Chapter 17
Caelan had never been a man who woke raging with lust. He considered the condition to be a scourge of boyhood that he had gratefully outgrown. Even in the first days of his marriage, he had leapt out of bed before Isla woke; she had remained there until a maid brought her breakfast on a silver tray.
Yet from the moment he’d woken this morning, he had wanted only one thing. He’d tented his kilt to the point of obscenity. When he walked into the courtyard and saw Clara at breakfast, he had to snatch a hunk of bread and retreat upstairs, because it was that or scandalize her maid.
Last night, when he’d helped her make up the bed, he’d watched her lean forward to tuck in the sheet—both of them doing that task for the first time in their lives—and tried unsuccessfully not to notice her gorgeous rear end.
Leaving her with a pail of hot water, he had walked down the steps to his study, imagining her unbuttoning her filthy pelisse and torn gown. Obviously, she planned to strip off every garment and wash thoroughly.
He had fallen onto his bed, carnal images racing through his mind. Clara’s nipples would stiffen in the cool night air. Her wet hands would stroke every plush curve. He had a feeling she wouldn’t be a lady in bed: not the woman who’d muttered “bollocks”
when they couldn’t get the sheet to tuck in properly.
Lewd fantasies crowded into his mind, plans to excite her—and to satisfy her. He would begin by kissing her from head to foot, until she was wiggling against him and begging for more. Ravenous phrases streamed through his head, ready to breathe against her skin. Filthy words that would make a delicate lady faint, referring to filthy acts that a lady wouldn’t contemplate.
But a woman with Clara’s imagination? Who was fearless, bold enough to climb into an unknown carriage and let it take her to the Highlands? A woman who made jokes about naked chests being like chocolate and clearly liked his legs?
He had stroked himself senseless and was still panting when his tool rose back in the air, demanding attention. Again.
Like a damned boy of fifteen.
And now?
He could look into her green eyes every day for the rest of his life. By dawn’s light. By candlelight. With all that sunlit hair billowing around her face.
“You are not truly married,”
he said, his voice deep and steady. Not accusatory but matter-of-fact. “Aye, you might have mouthed the words, but an unconsummated marriage is invalid. Did you know that?”
“That’s not relevant to my circumstances,”
Clara said, obviously choosing her words carefully.
He felt a twinge of deep satisfaction. She might have fibbed about being married, and fibbed about being a housekeeper, but the real woman, the real Clara, was honest. What’s more, she knew what she wanted: a castle and books. By God, he had a castle and books.
She wanted a man with a kilt?
He had that too.
“The point is relevant,”
he said, pulling himself together before he fell on her like a ravening beast. “I want to kiss you, but I would never kiss a married woman. A truly married woman. Are you truly married, Clara?”
She gulped.
“Clara?”
“No,”
she admitted.
He picked up her left hand, sliding his fingers down until he took hold of her ring and started easing it off.
She scowled at him. “What are you doing?”
“Throwing this in the rubbish.”
“Absolutely not.”
She pulled her hand away from his.
“Why not? You’re not married, or if you are, the union was never consummated. Which means you’re not married.”
“I need that ring. Everyone knows me as Mrs. Potts.”
“I do not.”
“Mrs. Gillan does,”
she retorted. “What’s more, at the moment, I’m a housekeeper, not a lady. I don’t have a chaperone. Without that ring, any random man who passes me in the street might pull me into an alley and kiss me. Or—or worse.”
Caelan’s jaw tightened. “Not if he hopes to see another dawn.”
She gaped at him. “Don’t be absurd! You’re not my husband. You won’t be walking next to me in the street, nor in church, for that matter. I’ll be seated in the rear.”
He felt an unfamiliar grin spread over his face. “You may not be my wife, but you’re not my housekeeper, either. I think we can both agree on that. I am not paying you, which means you are not in my employ. So why are you cleaning my house?”
He leaned in even farther, his eyes gleaming.
“I’m your friend.”
That startled him. “Friend? I’ve never had a woman as a friend.”
“This conversation is absurd,”
Clara said, her eyes unnervingly direct. “I fail to see why you are making such a fuss about my wedding ring.” Apparently realizing that her headscarf was sagging to one side, she reached up and steadied the pile of hair.
“I wish to kiss you.”
With one long stride, he stood in front of her, tugging at the lacy cloth protecting her hair. To his satisfaction, it easily slipped off, freeing a torrent of curls that caught beams of sunlight. “Why would I say so if I didn’t?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. Like Sleeping Beauty, you are waking up.”
“I’m no beauty.”
Caelan ran a finger along her cheek. “You are, though.”
“When Isla died, you went to sleep. Now you’ve woken up, and I’m the only unmarried—”
She squeaked to a halt. “Oops.”
“So you are unmarried.”
He felt satisfaction deep in his bones. “By the way, Isla has nothing to do with this. I don’t want to hear her name from your lips.”
She looked momentarily crushed before sympathy washed over her face.
“I didn’t mean that as an insult,”
he added quickly.
“I completely understand. I really do, Caelan. I’m so sorry that you and—that your wife isn’t alive to be here with you.”
He cleared his throat. “I don’t want sympathy. I have enough of that from every Highlander in these parts. I simply don’t want to talk about Isla. Or your nonexistent spouse, for that matter. I’d prefer to kiss you.”
“Why?”
Apparently he had to be less blunt. More complimentary. “I’ve never known anyone like you. Everything about you is kissable. Your crazy hair, your giggling mouth, your shining eyes, your soft curves.”
She scowled at him—the list wasn’t good enough.
He’d fallen out of the habit of wooing ladies, and besides, his mind was blurred by lust. What could he say?
You are Isla’s opposite: Kiss me?
“There’s no unmarried man in all Scotland who wouldn’t want to kiss you,”
he said instead. “Your lower lip is the color of a wild strawberry.”
She blinked at him uncertainly. Surely she knew . . . She had to know. Women always knew when they mesmerized a man.
He cleared his throat. “Would you prefer that I compliment your starlit hair?”
Her mouth curled into a reluctant smile. “Did you read that somewhere?”
“Maybe. Wild starlight?”
“And what, exactly, does that mean?”
He fiddled with one of her curls. “Your hair is luminous, as if it had captured light.”
“Ah.”
Clara stopped looking at Caelan, because holding his gaze led to madness. Something in his eyes made her want to throw herself into his arms.
Adventures were shocking. They came from nowhere, like a helmet falling to earth. Frankly, everything Caelan said was as startling and unbelievable as that improbable meteor.
A new adventure was presenting itself.
He desired her.
Not another woman, in some other part of the room. Her, with her hair in a mess and her plainest dress on, without a corset, wearing boots, covered in dust, and despite a litany of silly remarks about fairy tales.
Even though he was in love with a dead woman.
“All right,”
she said, making up her mind. Now she thought of it, she ought to kiss another man, if only to banish the memory of Prince George.
When he stared silently, she clarified, “I wouldn’t mind kissing you.”
His eyes blazed, and a large hand reached out to tug her closer. His lips landed on hers softly, without the prince’s sloppy urgency. Clara took in a deep breath, smelling the loch, not the dust. The man, not the laird.
Caelan. Not George.
His hands cupped her head as he murmured something, slanted his lips against hers. His tongue slid into her mouth, twining with hers.
Her mind began bouncing, trying to assess what was happening. She had never imagined that kissing was like breathing, except you were breathing someone else’s air (another reason to be very glad that she’d escaped Prince George).
It was almost like talking. Except this kind of talking seemed to include a promise of some sort.
No, she had to stop being so fanciful. Caelan wasn’t making a promise.
He was simply kissing her, the way her mother had warned that men might. That they would, if a lady ever gave them a chance.
“It’s not merely that you haven’t known a man,”
Caelan said. “You’ve never kissed a man, have you?”
“No,”
she admitted. “I haven’t.” Her stomach curled into a hard knot. Apparently she was rubbish at kissing, which didn’t surprise her.
Prince George was the only man who’d ever indicated a wish to kiss her. His Majesty had lunged at her a year ago, but she had managed to whirl away, laughing as if he’d only been playing a game, waved goodbye, and run as fast as she could in the opposite direction.
“You’re kissing me, but you’re thinking of something else,”
Caelan continued.
She opened her mouth to defend herself—but he was right.
One side of his mouth crooked up, a surprising hint of vulnerability in his eyes. “Dreaming of a prince with sooty locks and a smooth forehead?”
That was unnervingly close to reality. “Actually, I was thinking about my mother’s admonishments against kissing,”
she told him.
“No one is allowed to think about their parents while kissing. The fact you’re able to think at all indicates my lack of practice.”
His eyes fell to her lips, and his eyelids drooped. All of a sudden, Clara’s mind craved his taste, reminding her that this was her adventure. He was right: her mother was irrelevant. She came up on her toes and wound her hands into his tousled hair.
His tongue slid inside her mouth as if it belonged there. She didn’t think—she couldn’t think. Not when they were both open-mouthed, tongues entwining, messy and sensual and full of want. Rather than assessing what they were doing, she felt it—felt him. Tasted him. Smelled him. Under the dust was a clean, male essence of Caelan that made her whimper against his lips.
“I’d like to take you against the wall,”
he groaned.
Her mind cleared. What had he said? Take you . . . that was clear. Wall? Not so much.
Caelan opened his eyes. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
He looked down at Clara, rueful that his stupidity had broken one of the most sensual kisses of his life. She looked astonished, as if the lovemaking potential of a wall had not occurred to her.
Yet she didn’t look appalled. He recognized that puzzled frown from last night, when they were trying to figure out how to put on a sheet so that it stretched from top to bottom of the bed. After they’d made up Clara’s bed, she had insisted that they change his sheets as well.
Caelan had agreed, mostly to see her bend over the mattress again. “I’m not always a gentleman,”
he admitted, his voice a husky murmur.
“I . . . I’m not sure . . .”
Her brow knit in an enchanting fashion.
“Clara.”
He snatched her into another kiss, putting a hand on the middle of her back so he could bring her closer. She kissed him in return, melting against him, her tongue tangling with his. He heard her breath catch and quicken.
His tool was tenting his kilt. She tasted sweet and addictive, making him want to kiss her deeper and deeper. Wrap his hands around her arse and pull her higher. Place her on clean sheets and lick her from her collarbone to her toes. Bury his face in a cloud of spun sugar hair. Wrap it around his hands and—
“We can’t go further than another kiss. Perhaps two,”
he said, his voice rumbling from deep in his chest. “Not until you’re wearing my ring.”
He was aching to rub against her. She was here, in his study, next to the bed . . .
Not yet.
Not here.
“It’s morning, for God’s sake,”
he said, trying to control himself before he lost his head and dove into another kiss. He did it anyway. He came out of the kiss slowly, and only because he had to allow her to breathe.
Clara’s breasts rose as she gulped air, mesmerizing him as she stumbled back a step. “That’s enough,”
she growled—if someone as sweet as sugar could be said to growl.
He reached down to adjust himself. Her eyes flicked down his front. Her brows drew together, so he took away his hands to allow her to see his whole length, straining against his kilt.
Her eyes widened.
“Do you want to get married first?”
he asked, scarcely aware of the words as they fell out of his lips. The only thing he was—
“What are you talking about?”
“Marriage,”
he said, managing to get the word out.
“No, thank you.”
Her firm answer fell on his head like a bucket of cold water. He’d learned as a young man that unmarried women dreamed of marrying him. Oh, if an English duke had strolled into a ballroom, he might have had competition.
But the only English lord he knew was old Bufford.
When the Laird of CaerLaven walked into a room, unmarried ladies simpered and beckoned. He had more land and money than most men in the Highlands, and he wasn’t foul-looking.
The combination had apparently given him a swollen head, despite the fact that his previous marriage should have given him a more accurate assessment of his desirability.
All the hazy desire had disappeared from Clara’s gaze, and she was eyeing him as if he were about to run amok. “Kisses are one thing; marriage is another. No, thank you.”
“You may be wearing a ring, but you’re not married.”
“Well . . .”
One side of his mouth curled up despite himself. “Clara. You already admitted that you aren’t married, and it wasn’t a matter of consummation, either. You have never said vows to anyone, have you?”
“How did you know?”
He tipped up her chin. “Because you would never have kissed me if you’d vowed to love another man.”
Caelan would have bet his castle on that certainty.
A shadow crossed her eyes. “In my experience, people are perfectly willing to kiss others after they’ve said vows in a church.”
“You are not one of them,”
Caelan stated. “I may not have known you long, but I know you all the same.”
“You said those vows to Isla.”
He flinched. “She died two years ago.”
Clara took a deep breath. “I understand, Caelan. I think it’s marvelous that you are waking up to life again.”
“So you still insist that I’m the princess?”
She nodded. “I shall clear the brambles from this castle, but I won’t marry a man in a glass coffin.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“You don’t even care to hear your late wife’s name spoken aloud,”
she explained. “I don’t want that in a husband. I am lucky enough to have control of my dowry. I have no need for a spouse.”
Caelan managed to stop himself from growling before he reminded himself that Rome wasn’t built, etcetera.
“I suspect my mother-in-law told you that she plans to marry me to a stonyhearted Englishwoman,”
he said wryly.
“She did. I’m not a candidate.”
“Clara, I—”
“No.”
Isla had looked at him with adoration, and Clara looked at him with hunger but not adoration. He could work with it.
He had to get her out of the castle, with all its memories of his late wife. There was nothing so adventuresome as waiting for a trout to nibble on one’s fly and then fighting to bring the fish to shore. What was more, he could introduce her to the pool his grandfather had carved out of the rocks.
“I understand,”
Caelan said, making certain his tone was easy and cordial. “Let’s go back to my offer to help you clean the study if you will go fishing with me.”
Clara yanked her hand away. “Whether a woman is a housekeeper or a lady, she ought not to be disrespected by an improper proposal!”
Caelan looked into her shocked eyes and burst out laughing again.
“I take it that you didn’t mean unclothed,”
she said sheepishly.
“I did not, although like any man, I would celebrate if the lady in question wished to shed her garments.”
“How can a lady possibly fish? Not having legs like tree trunks, she would be swept downstream!”
“You noticed my legs?”
“How could I not, given that you wear a kilt?”
Caelan grinned at her. “Prefer the kilt to breeches, do you?”
“I’ve always loved a man in a skirt,”
she blurted out. “I didn’t mean that!” A rosy blush went up her cheeks.
“I thought you had never met a man in a skirt before me.”
He leaned in, bracing his arm on the door behind her. “I don’t think you’ve ever known a man, married or not.”
Clara winced. She wasn’t a very good liar. “This is an inappropriate conversation,”
she announced. “We have to remove each book, dust it, wash the shelves, organize all the papers, wash down every surface, sweep, and then scrub the floor.”
“I could send my coachman to the village to bring help,”
Caelan said, appalled by that list.
“Your mother-in-law is sending two maids, aprons, pails, and more, and I plan to put her staff to work helping Elsbeth with the other rooms. Still, I like your idea. I’ll trade my labor and yours for a fishing lesson.”
She crossed her arms. “You and I will clean this room.”
Caelan gave a painful thought to the contracts waiting on his desk before he nodded. His mother would faint at the idea of the Laird of CaerLaven engaging in manual labor; his father would have guffawed; Isla would have had hysterics.
“It’s an adventure,”
Clara told him, obviously following his train of thought. “Neither of us has any experience cleaning other than last night. I suspect you grew up thinking the castle was cleaned by fairies—which is why you have done nothing about the state of your own home. You were waiting for house fairies to do it for you.”
“Not fairies but broonies or brownies,”
Caelan told her. “Here in Scotland, a lucky family has a broonie who comes out at night to scrub down the place.” He drew her into his arms, putting on a deliberately sultry tone. “I should like to offer a thank-you to my very own broonie.”
She rolled her eyes and pushed him away before he could kiss her. “We’ll start at the top and work down to the floor. First the highest shelves all the way around the room, and then around again to dust those within reach. We need rags, a pail of water, and a ladder.”
Which led to Caelan ripping one of his sheets into rags and spending the next few hours holding a ladder while Clara dusted.
She found the book collection fascinating and frequently paused to leaf through a volume; he was equally fascinated by her ankles. He had been dimly aware that women sought to cover their ankles—Isla had shrieked if a breeze stirred her hem—but he’d never understood why.
Now he did. Clara’s gown was made of a heavy cloth that fell down past her ankles—except when she reached for a book. To his delight, she wore gossamer-weight silk stockings that no housekeeper possessed. The delicate knob on the side of her ankle was visible and lickable. Her silk slippers were so supple that he could trace the arch of her foot when she reached high for a volume. He would have loved to kiss his way up that slender foot, lavishing attention on her ankle. Kissing higher until he reached the top of her stocking and undid the bow with his teeth. Kissing higher . . .
After they were betrothed, of course.
True, he had thought to marry a mature and rational woman, but as it turned out, he would marry a woman who seemed to live in a fairy tale because . . . because if he didn’t marry Clara, some other man would replace that fake ring on her finger and guard her from strangers in alleys. That was unacceptable.
Some other man seeing her ankles?
Deeply unacceptable.
For the moment, he was content to steady the ladder and gaze hungrily at every part of her that he could see. She apparently wasn’t wearing a corset, because whenever she moved, her voluptuous breasts swayed. Every once in a while, she let out a little crow and looked down in excitement, waving a faded volume. That gave him the delicious curve of her neck and a wobbling mound of fine-spun hair, strands floating in the sunshine.
They had only one set of bookshelves left when she climbed down the ladder and caught him smiling so widely that she raised an eyebrow.
“I love cleaning,”
he told her.
“I can’t say I love it much, but I do love your library.”
“I owe my broonie a kiss,”
he said, brushing his lips against hers. This time she clung to him rather than pushing him away, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“You taste—”
She broke away and pointed to the shelves. “Move the ladder there, if you please.”
Caelan obediently moved it. “When we’re married, will we dust the library once a month? Once a week?”
“I already refused your proposal.”
Then she narrowed her eyes. “This ladder is sound. Why don’t you dust below while I dust above?”
“No.”
His voice was as uncompromising as hers had been when she rejected his proposal. “You’re not going up a ladder without me at the bottom to catch you.”
Caelan’s voice had a possessive ring that Clara found stupidly erotic. What was erotic about wanting to make sure she was safe? “If you’re worried about my falling down, you go up the ladder,”
she countered. “I’ll hold it for you.”
She watched him open his mouth to refuse—before a calculating light went through his eyes, and he grinned. “Good idea!”
he said, bounding up the ladder. “Be sure to hold the ladder steady.”
He was steady on his feet and the ladder perfectly sound. But she obediently moved into position below him. Caelan was a far more efficient duster than she; he snatched a stack of books, balanced them on the top rung, and washed the shelf, giving each volume a cursory swipe with a rag before replacing it.
“Aren’t you glancing at the titles?”
she asked.
“No. A few years ago I rearranged all the books. Everything is organized from ‘Most Boring’ at the top to ‘Readable’ at the bottom.”
Clara was still giggling when he moved down a step, putting his thigh in front of her. His legs were thick and muscled, powerful limbs designed for bounding up mountains like a mountain goat.
She was still staring at his leg when he moved down another step. “See something you like?”
Caelan asked, his voice as mischievous as a young boy’s. She did like it. Being this close to him made her heart speed up and her limbs feel tender and unstable. Worse, she could feel her cheeks turn to rose.
He took down another stack of books without waiting for an answer, though she was perfectly aware that he kept glancing down at her.
“Tsk, tsk,”
he said, looking at a volume. “Burke’s Speech on Economical Reform definitely belongs on the top shelf, don’t you think?” He bounded back up the ladder, which let her look directly up his kilt.
She already knew he didn’t wear smalls under his kilt. His bottom was surprisingly round. Plump and masculine and utterly unlike hers.
“Looking at my arse, are you?”
His amused voice floated from above, and she jumped away from the ladder so quickly that she could have knocked him over.
“I’m sorry!”
she gasped. “You moved and . . . I didn’t mean to!”
He came down slowly, a smile in his eyes. “You’re not wearing a corset, so we’re even.”
That smile gave her an odd sensation in her spine, of all places, and then between her legs.
When he said his broonie needed to kiss him, this time, she didn’t hesitate. It was an adventure, after all. What an adventure. She cupped his face in her hands and brought her lips to his. When their tongues met, pleasure thrummed over her body in a way that erased her mother’s warnings about kisses.
A few minutes later, they were still kissing, until Caelan stopped and said hoarsely, “Clara.”
Only her name.
All of her delight in the adventure fled, as alarm slammed down her spine. The way he said her name? Groaned it?
“Cleaning!”
she yelped, stumbling back.
He didn’t say another word, just reaching for the rag and dipping in the pail. The water was brown with dust, so Clara ran down the stairs and fetched more. Mrs. Gillan’s maids hadn’t arrived yet, but Elsbeth had fashioned a mopstick out of the broom handle and rags. Clara brought it upstairs so they could wash the floor.
Two hours later, they were finished, the bookshelves shining and clean, the papers sorted into empty potato crates that Caelan had fetched from the pantry. Clara collapsed on the couch, and Caelan sank down beside her, his thigh touching hers.
She had to say something that would break this intolerable . . . tension between them. The feeling in the air made her want to squirm and press against his hip. She cleared her throat. “We should—”
Down below a little boy screamed, “Are you serious?”
“Fuck.”
The word flew out of Caelan’s mouth without conscious volition. “Have you changed your mind about marrying me now that you know what an excellent cleaner I am?”
“No. I have a feeling that curse word is even worse than ‘bugger.’”
“You’d be right. Don’t repeat it, unless you want those around you to faint.”
Caelan leaned forward and dusted a kiss on her mouth. “Except in the bedchamber.”
Her brows drew together in confusion.
Caelan rejected the impulse to pick her up in his arms and improve her vocabulary. “I’ll explain it later. You just heard my nephew Alfie’s favorite question. He exists in a state of constant skepticism.”
She nodded, coiling up her hair before picking up the piece of lace and pinning it to the top of her head. It wasn’t as neat as when her maid did it: loops of hair billowed to one side, like a mishappen cloud.
“Shall I accompany you downstairs and introduce you to my sister and nephew as Mrs. Potts, the housekeeper?”
Caelan inquired. “Fiona, I should tell you, is the person who contacted an agency in London and chose the aforementioned woman.”
“I gather from your expression that you think you’re being amusing,”
Clara said. “There’s no need to involve you in my untruths. I shall introduce myself.” The bundle on her head swayed gently as she moved toward the door. “Then we shall begin cleaning the . . . the drawing room.”
“Your profile is not unlike a helmet with a vast set of plumes.”
He caught Clara’s hand as she turned away. “I’d prefer you didn’t hoist any furniture out the window.”
“I shall—”
The defiance in her voice died at his expression. “Oh, very well. If you summon some grooms, I’d appreciate it if they could clear away the rotten furniture and carpets.”
“I could help.”
She gave him a wry smile. “I appreciate your help with this room, but you might be more useful organizing these papers.”
Caelan watched her walk from the room. Walk away from him.
Later, his guests would leave.
Mrs. Gillan would not return with her maids until tomorrow. His sister and Alfie would climb back into their carriage. Elsbeth and the scullery maid would retire to sleep.
And he and Clara would go to bed.
Hopefully, together.