Robert gave an exaggerated sigh. “I fail to understand your antipathy.”
“Then let me enlighten you,” Jack said. “Lady Mairi is proud and haughty. She’s too rich, too beautiful and too clever.”
Antagonism stirred in him again. It infuriated him that he could not be indifferent to Mairi MacLeod. Not even his night of outrageous passion with his mystery seductress had been able to break her spell. In fact, oddly it seemed to make the craving worse. Now there were two women he lusted after and could not bed.
Robert was laughing. “Does she have any other faults you wish to share?” he murmured.
Jack ran a hand through his hair. “I would rather not escort her,” he said. “Why can’t she travel with her family?”
“Because they are at Forres and Lady Mairi is at her home just outside Edinburgh,” Robert said with unimpaired calm. “It’s a courtesy, Jack. As I said, we are trying to heal the breach between the clans.” He shrugged. “If Lady Mairi dislikes you as much as you say, then she will refuse your escort.”
“She might accept simply to torment me,” Jack muttered. He gave a sharp sigh. “Oh, very well. But you owe me a favor.”
“I really do not think so,” Robert said dryly.
“Five minutes,” Jack said. “It will only take me five minutes to ask and for her to refuse.” He would spend no longer than that in her company. He would go to Ardglen, he would invite Mairi to travel with him to Methven, she would refuse and then he would be gone. Once at Methven for the christening, they could cordially ignore each other.
He sat back, the tension easing a little from his shoulders. He and Mairi MacLeod could surely manage to be civil to each other for so short a time. Five minutes and then it would be done.
* * *
“Tell Lady Mairi MacLeod that Mr. Rutherford wishes to see her.”
Mairi had been in the drawing room when she heard the door knocker sound with a sharp rap that was both arrogant and commanding. A moment later there were voices in the hall and one, a deep drawl she now recognized with every fiber of her being, made her jump so much that she almost snipped off her own fingers rather than the long stems of the roses she was arranging. Laying the secateurs softly on the table, she tiptoed across to the half-open door and stood poised, aware of the tension seeping through her body. The heavy scent of the roses seemed to fill the air, stifling her breath. The blood beat hard in her ears. She gripped the door handle tightly and closed her eyes as the world spun too fast.
Time had lulled her into a false sense of security. She had left Edinburgh the same morning that she had left Jack sleeping off his excesses in her bed. She had come to her country house and had dropped out of society in the hope of avoiding him. She had begun to think she was safe.
Yet here he was
.
She tried to steady her breathing, to tell herself there was no danger. Even if Jack had identified her, she did not have to confront him. She had told the footmen to admit no one, and they were very well trained. Even now she could hear one of them politely refusing Jack access to her with a smooth and well-practiced rebuttal.
“I’m sorry, sir, but Lady Mairi is not receiving guests at the moment.”
“She’ll see me,” Jack said briefly.
Mairi drew back, but it was too late. Perhaps Jack had seen the flicker of her shadow across the black-and-white marble floor of the hallway. Perhaps he sensed her presence. She had only a few seconds’ warning and then Jack was striding into the drawing room and facing her. There was both authority and an easy grace in the way he moved across the floor toward her. She felt all the breath leave her body in a rush, felt the shivers chase across her skin. She realized that she was shaking and knitted her fingers together to still the betrayal.
The first thing she noticed about him was the elegance of his tailoring. He had certainly gone to a lot of trouble in his dress before he called on her. She was not sure how to interpret that. Jack always dressed well, but today he looked spectacular; his clothes were expensive and beautifully cut, the linen pristine white, the boots with a high polish. He carried it off well too, casually but with supreme elegance. So many men looked ridiculous in their fashions, impaled on high shirt points, their jackets stiffened with buckram. Jack Rutherford did not need any artificial aids in order to look good. The jacket of green superfine fit his broad shoulders without a wrinkle. His pantaloons were like a second skin, molding his muscular thighs.
Mairi felt awareness spark and flare deep inside her. Her breath caught beneath her ribs, and her heart started to race. Jack looked a little bit dangerous, more than a little handsome with the tousled tawny hair tumbling over his brow and those narrowed laughing eyes, his face chiseled and clean-shaven. The impossible intimacies they had shared made her consciousness of him so fierce that she was not sure she could hide her reaction to him.
She was staring. She chided herself for it and took a deep breath to steady herself.
He executed a perfect bow. “Lady Mairi.”
There was no apology for interrupting her, no reference to the fact that he had explicitly ignored her desire for solitude. In Edinburgh she had been the one who had driven their encounter. Now that seemed absurd. Jack Rutherford was far too forceful to be anything other than in control. His easy charm cloaked a will of steel.
“Mr. Rutherford,” Mairi said, matching his indifference with a chilly civility of her own.
His gaze brushed her face. There was no recognition at all in his eyes.
He did not know
.
Relief weakened her knees and she almost had to grab the table for support. Disturbingly, beneath the sense of reassurance were other emotions. She identified disappointment and realized that everything that was feminine within her wanted him to remember her.
Madness.
She should be happy to have got away with it. She should be grateful and relieved, anything but this vain and foolish dissatisfaction.
“How do you do, sir?” she said. “I hope you are well.”
Jack’s mouth twisted as though to suggest that he knew the words were no more than a commonplace courtesy. He did not even trouble to reply.
“I understand that you will be traveling to Methven for the christening of your nephew,” he said. His gaze was moving about the room as though he had no particular desire to look at her. “I am here to offer my escort.”
He was here about Ewan’s christening. Mairi felt simultaneously relieved to understand the reason for his visit and deeply irritated that his offer had been made in such an offhand manner.
“How kind,” she said. Then, stung to sarcasm by his indifference: “I had no notion you desired my company so much.”
His gaze came back to her, cool hazel, remote. “The offer is made is at my cousin’s request, madam, rather than my own inclination.”
“Of course,” Mairi said. “I knew it would not be your choice.” She smiled at him, equally cool. “Please tell Lord Methven that I appreciate his thoughtfulness but I will make my own arrangements.”
Jack nodded. She could tell he was not going to try to persuade her to change her mind, presumably because escorting her to Methven Castle was the very last thing on earth that he wanted to do. Everything about his demeanor suggested that he wished to be gone from her drawing room and preferably her life. She could understand that. While she could think of nothing but their wicked night together, Jack still thought of her as a woman who had rejected his advances and treated him with disdain, a woman he was unfortunately bound to through their mutual relatives.
If only he knew.
The irony of it almost made her smile.
“Goodbye, Mr. Rutherford,” she said. “It is fortunate that Methven Castle is large enough that we need see little of each other during our stay.”
She picked up the secateurs again, gripping the cool metal tightly against her hot palm.
In a moment he would be gone
.
Jack’s gaze fell on the roses with their deep red petals. They looked rich and vibrant against the sun-warmed wood of the table. The sunshine slanted light and shadow across his face, accentuating the high cheekbones and the hard jaw. Mairi felt her heart skip a beat. He looked up and met her eyes, and her heart jolted again for fear that she could not hide her reaction to him.
“My grandmother would like those flowers,” Jack said, surprising her. “She adores roses. Do you grow them here?”
“In the walled garden,” Mairi said. She touched the petals lightly. “These were cultivated specially and named after me—Mairi Rose...” She stopped, catching herself, remembering that in Edinburgh that night she had told him her name was Rose.
Jack did not appear to have noticed. His head was bent as he considered the flowers. He did not move.
After a second Mairi’s breath came more easily. She walked toward the door and put her hand on the knob again, pulling it wider in a clear signal that it was time for Jack to leave.
“Good day, sir,” she said sharply.
Jack looked up and met her eyes.
Her heart stopped at what she saw there. The cool indifference was gone. In its place she saw incredulity and anger and a fierce heat that made her breath catch.
“Rose,” Jack repeated, very softly.
The tight, breathless sensation in Mairi’s chest intensified. The doorknob slipped against her damp palm. She felt a craven urge to make a dash for the stairs, to run, to hide. Except that there was nowhere to hide.
“I believe,” she said, and her voice was now no more than a thin thread of sound, “that you were leaving, Mr. Rutherford.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed, his gaze intensifying on her. She felt another shiver chase down her spine. Then he smiled.
“Actually,” he said, still very quietly, “I don’t think I was.”
He came across and leaned past her to place a palm against the drawing room door and closed it very firmly.
CHAPTER THREE
J
ACK
WATCHED
M
AIRI
walk away from him. Each step was a deliberate move to put distance between them. She looked composed, elegant, every inch the aristocratic lady.
His gut instinct was confirming what his mind was still refusing to accept. This was the woman with whom he had spent the most explosively passionate night of his entire life. This was the woman he had been seeking for the past three months.
He felt a blinding rush of fury. He had felt angry and frustrated enough when he had imagined that his mystery seductress was a complete stranger to him. To realize that it was Mairi MacLeod who had used and discarded him was breathtaking. Clearly she had had absolutely no intention of ever revealing her identity to him. It had probably amused her to reject his advances and then pick him up as though he were for hire. The only surprise was that she had not left payment when she was gone in the morning.
The knowledge that he had been a fool as well as a dupe did not soothe his fury. He should have recognized her but he had been so bound up in lust that he had missed the clues to her identity. He felt another sharp pang of anger, made all the more acute by the sudden and devastating knowledge that he still wanted her. She might be amoral, spoiled and deceitful, but he wanted her very much indeed.
She crossed the room toward the wide marble fireplace and turned back to face him. The afternoon sun struck through the long windows with their filmy drapes and spun a soft golden glow about her. Her gown of palest blue was a shocking, ethereal contrast to the striking dark auburn of her hair. She stood bathed in a gentle light, but there was nothing gentle about her beauty and Jack felt an equally fierce pang of response. He wanted to dislike her. He had every reason to dislike her. Strange, then, how the discovery that she was the passionate wanton of his dreams suddenly made her the most fascinating woman he knew.
He looked at the tender line of her neck and the way that the loose curls of red-gold hair caressed her nape and he was instantly transported back to the house in Candlemaker Row, the twisted sheets and the hot darkness, the intimate slide of her skin against his. He felt his body harden into arousal.
“You are Rose,” he said. “You spent a night with me in Edinburgh three months ago.” He knew it had been her. He had seen the truth reflected in her eyes a moment before, but he wanted to make her admit it.
She turned to look at him. Her expression was guarded, betraying no hint of emotion. “I am,” she said, “and I did.”
Jack was reluctantly impressed. Nine out of ten women would have denied it, claiming that they did not know what he was talking about. But perhaps Mairi was so brazen when it came to taking lovers that she did not care about protecting her reputation with lies.
“I expected you to pretend not to understand me,” he said.
Mairi raised one shoulder in a shrug. “That would have been a tedious conversation when we both know the truth,” she said.
She sounded indifferent, but there was a tension in her slender body that told Jack that she was nowhere near as cool as she seemed. That pleased him. She had been in control on the night she had seduced him. Now it was his turn.
“Mairi Rose,” he said. “How convenient to have an alias when you require it.”
Her lips tilted upward in the parody of a smile. “I have three names,” she said. “Mairi Rose Isabella.”
Jack raised his eyebrows. “Even better,” he said. “A choice of aliases.”
“I didn’t want you to know who I was,” Mairi said. She spoke dismissively, as though it were a matter of little importance that she had deceived him. Jack felt his temper catch. It was a novel sensation to be treated as though he was of no account, and it was not one he cared for.
“That,” he said, “was obvious. The plain black carriage, the army of silent retainers, the anonymous—if luxurious—tenement house hidden away down the back streets...” His anger was still simmering and he wanted to provoke her. “I can only assume that you have had a great deal of practice when it comes to selecting and seducing your lovers, Lady Mairi.”
If the barb hurt she ignored the sting.
“I apologize if you feel I used you,” she said sweetly. “A man of your reputation is surely accustomed to casual encounters.”
“I would still prefer to know the identity of the woman with whom I am making love,” Jack said cuttingly.
She smiled. “I do not believe you complained at the time, Mr. Rutherford.”
She laid emphasis on his title, as though deliberately drawing attention to the fact that she outranked him, a duke’s daughter and he nothing more than the younger son of a baron.
Well, hell. She might be proud; she might pretend to be above his touch, but she was still an amoral wanton and he still desired her.
“I’m not complaining,” Jack said. “I cannot deny that I enjoyed having you.” He had been deliberately crude and he saw the color come into her face. He felt no remorse; it was the least she deserved having flaunted her brazenness in his face.
“I might have preferred that you admit to your desires honestly,” he continued. “But the sex itself was very pleasurable. I like that you allowed me to do whatever I wished to you. A woman without inhibitions is a rare thing.”
He saw her expression harden into hauteur. She did not like being treated with such disrespect. Well, now she knew how he felt.
He strolled toward her across the room. As soon as he got close she turned away from him. He had the impression that given half a chance she would simply walk out on him, but as he was now between her and the door, he had cut off her escape. Which was good, because he had not finished with her yet, not by a long chalk.
He circled behind her. She kept her head bent so that all he could see was the sweep of her lashes dark against the curve of her cheek and the pure lines of her jaw and throat. She looked impossibly delicate. Her air of vulnerability was most deceptive. “Why did you choose me that night in Edinburgh?” he asked, his voice hard. “There must have been a reason. What was it?”
She looked directly up at him then. “I am sorry,” she said. “You appear to be laboring under a misapprehension, Mr. Rutherford.” Her blue eyes, dark as midnight, mocked him. “When I picked you up at the ball I did not even know it was you.” She paused just long enough for the insult to sink in. “You could have been anyone.”
Jack felt a rush of pure, primitive fury, impossible to deny, difficult to explain. She was taking blatant shamelessness to a new level in claiming that any man would have sufficed as her lover that night. And instinct told him she was lying.
He grabbed her arm and jerked her close to his body. At such close quarters he could smell the sweet elusive fragrance that had haunted his nights. He could hear her breathing. It was not quite steady.
“I don’t believe you,” he said. “You must have known it was me. You chose me deliberately. I believe you have wanted me from the first time we met and your protestations of virtue were nothing but a sham.” He was not sure if it was pride or stubborn instinct that forced him to press the matter, but he was sure she was not telling the truth.
If she was a liar, though, she was a damned fine one. Her eyes were very candid. She shrugged. “Whether you believe me or not is your choice, Mr. Rutherford,” she said. Once again there was a touch of mockery in her voice. “Perhaps you have too good an opinion of yourself to wish to accept that I did not recognize you. My observation of you over the past few years suggests that your arrogance is such that you assume every woman must find you irresistible.”
Touché.
She had his measure. If Jack had not been so angry, he would probably have found it amusing that Mairi MacLeod knew him so well.
He eased his grip on her arm, sliding his hand down to her elbow. Her skin was smooth and warm beneath his touch, the lace edge of her sleeve just brushing his fingertips.
“But you did find me irresistible, Lady Mairi,” he said. “Whether or not you knew my identity.”
He drew her closer so that her skirts were touching his thighs. She was rigid with tension now. He could feel it thrumming through her body and see the pulse that beat in the hollow of her throat. Awareness crackled between them as hot and sudden as a flame catching at tinder.
“I believe you chose me because you wanted me,” Jack continued softly. He leaned closer; spoke in her ear. “Perhaps it was instinct, perhaps you did not realize what you were doing, but you wanted me as your lover.”
Now, for the first time, he saw a different expression in her eyes and knew at once that this was precisely what she feared; that some deep and powerful compulsion had driven her to pick him out from all the men at the masked ball that night. For a split second she looked frightened, but then disdain smoothed the emotion away and her defenses were firmly back in place.
“I did not have you down as a romantic, Mr. Rutherford,” she said lightly, “and I hesitate to shatter your illusions once again, but I do not believe in some sense of recognition that binds people together. That is nonsense.”
“You don’t believe that desire is a powerful enough force to draw people together?” Jack questioned mockingly.
“The only thing that is powerful here is your imagination, Mr. Rutherford.” Mairi’s tone was chill now, all emotion locked away. She released herself from his grip and stepped away from him very carefully, the pale blue silk of her gown brushing his leg as she passed.
“I was not imagining that night in Edinburgh,” Jack said. “You were completely abandoned in my arms, without restraint or shame. Although by your own admission you respond like that to any man who beds you.”
Mairi spun around, cutting him off with a decisive chop of the hand. At last he had provoked her beyond tolerance. There was high, angry color in her cheeks, and her eyes were a glorious stormy blue. “Enough, sir,” she said. “You are insulting and your observations on my character and behavior are of no interest to me. It is time you left.”
Jack held her gaze. “You cannot have it both ways, madam,” he said. “Either you are a harlot who spreads her favors indiscriminately or you are attracted to me specifically and should drop this pretense of indifference. I do not believe that you have said a single honest thing to me this afternoon. Be honest in this one thing at least and admit that you want me.”
Their gazes locked, his fierce with heat, hers defiant. He had never known a woman quite so guarded. He had never felt so strong a compulsion as he did now, wanting to smash her defenses and force her to admit to her desires.
He raised a hand and brushed the loose tendrils of copper-colored hair away from her neck. The minute he touched her, she froze. He let his fingers slide gently down to the base of her throat, dipping in to the hollow there. He felt her tremble. It was a tiny but betraying gesture and it made his blood surge. Her skin was heating now beneath his touch, a pulse beating against his fingers. She felt soft and warm and tempting.
He leaned in closer so that his lips were a mere inch from hers. Her eyes were a hazy slumberous blue now, half-closed. He brushed his lips across hers in the lightest of kisses. She gave a gasp; he felt her breath on his lips and was suddenly possessed with the most ravenous hunger to drag her into his arms and kiss her senseless.
Instead he ruthlessly reined in the urge and kissed her again, a little deeper, a little longer. Her lips parted, clung to his, betraying a truth she had refused to put into words.
“You want me,” he said.
The ache in his groin was intense now. In a second he remembered being in the carriage on that helter-skelter ride across Edinburgh, remembered the anticipation and the driving need. He kissed her for a third time and she tasted as sweet as he recalled; he ran his tongue along her lower lip and dipped it inside her mouth, tangling with hers, the kiss deepening into blatant demand. Another kiss, hard and insistent this time, and he was within a few ragged steps of losing control, pushing aside the spray of roses that lay on the polished table and taking her on it.
He felt the prick of a blade at his throat.
“These secateurs are sharp as any dirk,” Mairi said. Her voice was a little husky. “Step back, Mr. Rutherford.”
It took Jack several seconds to process the words, and during that time the blade only pressed harder, so he thought it wise to obey. He brought a hand up, running his finger against the cutting edge. It was, as she had said, fiercely sharp. As was the look in her eyes.
“I could disarm you,” Jack said. With a twist of the wrist it would be easy enough, but he suspected that Mairi MacLeod probably had another weapon concealed somewhere about the place, and she looked as though she would be very glad to have an excuse to use it on him.
“You have lost the element of surprise,” she said pleasantly. “You have also overstayed your welcome.” She walked across to the door and opened it for him. “Goodbye, Mr. Rutherford,” she said.
No fewer than three black-clad footmen came forward in a phalanx to escort Jack to the front door. Evidently they had been waiting to burst in and rescue Mairi if she had given the signal. Their expressions were threatening, especially the man who had failed to prevent Jack from entering in the first place. He looked as though he felt he had something to prove.
Jack, who had taken on far more intimidating men in far more intimidating places than Lady Mairi MacLeod’s drawing room, stifled a smile. He briefly weighed the merits of causing a mill and regretfully decided against it.
“You employ a private army,” he said, allowing his gaze to travel back from the row of black-clad retainers to Mairi’s face. “What is it that you are afraid of?”
He thought for a moment that she was going to refuse to answer and would instead have him thrown out on his ear on the gravel without any further conversation.
“I am a rich widow,” she said, after a long moment. “A very rich widow. There have been...” She hesitated. “Threats of kidnapping, of forced marriage. I employ an entourage for my own protection since I
have absolutely no desire to wed again.”