Chapter 20
It was like having a bucket of cold water dumped over one’s head, Melody reflected. She swallowed hard, trying to steady herself. Her legs refused to stay still, and she was terrified her knees would jackknife without warning, folding up and depositing her unceremoniously on the floor.
“What?” she quavered at last. “Why was it a mistake?”
Callum rose to his feet, backing away from her. Raking a hand through his hair, he turned away before she could get a good look at his face. It would be sensible to walk forward, probably, to touch his arm. To say something.
But Melody could not quite make herself move forward or suggest any of this. Instead, she stayed where she was, pressed against the wall, the last thrums of pleasure just starting to fade away.
“What have I done?” Callum whispered, so quietly she barely heard it. It was probably not a comment meant for her to hear.
Abruptly, he turned back to face her. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to see on his face. Anger, perhaps, or shame.
Instead, he flashed a faint smile and tilted his head.
“Ye daenae seem upset.”
“Upset? No, of course not. You say that it was a mistake… well, if that is a mistake, I’d be happy to make a few more with you.”
He gave a huff of laughter. “I can imagine so. What am I goin’ to do with ye, lassie?”
She lifted her chin. “Marry me, I suppose.”
“Good Lord.”
“No, I mean it! I have explained my reasons, and I believe that you are clever enough to understand them. Besides, after all that, it would be the respectable thing to do.”
“Ye seem to care a good deal about respectability.”
“When it suits me.”
He chuckled again, shaking his head. For a moment, in the firelight, with his face free of its usual scowl, he seemed much younger than before.
Callum stepped forward, hand outstretched. She half expected another searing kiss, but instead he cupped her cheek, leaned in, and pressed his lips faintly to her forehead. The touch was the chaste kiss, the sort one would give a particularly troublesome great-aunt. Melody’s heart sank further.
“Perhaps we will marry, after all,” he said at last. “But nay more mistakes, lass.”
She bit her lip. “None at all? I don’t understand. Did I not do well?”
He pulled back, frowning at her. “What do ye mean?”
“Just that you did extremely well—not that I have anything to compare it to—whereas I simply…Well, I just stood there, didn’t I?
I didn’t do much. The only reasons for that, you see, is that I didn’t know what to do.
I haven’t ever been kissed before, except by you, so all of this is very new to me, and I just… ”
“Lass…”
She plowed on, determined to get out the little speech spooling in her head.
“I just think that with a little practice, or perhaps a few suggestions, I could be good at making mistakes. It’s not entirely fair for you to do all the work while I do nothing. I’m more than willing to make some mistakes of my own if you’d only tell me what…”
“Lass. Lass. Melody.”
He stepped forward, cupping her face in his hands. The gesture slowed her babble—she was secretly relieved to stop talking—and forced her to look up at him.
“Ye misunderstand me,” he murmured gently. “I am nae upset, or disappointed, or anythin’ like that. I enjoyed meself, and I daenae care to sit back and let my partner do all the work when it comes to mistakes. Frankly, I am a man who likes to make things happen himself. I like to take charge.”
For some reason, taking charge sent another pulse of heat through Melody’s gut. She swallowed, waiting for him to continue.
“The reason this cannae continue,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “is because I daenae want children.”
She took a moment to absorb this. In her experience, many people in society did not like children.
Maybe they loved their own, but nothing they said or did made her believe they liked children.
However, they all intended to have children.
One had to have children, after all. They naturally followed marriage, and one needed heirs and whatnot, to say nothing of children to care for one in one’s old age.
She’d never heard somebody state so plainly that they did not want children.
“But what we did…” she hazarded, after a moment. “It will not result in children. Will it?”
He bit the corner of his mouth. She had the feeling that he was trying to hold back a smile.
“Nay, lass. Nae unless it’s a miracle akin to Jesus’ birth.”
“Well, then, I’m not sure I get what you mean.”
“Well, with these mistakes, one thing leads to another. If I let myself touch ye, Melody, I daenae ken if I can control myself. And then we might find ourselves in a situation where a child comes. I will nae let that happen, nor tempt myself. So, nay more mistakes. Nay more risks.”
He released her face, taking a step back. Melody swallowed, resisting the urge to touch her own cheek again.
“Why not? Why don’t you want children?”
He sighed, glancing away. “I have nay need of an heir. See, this is why I daenae want to wed ye. It is nae because I daenae like ye; it’s because if ye marry me, ye will miss out on many things that women want.
Ye want an ordinary husband who cares for ye, a man who’ll give ye children.
That is nae me. Ye ought to go home and find yerself a nice, respectable Englishman who wants a strappin’ heir and a few spares. ”
“Oh,” Melody managed weakly.
He picked up the wooden horse and pushed it into her hands.
“Go on, lass. Get yerself back to yer room. Go to bed, and think on what I’ve said, aye?”
There seemed to be no choice but to let him usher her toward the doorway. Melody paused, the steep stairway opening up before her, and twisted around to look back at him. Callum had already moved back into the room and stood in front of the fire, staring down at it.
“For what it’s worth,” she said at last, causing him to glance up at her. “I don’t believe that a respectable Englishman could have made a ‘mistake’ feel quite as good as that. You have been very clear on what you want, but I am not sure you’ve considered what I might want.”
He made no response. Cheeks burning, Melody half-scrambled, half-fell down the staircase.
He didn’t come after her.
Melody’s hands were shaking when she pushed the door closed behind her.
With a shuddering exhale, she placed the wooden horse he’d made for her down on the table and her paper beside it.
She must have dropped her pencil somewhere, as it was gone.
She had no intention of rifling through the dark halls to find it again.
At some point, she must have tightened her fist with the paper still in it, and now the blank sheets were crumpled and creased.
She smoothed them out, one by one. She’d left a single candle burning for herself when she left her room before, and now it was nearly burned out.
Only the stub was left, guttering pathetically and filling the room with a dancing, irregular light that threatened to go out at any moment.
There was no fire, as before, and the air was cold and still.
How could he do that to me? How could he kiss me and touch me as if I mattered, and then turn around and tell me that it was a mistake, and that I ought to find a respectable Englishman? What am I to him?
The answer came at once, and Melody closed her eyes tight against it.
I am a diversion. A temporary solution to a problem.
Perhaps he was right. Perhaps if they married, Melody’s life would be nothing but misery. He would never be cruel, of course, and being the lady of a keep such as this was a fine prospect.
But could I manage being so close to him, day in, day out, and not touch him? Not call him mine, not truly? Would it not be like a sort of torture?
Now, that was a heavy word. Torture. Would it really feel that way to not have Callum as her own?
Listlessly, she drew up a stool and sat hunched over, staring into the empty hearth.
There was more to romance, she knew, than fluffy words of love, just as there was more to romance than plain lust and tangled bedsheets.
Victoria had been the one to explain the ways of men and women to her. It was an awkward, halting talk, and one that Melody had not truly understood. As she grew a little older, she’d heard snippets of conversation and learned enough to know the mechanics of such a thing.
She’d never given it much thought before.
None of the respectable ladies she knew did.
The act had once described in her hearing as ‘a troublesome but necessary thing, rather dull at best’.
The woman in question, a middle-aged dowager offering advice to her younger niece, had claimed that such a thing was necessary for children and therefore security, and that her niece could expect it not to be troubled with such nonsense as she grew older.
There had never been any suggestion, not even the tiniest inkling, that it could be like that. The way Callum had touched her, kissed her, made her feel so… so…
Weightless.
That was the word. As though she were flying, as though she were not touching the ground at all. As though it were only her, Callum, and the air around them.
Well, there would be no repeat of it. He’d made that clear.
On impulse, Melody bounced to her feet, hurrying over to the drawer where she kept her sketching things. She took out a fresh pencil, not caring that it was blunt, and rushed back to her crumpled paper.
The nib of the pencil skittered over the page.
What was it that Callum said about wood-carving and sculpting? That one simply sees the shape within the material and sets to work carving it out.
I wonder if drawing is the same. If one simply adjusts lines on a piece of paper to make the picture draw breath.
A figure appeared in her drawing. A man, broad-shouldered and powerfully built, with hair tangled around his face. He knelt, peering up at the viewer. The lines around him were somewhat hasty and vague, but that did not matter. The focus was on his face.
There was an odd expression on his face, in fact. While shadows played disconcertingly over his face, hiding his true expression, there was something hopeful, almost wistful, in his eyes. His lips were parted, and there was… yes, there was longing in his expression.
Or perhaps his expression would change depending on the viewer’s mood, or the light in the room, or something foolish. Perhaps the loving Callum depicted in the drawing was just as much a figment of Melody’s imagination as the real one.
She leaned back with a ragged sigh, letting the pencil fall out of her hand. It fell nib-first, and she had no need to look to know that the wood had likely cracked, the tip splintered. She’d be dealing with broken nibs for the rest of that pencil’s lifetime.
Who am I fooling? Callum does not care for me, no matter how often I draw such a thing in his face. He could not have been clearer. Why do I refuse to listen?
She looked down at the sketch once more, and this time it annoyed her.
She saw each flaw—a smudge in the corner, a slight difference in his eyes, a careless line that made it look as though his ear were cut in two.
It was a bad picture, a foolish one, and certainly nothing she could show anyone to prove that Laird MacDean was no monster.
Suddenly furious, Melody snatched up the drawing. She had no energy to tear it into pieces—and anyway, she would have to pick up the scattered pieces afterward—so she simply crumpled it into a tight ball and tossed it away.
The movement disturbed the air, and the candle, already on the brink of being extinguished, guttered one last time and went out entirely, plunging her into darkness.
A fitting end to a thoroughly miserable day.