Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Mary followed her mother out of the dining room as all the ladies left the gentlemen behind to their brandy and cigars.
Servants had opened the double doors at the far end of the drawing room to reveal an additional sitting room.
Why they hadn’t done that earlier when everyone was crowded together like potatoes in a sack, she had no idea.
Of course she didn’t intend to spend much time in there, regardless of whether there was room to exhale or not.
“Mother,” she said, touching the marchioness’s powder-blue sleeve, “please excuse me. I’ll be back shortly.”
Her mother nodded, most of her attention on Lady Penrose and the story she was telling about the massive dining room table. “I’ll save a seat for you, dear. Don’t be long.”
With her heart pounding, she retreated downstairs and left the house through the servants’ entrance across from the stable yard.
She would be in so much trouble if her parents discovered what she was doing and who she was seeing.
It thrilled and terrified her all at the same time.
A heady combination indeed, and that wasn’t even adding in Arran and his intoxicating voice and kisses.
Torches lined the garden paths, and she found the pond with no difficulty.
Golden scales flashed orange in the firelight, and she sat on a bench in the shadows to watch.
Crawford had been convinced that Arran meant to wait until she was alone and then set half of clan MacLawry on her like wolves.
Well, she was alone now, and he knew it.
If he did mean trouble, she would much rather know it.
Except that she did feel like she knew already, or she wouldn’t have ventured outside at all.
To herself she could admit that she felt like the danger, the thrill, surrounded her and excited her, but she herself was safe.
Because she trusted Arran. But was it that excitement that made him so alluring, or the man himself?
It certainly wasn’t thoughts of the future, because the two of them didn’t have one. Not together.
“Did ye know they pass a pot aboot fer all the men to piss in, so no one has to leave the table?” Arran rounded the back of the pond and ducked into the shadows to sit beside her.
She hadn’t even heard him approach. “How did you make your escape, then?”
“I stood up, nodded at my brother, and walked oot the door. He’s being civilized, so he’ll nae leave his new friends to look fer me.” He took her right hand, lifting it to look at her fingers. Slowly he twined his own with hers.
“You shook my father’s hand.”
Arran smiled, the expression heating her insides. “I didnae want him and Ranulf coming to blows. And he has a fine daughter.”
Well, that was very nice of him to say. But she still had some concerns, and if he began kissing her, despite the fact that she was not the sort of lady who swooned at the idea of romance, she would likely forget them.
“It occurs to me,” she said slowly, “that we’re not doing anything but preparing to cause ourselves pain. More pain.”
He cocked his head in that alluring way he had. “Has Delaveer offered fer ye, then?”
“No, but evidently he’s had a jeweler call on him. And his father will be in London on Sunday.”
“That’s two days from now.”
“I know. What about you and the Stewarts?”
“There’s a luncheon tomorrow. It’s nearly settled.”
Another chill ran down her spine. “I’m not ready for the end of … this.”
For a moment he met her gaze, light blue eyes dark in the torchlight.
Out here, even in formal English clothes he looked wild—a Highlander to the heart, merely wearing a civilized jacket and waistcoat because it suited him to do so.
Someone who didn’t care for the Campbell’s approval or a taste of his power, because he had his own. And that was very intoxicating, indeed.
“I dunnae want this to be the last time I set eyes on ye, either, bonny Mary. I dunnae want this to be the last time we talk, or the last time we kiss.” He firmed his grip on her hand. “Will Delaveer be good to ye?”
Mary nodded. “I think he will. He’s not cruel, just … dull.”
“I’ll nae release ye to someone ye dislike or fear. Nae matter the consequences.”
She knew he meant it; she could feel the truth of it in her heart.
And the idea that he would soon be married to lovely Deirdre Stewart troubled her as much as did the thought of her own impending marriage.
Would he think of her? Would he miss her?
She wanted to ask him, but it felt unnecessarily cruel to both of them.
“Well, I daresay we both know married people who live completely separate lives,” she offered, trying to sound lighthearted. “That will be tolerable, I suppose.”
“Tolerable,” he repeated, more harshly. “I’ve known ye but a short while, and I cannae seem to shake ye from my thoughts.
I feel like … I feel like a traitor to my own brother, but then I tell myself that if he can make friends with all the Sasannach and call it reasonable, I can kiss one Campbell and call it desire.
” That slow smile touched his shadowed face again.
“We’ll settle fer ‘tolerable’ tomorrow.”
She wanted to lean against his solid shoulder, and sternly stopped herself.
That would only make parting from him more difficult.
It seemed impossible that a fortnight ago he was just a name, a rogue who brawled, who seduced and abandoned women, and who stood against everything the Campbells favored.
Stories about a faceless monster who in person was nothing at all like she’d feared.
“I know precisely how you feel, Arran, because I keep having that same conversation with myself. I wish … I wish … something.”
“Well, then.” He tilted her chin up with his fingers and kissed her. Heat spun down her spine, delicious and welcome. Part of what they said about him must have been true, because he kissed like sin itself. But they weren’t her kisses. She was stealing them from another woman.
Mary blinked her eyes open and put the flat of her free hand against his chest to push him back. “No more kisses,” she announced, though her gaze didn’t leave his mouth, his slightly parted lips. “This is only making it worse.”
“I know.” He squinted one eye. “I’m bloody frustrated, Mary. And so if ye have an idea, I’m listening.”
She had several ideas, but most of them seemed to end with him being shot on her front step and her being forced to wed Charles Calder. “We shake hands and wish each other happiness.”
“I have a different idea,” he drawled. “We save the fare-ye-wells fer tomorrow, and now I kiss ye again. Ye taste like honey.”
“That’s probably from dinn—”
She couldn’t finish speaking because he covered her mouth with his.
Mm. Mary slid her hands around his shoulders, wanting to be closer to him.
Abruptly he lifted her to sit across his thighs, and she leaned into his muscular frame.
Beneath her bottom he stirred, and heated electricity jolted through her again.
Arran MacLawry didn’t want her because of her pedigree; he wanted her in spite of it.
And that was very arousing. He was very arousing.
And he was correct; good-byes could wait until tomorrow.
“Damn you, Arran MacLawry! Get your bloody hands off my daughter!”
* * *
Arran set Mary on her feet and stepped between her and the voice before he even consciously noted who was shouting.
One hand moving toward the knife in his boot, he faced the Marquis of Fendarrow—and the pistol in the marquis’s hand.
The truce was broken, then. Thanks to him.
Slowly he straightened. With the way the marquis’s hand was wavering, Mary might be injured by accident.
“Mary,” Fendarrow hissed, motioning at her with his free hand, “come here. Now.”
“Father, please put that down before something terrible happens,” she said, her voice tight. Arran felt her palm touch his shoulder then abruptly drop when her father flinched.
“Lass, ye need to move away,” he said calmly. Or he hoped he sounded calm; his mind flew through a dozen different possible outcomes, several of which ended with him dead in a fish pond. “Nae need fer both of us to get shot.”
“There’s no need for anyone to get shot. Father, for heaven’s sake, put that pistol away! Why do you even have one here?”
The lass did move, but only to stand directly beside Arran.
He appreciated the united front, but at the same time she likely wasn’t helping matters.
This wasn’t the part her family wanted her to play.
When shouting began on the carriage drive, Arran clenched his jaw.
The only thing worse than being discovered by her father would be adding his brother into the mix.
For a brief moment he considered making a run for it; Fendarrow likely hadn’t shot at anything but grouse for years, and that wasn’t done with a pistol.
But that would leave Mary to face this mess alone. And a MacLawry didn’t run from a fight.
“Arran!” Ranulf bellowed, skidding into the garden with Uncle Myles on his heels. The entire guest list trotted and skipped and waddled out of the house behind him, Lord Allen and Deirdre with them. And Lord Delaveer. Bloody wonderful.
“What’s all this?” the Earl of Penrose demanded, their host’s stern tone somewhat undercut by the way he stopped several yards away from the fracas.
“Put that damned pistol doon, Fendarrow!” Ranulf ordered. Unlike their dinner party host, he moved directly into the line of fire. His gaze moved from Arran to the Campbell’s granddaughter and back again. “Arran,” he murmured, “ye bloody f—”