Claimed by the Laird (16 page)

“And how do you feel now?” Lucas’s question was accompanied by another sly stroke that made her quiver.

“I feel so breathless,” she whispered. “So strange.”

“Good.”

Her body felt hot and acquiescent beneath his hands. He returned to her nub, thumbing it, making her hips jerk hard. He held them down and put his mouth to her and the shock ripped through her. No one had ever done this to her before. She had had no idea.

She heard Lucas make a sound of satisfaction deep in his throat. He held her tightly and touched his tongue to her, keeping her still when she tried to roll away, flicking at her core, teasing her with long slow strokes so that the pleasure built and she writhed under his hands.

“Lucas.” Her thighs were quivering. Her entire body was trembling. She gave a keening cry as she broke, shuddering and lifting her hips against his mouth in frantic rhythm.

He slid back up her body, pulling her into his arms, kissing her gently. She could smell the muskiness of her own scent on him and felt another pang of shock and sinful pleasure. Lucas cupped her face and kissed her again, his lips moving over hers.

“I want you again,” he whispered. She felt the press of his erection against her thigh, hard and urgent. “May I?”

Christina made a sound of sleepy acquiescence, but all lethargy fled as he grabbed the bolster and rolled her onto her stomach, pushing it underneath her, canting her up so that she was almost on her knees. She felt his hands smooth down her back and over her buttocks, sliding between her thighs, parting her.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said. “Tell me to stop if I do.”

He slid into her and her mind splintered with a different sort of pleasure. She was so sleek and tight and he felt so huge that it was difficult to take him all. She felt overwhelmed, invaded. He moved very gently, easing forward, allowing her body to adjust to the sense of possession. It was exquisite, overpowering. She clamped around him like a velvet glove and following blind instinct her body moved with his, pushing back. Immediately he drove into her a little harder, a little faster, and she gasped as her whole body jerked to his thrusts. He surged deep within her and she heard him groan, a harsh sound, elemental. The pleasure pushed her relentlessly onward, burning higher, claiming her until it swept her away with the force of a tidal wave, her heartbeat wild and the ecstasy pulsing through her.

For a while she lay there, aware of nothing but the shimmer of sensation fading through her body, Lucas lying at her side, and the whirl of feeling that poured through her body in a torrent. She had never felt like this; she had thought that she was experienced but instead she had been unknowing, unaware of the depth of emotion of which she was capable, ignorant of how it felt to make love with a man she...

A man she loved.

A man she loved, not with a girl’s infatuation but a woman’s emotion.

She lay absolutely still as she thought about it. She was in love with Lucas Ross and it did not matter who, or what he was. Servant or lord, it made no difference to her feelings.

She turned her head to look at Lucas. She was warm, lying in the circle of his arm. He was stroking her hair. It felt utterly perfect, as though they had been made for this moment. She wanted to feel happy, but instead the slide of emotion was very different, a deep, dark fall into despair. The tears prickled her throat and stung the backs of her eyes.

She had made a terrible mistake.

Again she felt that rush of emotion—dark, terrifying. Love and loss were two sides of the same coin. She had learned that when she was young.

Besides, now that she could think rationally again she realized that what they had just done had been wonderful but it was forbidden and very, very foolish. It was tempting but it was wrong. It could lead nowhere and it could cause a very great deal of trouble.

Somehow she was going to have to go back and pretend that this had never happened. She was going to have to do it because there really was no alternative. Perhaps Lucas could be her lover for a little while, but in the end the outcome would be the same; there was no future for them. There could not be. She did not want to love him. She did not want the vulnerability that love brought, nor did she want the pain. And if she continued on this foolish path, that was exactly what would happen.

She made a tiny, instinctive movement away from Lucas’s embrace. He felt it.

“Christina?” he said.

“This can’t happen again,” she said shakily. She rolled away from him and stood up, feeling her legs tremble. It felt cold out of the shelter of Lucas’s arms. Immediately she wanted that security back, that astonishing sense of belonging.

“It’s wrong,” she said. “We must not do it again.”

“Why not?” Lucas said. He propped himself on one elbow, watching her. She was conscious of his gaze all over her as she tried to find her scattered clothing. Her hands were shaking so much she could scarcely manage to dress herself. She felt cold inside and out. Suddenly the little cottage seemed chill and cheerless and their encounter squalid and shameful, the mistress of the house seducing her gardener. What had she been thinking? Lucas was a servant, a member of her staff. It was her role to care for her people, not to use them. She felt ashamed.

“It’s wrong,” she said again. “It’s wrong because I would be taking advantage.” She avoided his gaze. She did not want to look at him or for him to look at her. She felt so vulnerable with her emotions stripped bare. She ached for him and she knew he wanted her, too. Yet she had to do the right thing whilst impossibly tempted by the wrong. “I am older than you,” she said, “and I am your employer. It would be wrong to exploit that and abuse my position. If relationships between staff members are forbidden, I can scarcely expect to break those rules myself. That would be hypocritical.”

Lucas stood up quickly, wrapping the blanket around his hips. He came over to her and gripped her shoulder, partly turning her to face him so that she was forced to meet his eyes. She could feel the warmth of his hands through the thin material of her blouse. His touch woke all the longing within her. She shivered.

“That isn’t how it is between us,” he said harshly.

She risked a quick look at him. He looked fierce, and there was hardness in his eyes she wished she had not seen because it only served to remind her that beyond desire he had no feelings for her. He could not. He was so self-contained. He needed no one.

“It is.” She was not going to tell him that it was all the more impossible because she loved him. She had to finish this now, before it had begun. She had to do it for both their sakes.

“Do you really believe that?” Lucas said. “That you would be abusing your position if we...” He hesitated, as though choosing his words with care. “If we were to be together?” He was frowning now, his gaze searching her face.

“Yes, I do,” Christina said. “It is my duty to protect Kilmory and all the people who belong here.” She bit her lip. “To fail to live up to my responsibilities would be quite wrong. I could not place you in so difficult a position.”

She saw Lucas’s lips twist into a wry smile. He took her hand and pressed a kiss on her palm. “You are an extraordinary woman, Christina MacMorlan,” he said slowly. “Not one man in ten would be as honorable as you.”

He let her go and moved over to pick up her cloak and bonnet whilst Christina knelt down to hunt for her hairpins on the stone floor. They seemed to have scattered everywhere. Once she had found a handful she stood up and Lucas wrapped the cloak about her, his hands lingering for one long moment on her shoulders as though he wanted to pull her back into his arms. She wanted it, too; she wanted it quite dreadfully and she did not dare look at him in case he read that message in her eyes.

“Thank you, Mr. Ross.” She made an effort to reassert formality, then realized how ridiculous it sounded. No wonder, after such liberties. His mouth on hers, his hands holding her, his body inside hers, so intimate, so impossible to forget. She shivered again. Part of her wanted Lucas to stop her leaving, to tell her they could be together, that everything would be all right. Yet it would not be, she knew that, and another part of her was so grateful to him for not making matters any more difficult for her than they already were.

“Good night, Lady Christina,” Lucas said. And she let herself out into the cold night, wondering if she was not being honorable after all and was simply a fool to reject such pleasure in a life empty of it.

* * *

L
UCAS
THREW
HIMSELF
down on the narrow bed, put his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. His body felt satisfied but his mind was tied up tight in knots, his head aching.

He had behaved unforgivably. Not since he had been in his teens had he been so at the mercy of his senses. He had never lost control the way he had done tonight with Christina.

Not such a monk now, Lucas.

The irony was not lost on him. He had not slept with a woman in a very long time, and then he had chosen the one woman he should never have touched.

He had thought himself invulnerable. Over the years he had started to believe that he needed no one, no physical intimacy, no emotional closeness. As a youth he had been as careless and thoughtless as any other young man in his attitudes toward women and sex, but as he had grown older he had found himself thinking more and more of the fact that he was a bastard, conceived out of wedlock, and that his birth had caused his mother endless shame and grief. He could never be like his father, seducing, abandoning without care, without thought. That realization alone had prevented him from ever becoming a rake.

Or it had until tonight.

Tonight he had forgotten every last one of his principles.

He thought about Christina, of the sweet vulnerability beneath her starchy exterior, of the soft appeal in her eyes, her disbelief that he would ever find her attractive. He remembered the scent of her, felt again the caress of her hands and the clasp of her body about his. It had been explosive, the most devastating lovemaking he had ever experienced; elemental, profound, all the things he did not want it to be and far too important to be dismissed easily.

Guilt lacerated him. Christina MacMorlan had been all that was honest and good, and he was a scoundrel who had seduced her when she did not even know his real name.

He sat up, put his head in his hands. He could not tell her he was not a gardener. He could not tell her he worked for Lord Sidmouth. Least of all could he tell her the real reason he was at Kilmory. He imagined trying to tell Christina that he suspected her father of murder. She would be appalled. She would rush to defend the duke. He needed proof before he broached so difficult a subject. It was either that or abandon his quest for justice and his heart ached at the mere thought. He could not fail Peter again now, in death.

One thing he could do, though, was to write to Sidmouth and ask to be released from his role in hunting the smuggling gang. He wanted nothing to do with Eyre’s work or with his methods.

Delicate tracery of shadow and light played across the whitewashed room. In the high summer, these northern lands were seldom fully dark but the sun had dropped into the sea now and the light was a deep, dark blue. Up at the house all the lamps would be lit. He wondered if Christina would be able to slip inside unnoticed so that she need find no excuse for her tumbled hair and her rumpled clothes.

It’s wrong because I would be taking advantage....

He felt warmth spreading in his chest as he remembered her defiant gallantry. It was the last thing he had expected. There were any number of men who would not hesitate to take advantage of their female staff and no doubt a number of women who would do the same with their male servants. There were also many servants who saw the master’s or mistress’s favor as a way to advancement. Alice Parmenter was one of them. But Christina was too good for that, too special. She would not sack him because she thought he needed the job. She would not sleep with him again because she felt it was wrong.

The physical satisfaction had drained from his body now, leaving him feeling cold and tired. Yet something had changed in him. There was a tiny flicker of warmth where once there had been nothing but ice. And that was the most dangerous, the most frightening thing of all.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“M
R
. R
OSS
.” C
HRISTINA
had summoned Lucas to the library first thing the very next morning. She had sent a servant; it was all extremely formal.

Christina laid down her pen and looked at him. Her eyes were tired. She looked as though she had not slept. She kept the desk as a barrier firmly between the two of them and did not invite Lucas to sit. It felt strange to see her like this, so businesslike and proper, when he had held her in his arms and made love to her with such heat and passion and need. He wanted to vault the desk and kiss her to within an inch of her life. Yet at the same time her very formality touched him. She was trying to do the right thing. He felt a wave of tenderness for her that shocked him.

“I apologize for sending for you like this,” Christina said. “The truth is I am not quite sure how to deal with this matter between us....” Her voice faded away unhappily. “I do not want you to think...” She fidgeted with the quill, turning it over in her hands. Lucas noticed an ink stain on one of her fingers. Her hands were small, capable looking, like the rest of her. He felt his heart twist with an emotion he did not recognize.

“I am making no assumptions, ma’am,” he said.

He saw a flash of gratitude deep in the blue of her eyes. “Thank you,” she said. She took a deep breath. “Last night...” She stopped again. “I hope you realize...” She looked up. “I do not go around behaving like that.”

“I think we established that last night,” Lucas said.

“And I would not wish it to make any difference to our working relationship,” Christina continued in a rush. She was looking extremely pink and flustered now, color in her face where it had previously been pale. “Obviously it will not happen again. But I have to maintain my authority amongst the staff here, so I would appreciate it if you did not mention—” She broke off as Lucas took a step forward and leaned his palms on the desk. Her gaze, startled and blue, met his. “Mr. Ross?”

“Lady Christina,” Lucas said. He tried to erase the anger from his voice but it was difficult. “Do you even need to ask me that?”

She blushed. “I am sorry,” she said. “I did not mean to insult your integrity.”

She had a way of going straight to the heart of the matter that silenced him. And since his integrity was also questionable, he suddenly felt a cad.

“Do not give the matter another thought,” he said gruffly.

Some emotion flickered in her eyes. “That may be difficult,” she said with devastating candor, “but I shall do my best.”

Lucas felt his body tighten. So she had lain awake, as he had, thinking about everything that had happened between them. Thinking about it. Wanting it. He almost groaned aloud. She was right; it was damnably difficult to erase the memory of the previous night, particularly when he wanted to do it all over again.

Their eyes met. He saw the plea in hers and was helpless to resist.

“I promise never to do anything to compromise your authority,” he said. He straightened. “I will behave with as much deference and respect as I have always done.”

“Which is not saying a great deal,” Christina said. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”

Lucas grinned. “I am not naturally deferential.”

She frowned. “I have observed that, Mr. Ross. I think—” She hesitated. “You believe that respect must be earned rather than accorded as a birthright.”

Lucas was startled by her perception. He did not consider himself easy to read, and yet she had understood him perfectly. “Which is why
you
have my respect,” he said gently.

Now she really did blush hard, as though his good opinion mattered to her more than anything else on earth. “Thank you,” she said simply. She smiled at him and it felt to Lucas as though the sun had come out.

“Now.” Her voice changed, became businesslike. “I have a problem and I require your help, Mr. Ross.” She tapped a letter that lay on the desk in front of her. “My sisters write that they will be visiting Kilmory at the end of next week.”

Lucas felt a flash of alarm. If Lady Mairi Rutherford saw him at Kilmory, then his impersonation of a servant would be over. She had met him and there was not a hope in hell that she would not recognize him. Either he was going to have to skulk around out of sight in the garden grotto for the entire visit or he was going to have to work fast, complete his inquiries before the ladies arrived and get the hell out of there.

Damnation.

Ten days was no time at all to complete his mission.

But Christina was still speaking, looking down at the letter, a faint hint of asperity in her tone:

“Apparently Mairi and Lucy are bringing some friends with them from the Highland Ladies Bluestocking Society. The ladies were very excited to hear that Lady Bellingham is staying nearby. They want to meet her. I understand she is something of a bluestocking heroine. I am to invite her to tea in order for the ladies to discuss with her all manner of subjects ranging from the practical applications of trigonometry to the return of Halley’s Comet.”

“The Highland Ladies Bluestocking Society,” Lucas said. “Is that an entirely female enterprise?”

“It is,” Christina said. “The clue is in the name, Mr. Ross. Gentlemen are not invited to the meetings unless they are attending as expert speakers.”

Lucas breathed a little easier. At least Jack would not be escorting Mairi. He doubted that Jack’s specialist subject was a suitable discussion topic for a group of earnest bluestocking women. On the other hand, they might be riveted to hear a lecture on the seduction techniques of the practiced rake.

“Are you a bluestocking yourself, ma’am?” Lucas asked.

Christina put her pen down with something of a bad-tempered slap. “No, Mr. Ross, I am not. It takes leisure to be a bluestocking and I have no time to spare for such fripperies.” She rubbed the back of her neck. Tiny wisps of golden-brown hair escaped her chignon. Lucas wanted to press his lips to the tender curve at her nape. The impulse was so powerful that he had to clench his fists to stop himself.

“There is so much to do,” Christina said, half to herself. “Everyone just assumes...” She broke off. “Well, that is nothing to the purpose. But as I said, I need your help with this visit, Mr. Ross.”

“Either you wish me to make myself scarce in the greenhouses or you require me to wait at table,” Lucas said, hoping it was not the latter.

Christina eyed him frostily. “Please do not attempt to read my mind, Mr. Ross. I require neither of those things from you. I could not have you waiting at table.” She drummed her fingers on the desk in irritation. “There would be a riot in the dining room. The Highland Ladies are very partial to a handsome man. They have quite a reputation.” She rubbed her head absentmindedly, leaving another smear of ink down her cheek. “What I would ask is that you provide appropriate cut flowers for the house on each day of the visit,” she said.

“So you would require me to bring the flowers up to the house,” Lucas said. “Indoors?” He could imagine himself hiding behind a huge spray of roses when Mairi Rutherford walked past. This was going to be awkward.

Christina was looking at him oddly. “Only as far as the housekeeper’s room,” she said. “Mrs. Parmenter and I will then arrange the flowers and display them.” She tilted her head thoughtfully as she looked at him. “You are starting to know the difference between a rose and a hollyhock, I hope?”

“Hollyhocks are taller than roses,” Lucas said. He grinned. “I will collect some of the gardening books on my way out. Hopefully then I will not disgrace you.”

“Thank you,” Christina said. She moved her papers into a businesslike pile and stood up. Clearly it was the end of their interview.

“If you will excuse me,” she said. “I have errands to run in the village. Soup to take to Mrs. McGregor and medicines for the Morrison children. They have the ague. I hope there will not be a major outbreak.”

Lucas caught her arm as she moved toward the door. “You look very pale,” he said. “You should be careful not to wear yourself out.”

His hand closed over hers and she froze, catching her breath. Her face was in profile to him and he could see the curve of her lips and a pulse beating in the delicate hollow of her throat. Beneath his hand her fingers trembled. The awareness shimmered between them like a heat haze.

“I am very well,” she whispered.

“You are not,” Lucas said. Suddenly he felt fiercely protective. “You never give yourself a rest.”

Her gaze came up to his, cloudy with tiredness. He could see all his own confusion reflected in her eyes. “I appreciate your concern, but I do not think you should be so familiar, Mr. Ross,” she said. “Only a moment ago you agreed to behave with absolute propriety—”

Lucas gave a growl deep in his throat. “To hell with propriety,” he said.

He pulled her toward him. He could feel the hesitation in her but also the wicked current of temptation that swept away all her objections. He spun her around so that her back was against the door and held her there whilst he kissed her long and deep, his tongue plundering the sweetness of her mouth, his body holding hers trapped. She slid her arms about his neck and kissed him back. He felt a rush of something so elemental it could not be denied: power, possession and desire. Yet beneath the clamor of his body was an infinitely more disturbing feeling of protectiveness.

She pulled away from him, breathing hard, and he cupped her face, brushing the fragile line of her jaw with his thumb. He felt conflicted, tenderness warring with the compulsion to push her away, to keep her at arm’s length before he plunged into even more uncharted waters. But it was too late. A fierce sense of need swept through him, bound up with the urge to shield her from all harm.

“Take care of yourself,” he whispered, kissing her again, gently this time.

She freed herself. He could see the withdrawal in her eyes and knew she was determined to end this, no matter how much she wanted him. He caught her hand and felt her try to draw away.

“Promise me,” he said, “that if you are with child you will tell me.”

Her eyes opened wide, blank with shock. He could see she had not thought of that.

“It won’t happen,” she said. “It could not. You didn’t...” She stopped, clearly unable to form the words.

“It can still happen,” Lucas said grimly. He tightened his grip on her. “I will not be like my father,” he said. “I won’t ever abandon the mother of my child.”

He saw the shift of expression in her eyes; a grief and sadness he could not understand, mingled with a longing that turned his heart inside out. She smiled, though he thought there was the glitter of tears on her lashes.

“You are a good man, Lucas Ross,” she said. She touched his cheek fleetingly. “A very good man.”

She turned, pulled open the library door and walked away, closing it softly behind her. Lucas listened to the sound of her footsteps fade as she went away, back to her life as chatelaine of Kilmory, laird in all but name. He knew he had no role in that; he was not a part of her life, and for the first time he disliked that intensely.

* * *

T
HERE
WAS
SO
much to do; there were menus to agree with Alice Parmenter on and a meeting scheduled with the land agent to discuss the increase of rents at the home farm, and food and medicine to take to the village and calls on Mrs. MacPherson and Lady Bellingham. There were rooms to be aired in advance of the visit of the Highland Ladies Bluestocking Society and the servants to encourage and placate and stray sheep to be recaptured and a new batch of the peat-reek to distill. Yet Christina could not concentrate. All she could think about was Lucas.

She had barely seen him for a week. That very denial meant that she dreamed about him at night, dreams full of heat and longing, and woke feeling desperately lonely. Her body ached for him, but his absence was much more than that. She felt as though a part of her was missing and no matter how she tried to fill the void with activity, the pain would catch her unawares in odd moments, as it was doing now. She was seated in the drawing room full of people, a place that could have been a hundred miles away from Lucas’s little cottage and the secrets they had shared.

She had not wanted to feel like this. It was one thing to give her love and her time to her people, but quite another feeling such an intensity of emotion for one man. She was afraid of that feeling, so afraid that if she gave in to it she would risk losing everything again. As a young girl her heart had been open and she had loved without reservation. That love had curled up and died when she had lost her mother and her world was shattered. Never again would she give of herself so freely.

“Christina, you are not attending.” Gertrude poked her none too gently in the ribs with her fan. Her face was wrinkled with dissatisfaction, her gaze darting across the room to where Allegra was deep in conversation with Richard Bryson, the riding officer. Allegra was smiling; it was the first time that Christina could remember seeing her looking so genuinely animated. Her mother was also looking animated, but with annoyance not pleasure. It was clear to Christina that she had just missed one of Gertrude’s diatribes on her daughter’s bad behavior.

“I beg your pardon,” she said automatically. She had been paying attention, just not to what Gertrude was saying. What scared her was that it felt too late to turn back. She was in love with Lucas and she did not know how to stop. It exhilarated her, but it frightened her, too. Loving Lucas made her want to take risks she had sworn never to take again. Loving him made her want to dare to trust that the future would not be like the past, that this time she would not be hurt. Caution warned her that she was a fool, setting herself up for further pain. She did not know what to do.

Gertrude prodded her again and Christina was tempted to take the fan and snap it in half.

“I was saying that when you chaperone Allegra during the winter season in Edinburgh, you must make absolutely sure that she does not waste her time on unsuitable men like that,” Gertrude said, waving the fan in the direction of Richard Bryson. “She is not to marry below the rank of a duke’s heir. Or perhaps we could tolerate an earl if we are absolutely desperate. But below that I simply will not go, Christina. Do you understand?”