CHAPTER SEVEN
Four years earlier
Anna had no future with an Englishman, but that did not mean she couldn’t amuse herself. That evening, as the entire walking party reconvened in the Camerons’ raftered hall for an indulgent dinner of a dozen courses, she found herself staring down the table at Lockwood, not bothering to glance away when he caught her eye.
His skin was too tanned to reveal if he blushed, but she rather suspected he wasn’t the blushing type. He’d had experience with women; his kiss had made that clear. Such a kiss! Not clumsy and fumbling, but slow and clever and altogether too brief. When he’d pulled away after a scant moment, this afternoon on the mountain, her heart had been pounding, and all the bruised corners of her body had buzzed with curiosity.
A wise woman would have taken that as cause to avoid him. The rest of their party had found them not minutes afterward, and in the happy chatter of those who had reached the summit before the mist closed in there had been ample excuse to drift away from him, or to distract herself by amazing the group with her tale of near death.
But some odd compunction had kept her silent about the accident. Not pride—though her pride should have smarted. The fact of sharing a secret with him felt seductive and intimate, and he, too, had held his tongue. She’d felt his gaze follow her as she’d led the way down, arm in arm with Moira.
He did not blush, but she did. Tonight, when he caught her gazing at him down the long table, she blushed and did not look away.
The others liked him. Respected him, even. Eavesdropping, Anna heard him once again trot out tales of his grand tour—but this time, one of the men, Colin Cameron, mentioned an essay that Lockwood had published concerning the pre-Raphaelites. “I heard John Ruskin himself praised that piece,” Colin said. “You take his side, then? You don’t think Millais blasphemes with his art?”
Tension settled over the table as their hostess, Lady Cameron, scowled.
Lockwood, noticing this, replied smoothly: “I think the clergy best equipped to decide what is and is not blasphemy. For laymen such as us, the question is different. Should blasphemy, by definition, lie beyond art’s scope?”
“I should say so.” Lady Cameron snorted.
Lockwood inclined his head to her. “But if so, that leads to another quandary: we have looked on painting as the highest form of representation precisely because its scope appears universal. But if it cannot grasp and represent blasphemy—why, then its power appears much diminished, and perhaps not worthy of our study.”
As he finished this clever speech, which neatly forced Lady Cameron into a puritanical position, a murmur ran over the table, and he caught Anna’s eye.
She felt struck. He spoke of art as though it were a science; he had even concocted a hypothesis to test its value.
“Perhaps Lady Forth does not agree,” he said.
She ducked her head and shrugged, not trusting the steadiness of her voice to carry her reply.
Moira noticed all this, of course. She caught Anna at the end of the night, as they all made their way to their rooms. “Did you quarrel with Lord Lockwood today?”
“No, of course not. Why do you ask?”
“The way you kept staring at him—I felt certain he’d offended you. And you didn’t exchange a word all night.”
But they had been communicating, regardless. She felt breathless from the messages they’d exchanged, through silent looks across the room.
“He’s very charming,” Moira continued dubiously. “I know you don’t like charm. You’ve often said it conceals something.”
It concealed, in his case, callused hands, and the strength to pull a woman to safety. Rueful awareness of his own faults, and shameless candor when he wanted to kiss someone.
“I don’t mind him,” Anna said. “He’s not so bad.”
Moira looked amused. “You like an Englishman? Quick, to the windows: are pigs flying?”
That night she lay awake for a time wondering at herself, at the temptation upon her: to invite him to join the group for the next stage of its journey, a planned excursion to Rawsey for May Day. It was risky—no, foolish—in a manner she’d never expected of herself. She wanted him nearby to stare at, and perhaps to touch. This was no way to find a husband. It was a way to ruin herself.
She would not invite him, she decided.
But the next morning, when he came down to breakfast freshly washed and dressed in plain clothing that he must have borrowed from another gentleman in the party—commonplace and rugged clothing quite at odds with his fine-tailored suits to date—she felt her resolve weaken.
He looked like a man who belonged on the island, broad shouldered and fit, able to pull a woman to safety with the strength of a single hand.
And so, at the station later that afternoon, when the others moved to bid their farewells to him, she found herself saying, “Or you could come with us.”
And when his reply came immediately and just as casually, she knew she had not been the only one hoping to continue this adventure.
“That sounds pleasant,” he said. “If there’s room for me, I might be able to rearrange my plans.”
• • •
Rawsey was reached by stages: first train, then carriage, and at last, by boat. A journey of two days, and the last bit, the most beautiful. Anna kept her distance, congratulating herself on her restraint, until the last hour on the sea, when she found Lockwood alone at the bow, apart from the others who were huddled beneath shawls and blankets, sharing nips of whisky from one of the Davis boys’ flasks.
“The water suits you,” she said. For his color looked healthier than the others’, and he stood solidly, braced with athletic grace against the churning of the waves that rocked the boat.
“I’ve sailed since boyhood,” he said, “but never in such chop. Is that a whirlpool leeward?”
She was pleased by his sharp eye, which had spotted what centuries of men had missed, to their misfortune. “Aye, Wallace’s Deep.”
“It’s larger than any I’ve seen.”
She nodded. “It’s kept the island safe from more than one invading army. You can still see the bones of the shipwrecks on the south beach. We’ll take a tour, if you like.”
“Vikings,” he said.
“And a few Englishmen.” When he turned, brows raised, she smiled at him. “It was suggested, though never proved, that some of my family were Jacobite sympathizers, and sheltered many a Highlander on this island before dispatching them off to America.”
“So I’m sailing into enemy territory.”
“Oh, I think you’ve been in it for some time now.”
Their gazes caught, held.
“A wise man, thus caught, would be planning his retreat,” he said.
“Yet here you are. Perhaps it’s victory you foresee.”
“Adventure is a victory of its own.”
She laughed. “Well, there is plenty of adventure to be had on Rawsey. Who knows? You may even have the chance to rescue a sheep from the cliffs. Cliff rescues are your specialty, I think.”
The island was drawing into view now, a long stretch of deceptively rocky ground, the manor concealed by a sheer thrust of stony cliff. In the valley behind it grew long grasses for grazing, fed by peaty brown runoff from the shallow loch above. But from this vantage, the isle looked barren.
She found herself testing him. “Lovely, no?”
He paused. “Wild,” he said. “Scrubbed, scoured, and magnificent.”
“Yes.” She felt herself relax. “That it is.”
“And you truly spend the winter here? Lady Moira said there was no coming and going in the winter, thanks to the whirlpool.”
“The whirlpool isn’t the main cause; that can be avoided if the captain has skill. It’s the tides, and the shape of the harbor, and the roughness of the seas.” She paused. “But yes, I’ve spent most winters here since childhood. My gram owned this island, you see. It was a wonderful place to roam free as a child—scrapping and racing and exploring, with no chaperones to scold me.”
“Scrapping with your ‘dozens of cousins’?”
He was quoting her own words back to her. He listened closely, which she liked. “Yes, sometimes,” she said. “And sometimes the islanders’ children. But usually it was only me and Gram.”
Something changed in his face, a softening that looked too close to pity. “I see.”
“I wanted to be here,” she said forcefully. It had been far better than being tossed from aunt to aunt—forced to master new rules, and learn how not to disappoint—only to discover, as soon as she’d grown comfortable, that soon she’d be living elsewhere. “My father . . . After my mother passed, he became a wanderer. A dozen estates of his own, but he found no peace in any of them. He was a traveler by nature.”
“Ah. I know the type.”
She remembered what Helen Selkirk had said the night of the Camerons’ party. “You’re a wanderer, too,” she said. “Did you really disappear for a year, without word to anybody?”
He shrugged. “I had a long list of artworks I was determined to see—it took a year to find them all. And I knew my family would oppose it.”
“So you were chasing after art,” she said with a smile. Most grand tours, from what she gathered, were not nearly so wholesome. She would not have figured him for a kind of scholar. “Why should your family have opposed that?”
He took a deep breath. “Well, at first, I thought to . . .” He offered a sheepish sideways smile. “I went to Rome to train,” he said. “As a painter. And that, my father found appalling.”
“Ah.” Yes, she could see how a peer of the realm would not fancy his son running off to become an artist. “At first, you said? What happened?”
His smile widened into a grin. “I lacked all talent.”
She laughed. “No!”
“Oh yes. But I discovered something else—a skill for looking. I hadn’t known it could be a skill, until I realized in Rome that I could spot talent where others overlooked it.” He gave a rueful tug of his mouth. “And I could spot its absence, too, in my own wretched work.”
“So you went on a tour of looking.”
“Precisely.” He glanced beyond her, toward the coast. “I never wanted it to end.”
There was something open and wistful in his expression that moved her. “You’ll travel again, I’m sure.”
“No doubt. But my father’s passing left . . . responsibilities,” he said. “A great deal of property, not in good repair. And I must address those needs first. Then, perhaps, I’ll take back to the road.”
“While all I want to do is to remain here. All year, if I could.”
“You wouldn’t grow tired of it?”
She shook her head. “I think there are many kinds of journeys. One can have grand adventures without ever leaving a place. My father, though—he was like you. A perpetual guest by temperament.”
“So this truly is home for you.”
“Yes,” she said. “This is home.”
A cry came from behind them, joyous and rowdy: the group was toasting the sight of the harbor, now drawing into view as the boat cut a wide berth around treacherous rocks.
“A village,” said Lockwood.
He was generous to give that small cluster of thatched huts the dignity of such a title. “Ninety souls,” she said, “where once there were four hundred.”
“It’s not a life to everyone’s taste, I imagine.”
“They left after my gram passed. Until then, it was a proper settlement.” But her father had paid no care to the islanders’ needs. “The flocks are flourishing—there’s profit to be made here. If there were a schoolhouse, a proper schoolmaster, we could lure the young ones to return, set up households of their own. That’s the first thing I’ll do as soon as . . .”
“As soon as . . . ?”
She took a long breath. “We Scots are a superstitious lot. And there’s said to be a curse on this island, which Gram believed too well. Any maiden who owns it outright will become the island’s own guardian spirit, and never marry. She herself did not inherit until she was wed.”
“How very . . .” She saw him pick diplomatically through the possibilities. “Interesting.”
Her thin smile spoke agreement to the dryness in his voice. “Infuriating, more like. The island is held in a trust; I can’t do a thing to change or alter it until I’m married.”
“Ah.” Now he looked away, concealing his expression, and his voice was carefully neutral as he went on. “I’m sure there are a dozen Scotsmen who stand ready to assist you with that problem.”
“Hundreds, to be blunt. Isn’t a man on earth who isn’t drawn to the glimmer of an heiress.”
He laughed, as she’d expected him to do. She was coming to count on his easy acceptance of her frankness. Peculiar how she could speak more freely with him, a man she’d known for less than a week, than many of her friends. It was his lack of judgment, the rogue in him, that made it possible, she supposed. “Then I assume that the schoolhouse will be built shortly,” he said.
“Well, there is a trick to it.” She found herself speaking more slowly, picking her words with care. “A husband is easy to find, but a man who will let me live as I like—there’s the rub.”
“You fear he would keep you from the island,” he said quietly.
She nodded. “Yes, but that’s only the start. I told you my father was a traveler. But he did take me along for the harvests. He had old-fashioned notions of what a daughter should learn, so I never had Latin or Greek. But lacking a son, he also saw fit to train me in the keeping and care of the estates. And I formed a taste for it—making those decisions, moving when and where I liked, giving orders rather than answering to them. It’s no ordinary man who will see fit to let me keep on in that routine, even if it’s my money that funds his airs.”
He held silent for so long that she became aware of her own bated breath, how anxiously she awaited his coming reply.
“You’ll want a husband,” he said finally, “who has his own aims in life. Unconnected from your wealth and your properties.”
Her heart tripped once. “Yes.”
“Someone whose aims might lead him in a different direction, and be glad that he needn’t be saddled with your duties as well.”
“Precisely.” She swallowed. “For I’m quite skilled at the management of estates. I could manage a dozen more, I think, without trouble.”
Now he faced her, the wind ruffling his hair, the faint smile on his face sending an arrow of heat straight to her belly.
“It’s an unusual demand to fill,” he said. “You may have to look outside of Scotland for this man.”
She had not lied to him until now, but she spoke the falsehood so easily that it felt, in the speaking, like truth: “The thought had certainly occurred to me.”
• • •
The manor house on Rawsey seemed to have grown by centuries of organic accretion. The guest quarters were located in a modern wing built of plastered stone, with high ceilings and long windows that overlooked a valley where sheep grazed in fields of wildflowers. But from the stony spur above the house, which Liam had climbed this afternoon with a dozen other guests—many of whom had arrived days before their hostess—he saw that the manor bent like an L, with the original building belching smoke from its medieval chimneys despite the mild weather that prevailed.
It was in that older portion of the house, wooden beamed and raftered, that the company gathered this evening for an early supper. The long tables had been set for more than a hundred: it transpired that the countess annually extended a broad invitation to Rawsey’s May Day celebrations, not only to her friends but also to the community that lived by the harbor. On either side of the room, fires blazed in hearths large enough to roast two pigs speared snout to tail—and in her welcoming speech, the countess assured them all that such had been done, though not for fifty years or more. “Only try to transport a hog across these seas yourself,” she told them, laughing, “then see if you’ve still any appetite for pork.”
The gathering, for its size and the mixed nature of the crowd, felt oddly familial. Liam watched as scions of great Scottish families rose, tankards of frothy ale in hand, to wander from table to table, making friends and trading jokes with the plain-dressed guests who called the island their home. The countess herself led that by example, returning only rarely to try bites of the rich courses that came out of the kitchens in endless procession. Liam himself was the object of great coaxing from ladies who wished a companion for their strolls of the room, but he—who would usually be counted the likeliest butterfly in such a crowd—found himself content to sit at his place and watch the countess.
The fascination had come on so quickly that it felt like a sickness. One moment, on Ben Nevis, he’d been in full possession of his wits. The next, he’d been in feverish thrall.
Studying her did not cure him. Her aubergine wool gown was plain in comparison to the lace and jewels her friends wore. She was not more beautiful than some of the others, ladies who cast him flirtatious glances as they nibbled their lamb chops or tipped their tankards against his. Nor was her wealth so very far superior as to make her utterly incomparable.
But she was. As she joked with her tenants, as she met and matched the bawdy shouted remarks of her cousins, as she lifted her tankard to propose toasts and caused the entire crowd to drink to the dregs, he realized that he recognized her—but from myth, not real life. She was a figure from that distant feudal past in which great ladies had kept and defended lands while their lords went off to slay dragons. This was her island. This was her demesne. In her element, she glowed in a way that could not be reduced to the creamy perfection of her blushing skin, or the brilliance of her peridot eyes, or the flushed plumpness of her lips, much less the flame-colored twists of her hair.
Christ, he was a sap. But he couldn’t mind. He drank another mug of ale, and another. By the time the food was removed and a few of the islanders pulled out pipes to play, he was near to drunk, and full of dangerous ideas.
As though she sensed it, the countess approached, sitting down beside him and then making him flinch with her sudden shout of approval for a couple taking the floor: “Aye, a reel! Stomp loud now, Moira! Spin her properly, Samuel! So,” she continued at a softer level as she turned to him. “Do we bore you terribly, Lord Lockwood, in comparison to Geneva and Paris and London?”
He grinned. Impossible to take offense at the gentle mockery in her voice. He had certainly been bragging during their walk up Ben Nevis. Prating to her of the foreign wonders he’d seen, seeking to remind her of the superior adventures he might offer her.
“Rawsey does not admit comparisons,” he said. “And if it’s bagpipes you want, the Continent will disappoint. But a week in Paris wouldn’t bore you, Lady Forth. Even you must admit that it might possibly be a small bit entertaining.”
She laughed, an easy and husky sound, relaxed pleasure infused with ale. “Yes, I suppose, provided I had an expert guide such as you. Or Baedeker,” she added dryly after a beat. “A Baedeker guidebook would be cheaper by half.”
“A great deal more than half. Let’s be clear: I make a very expensive companion.”
She laughed again, and their eyes locked. “But an amusing guide,” she said softly. “I don’t doubt that in the least.”
The freckles scattered across her face seemed to form a map, or a language that he would manage to decipher, if only given the opportunity and leisure to study them.
He made himself look away, to prove that he could. But her freckles’ configuration, the clusters on the crests of her cheeks, and those two in particular on the border of her upper lip, remained before him, like lights burned into his vision, even as he watched the dancers’ numbers increase.
On the floor below, a dark-haired beauty caught his eye and winked before she was spun back into the crowd.
“Lady Moira has taken a fancy to you,” said his hostess. She sounded amused, which did not precisely please him.
“She’s a lovely girl,” he said. “Your cousin, yes?”
“That’s right.”
“She told me her forebears were great cattle raiders, and no doubt owed me restitution.”
“Oh, indeed. Moira is immensely propertied.”
He glanced at her and caught the sardonic smile on her lips, which she bit back as she continued. “Very wealthy. A fine target for you, Lockwood.”
“Target,” he repeated, amused now himself. “Lady Forth, I believe you misunderstand: in such matters, I do not need to aim.”
“Oh?” She arched one russet brow. “Indeed, I suppose you are like catnip, and all the felines swarm you whenever you pause to catch your breath.”
He bit the inside of his cheek to keep a straight face. “It would be ungentlemanly to confirm it, of course.”
“No need, I have heard my fill about your popularity.” She looked rather cross now herself. “It was all I heard, in fact, for the entire week leading up to the Camerons’ ball. News of your attendance made any interesting conversation impossible. For a time, I wondered if you might not be torn limb from limb by the ravening crowd before you ever got the chance to set foot on the dance floor.”
He laughed despite himself and heard the robustness of it, and made himself set aside his tankard. For Lady Forth, he would require his wits. “I see. And so we finally have the truth: it was self-preservation, rather than bibliophilism, that caused you to refuse my hand in a dance. You were afraid of falling casualty by proxy.”
She met his eyes squarely. “You misremember, Lockwood: you never asked me to dance.”
“By God.” The oversight amazed him in retrospect. “Well, let me remedy that.” He rose, holding out his hand. She looked from it to his face, a mischievous light entering her eyes.
“It would be unwise to assent,” she said apologetically. “You see, four men already requested the honor of my first dance tonight. I said yes to all of them.”
He laughed again. “You did not.”
She shrugged. “I did not plan to dance. And now I cannot, lest I provoke a brawl.”
“Four men?” He was torn between amusement and a creeping displeasure that felt, to his horror, like jealousy.
“Hmm.” She tapped her lips in thought. “Perhaps five?”
He seized her hand and tugged her to her feet. “Which men might these be? Let me know so I can keep a lookout for my enemies.”
“Oh, they’re all your enemies, if you mean to dance with me. Or do anything else, for that matter.” Her hand turned in his, her fingers warm—did she mean to deliver that soft stroke down his palm? Ridiculous, laughable, that such a light touch could cause his groin to stir. But she was looking into his eyes, her smile sly and knowing, and he felt the sudden barbaric urge—blame this medieval atmosphere—to sweep her into his arms and bundle her away from all other men’s regard.
“Be honest,” he said, his voice coming out fiercely. “Do you favor one of them? If so, tell me now.”
She was a vixen whose smile widened as she studied him, and who then turned away toward the crowd, to give the men there a considering survey. “Angus Stewart offered for me at Michaelmas,” she said. “But I told him no, I thought his friendship too dear. In fact, what he requires is a hostess to advance his political career, and I cannot be bothered to wait hand and foot on a man, much less play hostess in Edinburgh. Now, Alex Carson”—her slender finger pointed out a muscular blond—“asked twice, the last time on Ash Wednesday, but he’s the sort to expect a wife to ask permission every time she goes to market. I told him, what a time to propose! Alex, I said, you must keep your mind on your Lenten vows. And Thomas Sutherland, there, has tried to screw up his courage several times now, but he clings so fiercely he would never let me come here alone—” She broke off to stare at Liam with wide eyes, then looked down to their joined hands. “Your grip will not change those facts,” she murmured, “though I am certainly impressed by the strength of it.”
Startled and embarrassed, he loosed her hand. God save him, acting like a green-eyed boy.
She laughed softly, enjoying his fluster. She was accustomed to the upper hand.
But so was he. “Alas,” he said, taking her hand again and lifting it for a kiss that made her breath audibly catch. “I’ve not had any proposals, myself.” With his free hand, he took her waist, as though to turn her into the first step of a dance, and subtly urged her backward a pace. “I suppose that ladies, being trained in a subtler art, cast their lures more covertly.”
“Oh yes,” she said. “We ladies are very devious, and could not speak plainly even if we had to spell every word.”
He laughed. She was a fine champion for her sex. He nudged her another pace backward. “If you wish to call me an ass, Lady Forth, go ahead and say it. My vanity will survive—it’s quite robust, you see.”
She nodded, aping concerned sympathy. “That is not uncommon among men.”
“And among women such as yourself?” She did not seem to notice that their next step together moved them behind one of the broad wooden pillars that supported the ancient scaffolding of the roof. “Have you no flaws, no vanity born of your charms?”
She opened her mouth, then at last took note of their position: tucked out of sight, sheltered from the rest of the crowd. For a moment, as her lashes fluttered rapidly, he prepared to make a graceful retreat, to let her escape—but she took a deep breath and leaned back against the pillar and smiled at him.
He placed his hand over her head, leaning close. “Answer,” he murmured. “What is your flaw, Lady Forth?”
“Pride,” she said softly. “I know exactly what I want, and I will not consent to anything less, or otherwise.”
He studied those two freckles, nestled so perfectly against the crest of her mouth. “That sounds very rigid,” he murmured. “What you want may surprise you.”
He pressed his mouth to hers.
The kiss on the mountain had been sweet but brief. Brief as a lightning flash: just long enough to illuminate what had been hidden, unseen, not guessed at.
This kiss aimed for what the other had discovered, but not managed to explore.
Her hands found his face, her fingers cool and soft. With a gentle nudge to her chin, he tilted her head back and sipped her. She tasted like ale and honey, and the inside of her mouth was warm and wet and her tongue was clumsy at first, but quickly cleverer.
On the dance floor, a drum joined the pipes, and as he kissed her, it seemed to Liam that the drum was his heartbeat, quickening and quickening as her arms came around him, as his palm traveled the unexplored length of her spine, tracing the buttons and ridges and seams of this garb that separated them, though their bodies now crushed together, all at once. His hand, braced hard on the post, was the only thing that kept their balance as she wrapped around him like a vine. God, but she was hot, her mouth and her grasping hands and the sweet cinnamon scent of her enfolding him as he devoured her. This moment, the taste of her, the stomp of the dancers and the beat of the drum and the air heated by fire, lifted him outside himself as they kissed.
When they broke apart, he felt heavy again, rooted, transformed. They stared at each other, her ragged breath as loud as his, and then she clapped her hand to her mouth and laughed.
No more beautiful sound in the world. He would make her laugh like that forever, given the chance.
He cleared his throat. Hunted for some clever line, when what he wanted to propose was an adjournment to a dark room—but no, Christ save him, ruining her was not his aim. He knew his aim now. It was clear.
He caught her hand, kissed each knuckle as she stared at him, eyes shining. “Now,” he said hoarsely. “Will you dance?”
“No,” she said. “In fact, I would like to rectify a failure of my sex. Lord Lockwood.” Her hand turned in his, taking control of the grip. “You are a man who wishes the freedom to travel, and requires money. I am a woman who requires a husband, and wishes the freedom to live as I like. Do you see a match here?”
He blinked again. Surely she could not mean . . . “I beg your pardon?”
She gave a wry tug of her mouth. “If this is how men react, I begin to understand why ladies cast lures instead. But listen carefully, if you please: do you agree that we are perfectly suited for each other’s purposes? Under no illusion of love, but with a great deal to gain from each other, and no aim to be a spouse who limits the other’s freedom and choice.”
He was understanding her. “Are you proposing, Lady Forth?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Do not expect me to go down on one knee,” she said. “I could have done it on the mountain, but not in these skirts.”
He began to smile, but it turned into a laugh, which he smothered by pulling her to him and kissing her again.