Chapter Eleven #2
“I would be very jealous, Irish. And it occurs to me that perhaps you are a selkie-woman, come to bewitch me. You did tell me you grew up by the sea.”
Maura bit back a laugh. “You are hardly bewitched! You find me an annoyance rather than bewitching.”
“I was quite bewitched the night of the masquerade. And if you were to try, you might bewitch me once again.”
Maura’s pulse began to clamor.
“And far more easily than you think,” he added softly.
A dare or a jest? Her breath caught halfway in her throat. Unsettled by his lengthy regard, she wasn’t quite sure what to make of his comment.
“But I would appreciate it if you would let someone know where you are.” He referred to her absence that morning. “I should hate to lose you so soon.”
Maura was annoyed. “I do not take kindly to being told what I may and may not do. Will you place me under watch if I refuse, your grace?”
“Tempt me not,” he said pleasantly.
“Then tell me not.”
A slow smile crept across his lips, “I will tell you this, then, Duchess. If I wished to keep you under lock and key”—his tone was buttery smooth—“it would be in my bedchamber.”
Judging from his half smile, Maura decided it best not to pursue the subject. Ignoring him, she donned her slippers and hose.
Alec offered a hand up.
They were just crossing the stone bridge when he glanced over at her. “It occurs to me I’ve been remiss as a husband.”
He stopped her in her tracks. Maura’s gaze flew up to his. She could think of only one thing in which he had been remiss.
His smile was sly. Damnation! It was as if he traversed a road that led directly into her mind, the rogue!
“Our wedding being as hasty as it was, it occurs to me you had no time to assemble a trousseau.”
Maura blinked. “What?”
“A trousseau. It’s a bride’s—”
“I know very well what it is,” she interrupted. She might as well be blunt. “I have no need of one. I’m an Irish country lass at heart—”
“Who is now the Duchess of Gleneden.”
A pang of guilt shot through her. Well, she wasn’t, but…“Nor am I the sort to put myself on parade like some silly young debutante.”
“Well, of course there’s no need. You’re a married woman now.
But it would please me if you allow it to be my gift to my bride.
” He went on, “I’ve business in Glasgow, and several other matters to attend to.
If we start on our way early tomorrow, we can take the train from Tay into Glasgow.
It’s an excellent place to buy what you need.
Whatever you fancy. Anything you fancy.”
Maura kept her dismay at bay. With him gone, it was the perfect opportunity to search for the Circle!
“Truly, I prefer to remain here. I’ve hardly had the chance to feel at home here at Gleneden.”
“And you have years and years for that, Irish! Besides, what would people think if I left my bride so soon after our wedding? Someone might say I was a neglectful husband.”
Or that she was a neglectful wife.
She took a deep breath. “I really prefer to remain here at Gleneden.”
“Why?” It appeared it was his turn to be blunt.
Maura thrust her chin out. “I know what you are doing,” she said, her voice very low.
“You are testing me. You think I wed you so that I could become a duchess, for the possessions I might gain. But I don’t want your title or your wealth.
Or anything it can buy. In sum, sir, I won’t spend a single shilling of yours. ”
A little voice in her mind reminded her of the candlesticks and such that she’d given Murdoch only that morning.
That was different, argued another voice.
That was payment for what the Black Scotsman had stolen from the McDonough.
That was for the people of McDonough. Not for her.
Not for her own pleasure. She wanted nothing for herself.
“Now that,” Alec remarked dryly, “is simply being foolish. You are a duchess. You must dress accordingly.”
“A pity you find me so lacking, sir. I am sorry to embarrass you so.” The scathing look she bestowed on him was blunted by the tremor of her lips. The admission cost a bit of pride, but she held her head high. Stupidly, she felt the sting of tears burn the back of her throat.
“I said no such thing, Irish, and you know it. It is not a lack of breeding you suffer from.”
He gazed down at her. Gentle as his tone was, she sensed impatience. She chafed at his superior height—and at her inability to read what was in his mind when he saw so keenly into hers.
“And precisely what is it that I suffer from?”
“Merely this, Duchess. I wed a lovely Irish rose. But I’ve discovered my Irish rose has many thorns.”
Maura’s lips tightened. “And I have wed a prickly Scottish thistle.”
Alec lifted his gaze heavenward. “Ah,” said he, “a wife with both beauty and wit. What more could a man ask for?”
“I will not lie. It is how I feel.” Even as she said it, Maura cringed inside. What a hypocrite she was. “I prefer to remain here at Gleneden.”
Alec had leaned a hip against the top of the bridge, his legs crossed leisurely at his ankles, his arms across his chest. A breeze ruffled his dark hair across his forehead, lending him a boyish look.
But there was nothing boyish about the rest of him.
His shirt was unbuttoned, revealing a wedge of dark, hair-roughened chest. Maura felt her mouth go dry.
He said nothing, merely gazed at her, and all at once she recalled the feel of her lips trapped beneath his the night of the masquerade.
So warm, so hotly persuasive. Sternly, she checked the thought.
“Did you hear me, sir?”
“I heard you,” he said mildly. “Nonetheless, you may wish to make an early evening of it. We’ll be leaving at dawn, and I should hate to have to come help your maid in getting you dressed, particularly when I would much rather assist you in getting undressed.
But”—a slow smile crept along his lips—“I am happy to render assistance in either case.”
The cad! So he thought he had won, did he? He delighted in tormenting her. Everything about him—his almost lazy demeanor, that devilish smile that now curled his lips—proclaimed his smugness. She chafed at his self-righteousness.
Yet clearly he could not be persuaded otherwise.
“Very well, then, Scotsman. If it’s my company you wish in Glasgow, you shall have it.”
He offered his arm. “Excellent. I’m glad I was able to persuade you. I should hate the thought of being in Glasgow pining for my wife.”
Pining, was it? Ha!
She smothered a biting retort just in time.
Better to risk one battle, she reminded herself, than lose the war.