When a Scot Loves a Lady (15 page)

Through her fingers she caught a glimpse of his eyes glimmering with pleasure.

“Mrs. Milch has called dinner early,” she mumbled. “Country hours for the holiday, I daresay.” She moved forward, entirely tongue-tied and perfectly, gloriously alive beneath her skin. It felt so good to laugh inside, like a girl again, the girl she had put behind her at far too young an age.

She passed him. He grasped her arm, barely a touch that ground her to the spot like a Chinese candle planted in earth, bursting with fire.

“Lass.” His voice was unmistakably husky. “A winna take it amiss if ye chuise tae cast yersel at me again.”

Delicious weakness spilled through her. She tilted her gaze up.

“You will stare at my mouth quite distractingly often, won't you?” she said breathlessly.

“A canna seem tae nae.”

She was trembling in his touch. She could do nothing for it. He bent his head, his mouth mere inches from hers.

She whispered, “You are not being consistent, my lord.”

“Naither be ye, lass.”

Kitty swallowed around the lump of courage in her throat.

“What do we do now?”

He paused, then: “Whitiver ye wish.”

She gulped in air, drew away, and hurried down the steps. She did not know exactly what she wished, only that for the first time in an age she looked forward to the next minute, the next hour. She felt like a girl awaiting her first Christmas. Like a gift, wrapped up, waiting to be opened by the Earl of Blackwood.

N
othing
had happened between Kitty and the Earl of Blackwood at that masquerade ball three years earlier. Nothing of any rational substance. Yet he remembered it as something significant. And it had changed Kitty's life, a life set on a single, wretched track until that moment.

Five years earlier, after Lambert took her innocence, then told her she must be content to have him as a lover but not a husband, Kitty had taught herself to spy. For the sake of revenge. To satisfy her angry soul.

In society she did not hang upon his sleeve. Rather, she made it a habit to remain at a slight distance from him in company, straining her ear to hear his conversation, especially hushed conversation with gentlemen. When he moved through a ballroom or parlor, she followed discreetly. She believed herself infinitely clever; she was collecting information. A man such as he—who used an innocent girl the way he had used her—must have other secrets at least as dishonorable.

His secrets were in fact considerably more dishonorable.

She redoubled her efforts.

When he noticed her doggedness, she allowed him to believe she still harbored hopes of marriage. He mocked her. On occasion he even bragged, revealing more than he should and making her despise herself that she had once admired such vanity and arrogance. Occasionally he propositioned her, finding her in private, making certain they would not be disturbed. She bore his embraces so that she could gain access to his pockets, his billfold, even once his private apartments.

Endeavoring to appear sincere, she suggested to him that perhaps she would find herself in an interesting condition, then he must wed her, to which he replied that were that to occur it already would have, that she was deficient, and that he certainly would not continue to meet her privately otherwise. She submitted to a secret examination by a physician to prove her determination to him; what she learned there hurt nearly more than she could bear. But the hope of revenge masked the pain. All for the cause of revenge.

She had been very clever. Very proud. And very cold.

Then, in her twenty-third year, it came to an end. The night she made the acquaintance of a cretin of a Scottish lord. A very handsome cretin. A cretin with dark, fathomless eyes. In a ballroom filled with costumed revelers, the earl's gaze seemed to say to her what her heart had told her for years already—that she was better than vengeance, that she must release the past and allow herself to live again.

Moments later, beneath her breath and with perfect poise, she told Lambert she was finished with hating him or caring about anything he did. And since then she had been free, until six months ago when he tried to hurt Alex and she finally ruined him.

Now, settled into a soft chair in the parlor of the Cock and Pitcher, she studied the Earl of Blackwood as she had once studied Lambert. The draperies were drawn against the cold night without, candles glimmering and firelight filled the chamber with a warm glow, the aromas of cinnamon and wine tangling in the warm air. She spoke with the others, even the earl on occasion. But, using her old skills, she listened to him almost exclusively, and watched.

She noticed interesting things.

As the evening progressed and dinner became tea, then more whiskey for the gentlemen, his gaze upon Mr. Yale altered. At first it grew watchful. Then concerned. Mr. Yale exhibited no change except perhaps a more relaxed air as he sipped his spirits.

Emily and Mr. Milch produced a dish of brandy with raisins floating in it. The concoction was set aflame and a game of snapdragon ensued during which Kitty burned two fingertips and the earl did not take part but seemed unusually pensive, if such a man could be said to think deeply.

Kitty felt like a spy, or what she imagined a spy might feel like. But this time no sticky discomfort accompanied her covert attentiveness, no niggling sense that this activity did not respect her, that she pursued her basest urges in such an endeavor.

It seemed remarkable that lust did not now rouse the guilt that vengeance once had.

Or perhaps not merely lust.

As he had three years ago, now he shifted his regard to her through the fire-lit chamber, his eyes dark with a mystery that should not be there, but still she saw it. She feared lust did not suffice to explain her feelings, which did not make any sense at all; she knew nothing of him.

From his spot on the floor between the dogs, a grinning Ned set bow to strings, fiddle trapped between chin and shoulder. With a glass of wine and the earl's gaze warming her blood, Kitty smiled. Sunk in a soft chair, she felt like a pampered cat curled up before the fire being watched by a dog. A dog with unclear intentions and a gorgeously firm jaw.

“Aha!” Mr. Cox exclaimed. “We shall have music to celebrate the birth of Our Lord and Savior tonight. And singing. We must have singing.” His bright blue eyes smiled, but with an odd glitter that seemed unnatural as they darted back and forth between her and the earl.

“Will ye sing for us, Lady Kath'rine?” the Scot said.

“She never sings.” Emily had eschewed spirits tonight, and now seemed intent upon her book but happy enough in company.

“She did at one time, lass. Like a lark.”

Kitty could say nothing. That night at the masquerade ball after turning off Lambert, she had sung. He stood beside her turning pages as she played, whispering that she would regret her decision and come back to him eventually. After that night, she had not been able to sing again.

Emily poked her nose up. “Why don't you sing now, then?”

“I haven't the feeling for it any longer.”

“It does not require feeling, Kitty, only the proper vocal apparatus and a suitable chest cavity.”

“I am continually astounded at the accomplishments of ladies,” Mr. Cox put in, but again an odd note tinted his voice. “They sing, dance, paint with watercolors, speak French and Italian, embroider, and perform all number of domestic tasks. Why, if I had a wife I would give her roses and chocolates every day in thanks for such bounteous talent and effort.”

“Rather expensive habit that would become,” Mr. Yale said, unwrapping a pack of cards.

Cox chuckled, peculiarly brittle. “Ah, but she would deserve it.” His gaze darted to the earl, then away.

“Why don't you have a wife, Mr. Cox?” Emily asked. “You must be thirty. Don't tradesmen like yourself seek early in their careers to marry daughters of impoverished nobles and assure a connection within society that can be useful to their business interests?”

Mr. Yale smiled with undisguised pleasure.

Kitty sat forward. “What my friend means to say—”

“It's quite all right, Lady Katherine. I don't mind it at all, and I suspect she has the right of it.” Mr. Cox darted another glance across the parlor. “I've been traveling in the Americas for several years now and haven't had the opportunity to look about me for a suitable life's partner.”

Emily's brow beetled. “Lord Blackwood, you were married, were you not? You even have a son.”

Kitty's heart tripped.

“Aye.”

“What was marriage like?”

In the silence the cards cracked as Mr. Yale's fingers split them, and the fire snapped.

“I mean to say, my father wishes me to marry shortly and I haven't the taste for it at all.” Emily's pretty face seemed so sincere. Kitty could not rescue her, or the earl. She wanted too much to hear his response. “I think it might be unexceptionable to be married to a person one liked. But I wonder what it would be like to be wed to a person one does not care for.”

“A wretched stew, I should say.” Mr. Yale stacked the cards.

Emily set her book down. “I should too.”

Kitty could not bear it that her friend's pretty green eyes had dimmed.

“I believe that is the first time I have heard the two of you agree on anything.” She forced a smile. “How lovely. Just in time for Christmas.”

Mr. Yale bowed. “Your servant, ma'am.”

Emily did not reply. Kitty wrapped her fingers around her hand.

“Who wants a game?” Mr. Yale brandished the deck.

“It is Christmas, sir,” Emily said in a rather dull voice. “Kitty, you will mind it, won't you, gambling tonight?”

“Not at all. I shall play happily.” Not happily. But Emily needed distraction from her worries. “Would you like me to go retrieve your purse so that you can join us?”

“No. I shall do so, and yours as well.” She stood and went up the stairs.

“Cox, will you make our fourth?” Mr. Yale stood.

“Afraid I'm done in for the night, sir. What of my lord? I suspect he plays well.” Again that strangely anxious glint directed at the earl.

Mr. Yale scoffed, moving into the dining area. “Too well. I'd rather have a groat in my pocket at the end of the evening.” He arranged the chairs about the table. “But if it must be.”

“Grand.” Mr. Cox bowed. “My lady, gentlemen, I bid you a fine Christmas.”

He went to the steps quite swiftly and up, as though in a hurry.

Kitty frowned—Emily was still above, and alone. She moved to follow him. The earl lifted a hand to stay her and set his foot to the stair. Emily appeared on the landing just as Mr. Cox reached it. He smiled, this time appreciatively.

“Good night, Lady Marie Antoine.”

She nodded and they passed each other. Lord Blackwood came off the step and Kitty released a breath.

Emily went to the playing table and set their purses on it. “I would like Lord Blackwood as my partner.”

“A surprise, to be sure,” Mr. Yale murmured.

“I shall refuse to play if the two of you continue in this manner.”

“Kitty,” Emily said, “Lord Blackwood is widely accounted an extraordinarily fine card player. Even I know that. Yet I have never heard a word said about Mr. Yale's playing abilities. It would be foolish not to wish to partner the earl.”

“Ma thanks, maleddy,” he said with a grin, but his gaze flickered again to the stair.

Kitty sank into the chair beside her friend, her knees like water. She mustn't think it meant anything. A true gentleman would protect ladies even if they were not his to protect by any right other than sheer mishap upon the snowy road. But she had not known he was a true gentleman, certainly not by the way he kissed her.

“Well there's a sight I like.” Mr. Milch entered from the kitchen, eyes bleary. “Ned, your mother's wanting you home.” The boy popped up and the innkeeper lifted a thick hand. “Happy Christmas, milords and ladies. My Gert sends her wishes as well.” He retreated through the door.