Harlequin Historical May 2014 - Bundle 2 of 2: Unwed and UnrepentantReturn of the Prodigal GilvryA Traitor's Touch

by Marguerite Kaye

  Argyle sounded her horn, a loud, low, mournful cry that made the deck vibrate, and sent a noxious plume of black smoke into the air from the high stack of funnel as she began to slow, narrowly avoiding a large three-masted clipper anchored in the centre of the channel. The sound of the water being churned up by the two huge wooden paddles changed from a torrent to a slow slap as they drew alongside their berth, scraping between a host of other craft—so many, it seemed to Cordelia, that every ship in Scotland must be vying for space here in Glasgow.

  The docks were crowded as she picked her way carefully over the narrow wooden gangway from the Argyle, across the deck of another steamer and up on to the pier, clutching her portmanteau. Beautiful as the Highlands had been, she had felt more alien there than at any time since leaving London eight years before. The Gaelic language, with its soft, lilting tones, was lovely to listen to, impossible to decipher. She had not been prepared for her own English accent to mark her out as foreign. At times, she had encountered downright hostility. They had long memories, those whose families had paid the price for fighting for the Jacobite Prince Charlie. More recently, enclosure and the introduction of sheep to the lands had brought a new grudge against the Sassenach landowners. Cordelia, raised in a household which lived and breathed the politics of Britain’s growing Empire, had been appalled by her own ignorance of what was, in theory, part of her own country.

  On a very small scale, politics had torn her own family apart. Listening to the tales of what politics had done to the Highlanders gave her rather a different perspective on her own life. In those remote, tiny, hard-working communities, family was all. Cordelia could no longer ignore how much she missed her own. She was lonely. There were times when the cost of this independent path she had chosen felt like too high a price to pay. Times, such as now, standing on the quay with the crowd pressing round her, when she would have given anything for a familiar face.

  But she had never been one to mope, had always loathed regrets, and there was no point in wishing things could be different. Cordelia turned her mind to the problem of her baggage, and where, and how she was supposed to collect it. Jostled, her skirts and toes well and truly trodden on, she looked for a porter. There were many, but all were occupied, and all seemed to be deaf too. She had thought that being back in a city would restore a little of her equilibrium, but the harsh language here sounded almost as foreign as Gaelic.

  ‘And to make matters worse, I seem to have become invisible,’ she muttered to herself, resorting to using her elbows to push past a large man holding a very loud conversation with a very small man on one of the steamers.

  It was then she saw him, standing quite alone a few yards down, at the end of the quay. She could not have said what drew her attention, only that it was drawn, almost as if she were compelled to look at him. He was dressed sombrely, in a black coat and trousers, black shoes. His hair was cut short. Deep auburn, it was burnished by the silver-yellow rays of the setting sun filtered through the darkening clouds, giving him the look of a fallen angel. He had been staring off into the distance, but as she watched him he turned, their eyes met, and Cordelia felt a jolt of recognition, though she was sure she had never seen him before. Perhaps it was from having listened to too many ghost stories while she was in the Highlands, but she had the strangest feeling, like seeing another form of herself. You, her bones and her skin and her blood called, it’s you.

  She couldn’t look away. It was with a feeling of déjà vu, or fate, inevitability, that she watched him approach her. His face was not gaunt, but it had little spare flesh. The lines which ran from his nose to his chin spoke of a tough life rather than either age or decadence. A hard face with a strong chin and nose, his mouth was his only soft feature, with a full bottom lip forming into a querying smile. The quiver inside her turned from recognition to attraction. This one, her body was saying now, this man.

  ‘Is there something I can do for you?’ he asked.

  Is there something ah can do furr you? His accent was strange, a soft burr with a rougher edge lurking in the background, the sweetness of chocolate mixed with the grittiness of salt. ‘My luggage,’ Cordelia said, ‘I don’t suppose you know where I can collect it?’

  ‘You’re English.’ She must have instinctively braced herself for he smiled. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to hold it against you.’

  Ah’m no gonnae haud it against you. Cordelia smiled. ‘I can’t tell you how grateful I am to hear that. I had thought the French held my country in low esteem, until I travelled north. I am just come from Oban, but I have been travelling in the Highlands for several weeks and I—’

  ‘I thought I knew you,’ he interrupted her. ‘When I saw you staring at me, I thought we must have met, but I don’t think we have.’

  He had caught her arm as she made to turn away. She had taken a step towards him in response. He was not wearing gloves. His skin was pale. His nose looked as if it had been broken. His eyes were deep-set and deep blue. His lashes were the same dark auburn as his hair. He was frowning at her, studying her closely, a puzzled look on his face that echoed just what she had felt when first setting eyes on him.

  ‘I thought it too,’ Cordelia said. ‘That I knew you, I mean. It’s why I was staring. I’m sorry, it was rude of me. I did not mean to disturb you.’

  She made no move to go, however, for her body was rooted to the spot. She was acutely aware of him, of his hand on her arm, of the concentration of his gaze. He had very broad shoulders. Under that dark suit, there was a hard body. The thought made her blood heat. She could feel a flush creeping up her neck.

  ‘You didn’t,’ he said. ‘Disturb me, I mean.’ He looked down at his hand, but instead of releasing her, pulled her towards him, linking them together, arm in arm. ‘Oban, you said you sailed from?’

  She nodded.

  ‘You’ll have come on the Argyle then. She’s sound enough, though that beam engine of hers is well past its prime. Napier’s steeple will become the standard, you mark my words, though if you ask me—’ He broke off, smiling at the confusion which must be writ large on her face. ‘I’m havering. Your luggage will be this way,’ he said. ‘I’m Iain Hunter.’

  ‘Cordelia. That is, Cordelia Williamson. Mrs.’

  ‘You’re married.’

  ‘Widowed,’ she said hastily, not pausing to think why it mattered to reassure him.

  ‘I’m glad,’ he said. Then, ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’

  He didn’t look in the least bit contrite. In fact, there was a gleam in his eyes that gave Cordelia a fizzy feeling in her stomach and made her decidedly light-headed. A more prosaic woman would have said she needed food, but though she had many faults, she had not once in her twenty-eight years been accused of being matter of fact. Impetuous, yes, and heedless too. Both of those traits she had worked very hard to curb in the past few years. Now, as she tripped along beside Iain Hunter, shielded from the bustle not just by his body but by the way the crowd seemed to part for him, she felt a terrible, wicked, irresistible impulse to be both.

  ‘What about you, Mr Hunter,’ she asked, ‘are you married?’

  ‘No,’ he replied.

  ‘I am glad,’ Cordelia said.

  He stopped in his tracks. ‘What am I to take from that?’

  It was a fair question. ‘I don’t know,’ she replied, deflated. ‘I’m in a strange mood. The travel, most likely. I thought— When I saw you, I thought— But it was silly of me.’

  He touched her cheek, where the pulse beat at her temple. His fingers were cold. It was the lightest of touches. She felt as if he were trying to read her mind. ‘You could have asked me the same thing,’ he said, ‘when I told you I was glad you were widowed.’

  ‘What would you have said?’

  ‘Something along the same lines,’ he answered. ‘I was thinking— I was feeling—strange. I saw you, and I
thought, oh, there she is.’ He smiled faintly. ‘I’m not usually the fanciful sort.’

  ‘I am not usually the sort who talks to strangers at dockyards,’ Cordelia said, smiling again.

  ‘I thought we had established I’m not a stranger.’

  ‘It is certainly a strange sort of day. I am beginning to wonder if any of this is real.’

  ‘That’s most likely because you haven’t eaten. I’ll wager the Argyle did not give you the smoothest of journeys.’

  Cordelia chuckled. ‘Poor Argyle. You should not be so unkind to her, for she brought me here.’

  ‘And here you are.’ He ran his fingers down her arm, from shoulder to wrist, as if to reassure himself of the fact of her presence. The gesture was intimate, not that of a stranger at all. It made her feel—not alone. ‘And I’m glad for it,’ he said.

  The warehouse he led her to was huge, the double doors open on to the quayside, in which were literally hundreds of trunks, bandboxes, portmanteaux, boxes, parcels, crates. Though Cordelia could see no sign of demarcation, Iain Hunter made his way confidently to one of the distinct heaps. ‘Which is yours?’

  She pointed out her trunk, and a porter appeared at her side, looking at her enquiringly. ‘Could you recommend an hotel, Mr Hunter?’

  ‘I’ll take you,’ he said, and though this was exactly the sort of situation which she cautioned the readers of every single one of her guidebooks to avoid at all costs, Cordelia followed him out of the docks into the cobbled street beyond the wharf buildings, watching meekly as her chest was strapped on to a carriage which, like the porter, appeared magically, and then equally meekly followed Mr Hunter inside.

  * * *

  The Queen’s Hotel was a converted town house in the heart of the city. Cordelia took a set of rooms looking out on to the newly built George Square. She had asked Iain Hunter to dine with her, not because she was hungry but because she didn’t want him to go. He would have gone. She had only to say the word, and he would go. That was implicit between them, just as it was implicit that neither wanted him to leave. Now, he sat opposite her toying with a glass of wine, his food almost untouched, as was hers.

  Not even with Gideon had she felt like this. This was not flirting. It was not the dance of will-we-won’t-we? It was—communing. Ridiculous. The Highlanders must have infected her with their taste for whimsy.

  ‘What are you smiling at?’ Iain leaned forward, resting his chin on his hand.

  ‘I’ve never done this before.’

  ‘Nor have I.’

  He leaned across the table and took her hand. She still wore her travelling gown, but had loosened the buttons around her wrist. He stroked the skin there with his thumb, little circles that soothed and roused, drawing all her body’s focus to that point, where they touched. He didn’t ask her, what, what is it you haven’t done before? She liked that he didn’t pretend. She had always hated that part of the dance—the pretending, the false misunderstandings, the advance and retreat.

  ‘What were you doing on the docks today?’ Cordelia asked.

  ‘Thinking,’ Iain answered, not at all perturbed by her turning the conversation. ‘Planning. I’m at a—a what is the word—hiatus? A turning point. I need a change.’

  ‘What do you do?’

  He grinned. ‘Didn’t you guess? I build ships. Paddle steamers.’

  ‘With spire engines, I assume?’

  ‘Steeple. Aye. Though I have in mind some modifications.’

  ‘Is that what you were thinking about, then?’

  Iain shook his head. ‘That’s just business as usual. I need— Ach, I don’t know. I need a bigger change.’

  He was still stroking her wrist. Shivers of sensation were running up her arm, heating her skin, setting it tingling. She seemed to be doing the same to him, though she had no recollection of leaning across the table and touching him. It was as if her body and her mind were disconnected. ‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘what bigger change were you thinking of?’

  ‘New markets. New seas. New something. I don’t know. What were you doing there?’

  ‘I’m going to Edinburgh.’

  ‘That’s no answer.’

  He lifted her hand to his mouth and began to kiss her fingers. The tip of each one. Then the pad of her thumb. His eyes never left hers. They were darker in the lamplight, gleaming with a combination of desire and challenge. Did she want this? He took her index finger in his mouth, and sucked. She released his other hand, slumping down in her chair. Her foot, clad in stockings but not her boots, found its way to his leg. She ran it up his calf over his trousers, and saw the surprise register.

  He sucked on her middle finger, his tongue tracing the length of it. ‘Cordelia?’

  Corr-deel-ia. ‘Guidebooks,’ she said, sliding her foot higher, over his knee, to the inside of his thigh. He clamped his legs together, holding her there. ‘I write guide books. The Single Lady Traveller’s Guide To—Paris, Brussels, Rome, Dresden. Others. I can’t remember. And now the Highlands.’

  ‘Impressive. Surprising. You’ve not done any destinations closer to home?’

  ‘I don’t have a home.’

  ‘I know how that feels,’ he said.

  Sadness chased across his face, but was quickly banished. No questions. ‘No, let’s not talk about it,’ Cordelia said, as if he had spoken aloud. ‘I am tired of thinking about it. My own turning point. There is nothing—I’m tired of it.’

  ‘Then we won’t talk of it. Should I go, Cordelia?’

  ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘You know I don’t, but you also know that I will.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘No, I don’t want you to go.’

  He let go her hand. He let her foot slide back on to the floor. He got to his feet and came round to the other side of the little table and pulled her upright, sliding his arms around her waist. ‘I am glad,’ he said, ‘because I have never in my life wanted any woman the way I want you. Now.’ And then he kissed her.

  * * *

  He kissed her, and the connection was elemental. She understood it, when he kissed her, this feeling of knowing, of being known. You. You. You. She recognised him with such a strong physical pull that she staggered. As if she had been waiting all her life for him. As if none had gone before him. As if none but him would ever matter. She could analyse and question and dissect, but she had no interest in doing any of that, no interest in establishing a conflict between her mind and her body. Her body had already won. ‘Yes,’ she said, though he had not asked, ‘the answer is yes.’

  She led him into the bedchamber. No words were necessary after that, though they spoke with their lips, hands, eyes. Kissing. His mouth felt as if it were made to kiss hers, hers to fit his. His kisses were like questions. This? And this? And this?

  And this, she replied, touching her tongue to his, relishing the sharp intake of his breath in response. And this. She opened her mouth. His kisses deepened, his fingers tangling in her hair, his breath warm on her face.

  Her hairpins scattered. She pulled at his coat. He threw it on to the floor, then kissed her again. She reached behind her to unfasten her gown. He turned her around, wrestling with the buttons and fasteners, kissing her neck, her shoulders, his breathing ragged. The gown took some time to wriggle out of, hindered and impeded by kisses. He pulled her against him when it finally fell to the floor, her bottom against his thighs. She was frustrated by the layers of her undergarments. He curved his arms around her to cup her breasts. She shuddered, wanting his skin on hers, her nipples hard, aching for his touch. He began to untie the strings of her corsets.

  He cursed under his breath. She could not understand the language, which might have been Gaelic, but might have been something more colloquial. When her stays dropped to the floor, releasing her breasts with only her chemise to cover t
hem, he turned her around. Slashes of colour on his cheeks. His eyes glittering with desire. Her own breath quickened, the knot in her belly tightened, the low throb lower down began. ‘Take them off,’ she said, pulling at his waistcoat.

  He discarded his own clothes quickly, efficiently, without any modesty. He was as lean and hard as she had imagined, his shoulders broader, his skin paler, the muscles beneath tensed. And he was more than ready, his erection jutting up against his stomach. Cordelia shuddered. She had never wanted anything so much as this man inside her.

  He had been watching her studying him. She smiled at him then, quite deliberately, and felt an answering heat as he smiled the same smile in response. This was going to be—everything. Anything. All. Did she say it aloud? She thought it as he pulled her to him once more, and she felt the thickness of him against the apex of her thighs. His kiss was desperate now. Her own too, her mouth ravaging his, her hands clawing at his back, at his buttocks, at his flanks.

  He pulled her chemise over her head. She untied the drawstrings of her pantalettes. She wore only her stockings and her garters. He swore again, this time a word she recognised, a harsh, guttural word that should have shocked her, but expressed exactly what she was feeling. Then he cupped one of her breasts in his hand, covered the nipple of the other with his mouth.

  Heat, shivering, frissons of pleasure, tugging, connecting up. Delightful. Delicious. But almost too late. There was no time for this, not now. She pulled his face back up to hers and kissed him frantically, pressing herself against him with abandon. Now, now, now. ‘Now!’

  ‘Aye. I hear you. Dear God, I hear you. Cordelia, I am so—I don’t think I can wait.’

  ‘Iain, I know I cannot.’

  He laughed. A deep, masculine laugh that vibrated against her breasts, her stomach. Then he kissed her, pulling her on to the floor because even the small distance to the bed was too much. Her arms were wrapped around his neck, her legs around his waist, as he thrust into her.