The Lady and the Laird. Nicola Cornick

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ deep inside her. It was a sensation Lucy had never felt before and it was so swift and so fierce that she gasped. A shocking bloom of warmth and pleasure spread low through her body. Her eyes jerked up to his face, to meet the turbulent heat in his eyes. He gave a low exclamation and the next moment she was in his arms and he was kissing her.

      Lucy had not been kissed since that night at Forres Castle. It was not the sort of thing that she invited gentlemen to do. She had never even thought about what it might feel like to kiss someone again, not even out of intellectual curiosity.

      This kiss was not like the one she had shared with Robert Methven years before. It felt fierce, heated and complicated, with no concessions to her inexperience. She felt his tongue tease her lips apart and she opened to him and he took her mouth completely. His tongue swept across hers, tasting her as though she were honey, and a powerful heat washed through her, scalding her, shocking her. Immediately she was lost and out of her depth. There was too much here, too much of dark pleasure, too much carnal promise, overwhelming, impossible to understand. It had happened far too fast and now the shock and the fear caught her equally quickly. She was shocked that after what had happened to Alice she could even feel like this, feel such passion, such desire. Then, a heartbeat later, guilt caught her too, and the familiar terror, and she froze in his arms.

      He felt it and drew back from her. She heard him mutter a curse. She wanted to run away, frightened at emotions she could not begin to comprehend, but he held her close, her cheek against his shoulder, his lips on her hair, and gradually the fear faded. Within the circle of his arms she felt safe and protected; she felt sixteen again holding his promise against her heart. It was so unexpected a sensation that she relaxed, her breath leaving her in a sigh and her body softening. Only then did he speak.

      “I’m sorry,” he said. His tone was rougher than she had heard from him before, but it did not frighten her. She knew his anger was not for her. He released her. She could not look at him, gripped as she was by a sudden shyness that paralyzed her. So he put his hand under her chin and made her meet his eyes.

      “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I went too far, too fast.” There was regret and gentleness in his eyes and Lucy felt the floor shift beneath her feet and felt her stomach slide.

      He released her. Confusion swept through Lucy then because she was remembering that no matter how she had felt before, this was now, and she had betrayed him and he did not like her for it. Yet despite that, something had happened between them, something dangerous, something she did not understand.

      “I think,” she said—and her voice was a thread of sound—“that you should go.”

      He looked at her for a long, long moment and his eyes were dark, his expression opaque, and she had no idea what he was thinking. Then he nodded abruptly.

      He bowed and went out. Lucy heard the library door close.

      She sank down onto one of the spindly cherrywood chairs, then got up again straightaway and went over to the sideboard, where she poured herself another glass of Lord Brodrie’s best claret. She needed a drink. The burn of the liquid against her throat steadied her. She drained the glass and filled it again.

      The fire felt too hot. She moved away to a window seat, pressing her fingers against the cold diamond panes. It was as though her body was too heated, sensitive and on edge, wanting something.

      “Lucy?”

      She had not heard the library door open, but she saw that Mairi was standing on the edge of the Turkish rug, watching her. The candlelight glittered on the silver thread in her gown. Mairi’s gaze went to the glass in Lucy’s hand. Her eyebrows shot up.

      “I saw Lord Methven leaving,” she said.

      “We were discussing literature,” Lucy said. She drank some more claret and felt it slip through her veins, soothing her.

      “Of course you were, Lucy,” Mairi said dryly. “I always find literary discussions so exciting they leave me looking as dazed as you do now.”

      “It’s the drink,” Lucy said.

      “And the kissing,” Mairi said. “You should see yourself.”

      Lucy looked up at her reflection in the big mirror that hung above the fireplace. Her eyes looked a hazy dark blue. Her lips were stung red and slightly swollen. She pressed her fingers to them and felt an echo of sensation through her body. Her hair had come undone from its remaining pins. She had no notion how that had happened. She had no notion how any of it had happened. She was not sure what disturbed her more: the kiss or those sweet moments after in Methven’s arms when she had felt protected and safe.

      Now you know how Alice felt.

      Immediately Lucy felt the cold fear take her. It was impossible. She had never felt physical desire, not when she had read the erotic tales, not even when she had written her own sensual poetry. Yet one minute in Lord Methven’s arms had awakened emotions in her that she had never known, feelings that terrified her because she knew where they could lead.

      She did not want to feel any of them.

      Lucy shrank in on herself, the cold lapping around her again. Alice had given herself up to love and passion, given her heart, given her whole self, body and soul. It had ended in shame and misery and pain, and Lucy would never, ever make the same mistake as her twin had done.

      “It mustn’t happen again,” she said aloud.

      There was a mixture of amusement and cynicism in Mairi’s eyes.

      “How naive you are,” she said gently, taking Lucy’s arm and steering her toward the door. “Once it has happened once, of course it will happen again. The only real question is when.”

      CHAPTER FIVE

      “ROBERT NEEDS TO find another bride now that his first choice has fled.” The Dowager Marchioness of Methven, radiating energy and disapproval, seated herself with orderly care on the upright chair Robert held for her. She had a habit of speaking about people as though they were not present. Certainly it felt to Robert as though his input into the conversation was not required.

      It was a week after the wedding and they were in the library at Methven Castle. Mr. Kirkward, the family lawyer, had traveled up from Edinburgh to advise them. He was sitting on a lumpy gilt-and-cream sofa and looking most uncomfortable. Lady Methven was seated opposite and Jack drew up a chair to one side. Robert preferred to stand. He crossed to the window and looked out; a soaking gray haze hung over the far mountains, damping the day down and casting dark shadows across the glen.

      This was how he remembered his grandfather’s castle, as a dripping, mournful edifice that had been barren of pleasure. In those days it had been his older brother, Gregor, who had brought light and laughter to the old place, but now Gregor was gone. As always, Robert felt the profound ache in his chest that memories of Gregor brought with them. Gregor’s death had changed his life and his future. He had been the second son, the spare. Methven should never have been his. His grandfather had told him so, that fierce old man who had made no secret of the fact that Robert was a poor substitute for his brother.

      “It is indeed most unfortunate that Miss Brodrie eloped,” Mr. Kirkward agreed, his dry, precise tones recalling Robert to the room with its sterile shelves of uncut books and its uncomfortable furniture. “Such volatility in a bride quite ruins one’s plans.”

      “Better СКАЧАТЬ