Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The dining room was shrouded, lit only by a pair of silver candelabra on the long mahogany table and one on the sideboard. Shadows lingered in the corners as if wishing to reach out and snare her.

She was seeing threats that weren't there. If anything, she should be afraid of her own actions, not ghosts in a Scottish house.

"Perhaps it would be better if your maid joined you."

She started, clasped her hands tightly together, and turned to the sound of his voice. He emerged from the darkness like Satan given human form.

If ever a devil tempted a woman, Macrath Sinclair did.

"Do I need a chaperone?"

"Perhaps it would be best if you had one," he said. "You might be safer."

Her skin pebbled at the sound of his voice, almost like he had drawn a cold finger along her skin. And the heat bubbling inside? Where did that come from? Her own thoughts? Her recollections of a stolen kiss in London? Or from warm, forbidden dreams after her wedding?

No, this wasn't a safe place to be. This entire journey had been unsafe. Standing here, without an answer for him, was even more dangerous.

He came to the table, and drew out a chair. She nodded and sat, thanking him. He took his place at the head of the table, an expanse of at least six feet between them.

"Tell me about your marriage," he said.

She placed her napkin on her lap, rearranged her fork and spoon, moved the wineglass an inch to the left, then to the right.

"What do you want to know?" she finally asked. "My day-to-day routine?"

"I would like you to tell me about your marriage."

"It was a marriage," she said with as much equanimity as she could muster. "He was not much interested in me."

"Were you interested in him?"

She stared down at the plate, wondering at the pattern of the thistles along the edge. There was movement from the shadows, approaching the table. Then one girl served her a steaming bowl of turtle soup while another offered a dish of oyster paté. She thanked them both.

In the next few minutes the courses started and she didn't have a chance to answer him. Or did he expect her to speak in front of the servants?

She was given a plate piled with slices of roast venison, accompanied by French mustard, eggs in aspic, slices of duck, and a concoction of peas mixed with mayonnaise.

When the servants melted back into the shadows, he said, "They're gone."

In other words, he expected an answer.

"I didn't like Lawrence," she said. "I don't think it mattered to anyone whether or not we liked each other. My father simply wanted something to show for all his money. A title he could brag about."

She forced herself to pick up the fork and taste the venison. He took a sip of his wine, but otherwise wasn't eating.

"And you, you wanted the title as well."

She smiled. "I didn't care," she said.

The food was excellent, and when she said as much, he only nodded, as if he expected no less. Was he always surrounded by effortless luxury simply because he was Macrath Sinclair?

He took another sip of wine, the gesture graceful and unhurried.

She'd never been afraid of him, but she feared this meeting, these questions. She might reveal too much.

Silence stretched thin, the only sound her fork as she rested it against the plate. How could she hope to eat when her heart was in her throat?

"Why are you here, only days after you're made a widow?"

"How did you know?"

"Your coachman."

"So, you plied Hosking with drink and managed to extricate from him information I would've given you gladly had you asked."

"I didn't ply him with drink," he said with a smile. "I asked a question and he answered it. Which is more than you're doing."

She took a deep breath, staring down at her plate.

"Almost a year has passed," he said.

She didn't raise her head. "Yes."

"A year in which you went from being an American heiress to a countess. Have you changed, Virginia?"

Had she changed?

What would he say if she told him the truth? She'd changed so drastically she expected to see a different person in the mirror. Someone with more experience in her gaze, her mouth thinned, her face tight with dread.

"What did you expect me to be like?"

"A society matron, perhaps. Someone who had fashion on her mind."

She could only smile. Had he forgotten the conversations between them, when she confessed to having no love or care whatsoever about what she wore?

"I haven't changed that much," she said.

"How do you find being a countess, then?"

"It's a comfortable life."

"Are you comfortable in it?" he asked.

What would he say to learn the truth? She decided to test him on it.

"I am not as hopeful as I once was," she said softly. "I don't anticipate the arrival of every morning with delight. I rarely laugh."

"Why is that?"

She shrugged.

"Was he kind to you, Virginia?"

She'd never thought this would be so difficult. Or that he would peel the veneer away from the truth so easily.

"No," she said. "He resented me, and you rarely treat those you resent with kindness."

His goblet came down on the table so hard she glanced at him.

His face was expressionless, but his eyes were heated.

She studied her plate again, a much easier sight than Macrath. The plate didn't peer into her soul or make her tremble.

"Then damn him," Macrath said softly. "May his soul rot cheerfully in Hell."

Shocked, she looked at him. "You shouldn't say such things."

"Why, to keep my soul from shriveling? Of the two of us, I think your earl has more to answer for."

He mustn't be protective of her. She didn't deserve it.

She twisted her napkin in her lap until it was a ball of damp linen, wishing he would say something else, lighten the mood between them.

Evidently, she was going to have to change the tenor of conversation. Should she speak about the storm still pounding Drumvagen? Was it God, voicing his displeasure in ways other people would note?

"Your sister is well," she said.

"Yes, I know. She speaks of you in her letters. I'm grateful for your friendship."

What had Ceana told him? Did he ask about her? Did Ceana keep her confidences?

She wanted to retreat to her lavish borrowed suite and pray for guidance. Or would God, having washed His hands of her, give her only thunder and lightning in return?

"Why are you here?"

There, an answer from God himself. She was not going to be allowed to retreat easily.

"I wanted to see you," she said. That wasn't a lie but it might be a sin. She shouldn't betray herself with words. "I wanted to see if you were well and happy."

"I am well," he said.

"Are you happy?"

"Are you?"

"You haven't married." Not a question, but he answered nonetheless.

"The woman I wanted went to another," he said.

She warmed at his words. "Not because she wished it."

"I think you could've fought harder had you wanted."

So said a man who was the king of his kingdom. A man, even in the semidarkness, who exuded power and confidence.

"I had a choice," she said. "To marry Lawrence, or be taken home to America in disgrace."

"I would've found you there," he said.

She stared into the candle flame, trying not to allow his words to affect her. He would have come after her, she was certain of it. The wedding night she'd so dreaded would have been with him and not Lawrence.

"You never protested?"

Yes, she had, but what good did it do to tell him? She'd been afraid, but she'd pleaded anyway. She'd begged. She'd offered logic and reason. Her father had never heard her.

Two reasons spared her from punishment, and neither was due to kindness or affection. Her father had no one to administer a beating to her and was no doubt loath to do it himself. Plus, since she was promised to the earl, he didn't want her to go damaged to her bridegroom.

Macrath didn't know about that, either.

She was suddenly angry. Why did he spear her with questions now?

"If you'd cared so much," she asked, "why did you give up so easily? It's easy now to say you would have gone to America. A year later."

He stared at her for long minutes while the fire crackled and the wind pushed against the windowpanes. She was not going to be the first to break the brittle silence.

"I never gave up," he said. "I went to your house many times and was turned away each time. I wrote you a dozen times. I never stopped until I got your letter."

She couldn't breathe. Had Hannah laced her too tightly?

"I never received one letter from you," she said. "Nor did I ever write you."

She'd been guarded so well she might have been able to compose a letter but never to post it.

He abruptly stood, striding toward her.

Reaching into his jacket, he pulled something out, placing it on the table beside her without a word.

Slowly, she picked up a much folded paper, unfolded it and read:

Macrath,

I am to be married. I know you will understand that it would be foolish of me not to agree to a union with the Earl of Barrett.

Please don't write me again.

I wish you great success in your future.

How could he think she would write something so impersonal and almost flippant to him?

"That isn't my handwriting," she said.

"Look at the signature."

She hadn't paid it any attention, but at his words, she did, feeling her heart sink to her toes.

Maud.

Of course he would think it was from her, from their meeting in the British Museum. The jest only the two of them had shared from that day forward.

"Mrs. Haverstock," she said.

Her chaperone had to have heard them that day. Or had Bessie told her? Had the woman also known about their meeting in the garden, when they'd kissed?

He returned to his chair as she placed the letter on the table between them.

He'd been as wounded as she.

She wasn't close to seducing Macrath. He was looking at her like she was a stranger, as if all those weeks they'd spent together had never happened. Had he tamped down the pleasant memories in favor of those that made him angry?

Easing back in the chair, she calmly straightened her napkin, smoothing out the wrinkles and folding it into fourths.

"I didn't write that letter, Macrath. But that hardly matters now, does it?"

"Why are you here, Virginia?"

She had always liked the way he'd said her name, the r's rolling in a Scottish burr. She loved the way he spoke, even about commonsense things, the weather, the scent of flowers, or the sunset.

"I can't tell you," she said finally, in answer to his question. "I should tell you," she added, "but I can't. The words won't come." Then she took the truth and wrapped it in a lie, leading him to think this visit was the result of need and longing more than survival. "I just knew I had to see you."

His gaze settled on her breasts.

She warmed from the inside out, her breath coming too tightly. A year ago he'd always been a gentleman, treating her with respect and care.

Would he be the same now?

He stood and, with a scrape of the chair against the wooden floor, strode the length of the table to reach her. She tensed, but he turned her chair as if she weighed no more than a feather, lifting her from it.

He pulled her into his arms in a gentle embrace that surprised and comforted her. She closed her eyes, pressed her cheek against the fine wool of his jacket and took a deep breath of relief.

If he banished her tomorrow, she would at least have these moments of memory.

He pressed his cheek against her hair, stood there for long, treasured, minutes. Finally, he drew back and kissed her temple, such a gentle sweet kiss it brought tears to her eyes.

Slowly, she extended her arms around his waist, leaned her forehead against his chest. She needed courage now more than at any time in her life.

"Virginia," he said softly.

How strange to envision seduction in a bedchamber and have it occur in a dining room. Or to have him kiss her tenderly on her cheek and summon her tears.

They'd kissed once, and the experience had been one of the most shocking and sensual she'd ever known. She wanted another one of his kisses, and now he was spurring her on without a word spoken.

She opened her eyes and tilted her head back, wanting him to know, in this at least, she wasn't lying.

He must kiss her. He must ease this need that had been fervently growing for over a year.

Each night, she'd pressed her fingertips to her lips and said a prayer in thought of him. Each night, she'd recalled the touch of his lips against hers, the whisper of his voice against her mouth. Each night, she had longed for him, and now he was here and this was no dream.

She had come to him and the kiss waited, payment for her patience.

"You tempt me," he said in a low burr. "I told myself I should find someone else."

"Did you?" she asked in a thin voice.

"They all sounded Scottish," he said. "Or English. None of them had your odd American and English accent."

She smiled in earnest. "Anyone might say you're the one who sounds odd, Macrath Sinclair."

She reached up and gripped the fabric of his jacket, one hand sliding beneath to touch the fine linen of his shirt. The pounding of his heart beneath her palm was as rapid as her own.

"I should leave now, Virginia. Tomorrow, you should go."

"Do not send me away," she said, her voice barely more than a breath. "Not tomorrow." She took as deep a breath as she could manage. "Not tomorrow," she repeated. "Not tonight."

He studied her in the faint glow of the candles.

In this, she must not fail. But need trumped desperation in this silent moment. Her lips felt too full. Her heart beat too rapidly, and her legs trembled so badly she might fall any moment.

"Why have you come, Virginia?" he asked.

"I want to know what love is like between a man and a woman. Not simply what it felt like to be a frightened miss alone with an angry husband."

"Was he angry?" he asked.

"It seemed so." When he didn't speak, she said, "He took my virtue, Macrath, not my heart. Never my heart."

He pulled her close slowly, so slowly she might have turned her head or escaped from him easily. She didn't, only tilted back her head, praying for a kiss.

Softly, he placed his lips on hers. A kiss to reacquaint, an expression of remembrance, and a silent hello, one that didn't prepare her for the surge of feeling.

The kiss deepened, becoming something she'd never felt, as if their combined need created a maelstrom between them. She was left gasping for breath, but when he would've pulled away, she gripped his shirt with both hands and pulled him back to her.

"Teach me," she whispered. Before the words had totally left her lips, she was airborne, caught up in his arms.

She hadn't expected this. She'd thought they might escape to his room or her lovely chamber, tiptoeing through this magnificent home like thieves. She'd never thought he would brazenly carry her through the corridors like a drunken bridegroom.

She closed her eyes, hoping none of his servants saw them. Hoping, too, if they did, she didn't see them.

Her hands still clutched his shirt and she couldn't release them. Where their bodies touched there was such heat she was warned. This night would not be like her wedding night.

When dawn broke, she wouldn't be the same woman.