The Devil Wears Tartan (17 page)

She only smiled.

“Doesn’t your arm pain you?” she asked. His bandage was smaller today, but it was still evident.

“Does it seem to?” he asked, smiling.

“Did the doctor leave you something for the pain?”

“I wouldn’t take it,” he said shortly.

“That sounds a little stubborn, foolishly so.”

His lips brushed against hers in the lightest of touches as his hands ran from the rounding of her shoulders to the violin curve of her back, a delectable and seductive undulation of femininity. She cupped the back of his head with one hand, her palm curving along the line of his skull.

Her hair was really quite glorious, with its chestnut thickness revealing streaks of red and gold. Her form was perfect, her breasts full, and her legs long and shapely. But beyond her feminine endowments, she had the smile of a Madonna and the delicate complexion of a Scottish lass.

She wiggled underneath him; there was no other
word for it. So much for restraint. His fingers felt her, warm, wet, and welcoming. He slid a thumb through her folds and she trembled, widening her legs slightly.

An invitation he couldn’t refuse.

He slipped inside her and stilled, his arms braced on either side of her, his breath halted in the act of possession. Or was it submission? Her feet wrapped around his calves, her hands pressed against his chest, his shoulders, and then crept around to link at the back of his neck.

She crooned his name softly, a siren song almost impossible to ignore, but he didn’t move, trapped on the precipice of sensations so exquisite that he closed his eyes to savor the feeling.

“Are you absolutely certain there was nothing in your father’s library about fornication?”

“I’m certain of it. I’d have learned more about it if there had been,” she said.

“Good God,” he said, opening his eyes. “I wouldn’t have survived it.”

He wanted her to be part of this enchantment, more heady and debilitating than any dream or imagination, and more important than his past.

She was lax in his arms, pliant to his demands, a woman not given to either laxity or pliancy. This, too, was a gift, and he recognized it even if she did not.

He kissed her, softly at first, and then more deeply. But he didn’t allow himself to move.

Making love to Davina was like being in a giant tunnel of fire. He was unharmed, but not untouched, by the searing heat. Each moan she made drew the flames
closer, each touch of her hands on his skin made them arc higher.

He drew back, looked into her face, taut with the strain of wanting, needing, and being artfully denied.

He bent forward and kissed her on the forehead, framed her face with his hands, brushed her hair out of the way with fingers that trembled slightly.

She might take herself away from him, or the madness might return. Either situation would draw him back to his memories, and it was for that reason that he stretched out the moment. He wanted to remember everything about her, from the slight hitch at the end of her indrawn breath, to the impatient drum of her fingertips and nails on his back.

He wanted to be able to recall the speed of her heart, measured by the press of his lips against the pulse at her neck. He wanted to be able to remember how it felt to be deep inside her, to fill the whole of her with the heat and the hardness of his cock.

She trembled, the sensation so faint that it was almost like an entreaty. Submission and power. But who was the submissive, and who the powerful in this joining?

He rose up on his knees and pulled her up until she was sitting astride him, her legs on either side, her breasts pressed against his chest. There was a look in her eyes of such confusion and desire that he threaded his fingers through her hair and jerked her head down for a kiss.

There was nothing polite about this mating. He bit at her lips and smiled when she did the same a second later. Her breath was coming in gasps now, a match
to his. The two of them pulled at each other, hands clenched almost into claws, fingernails gently abrading skin, palms rubbing against heated flesh.

He pushed her up and then brought her down again, over and over, relentless. She murmured his name, and he swallowed the sound of it with his mouth on hers.

When she found her pleasure, it was with head tossed back and eyes staring mindlessly at the ceiling. Her hands had lost their grip on his shoulders, her entire body was trembling, her inner walls clutching his cock with so much force that the sensation propelled him over the edge.

Through it all, she softly called his name and marked herself in his mind forever.

Later, he would wonder how his body had been able to survive it. He was surprised to find himself intact. He wouldn’t have been shocked to gather up his arms from one place, his feet from another. He was damn surprised his manhood was still firmly affixed to his lower body.

The woman who’d caused such an explosion of feeling lay compliant beneath him, a small smile wreathing her full, swollen lips.

Davina. He said her name in the silence of his mind, and the sound of it was almost like a love poem.

Davina was still, her soft breathing regular and rhythmic.

He rolled over and studied her. Her mouth was turned up in a half smile. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair tousled. He’d thought her beautiful from the moment he saw her, and each day only brought him greater proof
of that fact. Smiling, frowning, sad, in every emotion or circumstance, she’d the grace and the body of a Botticelli angel.

She stirred, and her smile slipped as she made a sound—a protest against moving?

This woman had the capacity to make him see into himself. She challenged, with her brashness and her candor, all the façades he hid behind. Although she knew little of his past, and nothing—blessedly—of his present, she’d unerringly peered behind the curtain he held up for everyone to see.

He had the feeling that she’d discover everything that was to be discovered about him, every secret, every horror, every difficulty that he wished to keep hidden. Perhaps she’d understand it all, and offer up a series of excuses for his behavior. Perhaps nothing would shock or disgust her, and she would forgive him anything.

Davina had declared that he was not insane, and the world must simply accept that. His entire journey to madness would be accompanied by her devout and determined support.

At the same time, he didn’t doubt that Davina would flatten his consequence just as adeptly. If the world bowed to him, all souls kneeling in a vast spread of human submission, he suspected one lone figure would remain standing. She’d grant him a look of such disdain that he’d know who it was from the toss of her head alone.

Davina. She should bear another name, perhaps, something more exotic. Rose? Adelphia. Glorianna.
He smiled at himself, envisioning her reaction to his thoughts.

He rolled over on his back and put his forearm over his forehead.

Why did he never have hallucinations around Davina?

“Are you going to leave me now?” she asked.

He glanced over to find her smiling at him.

“It isn’t dark yet.”

She smiled. “No, it isn’t. She stretched her arms over her head, clasping her hands together. “I was wondering how one greeted a husband after an afternoon of loving.”

“What did you decide?”

“With a hello, of course,” she said, smiling. “As simple as that.”

J
oy was an ephemeral emotion, racing through her body like the faintest of breezes, dancing across her spine, piercing the core of her with the most incredible sweetness. She could not stop smiling.

Weak gray sunlight bathed the room, reminding her that it was still daytime.

Was it entirely proper to be getting warm from a smile? Or was it his look that heated her?

She stretched out her hand and he grabbed it, threading their fingers together as if they were children playing a secret game. She would have liked to have been a child with him, but she was six years his junior. Such an age difference would have meant that he wouldn’t have played with her at all, but would have thought himself vastly superior and too old for childish games. But at this moment, they could be playmates of another sort, indulging in simply being human and adults and grateful for it.

She suddenly wanted to give him something, make a present of something valuable and uniquely her own, a gift of honesty.

“I never thought that loving could be fun.” She pressed her fingers against his smiling lips. “No, don’t laugh. I mean it. It’s supposed to be earthshaking and awe-inspiring and special, but I never realized you could feel joy as well.”

“Joy?”

She nodded.

He closed his eyes and at the same time reached out and pulled her to him. “You unman me, Davina. Just when I am prepared for what you might say, you say something like that.”

She pulled back. “Should I not have?”

He didn’t answer her, merely pulled her close again. He was naked as was she, and they fit together with such perfection it had to be God-made.

“Tell me about the man in Edinburgh,” he said.

She pulled back and looked at him.

He stretched out his hand, his fingers trailing over her hand. “I regret that you were shamed, Davina. Or hurt. Cruelty and falsehoods, isn’t that what you said?”

She looked away, and then resolutely turned back to him. “It isn’t what you think, Marshall.” She took a deep breath. “If anyone was to blame for bringing scandal down on my head, it was I.”

He seemed fascinated with the actions of his fingers as he traced a line across the back of her hand to her thumb. The silence brought with it a sense of resignation, a feeling that the time had come to finally admit the whole of it.

“I was curious,” she said, determined to be honest. He deserved the truth. Or perhaps she gave herself the truth,
voicing it aloud for the first time. “I wanted to know what all the books were about, all the poems, all the sonnets.”

“Books that weren’t in your father’s library?”

She smiled. “There were enough to give me a good idea of what was to come. Or what I expected. It wasn’t a complete surprise.” She smiled. “It wasn’t what I’ve experienced with you, of course. I never realized there was a level of skill involved.”

His laughter startled her. A smile curved her lips in response. Should this be such an easy task? Surely she should be feeling more guilt. His amusement rewarded her for her courage, her imprudence. For the first time since that entire episode, she didn’t wish the world away, or herself banished to a place where there were no people, no witnesses to her stupidity. “I was a foolish girl, intent on satisfying my curiosity. I allowed myself to be lured into a bedroom. Or perhaps I was the one who did the luring.”

“In my experience,” he said, “it’s often a case of mutual attraction.”

She shook her head. “He was a very handsome man,” she admitted. “Titled, and quite pleasant, actually.”

“And so, the inevitable ensued.”

She nodded. “And so, the inevitable ensued,” she agreed.

“Afterward?”

“We were discovered, of course,” she said, surprised that her voice sounded so matter-of-fact. In actuality, it had been a hideously embarrassing moment, the maid having hastily summoned her employer, Davina’s hostess for the garden party. At least a dozen people had
clustered around the open door, witness to Davina’s dishabille. Her greatest shame had not been at that moment, but later, when her father had been told of the incident. Her father’s sigh and the shuttered look in his eyes had been as painful as an arrow to her chest.

“Then he vanished?” Marshall said now.

“No,” she said, looking down at his hand on hers. “He was very chivalrous. He would have had us married by special license, I think, if he’d had his way. I was the one who refused.”

His fingers stilled and then began tracing up one finger and down another.

“Are you not curious as to why?” she asked.

He glanced at her, a small smile on his lips. “Of course I am. But I have learned if I have patience, you’ll eventually tell me what I need—or want—to know.”

She frowned at him, but it made no impression on his smile.

“My father died,” she said softly. “It was a horrid time, of course. I was almost relieved to discover a reason to refuse.” She glanced at him. “In all honesty, I found him to be a stultifying boor,” she said. “His charm was annoying after a few hours. He quoted poetry and then claimed it his own creation.”

“Ah, not an original thinker, then.”

“I doubt he thought at all,” she said.

“So, you couldn’t see yourself married to a man such as that, despite your foray into decadence.”

“It wasn’t all that decadent, if you must know. It was a disappointment, all in all. I expected to hear angels sing.”

“And they didn’t?” he asked, his smile growing broader.

She only shook her head.

The moment slowed, his touch on her hand becoming slower and more delicate. When had her hand become so sensitive?

She waited for the question, and when it came, she continued to smile, anticipating his response to her answer.

“Have you ever heard the angels sing with me?” he asked, concentrating on his fingertip tracing around the cuticle of one nail.

She wanted to show him what he’d taught her, that passion was a heady drink and there was intense delight in being sotted. That was the height of decadence, not the furtive coupling of a rake and a virgin desperate for education.

“I’ve heard the angels sing, Marshall,” she said softly. “But what I enjoy the most are the Devil’s whispers.”

He raised his head, his gaze intent and direct.

“I should be furious with you,” he said, the calm tenor of his voice rendering his words even more disturbing. “You should have saved yourself for me. You should never have known the touch of another man.”

“And you, Marshall? Can I surmise by that remark that you came to my bed a virgin?” Her smile had slipped, and her gaze was as direct as his.

He ignored the question. Instead he linked his fingers with hers and pulled her forward. “I should be furious,” he continued. “But if you had not been daring and improvident, reckless and feckless, you wouldn’t
have been persuaded to marry me. If you were not ruined, why would you?”

“Not persuaded,” she said, their hands still linked. “Not persuaded,” she repeated. “Threatened, shamed, perhaps. But never anything so subtle as persuasion.”

She kissed his chest softly, then turned her cheek and rested it against the place she’d just kissed. Her hands explored him, hip and waist and chest, until he grabbed each wrist with his hands and held them still.

“You will only begin something if you continue that.”

“Would that be such a terrible thing?” she asked. She rose on one elbow. “Don’t people expect us to be a little selfish now? After all, we are newly married. We are not going on a wedding journey, but remaining here. Can we not concentrate each on the other?”

“Did you want to go on a wedding journey?” He looked startled, as if the thought had never occurred to him.

“I would have liked to have seen Egypt,” she said. “But I would trade that for remaining in your bed.”

Again she had the impression that she’d startled him. Good.

“Davina,” he began.

She smiled again, wondering if he was going to chastise her for her candor. Instead he pushed her over on her back and loomed over her.

“I like the way you’re formed,” she said, pressing both hands against his chest.

“I’d no choice in the matter.”

“Still, I like the way God formed you. You’re all muscle where I am not. And much hairier,” she added.

“I would hope so,” he said. “Hirsute females are not the norm, I believe.”

She cocked her head to one side and regarded him seriously. “Do you know a great many females?”

“That is not a question I have any intention of answering,” he said with a smile. “Especially when I am lying naked next to my wife.”

“Well, I for one think it is a shame that women do not have more experience, especially if they are to be wed.”

He rolled over and placed his arms behind his head. “How would you change it? By having women be as experienced as men?”

“Who are these women who help you become so experienced? Do they simply disappear once they’ve educated a man? Women are supposed to be virtuous and men are allowed to be rakes. But if men are to be rakes, they must have partners, mustn’t they? Who else but virtuous women?”

He raised up on one elbow and looked at her. “You’ve given this a great deal of thought, haven’t you?”

“Not an excessive amount,” she said. “But it does strike me as particularly unfair.”

“Perhaps a woman must remain virtuous because there are consequences to her behavior. The legitimacy of an heir, for example.”

“There are consequences to a man, as well,” Davina countered. “The pox.”

His startled laughter made her smile.

“And what do you know about the pox, Davina McLaren Ross?”

“I read a great deal,” she said primly.

He only shook his head, but there was a smile on his face, one that looked young and carefree.

“Tell me what you were like as a child,” she said suddenly.

“I was a good son, my mother used to say,” he said. “Although I must confess that I had imaginary playmates. Perhaps that was the Almighty’s way of reconciling me to these damn visions.”

“Or perhaps one has nothing to do with the other. I know what it was like to have imaginary friends. I did for a time, before books replaced my playmates. I think children who are alone often make allowances as such, don’t you?”

He smiled. “I was the earl, the heir, and as such, I was supposed to be everything my father and mother wished for me to be. Without, I might add, being trained for it. My father was in Egypt most of the time and my grandfather died when I was eight.”

“And so you taught yourself how to be an earl. I for one think you’ve done a wonderful job of it.”

“Oh, but you’re supposed to. You’re my wife, and as such, you must be loyal. But there were times when I didn’t deserve your loyalty at all.”

“Because of China?”

“No,” he said, surprising her. “Because of my misspent youth. I did not hesitate to act in ways that did little credit to my name.”

She raised her eyebrows and regarded him.

“Did you seduce the maids?”

“Should I answer that question? The last time I was honest about my past you disappeared for a week.”

She rolled her eyes. “Did you seduce the maids?” she asked. “Please, do not include Mrs. Murray in that answer.”

“Only if they wished to be seduced,” he answered. His smile had disappeared, and in its place was an almost saturnine look.

His face was gloriously handsome, and there was something about the whole of him, arresting and compelling, that made her wonder just how much those maids would have protested the seduction.

But his life had changed since his youth. His reputation was one of a man who’d devoted his life to service to the Crown. His list of accomplishments would have been impressive for an older man. Still, she didn’t doubt that if he crooked his finger and summoned a woman to his side, the female would go with few reservations. Even Mrs. Murray.

“Tell me about your mother,” she said.

She’d evidently surprised him. “What about my mother?”

“I’m torn between telling you the truth,” she said, “and bargaining with you. We’ll trade secrets, you and I. You’ll tell me of China. And I’ll tell you what I know about your mother.”

He shook his head again, and this time the gesture annoyed her.

“Tell me about her.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say. She died a few years ago.”

“I know of her death,” Davina said. “Tell me about her life. I know she designed gardens. What else did she do?”

“She was the steward of Ambrose all those years my father spent in Egypt. The place probably would have crumbled to dust without her. My earliest memories are of her ordering the repairs to the curtain wall.”

For a moment Davina remained silent, remembering the journal entries of a lonely woman, one who had spent the majority of her life longing for a man who wasn’t there.

“Did she know about your father’s fascination with Egypt when she married him?”

“What you’re really asking is if she knew that my father was going to desert her for Egypt all those years?”

“Perhaps I am,” Davina admitted.

“Evidently her parents were friends with my grandparents. While it wasn’t a love match, they were acquainted with each other.”

More than we were
, but those words were left unspoken.

“But that still doesn’t answer the question, unless he was fascinated with Egypt all his life.”

“I think the fascination began when he was a young man,” Marshall admitted. “He’d visited the country on his grand tour.”

“How very sad for her.”

He didn’t respond.

“At least,” she said, attempting to explain her comment, “if she’d had an opportunity to visit Egypt, perhaps she would have been as enthralled. They could have shared his interest.”

“Do you do that often? Rewrite history? Does it matter what might have happened?”

“Perhaps your mother wouldn’t have been so sad,” she said, trying to take his questions seriously and not rhetorically as he’d probably meant. “If she could have understood exactly what he was feeling, or known why he devoted so much of his life to another country and another culture.”

“How do you know she was sad?” he asked.