Twenty
DARIA, I . . . WHAT?
Daria wanted to catch his arm, twist him about, and hear him say what he was feeling. She wanted to believe it was something profound, something that would help her make sense of her whirlwind emotions. She hoped he would say that he, too, had fallen headlong off that windswept hill, and that, like her, he didn’t know if he should stop his fall and claw his way back to where he’d been, or just keep falling.
Daria was still falling.
In the moments after the utterly glorious interlude with him on the hill, she’d seen the hunger in Jamie’s eyes and she’d understood for the first time the power a woman held over a man. She’d felt gloriously wicked and desirable, almost giddy with a new sort of lightness.
But as they’d begun the trek to Dundavie, doubts had begun to creep into her thoughts: doubts about what she’d done, doubts about where her morals had skipped off to and what might happen if she continued down this path. Fall or fly?
She had looked at Jamie ahead of her, his magnificently robust, utterly virile body. She had looked at the breadth of his muscled shoulders tapering into his lean waist, his plaid spread over strong thighs, and the desire that welled up in her made her dizzy. She craved more of what he’d shown her. She craved the feel of his body above hers, in hers.
Lord help her! She’d been so alarmed by her emotions that she’d chattered like a magpie all the way back to Dundavie, trying to force her thoughts down, to cover them up under an avalanche of words, to shut out the cacophony in her head.
And then, when they’d arrived at Dundavie, he’d helped her down, and looked at her with such intensity that she had felt her blood begin to swirl again, and he’d said, “Daria, I—”
But the moment had been stolen away by a beautiful copper-headed woman who spoke to him in rapid Gaelic, her gaze unwavering. She didn’t even glance in Daria’s direction. Daria knew who she was, and she watched her speak to Jamie briefly, then glide back to the group she’d obviously come with.
When Jamie looked back to Daria, his smile was a little sheepish and a little pained. It had seemed to her that he was eager to be away from her when he’d said, “There you are now, lass, returned to Dundavie. If you will excuse me, aye?” And he’d walked away, his long stride carrying him into the keep. Away from her.
But . . . Daria, I what?
Daria retreated to her rooms to stew in private. She barged into her suite, eager for solitude, and almost collided with Bethia, who was removing used linens from her room.
Bethia’s gaze traveled down Daria, then up again. She arched one dark brow.
“Stand aside, Bethia, or I will put you aside.”
Bethia stepped out of the way and Daria stalked past, shrugging out of her coat and tossing it onto the chaise.
“Have you had a fall, then?” Bethia asked, nodding to the back of Daria’s trousers.
Yes. A fall from a very great height. “I have been in the forest,” Daria said curtly. She stalked to the window and looked out. There was no one left in the bailey. It was as if the entire day had disappeared.
“You’ll be wanting a bath,” Bethia stated.
“Thank you. I do,” Daria said coolly.
Bethia’s second brow rose to meet the first. “Are you wroth?”
“Wroth? Why should I be wroth? No, Bethia, I am not. Not in the least.” She began to pull the shirt from her trousers, wanting out of those clothes, especially now with the image of Isabella, looking regal in her blue gown and matching cape, looming in her mind. “But I do not care to be paraded about all of Scotland in pantaloons.”
“It’s a wee bit too late for that, aye? Mark me, you’ll be one of us ’ere you know it.”
Daria stopped what she was doing and stared irritably at Bethia. “I will never be one of you, Bethia.”
Bethia picked up Daria’s coat. “I donna wish it, if that’s what you think. I’m only the messenger.”
“Do you want to know what I think? I think you hide behind that nonsense. Or you deliberately seek to vex me with it.”
“I’ll no’ deny that,” Bethia said with a shrug. “But no’ in this. As I live and breathe, you will be one of us.”
“Enough,” Daria said wearily, and sank onto the chaise. It would be just her luck to become one of them and watch Jamie wed Isabella.
“I’ll send a lad up with water now, aye? You’ll want your bath before the Brodies settle in.”
“What do you mean?” Daria asked, startled.
“If the kitchen is to be believed, Miss Brodie has had a change of heart and wants the laird now. They’ve come to negotiate the dowry.”
Daria’s heart began to sink like a stone in a turbulent sea.
Bethia was watching her, but for once, she didn’t appear to scarcely tolerate her. She looked as if she pitied her.
The stone that was Daria’s heart disappeared into the dark depths of lost hopes. She could feel the blood draining from her face and glanced down to work the buttons of her pantaloons. She felt lightheaded, as if she had been turned round and round. “Good,” she said at last. “Everyone at Dundavie wishes for an heir. Perhaps now you will all have one.”
“Aye, we’ll have one,” Bethia said confidently as she walked to the door. “We’ll have a stable of them, I’d wager.” She walked out of the room.
“One day you will not be so bloody certain of everything, lass,” Daria muttered, and fell onto the chaise. She stretched one leg out, closed her eyes, and thought back on her day. On her most glorious, stupendous day. She didn’t wipe away the tear that fell from the corner of her eye. After all she’d endured without shedding any tears, she was entitled to at least one.
JAMIE HAD BELIEVED there wasn’t much that was worse than being shot, but right now, looking at Isabella, he’d prefer the lead to split his skin than have to endure her company.
She was as lovely as ever, her smile as luminous as he recalled. She was speaking to him in Gaelic, her voice melodious, in a way that would soothe anyone, particularly when she placed her slender hand on one’s knee, as she had with him.
A month ago, Jamie might have been relieved at her change of heart. But now—today—he only felt oddly detached. “Have I understood you, then?” he asked when Isabella had finished what sounded like a carefully rehearsed speech. “You believe you made a mistake in crying off?”
“Aye, that is what I mean, darling. I was a wee bit hasty. I was distressed after that awful fight, and I thought . . . I thought that I was doing what I ought to do as a Brodie. You understand.”
He wasn’t entirely certain that he did understand. He glanced down at her hand on his knee. “That was two months past, Isabella. Has it taken two months for you to realize your mistake?”
“No, Jamie. I understood it straightaway,” she quietly admitted. “But it took me that long to overcome my pride.” She smiled ruefully.
So did Jamie. He supposed he should have been happy at her change of heart, or at the very least, understanding of it. He guessed she would like him to take her in his arms and kiss her, tell her all was forgiven. He should have averred she was the best possible match for him for so many reasons and admitted that he still had feelings for her.
Yet he said or did none of those things. The only thing he felt with any conviction was cross. With Isabella. With the Brodies and Campbells in general.
Isabella had always been able to read him rather well, and she seemed to now. She leaned across his lap, her mouth next to his earlobe. “I’ve missed you so, Jamie,” she whispered, and lightly bit his ear before fading back to smile at him.
Jamie didn’t move.
Her green eyes searched his face for a moment, then she abruptly sank down onto her knees beside him. She covered his hand with hers and looked beseechingly at him. “I was a fool to believe you would forgive me, aye? But will you no’ at least think on what I’ve said? Will you no’ at least consider it?”
How could he deny her? He touched her face, recalling the moments he had spent in her company imagining a long and happy future with her. Imagining their children, their robust estates. He waited for the feeling to come to him again.
“I’ve missed you, Jamie. I need you.”
The feeling still didn’t come.
He wondered why, as he looked at her face, her smile. Her cool smile. She is winter. Cool and close and dark. “Aye, of course I will consider it, Isabella.” He could see her disappointment, but she was too dignified to cry.
“It’s all I might ask,” she said, and pushed herself up. “I shall leave you now. Young John will show us to our rooms, will he not?” she asked, already moving to the door.
“Aye, he will.”
She paused at the door and looked over her shoulder. She was smiling, but it was not a happy smile. “You should have a bath drawn, mo ghraidh,” she said as she walked out the door. “You smell of her.”