To Tempt A Scotsman. Victoria Dahl
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same voice he used to calm frightened horses. “Dinna cry.”
“I don’t cry,” she hissed.
“Of course not.” But he reached out to touch her just the same. His fingers moved over the silken curl of her hair, smoothed the waves of black. She stiffened, ready to lash out, but even when he repeated the touch, she did not move away. When he cupped the back of her head in his palm, her body softened.
“I’m sorry about John. I am.”
“I believe you.”
“Do you?” She rolled toward him, onto her back, and Collin found his hand trapped beneath her. “Do you believe me?”
He watched her for a long moment, exploring her eyes and her mouth and her creamy skin in the dim light of the room as he leaned over her like a lover. He was surprised at the truth of his answer. “Yes, I believe you.”
And he no longer felt comforting. The clean smell of her, the warmth of her neck on his fingers, her breasts pushing high against the smooth amber-gold bodice of her dress—these things crystallized in his mind and pricked sharply at his senses. Fighting the urge to jerk away, he disentangled his fingers from her hair and slid his hand from under her heat.
“Can we start over, do you think?” Her voice came soft and husky now, and he wondered if she’d felt the change in him.
Could he start over? Treat her as if she were a friend of his cousin’s and not an accessory to a crime? She was only a girl, after all. And it was true that she’d been used as a weapon. She’d been hardly more than a victim herself, it seemed.
“For the sake of our hosts,” he agreed, glad when she smiled at his paltry joke.
“You are a hard man, Collin Blackburn.”
He choked, for she was very nearly right. To his horror, a blush crept up her cheeks, warming her skin into a temptation. He stood and stumbled a step back from the bed.
“I’ll see you at dinner.”
Her blue gaze burned into his back as he fled, slamming the door behind him.
Chapter 3
“Collin.”
Collin nearly tumbled down the stairs, heart in his throat. Catching the banister, he turned to see George stepping down from the other wing of the house. “George,” he said too loudly.
“I’d like a word with you, if you don’t mind.”
Christ, surely George couldn’t know that he’d just snuck out of Alexandra’s room. Unless the maid had alerted him…
George stepped heavily down the oak steps, but his face was weighted by sadness, not anger. “Would you come to my office for a moment?”
“Of course.”
“I know we already spoke of this, but…” George glanced about as they descended, nodded his head to the right when they reached the bottom of the stairs. Collin followed him into the study, ducking beneath the low hang of the crooked little door. The study was spacious, but worn and oddly shaped, one wall stretching on for twenty feet, the other angling, following the line of an older section of the house. George paced to a large chair and leaned against its back.
“I feel I didn’t adequately express myself earlier…regarding Alexandra.”
“George, I—”
“No, I was shocked when she arrived and I wanted to explain. You said you’re convinced St. Claire was out to murder your brother. I did not speak plainly earlier, but I feel the need to defend my cousin. You have every reason to dislike her, or resent her, but please bear in mind her youth.”
“There’s really—”
George held up a hand, eyes pleading, and Collin fell silent.
“All I ask is that you try to feel some sympathy for her in this. If St. Claire did arrange this incident, think how dreadfully he used my cousin, a young girl just out in society. My God, she very likely loved the man and he abused her in the worst possible way.”
“George, I understand that.”
His friend sighed, his thin chest seeming to collapse.
“I’m glad to hear that. I know she must seem mannish and bold to you.”
“Mannish,” Collin croaked, thinking of her delicate beauty, but George nodded solemnly.
“She grew up nearly without a mother, eventually without a father too. And Somerhart was left to raise her alone, though he didn’t have to. He could have sent her off to an aunt or some such but preferred to keep her close.”
“An ideal brother.”
“Perhaps, but not an ideal parent, you understand. And after this happened…” He waved a circle to encompass the tragedy. “He was concerned for her. She was not really herself, and even a duke could not make it right.”
“No, I suppose not.” Collin thought of the stiffness in her face when he’d wounded her.
“So you may look at her and see a hoyden, an unnatural girl who works her brother’s estate and attracts scandal like a magnet, but she is more than that. She is…” He waved again, frowning as he searched for words.
“George. You don’t have to defend her. I won’t deny that I thought little enough of her when I arrived here, but you’re right. She’s young. She did not mean to injure John.”
“No. No, I can assure you of that. She’s a kind girl and always has been. A bit spoiled, mind you, but we’re all to blame. Motherless child and all that.”
He smiled at the gruff love in George’s voice. “I should like to see a portrait of her as a child.”
“By God, I’m sure I have one around here somewhere.” George turned to scan the dozens of bookcases lining the long wall, relief sinking his shoulders. “Somerhart must have sent us a new miniature every half-year.”
Collin smiled as he recalled the great Duke of Somerhart—an icy, intelligent man with a razor-sharp wit. Who would have thought the duke such a soft touch for an orphaned child?
The real Alexandra Huntington made her debut in the formal dining room. Here was the confident woman who’d enchanted the ton; the sparkling, dark beauty the men spoke of, some with wistful looks, some with lust. Collin had not fully understood their admiration, not until this night.
She flushed a little as they greeted each other, but with each course that passed over their plates, Alexandra relaxed a fraction more. She did not seem selfish or thoughtless. She did not even seem particularly spoiled. And she had freckles on her nose.
Ridiculous, of course, but as Collin sat there in the yellow-walled dining room, eating goose and salmon and Yorkshire pudding, he stared at her—at her wild, dark curls and big eyes and those nearly invisible freckles sprinkled across her nose—and he realized: This woman is no whore.
And more surprising than that? He wanted her.
Impossible. She was only nineteen. She was English. And the sister of a duke. Practically a damned English princess, for God’s sake. Regardless of her past, she was not a woman to have a tryst with. She was royalty.
His torturous thoughts were interrupted by George’s sigh. “Women and their money talk. It quite makes my head spin.”
Alexandra stopped her chatter about expenses and grinned at them, wrinkling her nose at her cousin before she turned back to Lucy. “And Hart has given permission to expand his stables, so I’ll no doubt spend some time at the horse fairs this summer.”
“Perhaps Collin can assist you.”
Collin caught the confused glance she threw in his direction.
“He breeds horses,” Lucy added helpfully.