How to Seduce a Scot (7 page)

And how was she to know anything about her heart? She was a girl, searching for a husband who would honor and care for her, and her family, for the rest of her life. Her heart and all it contained simply did not signify.

She smiled her small smile at Mary Elizabeth, whose keen eyes clouded over at the sight of it. “Are you all right, Catherine? You look peaky. Did you eat a bit of bad cheese when you were out riding with Lord Farleigh?”

The idea of Lord Farleigh offering her a spoiled bit of Brie while they careened behind his matched grays in Regent's Park made her laugh out loud. So much for being a lady of mystery.

“We did not partake of cheese on our drive,” she said.

“Well, you no doubt need a bit of diversion after all of this lion gazing. Lord, but they should keep the thing outdoors! The stench alone is enough to make a woman swoon, if she were the swooning type.”

Catherine laughed again, careful to keep her gaze on Mary Elizabeth's face and away from her brother altogether. “You would never swoon.”

Mary Elizabeth took her brother's arm as he led them out of the keep and into the sunlight of what had once been the bailey. The clouds had cleared away entirely, and the sky was as blue as any in Devon. Catherine found herself tilting her face to the sun, drinking in the warmth past the concealment of her bonnet. She felt Mr. Waters's heavy gaze on her, but she knew by now not to look at him.

“I might swoon under some circumstance I have yet to encounter,” Mary Elizabeth said as her brother handed her into the duchess's open gig. “Perhaps if I killed a man.”

Mr. Waters spoke at last. “I would swoon if you killed a man, Mary, and Mother would have your hide.”

Mary Elizabeth frowned at the mention of her mother, but shrugged off the thought with her next breath. “Mama is in the Highlands, and I am here. I might kill twenty Londoners before she could even ready her carriage to come and fetch me home.”

“The English frown on killing in the public streets, Mary Elizabeth,” Mr. Waters said. He sat between the girls, and the carriage, with its single large seat, could barely contain him and them both. His knee pressed against Catherine's through the thin muslin of her skirt, and his thigh distracted her, radiating heat like a hot brick in winter.

Catherine chastised herself for noticing and instructed herself to be a lady. She need not concern herself with Alexander Waters. She must forget him, even as he sat beside her, and keep her mind on Lord Farleigh—a marrying man, and her future.

Mary Elizabeth waved one hand. “Fine and dandy, Alex. I won't kill anyone. I'm just saying, if I did, I might well swoon.” She looked at Catherine across her hulking brother. “Catherine looks as if she will swoon dead away right now in this bright sun. Get us to Gunter's, quick time, Alex. We've not a moment to lose. A strawberry ice is just the thing to fortify a young lady in the warmth of spring.”

“Gunter's it is. We can't have Miss Middlebrook swooning on us. Her mother would not be pleased.”

“You did vow to protect her, Alex. You always keep your word.”

“That I do, Mary, that I do.”

Catherine ignored this entire exchange as if it had not been spoken. She wished herself home, listening to Margaret play the pianoforte, or back in Devon, tucked away in the garden of her childhood, long before she knew Alexander Waters even existed.

His angel had spoken of her heart.

Alex had thought he would lose the last of his good sense when she'd said that he had touched her, not just her body, but her tender feelings. He had felt a welter of emotion rise when she spoke, a tidal wave that threatened to swamp the ship of his reason and drown him on the spot.

He could not trifle with a young girl from Devon. He would not. He was a man of twenty-five, sworn to guard and protect her, even from himself. He could not look into the soft green of her eyes, pools of burn water running over mossy stones. He could not take her away from this place and keep her from the lust-filled eyes of all those Englishmen, none of whom she noticed. All of whom wanted her as much as he did, no matter how decorous their outward regard. He was not in the south to marry among the English, but to see his sister married. He could not hurt this girl.

So in spite of the rising tide of his own emotions, he did not look at her again. He did not answer her save to warn her away. And when he had felt her flinch as if he had slapped her, he'd cursed himself for a cad and a bounder. He had let his own interests and flirtation interfere with a lovely girl no older than eighteen, a girl with no man to defend her.

She had closed up like a rosebud and would not look at him again. It was for the best. He had done as he ought, as any honorable man would do, but all the same, he was in the wrong. He did not know how to make it up to her, and heal the breach between them without giving the girl false hopes. It was better for her to forget him altogether, for her to marry her Lord Farleigh, or someone just like him. Alex would see Mary Elizabeth safely married; then he would go home to the Highlands, and all would be as it should.

And yet, he had offended and hurt her, and his own heart was bruised. He knew nothing about dealing with young girls, or honorable women. He always kept them at a decorous distance, dancing once with them but never twice, never fetching an unmarried lady punch at a ball, never looking at any decent woman for long, but looking only to keep his own sister safe. He had only known this girl a few days, but it seemed a friendship of sorts had sprung up between them, in spite of his lack of good sense, in spite of his lust. He had bruised that tentative friendship, if not cut it off completely, before it could become full grown.

He was being an ass. What man kept a woman for a friend? Women were family, they were lovers, or they were dance partners for one dance. That was all. He knew better than to trifle with this way of looking at the world.

He cursed himself as he climbed down from the gig to fetch the girls' ices. Father had always claimed that women were trouble. Only now, for the first time in his life, was Alex beginning to see what he meant.

* * *

Mr. Waters said little after the discussion of killing Londoners. He maintained a wary silence, bringing them ices and then standing outside the carriage, nodding to the fashionable women around them. They eyed him as if he were a delectable tidbit far more enticing than the sweets on offer at Gunter's.

Catherine cursed herself for noticing, and Mr. Waters for the fact that the
ton
ladies were right. She might take chocolate every morning for the rest of her life, and each cup would not be able to contain the decadence of one touch of the hulking Highlander's hand.

“You've been in a sour mood since we came out of the Tower,” Mary Elizabeth said. “Are you feeling ill?”

“Just a bit peaky, as you said.”

“Well, I've a bit of something that will cure your ills.”

Mary Elizabeth looked toward her brother, and when she saw that Alexander had his back to the both of them, guarding them like a sentinel, she reached into her reticule and pulled out a silver flask with her initials on it.

“My father gave me this before I left home,” Mary Elizabeth said. “He told me to keep it, and my knife, always at my side. One never knows when one will need it.”

Catherine turned her back on Mr. Waters and looked at the pretty silver flask, intrigued. She wondered if she might get one of her own, and what it might contain.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Only a bit of the
uisge beatha.
It's good for all that ails you.”

“Well, I'm not actually ill,” Catherine confessed. “Just out of sorts.”

Mary Elizabeth looked shrewdly past her friend at her brother's forbidding back. “Ah. An afternoon in that one's company will do that. Here, have a nip.”

Catherine took the flask and drank deep, only to splutter at the heat and the bite of the drink. She did not know what it was, but it certainly bore no resemblance to lemonade. Still, she felt daring drinking it, and knew from the careful way Mary Elizabeth tried to hide it from her brother that whatever it contained would annoy him. She drank deep one more time, before handing the flask to her friend.

Mary Elizabeth laughed a little, but quietly, so as not to draw Alexander's attention. She poured liquid from the flask onto Catherine's ice. Catherine looked around to see if any of the fashionable people had noticed, but they were too busy preening and trying to be seen to pay any attention to what two lone girls were up to.

“Will it ruin the flavor of the ice?” she asked, suppressing her excitement, feeling a strange warmth beginning to creep over the edges of her mind.

“No, love, it'll just give it a kick. Eat up, then.” Mary Elizabeth added a tot to her own ice, then slipped the flask back into her bag before her brother could see what she had done.

The liquid tasted strange, and a little off-putting, but as Catherine continued to eat, she found the taste not as strong, and a warmth spreading along her tongue. The heat of the drink and the cold of the ice pleased her immensely. She must find out what that stuff was, and get a bit for herself. Margaret might like it when she was feeling out of sorts.

By the time she had finished her strawberry ice, a lovely sense of well-being pervaded Catherine's whole body. She felt warm in her belly, but not too warm, and the whole world had taken on a sunlit cast in spite of the gathering clouds. She was not even embarrassed when she handed her silver cup and spoon back to Mr. Waters to be returned inside.

She smiled at him beatifically, feeling at peace with all the world and every man in it. Even him.

Mr. Waters hesitated at her smile. He looked into her face as if searching for the answer to a puzzling question. She saw the moment he found it, for his look turned thunderous.

“Mary Elizabeth Waters, what have you done?”

His angel was as drunk as a sailor.

Alex cursed, not bothering to do it under his breath. Mary Elizabeth ignored him, but Miss Middlebrook stared him down like a schoolroom governess.

“I beg your pardon, Alex, but I must insist you do not use that language in my presence.” She looked at him imperiously from under the narrow brim of her white flowered bonnet. He was about to open his mouth to apologize when she laughed long and loud. The sweet sound echoed down the street in waves, and more than one gentleman looked over to see where the courtesan was sitting. When they saw only a little debutante dressed in pink muslin and silk flowers, they raised their eyebrows and turned back to their companions. But not before their gazes lingered for a moment, as if to memorize her face.

He returned the silver cups that had held their ices, not hesitating a moment longer before vaulting into the seat and drawing up the duchess's black geldings. The pair shook themselves awake and dove into the melee of the London street, as eager to get back to their mews as he was. Of course, he had a second stop to make.

Alex's stomach sank. Even their connection to the duchess would not be enough to smooth the way with Mrs. Middlebrook this time. One cut from a throwing knife was bad enough, but when he brought the eldest daughter of the house home intoxicated, there would truly be hell to pay.

He would probably never be allowed to call on her again, much less dance with her in company.

Alex turned his glare on Mary Elizabeth, who sat beside her friend, contemplating the sky that was turning gray above their heads. Catherine Middlebrook, sandwiched between them, hummed a lilting little tune he did not recognize. She leaned heavily on his arm, as if she were a vine that sought to grow there.

His body hardened at her nearness, as it always did, but this time there was a keenness to his appetite, for it grew by what it fed on. An almost constant diet of her presence had only made him want her more. And now she was warm and willing by his side, hanging on his arm, her breast pressed against his bicep.

He was a gentleman, and had to remember his oath. He thought of unpleasant things instead: the coldness of the burn when he tried to swim too early in the year at home, the icy slickness of the water he was obliged to break in his wash bowl every morning in the middle of winter.

All these thoughts did not cool his ardor in the least. For his angel was a warm burden against him, a bud ready to flower, and he was but a man—a man of honor, but just a man.

God help him.

“Alex,” his sister said, as if she had not been wreaking havoc in her wake, “do you think it is going to rain?”

“We're in London, Mary. It is always about to rain. And do not speak to me. Your friend has had a bit of the whisky.”

“She has.” Mary Elizabeth kept her eyes on the sky, not looking his way at all. “Only a tot, just to sweeten her mood. An afternoon with you had put her in an ill frame of mind.” She turned to him then, raising a pointed eyebrow. “I wonder why?”

“Do not speak, Mary Elizabeth. Your friend is drunk, we are ruined, and you are going home.”

“To Glenderrin?” Mary Elizabeth asked hopefully.

“No. To the duchess's.”

His sister slumped a little, sighing.

“Yes, it is such a burden to live in a princess's palace while all the swains of London leave you calling cards and flower bunches, each waiting to dance with you at the next ball.”

Mary Elizabeth brightened and straightened her back at the mention of dancing. “That's right! Tomorrow, we dance! Alex, do you think these English know any reels?”

He breathed deep, working hard not to thrash his little sister with his buggy whip there in the street. He was overwrought, and overreacting, but as his angel pressed one lush breast tighter against his arm, he had all he could stand. It was high time Robert took over the business of marrying off their sister. Robbie need no longer wander among the whores of London, but stay home and squire Mary Elizabeth about Town while Alex drowned himself in a vat of cold water in the garden.

“I doubt it, Mary Elizabeth. Maybe you can teach them one.”

“Maybe I will.”

He drew the duchess's carriage up in front of her town house. “Why are we here, Alex? Aren't we taking Catherine home?”

“What happens to Miss Middlebrook is no longer your concern, Mary.”

Catherine roused herself enough at this point to speak. “No, indeed, Alex. Mary is my best friend. I will see you at the dance tomorrow, Mary. You can teach me a reel.”

“It would be my pleasure,” Mary Elizabeth said, planting a kiss on Catherine's cheek before leaping down from the carriage, into the road. Lucky for her, and less lucky for him, no other carriage was barreling by to kill or maim her in that moment. His sister gave him a jaunty wave before blithely strolling into the house. The forbidding ducal butler shot him an evil look before closing the door behind her.

Catherine pressed harder against his arm to get his attention. His body was at full attention, but he turned his head at last to look down at her against his better judgment.

Her lips were swollen as they always were, as if someone had just been kissing her. The telltale scent of whisky lingered on her breath, along with a hint of strawberries from the ice she had eaten. She leaned closer, if that were possible, raising herself up to whisper in his ear.

“Alex,” she said. “I think it is going to rain.”

* * *

Catherine should be standoffish and ladylike around Alexander Waters, but ever since she had eaten her strawberry ice, she had felt at peace, at one with the world and every man in it. She could not quite remember why she was angry with him. She liked him. She knew he liked her. There was not much else to think about when it came to a man and a girl.

Her grandmother's strictures about proper decorum seemed very far away, as far as the river that ran by their house in Devon. As Mr. Waters drove her home in the busy traffic of the Mayfair streets, she leaned comfortably against his arm and looked at the sky. She could not see it properly, for her bonnet blocked her view, as it always did.

She pulled away from Alexander for a moment and reached for the ribbons of her bonnet.

“Miss Middlebrook, may I ask what you are doing? Please keep your bonnet on. We are almost at Regent's Square.”

“Balderdash, Mr. Waters. I am tired of not being able to see properly. I want this bonnet off.”

She fiddled with the tie that bound her until the bow under her chin finally came free, and she drew the hat off her head. She sighed, and tossed the bonnet at her feet, where the ribbons fluttered at her gaily. It seemed for a moment that the cursed hat might take flight, so she set her neat-booted foot on it. It was a bit crushed, but it would not flap out of the carriage and scare the horses.

“Miss Middlebrook, your lovely bonnet is ruined.”

“I doubt that, Alex. May I call you Alex? I doubt that, but if it is, I have another at home that will suffice for everyday use, and one for Sundays.”

Her hair suddenly felt tight on her head. The hairpins seemed to be sticking into her scalp more than usual, and she needed to loosen one or two. She reached up and drew out the two largest hairpins. A hank of curls fell across her shoulders and down her back. Alexander clucked to the horses and they picked up speed, bringing a lovely breeze against her heated skin and along her face. She drew two more pins out, and then two more, until her entire head of hair had fallen around her in a mass of curls.

“That's better,” she said. Her reticule was caught under her thigh. It seemed she had sat on it. Rather than draw it out from under her in an unseemly show of maneuvering in the open carriage, she simply tossed the pins into the street.

“Miss Middlebrook, I beg you, please do not take anything else off.”

“Alex, I must remind you that I am a lady. A lady does not disrobe on a public street, in an open carriage, in the full light of day.”

Alexander seemed to blush under his tan, and she laughed in delight. Finally, someone besides herself was blushing! What a lovely change that made.

Emboldened by the heightened color on his handsome face, she leaned close to him again, sliding her hand up his muscled arm. His tight coat did not do him justice, it seemed. The muscles leaped beneath her gloved hand, radiating warmth and coziness and a tiny bit of danger. But his hands were occupied with the horses… What could one tiny bit of danger matter?

She took both of her gloves off and tossed them on the floor of the carriage beside her hat. Her hands free to roam unencumbered, she leaned close to Alex and slid one hand up his arm, past his elbow, to the bulge of his bicep.

She sighed. “It occurs to me, Alex, that a lady might indeed take off a few more constricting clothes, if she were driven in a closed carriage, in the dark of night. Perhaps that is why I am never allowed to go anywhere, save with Mama, once night has fallen.”

Alex choked, and she looked up into his face with concern. It seemed he was not having an apoplexy like the one that had killed her father. Perhaps he was only trying very hard not to laugh.

“You may laugh, Alex. I will not be offended. I know that I know almost nothing about the world. I suppose I am a disappointment to a worldly man like you.”

She felt a little of the happiness go out of the day, as he stopped the carriage by the curb. This time, Jim did not come out to hold his horses. Indeed, no one from her household greeted them at all.

He turned to her, not moving to hand her down from the rig. His dark eyes were serious, and seemed to be lit with an inner fire that she thought she should heed.

“You are far from a disappointment, Catherine. You are the most beautiful girl I have ever known, and the sweetest. You are wholly unspoiled and could never disappoint a true gentleman or a man of sense, this day or ever.”

“Even with my bonnet off?” she asked, eyeing him warily.

“Even then.”

She smiled at him, the day coming back to rights. She heard the distant sound of thunder and bent down to pick up her bonnet and gloves. Her reticule was indeed tucked under her derriere, and she held on to Alex's arm as she reached beneath herself to draw it out into the light.

“There that blasted thing is. What do I owe you for our ices, Alex? A Middlebrook always pays her debts.”

He did laugh then, and raised his arms to help her down from the carriage. “You owe me nothing. A lady does not pay for her own ices.”

He swung her down from the high seat and she clung to him like a limpet. Suddenly the ground seemed very far away, and seemed to sway a little as her feet touched the earth.

“Alex, I fear that bit of
beatha
…whatever it was, might have made me a little…odd.”

He smiled and let her lean all of her weight on him. “Only a little. I must admit, Miss Middlebrook, I like you odd.”

“Then you will like me forever, Alexander Waters, for odd I always am.”

He helped her up the stairs to the front door, so she managed them without tripping once. For some reason, that simple fact made her inordinately proud.

Jim did not answer her knock, so she simply pushed the door open. The entrance hall was dark, for rain clouds were gathering and the candles had not been lit in the vestibule. Mrs. Beam had her work cut out for her, it seemed. But Catherine did not even care. She was too happy and warm and well to care about households and candles. Who could care for such trifles when a man like Alex Waters stood in the room?

“I must tell you a secret, Alex. And you must not tell a soul.”

“What is that, Miss Middlebrook?”

“Call me Catherine.” She leaned close to him, drawing him into the darkened hallway. She felt a tiny bit dangerous, a tiny bit wild, but she also knew that no matter what the provocation, he would always look after her, would always see to her needs and interests without her even having to ask. For all his good looks and non-marrying ways, Alex was a good man.

“Come close, and I will tell you.”

He obligingly leaned down, and she raised her hands to settle on his broad shoulders. She knew that his horses would stay in place and not run away, as she had seen him tie them to the post by the road. So she closed the door behind him with a tilt of her hips, and stepped even closer in the dark.

“I like you too, Alex Waters. A very great deal. More than any man I have ever met, save my father. And he was a great man.”

“I am sure he was. Miss Middlebrook—”

“Catherine,” she corrected him.

“Catherine,” he amended. “We are standing a bit too close. Someone might see.”

She smiled at him then, and felt as if a little sun had risen in her heart. Even in that dark corridor, when any other man would have taken advantage, he was still trying to care for her. She leaned close, as if to whisper once more in his ear, but at the last moment, she turned her head, and brushed her lips against his.