Chapter Twenty
“God, Meg,” he growled low, taking her arm, pulling her away from the glow of the doors, into the darkness of the garden. He tugged her with him behind the crowding ferns in pots lining the path toward shadows and moonlight and the drowsy, drunken scent of roses.
“Can we talk—please, Dougal.”
He spun her into his arms, her gown floating like clouds around her, and he kissed her, his mouth hungry and tender on hers, his hands strong yet gentle on her bare shoulders.
With a soft cry, she looped her arms around his neck, and gave herself to the power of kisses that were impulsive, desperate, insistent.
She opened her lips for more, her heart beating fast, and she let his tongue dance over hers, gave him hers, slipped away to seek again.
Leaning her head back, she felt his mouth trail hot along her jaw, her throat, his fingertips caressing her bare shoulders, then the upper swell of her breasts.
His breath heated the space between her breasts, above the snug edge of her corset.
With one hand, he snugged her tightly against him so that her skirt floated outward, its cage tipping like a ringing bell, silken tulle crushed between them.
She pressed into his arms, feeling his hard torso, his heartbeat against her, even through layers of silk and fragile netting and the smooth wool of his coat.
His solid, safe nearness was blessedly familiar.
She needed him, had always needed him from the moment they met in a long-ago storm.
She sighed, moaned breathily as his hand rounded over her confined breasts, teasing over the soft swell above her bodice edge. Her body pulsed for him. For a moment she wanted to tear away each exquisite layer of the gown just to feel him like steel and fire against her.
As his lips found hers again, her knees went weak beneath crinoline and petticoats, so that she clung to him, arms circling his neck, fingers threading deep into his thick brown-gilt hair. He smelled of spice and wine, of vanilla and strength and caring, and she loved him.
God, how she loved him. His hands were divine upon her, caressing, teasing her so that she shivered and craved. He framed her face in his palms to kiss her again, and she felt the change in it, the withdrawal of spirit. He tore himself away, breath rough.
“Lady Strathlin,” he rasped, “This is wrong for both of us. I must leave.”
She grabbed his coat lapels. “Stay,” she whispered.
“If I stay, I cannot keep from kissing you—loving you. So I must go.” He was stonelike.
“Stay. I must—you need to stay—” She stumbled through it, knowing the hardest part was yet to come, yet to be said, and she did not know how to tell him.
“For a night—or forever?”
“Forever,” she whispered. “Surely you know that.”
“Forever requires trust. Honesty. Commitment. It hardly involves you marrying another.”
“I have not accepted his proposal.”
“Not yet. It is advantageous and therefore inevitable. Surely your lawyers agree.”
“You are so bitter. I should have told you. I know that.”
“Aye so. I do not like playing the fool while you withheld from me what so many knew. I did not plan to come here to say that—but perhaps it must be said,” he finished with a sigh.
“I went to your cousin’s house to tell you before the soiree, but you were gone.” Her voice broke, and her heart felt about to break.
“I discovered it through the card you dropped that the doctor found. But I suspected it after I met with Matheson. He did not tell me outright, but made it pretty clear.”
“I am so sorry.” She lowered her head. “I did not want it to be this way.”
“Nor did I. Let me apologize for insulting your person and your lovely gown just now. You look like a princess. Beautiful. And I cannot be near you and stay a gentleman. Good night, my lady.” He inclined his head and walked away, black-clad shoulders pushing through rosebushes.
Meg glided after him. Her sleeve snagged on a rose and she plucked it free, wincing at the sting. “Listen, do!”
He sighed, paused. “Lady Strathlin,” he murmured, “you are a beautiful creature, and I will never forget the vision of you tonight. Nor will I forget the vision of you on that island. You give me a great deal to think about. Too much.”
She caught his sleeve. “Will you not hear what I have to say, when I listened to you?” She tugged. “I listened, and I forgave you—all of it.”
They stood on the path, hemmed between rosebushes and potted ferns. “Then tell me why you kept this from me, after all of that.”
“Just—when I saw you on Caransay, and realized that we—had met before, I—I hated you for part of that,” she said. “And I loved you, too, all at once. And I did not know what to do. Can you understand that?”
“More than you know,” he said gruffly. “Loving the dream, unsure of the reality. Go on.”
“I thought you used me on the rock, and I did not want to be used again.”
“I never did.” He leaned down. “Never.”
“I know that now. I did not know it then.”
“Yet even later, you still kept the truth from me. Mrs. Berry! Come now,” he reminded her.
“You despised the baroness! You made that clear. What was I to do? I thought it would end what we had on the island. I feared you would stop…loving me.” A sob burst out and salt tears pooled.
“I have always loved you,” he murmured without moving. “I cannot stop that.”
“Even if you want to?” When he did not answer, she rushed on. “And I love you. So why are in such disagreement now?”
“Love needs truth, my dear. It thrives on truth and withers on secrets. You have too many. I have the feeling there are more things I do not know.” He swept an arm out. “This incredible wealth. It would change a person.”
“It is not easy. But I have tried to stay the same. As for secrets—”
“I know your secret now. I need time to think. You need it too.”
She caught her breath. She had to tell him about Sean. Yet she glanced up to see a few guests lingering—lawyers, businessmen waiting for Dougal, looking into the shadowed garden.
As for the remaining secret, Roderick still loomed as a threat, limiting what she could safely say.
If he decided to spread the word about her son, her lover, he could destroy all of them.
He could find records that proved the birth, proved she had no previous husband, though her kin had put that about.
She could not bear that—nor could she see it harm Dougal.
“There are things still to say,” she whispered, feeling defeated in the moment.
“Not now. We are both overwrought. A day or two.” His voice was cool, flat.
She nodded, numb, wanting to feel that all would be well, but that assurance was missing.
He strode away, leaving the garden, entering the house, pausing to speak to those still waiting. They went in a group toward the foyer. When Meg finally entered the house, she heard voices at the door and heard it close.
She thought she might never inhale the fragrance of roses again without feeling her heart break. Now she must find the courage to reveal her last, dearest secret, even if that truth pushed him further away. A day or two to think—aye, they both needed that.
*
Perhaps he was wrong to return to Meg’s house on Charlotte Square, but he had promised he would. For good or ill, he had to see her again. Then he would know.
He stood waiting in the foyer, afternoon sun pouring golden heat through from the transom window over the door. For a moment, he nearly turned to leave, but the butler had already gone to deliver the news of his arrival to Lady Strathlin.
In the two days since the soiree, he had pondered never seeing her again. But one matter still needed attention; there was that. Truth was, he could not stay away from her.
Slipping a hand into his pocket, he felt the smooth leather of her journal, with the publisher’s cheque tucked inside.
A woman of such wealth might laugh at that.
He had wrestled for days over the fact of her wealth and status in comparison to his humble, earnest, hardworking existence.
He felt foolish by comparison despite his respectable family, excellent income, and a fine inheritance.
Last night, he had hardly slept, wondering what really mattered.
He loved her. But he did not love feeling fooled or diminished. It came down to an elemental test of character and courage. But he knew what his answer was, deep inside.
He glanced up at soaring, creamy walls and the graceful curve of a staircase that disappeared beyond the upper floor.
Far above, the leaded glass of a roundel window in the high ceiling shed sunlight down the stairs to the foyer.
In the large parlor down the hall, polished wood-and-brocade furnishings were arranged on an expanse of patterned carpet, and a march of stately portraits lined the walls.
Sunlight flowed through glass doors, setting the room aglow.
He admired elegance and simplicity, and saw it throughout here, albeit in expensive materials.
And he realized he might never be able to give Meg MacNeill the sort of home to which she was accustomed.
His engineer’s salary would never support a place like this, nor would the respectable nest egg that he had inherited at a young age, which included his own manse.
He did not visit his family home, Kinnaird House, often enough due to his wandering, hectic life, and had left its primary upkeep to his elder sister, Ellen, and her husband, Patrick Graham.
He shifted from one foot to the other, waiting, wondering at the delay.
Would she refuse to see him, having had time to think it over too?
Perhaps, he thought, he should leave quietly, walk down the hill and over to Prince Street.
He had to catch a train in a little while, and did not have a great deal of time.
He could just leave the journal—write to her—
“Mr. Stewart?”