With a flourish, she tossed the shawl around her neck and turned away, prepared to stomp back to her bedchamber or the wine cellar, or anywhere Hadden Fairchild was not.
She found herself facing Sima. Sima, who had taught her everything about hospitality and manners and now shook such a stern finger that Andra found herself cowed. Reluctantly obeying that mute and powerful mandate, Andra turned back to her company, expecting to see Hadden grinning at Sima, wordlessly thanking her for making Andra submit to courtesy’s demand. But he was not grinning, and he certainly was not looking at Sima. His attention remained fixed on Andra, like a man-wolf who scented his mate.
But just because her body recognized and welcomed him on a primal level, that did not mean she was his mate. This softness, this trembling, this desire to run to his arms and seek shelter there—these were nothing more than a wee bit of weakness at the sight of the man who had taught her passion. Never mind that he wordlessly commanded her; Andra MacNachtan was no one’s fool, and she would not obey.
Shaking off her lassitude, she spoke, her voice weighted with insincerity. “Mr. Fairchild, how pleasant to have you visit us again. What brings you back to my corner of the Highlands, and so soon after your last visit?”
He straightened up, away from the mantel, and took a step toward her. “You lied to me.”
His blunt accusation shook her. Of course she had; it had been a matter of self-preservation. But how had he discovered it? “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the marriage kilt.”
Hidden in the folds of her skirt, her hands clenched, then relaxed. “The marriage kilt. The MacNachtans’ marriage kilt?”
“Do you know of another?”
“No,” she said reluctantly.
“And there is one?”
With even greater reluctance, she admitted, “Aye.”
“Would you tell me why, when you knew I came on Lady Valéry’s behest to gather the traditions of Scotland and record them, you failed to tell me about the marriage kilt?” He walked toward her on silent feet, his shadow falling on her, the smoke of the fire chasing after him as if it wished to caress him. “You told me about the stone on the hill, reputed to be placed by giants, and about the wishing well from whence the ghosts rise on All Hallows’ Eve—things so common to Scotland, they were not worth writing down. But the marriage kilt—you said nothing of that.”
Of course she had said nothing. The four days he’d spent with her had been a time set aside from reality and duty. For four brief, enchanted days, she had cared little about shouldering her duties as a true leader of her people should. She had cared only about Hadden and the way he made her feel.
Not love; she knew about love. That was what she had felt for her uncle before he’d been put to the horn, and her father and her brother before they’d fled to America, and her mother before she’d died of grief.
This had been a different kind of emotion—carefree, full of laughter and unexpected passion. She hadn’t cared that he would inevitably walk away; she had only cared about grasping one perfect moment before it was too late and she died an old maid worn down by her burdens.
“The marriage kilt?” he prompted.
She lifted her chin and looked at him. He stood too closely. She could see each strand of his hair, trimmed and combed and damp, smell the scent of heather and leather and soap, sense his outrage fed by the need for her that smoldered in him. Every hair on her skin lifted, but she wouldn’t step away, and she dared not look away. She didn’t remember him being so tall, and she had never thought she would be afraid of him.
But she was.
“I didn’t remember it.” A lie.
Which he recognized. “You didn’t remember it,” he repeated. “You didn’t remember the pride of the MacNachtans.”
“No.” Another lie, but better to tell a lie than to acknowledge her own skittish decision to never think about marriage, mention marriage, and, most especially, not to dream about marriage and how it would be to share her life with one man who would be there for her forever . . . or until another vista beckoned. “Why would I remember that old thing? It’s hidden in a trunk somewhere, and I never think of it.”
“Lady Valéry said the MacNachtans drag it out to show all their guests.”
“I don’t.” It would have been better if she could have held his gaze. But the blue flame in his eyes scorched her, and her nerve broke. She looked off to the side.
“Coward.” He only breathed the word.
Yet she heard. She heard everything he said, but she could not hear everything he thought. They were not so attuned as that. She would not allow it to be so.
The silence mounted as she watched his hand rise from his side toward her. Toward her face, there to stroke her cheek as he had loved to do. His outstretched fingers quivered as if he fought the need to touch her. Fought it as much as she fought the need to be touched.
A footstep outside the doorway made them spring apart, and Sima bustled into the chamber followed by two beaming maids. One carried a steaming tureen of soup, the other a basket with the promised potato scones. The maids placed the food in the center of the small, round table while Sima took in the scene at a glance. Andra thought she heard a small huff of exasperation before the housekeeper burst into speech. “Sit ye both down and eat yer fill o’ me fine cock-a-leekie soup. ’Tis a long time until mornin’, and a fair climb t’ the top o’ the tower.”
Startled, Andra asked, “The tower? Why the tower?”
“Why, that’s where th’ marriage kilt is.”
“Been listening at the door again?” Andra asked.
“Not at all,” Sima said in lofty disdain. “Mr. Hadden talks t’ me, and he told me why he had come. Shocked, pure shocked I was that ye hadn’t shown him before.”
Shocked. Nothing had shocked Sima for years. But on his first visit, she’d made her allegiance to Hadden clear. That could have been because he deliberately set out to enchant her, and every other female on the estate.
“I like women,” he said. “Especially strong, capable women. My sister is like that. Lady Valéry is like that. And you, Lady Andra . . . you’re like that”
“Sturdy, that’s me,” she answered with all the cheer she’d taught herself.
“Sturdy? Not at all.” His gaze ran over her with the care of a connoisseur. “You look almost fragile.”
Sima interrupted with all the presumption of which she was capable. “She works too hard. She needs a man.”
Andra could scarcely contain her horror. “Sima!”
Hadden had only grinned at her. “A man to take care of her and do the heavy work. I couldn’t agree more.”
After that, Sima had cared not that he was a foreigner. She, and every other foolish maid, had been vocal in their adoration.
So when Andra had sent him away, Sima had been equally vocal with her opinion of Andra’s poor sense and unfeeling heart, and she dared insinuate that Andra used her indifference to hide a weakness.
Foolishness, of course. Andra was strong. Self-sufficient. In need of no one. No one.
“I also told him that ye had no bairn on the way. He seemed more than a wee bit concerned about that.” Smirking, Sima watched as color scorched Andra inside and out. “Although why he should be when ye’re not wed is beyond this auld woman’s understandin’.”
Beyond her underapproaching, indeed. Sima understood human nature and needs with an almost fey comprehension, and Andra had no doubt the old woman was mixing a witch’s brew with her crooked finger. Only Andra couldn’t quite comprehend the plot. Thinking of the rickety stairway that circled around and around; the trapdoor in the floor; the big, dusty room with its windows so dirty they almost didn’t allow any light in, she asked suspiciously, “Why the tower?”
“I’ve been worried about the effect of dampness on the old things.” Sima pulled the high-backed, armed, and cushioned chair away from the table.
Andra took a step toward it.
<
br /> “Mr. Hadden, you sit here,” Sima instructed.
Andra stopped and watched, tense with resentment. Before, he had always insisted she take the master’s chair. He’d held it for her, seating her first with charm and courtesy. Now he accepted Sima’s homage with all the presumption of a noble, long-lost divinity, and seated himself with only a terse word of thanks to the manipulative old beldam.
And Sima beamed as she pulled out the other, less formal, and quite armless chair. “Sit ye here, dearie, and rest yer tired feet. She’s been workin’, Mr. Hadden, way too hard since ye left. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she missed ye.”
Without missing a beat, she continued, “Mistress, the tower’s dry, ye must admit; ye can see for miles, and there’s a good cross-breeze when the windows are open.”
Torn between chagrin and gratitude, Andra seated herself, “Do you think the kilt is admiring the view?”
As Sima patted her arm, she also plucked Andra’s shawl from her shoulders. “Ah, a witty tongue she has, isn’t it, Mr. Hadden?”
“I have cherished her—” his gaze ran over her bosom, now exposed by the low neckline, “—wit.”
Andra leaned forward, a hot retort on her lips.
Sima’s fingers grew suddenly tight. She shoved Andra against the chair back and burst into speech. “Me and the lasses have been doing spring cleanin’ these fast few days. ’Tis spring, ye ken, and a guid time to be cleanin’. So we aired the linens and dusted the mementos and rearranged everything in the trunks, and we put the kilt up there, too.” She nodded at one of the maids, who filled the bowls and placed one in front of Hadden and one in front of Andra. “Ye’ll want t’ have a full stomach fer yer adventure.”
Andra touched her forehead. She didn’t remember a time when Sima had chattered so. It must be Hadden’s influence; another catastrophe she could put on his doorstep.
“She’s lost weight.” Hadden spoke to Sima, but there could be no doubt he spoke of Andra; his gaze battered her across the stifling intimacy of the shrinking table.
“Aye; with one eye closed, she looks like a needle,” Sima answered, showing her treasonous willingness to speak of Andra as if she weren’t even present. “She hasn’t been eating as she should.”
“Why do you suppose that is?” he wondered.
“I’ve been busy,” Andra said.
“She’s been pining,” Sima answered at the same time.
Fed up to the gills with Sima and her stupid notion that a woman needed a man to make her whole, Andra snapped, “Leave us to eat in peace.”
“O’ course, mistress.”
Sima curtsied, the maids curtsied, and they whisked themselves out so quickly Andra had the definite feeling she’d lost that round. But how could she win, she wondered morosely, when everyone in the castle clearly thought their mistress was daft?
“Eat your soup,” Hadden commanded, as much at home playing imperious master as he had been playing captivating guest.
She wanted to answer that she wasn’t hungry, but for the first time in two months, she was. Ravenously, voraciously hungry, her body demanding sustenance after a famine. As she picked up her spoon, she skidded a glance at Hadden. Having him back had released one appetite—God help her if it released another.
Wisely he kept his gaze on his own bowl and refrained from commenting on her avid consumption of the flavorful soup. Yet somehow he watched her, for he passed the scones whenever she finished one until she could eat no more. Then he put down his spoon.
“You’ll take me to the tower now.”
She leaned back in her chair. “What makes you think you can command me in such a tone?”
“The food put new spirit in you,” he said. “Something you needed no more of. Yes, I do command you to take me to the tower. You owe me that, at least, Andra.”
“I owe you nothing!”
His hand came down over hers where it rested on the table, and when she tried to jerk back, he tightened his grip. “Yes, you do. Remember what you said to me when you sent me away? That I’d forget you as soon as you were out of my sight? Well, I haven’t. I think of you, I dream of you, I thirst for you—and if all I can get from you is a chapter in my treatise, then I will take that and live off of it until I die.”
His palm was rough over the top of hers and blisteringly warm . . . just like the rest of him. She remembered his warmth, moving beneath her, thrusting above her, and the memory made her capitulate.
She would do anything to make him let her go. As she rose, his hand again tightened on hers. Until she said, “Come, then. I’ll take you to the tower.”
Three
Hadden could scarcely contain his rage as he followed Andra up the dim and winding staircase to the tower. The woman had had him in turmoil for two bloody months, and now she had the nerve to walk ahead of him up the narrow, rickety steps, tormenting him with the sway of her hips. How much of this mindless teasing was a man expected to bear?
If only it weren’t mindless. If only she were teasing him on purpose, enticing him into her arms. But she wasn’t. She wanted him to go away.
She’d sent him away.
The first time he’d seen her, she’d been standing in the stream, skirts tied up, laughing at the antics of the sheep that struggled to escape their yearly dunking. She had been handsome and carefree, the symbol of springtime in Scotland and everything he’d ever wanted.
He had just come from London, where he’d been hunted for his fortune, noble background and blond good looks, and there he’d grown to despise those jaded souls who would do anything, however dishonorable, for their own pleasure. Despite the tightening in his groin and the craving that coursed through his veins, he resolved he would not debauch a Scottish peasant maiden who might not dare to reject a wealthy English nobleman. That would be the act of a cad.
But when he’d discovered she was the woman Lady Valéry had sent him to meet, principle went out the window.
However, Hadden had never seen a woman work so doggedly, without stopping, as if the perpetuity of her people depended on her and her alone.
Which, apparently, it did. She supervised the washing of the sheep, consulted with the shepherds, encouraged the women who baled the wool, spoke with the men who would transport it to market, discussed with her weavers how much was needed for their own purposes. All this while caring for her household and servants and treating him with grace and hospitality.
She liked him; he knew she did. Indeed, when a Fairchild went out of his way to make himself attractive, there were few women who could resist him. And Hadden had the added advantage of being able to help with Andra’s burdens, for, unlike most Fairchilds, he was competent and not afraid of hard work. But of what purpose were charm, good looks, and ability if the lady he desired could not find the time to be enticed?
Thus, on his third day at Castle MacNachtan, he arranged with her people to take Lady Andra away from the drudgery that was her life. As she stood in the stableyard, and with the assistance of every able-bodied man at MacNachtan, he lifted her before him on the saddle and kidnapped her for just one day while she laughed and protested that she had work to do.
But she didn’t protest too hard. Once away from the duties that had bound her, she had helped him devour the food and drink Sima had packed for them. She’d held his hand as they wandered the hills, picking flowers. She listened with gladness as he sang the old Scottish tunes. She’d been silent and listened to the wind as it whistled through the crags.
When the afternoon had waned and they had started back, she turned in the saddle and kissed him. Mashed his lips, actually, until he stopped his horse and taught her better. Taught her to slow down, taught the pleasures of taste, taught her how to open her mouth and slide her tongue alongside his.
Hadden halted on the stairway behind Andra and put his hand to the wall to steady himself. The memory of that kissing sent his blood surging. The horse had moved restively between his legs, she had lain across his lap, pressed to h
is loins, and he’d been in a fever to take her. At once. Everything in him had clamored to claim this woman.
Even now, here on the uncomfortable and perilous tower stairs, he knew that if she gave him one smidgen of encouragement, he would throw her skirts up and bury himself inside her. Yet she gave him no encouragement. She didn’t even realize Hadden had stopped. She continued to climb the stairs, and Hadden continued to watch her with rapacious intent, brooding about that afternoon and the hot, vibrant excitement of their first kiss.
He hadn’t seized the chance to take her then. Painstakingly, he had righted her, and they had ridden back to Castle MacNachtan. The memory of his own restraint infuriated him now, although later, when she had crept into his bed and shyly, daintily debauched him as only a virgin could do, he had thought he’d won all. He’d been triumphant, silly in love, convinced he had just waged the most successful campaign he had ever waged for a woman’s heart, for it was the only important campaign he had waged for a woman’s heart.
And in the end, she’d rejected him.
“I never meant . . . you can’t . . . I can’t marry you.” She snatched up the corner of the wool blanket, covered herself, and crawled across the mattress away from him as if he’d threatened to harm her. “Why would you ask such a thing?”
He was as stunned as if she’d brought out an axe and tried to put it through his skull. “I’ve been courting you. You’ve been responding. Last night, you came to me.” He gestured around at the archaic, curtained bed that had witnessed the sweetest, most gentle and tremulous loving he’d ever experienced. “My God, you were a virgin. Of course I want to marry you!”
She stopped sliding away and leaned toward him, a vision of tumbled hair and swollen lips. “Because 1 was a virgin. Well, let me tell you—”
Scottish Brides Page 2
