By the time she alighted from the carriage, walked along the familiar path that led to the grand front door of the Earl of Glimouth’s manor, and had the door opened by one of their servants, she would have been hard-pressed to be in a sunnier disposition.
That mood lasted until dinner that night.
After she had seen her parents and all the mandatory hugs and kisses had been bestowed, Delilah went to her room to wash the road dust from herself in a nice hot bath. Afterwards, she went to meet her parents in the more intimate of the manor’s two dining rooms.
“Now,” said Lady Glimouth, as soon as the servants had set down the roasted pheasant, potatoes, and greens, and vacated the room. “Now, I know you’ll be wanting to rest after your long journey, but there’s something that your father must tell you.”
“Oh, yes,” her father said, “I almost forgot. My dear, we’re going to Scotland for a week or so.”
“Where in Scotland, Father?” Delilah asked, popping a bite of pheasant into her mouth.
“To the MacConnair’s castle.”
Delilah almost choked on her pheasant.
“Wh-why?” she spluttered.
Her mother raised her eyebrows.
“Because,” she said, “your father—apart from being good friends with Callum Malloch—is also an Earl, Delilah. It may have escaped you, but England was at war with Scotland for three years. It’s important that your father do his part in strengthening and maintaining the relationship between the two countries. Also, we’ll be able to offer our congratulations to the family on the upcoming wedding.”
“Both Callum and I are, though I say it myself, powerful men in these parts,” Lord Glimouth said, slicing into a potato. “It is of import to the Crown that the bond between our two houses be seen to be as strong as it ever was.”
“I understand, Father.”
“I’m glad. I trust you have no problems with visiting the castle?”
“I, uh, well, it occurs to me that—if this is some sort of diplomatic mission on your part—it’s probably not incumbent that I attend…”
Her father opened his mouth to respond, but Lady Glimouth got there first. “I have already told Lady Griselda that she can expect all three of us. It’s important that we present a united front, Delilah.” Her mother took a sip of wine. “Honestly, from how lyrically you waxed about the MacConnair’s lands and home last time we were there, I’m surprised that you’re not more eager to get there.”
Delilah made some more half-hearted attempts at getting out of the trip throughout the meal, but her mother was in one of her relentlessly stubborn moods. When the time came to push back their chairs and head into the drawing room, Delilah was in no doubt. She would be seeing Marcus Malloch whether she liked it or not.
Marcus stood with his father and mother and watched the Glimouth carriage, along with its retinue of soldiers, make its way up from the village. His usually amiable face was set in a mask of impassiveness.
It had been almost four years since he had last clapped eyes on Lady Delilah Jefferson. About three and a half years since he had even exchanged words with her on paper. The thought of how infatuated he had been with her set his jaw to clenching.
What changed? he wondered, for what must’ve been the ten-thousandth time. What happened tae quench the fire between us so? Three and a half years and nae word. It cannae have just been the war, surely?
In the months that had followed straight after the end of the war, and the ceasing of hostilities between the Scots and the English, Marcus had sent no fewer than fifteen letters to Delilah.
Fifteen letters and nae a single word in return. Nothin’. That just doesnae make any sense! Nae when I cast me mind back to the letters we were tradin’.
He watched the carriage draw nearer. Kicked at a rock by his foot, scuffing his freshly buffed boot.
Doesnae matter now anyway, he thought bitterly. Perhaps, ye were a dobber for ever thinkin’ that the lass would wait three years for ye.
The carriage crunched to a halt in front of the castle’s impressive set of front doors and the door opened.
Nae a word in three years. Marcus’s breath came shallow through his nose. Nae a single letter.
The Earl of Glimouth stepped out first, helped his wife down, and then held out his hand for his daughter.
And, suddenly, Marcus Malloch was a moth that had just been shown the sun.
He stood, as a man stunned, as the now very much grown-up Lady Delilah Jefferson exited her father’s carriage. She was just as beautiful, just as graceful, just as vital as he remembered her being. He watched, captivated, as her golden hair was caught by the perpetual, restless Highland breeze, her face upturned to the sun.
Lord, has there ever been a bonnier sight?
Somehow, despite having to contend with the rush of all too familiar feelings that flooded his heart and brain in the space of an instant, Marcus managed to keep control over his facial expression. Incredibly, his broad and handsome face remained as cool and impassive as it had been whilst he watched the carriage approach. Perhaps it was the three years he had spent at war, commanding his father’s warriors, and being careful that no hint of the constant fear and anxiety he felt inside should show on his countenance.
For her part, Delilah stood smiling politely, as her mother and father exchanged pleasantries with the MacConnairs. Marcus could barely take his eyes from the gorgeous young woman opposite him—he drank her in hungrily. However, she didn’t spare him a glance—unless, perhaps, it was when he stepped forward to shake the hand of the Earl of Glimouth. Marcus thought, then, that Delilah might have turned her gaze upon him.
Once the welcoming formalities had been observed, the Laird stepped forward and said, “No doubt ye will be wantin’ to refresh yerselves after yer long journey. I’ll have my people escort ye to yer rooms and we’ll convene later on.”
Before Marcus could do or say anything, Delilah had thanked his father graciously and swept passed him and into the hallway of the castle.
The rest of the party broke up. Marcus was left standing in the sun, trying to swallow the resentment he felt, that the girl he’d fallen for three years previously had not only neglected to write to him once since he had been away, but was now coolly ignoring him.
Chapter 5
It should have been a day spent sitting idly by the side of the loch, or catching up whilst riding over the heathland, had Fate been kinder. Instead, it passed in a sort of whirl of gloom for Marcus.
Barely a bloody glance, his mind kept saying to him, reminding him over and over again. Nae so much as a look!
Marcus was not the sort of young man to sit uselessly and stew upon his troubles. Instead, as soon as the Glimouths had retired to the chambers that the Laird had made ready for them, he went to the stables to retrieve a horse and took off hunting.
He always found deer-stalking therapeutic when it came to putting life’s problems in perspective. A successful hunter had to quiet his mind to all else, if he wished to stalk with any real hope of success. A steady hand, a steady eye, and a steady heart were all essential if you wanted to make a clean kill.
Despite his usual sanguine temperament, though, and the way in which stalking the wild Highland deer usually acted as a soothing balm to his fevered emotions, Marcus could not manage to get into a killing position the whole day. The image of Delilah exiting that carriage stuck like a perfect glass splinter in his mind. He could not dislodge it. Realized that he did not want to.
He ruled the whole hunt as an exercise in futility when he slipped around a mound of granite boulders and came within an easy arrow shot of a gorgeous red trophy stag. He was downwind of the creature and was able to draw a bead on it without it even noticing that he was there. He pulled the bowstring at his ear.
If only Delilah was here tae see this. I bet she’d love a glimpse o’ this fine beast.
He saw her flawless face in his mind’s eye, the shimmering flaxen hair, the eyes the color of glac
ial ice, the dimples that appeared when she smiled...
By the time the vision had faded, the stag had gone.
Delilah’s day, though she tried to hide it from her parents, was spent in much the same state of distracted despondency.
From the window of her room, she had watched Marcus lead a horse from the stables and take off over the fields, riding like a man trying to outrun something that he could not possibly hope to escape.
Though she had done her best to conceal it on getting out of the carriage, she thought that the Highlander had looked extremely well. Indeed, she had thought that the intervening four years had been more than kind to him—turning an already attractive youth into the very epitome of rugged masculinity.
She had managed to avoid his glance at the front door, but had stolen a look at him whilst he was greeting her parents. He was just as tall as he had been when last she’d seen him, but he had taken on more muscle in the shoulders and chest. Gone were the last vestiges of the gangly awkwardness of youth. The hardships of life on the road during the war seemed to have visibly hardened him in a most pleasing manner. His well-fitted clothes clung to his athletic body in a way that sent Delilah’s imagination down seldom explored paths of yearning.
Dinner that evening was a pleasant and boisterous affair. The Glimouths were the guests of honor, but not the only ones invited to dine with the Laird. Delilah was quite aware of Marcus’s movements out of the corner of her eye, and noticed that he seemed to be playing the part of the amiable host’s son very well. However, she also observed that, when he wasn’t talking or listening to others, his face seemed to fall into a natural scowl.
He’s angry, but why? Surely not at me? Not after I wrote to him so often, pleading to know whether he was safe? Surely not after he was the one to agree to a betrothal with this clanswoman?
Delilah jabbed savagely at a quite blameless carrot on her platter.
That would be just like a male, to not only string me along down the garden path with his sweet words and promises, but to also try and rob me of the right to be the angry one!
She resolved then and there to corner the great child tonight, after the meal and the dancing that followed it. She would lurk outside the hall and wait for him to emerge and then give him a piece of her mind.
Four years is long enough to live with so much uncertainty. Better to pull the arrow than let it fester a moment longer. Better to let the wound heal at last.
Later that evening, Marcus left the dining hall, flushed with dancing and wine. He had noticed Delilah exiting the hall about an hour before him, after bidding the Laird and Lady of the MacConnair clan a smiling goodnight. The gorgeous fair-haired woman had swept gracefully from the room without sparing him so much as a backward glance.
His mood—already dour since that morning—became gloomier as he made his way through the great entrance hall of the MacConnair castle and up the grand staircase. He walked slowly past his personal study, his face sunk in a frown, lost in thought.
The door to the study swung silently open and a slender arm shot out and grabbed Marcus by the sleeve. His wits were dulled somewhat by the wine that he had consumed, and so his hand was slower than was its wont getting to the dirk at his belt. By the time his fingertips had brushed the hilt of his knife, he had turned and found himself eye-to-eye with Delilah.
“Lady Delilah!” he exclaimed, his eyebrows doing their best to migrate to the back of his head in his surprise. “What—?”
Delilah pulled him into the empty study without a word. Her eyes were narrowed in annoyance—in anger, Marcus realized—and her mouth was set in a grim line.
A wee bit rich, her bein’ angry wi’ me! She has nae been the one bein’ snubbed fer years. Just as me faither grumbles, even when the lasses are in the wrong, it’s somehow the fault o’ the lads.
His hunter’s eyes adjusted quickly to the dimness of the study, lit as it was with a single candle. He took in the profile of the only woman to have occupied his thoughts whilst he had been away fighting against the English.
God, she’s only grown bonnier.
His eyes flicked over the disgruntled face of Delilah as the girl closed the door softly behind him.
Mentally, Marcus shook himself. Reminded his traitorous mind that this woman had cast him out of her mind no sooner than he had crossed over into enemy territory. Even if she hadn’t known specifically where he was, she could have at least written to the castle. That had been a bitter pill to swallow, to come home after three years away and find not a single missive awaiting him.
At this thought, his face grew hard.
“What d’ye mean by draggin’ me in here, Lady Delilah?” he asked, as the door clicked shut and the girl turned to face him. His back was to the feeble candlelight. He hoped he cast an impressive silhouette against the flickering light of the taper.
“What do I mean by it?” Delilah replied. Her voice was low and soft, cold as the loch in mid-winter. “What do you think I mean by it, Marcus Malloch?” She took a step out of the shadows of the edge of the room and into the light. Her face was stubbornly set, her eyes glittering with ire, her hands balled into fists at her side.
A little part of Marcus—the part of his brain that had imbibed more wine than was wise, perhaps—noted that she was possibly the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Wrapped in the shadows of the room, Delilah’s face seemed to glow like some sort of beacon of hope to him. In spite of his anger, he found himself wanting to take her in his arms, to run his hand through her shining hair.
Stop it, lad, ye’re promised tae another, he scolded himself.
Delilah let out an exasperated breath.
“Is it so unreasonable,” she said in a hissed whisper, “that a young lady should want some sort of—of—of explanation?”
Marcus glowered.
“Explanation?” he asked.
“That’s right!”
“From me?”
Delilah rolled her eyes in a thoroughly unladylike fashion.
“Yes, from you! Who else?”
Marcus, already on the back foot endeavored to catch up with the run of play. He drew himself up.
“And what is it I owe ye an explanation fer, Lady Delilah?” he said.
Delilah took another step towards him, her head cocked as if she could not believe her ears.
“How about for not sending me a single letter—a note, a word—whilst you were off playing soldiers?” she whispered, clearly struggling to keep her voice under control. “How about for not having the basic decency to let me know that you had come home?”
Marcus’s frown deepened in confusion. “Now, hold on a—”
“How about an explanation for the basic courtesy that you could have shown in letting me know that you were alive?”
Delilah’s hushed voice cracked on the last word.
“Delilah, I—” Marcus started.
Delilah shook her head. “Did you really think so little of me?” she said.
Marcus ran a hand through his hair. He wished that he hadn’t taken that last cup of wine. Perhaps then what Delilah was saying to him would be making some sort of sense.
“But—but—why didn’t ye show me that ye cared, then? Why would ye nae expect me tae think that ye’d given me up?”
“Given you up?” Delilah said. “Do not try and palm your callousness onto me. I did all I could to find out what happened to you.”
“Oh, aye, I’m sure ye did!” Marcus scoffed. “Asked a few o’ yer servants, I suppose? Kept yer ear to the ground fer all o’ two hours after I left, did ye?”
Delilah’s eyes narrowed further. “You selfish fool,” she said. “How can you say such a thing as that? Surely, when you came home to find all those letters that I sent you, you might have had some clue as to how I felt? How I worried every single day that you were away?”
“Letters? What magical letters would these have been then, lass? Speakin’ o’ letters, I notice ye pretend as if the ones I sent ye as
soon as I arrived back were never penned.”
Delilah looked at him. Her narrowed eyes opened a fraction. “Letters?” she asked.
“Aye, letters. The same things that you seem to think ye’ve been sendin’ me, though I havenae seen a single one.”
“You haven’t?”
“Nay, nae a one. One letter missin', well that might nae be nothin’ more than a mistake, but a whole flock o’ the things just vanishin’? That makes me think that perhaps ye’re nae bein’ entirely truthful wi’ me.”
“I’m not being truthful with you?” Delilah said, taking another step towards him. “You’re the one speaking of imaginary letters, too!”
The both of them stood in the center of the floor of the study, eyes hard as they stared at each other. Delilah’s chest rose and fell in a thoroughly distracting manner. Marcus attempted to maintain his anger, whilst his mind raced through all that she had told him.
I ken that I sent her those letters. I ken it. And if she’s lyin’ tae me about sendin’ letters of her own then she missed her callin’ fer the stage. What has happened here? What is it that I’m nae seein’?
Delilah sniffed, and Marcus saw that there were tears sparkling in the corners of those captivating blue eyes. It was almost more than he could do to stop himself reaching out to comfort her.
“Well,”’ she said, “the mystery of who wrote what and where all these letters flew off to is immaterial now, is it not?”
“How so?” Marcus said gruffly. He had a feeling that he was not going to like what was coming next.
“Well, I know you’re alive now, don’t I?” Delilah said bitterly. “Alive and well, and betrothed even! How splendid for you.”
Marcus’s anger rose in his throat like bile. The injustice of her words stung him to sudden wrath. He closed the rest of the gap between them so that he stood looking down into her furious face.
Captured by his Highland Kiss Page 4
