Oh, how very potentially unwise the lady was. “I see.” What would she say if she could see inside his voluptuary's mind at this moment?
“Nothing has changed,” she murmured.
He nodded while he tried to marshal his defenses against her allure. For her sake he could not give in to wanting her.
“I am here to help you, Struan. And in return, I hope you will help me.”
“I see.”
“Sin's ears! Can't you say anything but ‘I see’?”
He arched his brows. “Why, Justine, I don't think I've ever heard you raise your voice before.” But he had always known there was spirit here. “This ‘sin's ears” business is definitely not refined.”
“Pah! Neither is ‘bloody hell’ refined. You men say such words without a thought. As I have already intimated, I have simply invented my own note of exquisite ire, and it has great possibilities.”
Confounded, Struan scrubbed his jaw and said, “I see.”
“Sin's eyeballs. I have never before known you to be reduced to two silly little words. A change of subject before I am entirely separated from my patience. Are we agreed that in return for my overseeing your household and children you will help me with my book?”
“Your brother threatened me with bodily harm if I do so.” The possibility of her own bodily harm had more power to frighten him.
She played with her pen before saying, “Leave my brother to me.”
“He wishes to take you back to Cornwall.”
“I do not wish to go.”
Struan walked to stand before the writing table. “You don't feel you should obey bis wishes—and your grandmother's?” How much fewer his problems would become if she did.
“At my age?” She laughed. “No, Struan. I have spent my life bending to the will of others. The time has come for me to please myself.”
What would really please her?
And was he totally unbalanced? He should be trying, as carefully as possible, to urge her to leave. But he couldn't find the words. She looked at him with such hope, with such trust that he wanted her to stay as much as she obviously wanted it herself. And he did. But she couldn't.
Yes, he was unbalanced. The strain of the past weeks had loosened his mind. And it had been too long since he spent himself with a woman—an annoyance that should be dealt with, and soon.
He could not upset her at such a late hour. “You should go to your bed now.” In the morning he would do what must be done.
“Of course.” She began to rise again.
“Sit down.”
Justine bit into her soft bottom lip and did as he requested. “Was there anything else you wished to discuss with me?” he asked.
“The matter of the suggestion that you and I should marry.”
“I see … Aha. Yes.”
“Do not give it another thought. Your brother is a very honorable man and acts accordingly.”
Struan rested his thighs against the table. “And
I
am not an honorable man?”
“Oh, but of course you are!” Justine made to get up but quickly dropped down again. “The most honorable of men. That is why I am so drawn to you … I mean, that is why I admire you so very … Oh, dear, I am not good with words sometimes. I consider you very honorable.”
“I see.”
“I doubt if you see anything at all!”
He looked into her eyes. “I see you, my dear. I see you remarkably well.” Even while his world fell in shreds about him he saw Justine with devastating clarity.
“Yes.” She looked down at her book again. “I have begun my work.”
“I … Yes, I rather thought that's what you were doing. You seemed very engrossed.”
“I haven't progressed far.”
“How will you organize the piece?”
Justine held her tongue between her teeth and frowned. “Why are you holding a knife?”
Struan started. He'd forgotten the damn thing. Sheathing it quickly in the narrow pouch at the small of his back, he shrugged his coat more comfortably on his shoulders. No lie at all was required of him. “I heard movement up here and feared an intruder. It is wise to be armed for such possibilities.”
“And there was an intruder,” Justine said, smiling. “Thank goodness you did not need the knife to deal with me.”
“No, a knife is not what I should choose to employ with you.” He must watch his mouth. “Tell me about your work. Perhaps I can give you some small assistance before I escort you back to your rooms.”
She took a deep breath and Struan visualized again the rise of pale, entirely female flesh. He narrowed his eyes upon her face.
“I intend,” she told him, “to organize my work into main sections, with small segments within those sections.”
“And how have you begun?”
“With”—she coughed—“with the meeting when the suitor makes his very first overtures to the female.”
Oh, God. “Are you pleased with your efforts?”
“Um … I haven't written them yet.”
“You were writing when I came in.”
“An explanation of my intentions for the book.” She leaned earnestly forward. “This will be very useful for Ella, you know. Today I think I persuaded her to let me prepare her for the London Season next year.”
“I see.” The mire he'd made for himself only got deeper. How could Ella make a debut without the truth about her background—her lack of background—becoming public knowledge? He had kept so many secrets from so many different people, and now they all threatened to unravel at the worst possible time.
“Yes, well”—Justine was looking at him strangely—“I'm sure you'll appreciate what I mean about the book being helpful when the time comes. I thought I'd begin each segment with a scene. A sort of example of what to expect. That way the result should be to eliminate fear of the event.”
“Innovative,” Struan said, amazed he could still form words at all.
“Perhaps the first scene should be at a ball. The man has already seen the girl and finds a way to make his interest known to her.”
“Reasonable place to begin.”
“You think so?” Her smile was radiant. “Oh, good. Let me make a note of that.” She wrote for several moments. “He dances with her and returns her to her chaperon. Then he dances with her again. Not too soon, of course. Not on the first occasion. At the next meeting, he openly monopolizes her dance card as much as possible.”
“Sounds … reasonable.”
“What does he do next?”
Struan rolled in his lips.
“After all the dancing? When he wants to make a suitable overture to the young lady? What does he do?”
“You never experienced this yourself?”
Justine bowed her head. “No.”
“I see.”
“Do you?” Her face came up and there was fire in her eyes now.
“Probably not,” Struan said, shaking his head. “It's difficult for a man to understand how any lovely woman escapes even the simple niceties of courtship. The man would find a way to be alone with the girl, Justine.”
She frowned and dunked her pen repeatedly in the standish. “So soon?”
“He could hardly make any sort of … He'd have to be alone with the girl to let her know what he felt.”
Justine wiped the excess ink from her nib and jotted more notes.
“He might find a way to take her into a salon … or a study, perhaps. Somewhere he could close the door and be assured of privacy.”
“Without her chaperon?”
“Without her chaperon. The girl would like the thrill of it all, don't you see? The danger. The fact that the man—who has been the soul of propriety to this point—is risking censure shows how desperately he wants her.”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “Yes, I suppose you're right.”
“You should inform your readers that this is an excellent opportunity for the young lady to gauge the true character of the man.”
Justine frowned again.
“By his restraint,” Struan explained.
She continued to frown.
Gently, he took the pen from her fingers and set it down. “Observe,” he told her. “Put your hands in mine.”
He held out his own hands and, hesitantly, she rested her fingers on his palms. Struan bent to rest his mouth on the tender place between her thumb and forefinger.
He felt her shudder.
His eyes closed. He was an experienced man, yet his blood pumped because a woman shuddered when he kissed her hand.
Incredible.
Slowly, he brushed his lips over her knuckles. At the same time, he played his fingertips up and down the tendons on the soft undersides of her wrists.
And she shuddered, and shuddered. “And this … would be … appropriate?” she murmured. “Or should the young lady discourage such attention?”
“Not if she likes the man. Not if she likes what he's doing.”
“Yes, of course that would be the case.”
Releasing her took control. “You'd better make note of that,” he told her, aware of a thickening in his voice.
Justine's breasts rose and fell. “Yes,” she said, taking up the pen once more, a dazed expression on her face. “Yes. I shall make a note or two now and be more specific later. I mustn't press you for too much help all at once.”
Preserve him.
Someone, anyone, give him strength. “We could do a little more work tonight, if you like. Or are you too tired?”
“No! That is, no. I'd be very grateful for your insights.”
Ah, yes, his insights. His insights were making him damnably uncomfortable. He sat on the edge of the table. “Imagine if you will that this is a study in a grand house where a large ball is in progress. You are a woman being courted by a man. He has alerted you to his interest. He has, perfectly appropriately, kissed your hands.”
Justine's hands clenched. She put the pen down once more.
“The man would want to tell the woman something of his feelings,” Struan pointed out. “If he were sincere, that is.”
“Oh, he must be sincere. I shall emphasize that unless he says something appropriate, she should turn him aside at once.”
“Quite.” He lifted a heavy escaped curl behind her shoulder. “When I look at you I almost believe there is true goodness in the world.”
Her lips parted and remained parted. Struan saw her pupils dilate.
“I am the suitor,” he told her.
Justine nodded. “Oh. Oh, yes.”
“The first time I saw you, my heart stopped beating. You stood there, tall and graceful and …
distinguished.
had never before looked at a woman and thought her distinguished and utterly desirable at the same time.”
“I see,” she whispered.
“Since that moment I have dreamed of this moment. I didn't expect it to come, but I dreamed nevertheless. Is that … Do you mind that I thought of you that way?”
“I… No. I'm glad you did. I thought of you that way, too.”
His heart did stand still—just for an instant. He must remember that this was playacting for her. “I have longed to do this.” His hand shook a little when he touched her face. While she stared, wide-eyed, at him he rested his fingers on her jaw, gently slipped them over satin-smooth skin to sink into her hair. “I look at you and I see hope. I see what I thought for so long could never be mine.”
“Such beautiful words,” she breathed. “Such feeling.”
Gradually, he lowered his face toward her and saw her eyes slowly close. Her lips, when he touched them with his own, were warm and sweet—and moist. Careful of the slightest movement, he made no attempt to part her lips farther. Instead he kissed her as he might have had it been his first kiss, and she a girl being kissed for the first time. He kissed her with his heart and soul and it was the sweetest thing, sweeter with the years of his experience and the power of his restrained mastery, than any first kiss could be.
Justine's breath caressed his face. He breathed her in, and gave himself back to her. In her innocence, she reached to mirror what he did, smoothing her cool hands along his jaw and winding her fingers into his hair. With her face turned trustingly up to his, she gave what she could not possibly know or understand.
He must stop. Now. Forcing a smile, he pulled away. “Shall you have difficulty putting that into words?”
Pink flooded her cheeks. Candlelight picked out hints of red in the curls that had now entirely fallen from their coiffure. She looked young, eager, quite kissed—and ready for far more.
“Justine?”
“I shall write it all down,” she said, glancing away.
“Good.”
“Thank you for taking my work seriously.”
He had never taken any work more seriously. At this moment—with a more experienced woman—he would hesitate to stand unless he wanted her to know his shaft sprang hard with desire for her.
“Thank you,” Justine repeated, closing her book and gathering it to her breast. “Thank you so much.”
And Struan knew it was just a beginning.
The beginning of heaven?
The beginning of hell?
“The pleasure, I assure you, is entirely mine.” And with this pleasure, pain was almost certain to follow.
G
lory Willing returned the lascivious wink of the coachman who handed her down at the Fiddler's Rest. She was the only remaining passenger on the Edinburgh-to-Dunkeld Village run, but the customary blare of a bugle met their arrival nevertheless.
Shouting boys ran forward to divest the coach of its cargo of goods and mail from Edinburgh. The horses steamed and snorted in the lamplight and a pall of smoke from the inn chimneys hung over all.
At the stops the coach had made along the way, Glory had made certain her gaze lingered on the bulky coachman until sweat broke out on his brow and his thick tongue made urgent forays over his lips.
As he helped her to the roughly cobbled inn yard, he contrived to tip her close enough to brush her against his rotund body. He guffawed and spread a hand boldly over her breast.
“You overstep yourself a bit, sir,” she said, taking her bearings. From what she could see in the near-darkness, the Fiddler's Rest exactly matched the description she'd been given. Glory covered the man's squeezing hand. “You come this way often, then?” she asked him.
“Often enough,” he said, grinning broadly now. “I makes the run from Edinburgh to Dunkeld every week or so. Never remember carrying a female the likes o’ you before, though.”
She smiled up into his red face. “I'll not be staying in these parts long. I'm to move on a bit, see. I've been offered a place at a fine house. But I might have use for a man such as yourself.” Under the cover of her cloak, she found his bulging rod. “If you know what I mean.”