The Lady Most Willing . . . (8 page)

Taran said something that made the men laugh, and then Rocheforte grinned and raised his arms as if to make his muscles bulge. Catriona felt herself grinning along with him. She’d had no cause to speak with him this day, but he certainly did seem an easygoing sort.

“Do you know where Lady Cecily is?” Fiona asked.

“No, I haven’t seen her at all,” Catriona replied. “Of course I’ve been stuck with Taran since breakfast.”

“Except when you ran off with the duke,” Marilla said in a waspish voice.

Fiona turned to Catriona with unconcealed interest.

“I didn’t run off with the duke,” Catriona retorted. “We merely finished breakfast at the same time.”

“And left me alone,” Marilla sniffed.

“With the Earl of Oakley!”

“You had breakfast with Lord Oakley?” Fiona asked her sister.

“I
was
having breakfast with the Duke of Bretton until Catriona ran off with him,” Marilla said.

Catriona let out an exasperated sigh. There had never been any point in arguing with Marilla. Instead, she turned to Fiona and asked, “What have you been doing all day?”

“Altering dresses,” Fiona told her. “That’s probably what’s caught up Lady Cecily, too. Did no one tell you about the trunks that were brought down from the attic?”

“Not until I saw Marilla at breakfast,” Catriona told her. “My room is in an entirely different part of the castle.”

“The servants’ wing,” Marilla murmured, not taking her eyes off the men. Lord Oakley was laughing at something that his cousin had said. He looked quite different when he smiled. Much more pleasing to the eye, Catriona decided.

Although still nothing compared to the duke.

Fiona gave her sister an annoyed glance before turning back to Catriona. “If you’re comfortable in the dress you came with, you’re not missing out. Most of the gowns in Taran’s attic were for ladies of more ample endowment than we possess.”

Marilla shot her a supercilious look.

“Well, than some of us possess,” Fiona corrected. “You really should have let me take your gown out a bit, Marilla.”

Marilla ignored her. Fiona shrugged and turned back to Catriona. “Do you think they know what a caber is?” she asked, the corners of her lips tilting into a tiny smile.

“His Grace is aware that it is a log,” Catriona replied, biting back a smile of her own. “Of what length or girth he imagines it, I do not know.”

“The other two are part Scottish,” Fiona mused. “They must be, if they are related to Taran.”

“I’ve never seen them here before.”

“Nor I.” There was a beat of silence, then Fiona murmured, “It’s possible . . .”

“. . . that they have absolutely no idea what they’re getting into?” Catriona finished for her.

Fiona grinned in response.

“Well, I think you’re very unwise to have suggested this,” Marilla announced. “When they see the caber and realize they can’t lift it, they are going to feel like fools. And men do
not
like being made fun of.”

“That presupposes that none of them are in possession of a sense of humor,” Catriona responded. She looked over at the men again. Or rather,
still
. She hadn’t taken her eyes off them even once. The duke appeared to be having a grand time, laughing heartily at something Mr. Rocheforte had said.

Then he turned, and their eyes met.

And he smiled. Grinned, really.

Catriona’s heart stopped. She felt it, thumping loud, then skipping three beats.

“Did you see that?” Marilla said excitedly. “His Grace just smiled at me.”

“I thought he was looking at Catriona,” Fiona said.

“Don’t be silly.”

“Bait to which I shall not rise,” Catriona murmured.

“What did you say?” Marilla demanded.

Catriona didn’t bother to answer.

“Oh, look,” Fiona said. “Here come the men with the caber. I daresay the snow is making it easier to transport.”

Catriona craned her neck to watch as four of Taran’s men brought the caber into view. It was an enormous thing, at least fifteen feet long. They’d looped chains around the enormous log, pulling it along like a sleigh.

“Time to prove your manhood, boys!” Taran announced, loudly enough for the women to hear. His arm swept through the air in a majestic arc. “The ancient, ceremonial caber.”

It was gloriously massive. At least sixteen stone and thick as a man’s leg.

Catriona felt her lips pressing together, hard, just to keep from laughing. She couldn’t see the expressions on Lord Oakley’s or Mr. Rocheforte’s faces, but the Duke of Bretton’s mouth had come positively unhinged.

“Respect the caber!” Taran yelled. “Ye’re going first, Duke!”

Bretton stared at it.

“Now remember,” Taran said loudly, “it doesn’t matter how far you throw it, it’s all about landing it on its end.”

“You’re joking,” the duke said.

“It’ll balance,” Taran assured him, “if you do it right.”

Catriona tried not to giggle.

“Excuse me,” the duke said.

“Pfft. Brrrght.” All sorts of ungraceful noises were spit forth from Catriona’s mouth until she finally just gave up and laughed.

“Uh-oh,” Fiona said, but Catriona was laughing too hard to have any idea what she was talking about.

“Catriona,” Fiona said in a warning voice.

“Oh! Oh!” Catriona yelped, gasping for breath.

“I told you so,” Marilla crowed.

Catriona wiped her eyes and looked up just in time to see the duke barreling toward her. “Your Grace,” she chirped, the squeaky noise just about all she could manage.

He pointed a finger at her. “You said it was a log.”

“It
is
a log,” she said, not that her words were remotely intelligible through her giggles.

“It’s a bloody maypole!”

“Oh, I think it’s bigger than a maypole.”

His lips clamped together in a straight line, but he couldn’t fool her. The Duke of Bretton, it seemed, was in possession of an excellent sense of humor. In three seconds, he’d be laughing just as hard as she was.

“Still think you can toss it?” Catriona said daringly.

He stepped forward. To the rest of the observers, he must have looked furious, but she could see the mirth dancing in his eyes. “Not . . . even . . . an . . . inch.”

And then she lost herself entirely. She laughed so hard she doubled over, so hard she feared she might faint from lack of breath. “Your face! Your face!” she gasped. “You should have seen your face!”

“Catriona!” Marilla exclaimed, horrified. And it was true, Catriona supposed. One wasn’t supposed to talk to a duke in such a way.

But his face! His face! It had been priceless.

She laughed even harder, grabbing on to Fiona for support. The other men had ambled over, grinning at her uncontrollable mirth, and out of the corner of her eye, Catriona saw that Lady Cecily had joined the party, too. The poor girl was clad in some sort of antique mourning gown, the heavy black bombazine dragging through the snow.

“Miss Burns needs air,” the duke announced, and before anyone could offer an opinion, he scooped her up in his arms and said, “I’m taking her inside.”

And just like that, all the chill left the air. Catriona allowed herself the indulgence of resting her cheek against Bretton’s chest, and as she lay there, listening to the steady beat of his heart, she could not help but think that this was where she was meant to be.

But then, of course, Lord Oakley had to spoil the whole thing. “You’re taking her inside so that she might get air?”

“Shut up,” the duke said.

Catriona had a feeling she might be falling in love.

“Wait!” Taran yelled, tramping over through the snow. “She needs a chaperone!”

“I’ll go,” Fiona offered.

Taran blinked in surprise. “You will?”

“I’m cold,” Fiona said with a deceptively placid smile. “And I still have sewing to complete before supper.”

“Do you think you might help me?” Lady Cecily asked, fidgeting beneath her cloak. “Nothing they brought down fits, and I am a terrible hand with a needle.”

“Of course,” Fiona said. “Why don’t you come with me? We’ll take tea in my room and see to the gowns.”

“You’re supposed to be chaperoning Miss Burns,” Taran reminded her.

“Oh, but Catriona will take tea with us as well,” Fiona said. She looked over at Catriona. “If that is amenable.”

“I would be delighted,” Catriona said, although not, perhaps, as delighted as this very moment, wrapped as she was in Bretton’s arms.

“Marilla, you must stay and watch the caber tossing,” Fiona instructed. Marilla looked about to argue, but then Fiona added, “The gentlemen must have an audience.”

Marilla must have decided that one earl plus one French comte equaled something more than a duke, because her expression quicksilvered into one of utter enchantment. “I cannot imagine a more pleasing activity.” She placed a delicate hand on Lord Oakley’s muscular arm. “It is all so very, very exciting.”

“Very,” Catriona thought she heard Lady Cecily say under her breath.

“Back to the caber, then!” Taran hollered. “The old laird and his nephews,” he chortled, elbowing Mr. Rocheforte in the ribs. “The way it should be, vying to impress the fairest maiden in the county.”

Mr. Rocheforte smiled, but it was a queasy thing, quite unlike his normal expression.

“That’s the one I wanted for you in the first place,” Taran said in a loud whisper. “Prettiest girl in town. She’s got some money.
And
she’s Scottish.”

Mr. Rocheforte said something Catriona could not hear, and then Taran’s bushy brows came together as he grumbled, “It was a whisper! Nobody heard me.”

And then, before anyone could contradict, Taran pumped a fist in the air and once again yelled, “To the caber!”

“To the house,” Fiona Chisholm said in urgent response, and she hurried off, Lady Cecily right at her heels.

As for the duke, his pace back to Finovair was much more measured. Catriona, snug and warm in his arms, could find no reason to complain.

Chapter 7

B
y the time Bret reached the drawing room, Miss Chisholm and Lady Cecily were nowhere to be found. “Your friends seem to have deserted us,” he said to Catriona as he set her down upon an ancient chaise longue.

“Perhaps we were meant to follow them to Fiona’s room?”

“Oh, but I could not venture into a lady’s chamber,” Bret said, placing one hand over his heart for emphasis.

Catriona gave a look that was dubious in the extreme.

“And at any rate,” he added, “I don’t know where her room is.”

Catriona cocked her head, then said, “Do you know, neither do I.”

He grinned at that. “We seem to be stuck here, then.”

“On our own,” she said, a small smile touching her lips.

“You’re not concerned for your reputation?”

She tilted her head toward the door. “The door is open.”

“Pity, that,” Bret murmured. He perched on the table directly across from her, testing it first before settling his entire weight; like everything in Finovair, it was chipped and rickety.

“Your Grace!”

“I think you should call me by my given name, don’t you?”

“Absolutely not,” she said firmly. “And at any rate, I don’t know what it is.”

“John,” he said, and he tried to remember the last time anyone had called him such. His mother did, but only occasionally. His friends all called him Bret. He thought of himself as Bret. But as he looked at Catriona Burns, who had already shifted herself to a sitting position on the chaise, he wondered what it would be like to have someone in his life who would call him John.

“I heard Lord Oakley call you Bret,” Catriona said.

“Many people do,” he said with a small shrug. He looked down, finding it suddenly awkward to meet her gaze. The conversation had made him wistful, almost self-conscious—a sensation to which he had never been accustomed.

But this feeling that seemed to wash over him whenever he was with Catriona—it was growing, changing. He’d thought it lust, then desire, and then something that was far, far sweeter. But now, swirling amid all this was an unfamiliar longing. For her, certainly for her, but also for something else. For a feeling, for an existence.

For someone to know him, completely.

And the strangest part was, he wasn’t scared.

“I couldn’t possibly call you Bret in front of the others,” Catriona said, pulling his attention back to her face.

“No,” he agreed softly. It would be improper in the extreme, not that anything in the past day had been proper, normal, or customary.

“And I should not call you Bret when we are alone,” she added, but there was the tiniest question in her voice.

He brought her hand to his lips. “I would not want that.”

Her eyes widened with surprise, and—dare he hope it?—disappointment. “You wouldn’t?”

“John,” he said, with quiet determination. “You must call me John.”

“But nobody else does,” she whispered.

He gazed at her over her hand, thinking he could stare at her forever. “I know,” he said, and at that moment something within him shifted. He knew—and by all that was holy, he hoped she knew, too—that their lives would never be the same.

C
atriona stopped at her small garret before making her way to Fiona’s bedchamber for tea. She needed a moment. She needed a thousand moments.

She needed to breathe.

She needed to think.

She needed to find a way to face her friends and speak like a normal human being.

Because she did not feel like a normal human being, and she very much feared that Fiona and Lady Cecily would take one look at her and know that she’d been kissing the Duke of Bretton in the sitting room with the door open, and before he’d finally pulled away, his hands had been on her skin, and she’d liked it.

Good God above, she’d liked it.

If he hadn’t stopped, she didn’t know if she could have done so. But he had lifted his lips from hers, cradled her face in his hands, and looked into her eyes with such tenderness. And then he’d whispered, “Say my name.”

“John.” She’d barely been able to make a sound, but he was staring at her lips; surely he’d seen his name upon them.