her sitting room or do without dinner altogether. Too much pity was, well, simply too much pity.
Three lanterns illuminated the interior of the distillery, with another lantern on each end of his makeshift worktable providing enough light despite the hour.
It’s that damn airship again, James said, repeating a refrain he’d uttered often enough in life.
Montgomery checked the barrel of paraffin oil next to the wall and performed a final inspection of all the empty crates.
I would have thought you’d get bored with that.
He had no intention of arguing with a ghost. James had been an irritant when he was alive. Why should death render him silent?
This time, however, he also heard Alisdair’s comment, one his older brother had made numerous times.
He’ll give it up once the newness wears off.
He thinks he can fly like a bird. James flapped his arms.
“Am I supposed to be amused?”
They never answered him. He’d be shocked if they did. His ghosts were remnants of memory, plucked from the past and set among his present moments. Perhaps his mind did so in an attempt to ease him, to remind him he’d once been surrounded by people so intrusive he’d wished for solitude.
Veronica could soften his loneliness. Veronica, with her ability to make him smile, her surprising passion, and the comfort he found in her arms.
He owed her an apology. Would she see his appearance as that? Or as weakness, that he couldn’t resist her?
Damned if he cared at the moment.
After dinner, Veronica took a bath, dismissed Elspeth, and retired to her sitting room. For long moments, she sat there, trying to calm herself. The emotions coming from others were sometimes easier to decipher than her own feelings. Was she simply angry? Or hurt as well?
Montgomery could touch her, and her will melted. Her body knew his, craved his. Outside their bed, he wanted nothing to do with her. He wouldn’t talk to her, wouldn’t spend any time with her.
She was a wifely concubine.
She stood, walked to the connecting door, and hesitated. Was he inside? She heard no sounds to indicate he’d returned. She opened the door and stared into Montgomery’s room. Being there was, no doubt, violating some marital rule. A wife was not supposed to transgress against her husband’s privacy or dare too much. Theirs was not any ordinary marriage, was it?
Where would he have put the mirror?
She moved to his armoire, feeling a tug of conscience for violating Montgomery’s privacy as she opened the doors. She found the drawstring bag in the bottom of the armoire, grabbed it, and returned to her chamber.
Montgomery was standing in her bedroom.
She took a step back, acknowledgment that he was a formidable man. Not only was he extraordinarily handsome, but he was filled with all sorts of emotions she wished she could understand.
He glanced at the drawstring bag in her hand.
“Should I be surprised that you’ve violated my privacy again?”
“How do you do that? How do you walk so quietly, or enter a room without my hearing you?”
“How do you manage to invade my privacy so often?” he asked, spearing both hands through his hair. “If I give you the damn mirror, will you give me privacy?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“You don’t know? What the hell does that mean?”
“I don’t know what you mean by privacy. Am I to leave you alone all the time? Am I never to talk to you? Am I never to share a meal, a conversation?”
When he didn’t answer her, she looked down at the bag. Was the mirror worth an argument? She should give it back to him, walk away, and pretend they were in perfect accord with each other.
Years of pretense, however, grew tiring.
“Take it,” he said, finally. “It’s little enough payment.”
Stung, she watched as he walked toward her.
“Payment for what?”
“If I want to bed you, I will.”
He pulled the drawstring bag out of her hands and tossed it on her bed. Only then did he grab her hand and pull her back into his room, shutting all the doors and latching the one to the hallway.
“If I want to bed you, I will,” he said again.
“You needn’t pay me for it,” she said.
Beneath the surface of Montgomery’s calm, she could feel the carefully cloaked and civilized rage. She couldn’t reach either his grief or his anger. Something dark lived in Montgomery, something skittering away from the light, and she wasn’t certain she was courageous enough to face it.
What compelled her, then, to place her hands on his face and look up at him? What made her think she might heal him with passion?
His kiss was hard, startling, and hot. He pushed the robe from her shoulders, made an impatient sound against her lips when he encountered the belt. Perhaps she should have said something, but heat crawled up her spine, warmed the icy ball of anxiety in her stomach until she felt as if she were boiling inside.
She gripped his shoulders, then lost that grip when he nearly threw her on the bed.
Quickly, she raised herself on her elbows, watching him, stunned by the speed at which everything was happening. This was not the gentle lover, the man who’d brought h
er such bliss yesterday and the day before. This was a man who scowled at her as he jerked off his clothes, who threw his boots to the other side of the room, barely missing the pier glass. This was a man empowered by an emotion stronger than any she’d ever witnessed.
Her belly clenched as heat filled her.
An instant later, he threw himself on the bed, covering her, ripping the nightgown from her until their skins rubbed against each other.
“Damn it, I need you,” he said, in such a harsh and grating tone she wouldn’t have recognized his voice if she hadn’t been looking at his face. “I need to be in you.”
Her arms locked around his neck, and her mouth answered his assault with one of her own. She inhaled his breath, bit at his lip, heard him swear as he stroked her breast before replacing his hands with his mouth. Her palms pressed against his hollowed cheek as he suckled her.
His fingers, his hands, danced across her body in a furious ballet of passion, measuring the curve of her breasts, the slope of her hips, sliding between her legs to stroke her. He murmured praise as his fingers slid through slick folds, swallowed her soft exclamation, and urged her higher.
They fought with each other and soothed each other. She nibbled at his shoulder; he sucked her nipples. He palmed her wetness; she scraped her nails across his buttocks.
She moaned. He swore.
His fingers were inside her, measuring her response, her willingness, her need. She shivered, and he pressed harder. Not a gentle request but a demand. She willed her eyes to open and watched him watching her.
“I have to be in you,” he said, his voice rough. “Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
Her hips lifted off the bed, and suddenly he was there, filling her. Pleasure wound through her, around her, laced her to this man, this act, this fierce joy.
Gripping his hips, she demanded a rhythm of him, set him into motion like a pendulum while he kissed her breathless. She bucked again, her whole body pressing up to take more of him. Greedy, she wanted more. She wanted everything.
Shuddering, she watched the shimmer of pleasure wash over his face as his eyes closed, and his throat arched. He tensed and held himself tight, pouring himself into her.
