One Night With the Laird (17 page)

“Thank you,” Robert said.

“I’m the one that Wilfred is hunting,” Dulcibella said pettishly, as though it were better to have the dubious honor of being Cardross’s quarry than to be overlooked. “I am sure he only attacked Mairi’s coach because he thought it was me!”

No one contradicted her. Jack suspected that everyone was wishing that Dulcibella
had
been in the coach and that Wilfred Cardross had put period to her life.

“Mairi,” he said, “if you have finished your tea I should be glad of your company on the way to the stables.”

Cambridge’s open face fell with clear disappointment. Mairi smiled and got to her feet. “Of course, Jack.” She turned to the other man. “Perhaps we could talk later when Jack has returned?”

“There’s no hurry,” Robert said lazily. “Why don’t you stay for dinner, Cambridge? You can put up here for the night and hold your meeting in the morning.” He met Jack’s glare with a bland lift of his brows.

“Why do you allow Cambridge to pay you so much attention?” Jack asked as he and Mairi strolled away across the lawns. “It will only give rise to further conjecture that you are a flirt.”

Mairi raised her brows. “Are we having another lovers’ tiff?” she inquired sweetly. “You are being ridiculous, Jack. Why do you not like him?”

Jack raised a brow at her and saw the pink color touch her cheekbones. “I would have thought that was obvious,” he drawled. “He covets what is mine.”

Mairi made an exasperated tutting sound. “In the first instance, he does not. In the second, I am not a piece of property. And in the third, Jeremy is an old friend, nothing more. I value his business advice and Lord MacLeod trusts him. He is very pleasant.”

“Damned with faint praise,” Jack said, noting that his temper was improving. “You have never called me pleasant.”

“That’s because you are not,” Mairi said tartly. “You are not pleasant at all.”

Jack caught her and pulled her behind a huge stone-carved garden urn. “But you like me,” he said. She felt wonderful in his arms, warm and soft and so tempting.

“I’m not sure that I do,” Mairi said but he was intrigued to see that she was not struggling.

“Then if you don’t like me,” Jack continued, brushing her earlobe with his lips, “you must like how I make you feel.” He kissed the tiny hollow beneath her ear and felt her shiver.

“I will come to your room tonight,” he whispered.

Her lips curved deliciously. “See that you do,” she whispered back.

A bevy of servants appeared from the direction of the castle with more tea and cake piled up on trays. Mairi drew discreetly away from him and Jack sighed and released her. “I wish you could come riding with me,” he said abruptly.

Her gaze softened. “I would like that too,” she said. “I would like to escape. I feel so penned in here.”

She stood on tiptoe to press a kiss on his cheek. It was the most chaste and sweetest salutation and yet Jack felt it through his entire body. He watched her as she walked back to the pavilion. He wanted to take her away from the oppressive atmosphere of the house party, the stuffiness of forever being under everyone’s gaze. He wanted to be alone with her riding out on the high tops with nothing but the cold wind for company.

Most of all he wanted to take her on a wild ride far away from the memories of Archie MacLeod. But he could not do that. He could not replace Archie and he was not even sure what it was that he wanted from her anymore.

* * *

M
AIRI
MANAGED
A
couple of blissful hours of peace tucked away in the library reading before Jeremy Cambridge found her. She had known that he would not wait until the morning. He would not want to discuss whatever business there was with Jack. When she heard his heavy tread approaching, she was tempted to jump up and hide behind the bookcase, but she knew that would be childish. He had annoyed her over tea with his pomposity and self-importance and she would have had to be insensate not to feel the antagonism between him and Jack. They were like two territorial dogs circling each other. She wondered why men had to be so downright foolish.

Jeremy heaved himself into the chair opposite, sat forward with his hands dangling between his thighs and fixed her with a gaze that was more in sorrow than in anger. Before he had even started to speak she felt an acute sense of irritation, which she knew was hardly kind. She should try to give him a fair hearing.

“I am so very sorry, Lady Mairi,” Jeremy said. He shook his head. “If only Lord MacLeod had apprised me of his plans beforehand, this need never have happened. There was no need for you to do anything so foolish as to betroth yourself to a dangerous rake who can only damage your reputation still further.”

“I assume you are referring to Mr. Rutherford,” Mairi said, “since he is the only fiancé I have.” She closed her book with a snap. “Was that what you came all the way from Strome to tell me, Jeremy?” she said a little tartly.

“I came to deliver this letter from Lord MacLeod,” Jeremy said, unfastening the buckles of his document case, “and to see how you are after the dreadful shock of the attack by Wilfred Cardross. I promised His Lordship that I would report back on your state of health.” He took the letter from the case but did not hand it to her immediately, holding it instead in his hand as though it were made of precious gold.

“That is very thoughtful of Lord MacLeod,” Mairi said, resisting the urge to snatch the letter from him. “Please tell him that I am very well.”

She held out her hand. Jeremy ignored the gesture, instead placing the letter neatly on the table between them. He resumed his scrutiny of her, his gaze so sorrowful it made her want to slap him.

“I told you that you should return to Edinburgh to scotch the rumors about your misconduct,” he said.

Mairi bristled. “
Misconduct
is a very judgmental word,” she said frostily. “And as I recall you said no such thing. You were so evasive that I had no notion of the nature of the gossip.”

A shade of color touched Jeremy’s cheek. “It was not my place to speak of such tawdry matters,” he said.

“Fortunate for me that Mr. Rutherford was not as fastidious as you, Jeremy,” Mairi said. She could feel anger bubbling up inside her again and made a monumental effort to smother it. “He was very willing to offer me his help.”

“I would have offered you mine when you returned to Edinburgh and discovered the situation,” Jeremy said. “I was willing to overlook your moral failings. I was even prepared to offer you
my
protection, which I flatter myself would have been a great deal more respectable than that of Jack Rutherford.” By now he was bright red and spluttering and Mairi had stopped feeling annoyed and could only feel sorry that he valued himself so highly and clearly thought so little of her. She felt bereft too; she had thought that she and Jeremy had had a genuine friendship. She had always known he was a little stuffy and that like so many men he disapproved of women who were different and independent, but it was disappointing to see his opinions with such unflattering clarity.

“I am honored by your regard, Jeremy,” she said, “and can only be sorry that I am promised to Mr. Rutherford when you could have offered me so much more.”

“You mock me,” Jeremy said sharply, “but you will regret it, Lady Mairi. The whole of Edinburgh will be talking about your betrothal—”

“They are,” Mairi said, “and in tones of most flattering excitement.” She reached out a hand for the letter from Lady Kenton that had arrived that morning. She had been using it as a bookmark.

“Lady Kenton says that society is quite besotted with the news,” she said. She read aloud: “‘When a rake such as Mr. Rutherford chooses to wed, it gives hope to all the other ladies that they may catch an equally exciting husband.’” She folded the letter away again and stowed it back in the book. “So you see,” she said, “I am a beacon of hope to all my sex.”

Jeremy gave a disapproving snort and hauled himself out of the chair. “It isn’t too late to reconsider,” he said, looking down at her. “Come back to Edinburgh with me. You know you dislike being here. You hate children and you do not enjoy the company of your family.”

Mairi was incensed by this misrepresentation of her feelings. “I do not
hate
children,” she said with biting anger. “I am merely unaccustomed to them, as I was not fortunate enough to have any of my own. As for my family—” She felt a fierce and unexpected pang of affection. “I love them very much and I do not appreciate your criticism of them, particularly when Lucy and Robert are being generous enough to offer you their hospitality!”

She felt so out of sorts when Jeremy had gone out that she decided that nothing but some fresh air would make her feel better. Lachlan, Dulcibella and some of the other guests had gone down to the lake for a picnic; as she walked down the chestnut avenue she could hear voices and laughter. It made a change for Dulcibella to be in a good mood. Mairi did not fancy company, however. For a little while she sat in the gardens, feeling the slight breeze stirring her hair and the sun on her face.

It was odd that Jeremy’s words had upset her so much. The news he had brought from MacLeod seemed slight and it felt as though he had come all this way to rebuke her for entering into an engagement with Jack. She was furious to be scolded and felt strangely protective of Jack and indignant about Jeremy’s criticism. She was not sure she could be civil to him at dinner tonight.

The sun was becoming too hot and she had forgotten her parasol. She walked through the walled garden where the scent of the roses hung heavy on the still air, and through an archway into the wild garden. Here she remembered there was an ancient swing strung in the dappled shade, beside an overgrown lily pond. Lucy and Robert’s children were too young to play on it yet. It must have been there when Robert and his elder brother had spent their childhood at Methven. Jack too.

The seat of the swing was a rough piece of wood, mossy but dry. Mairi sat down on it, and the rope creaked a little beneath her weight. She rocked backward and forward gently, remembering the rhythm of it from her childhood, remembering the thrill of hurtling through the air and feeling so wild and free and out of control. She wondered when she had lost that sense of lightness. Archie had left his fortune to her out of guilt and it had enabled her to do so many things, but sometimes it felt more of a burden than a gift. She remembered the wicked thrill that had coursed through her when Jack had asked her to ride with him to Methven. She loved riding and she had wanted to take a risk and go with him, but sense and self-control had won out instead. It seemed she had built walls around herself without even realizing it.

She shivered a little in the heavy air. It had been a while since she had felt that terrible loneliness and oppression of spirits that stalked her now. The sun had gone in now and the birds were quiet. A distant rumble of thunder echoed off the mountains. Through the lattice of the branches above her head she could see that the sky was gray with clouds piling one on top of the other. The storm had come sooner than she had expected.

She slowed the swing and it came to a stop with a creak that now sounded loud in the silence. Already the first fat drops of rain were pattering on the leaves over her head. She was going to have to run for the house or be soaked. The wooded shrubbery was now plunged into a gloom so deep that she tripped over a root and almost fell. The air felt sultry beneath the trees.

There was a sharp rustle of leaves away to her right and, spinning around, she thought she saw the figure of a man before he disappeared in the stygian darkness. She quickened her pace and heard again that betraying flutter of leaves and the patter of footsteps on old, dead leaves. Whoever was following her was coming closer.

She felt the first stirrings of panic. She disliked thunderstorms at the best of times, and now she could feel her fears playing on her mind and mingling with her stifling sense of isolation— even though she was a bare few hundred yards from the house. She told herself that she was being foolish and made for a gap in the trees where the wood opened out onto the lawn. The leaves beneath her feet were slippery with rain now and the thunder rumbled closer. She could feel her gown sticking to her with an unpleasant combination of sweat and rainwater and always over her shoulder she had the sense of being watched. As the trees thinned, a figure stepped out onto the path directly in front of her so suddenly that she screamed. A moment later she realized that it was Jack, on his way back from the stables. She felt enormously relieved that his was the figure she must have seen through the shrubbery. She also felt a complete fool. Jack caught her arm, steadying her, a heavy frown on his brow.

“Mairi? What in God’s name are you doing here? Has something happened—”

“No,” Mairi said. Her teeth were chattering. Another long tumbrel of thunder rumbled closer. “I was on the swing in the wild garden. I didn’t realize the storm was so close.”

As they reached the edge of the lawn, there was a fierce fork of lightning and the heavens opened. Rain poured down relentlessly, hitting the gravel of the path and bouncing back. Within seconds Mairi’s shoes were soaked and the rain was running in rivulets down her neck.

“This way.” Jack grabbed her arm, half pulling, half carrying her toward the little summerhouse in the corner of the walled garden. She jumped violently as the thunder crashed directly overhead and Jack had to drag her through the doorway into the room beyond.

He led her over to the cushioned bench that ran around the walls and drew her down onto the seat. The air in the little summerhouse felt warm and dry and the beating of the rain on the roof was soothing.

“We’ll be perfectly safe here,” he said. His gaze appraised her thoughtfully with a hint of amusement in the depths. “I’m afraid you look very bedraggled. Elegant Lady Mairi has vanished.”

“It doesn’t signify,” Mairi said. She was shivering, although she was not cold. Another vivid flash of lightning illuminated the summerhouse interior, followed by a crack of thunder that sounded as though it were splitting the mountains in two.