Bridegroom Wore Plaid (28 page)

She did not even try to prevaricate. There was no stiff English upper lip, no protest for form’s sake. Just his name, “Connor…” on a soft sigh as her arms went around his neck. He hiked her up onto the table without breaking the kiss and made a place for himself between her legs.

From somewhere in the back of his mind, his conscience was starting up an unholy din of recriminations and warnings. Oh, he’d stop before the consequences were unbearable, he was
almost
sure of it.

But he’d wondered: Had she been repulsed by his attentions? Satisfied beyond the physical, left wondering—as he’d been—if there could
be
something besides the physical? Had she been haunted by the sweetness of what they’d done until it hung in her mind, beclouding all the moments since with a haze of longing and wonder?

Her hands were tugging his shirt free of his waistband, then coursing over the bare skin of his back and chest as if she were parched for the sensation of his flesh under her palms. “Missed you, Scot.”

He ran his finger over the swell of her breasts above her stays, hating the fabric that kept him from her skin. “Missed you too, English.”

He started frothing up her skirts around her waist, hoping, hoping, and when his hands found her bare legs, he wanted to dance the fling.

“God bless a woman who forgets her drawers.”

She covered his mouth with her own. “The Scottish air makes me frisky—or perhaps the Scottish company. Make me forget my own name.”

Conscience and common sense gave up on a whimper. Before Con and Julia were done, both were incapable of speech, much less of recalling something as trivial as a name or a nationality, though Con was careful—when he’d restored her clothing and his, and had assured himself she wasn’t going to dissolve into the vapors and neither was he—to reassure her they still weren’t married.

***

“We have to talk.” Gil appeared before Ian’s desk, looking like a specter in the candlelight.

“So talk.” Ian switched to Gaelic, the language of their childhood, the language of their family. A much better language for confession and strategy than English.

Gil glanced at the door, which he’d closed behind him. “You’ll want to hit me, and maybe you’d better.”

Ian tossed his pen on the desk and tried to keep himself from smiling. Gil liked nothing better than a good brawl, a short, emphatic physical expression of emotion that saved thousands of words and a great deal of awkwardness. It also restored fine fellow feeling over the shared medicinal dram that usually followed, and the shared scolding from Mary Fran following after that.

“You’re the one who forgot to latch Romeo’s gate?” Ian watched Gil’s features and saw he’d guessed wrong. “What is it, then?”

“I assaulted a guest.”

Ian came around to the front of his desk, unwilling to sit like some headmaster grilling an unruly first former. “Did Matthew make the mistake of engaging you on the matter of the Clearances?”

Gil shook his head.

“Famine aid?” Of which there had been precious next-to-none for Scotland.

“No… it’s…” He threw himself onto the sofa. “I pitched Altsax against the wall and threatened to do worse.”

Gil was quick with his fists—and very good with his fists—but he’d long since outgrown a young man’s rages. Ian leaned back against his desk and crossed his arms.

“What did he do, Gilgallon? I’ll not believe you just took a casual notion to end our trade, destroy our reputation, and lay yourself open to charges.”

Gil winced, and by the light of the nearby hearth his features were looking too sharp.

“He slapped Genie.” Gil sat forward, running both hands through his hair and then bracing his elbows on his thighs. “He called her into the corridor under the pretense of bidding her good night, made sure I was paying attention, then belted the hell out of her for not being more diligent in her pursuit of you. Very pleasant about the whole thing too. Very calculating.”

“He
struck
her?”

Gil’s head came up. “I am not a liar, Ian MacGregor. I’m a fool and a barbarian and a Highlander strutting around in a gentleman’s clothes, but I do not dissemble with me own laird.”

Ian lowered himself beside his brother, trying to make sense of information that appalled even as it roused his curiosity.

“I believe you. What did you do?”

“Fetched him up against the wall and threatened his miserable titled ass if he ever raises a hand to another female under our roof again.”

“You didn’t strike him?”

“Genie intervened. Said it was a family matter.”

“We can have you halfway to France by morning if you think the baron will press charges.”

Gil shook his head. “No more deserting. When Asher stopped writing, it about killed you.”

Three letters they’d had from Asher over the course of several years—only two Ian could tell his family about—then nothing. He pushed that thought away, as the brother beside him was the one he could assist.

“When was this?”

“Two nights ago. I’ve been waiting for the Queen’s man to fetch me to the gaol.”

“You can cease your waiting.” Ian considered the line of his brother’s shoulders, shoulders that had been bearing a significant weight in silence, when it was the laird’s responsibility to keep his family members safe.

“What? Of all Scotsmen, I’m suddenly granted the right to assault titled Englishmen with impunity?”

“You were set up, laddie. He wanted you there for an audience, to shame his daughter, to make sure I knew, firstly, that he was willing to go to significant lengths to ensure the match, and secondly, that I am not his daughter’s choice. As a negotiating tactic, it’s brilliant.”

Gil shot to his feet. “Bugger negotiating tactics, Ian. He enjoyed hurting her, enjoyed even more humiliating her, and enjoyed most of all that I was powerless to intervene on her behalf.”

“What did you do when you’d sent him packing?”

Gil glared at the hearth, where peat had been added to the fire now that guests were abed. They might smell the peat smoke in the morning, though the maids would be by early to air out the room.

“I did nothing. I fetched Mrs. Redmond, went to the icehouse—Genie didn’t want the servants alerted—and I spent the rest of the night riding so I wouldn’t drink myself into a temper.”

“Good thinking. You acquired a witness to testify that Genie’s face was sporting a welt, that she was upset, and that she’d just bid her father good night. Moreover, Mrs. Redmond could testify that Genie was not in fear of you, so even if Genie refused to implicate her father, the constables won’t be visiting us any time soon.”

“This is not a matter of criminal defense, Ian. This is not even a matter of a lady’s honor. For all legal intents, her father can strike her at will.”

“I know, lad. It’s a matter of her safety. I’ll deal with it.”

Gil shifted so he was leaning one arm along the mantel, which allowed Ian to see his brother’s face again. Of the three of them, Gil was quickest to laugh, the quickest to anger. He was beyond anger now, having literally galloped past that familiar territory into something that looked to Ian like bewilderment. Or despair.

“I don’t like it, Ian. I don’t like that we’re marrying into a family that thinks treating women in such a fashion is allowable, not for any purpose.”

“We’re not marrying the baron, Gil.” For that matter,
we
weren’t marrying anybody.

“If you proposed, he’d have to leave her alone.”

“And that is just what he wants. I told him I was doing more digging into his finances, and this is his response. A harrying tactic and a shrewd one, but it won’t be effective at achieving his goals.”

“Why not?”

“The baron has no allies in this house. Not even his own son—whom I will tell of this encounter—would countenance this behavior. Then too, the women are on our side as well.”

“The women? What can they do?”

“They’ve been dealing with stupid, violent men for generations. Genie and Julia might not enlist the aid of the others, but I will.”

Gil looked doubtful but placated. “You’ll tell Mary Fran? She’s diabolical when it comes to giving a man regrets.”

“Mary Fran, Hester, Augusta. They’ll look after Genie when we can’t, and the negotiations are going to become even more plodding.”

“Keep her safe, Ian. It did pass through my mind to whisk your fiancée off to France.”

“What stopped you?”

“I don’t know.”

Interesting answer, but Ian didn’t ponder it. In the five minutes following Gil’s departure, Ian instead tried to dissuade himself from his next maneuver. When that mental exercise proved fruitless, he blew out the library candles and headed for the door on the terrace leading to Augusta’s bedroom.

Eleven

Augusta found, in just a few weeks in Scotland, she’d lost the knack of sleeping well. At home, she’d crammed as much productivity into her day as possible and fallen into bed exhausted, only to repeat the pattern day after day, week after week.

But in Scotland she had leisure time, time to read and time to relearn Gaelic, time to wander, and time to desire a man she was increasingly convinced needed rescuing from his own tenaciously held misconceptions about honor and family duty.

Not that Augusta would be marrying him. He was still an earl, and she was a poor relation well past her come-out. He needed coin, and she had none. But he also needed love and companionship, things Genie couldn’t give him, though some other wealthy young lady might.

A shadow glided past Augusta’s French doors. A big, man-shaped patch of darkness that started Augusta’s heart thudding in her chest. “Who’s there?”

“Come out to the terrace, Augusta.”

Ian spoke just above a whisper from right inside her doors, his shape barely discernible in the moon shadows.

“Not the terrace,” she said, hiking up on her elbows and keeping her voice down. “I’ve a suspicion Altsax sits out on his balcony, smoking cheroots. Come away from the door.”

And by all that was holy, she wanted Ian MacGregor in her bedroom. Wanted him in her
bed
, wanted his hands and his mouth and his very breath on her body.

He didn’t move, so she tossed her covers back, locked the door to the corridor, and drew Ian by the wrist away from her French doors. When he stood frowning down at her in a shaft of moonlight, she closed the doors behind him and went up on her toes to kiss him.

Not his cheek. She’d kissed his cheek before. Cheek-kissing was for spinsters content to feed their chickens and weed their beans. Cheek-kissing would not create the type of memory to warm her heart for years to come—much less warm his. She pressed her body to his, sealed her mouth to his.

“You’ve gotten so bold, Augusta Merrick.”

“You come climbing in my bedroom windows, and you call me bold?”

She saw his teeth gleam in the darkness. “You hauled me through your door.”

She shifted a few feet to sit on the bed, lest she become bolder still and inspire him to flee from the room. “What brings you here, Ian? You’ve been avoiding me generally, which is silly when Genie’s equally bent on avoiding you.”

“She is.” He glanced around the shadowed room then took a seat on the bed beside Augusta. “Have you any idea why?”

“Julia and I have discussed this. Genie has observed her father’s example as a husband for years. That is argument enough against matrimony on general principles.”

“Aye, ’tis.” He took her hand in his, his tone distracted, though how he expected her to think clearly when he rubbed his thumb over her palm like that was a mystery. “And yet, her papa is dead set on getting us wed.”

“Why do you say that? You are by no means the only title in want of coin, Ian.”

“He’s considering others?” He shifted his grip to brush his thumb back and forth across Augusta’s knuckles, a small caress that made talk of plans to marry him to poor Genie feel blasphemous.

“My aunt has a whole list, but I don’t know about my uncle.”

“Your uncle is a sly bastard, Augusta Merrick. He struck Genie while my brother Gil was helpless to aid her, and I’m sure this was calculated to hasten the nuptials.”

“Because even Uncle would not attempt such behavior if Genie were your fiancée.” She shook her hand loose from his, rose, and got settled leaning back against her headboard, the covers over her legs. “So why are you here, Ian?”

The topic was enough to give even Augusta’s burgeoning desire pause. Of course he’d protect a young lady as defenseless as Genie. It was a part of Ian Augusta found irresistibly attractive. And of course nothing less than such a mission would bring him to Augusta’s bedroom in the dark of night.

“I’m here because I need your help.”

He did not sound pleased to be admitting this. Augusta drew her knees up under the blanket and linked her arms around them as she sat back against her pillows. He was powerless to refuse Genie help; Augusta was powerless to refuse him anything he asked.