Текст книги "A Kiss For a Highlander"
Автор книги: Jane Godman
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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 18 страниц)
Chapter Six
The snow continued to fall relentlessly for several days so that it had proved impossible to go even as far as Delacourt Grange. Martha, never one to remain idle, decided to use the enforced captivity and the bonus of the presence of a brawny Scotsman in her house to finally do something about clearing the cellar. The temporary truce of their first night alone together did not hold up for long.
“No, not there.” Martha frowned at Fraser over the top of her glasses. “I said I wanted it in that corner.”
“Make your mind up, woman.” Biceps bulging under the strain, Fraser placed the old wooden dresser, which had three of its five drawers missing, back down on the cellar floor with a thud. “Ye’ve asked me to move this bloody thing four times, and now you want it right back where it started.”
“You can go if you want. I don’t need a bad-tempered Scotsman under my feet.”
“No, what you need is to be put over my knee so that I can skelp your scrawny backside.” His face hardened with sudden annoyance.
Martha gasped, her own temper flaring. “Try it, Scotsman, and I’ll come after you in the night with my scissors. But I warn you now, next time it won’t be your hair I cut off.” Oh, good Lord, had she actually just said those words aloud? Determined to regain her self-control, she took a deep, steadying breath. It was foolish to allow this big, brash Scotsman to keep chipping away at her dignity. This admirable resolve to remain calm lasted as long as it took him to utter his next words.
“Aye, ye’ve enough temper on ye to try, crabbit one, and no mistake.” There was something about the heat in his stare and the thick, deepening pitch of his voice that flustered her beyond anger, but she didn’t pause to examine the feeling.
“I told you to stop calling me that.” Rosie or Harry could have told Fraser that it was best to avoid Martha when that militant look appeared in her eyes. But neither of her cousins were present to issue him with a warning.
“I’ll not take my orders from a sleekit Englishwoman.” She had to admire the speed of Fraser’s reflexes. He ducked just in time as the old plate she snatched up whizzed past his ear and crashed into the wall behind him. Muttering a series of curses, he made his way toward her. His progress was severely hampered as Martha launched every object she could lay her hands on at him. It became clear, however, that no number of missiles hurled at him were going to deter Fraser. He gave a grunt of annoyance as a boot with no sole bounced off his chest. Temper gave way to fear as she noted the determination on his face, and Martha did something she had never done in her life. Turning on her heel, she ran away. Fraser caught up with her at the bottom of the cellar stairs. Catching hold of her by her wrist and spinning her round to face him, he glared down at her.
“Ye’re a thrawn, stubborn wee lass, no more’n a thorn in my side.”
He held her by her upper arms, close enough so that she could feel his chest rise and fall with each breath. Because of the difference in their heights, her eyes were level with the open lacing at the neck of his shirt. Obstinately, she kept her gaze fixed on that point, on the red-gold hair that peeked through the undyed cloth, and the hint of solid muscle beneath. If she concentrated on that, and the warm, masculine smell of him, she didn’t have to look up and show him the terror in her heart, an emotion that must also be obvious in her eyes. She wondered if he could sense it anyway. Perhaps he heard the pounding of her blood through her veins. It certainly sounded loud enough in her own ears. Whatever it was, she felt something change within him. Slowly, he exhaled and then released her.
“Snow or not, I’m away to see how Lord Jack is faring.”
It wasn’t until he had gone that Martha realised she had been holding her breath.
Some hours later, Martha emerged from the cellar to find that the snow had finally stopped falling. There was no sign of Fraser, and she told herself firmly that her decision to go up to Delacourt Grange had nothing whatsoever to do with him. In fact, she would be only too happy to learn that the wretched man had gone for good. No, she felt it was her duty to go up to the house to discover how things were between Rosie and the all-too-attractive earl. Cousin Henry was a kind and gentle man, but he probably wouldn’t notice what was going on under his nose until it was too late.
Donning her cloak and a stout pair of shoes, she made her way along the path, avoiding the worst of the drifts and icy patches. Even so, her feet skittered over the cobbles and she came close to falling several times.
With a sinking heart, she found on her arrival at Delacourt Grange that her worst fears had been well founded. Rosie, who had become a frighteningly conscientious nurse, had relented for the first time that very day and allowed Jack to leave his bedchamber to eat. Martha found them lingering over their meal in the cosy breakfast parlour.
“Fraser was here earlier, and in a foul mood,” Jack said, as Rosie pulled out a chair for Martha. “He left after doing a passable imitation of a caged wildcat. I suspect he will have found his way to the stables. When we were boys, it was always the place he chose to go when his temper was at its peak.”
Martha resisted the temptation to ask the questions that crowded to her lips. Why on earth should she suddenly be interested in what Fraser was like as a boy? Instead, she listened as Jack attempted to explain to Rosie why he had chosen to swear loyalty to Bonnie Prince Charlie. “My mother was a Scotswoman, her family were from the highlands. My father was an Englishman, of course, although, as you and I both know, Miss Wantage, Northumberland is a county that has never quite been sure of its loyalties. He was a close friend of the Old Pretender, the prince’s father. So it was in some ways inevitable that I should throw in my lot with the son. I completed the grand tour after Eton, and I first met Prince Charles then. We became friends.” Martha watched as he passed Rosie an apple he had peeled, and she received it with a smile of thanks. It seemed they had already reached a stage where words were not necessary between them, and Martha’s heart sank a little further. “But my life and loyalties changed that day at Swarkestone Bridge.”
Martha judged the conversation to be moving into dangerous territory and decided to deflect its focus. “How did you come to be injured at Swarkestone?”
Jack gazed out of the window for long minutes at the wintry scene as he answered. “Some of the memories I have of that day are hazy, so Fraser has filled in the details for me. The call went up for volunteers to protect Swarkestone Bridge so that the prince might cross and commence his triumphant march on London. Fraser and I were at the lead of the party of seventy highlanders. When we arrived, all was quiet. I was tired after the long ride south and decided to doze in a small copse. The ground was freezing hard, but I wrapped myself in my cloak and tried to ignore it. Fraser—who has the constitution of an ox and can manage without sleep for days at a time—laughed at me for what he called my laziness. He went to stand guard on the bridge itself with the other clansmen. I woke some time later, but I know not how long had passed. A red-coated boy—for that was all he was—stood over me, his musket in one hand. As I got to my feet, he fired, and the impact of the shot threw me down the slope toward the riverbank. Fraser and the other highlanders were alerted by the gunshot and rushed from the bridge into the fray. A couple of the men had already stolen several horses from the local blacksmith in preparation for the crossing. Fraser placed me upon one of these aging nags and threw himself up behind. I lost consciousness then and came round in your back bedchamber, Miss Wantage.”
Rosie shuddered. “If it had not been for Fraser, you would surely have died. He saved your life.” Martha could see her cousin’s feelings toward the Scotsman softening.
“Fraser sees the situation very differently. He blames himself for my injury, believing that, had he remained with me while I slept, the redcoat would not have been able to shoot me.”
“But that is nonsensical.” Martha wished the exclamation unsaid as soon as it left her lips, particularly as Jack and Rosie both regarded her most peculiarly. “I mean, he could not have known what would happen when he left you to sleep,” she added in a milder tone.
“No, but Fraser’s past experiences have led him to be less than kind to himself about his own dealings with the English.” Really, Martha thought, with a trace of annoyance, a statement like that might almost have been designed to provoke curiosity in the listener. Even someone like her—someone who had not the least interest in Fraser Lachlan and the events that had shaped him—could not help but wonder at the meaning behind Jack’s cryptic words.
“But you are English.” Rosie’s words interrupted her deliberations.
Jack smiled. “Nonetheless, our Jacobite code allows Fraser to tolerate me.”
“I confess I do not understand these things, these codes of honour that seem so important to men.” Rosie cast a sidelong, speculative glance in Martha’s direction. “Must you and Fraser go to the prince? Can you not stay here?”
Before Martha could remonstrate with her for her forwardness, Jack spoke. “We have sworn an oath of allegiance to the prince, and we must go to him as soon as we can do so. Our vows hold true. If the Jacobites win, we will be free men. If we lose—” he broke off at the soft moan that escaped Rosie’s lips, “—and I survive, I will be a fugitive. A wanted man with a price on my head. I must either flee the country or seek to gain the king’s pardon. Until I do that, I cannot return to my estates and begin to live a normal life again. I cannot ask any lady to be my wife.”
With a little cry, Rosie betrayed her feelings by dashing out of the room. Martha bent her head over her teacup. Heartily, she wished she didn’t have to share this doomed love story. Or that it could end differently. Why couldn’t Bonnie Prince Charlie have chosen a different route for his invasion? There would be no need then to shield the hearts of unprepared Derbyshire maidens against the devastating effect of these seductive rebels. Jack’s voice brought her back into the room.
“Please make her see sense, Miss Wantage. I would have to be the worst cad in the world to ask her to share my shame.”
Martha thought that Rosie was probably already too lost in love for sense, but she agreed to try. She found Rosie in her bedchamber, indulging in a hearty bout of tears.
“Are all men proud, and stubborn, and doltish about nonsensical things such as honour and people’s reputations and good names?” Rosie demanded angrily, punctuating her tirade by giving her pillow a series of vicious thumps.
“I’ve no experience of my own to draw upon, but I’m told that all the best ones are.” Martha patted her shoulder sympathetically.
No matter how hard Martha tried—and she told herself that she did try very hard indeed—it was difficult to avoid a man as large as Fraser Lachlan in a house as small as the old dower house. She was not assisted in her attempts to do so by the fact that he did not seem to notice that she didn’t want his company. He continued to join her for meals and to sit with her beside the fire each evening. Well, just because he had no perception about social nuances didn’t mean that she was going to descend into rudeness. She remained tight-lipped about the fact that she found him a nuisance and instead made him enormous portions of porridge for breakfast. She learned how to make a traditional Scots meat-and-potato stew he called stovies. He seemed particularly fond of this dish and consumed huge quantities of it for his dinner. While at Delacourt Grange one morning, Martha found an excuse to go into Mr. Delacourt’s cellar and surreptitiously removed several bottles of Scotch whisky. She reasoned that Cousin Henry hardly ever touched strong spirits.
She found Fraser jobs to do around the house, and she didn’t ever—really never at all—dwell on what it would be like when he left and the chair on the opposite side of the fire was empty once again. It didn’t cross her mind to wonder if, once the decisive battles were over, he would be going back to a woman somewhere. Or if he would ever taste a meal in the future and find it wanting because it had not been cooked by Miss Martha Wantage. Not once did she cast a sidelong glance in his direction as he sipped Cousin Henry’s whisky and stared into the fire. She didn’t speculate about whether his thoughts included her. No, none of these things crossed her mind because she would, of course, be heartily glad to be rid of him. It didn’t matter anyway, because the snow lay thick as ever on the ground and he wasn’t able to go anywhere.
“Must you go out?” Fraser asked, watching her over his porridge bowl one morning as Martha fastened her cloak around her shoulders. “I went for firewood earlier and the ice is treacherous underfoot. It’ll take your legs from beneath you. Let me do your chores for you today.”
Martha blinked slowly. She wondered if her face revealed any inkling of the effect his words had on her. But how could it? How could he know that, in that instant, she had felt a brief pang of longing for something she would never have? That, with his throwaway last sentence, he had instantly aroused everything she had ruthlessly subdued since she had been forced to leave her home? The yearning for normality, for a man to share her home, hearth and life. Someone to care and utter the sort of words Fraser had just said. Someone who would say “let me”.
“I must go up to Delacourt Grange and see Harry.” She turned resolutely to the door. “He is to start Eton College soon and much of the teaching there will be in Latin. I am not a Latin scholar, but Mr. Dewson, the parson at Matlock, has set Harry a series of tasks to complete in that language. I promised to supervise him while he completed them. I suspect he has not yet started and has been using the weather as a convenient excuse to avoid them…and me.”
“He strikes me as a fine, trickit lad, but one who is not overfond of his books.”
“No, no-one could accuse Harry of being studious. All that interests him is the army. He sees learning as a means of getting him into a cavalry regiment. Oh, he is bright enough.” She laughed as a memory or two came back to her. “I only wish I could persuade him to put as much effort into completing his work as he does into avoiding it.”
Harry, however, with the sixth sense that seemed to characterise him in such matters, was nowhere to be found when she arrived at Delacourt Grange. Jack, when informed of her mission, laughed. “He cannot have gone hunting in this weather, but I’m sure he has found somewhere to hide away from you. Dare I confess, I employed some similar tactics at his age?”
Martha sighed. “I don’t suppose you would care to speak to him about the importance of his studies? He might listen to you where he does not heed me.”
Jack held his hands up with a look of horror on his face. “Acquit me of that task, if you will, Miss Wantage. I was not the scholar in my family.”
Leaving strict messages for Harry to come to the old dower house as soon as he returned, Martha set off again to navigate the icy path once more. She was within sight of the old dower house when, as Fraser had predicted, her feet skittered wildly on a patch of ice and her ankle turned sharply beneath her. For a moment, her arms windmilled wildly. Then she lost her balance and fell, landing hard on the stony surface of the path. After she had glanced around quickly to check that nobody had witnessed this undignified performance, Martha tried to rise. A sharp cry of pain left her lips. Her ankle would not support her, and she subsided onto the snowy ground, grinding her teeth against the pangs that shot through the afflicted joint.
“Ah, din’nae greet, lass.” Appearing as if from nowhere, Fraser was beside her. In an instant, he had one arm around her waist and the other beneath her knees as he lifted her easily into his arms. He drew her close against the comforting warmth of his chest. “I was watching from yon window and saw you take a tumble.”
“I’m not greeting,” Martha mumbled. It was quite nice, despite the pain in her ankle, to be carried so easily. She decided to enjoy it and rested her head on Fraser’s shoulder. It was a position that allowed her to feel the rumble of laughter that started deep in his chest.
“No, of course you’re not, crabbit one. God forbid that you should show weakness, even when you’re hurting woeful badly.” He touched his finger to her cheek and held it up to show her the moisture there. “This’ll not be a tear, will it?”
Once inside the old dower house, Fraser carried Martha into the parlour and placed her on the settle near the fire. Kneeling before her and ignoring her protests, he removed her boots and woollen stockings, untying her garters with a dexterity that made her blush. His fingers were so nimble they must surely have undertaken the same task a few times before. Perhaps for different reasons. She regarded her feet in dismay. While Martha’s left ankle remained as pale and slender as ever, the right was swollen to twice its normal size and was already turning an interesting variety of colours. With a gentleness that astonished her, Fraser cupped her heel in the palm of one large hand and lifted her foot, placing a cushion beneath it. He brought her a dram of Mr. Delacourt’s whisky and stood over her as, shuddering, she sipped it.
“You’re the healer,” he said. “Tell me what else I must do for you.”
“Oh, goodness! It’s nothing. I’ll rest a while and be up and about in no time.”
“Martha.” Fraser leaned over her, planting one hand either side of her shoulders on the back of the settle. She looked up into the tawny, determined depths of his eyes, and her heart gave a nervous little thud. “If you so much as move from here without asking me first, I will carry out my threat to take the palm of my hand to your backside. It will pain you far more than that ankle when I’m done with you. Do I make myself clear?”
Martha thought about protesting. She really should challenge him when he talked to her that way. Maybe it was the shock of the fall, or maybe it was Fraser’s proximity, but the oddest thing was happening to her. Not only did she find she actually enjoyed him speaking to her in such a masterful way, she also liked the thought of those big, warm hands on her buttocks. It would probably be a good idea to steer clear of the whisky in future.
“Yes, Fraser, you have made yourself perfectly clear,” she said meekly, leaning back against the cushions. “How did you come to see me fall?”
“I was watching out for you.”
Martha was glad he straightened up and turned away because she was quite sure that, in that moment, her expression did betray the feelings his words provoked. There was some sort of alchemy at work when Fraser was close to her. With just a word or a look, he could make her insides tremble. Take care, Martha. He was only watching for you the same way he would watch out for a maiden aunt or other infirm spinster foolish enough to venture out in the snow. This is not about you. This is because—Scotsman or not—he is a kind and chivalrous man.
As she lectured herself sternly, the glow of the firelight flickered across Fraser’s rugged profile. Seeming to become aware of her scrutiny, he turned and smiled at her. The room lit up, as if the snow clouds had finally parted to allow the sunlight to peek through. Oh, dear, Martha thought. Her self-imposed lecture hadn’t worked. As she returned his smile, her heart gave a funny, hopeful little flutter.
Fraser decided to deal with the increasing turmoil of his emotions by keeping busy. Under yellow-grey skies, he chopped and stacked enough wood to keep a small village stocked for the whole winter. He worked until his biceps and shoulder muscles ached in protest and the sweat soaked his hair and ran down his back. Even when he had to remove his shirt because it clung to him like a damp second skin, he carried on mindlessly raising and lowering the axe.
He was not a barbarian. When he fought, it was for honourable reasons. For Scotland and its rightful king. Martha had likened him to a reiver, and those words she had thrown at him so cruelly cut him to the core. Reivers were thieves, murderers and rapists. When Fraser killed, he killed in battle. He faced his enemy, sword in hand. He would not condone reiving in the name of the Jacobite cause. His men knew his rules, and the punishment for breaking the Lachlan code was death. Do no harm to innocents, that was Fraser’s way.
His way was honourable. He had never taken a woman against her will, and he never would. What if the woman was willing, yet with absolutely no experience of men? Wouldn’t it be almost as bad as forcing her if a man—any man—charmed his way into her bed? It would certainly not be honourable. The axe blows rained down harder and woodchips flew wildly around him.
Fraser couldn’t think of a single reason to be attracted to Martha Wantage. At the same time, all he could think about was bedding her. It had become an obsession. There must be something wrong with him. There was nothing about her that should appeal to him. He liked women who were full-bosomed, curvaceous and softly welcoming to their man. Martha’s straight, slender figure ought to repulse him. So why had his dreams been filled just lately with images of his trembling hands loosening her bodice before he took one of her small, high breasts completely into his mouth?
“What on earth are you doing?” For a second he thought Martha’s question was part of his fantasy. Then, looking up, he saw her framed in the kitchen doorway. Darkness was descending, and with it a new, light fall of snow had commenced.
“I thought I told you not to get up?”
“I was worried. You’ve been out here for hours.” Her feet were bare and she was shivering slightly. Picking up his discarded shirt, he used it to wipe some of the sweat from his face and chest and came over to her. As he paused beside her in the doorway, she looked shyly up at him. “Please don’t skelp my backside.”
She had no idea what those words did to him. If she had, she would not have dared utter them. An image of doing just that until she cried out for mercy—and more—made the blood pound in his temples and in other, more basic parts of his anatomy. He felt the frown on his face deepen. Martha’s answering expression was questioning, and he glimpsed the sudden nervousness that darkened the depths of her eyes. Nevertheless, she attempted a smile. She had a particularly beautiful smile, made more so because of its rarity. He experienced a quite urgent desire to take her in his arms and lick the fine powdering of snow from her nose, her cheeks and her lips. His voice was gruff when he replied. “’Twould be no less than you deserve, thrawn lassie.”
She made a noise that was midway between a gulp and a laugh, and he decided he had never heard a sound so sweet and infectious. Bloody hell, he had this bad. It just wasn’t healthy for a man to be cooped up in such close proximity with a woman—any woman, even one as prim and plain as Martha Wantage—without having any outlet for his natural desires. Perhaps that was all it was. He wanted to drive all of that starched-up primness out of her in the most shocking way he could imagine. He’d been without a woman for too long. This was not about Martha, this was simply nature telling him to do what his body needed.
Just as he had convinced himself, an annoying little voice of doubt piped up in his mind. If that were truly the case, why was it that he could look at Rosie, in all her dusky loveliness, with appreciation but without any of the thrumming urgency this shy, poker-backed virgin aroused in him? Was it because he sensed that, beneath those tightly laced, high-necked bodices she wore, there was something more than decorum? Drawing his mind determinedly away from such dangerous territory, he decided the reason for his aberrant cravings didn’t matter. He would fight them anyway. He wasn’t an animal.
“Ye’ll freeze to death, ye wee, foolish wench,” he murmured, scooping her up into his arms. He didn’t know what he had done to give rise to the sudden rush of embarrassment that quite obviously seized her as he held her against his naked chest and carried her back to the fireside, but he watched in fascination as pink colour stained her cheeks. The little indrawn breath she took lodged itself somewhere deep inside his chest. He lowered her onto the settle, covering her legs with a woollen blanket. Martha whispered a word of thanks. Her eyelids fluttered, and that fascinating little pulse at the tender base of her throat drew and held his attention. It was as he had feared all along. He was entranced by her, caught in the grip of an attraction as intense as it was unexpected. And that was going to be so much harder to fight than mere lust.
