One Night with the Laird. Nicola Cornick
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cousin’s words, but they could not touch him. He did not believe them because the truth was that he had failed. As the only son, he had had the duty to protect his mother and his sister after his father’s death, and he had failed them both shamefully.
He eyed the brandy bottle. His fingers itched to reach for it. He could feel the compulsion creeping through him like a dark tide.
It was better that he should be alone. That way there was no danger he would fail anyone but himself. He slid a hand across the table, reaching for the bottle.
“...Lady Mairi MacLeod,” Robert said.
Jack stopped, his head snapping round. “I beg your pardon?”
“I said that I would like you to escort Lady Mairi MacLeod to the christening,” Robert repeated. Then, when Jack did not immediately respond, “I know that you dislike her, but she is my sister-in-law. It would be a courtesy.”
Jack groaned. “Must I?” he said. Just when he had thought that the evening could not become worse, it had done so.
Dislike did not even begin to encompass his feeling for Mairi MacLeod. When he had first met her three years before at her sister’s wedding he had thought her fascinating, cool, beautiful, self-contained, a challenge. He liked rich widows and they tended to like him in return. He had wasted no time in suggesting to Mairi that she should become his mistress. She had told him in no uncertain terms what he could do with his proposition and after that had treated him with the utmost indifference. Jack was not accustomed to rejection, and it annoyed him that even after so clear a refusal he was still attracted to Mairi MacLeod with a powerful dark strain of awareness he could not dismiss. A week in her company escorting her over bad roads on the long and arduous journey to the Highlands would make him want to alternately strangle her and make love to her and neither option was possible.
Robert gave an exaggerated sigh. “I fail to understand your antipathy.”
“Then let me enlighten you,” Jack said. “Lady Mairi is proud and haughty. She’s too rich, too beautiful and too clever.”
Antagonism stirred in him again. It infuriated him that he could not be indifferent to Mairi MacLeod. Not even his night of outrageous passion with his mystery seductress had been able to break her spell. In fact, oddly it seemed to make the craving worse. Now there were two women he lusted after and could not bed.
Robert was laughing. “Does she have any other faults you wish to share?” he murmured.
Jack ran a hand through his hair. “I would rather not escort her,” he said. “Why can’t she travel with her family?”
“Because they are at Forres and Lady Mairi is at her home just outside Edinburgh,” Robert said with unimpaired calm. “It’s a courtesy, Jack. As I said, we are trying to heal the breach between the clans.” He shrugged. “If Lady Mairi dislikes you as much as you say, then she will refuse your escort.”
“She might accept simply to torment me,” Jack muttered. He gave a sharp sigh. “Oh, very well. But you owe me a favor.”
“I really do not think so,” Robert said dryly.
“Five minutes,” Jack said. “It will only take me five minutes to ask and for her to refuse.” He would spend no longer than that in her company. He would go to Ardglen, he would invite Mairi to travel with him to Methven, she would refuse and then he would be gone. Once at Methven for the christening, they could cordially ignore each other.
He sat back, the tension easing a little from his shoulders. He and Mairi MacLeod could surely manage to be civil to each other for so short a time. Five minutes and then it would be done.
* * *
“Tell Lady Mairi MacLeod that Mr. Rutherford wishes to see her.”
Mairi had been in the drawing room when she heard the door knocker sound with a sharp rap that was both arrogant and commanding. A moment later there were voices in the hall and one, a deep drawl she now recognized with every fiber of her being, made her jump so much that she almost snipped off her own fingers rather than the long stems of the roses she was arranging. Laying the secateurs softly on the table, she tiptoed across to the half-open door and stood poised, aware of the tension seeping through her body. The heavy scent of the roses seemed to fill the air, stifling her breath. The blood beat hard in her ears. She gripped the door handle tightly and closed her eyes as the world spun too fast.
Time had lulled her into a false sense of security. She had left Edinburgh the same morning that she had left Jack sleeping off his excesses in her bed. She had come to her country house and had dropped out of society in the hope of avoiding him. She had begun to think she was safe.
Yet here he was.
She tried to steady her breathing, to tell herself there was no danger. Even if Jack had identified her, she did not have to confront him. She had told the footmen to admit no one, and they were very well trained. Even now she could hear one of them politely refusing Jack access to her with a smooth and well-practiced rebuttal.
“I’m sorry, sir, but Lady Mairi is not receiving guests at the moment.”
“She’ll see me,” Jack said briefly.
Mairi drew back, but it was too late. Perhaps Jack had seen the flicker of her shadow across the black-and-white marble floor of the hallway. Perhaps he sensed her presence. She had only a few seconds’ warning and then Jack was striding into the drawing room and facing her. There was both authority and an easy grace in the way he moved across the floor toward her. She felt all the breath leave her body in a rush, felt the shivers chase across her skin. She realized that she was shaking and knitted her fingers together to still the betrayal.
The first thing she noticed about him was the elegance of his tailoring. He had certainly gone to a lot of trouble in his dress before he called on her. She was not sure how to interpret that. Jack always dressed well, but today he looked spectacular; his clothes were expensive and beautifully cut, the linen pristine white, the boots with a high polish. He carried it off well too, casually but with supreme elegance. So many men looked ridiculous in their fashions, impaled on high shirt points, their jackets stiffened with buckram. Jack Rutherford did not need any artificial aids in order to look good. The jacket of green superfine fit his broad shoulders without a wrinkle. His pantaloons were like a second skin, molding his muscular thighs.
Mairi felt awareness spark and flare deep inside her. Her breath caught beneath her ribs, and her heart started to race. Jack looked a little bit dangerous, more than a little handsome with the tousled tawny hair tumbling over his brow and those narrowed laughing eyes, his face chiseled and clean-shaven. The impossible intimacies they had shared made her consciousness of him so fierce that she was not sure she could hide her reaction to him.
She was staring. She chided herself for it and took a deep breath to steady herself.
He executed a perfect bow. “Lady Mairi.”
There was no apology for interrupting her, no reference to the fact that he had explicitly ignored her desire for solitude. In Edinburgh she had been the one who had driven their encounter. Now that seemed absurd. Jack Rutherford was far too forceful to be anything other than in control. His easy charm cloaked a will of steel.
“Mr. Rutherford,” Mairi said, matching his indifference with a chilly civility of her own.
His gaze brushed her face. There was no recognition at all in his eyes.
He did not know.
Relief weakened her knees and she almost had to grab the table for support. Disturbingly, beneath the sense of reassurance were other emotions. She identified disappointment and realized that everything that was feminine within her wanted him to remember her.
Madness. She should be happy to have got away with it. She should be grateful and relieved, anything but this vain and foolish dissatisfaction.
“How do you do, sir?” she said. “I hope you are well.”
Jack’s mouth twisted