by Diane Gaston
‘Mairi,’ he murmured, and she felt her name on his breath.
He backed them against the house and held her so close their bodies were pressed against each other. He rested her on his thigh, her legs almost straddling him, and the ache inside her grew stronger. This was what she wanted—needed—from him. Not to be a friend. To be...like this with her.
She lost herself in him.
* * *
Lucas revelled in the sweet taste of her, in her soft curves pressed against him. He’d not meant to kiss her, but this time he had not been able to stop himself. She seemed to be the place he belonged. All his pain, loneliness and guilt fled in that moment and his empty spaces filled with the joy of her.
The air was chilly, but his senses were aflame with her. He wanted to touch every part of her, the soft skin of her arms, the swell of her breasts, the tenderness of her long graceful neck. Even though he’d left the castle without topcoat or gloves, he felt on fire.
He drew one hand down her arm and the other caressed her lovely face. The vision of her in her ball gown earlier had stunned him. It was as if she’d been a tight bud that had suddenly burst into an exotic blossom. His hand slid to her neck and his fingers pressed lightly into soft flesh there.
She made a strangled cry and suddenly she was thrashing and beating him with her fists like a wild animal.
‘Mairi! Mairi!’ He tried to break into this fit of hers. ‘Stop. Be quiet!’ If they were discovered, it would be the ruin of her to be caught with him.
He managed to pin her arms and put a hand over her mouth to silence her. Her eyes were panicked and she struggled against him.
‘Mairi!’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Be still. I will not hurt you. You must be still and quiet.’ What was happening here? ‘It is Lucas, Mairi. I will not hurt you.’
She stilled and blinked as if waking from a reverie.
‘Do not cry out,’ he said. ‘I will release you if you will be still.’
She nodded and he released her. She looked shaken.
‘I will not touch you, I promise.’ He stepped back, his hands raised with his palms facing her. A gesture of surrender.
‘Lucas?’ She looked at him as if unsure who he was and where they were.
‘What happened, Mairi? I did not mean to hurt you—’ But what had he done? Nothing to hurt her, nothing to frighten her, he thought. She’d wanted the kiss; he’d been sure of that. What had happened?
‘I thought you were—someone else.’ She shivered.
He wanted to put an arm around her to warm her, but held back. ‘Let us go inside and find a room where we may talk.’
They found an open door leading to the conservatory filled with lush, fragrant plants that belonged in some faraway land with more sun and heat than Scotland.
He removed his coat and placed it around her shoulders. ‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Who did you think I was?’
She glanced towards the door.
‘Do not run,’ he said in as mild a tone as he could manage. ‘Tell me. Please.’
She shook her head. ‘I cannot tell you. I cannot tell anyone.’ She turned away from him. ‘Nothing happened. Forget my...my panic. I am sorry. Please.’
He gently turned her back to face him. ‘Mairi, you were some place else, thinking I was someone else. You cannot tell me nothing happened. You must tell me.’
Her eyes met his. ‘You will hate me.’
He touched her arm gently and spoke words that would always be true. ‘I will never hate you.’
What had so briefly passed between them proved that. He loved her. There was no denying it to himself. Everything he’d done for the family, he’d done for her.
There was a sofa in one corner of the room. He gestured towards it. ‘Let us sit.’
She allowed him to lead her to the sofa and she sat, but he felt as if she were glass, about to shatter. She seemed half with him and half still in whatever memory had terrorised her.
‘I promise it will be all right to tell me the whole.’ He sat next to her, careful not to come too close. He took her hand in his, though, needing to touch her. ‘Who did you think I was?’ he asked.
She gulped in air and her gaze darted anywhere but at him. ‘I thought you were the Englishman.’
‘The Englishman,’ he repeated as calmly as he could. ‘What Englishman?’
‘The one I met on the road to the village. I was alone and he asked the way. He walked with me a little and I thought he was very gentlemanly. But then—’ She stopped.
Lucas felt his body grow cold. ‘He put his hand on your throat.’
She nodded. ‘He—he would not let me go. He was stronger than I was.’ She tried to pull away, but he held her hand tighter. ‘He made me—made me—’ She began to sob.
He wanted to hold her, but dared not. ‘It is all right now,’ he said in a low voice. ‘He is not here. No one will hurt you here.’
She took in a ragged breath. ‘You want to know what happened to me?’ Her voice turned shrill. ‘I will tell you. He pushed me to the ground and opened his trousers. He forced himself inside me.’ She made a face of disgust. ‘He forced himself inside me!’
Lucas felt his rage grow. He’d kill him. If the man were here now, he’d kill him with his bare hands. ‘Who was he?’
‘I do not know,’ she cried. ‘An Englishman. Like you. But not like you, not like you at all.’
* * *
Mairi felt herself back there again. She could smell the man. Taste him. Feel again the pain of him thrusting into her. And then—and then that explosion of feeling inside her. She could hear his laughter when he finished.
She heard his voice again.
‘You liked that, did you? I knew you were a proper little harlot.’
And he’d done it again. And again.
He threatened to kill her family if she told anyone. Then he left her bleeding, sore and filled with shame.
Someone touched her face. ‘Mairi? Come back.’
It was Lucas. And she’d told him what had happened. She finally said it out loud.
He still held her hand, but she pulled it away. ‘Now you know,’ she said mockingly, throwing up a new wall against feeling that pain and shame again. ‘Now you know I am ruined. You see why I have no wish to marry. I am spoiled. Not fit for any decent man.’
But he looked on her with sympathy, not disgust. It rattled her.
‘I acted the harlot with you, did I not?’ She gave a dry laugh. ‘Is that not proof enough?’
He took her hand again. ‘No, Mairi. You did not act the harlot. You returned my kiss. That was all. You’ve felt it before, this attraction between us. I have felt it almost from the beginning. It is natural. It is how it should be.’
She did not know whether to believe him or not. She touched her lips, remembering the kiss.
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘He said I made it happen. It was my fault.’
He squeezed her hand. ‘It was not your fault. You did not want him to attack you, did you? Did you want him to touch you?’
‘I did not think so, but he told me I did.’ She pulled her hand away. She did not deserve comfort.
‘And you believed him?’ Lucas said. ‘He forced you.’
She could not think straight about this.
‘When did this happen?’ Lucas asked.
‘Five years ago,’ she said. ‘When I was Davina’s age—just a little older.’
‘You have held this secret for five years?’ He looked astounded.
She simply nodded, but could not meet his eye. What must he think of her! ‘It comes back to me sometimes. Like I am there again. So very real. So I must be mad as well as shameful.’
He gripped her upper arms and made her look at him. ‘You are not mad. You are not shameful.’
She wrenched away and stoo
d up. ‘What do you know of such a thing, Lucas?’ she snapped. ‘You cannot know what it is like. The shame. The guilt.’
* * *
Lucas rose, too, and faced her. ‘I know shame. Guilt. Regret.’
‘Guilt? What did you do? Commit some infraction of the law?’ Her tone was mocking, but he knew what she was doing, trying to push him away by using anger. He’d used that tactic himself. ‘Something you must keep secret?’
‘Something I do not speak of,’ he admitted. Findlay knew, but Findlay had been there to scrape Lucas off the floor in his despair.
Her eyes still held her pain. ‘Then you must tell me, Lucas, since I have told you my terrible secret.’
He would tell her. He wanted to tell her. Because it might help her. ‘I do not pretend my experience in any way compares to yours.’
She glanced away, as if to hide her pain, but she turned back to him, armour erected, arms crossed, waiting for him to speak.
‘I had an older brother—’ he said.
‘You told me you had a brother,’ she said. ‘You called for him in your delirium.’
He remembered the fevered dreams. Reliving Bradleigh’s death over and over.
He nodded. ‘Bradleigh was everything to my parents, especially my father, but he was also as impulsive and reckless as he was charming. He was impractical, prone to romanticism and mad for the cavalry. For the glory of war. Against my father’s wishes, he purchased a commission. My father purchased a commission for me, too, in the same cavalry regiment, with the charge to keep my brother out of harm’s way.’
She lifted a hand. ‘Wait. Surely that was impossible.’
He felt it all again. ‘But it wasn’t! We were outnumbered at Fuentes de Oñoro and the fighting was fierce, but I managed to block the blows intended for my brother.’
‘The scars on your chest,’ she went on. ‘You were injured keeping your brother safe?’
He had not realised she’d seen his scars. ‘I protected him. At Villagarcia. And at Maguilla.’ The confusion of that battle rested in his gut again, as did the shame of his Royals bolting like scared rabbits. ‘But the night before Waterloo, we quarrelled. He accused me of being jealous. Of wishing I were him. It was a foolish argument, but I resented him for it, so the next day, when we were in formation for the charge, I made no effort to be near him. When we were in the thick of it, I did not think of him. It was only when I heard the signal to withdraw that I looked for him. I tried to reach him.’ His throat went dry and it took a moment before he could speak again. ‘I saw him impaled through the neck.’ He felt the pain all over again. ‘I was too late. It was my fault. I should have been at his side. I should have done what I promised my father. If I had, my brother would be alive.’
She closed the distance between them and put her arms around him. ‘Do not torture yourself! You could not keep such a promise. Men die in battle, do they not? How could it be your fault?’
He held on to her and the feel of her arms and the warmth of her body seemed to draw some of the pain away.
‘Mairi, it was not your fault either,’ he murmured to her.
Her muscles tensed. ‘I am not sure. I am not sure.’
He drew away so she could look at him directly. ‘I have known men like that Englishman. And I know that what happened was because he forced you against your will and there was nothing you could have done about it.’
She blinked and her gaze pierced him before she glanced away again.
Here was the opportunity to tell her who he was. He’d already disclosed that he came from a family of means, a family wealthy enough to purchase lieutenant’s commissions for two sons.
But she was still raw from disclosing how some blackguard had forced himself on her. This was not the time to burden her with the knowledge that he’d deceived her and her family.
The bagpipes were silent, he realised. He wiped the tears from her cheeks with the tips of his fingers. ‘You should return to the ball.’
She shook her head. ‘I was fleeing it.’
‘Will not someone question where you have been?’ This moment between them must not bring her any more harm.
‘Perhaps.’ She leaned against him and he put an arm around her. ‘But I would rather stay with you.’
He wished he could hold her for ever. ‘It would be the ruin of you if you were found alone with a man, especially with me.’
She laughed drily. ‘I am already ruined, Lucas.’
‘No, you are not.’ He pulled away, facing her to make sure she heeded him. ‘As long as no one knows, you are not ruined.’
‘But—but a man will be able to tell.’
He could reassure her on that score. ‘No, Mairi, I know this. No matter what anyone tells you, a man cannot tell.’ He’d seen his soldiers fooled over and over, believing they were bedding a virgin until they realised they’d all bedded the same one. ‘So, go. Live the life a daughter of a Scottish baron was meant to live and enjoy it without guilt or shame.’
She pressed her fingers against her temples. The music started again and she glanced towards the sound. ‘I do not want to go back in there, but I will, if you tell me to, Lucas.’
‘No, not because I tell you. You decide, Mairi.’ Too many people discounted what she wanted. Her parents. Hargreave. That debaucher who’d so wounded her.
She sighed. ‘I’ll go back.’ She straightened her dress and patted her hair. ‘Am I presentable?’
She looked beautiful in his eyes—but also quite well kissed. ‘Perhaps you ought to freshen up.’
‘I’ll find Nellie and have her put me back together.’
‘And I will wait, then, until I am certain no one will connect your absence with me.’
She turned to leave, but spun back around and put her arms around him again. She kissed him on the lips, very lightly, but he felt it long after she had fled the room.
Chapter Twenty
Lucas sat back on the sofa and waited. He lowered his head in his hands. It all made sense now. Why she always seemed so on guard, why she always seemed so sad. He wished he could get his hands on the scoundrel who’d stolen her innocence, who’d left her body and emotions with a pain that would never leave her.
But he couldn’t, any more than he could bring Bradleigh back.
No matter what she said, he should have stopped the cuirassier. He should have been with Bradleigh.
Lucas took some solace in having helped save Mairi’s family from losing their home, their land and their pride. Perhaps some day she would believe the assault was not her fault. He was not certain he’d convinced her.
He rubbed his face. He should not have kissed her, though. Not that he regretted it. He did not. But it had cracked open his emotional armour in a way that he could never again repair. He again felt the pain of losing Bradleigh, but now it was alongside Mairi’s pain, which he felt on her behalf as well. He faced the fact that he loved her and that it was she, and not his cowardly attempt to run away from his responsibilities, that could make him whole again.
But how could he stay with her, desiring her as he did?
These thoughts tumbled through his head until he had no idea how much time had passed. The music had stopped and started again. He rose. He would not return to Dunburn’s room yet, though, in order to be absolutely certain no one would realise they’d been together. That Scots Grey had appeared briefly in the hallway when he was talking with Mairi and Davina and the Oxmonts’ daughter. Lucas was certain that little scene had not looked like three young ladies conversing with a servant.
He left the conservatory and used the nearest servants’ door to go down to the servants’ hall, where several of the servants were passing the time. He nodded to them and picked up a newspaper someone had left on the table. He sat and pretended to read, his mind still filled with Mairi and his body now aching for her.
; Hargreave’s valet came up and sat in the chair beside him.
‘I have something to tell you,’ the man said in a quiet voice.
Lucas nodded.
He leaned a bit closer. ‘There is someone here who knows you from before. Not the coachman. One of the guests.’
Lucas’s stomach clenched. ‘I know. He spoke to me.’
‘He came to Hargreave’s room before the ball. I was there, of course.’
This could not be good.
The valet went on. ‘The man told Hargreave that you are the son of an English earl, that your real name is Johns-Ives, and he speculated that you must have done something quite awful to be reduced to working as a servant.’
It could not be worse. Of all people, Hargreave had learned the truth about him. ‘I am indebted to you for telling me.’
The valet shrugged. ‘I have no need to keep Hargreave’s confidences.’ He peered at Lucas. ‘Is it true?’
‘Yes,’ Lucas admitted. ‘The family I serve know that I am not really a butler or a valet, but they do not know the rest of it.’
‘Then why are you acting the valet for Dunburn?’ he asked.
‘As a favour. I was recovering in their house and—’ He did not wish to explain more. ‘I tell you, it gives me a new appreciation for you men who do this work.’
The man’s expression turned bleak, but he seemed to recover. ‘I won’t say anything to anyone. But I thought you should know.’
‘There is something I wish to tell you,’ Lucas said. ‘Dunburn’s valet is quite old and deserves to be pensioned off. I will ensure Dunburn is given your name and my highest recommendations, if you should wish to seek employment there.’
The valet’s eyes widened. ‘You would do that?’
‘I would do more if I could,’ Lucas said.
The man rose and moved away.
Lucas took in a deep breath. Hargreave would undoubtedly use this information, but Lucas was uncertain how. In any event, Hargreave would certainly tell Mairi. And Lucas did not know how he could speak with her before Hargreave got to her.
