Almost Perfect (19 page)

Cassie eyed that cupboard. “I must ask, since I’ve no recall,” she said, reminding him of their game. “I can understand bringing the beds up the stairs, for they come all apart. But, how did these things come to be in here?” The sweep of her hand indicated the room’s furnishings.

He cocked an eyebrow at her, looking vaguely smug. “When I”--he caught himself--”we acquired this place it had only narrow slits for windows. Not surprising, given the tower’s somewhat violent purpose in times past. We decided it needed more light, so we had the architect cut this window, as well as the ones in the bedrooms. Before the glass was installed we used a crane on the roof to lift the furnishings to window level, then the workmen brought them in and set them in place. Need I say there won’t be any redecorating?” Amusement lifted his brows.

But of course that’s what he’d done. Cassie had seen the same sort of crane used in London’s warehouses and some of the city’s narrower homes. She hadn’t expected to see it here in the hinterlands anymore than she would have expected Lucien to own such an odd little house.

“What do we do here?” She sipped at her tea, comfortable in their game for the moment.

“We indulge ourselves in privacy,” Lucien replied, cutting a piece of meat.

“Do we?” Cassie murmured, intrigued, watching him eat and wondering if he knew what he’d revealed to her. “Do we do anything here other than hide while we’re here?”

He shot her a sharp sidelong look. “We fish in our stream, which runs behind the house.”

Cassie made a face at that. Early in her marriage when she was yet committed to being a good country wife she’d once followed Charles to the local stream. The fishing part had been enjoyable enough, but then she’d caught something. Charles had insisted to be a true fisherman, or woman as the case was, she had to remove her own fish from her hook. Just thinking about that day was enough to make her stomach turn.

“I hope I don’t,” she said.

Amusement again flared in Lucien’s eyes. “You most certainly do. You’re a better sport than I am.”

Cassie sent him a narrow-eyed look. Lucien’s taunting smile dared her to spar with him. That brought back the joy of their waltz. Reality retreated, leaving her once again completely swathed in their fantasy.

“Well, it’s a shame I don’t remember, because it’s not often a wife outdoes her husband. And, more’s the shame that my knee will keep me away from the stream for such a long time,” she said, meeting his feint with one of her own.

Lucien’s face blossomed in pleasure. “I wouldn’t dream of denying you. We’ll go today. I can carry you on my back.”

Cassie nodded. “What a wondrous husband you are to me, willing to serve as my pack mule. I cannot thank you enough, my love.” The endearment slipped off her tongue, both unexpected and startlingly sincere in its intent.

Something flashed in Lucien’s eyes. He leaned near and before Cassie realized what he intended, pressed a kiss to her nape. His effort won him a gasp and a shiver. He smiled against her neck then put his mouth over her ear.

“I far prefer it when you carry me,” he whispered.

Cassie caught back her laugh. So did she. God help her, but so did she.

“Lucien darling, I’d do anything for you, but I hardly think I could carry you all the way down to that stream and the fish we both so love,” she retorted, purposefully misunderstanding him.

Amusement rumbled deep in his chest. He straightened. “Eat your breakfast. There’s something I want to show you.”

She wasn’t ready to quit sparring. “Really? I cannot imagine there’s anything left to see that you haven’t already shown me this morning.”

Lucien’s eyes closed. He bowed his head. Cassie frowned, wondering if she’d gone too far.

In the next instant he threw down his fork and knife then shoved his chair away from the table. Before she knew what he intended he’d snatched her around the waist and dragged her onto his lap. She squealed, her tea sloshing, then settled in his arms.

“What are you doing?” she cried, both amused and stirred. He wanted her again. She could feel it.

Desire’s warmth burned in Lucien’s gray eyes. His smile was almost a leer as he cocked a brow.

“What else, but answering your challenge. Shall we go see if there’s anything I haven’t yet shown you? Consider if you will, the idea of my bearing your weight instead of you bearing mine.”

She caught her breath as his words awoke the image of them once more abed only this time she was mounted atop him. Until this moment she’d never considered such a thing. That she might be the one to control their pleasure left her awash in a wanton rush of need.

“Touché,” she breathed against the skin of his throat. After touching her lips to the spot where his jaw met his neck, she leaned away from him and sent him her most innocent look.

“What a shame I’ve lost my memory and can’t remember you ever bearing my weight save, of course, for when you carried me yesterday after my accident. Do I often call upon you to do that sort of thing?” she asked.

“All the time,” he assured her then leaned down until his lips brushed hers as he spoke. “I’m feeling particularly capable this morn. Perhaps we should retreat immediately and attempt it? Who knows, but it might just jog your broken memories.”

Lucien’s kiss left Cassie breathless in longing to rush back up to her bedchamber and turn his suggestion into a reality. Rather than indulge her he retrieved his utensils and began to cut a piece of his beef.

“What are you doing?” she protested as he lifted the bite to his mouth around her.

“Eating,” he replied when he’d swallowed. “I think I’ll need all my strength today.” He began to cut another piece.

“If you want to eat shouldn’t I move back to my own chair?” Cassie demanded, not really wanting to move. “This is hardly an efficient way to consume a meal.”

“On the contrary,” he replied, then offered her the piece he’d just cut. “This way two can eat as efficiently as one.”

Cassie fought her smile. She opened her mouth. He dropped the meat into it and began to cut himself another piece as if he truly believed what he said.

Suppressing her laugh, she reached for a slice of bread, slathered it with butter and jam, then broke off a corner and offered it to him. A smile filled his eyes as he accepted the bite.

“What did I tell you? Nothing but efficiency in this household,” he announced.

So their breakfast continued, she fed him bread and jam while he offered her his beef. When they left the table, long after the tea was ice cold and the oatmeal had hardened almost to stone Cassie’s stomach was full, but the rest of her insisted it was starving.

“Now, come with me,” Lucien said, taking her arm and leading her to the stairwell.

Cassie started up the stairs ahead of Lucien. He let her take the time her knee needed. She paused when she reached the landing that led to their bedchamber. When had she come to think of it as theirs?

“Not here,” Lucien said with a low laugh and stepped past her.

Much to her disappointment, he continued up the stairs to the trap door in the roof. He threw open the small door, revealing a square of August sky. The wind whistled down into the stairwell, tugging at Cassie’s cap and making her hems flutter.

“What are we doing?” she asked.

“Going onto the roof,” he replied as if that were a commonplace destination.

Lucien must have seen the doubt in her face. He smiled. “It’s not as strange as it sounds. You’ll see.”

Climbing the last steps, he disappeared through the door. Not as sanguine about this as he, Cassie followed, one hand on her cap to keep the wind from taking it. When she could look through the opening she saw Lucien standing in what was a tiny path between the slope of the rising roof and the top of the house’s forward wall, which extended above the roof to the height of his knees. Lucien offered his hand to steady her as she joined him then closed the trap door.

The wind pressed Cassie’s dress and petticoat to her legs. Her cap strained at her hand. Wisps of hair escaped its confinement to snake about her face.

Turning her, Lucien pointed to a set of tiny steps leading up to a seat that jutted out from the house’s stone chimney. “That’s where we’re going. Up with you.”

With Lucien right behind her, his guiding hand on her elbow, Cassie started toward that seat. Rather than slate tiles the narrow path she followed was covered in stone rough enough to offer good footing. She glanced over the roof’s edge. Her stomach danced at the drop even though the short wall protected her. She fell thankfully onto that seat. The bulk of the chimney sheltered her from the wind while the warmth of the fires burning in the house radiated from the stones behind her.

“Why is there a seat here?” she asked, astounded.

“Quite a trick, eh?” Lucien looked smug at surprising her. “Jamie tells me that during the times when the border between England and Scotland was less peaceful residents on both sides spent their days stealing from one another. If a man wanted to keep kin and kine safe he needed a man on watch. Thus the seat.”

He waved her to her feet. “If I sit first we can share it.”

Cassie stood, forgetting to hold her cap. The wind snatched it, sending the lacy thing swirling out of her reach. It soared, its ribbons streaming behind it like the tails on a kite. Her few pins slipped and her hair unraveled to writhe around her.

“My cap,” she cried.

Lucien grabbed her as if he feared she intended to leap after it. “Let it go,” he said, pulling her down to sit between his legs. “We’re private here. You don’t need it.”

It was the sort of thing a husband might say to his wife. Still acting the part of her mate, he ran his fingers through her tumbled hair, carefully gathering it into a tail. This he draped in front of her shoulder. Once her hair was out of the way, he wrapped his arms around her then pulled her back against his chest.

“Look at that. There are days when I vow I can see all the way to England,” he said.

“Can we really?” Somehow Cassie had thought England more distant. She scanned the long valley and the rise of the hills at its opposite end.

Lucien laughed, his amusement rumbling against her back. “No, it’s just a fancy of mine. I like the look of the land here. There’s something secretive in the way the hills jut and turn, streams and hidden valleys in their folds. It’s not at all settled and predictable like the landscape around Graceton Castle. When I look out over this I’m reminded that I’m only a man in God’s eye, something Lord Graceton has a tendency to forget.”

Leaning back against him, Cassie turned her head away from the view he so admired to watch him instead. It was the second time he’d offered her something deeply personal about himself. He glanced at her and smiled, the expression warm and intimate, even loving.

Not wanting to disturb the tenor of the moment she once more turned her gaze out over the plain before them. Here and there she could see flashes of movement and color, people going about their daily chores. A hunting hawk soared. Clouds trundled overhead, forming and reforming in the sky above them.

The vastness of the land’s lift and roll did indeed make her feel small. Her gaze caught on a hill that stood about half as tall as the ones behind Lucien’s tower. It dominated the head of the valley, the river curling around its foot. Something stood against its side, square and gray. She squinted. It was a house, a large one.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing.

He looked where she indicated. “Nothing important,” he said and caught her chin to turn her face away from it.

Too late. Cassie recognized Ettrick House. With that, reality began to gulp up fantasy.

Had Eliza yet reached Edinburgh? If she had, then she would have sent her message to Cassie, directing it to Philana. That would be Philana’s first inkling that Cassie had separated from her family and that Eliza didn’t know where she was.

Cassie’s heart twisted at the thought of Philana frantic, wondering where she was and what sort of harm had come to her. How could she selfishly remain here with Lucien, indulging in sin, when Philana might be eating her heart with worry? She had to send a message.

No, it wasn’t a message she needed to send to Philana, but herself. She needed to leave Lucien.

Cassie relaxed into Lucien’s embrace, her eyes closed. The beat of his heart against her back pleaded with her not to go. Only here in his arms, it seemed to say, would she be safe.

And desired. And loved.

Loved?

Her eyes opened. Last night he’d asked her to love him. At the time she’d thought it nothing more than words spewed in the heat of passion. She knew from Charles that a man would promise anything in the moments before he achieved his own release.

Once more turning her head against Lucien’s shoulder, she studied his profile. His features were almost as rugged as the landscape. His gray gaze was intent as he watched the distant hills, but there was something peaceful in his expression. It was a startling change from the anger of yesterday and even more startling after the bleakness she’d seen in his face at the abbey.

What if his words of last night had been the first of these unknowing revelations of his? That he might truly love her only made Cassie all the more desperate to stay.

Eliza may not yet have reached Edinburgh. Or, even if she had, she may not have yet sent a message to Philana. After all, Roland had their horses to sell. It might take him days to arrange their passage to America. Eliza wouldn’t write until she was certain of the ship and sailing dates. Surely Cassie could stay for one day, for one more night.

“Lucien, tell me about our marriage,” she asked, her voice shaking as she fought to hold onto their shared pretense.

Blast it all. Why hadn’t he remembered that Ettrick House could be seen from this vantage point? Lucien tightened his arms around Cassie, battling to keep reality at bay the same way she must be.

He rested his chin on her shoulder. “What is there to say? We met during your season. I wooed you. You married me.”

“Why did you woo me?” she asked, her voice softening.

She didn’t ask that just because she wanted him to restore their fantasy. She wanted an explanation for why he’d ceased to pursue her six years ago. It was no more than she deserved and something he should have given her at the time of his retreat. Bittersweet feelings welled.

“I have to admit that your beauty first drew me.” He paused to touch a kiss to her cheek then added, “You remain just as beautiful, despite your many years.”

He meant it as a gentle jab, aimed at her for the role of dowager she’d tried to play at Devanney’s party. The corner of her mouth lifted. She shot him a sidelong glance, her brown eyes warm and filled with affection for him.

“Kind of you to say,” she murmured.

“Not kind, truthful,” Lucien replied, wanting her affection as much now as he had six years ago. He moved a hand to cup her breast despite the barrier of her corset. She caught her breath and shifted into his caress. Pleasure and something else roared through him, stunning in its power and leaving him astounded by his change since yesterday.

Where was his anger at the Cassie who’d used him at the card table? To what corner had his determination to expose her fled? Mostly, he wanted to know how he could be so certain that she would offer no further betrayals.

That was the problem. He couldn’t be certain. Which Cassie did he hold in his arms? Was she the manipulating card sharp, a woman who would surely use him for her own ends? Or, was she the Cassie who’d kissed him in the garden, a woman driven by her passions and the needs of her body? He wanted to believe that their repartee at the breakfast table this morning proved that something remained of the bold but upright Cassie he’d known six years ago.

“And it was for my great beauty that you married me?” she asked, aiming dry amusement at herself.

“No, it was your wit,” he said, speaking the truth. It was her wit that had bound him to her side until her father’s request for a loan. “You make me easy in a way that few others ever have. No one has ever made me laugh the way you do, Cassie.”

She looked at him. In her gaze he saw that she accepted what he’d said as the truth, the reason for his attraction, both then and now. What he expected to see was recrimination. Despite all his professed attraction he hadn’t married her. Instead, her dark eyes were soft with acceptance and understanding. She knew very well why he hadn’t offered for her hand, and forgave him for it.

Would that he could forgive himself for abandoning her and their affection. Lucien sighed and again turned his gaze to the distant horizon. Like today’s clear air, time’s passage offered new perspective. He didn’t like what he saw of the man he’d been when he first met Cassie. It wasn’t anything Sir Roland had done that caused Lucien to reject marriage to her, although he still recoiled at the thought of a connection to her father. But if he’d been willing to take the time he could have devised a way to control the little wastrel.

He hadn’t been willing. Or, rather his pride hadn’t been willing. Six years ago he’d turned his back on her because he gave more weight to the opinions of his peers than his own heart. That disgusted Lucien, then irony pierced him to the core. Rather than wed the unworthy woman he wanted he’d arranged a match with a woman who was his supposed peer. And, instead of happiness in the union, he’d found himself saddled with a feather-brained child-woman who’d disliked him as much as he disliked her. There was something sad in knowing he hadn’t liked his wife enough to care whom she bedded, only that her actions shouldn’t reflect badly on him.

In the end the result had left him the butt of his peers’ jests, the very fate he’d thought to avoid by rejecting Cassie. What sort of fool did that make him? Lucien closed his eyes. What sort of fool considered trading a noble tart for a card sharp whose wanton presence here was no less immoral than his wife’s behavior?

Cassie stirred in his embrace, leaning her head back against his shoulder. Lucien opened his eyes to find her watching him. A small frown marred her brow as if she sensed his black thoughts.

“So, was our wedding a great event?” she asked, taking her turn in this game of theirs.

“No,” he said, more than willing to spin a tale for both their benefits if it meant turning his back on a stingingly bitter reality even for just a few minutes. “It was a small, intimate affair, just our families. I didn’t want to share you with anyone.”

Amusement sparked in her eyes. “Really. And I didn’t object, demanding something more grand and hundreds of guests?”

He laughed. “You did, but I held firm. In the end you said you loved me too much to risk losing my affection over the size of our cake.”

“That sounds like me,” she agreed, the wind making wisps of hair dance around her face. “I should want to cherish your affection for me above all else.”

Her words made his heart shift oddly in his chest. In that instant he found himself wanting to cherish her affection for all his days. He battled that misbegotten desire with every bit of strength he owned, only now recognizing the danger in this game of theirs.

Perhaps things would have been different if he’d married her six years ago, but that time had come and gone. He was no longer the Lucien who’d courted her while she was most surely Cassie, the sharp and liar, the woman who’d used him to her advantage at Devanney’s house party two days ago.

He reminded himself that her family had abandoned her on the road yesterday. Roland couldn’t have known who it was following them. That meant he’d been confident in Cassie’s ability to protect herself by whatever means necessary. Hadn’t she proved herself adept with her ploy of her amnesia, albeit much to Lucien’s pleasure?

No, the only place he could be Cassie’s husband was in this fantasy of theirs. His heart, beaten but not destroyed, protested. It insisted he was wrong about Cassie, that she was still the woman he’d loved.