One Night with the Laird. Nicola Cornick

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СКАЧАТЬ it last night. There were plenty of men called Jack. She had not recognized his voice either, but they had spent so little time in each other’s company of late that it was no wonder.

      She felt shaken, completely confused. She did not even like Jack Rutherford. He was arrogant, self-assured, deplorably confident, all too well aware of his charm and the effect it had on every woman he met. They had been thrown into each other’s company when her sister had married Jack’s cousin three years before. Jack had suggested they should get to know each other better, intimately, in fact. She had rejected his advances with an icy disdain. After that they had barely spoken and held fast to an intense mutual dislike.

      She tightened her grip on the wood until her fingers hurt. The blood was pounding in her ears. She simply could not understand why she had been drawn to Jack the previous night. All unknowing, she had chosen the one man she should never have gone near. They were bound by marriage and mutual acquaintance. She had no idea how she could keep her identity secret from him now.

      A cold draught scuttered across the floor, setting her shivering again. She already had regrets enough about the night. She had wanted to lose herself in a world that was entirely physical, to escape the unhappiness that clouded her mind, if only for a little while. No matter how spectacular the sex had been, she had found there was no escape.

      Jack stirred in his sleep and sighed as he turned over. Mairi felt another pang of fear. He must never find out that she was the woman he had spent the night with. Inevitably he would have questions, questions she did not want to answer. She would have to make sure she never saw him again. Yet with the ties between their two families, that would be almost impossible.

      She rubbed her forehead in frustrated fury. It was almost as though she had deliberately chosen him, and that was a thought that disturbed her very much indeed.

      She would close the door and walk away and forget all about him. She would pretend this had never happened.

      She risked one last glance. Jack was a man with a hard edge, a ruthless man, but he had shown her tenderness tonight. The thought made her feel vulnerable. It was very difficult to equate the Jack Rutherford she had thought she knew, all arrogant charm and brash swagger, with this man. She felt off-kilter as though all her assumptions about him had been overset, challenged by his gentleness as a lover. He had wanted to know her, not simply know her body. That confused her.

      She turned away, suddenly raked with misery, and closed the door. She had plunged them from barely civil acquaintance into profound intimacy. Now she had to turn back the clock.

      Frazer materialized from the steward’s room as soon as she stepped into the hall. She wondered if he had slept.

      “No need to look so disapproving,” she said. “You’re not my father.”

      The steward’s expression remained, as ever, completely inscrutable. He had a dark, closed face, austere and secret. Truth was, Frazer was old enough to be her father and was in fact father to the host of handsome young men she employed as footmen and grooms. He had worked for her for ten years, ever since her marriage. Frazer was a servant, yet somehow Mairi felt she was the one who had to work for his good opinion. This morning she suspected she had lost it once and for all.

      “Can I get anything for you, ma’am?” Frazer was exquisitely polite. “Would you like the maid to draw a bath for you?”

      “Just the carriage, if you please,” Mairi said. She would not delay a moment. She fidgeted with her gloves. “If you could tidy the bedroom—”

      “Of course, ma’am.” The steward’s voice was arctic.

      “The gentleman is still asleep,” Mairi said.

      “Would you like me to wake him? Give him a shave? Breakfast?” Mairi was sure she could detect sarcasm in Frazer’s voice now. She looked at him sharply. He looked blandly back at her.

      “Let him sleep,” Mairi said. She could feel herself blushing at the implication. “Then show him out. Oh, and, Frazer—” She hesitated. “If he asks any questions...”

      Frazer nodded. “Of course, ma’am. Not a word.”

      “Thank you.” Mairi’s throat felt rough. Tears pricked the back of her eyes. Frazer might disapprove of her behavior, but she still held his loyalty. Four years now since her husband, Archie, had gone and she could still feel the pain of his leaving squeeze her heart like a vise.

      Outside in Candlemaker Row the wind was sharp. A pearl-white sky was unfurling over the city of Edinburgh. Mairi drew the shawl more closely about her. By the time she reached the Royal Mile the carriage was waiting, one of Frazer’s handsome sons standing ready to open the door for her. She climbed in and set off for her house in Charlotte Square, for a bath and for clean clothes. She ached so much. Her body ached from the pleasure, but her heart ached more.

      She closed her eyes. Despite the extraordinary intimacy of the night, she felt lonelier than she had ever felt in her life.

      CHAPTER TWO

      July 1815

      “YOU LOOK BLUE-DEVILLED.” Robert, Marquis of Methven, threw down his cards and viewed his companion with amusement in his narrowed blue eyes. “Money troubles, is it?”

      “Why do you say that?” Jack Rutherford placed his own hand slowly on the table and reached for his cup of coffee. It was rich, warm and exceptionally good and it did nothing to soothe his spirits. What he really wanted was brandy but these days he never drank it. He had had an unhappy relationship with alcohol in his youth and he had no intention of ever letting his drinking get out of control again.

      “You’ve been playing as cagily as a spinster aunt betting a shilling at whist,” Methven said cheerfully. “Your mind is elsewhere. And it cannot be a woman who’s spoiling your game since you never let them get to you—”

      Jack shifted edgily. Some coffee spilled. He looked up to see his cousin laughing at him.

      “Damn you, Rob,” he said, without heat.

      “Never seen you like this before,” Methven said. “I suppose it had to happen sometime. Who is she?”

      Jack paused. The club was three-quarters empty and wreathed in silence, which was good since he did not fancy rehearsing his romantic disasters to an audience. It was a situation he seldom if ever found himself in. Usually he was fighting women off rather than pining for their company.

      “I don’t know,” he admitted, after a moment.

      Methven raised a quizzical brow. “No name?”

      “We didn’t talk much.”

      His cousin sighed with weary acceptance. Robert knew him well. “Description?” he said.

      “She was tall,” Jack said. “She was slender and she had long hair. I don’t know,” he repeated. “It was too dark to see.”

      Methven almost choked on his brandy. “Devil take it, Jack. Where did this...uh...encounter occur?”

      “At a masked ball,” Jack said. “At least that was where it started. It finished...” He shrugged. “Elsewhere. Somewhere in the Old Town.”

      Methven СКАЧАТЬ