She hadn't loaded his pistol yesterday, either.
It was, of course, the heat he sensed in her today that did it. Jake did like his women with some sizzle to them.
Again, his conscience gave him a rap on the skull. She's married, Delaney. What's wrong with you?
Giving his head a quick shake, he pushed to his feet. "I reckon I'll see to breakfast now."
She didn't rise, but simply flashed him a brilliant—and relieved—smile. "Be certain to sample Mrs. Ferguson's haggis. It is a prize-winning recipe."
"So I've been told."
He was halfway back to the dining room when the drawing room door closed and he heard the snick of a lock. Hmm. Friendly one minute, ill-tempered the next. Maybe that has something to do with the pregnancy.
In the dining room, Jake headed for the buffet. He lifted a fancy, blue china plate from a stack and began to pile it high with Texas-size portions of scrambled eggs, ham, stewed pears—he'd been wrong about the apples—and haggis, which experience had shown him tasted like a dully spiced sausage. He skipped the porridge and black pudding, and added an Arbroath smokie as recommended by the cook. Jake liked this Scottish custom of having fish with breakfast.
His plate filled to near overflowing, he reached for one last item, a roll. But the basket moved.
Jake blinked, certain he had imagined the movement. Once again, he reached for the bread.
Once again, the basket moved.
What the...?
Abruptly, he grabbed for the basket. This time, his fingers brushed the straw before the basket scooted beyond his reach. He set down his plate, torn between annoyance and anticipation. Obviously, his "ghost" was up to her tricks once more. Unless, of course, these hijinks were the effort of Mrs. Dunbar's brownie and Jake didn't much believe that.
Shoot, he would suspect Mrs. Dunbar of being the culprit had last's night's seductive shade not proven beyond a shadow of doubt that she was not far gone with child. However, someone was making this breadbasket dance.
Jake stood still as a fence post, visually examining the sideboard for sign of a line, which was the most obvious explanation for the shenanigans. He saw nothing, but then a dark thread against the dark wood would be difficult to spot. "You know," he said aloud. "This effort is juvenile compared to last night's."
At that, the basket jerked and slid completely off the cabinet, sending rolls tumbling onto the floor. Jake tucked his tongue firmly in his cheek and said, "Yes, flying bread is definitely amateurish. Now, the naked bosom showed promise. Among other things." As he spoke, he bent and picked up the basket, fully expecting to find a thread attached to it.
He didn't.
"Well, well, well. Maybe you're a better mischief-maker than I thought."
Five minutes later, breakfast forgotten in the wake of the intriguing mystery, he lay on his back halfway beneath the sideboard, studying the bottom of the furniture. Hearing footsteps, he twisted his head to see the swish of lavender skirts revealing a pair of trim, graceful ankles. And, to his masculine dismay, a pair of shoes.
"Mr. Delaney," came his hostess' censuring voice. "I realize that Texas has a reputation for being less civilized than other parts of the world, but you should know that here in Scotland we take our meals from a table rather than the floor."
Some things Jake simply wouldn't listen to, and criticism of his home was near the top of his list. "Oh, I'm not down here eating, ma'am," he drawled, looking to turn the tables, so to speak, as he scooted out from underneath the cabinet. "I was looking for a likely spot to stash my gum, except somebody beat me to it. I see a dozen wads or more down here already."
"Gum?"
"Chewing gum."
"Chewing gum?" Fire lit her eyes.
Jake bit back a grin. "Sticky stuff, that gum."
He wouldn't have been surprised to see steam rising from her ears. "I'm going to wring Robbie's neck."
Then, while Jake climbed to his feet, to his surprise, the very pregnant woman dropped down onto her hands and knees. "Uncle Angus's, too," she muttered.
Jake's mouth dropped open in shock and a fair measure of horror when she compounded her folly by lying on her stomach—on her stomach!—and sticking her head beneath the sideboard to confirm his claim. "I rue the day my grand-uncle introduced the child to that nasty habit. Chewing gum on a Sheraton sideboard. The girl is—"
"Mrs. Dunbar, please! I don't think it's a good idea for you to be down on the floor like drat in your condition."
"—such a trial. Oh!" She broke off abruptly. "Aye. My condition." Then, with a grace that belied her advanced state of ripeness, she scrambled to her feet. Her cheeks were once again stained a bright red. Failing to meet Jake's horrified gaze, she started for the door, murmuring absently, "Excuse me, Mr. Delaney. I have a lass to locate. Enjoy your breakfast."
Then she was gone and Jake was left staring after her, his arms folded and his eyes narrowed to slits.
Damned if in the past couple of minutes, Mrs. Dunbar's baby hadn't dropped.
Chapter 3
Darting back into the drawing room, Gillian went straight to the hidden passageway she'd so recently "haunted," and disappeared inside. In the narrow, airless corridor, she paused long enough to tug the stuffed corset she'd fashioned to assist in her masquerade back into position before setting off in search of her younger sister.
She hurriedly made the long climb up to Uncle Angus's suite of rooms where, when her grand-uncle felt up to the task, the child was directed to spend time each morning in educational pursuit. She found the elderly Scotsman asleep and Robyn nowhere to be found.
Next Gillian checked Robyn's favorite hiding place in the passages—a former dungeon she'd transformed into a "treasure room." After that, she made the trek to the playroom off the girl's bedchamber and finally, headed for the muniment room in the older section of the castle. As she marched down the hallway, the clash of a sword against stone told her she'd finally run her quarry to ground.
The scolding tones of Flora's voice filtering to her ears indicated she had not been the only one looking for Robbie.
"... at this rate you'll never learn your Latin."
"So?" Robbie shook her shoulders. "I dinna care to learn Latin. I wish to learn languages people still speak so when I grow up I can go exploring like Nicholas and Uncle Angus."
"That gum-chewing scoundrel," commented Gillian as she swept into the room to see her twin and younger sister squared off on opposite sides of a table. Robyn clasped a sword in her right hand while the left rearranged the metal body parts lying strewn across the tabletop. "And you, young lady, would be well served to repair that suit of armor you destroyed and don it. I don't doubt my tongue is as sharp as your sword at the moment."
Spearing a look toward Flora, Gillian finished, "Your little sister has deposited wads of chewing gum beneath the sideboard in the dining room."
"Oh, Robyn," said Flora with a long-suffering sigh. "How many times have we warned you? It will be sentences I'll have from you, lass. Twenty-five saying 'I shall not stick gum on furnishings.' "
"Make it thirty-five," Gillian added. "This made me so angry I put the plan at risk." She gestured toward her stomach. Flora's eyes widened, then knitted in a frown.
"What in the world have you done to yourself?"
Wincing, Gillian reached down and tugged her "baby" back into position yet again. "This is never going to work. I make a dampt puir wicht."
As Flora frowned, young Robyn piped up. "Let me be the ghaist, Gilly. I should be wonderful. I have been thinking of a way to string a harness from the ceiling of the portrait room. Can you not see me flying around all our ancestors?"
"Vividly," Gillian grumbled. "Which is why I shall do all the haunting."
Continuing to frown, Flora grabbed her twin by the arm and pulled her in front of the tall wall mirror. According to plan, the women wore identical dresses. Gazing at their reflections, Flora compared the shape of their bellies, then reached over and tugged her s
ister's stuffing up where it needed to be. "Gilly is right, Robyn. We would never chase you back into the schoolroom if you could fly away from us."
The girl gave a dreamy sigh at the thought. Gillian winced and sank into a nearby chair. "The rate I am going, we will never get me off the ground."
"What happened?" Flora asked.
Gillian allowed her head to drop forward until her chin rested on her chest. "First he sneaked up on me in the drawing room before I'd strapped on the 'bairn.' I had to hide behind the drapery while I talked to him so he wouldn't see my lack of stomach."
A giggle burst from Robyn's mouth, and Gillian shot her a glower before continuing her story. "Then after he went in to breakfast, I cozened him with the breadbasket-and-thread trick, tugging it just right so that the knot slipped when I needed. He was not bothered at all. The man actually talked back to the empty room, told me the haunting didn't compare with last night's."
Robyn pursed her lips and blew a soundless stream of air. "The Headless Lady is an awfully good wile, Gilly."
"Not the way I did it. Besides, I cannot be a one-feat ghaist. I will not convince Lord Harrington with but one apparition."
"Do not discount playing the mischievous, invisible brownie," Flora said. "Just because Mr. Delaney is skeptical... well... we know little of the man. Perhaps he does not believe in spirits and such. If that is the case, I should think he might question your... appearances... more closely than one whose mind is open to such phenomena."
"Aye. If he is a nonbeliever, the Texan—" Gillian broke off abruptly at the sound of a barking dog. A fast approaching barking dog.
Mr. Delaney would not be far behind.
Her gaze flew to Flora's panicked blue eyes. One of them needed to disappear. Fast.
Gillian pointed toward the wall holding the muniment room's entrance to Rowanclere's hidden passage system and Robbie jumped to trip the catch as the Texan's voice drifted toward them. "Scooter, get back here."
The small brown beastie came scooting into the room, growling and barking, as Flora, being closest to the wall, ducked into the passage. Robyn shut the door, then positioned herself between the hidden entrance and the yapping dog. "Why, sister, look at the puir wee thing. Her legs dinna work."
"She certainly has no trouble with her mouth," Gillian muttered.
"How does she move so fast?" asked the girl, both voice and expression filled with wonder.
"Exuberance for life," Jake said as he sauntered into the room. He grinned at Robyn, scowled at the dog, then arched a brow toward Gillian. "The chewing-gum enthusiast, I assume?"
"Aye. Mr. Delaney, allow me to introduce my sister, Miss Robyn Ross."
"You may call me Robbie," she piped up, smiling with delight at the antics of the dog, who thankfully had abandoned her inquisitive sniffing at the hidden door along the wall. "What happened to your dog?"
Delaney repeated the story he'd told Flora, then apologized for allowing Scooter to run loose through Rowanclere. "Ordinarily I walk her with a sling, but today when I wasn't looking, she took it into her head to go exploring."
"I'd prefer she limit her investigations to something other than my ankles," Gillian responded dryly as Scooter commenced to nipping at the hem of her dress.
Gillian sensed the Texan's gaze as she tugged her skirt from Scooter's mouth. Glancing up, she caught the puzzled look he directed toward the bulge around her midriff. Hidden behind a polite smile, Gillian ground her teeth in frustration. The man paid altogether too close attention.
Then his gaze drifted upward and lingered a second too long on the cleavage displayed by her neckline. Gillian held her breath. While ordinarily a comparison of hers and her sister's bosom revealed little difference, pregnancy had made Flora's bounty more bountiful than usual. Would he notice?
Men always notice.
Wonderful. Now she must worry about her belly and her breasts.
Thankfully, Robbie summoned Mr. Delaney's attention by kneeling beside Scooter and scratching her behind the ears. "She just drags her hindquarters everywhere she goes?"
The Texan explained about the sling he used to assist the dog, and Robyn's face lit up like a gaslight. "May I take her for a walk, please? I'll be careful with her, I promise."
"Certainly. If it's all right with your sister."
Gillian nodded, welcoming the ankle-nibbler's riddance. "You may have half an hour. After that you must return to your studies, Robyn. Today is no holiday."
The Texan's eyes twinkled with mischief as he gave her a wink. "It's not? And here I thought it was National Chewing Gum day."
Gillian couldn't reply. The wink had struck her dumb.
Mr. Delaney was a handsome man. With that roguish glimmer in his eyes, he curled a woman's toes.
She stammered some nonsensical reply as he helped Robyn slip the dog into the sling and the pair took off at a run, leaving Gillian and the Texan suspended in a silence she found both uncomfortable and... stimulating.
Probably because he was staring at her again, only this time he concentrated on her lips. A faint crease of worry marred his brow. Gillian found herself wanting to lift her thumb and smooth it away.
He cleared his throat at the same time she summoned up a cough. His lips twisted in a quick, self-deprecating grin, then he said, "So, I take it this is Rowanclere's weapons chamber?"
"The muniment room. We're in the oldest section of the castle, part of the fourteenth-century keep. In an attempt to preserve our history, renovations here have been kept to a minimum."
"I see." Delaney lifted a piece of breastplate armor from the table and examined it casually. "Looks like this fella died in battle."
"I don't know about the man who wore it, but the suit itself lasted centuries until the Terror of the Tower did it in."
"Terror of the Tower?"
"Robyn attacked it with a broadsword last week."
"Ah." He flashed a grin and added, "Reckon she could use her gum to put him back together?"
Gillian forced her toes to uncurl. "Better beneath his breastplate than her dinner plate."
His laughter sent her toes curling up again. At this rate I'll wear holes in my stockings. "Tell me about your book, Mr. Delaney."
"My book? Oh, yes, my book." He wandered around the room inspecting the feel of a crossbow, then testing the sharpness of a claymore blade as he rattled off a convoluted tale of the differences between Old World castles and frontier forts. He ended by observing, "Imagine what might have happened if the Texans had a place like Rowanclere to defend instead of an insecure mission like the Alamo. So, Mrs. Dunbar, I'd like to begin my research of Rowanclere by mapping each room. I'll be as brief as possible in the private areas of the castle, of course."
"You can't," she automatically responded.
"Sure I can. While I prefer to take it slow, I can work fast when desired."
Slow. Fast. Oh, my. The memory of how he'd looked standing in his bedroom naked flashed in her mind, and Gillian felt the warmth of a blush crawl up her neck and sting her cheeks. "I mean we do not allow visitors to some areas of the castle."
Delaney frowned. "Surely you'll make an exception in my case, considering this is scholarly research? I promise not to get in your way." He lifted the claymore and tested its balance with a pair of smooth swings, his shirt stretching tight with the movement.
Gillian tore her gaze from the breadth of his shoulders and forced herself to take a breath. Her mind was foggy as a London night. Instinct told her to put some distance between herself and this man. Fast. So she opened her mouth and spoke the most foolish words she'd uttered since accepting David Maclean's proposal of marriage. "All right. You may tour the entire castle. Meet me in the Great Hall this afternoon at one."
* * *
I can't believe I lusted after a married woman. A married woman whose apron is riding high.
Jake stared at the painted wooden ceiling high above him and pondered the state of his own mind. Maybe the water in this part of the world
had something funny in it. Maybe he'd gone way too long without a woman. Maybe he'd left his sense of ethics and morality on the other side of the Atlantic and transformed into a disgusting lecher.
Because, no denying it, Mrs. Dunbar lit his wick.
As if his wicked thoughts had summoned her, the woman's voice floated toward him from across the Great Hall. "Good afternoon, Mr. Delaney."
He braced himself for another sensual assault and turned around.
Damned if that baby hadn't gone and moved on her again. "Afternoon, Mrs. Dunbar. You sure you're feeling all right?"
She drew back as if surprised by his question. "I feel fine. Do I appear otherwise?"
"No, no. You're glowing. You look beautiful, ma'am." Only, she looked beautiful in a different sort of way than she had earlier this morning.
And it didn't get to him nearly as bad.
"Why thank you, Mr. Delaney. Now, shall we begin your tour of Rowanclere?"
Nodding, he clasped his hands behind his back and listened half-heartedly as she launched into her castle tale. "We know Brodie ancestors have lived in this spot since 1285, but the exact date of the present building is not known. The caphouse on the southwest tower reads 1560 and we assume it records the completion date."
As Mrs. Dunbar spoke of corbeled battlements and bartizans, Jake pondered the puzzle of his reaction—or more precisely, his lack of reaction—upon conversing with his landlady this afternoon.
What a difference a few hours make. It was the strangest thing. Last time he saw her, she tied him in knots. This time she stirred nothing more than concern for her continued good health.
Maybe it had something to do with the way she carried the kid. Jake wasn't overly familiar with expectant mothers. Maybe it was normal for babies to do all that up and down moving around. Maybe he was naturally attracted to pregnant women who carried their children high instead of low.
Maybe I've lost my mind entirely.
Hell, Mrs. Dunbar had nothing to do with it. Jake was experiencing these lust surges and wanes because his body's juices were all out of whack. This was what happened when a healthy, adult man spent six months escorting his mother around the London social circuit instead of devoting some time to his own social intercourse—in the most private sense of the word. He'd been too long without a woman—no ifs, ands, or buts. Why else would he have a hankering for a pregnant married lady one minute, then feel like her big brother the next?
Sizzle All Day, Bad Luck Wedding #4 (Bad Luck Abroad) Page 4
