The Lady and the Laird. Nicola Cornick

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СКАЧАТЬ letters?” he queried in the same deceptively gentle tone.

      “You misheard,” Lucy said desperately. “Lord Prestonpans said exotic letters. Unusual letters, written in...”

      “Green ink?” Methven suggested. “That would be exotic.”

      Green ink. Lucy remembered recommending to Lachlan that he copy out the letters to Dulcibella in green ink to make them look more romantic.

      “Or perhaps,” Methven continued, “Lord Prestonpans meant letters written in exotic language? Poetic letters, love letters...” His expression was impassive as he waited politely for the next lie she would spin. Through the half-open door of the ballroom, Lucy could see another set of Scottish country dances forming. The orchestra was tuning up. People brushed past them to take their places on the floor. It felt like another world and one she would not be rejoining anytime soon, especially not since Robert Methven had put out a hand and taken her arm, not too tightly but certainly in a grip she could not have broken without making a scene.

      “I think it’s about time you and I had a proper talk,” Methven said.

      “We cannot talk here,” Lucy said. She pinned a special smile on her face to ward off the curious looks of passing guests. Beneath the pretense her heart was hammering. There was only one thing worse than Robert Methven knowing of her letter-writing skills and that was everyone knowing. She would be utterly ruined, perfect Lady Lucy MacMorlan who was not so perfect after all.

      “Then we’ll go somewhere else,” Methven said. “At your convenience,” he added, and it was not an invitation but a command.

      Lucy’s throat felt dry. “It would be most improper to be alone with you—” she started to say, but his laughter cut her off.

      “You write erotic love poetry, Lady Lucy, and yet you think it would be inappropriate to be alone with me? You have a strange sense of what constitutes proper behavior.”

      He was steering Lucy toward one of the doors leading from the great hall. Lucy tried to resist, but her slippers slid across the polished wood as though it were ice. She tried to dig her heels in, but there was nothing to dig them into.

      “I could carry you,” Methven said, on an undertone, “if you prefer.” There was a dark, wicked thread of amusement in his voice now.

      “No,” Lucy said. She grabbed some shreds of composure. She must not let him see how nervous she was. “Thank you,” she said, “but I have always considered carrying to be overrated.”

      Her mind scrambled back and forth over various possibilities. She had to get away. Perhaps she could tell him she needed to visit the ladies’ withdrawing room and then climb out of the window and take a carriage back to the inn....

      “Don’t even think about running away again,” Methven said, making her jump by the accuracy with which he had read her mind. He sounded grim. “We can run around the battlements as much as you please, but in the end the outcome will be the same.”

      Damn. There really was no escape. She was going to have to confront him, try to explain about the letters and beg for his silence. Lucy was frankly terrified at the thought. Robert Methven did not strike her as the understanding type.

      “Take my arm if you do not wish to make a scene,” Methven said. “We can talk in the library. Lord Brodrie never goes there. I don’t believe he has opened a book in his life.”

      Lucy hesitated, her hand hovering an inch above his sleeve. She did not want to touch him at all. It felt as though it would be dangerous to do so, but at the same time she was annoyed with herself for being so aware of him. Her face burning, she rested her hand very lightly on his proffered arm, too lightly to feel the muscle beneath his jacket. She maintained sufficient distance from him that their bodies did not touch at all. There was no brushing of her skirts against his leg or her hair against his shoulder. Yet despite her perfect regard for physical distance, it was as though there were a current running between them, deep and dark and turbulent. She wanted to ignore it, but she could not. She could not ignore him.

      He ushered her into the library. Evidently he knew his way around Brodrie Castle, no doubt from the time of his courtship of Dulcibella—a courtship she had so skillfully sabotaged.

      Lucy’s heart sank lower than her silk slippers. No, he was not going to be sympathetic. It did not take any great intellectual deduction to work that out. She had helped to ruin his betrothal and with it whatever plans he had had to secure his inheritance. He would not be in a forgiving mood.

      Methven closed the door behind them. It shut with the softest of clicks, cutting off the distant sounds of the ball, the voices and the music, and cocooning them in a sudden silence that made Lucy’s awareness of him all the more acute. He moved closer to her; she could hear his breath above the hiss and spit of the fire in the grate. She could catch the faint scent of his cologne above the pine from the logs that smoldered in the hearth.

      “It was you who wrote the letters your brother used to seduce Miss Brodrie away from me,” Methven said. Then, when Lucy did not answer: “Well?”

      The sharpness of his tone made Lucy jump.

      “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was not aware that it was a question.” She paused, took a deep breath. “Yes,” she said. “I did write them. I wrote Lachlan’s letters.”

      CHAPTER FOUR

      LUCY SAW SATISFACTION ease into Methven’s eyes at her admission of guilt. Her heart was beating hard and fast now. She wondered if she looked as scared as she felt. She would be the talk of Edinburgh for months. Lucy’s stomach clenched. She hated the thought of being a byword for scandal.

      But he would not betray her. Surely he would not. No gentleman would betray a lady’s trust.

      “Do you know what you have done?” Methven asked. His gaze was fixed on her and she could feel the anger in him, held under the tightest control but nevertheless a hot thread beneath his words. “Do you understand the consequences of your actions, Lady Lucy?” The contempt in his blue eyes was blistering. “You have destroyed my betrothal.”

      “Well,” Lucy corrected, “that is not strictly accurate. Dulcibella destroyed your betrothal in running off with Lachlan. I did not make her elope. It was her choice. Perhaps,” she added, “she did not want to wed you.”

      Methven looked supremely unimpressed by her logic. He brought his hand down so hard on the flat top of the mantel that Lucy flinched.

      “Will you accept no responsibility?” he demanded. “Do you consider yourself blameless?”

      “I wrote the letters,” Lucy said steadily. “I do take responsibility for that.” She was aware that her words were hardly conciliatory, that she was hardly going in the right direction to appease him. When she had set out to justify herself, she had not intended to provoke him, but there was something about Robert Methven that got under her skin.

      “Why?” He growled the word at her, his eyes impossibly blue, impossibly angry. “Why did you do it?”

      “I did it because Lachlan paid me,” Lucy said defiantly.

      She saw Methven’s eyes widen in surprise.

      “So you did СКАЧАТЬ