Scotsmen Prefer Blondes (4 page)

Her throat closed up, but she set her candle on a table and opened the door with a remarkably steady hand.

“What a pleasant surprise, my lord,” she said.

It was a vapid statement. He responded in kind. “I do hope my library is to your liking, Lady Amelia.”

“Quite. But I should not like to be found alone with you...”

She trailed off, expecting him to leave. When he didn’t, she turned her nose up to the precise angle that usually drove off would-be suitors.

He assessed her for a long moment with those strangely perceptive grey eyes, then pulled the French door shut behind him. “We’re not so formal in the Highlands. If you can keep from kissing me, I’m sure your reputation is secure.”

Amelia glared at him. “I wouldn’t dream of kissing you.”

He grinned. “If you haven’t yet, it’s only because we’ve just met.”

She made a show of sliding her book onto the shelf. When she turned back to him, he still watched her, as though she was the most amusing thing he’d seen in an age.

“If you will not take your leave, then I shall. Good evening, my lord,” she said, giving him the briefest curtsey.

Carnach caught her arm before she could walk away. “Stay,” he commanded softly.

She brushed his hand away. “I’m not the woman you lured here to marry. You should seek her out, not me.”

“I should.” He shook his head hard, as though to clear it. “I should. And yet you have already said more words to me than Miss Etchingham said through all of dinner.”

“Perhaps the company wasn’t to her liking.”

“Is any company to her liking?” he asked.

Amelia didn’t have an answer for that. She also didn’t have an answer for why she was still in the library, bantering with Lord Carnach, when she had spent so many years avoiding any hint of impropriety.

Perhaps the answer was to be found in the air of command about him — something about his imposing height, or the firm line of his jaw, or the way his dark hair swept back from his face as though he had just come in from a long ride.

Or maybe it was the way he regarded her so intently, his grey eyes looking almost silver in the moonlight — as though he intended to cast a spell to keep her there. She was accustomed to men worshipping her, despite her discomfort at their attentions. But this was the first time she thought she might be willing to worship him instead.

The fluttering in her belly intensified. And she knew it was for him — not from typhus, no matter how much she wished otherwise.

He regarded her for a moment, and in the silence her breath sounded just as fast and shallow as any heroine confronting a would-be ravisher. She was mad for even thinking in terms of ravishment. But if she was mad, her body didn’t care.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked.

He sounded casual, as though he invited unwed ladies to drink with him every day, and possibly twice on Tuesdays. But his eyes were intense, watchful, weighing her with every gaze.

The need she felt was still weak enough that her mind could overrule it. She closed her eyes, thought of Prudence, and tried to kill her desire. “I really mustn’t.”

“I mustn’t either. And yet...”

She opened her eyes. Carnach had walked over to stand beneath an ancient painting of a man in all his Highland finery, some distant ancestor who now watched over the decanters arrayed on the shelf below him. Carnach’s hand hovered over the bottles as he watched her. Something on his face said he was considering some possibility, making some decision she didn’t understand.

“And yet,” he said softly, “I find I must. One drink, Lady Amelia. Will you stay?”

CHAPTER FOUR

In the half lit library, with moonlight and candlelight pooling between them, Amelia felt all her dormant desires stirring. She had channeled all her rebellion into her writing, behaving perfectly in public so that no one would suspect her secret career.

But writing wasn’t her only desire. She wanted the adventures that she’d written for her heroines — the danger, the excitement, the dark deeds and heady passion.

“Must not,” she said again.

He poured sherry into one glass, whisky into another. “Stay,” he said. “You can’t do better than me.”

“Aren’t you an arrogant one?”

Carnach laughed. “I meant you cannot do better at the moment, unless our mothers and brothers are more to your liking. I know you could reach far higher than me in the ton.”

She took the glass from his outstretched hand. When his fingers brushed hers, she wished she wasn’t wearing gloves.

She tried to focus on the conversation, not his slow smile as he sipped his whisky. “I don’t know, my lord. An earl is hardly a stable boy.”

“And yet even an earl would have no chance at your hand, would he?”

Amelia took a step back. “You’re not offering, are you?”

“Your horror wounds me,” he said.

“You do not appear to be wounded,” she said, smiling despite herself.

“Deeply, deeply wounded,” he said, thumping his fist against his heart.

Her smile turned into a laugh. “Never tell me you have a flair for drama.”

“We all have our secrets, Lady Amelia.”

She took a drink of her sherry. “Not me, my lord. I am an open book.”

Carnach laughed. “I’m sure that’s a falsehood. I don’t know your secrets, but Ferguson tells me you’re an absolute cypher.”

When had her cousin’s husband discussed her with Carnach? “Ferguson should know better than to meddle.”

“You must not know Ferguson well — he was a born schemer,” Carnach said. “But his scheme this time has left me in the dark. Why would he suggest a quiet woman like Miss Etchingham when you leave all other women in the shade?”

Amelia ignored the compliment. “Miss Etchingham is really quite lovely.”

“I wouldn’t know. She hardly said two words at dinner. You, though — while she was silent, all I could hear was your laugh.”

And all I could see was your eyes
. She didn’t say it. She knew these games. And whatever Carnach’s intentions were, she didn’t need them, even if the part of her that dreamed of traditional passion wanted him.

“Thank you for the drink, my lord, but I really must be off to bed.”

He set aside his glass, still nearly full. “My question remains,” he said, as though she had said she would stay rather than go. “Why Miss Etchingham? Why not you?”

“You would find me a poor companion,” she said, in her coldest voice.

“Ah, the Unconquered shows herself,” he said softly.

It was a reference to the unfortunate nickname she’d acquired in London — the one she had used to title the scathing satire she had just put away. By basing the heroine on herself, she had hoped to keep everyone from guessing that she had authored it.

“Ferguson has been a busybody, hasn’t he?” she said.

“Is he wrong?”

He wasn’t wrong. She did have a reputation for being unyielding on the marriage mart. But she had little love for the man who’d seduced her cousin Madeleine. “Ferguson doesn’t know me, not really.”

“I wonder,” he said, leaning against the bookcase. “What would it take to know you?”

“Why do you care?” she asked. “Why would you want to know me?”

He shrugged. “Call it madness. Or call it intuition. But if I were the first earl,” and here he jerked a thumb at the portrait above him, “I suspect I would have already carried you off to my bed.”

She gasped. Other men flirted, feinted, obfuscated. This man declared and demanded, in a clipped and aristocratic voice with just a hint of brogue. If the library held the magic of a thousand books, Carnach was the sorcerer who could bring it all to life.

And perhaps he could bring her to life too. She already felt something she didn’t have a word for welling up within her, dangerously close to the surface. When he uncoiled from his relaxed pose and reached out to take away her sherry, the graze of his fingers against hers felt like it could cut her open and make all her need, all her passion, all her wildness, bleed out between them.

“You shouldn’t say such things,” she said.

He stepped closer, beyond her usual boundary, into the space where her frigid walls usually froze suitors. But with him, there was no chill — only heat, and an odd certainty.

“One kiss,” he said, cupping her neck with a firm, demanding hand. “One kiss to find out whether this is madness or intuition.”

This is why girls fall into ruin
, Amelia thought dazedly, seeing in a moment of perfect clarity that she was just as vulnerable to seduction as she had always feared.

But even the heat of his touch and the desire in his voice couldn’t burn away every scrap of her brain. The last remaining shred of it may have forgotten what would happen if she was compromised, but it hadn’t forgotten Prudence.

She planted her hands firmly on his shoulders and shoved. He dropped his hand from her neck, but he didn’t apologize. He waited instead, like he thought he could still win her over.

She forced herself to breathe. “We mustn’t do this, my lord.”

“Malcolm,” he said.

“I can’t call you that.”

“You could if we were married.”

Panic rose in her throat, sharp and sudden. “I thought you weren’t offering for me.”

“I’m not a complete cad, Amelia. I wouldn’t try to kiss you unless I was prepared for the consequences.”

She took another step back, out of reach. “Nothing happened. Nothing will ever happen. And there will be no consequences. You should marry Miss Etchingham, if she’ll have you. And if she won’t, you’ll find a hundred women in London more suitable than me.”

Malcolm no longer looked like a sorcerer. Crossing his muscled arms over his chest, he looked more like a warrior of old, eager to pillage her. “I’ve decided. It was intuition.”

“And I’ve decided it was madness,” she retorted. “You can’t possibly want to marry me after a single conversation.”

“You’re right.” He stepped forward. “I still think a kiss is required.”

Even though she was appalled, his grin made her laugh. “That wasn’t what I meant, my lord.”

“Malcolm,” he reminded her again.

She took a deep breath, hoping she looked composed. “Very well, Malcolm.” There was more of a sigh to his name than she intended, and the soft roll of her tongue on the
l
’s felt like the kiss she’d denied them.

If even his name could seduce her, she needed to run as far away from the man as possible.

“I must go,” she said. It was abrupt and awkward, nothing like her usual command of language, but it was all she could manage.

“Until tomorrow, then,” he said. He didn’t touch her again, but he looked just as unyielding as the man in the portrait above him.

Tomorrow
.

She turned and fled.

If her defenses had crumbled so quickly, how could she survive another round?

*    *    *

He agreed with Amelia. This couldn’t be intuition. It was pure madness. There was no other explanation.

Malcolm watched her flee. It wasn’t an orderly retreat — it was more like a rout. When she had looked at him, he thought she wanted him as much as he wanted her. Instead, his attempt to kiss her had scared her off.

He picked up his whisky glass and strode to the French door, turning the lock against the night. Through the window, the moon gave everything in his mother’s formal garden an eerie silver edge. But the flowers were nothing compared to the wonder in Amelia’s eyes before she remembered that she shouldn’t want him.

He rolled his tumbler in his hand. She wasn’t the type of woman he sought for his bride. There were secrets hiding in those eyes, and he didn’t think they were the shallow secrets of a society miss.

Still, what was better? A woman with secrets and a backbone to support them, or a woman with no secrets who could barely feign interest in him?

Amelia was interested in him. He was sure of it, even if she wasn’t. If she wasn’t so loyal to her friend, he suspected Amelia would still be in the library with him — and they wouldn’t be talking.

Malcolm cursed under his breath. He didn’t intend to marry for passion. And he couldn’t marry a woman with secrets, not if they were the kind that could threaten his clan. If she was truly unsuitable, he couldn’t take her, regardless of what his intuition said.

He strode to a writing desk, yanked open the center drawer, and pulled out paper, ink, and a sharpened quill. His friend Ferguson had gotten him into this mess, recommending Miss Etchingham over Amelia. He surely had his reasons, even if Malcolm couldn’t fathom any of them.

He scrawled a note to ask whether there was any reason not to pursue Amelia instead. Ferguson and his household had traveled to Scotland with Amelia’s party, splitting off to go to Ferguson’s manor. If Malcolm sent a footman with the note in the morning, he would have a response by evening.

While the ink dried, he sipped his whisky. Maybe he should go to London to look for a bride. Surely he could find a woman who would be as obedient as Miss Etchingham and as delightful as Amelia.

But when he tried to imagine that woman, he couldn’t see her. All he saw was Amelia’s smile.

He folded the paper, sealed it with wax, and took it down to the great hall to toss on a tray for Graves to dispatch in the morning. Then he looked up at the ancient swords hanging above the dais, protected by generations of Carnach earls. They were softened by the tapestries that added color to the stones, embroidered by generations of Carnach countesses.

Every one of his ancestors had done their duty to the estate. He needed to follow in their footsteps, not be led astray by passion. If Amelia could take up his duties with him, he would offer for her. If she couldn’t...

If she couldn’t, he wouldn’t take her, regardless of what his intuition said.

CHAPTER FIVE

The next morning, Amelia was still in her dressing gown hours after the sun rose. She hadn’t slept well after returning to her room. Even though she’d caught herself in time and refused Malcolm’s kiss, it should never have come that close.

She knew better than to kiss anyone. She sometimes desired the adventures her heroines had — but in real life, it took only an instant to be ruined. She’d come close to being forced into marriage by the awful Lord Kessel a year earlier, when he had cornered her at a ball and tried to kiss her. Luckily, Alex had been watching, and he’d found her before the damage was done. After Alex broke the baron’s nose, adding injury to the insult Amelia had caused by slapping him, Kessel had given up his pursuit of her.