The Marquess's Scottish Bride: A Sweet & Clean Historical Romance (The Chase Brides Book 2) (13 page)

CAITHREN HEADED
up the fancy wrought-iron staircase, fuming as she looked for number twenty-six.

It was clear Mr. Chase didn’t like her, yet he expected her to share his chamber tonight. Fifty-seven rooms and only one available? She didn’t believe him for a moment. He planned on keeping his eye on her.

She was glad she’d be rid of him soon. She’d never figure him out. Most especially, she’d never figure out what it was about him that made her want to goad him. Or what is was about him that made her want to touch him.

Surprise made her stop dead on the landing.
Did
she want to touch him? She’d never particularly wanted to touch a man before. Then again, she’d never met a man with eyes like the Englishman’s.

Fiercely, she brought up a mental image of his mustache.

There. That was better.

When she reached the end of the corridor, she turned in disgust. She must have gone right, not left.

Mr. Chase was standing at the other end, watching her. “Are you lost?” he called.

“Nay.” She hurried toward him. “I only wanted to have a wee look around.”

Raising a brow, he took the key from her hand and fitted it into number twenty-six’s lock.

When the door swung open, she gasped and shot him an accusatory glare. “There’s only one bed.”

“I told you there was only one room. It’s no fault of mine it has only one bed.” He walked in and set his portmanteau on the bed in question. “We’ll manage.”

She stood on the threshold, eyeing the room with trepidation.

“Come in, will you?” He rolled his eyes, an expression that seemed odd on him. “I’m no threat to your virtue.”

“I didn’t think you were.” And it was true. As confusing and infuriating as he was, she felt safe in his presence. It made no sense. She knew it made no sense, which was why she was nervous.

Since she couldn’t just stand there, she entered but left the door open. He removed his surcoat and tossed it over the back of a lovely carved chair, then went around the room lighting candles.

She wandered over and fingered the fabric of the brown coat. Fine stuff, although plain. Stitching neat enough to rival her mother’s. “Mam always despaired of my sewing,” she blurted.

What an inane thing to say. As though he cared. But she’d never been good at controlling her mouth when she was jumpy like this.

He shut the door, blocking out the noises of other people in the corridor and downstairs. “Did she, now?”

“Aye, she claimed I’d never make a proper wife. Never mind that I’m capable of seeing to the health and provisioning of every soul at Leslie.”

He moved an extra candle to the dressing table. “At Leslie, huh?” From his leather bags came two shirts and a pair of breeches, which he left in an untidy heap on the bed, then an ivory comb, a razor, a brush, and a ball of soap. “If you can do all that, I cannot see whereas sewing would make a difference one way or the other.”

“Don’t you need a wife who can sew?” She hadn’t finished saying it before heat rushed to her cheeks. Crivvens, she couldn’t stop blethering.

“I don’t need a wife at all.” He set the implements on the dressing table and examined himself in its fine mirror. “My sister, Kendra, takes care of running my household.”

“How about after she marries?”

His eyes met Cait’s in the silvery surface. “That isn’t likely. Anytime soon, at least. Although she’s seventeen, she’s yet to show interest in any man.”

“Same as me,” she said softly.

His gaze held hers for a moment; there was something peculiar in that clear green gaze. Her stomach fluttered. Perhaps she wasn’t as safe with him as she’d thought.

He stroked his mustache, then sighed and set to work with the brush and soap, making a fine lather. When he started brushing it onto his face, Caithren felt she shouldn’t watch. It seemed too intimate. Instead she walked to the window and drew aside the drapes.

It was pitch black behind the hotel, and she couldn’t see a thing. With a sigh, she let the curtain drop and ran a hand down the wall beside the window. It had wallpaper—thick sheets nailed to the wall, with flock printing. The paper’s pattern felt velvety under her fingers. She’d heard of wallpaper, but she’d never actually seen any before.

The blade made a small scraping noise that sounded loud in the silence. Despite herself, she sneaked a glance in the mirror. She hadn’t seen him clean-shaven, and she was annoyed to find her fingers itched to touch the newly exposed smooth skin. Looking away, she went to the bed and started folding the clothes he’d left there. This also felt strangely intimate, but it irked her to see his fine garments mistreated.

Still, her gaze kept wandering to the emerging planes of his face.

He dipped the brush again, rubbed white foam in a wide arc beneath his nose, caught his upper lip with his teeth—

“What are you doing?” she burst out.

“Removing my mustache.” Calmly—as he did everything else—he drew the razor over a section, rinsed it in the washbowl, shaved the next patch. And on, until many black hairs floated on top of the water, and the space above his lip was bare and a touch paler than the rest of his face.

He rubbed it. “Feels odd.”

He flashed a rueful smile full of straight, white teeth she hadn’t noticed before. Her own mouth gaped open as she laid the second shirt on the bed and sat herself at the edge, her hands clenched in her lap.

“What do you think?” he asked.

She finally found her tongue. “You look young.”

He laughed. “And just how old did you think I was?”

“I don’t know,” she hedged, mentally kicking herself for making such a brainless comment in the first place. “Older.”

“I’m twenty-three.” He looked back in the mirror, turning his head this way and that.

“Twenty-three?” They were much closer in age than she’d thought. “But you’re so—” She clamped her mouth shut. What was wrong with her this night?

“Yes?” He turned around and watched Cait as she felt her cheeks slowly turn red. His beautiful mouth split into a grin. “Never mind. I don’t think I want to know what you were going to say.”

“I—” She could see her flaming face in the mirror behind him. “I was only going to say that you seem a…a rather serious young man.”

Except now he was laughing again. “I know. I was handed a lot of responsibility at an early age. That’s why I grew the mustache. I thought if I looked older…” His fingers moved to stroke the absent whiskers, then jerked away. “I miss it already.”

“I thought you wore it in imitation of the king.” She gestured at the glorious long hair that reached to the middle of his chest. “You look like a Cavalier.”

“My family did support Charles in the war,” he said distractedly. One hand went up to stroke the wavy mass. “Well, there’s nothing for it,” he announced in resigned tones.

“Nothing for what?”

“The hair.” He reached for his knife. “It must come off as well.”

She cocked her head. “Why?”

“Same reason I shaved the mustache. Gothard knows I’m alive now. I don’t want him to notice me following him. I’ll look different, yes?”

“Well, aye. But you look different already,” she argued. Why did she care?

He glanced in the looking glass again. “Not different enough.” Holding a hank of the beautiful black silk, he measured it against his shoulder and hacked off a hunk. Crookedly.

She winced. “You’re going to look like a wallydraigle.”

His expression went from pained concentration to obvious amusement. “A what?”

“A most slovenly creature.” She moved closer. “I’ll cut it for you,” she said, “if you’ll go down to the kitchen and ask to borrow a pair of scissors.”

Relief relaxed his features. “Done.”

He left the room before she quite digested the offer she’d made. Cut the Englishman’s hair? She wanted nothing to do with him. What had she been thinking?

She paced around the large chamber. The carved oak furniture all matched, and the counterpane and bedhangings looked to be of silk. Once again, she wondered how he could afford such a place. But apparently he’d been thinking ahead. He’d needed a mirror to accomplish this transformation, and not many small inns would provide one.

She jumped when he barged back in, holding the scissors. “Did you think I was a ghost again?”

“Nothing that benign.” She dragged a chair over to face the mirror and waved him into it.

He sat and looked at her reflection in the glass, handing her the scissors over one shoulder. “Go ahead,” he urged.

The black waves felt soft in her hands. Fighting shyness at being this close to him, touching him, she measured and cut, measured and cut, a wee bit at a time. Soon she was engrossed in the careful work, but not so much that she didn’t steal glances at him in the mirror.

As his curtain of hair fell away, his fine features seemed even more striking. She noticed the long black lashes crowning his leaf-green eyes. And those chiseled, mustacheless lips. He had such a beautiful mouth.

With her hands in his hair, her nose full of his spicy, masculine scent, he suddenly wasn’t quite so irritating. As his dark locks slipped through her fingers, it seemed as though a different person were emerging. Surely not, but she felt differently toward him all the same. And chided herself for it.

He studied her in the mirror as well. “What color are your eyes?” he asked.

“My eyes?” She clipped, then glanced up. “Hazel. Why?”

“They looked green earlier today, but now they look blue.”

She frowned. “Well, they’re hazel.” Placing the last silky sheared hank on the dressing table, she stepped away to assess her handiwork. His hair now neatly skimmed his shoulders.

“Thank you,” he said softly. “It’s a much better job than I would have done.”

She glanced at his knife on the table’s marble surface. “I expect so,” she said, a wry smile teasing at her lips.

Despite all her reservations, she was feeling rather kindly toward him—until he stood, stretched, then unlaced the top of his shirt and pulled it free from his breeches.

“What are you doing now?” she burst out.

He sat back on the chair to pull off his boots. “Getting comfortable for bed. We’ve a long day ahead of us tomorrow. We’re planning to ‘ride like the dickens,’ if you remember.”

“I remember,” she said. “But—”

“Are you not going to take off your outerclothes?” His second boot fell to the floor with a loud
plop
. “I’m still not planning to attack you.”

“I have nothing else to wear, thanks to you. My night rail is in my satchel. In the—”

“—public coach.” He peeled off a stocking. “I know. That thing beneath your bodice, the garment that looks like a blouse? I’m no expert on girl’s clothing, but it’s quite long, is it not? A shift, is it called?”

“Aye, it’s a shift.” She plucked distractedly at its sleeves. “Not that it’s any of your concern.”

She stalked to the bed and tucked the shirts and breeches she’d folded back into his portmanteau, then moved it to a table. Pulling back the lovely counterpane, she found a thick quilt resting beneath. She lifted one corner and climbed into bed.

“Sleep well,” she said, in a tone meant to speak of finality.

He rose and moved to look down on her. “You’re going to suffocate,” he predicted. “At least loosen your bodice. And what of this? Won’t it poke you?” He reached for the amulet.

“This stays,” she said firmly, her hand closing around the stone protectively. “I never take it off.” To appease him—and because the bodice really was rather tight—she pulled the quilt up to her chin and began loosening her laces underneath.

He shrugged and moved to the foot of the bed to pull off her shoes. She was so surprised at his touching her feet—even through leather shoes and wool stockings—that she didn’t move or make a sound.

“Now you’ll rest easier.” He flipped the quilt back to cover her.

Glaring at him, she lay silent as he walked around the room snuffing the candles. In increments, the chamber descended into darkness. He slid in on the other side of the bed, his substantial weight depressing the feather mattress, making her nearly roll into him. She gripped the quilt in tense fists, holding herself in place.

“Sleep well, now,” he called in a voice that was annoyingly unperturbed. Apparently giving him the evil eye had had no effect on him at all. “We’ve a long journey ahead of us.”

When he leaned to blow out the candle on the small table by the bed, Caithren raised herself to an elbow to do the same on her side. Her heart pounded hard in her chest as she lay back down and stared into the darkness. It didn’t seem as though he planned to attack her, and yet…

She realized suddenly that her pulse wasn’t racing from fear, but from something else.

Da had fed and clothed her, Cameron had offered protection and companionship, and more than one unwelcome suitor had connived to steal a kiss. But no man had ever made it his business to care for her in a physical sense. The Englishman’s hands on her had felt different than Da’s or Cam’s or those fumbling courting lads’.

She wasn’t at all sure whether she cared for the feeling. And why did it matter, aye? Her hand went up and gripped her amulet. She’d be rid of him after tonight.

Rigid, she lay beside him, willing herself to stay awake while her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Had they crossed their arms over their chests, she imagined she and the Englishman would resemble one of the marble effigies in her village kirk, a lord and lady frozen together in time. But she was no titled lady, and the Englishman was certainly no lord.

He wasn’t even a gentleman. Gentlemen didn’t make lasses miss their coaches against their will, now, did they?

She had to get away from him. Back to the coach, where she hoped and prayed they were still carrying her belongings. It would be a miracle to find her money there as well, but she couldn’t worry about that now.

It seemed like forever before his breathing evened out in sleep. She waited a few minutes until she was sure, then jogged his shoulder to double-check. He groaned as though in pain, then settled down with a soft snore. She leaned over him, remembering other moments he’d seemed to be hurting. Suddenly she wondered if
he
could have been injured last night as well. Helping her.