Highlander's Hope (5 page)

What was
she
doing in his bed?

Ewan watched the rise and fall of her chest as she slept. Her full breasts, their dusky peaks barely discernible through the filmy fabric, threatened to spill from the scanty chemise covering them. He secured the towel about his waist, then edged onto the bed. Lying on his side, his elbow bent, and one hand supporting his head, he stared at her.

Magnificent.

Everything about her enthralled him, from the dark arc of her lashes brushing her cheeks, to her straight, petite nose, and her full lips.

Ewan’s gaze inched from her face to the rest of her figure. Her skin was flawless, perfection in the shimmering moonlight. Her long neck flowed into sloped shoulders, complimented by plump breasts. A small mole on her left breast peeked from beneath her shift, daring him to touch it. His hand was half-raised before he stopped himself.

His gaze traveled to her small waist, then to the flaring of her hips, and downward to the tempting length of her thighs. This was a woman whose full curves demanded touching. His hungry eyes lingered for the briefest of moments on the shadowy triangle at the juncture of her legs.

Never in his seven-and-twenty years had a woman stirred him thus. According to Warrick, she was intelligent, well-educated, and a fine equestrian too. His conscience twinged. He’d still use her to get to Marquardt if he couldn’t find any other means.

She shifted in her sleep, rolling closer to him, and wedging one of her legs between his thighs. Her arm found its way across his waist. At the intimate contact, he inhaled sharply. She smelled of honeysuckle and jasmine.

Ewan shoved Marquardt to the recesses of his mind, intent on enjoying this moment. He might not ever have another like it with her. He firmed his lips. He doubted she would allow him to call on her if she had any inkling he’d exploited her connection to Marquardt.

Lowering himself until his head rested on the same pillow she slept upon, he lay watching her sleep. Scant inches separated their faces. She murmured something unintelligible and scooted closer to him, then nestled her head into the crook of his arm. Her silky head fit perfectly beneath his chin. Wrapping her in his arms, he snuggled her soft body even closer, until she was cocooned within his embrace.

Closing his eyes, he breathed her in, one hand caressing the gentle curve of her spine. Only a few moments more, then he’d waken her, and learn what brought her to his bed.

Yvette was surrounded in sensation. Muscled arms held her to a firm, hair-covered chest. She wrapped her arms tighter around the comforting, familiar frame of her dream lover.

Breathing deeply, her nostrils quivered at his scent. He showered soft kisses on the top of her head, forehead, nose, and, at last, upon her waiting lips. The kiss was as sweet as any long-awaited, keenly anticipated homecoming.

His tongue licked the corner of her mouth, even as his thumb pressed against the crease, forcing her lips to part. Though she was inexperienced, she recognized the suppressed passion in his kiss. It mirrored hers, which had lain dormant and untouched.

A large hand feathered across the swell of her breasts rising above her chemise, and nudged the frail material aside. Yvette shifted, arching, then sighing in bliss when his calloused hand closed over her breast.

She twisted beneath his weight and felt his rigid length pressing against her belly. Reaching between their heated bodies, she wrapped tentative fingers around his expanse.

He groaned, a deep rumbling echo, and she smiled against his mouth. He lifted his head, and she was held captive by the intensity of his sea-green eyes.

Chapter 6

Ewan jolted awake. “
Merde
.”

He had fallen asleep with Yvette in his arms. Shooting a worried glance at the window, he recognized the first golden blush of daybreak sweeping across the hazy sky.

Sucking in a strangled breath, he grasped the inexperienced hand fondling him. Blast it. The towel had come loose while he slept.

“Yvette,” he whispered as she showered kisses across his bare chest and neck. Grasping her roaming hands, he ensnared her in his embrace, and raised his voice. “Yvette, wake up.”

He gave her a gentle shake. Dark lashes trembled, rising to reveal drowsy eyes. A smile lit her face when her gaze met his. She lifted her hand, caressing his face, her fingers lingering on his scar before she raised herself, then kissed the mark. Caught in the powerful spell, he almost forgot himself. He fought the urge to throw reason to the wind and kiss her with the desire he was holding in check. “Yvette . . .”

Ewan knew the moment she came fully awake. He felt her stiffen in his arms and heard her small cry of shocked dismay. She pressed at his chest with both hands. He released her and watched her scramble across the bed. She stopped in the middle, facing him. Her hair swirled around her, settling in shimmering waves about her hips.

Dawn’s glow lit the room. He could see her expressions. Shock, followed by confusion, then complete horror as she realized the full scope of her situation.

Frightened, her head muzzy from sleep, Yvette knelt in the center of the bed. Nearly unclothed, she was on a bed occupied by a naked man—the man from her dreams.

She gulped, fully recognizing him, or rather his eyes. Hers rounded in stunned disbelief. Dear God in heaven. Ewan McTavish, the man who had rescued her.

He retrieved a towel from beneath the bedding and covered his lower body. “Why are you in my bed?”

His voice soothed her, banished her fear. She didn’t understand why. Mayhap it was the lilt of his barely discernible brogue.

Scanning the room, she saw his discarded clothing, the open window, the door to her room. Brows drawn together, she searched her memory. She remembered crawling between the bed’s cool sheets. Then nothing. Until she was summoned from an incredibly realistic dream; a dream about him.

It was only a dream, wasn’t it?

Lord Almighty, had she been touching him
there
?
A wave of warmth swept her face. Gaze fixed on the sheets, she started to speak, “I . . .”

Dragging in a large breath, she edged backward off the bed and didn’t exhale until her feet touched the floor. Her gaze remained riveted to the wooden surface. She didn’t dare look up, too afraid she would stare at his powerful, muscled chest, or heaven forbid, allow her gaze to travel lower, to the vee of curly black hair disappearing beneath the towel draped casually across his narrow hips.

Yvette swallowed, mortified. Had she given herself away? Did he know her dream left her tingling? She folded her arms across her middle. Honesty was her only option. She began again, her voice husky with guilt and embarrassment.

“I thought the room was empty. My room is next door.” She stole a glance at the closed door separating their rooms.

He stood, then secured the insufficient toweling about his waist before edging nearer. It seemed he was afraid she might bolt. Moving inch by careful inch, he approached her. Yvette felt like an animal caught in a snare, and though she didn’t move, her gaze skipped to her door several times.

She closed her eyes and swallowed, trying to dislodge the nerves gripping her throat and striving for the courage to face him.

He tipped her chin upward with his finger. Startled, she sprung her eyelids open and met his hypnotizing gaze. She suppressed an insane urge to giggle. And here, she’d wondered if she would ever see him again.

Holding her chin, he pressed her in that same caressing tone. “If you’ve a chamber of your own, why are you in mine?”

Why is he being kind?

An enraged shriek rent the early dawn. Without hesitation, Yvette stepped closer to him.

The trusting movement caused something deep and primitive to birth within Ewan. Folding her hand in his, he rushed to the adjoining door and yanked it open. Inside the chamber, a man fought to free himself from a large woman. She had a beefy arm around his throat and a hand fisted in his hair.

“Edgar!” Yvette shrank against Ewan.

He shoved her behind him. Damn, his man was watching the inn. How had Marquardt gotten in?

At their appearance, Marquardt seemed to renew his efforts to free himself from the matron. With a sound blow to her well-padded ribs, he knocked the air from the woman.

“Fiend,” she gasped, collapsing on the bed, her bum upward. She lay there wheezing, face pressed to the bedclothes.

Ewan lunged for Marquardt.

With a sidelong, venom-laced glance, and a sneer curling his lips, Marquardt bolted from the chamber a handbreadth ahead of him. He halted, caught short by the cloth slipping from his hips, and the accusing screech of the oversized dame.

“Miss Stap—le—ton!”

He pivoted around to face the women. Miss Stapleton, her hair spilling to her hips, stood cringing, completely at the overbearing woman’s mercy.

The dame sat on the edge of the bed, shaking with outrage. “What’s the meaning of this? That man,” she flapped her hand toward the door, “woke me whispering your name.”

She pointed a stout, accusing finger at Miss Stapleton. “Where were you?”

She cast a leering glance Ewan’s direction. “In
his
room?” Chest heaving with indignation, the overwrought woman stood, then slipped her wrap on, tying it round her podgy waist.

Brows furrowed, he resecured his towel, then closed the door. Hands on his hips, he surveyed the scene before him. The devil take it. This was a fine kettle of fish.

The matron never paused in her tirade. “Why are you coming from the room of a . . .” she paused to ogle him, her eyes lingering at his groin, “a . . . a naked man?”

Meeting her eyes, he quirked a brow at her bold appraisal.

She finally averted her gaze and flopped into one of the armchairs. It squeaked in protest at the rude treatment.

Ewan swung his gaze to Miss Stapleton.

She was biting her lower lip, fighting tears. “Please, Mrs. Pettigrove . . .”

“You’re ruined, young lady,” Mrs. Pettigrove said, her gaze traveling over Miss Stapleton’s scanty attire.

Mrs. Pettigrove’s crass pronouncement commandeered his attention again. How did Miss Stapleton come to share a room with this harridan? Was she her chaperone?

No, she couldn’t be. Miss Stapleton had sailed alone.

“Make no mistake,” Mrs. Pettigrove’s chuffy face scrunched into a scowl, “when word of this gets out, you’ll be branded a ladybird. No, worse, a harlot!”

She flung her hand across her chest and moaned. “Oh, the scandal, the gossip. What will my sister, the Baronetess Clutterbuck, say?”

Ewan’s lips thinned, outrage surging through him. Shrewish fussock.

Yvette remained swaying in the doorway, her body wracked with trembles. At Mrs. Pettigrove’s spiteful words, she blanched. “Please, let me . . .”

“And to think, I’ve been in your company, shared a cabin,” she waved her hand through the air, “and now this room with you.”

Ewan glowered at her. With a dark look from him, many a man had curbed his tongue. This harpy seemed incapable of halting her self-righteous prattle.

“What will people think of
me
? The scandalmongers will link our names.” She gripped the armchair and bent forward. “Lud, had you no concern for
my
character? How your behavior would reflect upon
my
good name?”

“Cease, madam.”

Through a haze, Yvette heard Laird McTavish’s harsh command. His black brows were drawn into a fierce scowl. He’s in a high dudgeon. She worried her lower lip again. Who is he angry with? Mrs. Pettigrove, or me, for putting him in this dreadful situation?

She didn’t respond when he marched to the wall, lifted her shawl from its peg, and strode across the room to wrap the garment about her shaking shoulders. Rooted to the spot, her mind numb with shock, she stared at Mrs. Pettigrove.

Deep lines of condemnation were carved into Mrs. Pettigrove’s fleshy face. “Who do you think you are, sir, ordering me about? Why, I’ll have you know . . .”

Laird McTavish interrupted Mrs. Pettigrove’s diatribe once more. “Madam, allow me to introduce myself.”

Yvette had to acknowledge, even half-naked, he evoked power and authority. He bowed before Mrs. Pettigrove, the scant bit of linen not quite covering his taut buttocks. She averted her eyes, though perhaps not as fast as she might have. He did have such nicely muscled . . . legs.

“I’m Ewan McTavish, Viscount Sethwick, Laird of Craiglochy, and Miss Stapleton,” he drew her quaking form to his side, “is my intended.” The merest hint of a Scot’s brogue flavored his last few words.

Yvette’s glance rocketed to his face, her eyes opening wide in sudden recognition as memory flooded her. The phantom lover of her dreams. Her rescuer yesterday. The man at Vangie’s wedding. The Viscount Sethwick Vangie wrote of. They were the same man.

Intended? Is he addled?

“And you are?” He stared at Mrs. Pettigrove expectantly.

“Mrs. Millicent Pettigrove.” Her lips skewed in a moue of disapproval. “Intended? You’re affianced, your lordship?”

Her beady stare traveled between him and Miss Stapleton, her expression growing doubtful. “Miss Stapleton hasn’t spoken of it. She shared my cabin for weeks, and she didn’t once mention she was betrothed.”

Yvette was incapable of speech. God in heaven. All along, her subconscious knew Viscount Sethwick was the man in her dreams. She folded the shawl tighter across her chest, fisting her hands in the silky material.

Why hadn’t she realized it? How could she have been that blind, especially after he told her his name yesterday? She knew he’d seemed familiar. The arm wrapped about her shoulders was familiar too—dratted dreams. She shifted her gaze to peek at him from the corner of her eye.

Despite his state of undress, he appeared poised. He turned a charming smile on Mrs. Pettigrove. With reluctant admiration, Yvette watched him work his wiles.

“Mademoiselle
—
”

“Mrs. Pettigrove, if you please.”

Yvette detected a flinty glint in his eyes, though he angled his dark head in acquiescence.

“Mrs. Pettigrove, one can see you’re a woman of refinement. Of course, you’re aware when one is in mourning, ‘tis gauche to speak of upcoming nuptials.”

Oh, he’s clever, appealing to Mrs. Pettigrove’s vanity. Well done, viscount.

“Miss Stapleton is grieving the loss of her parents, thus we have been keeping our engagement a secret.”

He knows about Papa and Belle-mére?

Eyeing her first, then the viscount, Mrs. Pettigrove’s dour frown softened the tiniest bit. “‘Tis true one must observe proper mourning protocol,
but
that doesn’t explain or excuse Miss Stapleton’s presence in your chamber.”

Yvette restrained a wry smile. Mrs. Pettigrove had grudgingly acknowledged the former while demanding an explanation for the latter.

“You’re a judicious woman,” Viscount Sethwick soothed.

Yvette’s lips twitched again. The viscount was quite the diplomat.

“Eager to take Miss Stapleton to wife, I procured a special license anticipating her return to London.” He stopped to stare at Yvette, his gaze darkening.

Her stomach somersaulted. She swallowed, unsure whether the peculiar lurching in her stomach was from tension or something else. Good Lord, one look and she was atwitter.

“I had hoped to persuade her to marry me in a quiet, private ceremony, and once her bereavement period ended, we would enjoy a public reception.”

Lud, the lies roll off his lips with such ease.

As the viscount spoke, he led Yvette to the other chair. Her sore toe caught on the carpet’s edge, and she stumbled. He steadied her and nudged her into the chair. She sat there wrapped in her shawl, puzzled at this turn of events. How was she to remedy this dilemma? What on earth had possessed him to make such an outlandish claim?

She dared to meet Mrs. Pettigrove’s haughty stare.

“Of course, I shall need proof of the license,” said Mrs. Pettigrove. “One can allow certain, ah, indiscretions for those expecting to marry in the immediate future.”

Her gaze dropped to the towel. “
When
did you say you and Miss Stapleton were to be . . . ?”

A pounding on the door drew everyone’s attention. Yvette sighed in relief. The viscount was spared from having to weave another thread into his web of deceit.

The worried voice of Myles Quimby called, “Mrs. Pettigrove, Miss Stapleton, are you well? I heard a scream.”

“Mrs. Pettigrove, please answer the door and assure him you are safe. I have to leave, but I shall return shortly.” The viscount had already reached the door between their rooms as he spoke. He paused, his hand on the knob. Returning to where the women sat, he addressed the older woman.

Yvette plucked at the shawl. What is he about?

“When I return, please allow me to escort you to breakfast. We shall dine in one of the private rooms below.” Bowing, despite the scant bit of linen, he raised Mrs. Pettigrove’s dimpled hand to his lips and bestowed a chaste kiss upon the back of the plump appendage. “I would be grateful if you would act as Miss Stapleton’s chaperone.”

Good Lord. For all of Mrs. Pettigrove’s declarations of affection for her misplaced spouse, she’s looking at Lord Sethwick as if he’s a tasty, filled pastry, and she’s about to gobble him up.

“
Anything
I can do to assist, your lordship, will be my pleasure,” gushed Mrs. Pettigrove.

The door rang with another series of urgent knocks. She shoved to her feet, then waddled to the door and unlocked it. She cracked it open two inches.