Chapter Three #2
“My late husband,” she said quietly.
“Ah.” He nodded. “My condolences.”
She tipped her head in gracious silence.
“I never met the artist,” he said. “My father and I saw the painting at the Royal Academy when it was exhibited, and my father decided to buy it.”
“That was just before Stephen died.” Aware of MacBride’s steady gaze, she could not look at him. Tilting her head slightly away from him, she studied the painting in silence.
“It is beautiful,” he said.
“I was younger then. And a bit embonpoint,” she added, referring to her lush, rounded form in the painting.
“A curvaceous and beautiful young lass.”
“A foolish lass.” She turned away. Sir Aedan set a hand to her elbow. Odd how his touch felt so natural, she thought. Being alone with him felt natural too, not scandalous. The welcome of familiarity, yet with an edge of danger in what was yet unknown.
“You dislike the painting,” he murmured.
“It reminds me of what came after. And it is—frankly rather embarrassing.” She felt the sudden tingle of tears forming, and lifted her head. “I have aged and changed. I do not remember ever looking quite like that.”
“May I?” Reaching up, he slid her eyeglasses free and set them aside.
Blinking at the slight blur of his firelit features, she did not protest. She wanted his thoughts, his attention.
Her weak eyesight softened his appearance, but as he bent toward her, his face clarified in its hard beauty.
She thought again of a warrior angel, protective, powerful, stunning in aura, form, and countenance.
He glanced toward the framed painting and back to her.
“The earlier version has a pleasing roundness in the limbs, aye, but the features are identical. An elegant, classic, quiet sort of beauty. And the later version…” He touched her jaw with his fingers as if she were a statue and he an art critic.
He tilted her face and her heart leaped.
“The later version?” she asked, almost laughing. “I am the original version.”
“I knew her before I knew you. Hush. There is refinement in face and figure now. Perhaps too thin, though the graceful bone structure is enhanced. The earlier version is lush and wild and passionate. She is a dream. A legend. The later version has an honest beauty, simple and uncommon. And a vibrancy that is quiet but very attractive.”
Spellbound, she waited, pulse quickening as he tilted her cheek with his fingers.
“The first image has innocence and wildness, but there is something… sad there. And the later girl is cautious. There is a touch of sadness. The mouth is wary.” His fingertip glided over her bottom lip.
Her knees faltered. “Cautious, aye. Afraid someone might try to—”
“Kiss her?” His fingers stilled on her chin. “I am more of a gentleman than that.”
She drew a breath. Her heart pounded. “I know.”
“Shall I go on?”
She nodded, feeling caught in a dangerous, delicious, secret game.
“The girl in the painting is a sensual creature, yet immature. She knows love but not life. She is lost and tragic.”
“She is a tragic princess. From a legend. Lost in briars.”
“She is. But she has something the latter princess hides. A sort of…blissfulness.”
“Happiness,” she blurted. “She was happy then, for a while. She was adored.”
“She should always be adored.” His fingers traced her cheek.
Caught by his sultry magic, she closed her eyes, felt swamped by loneliness. Then she stepped away, yanked her yearning heart back to its cage.
“I am sorry,” she said. “This was a mistake.”
“Was it?” He picked up her spectacles and handed them to her. “Sorry.”
“A silly game.” She straightened the metal frames on her nose. “A fun little game, like an apres-diner amusement.”
“Perhaps I shall suggest it to Cousin Amy, who loves after-dinner games. She will have everyone scrutinizing each other over coffee and brandy. Mrs. Blackburn, you did not share your assessment of the earlier and later versions.” He tipped a brow expectantly.
“One is a painted rendition of a sleeping beauty,” she said crisply. “A vision of innocence and untried passion. The other… is a plain and dull little woman. All they have in common is the shape of the face, the color of the hair.”
“You do not see it, do you,” he murmured.
“See what?”
“How lovely you are. How intriguing. How intelligent, I might add. There is sharp awareness in her eyes—and in yours.”
She glanced away. “She is a confection, a fictional image, made from pots of paint and the artist’s imagination. But just for a moment—she made me seem beautiful, when I am not. It was—that part was nice, I admit.” She shrugged.
His steady gaze, the crinkling around his eyes, showed how carefully he listened. She saw his subtle expressions—a tilt of the head, a tightening of the lips, a flicker in the eyes. He seemed bemused and yet sympathetic.
“You need a new mirror, Mrs. Blackburn. You are far finer than that painting, now I see you. And I have looked at that painting for years. I greatly admire that woman. Damn,” he muttered, shaking his head. “That did not come out right.”
She laughed reluctantly. “I asked my husband to never exhibit or sell that painting, and he gave me his word. But he showed it and sold it. I cannot change that now—unless you would agree to sell it to me. Though I doubt I could afford it.”
“I would never sell it. The briar maiden belongs here.”
“I see. Let me pass, sir.” She gathered her skirts, but he took a step to block her way.
“Before you storm out, all righteous fire and indignation, hear me out.” He frowned down at her.
“I do not keep the painting just to look at her, Mrs. Blackburn.” He stood so close that she tipped back her head as he spoke.
“And I do not question your morals or modesty because you were the model. She belongs here,” he finished.
She felt that righteous fire rise in her. “Why hide her in your private rooms? She is as captive in your possession as she is in that painting. In those—briars and roses.”
“Exactly. One reason is that it is a beautiful painting, and I appreciate that. The other reason,” he went on, “has to do with a local legend about a girl in a briarwood in ancient days. A sleeping beauty, if you will. It simply reminds me of that. So I have always felt that she belongs here at Dundrennan.” He shrugged as if it were incidental rather than important.
But his eyes, blue stars, were dark and keen, and Christina felt the pull again.
“A legend? I would—sir, why do you look at me so?” The words burst out.
“How is that?”
“As if you care for me and would…”
“Kiss you?”
“Devour me.”
He laughed softly at that. “Not at all. Just—fascinated to see the likeness. That is all.”
“Is it?” She could not move, but she did not feel entrapped. She felt—enraptured. Keenly, oddly drawn, as if something desperate in her wanted to reach out to him.
“Just that, Mrs. Blackburn,” he murmured. For a moment she thought he might indeed kiss her, as if she saw the thought flash in his eyes, in his downward glance, the sweep of his eyelids and long lashes as he half closed his eyes.
Feeling as if dreamy power took her, she leaned toward him, closing her eyes.
“Mrs. Blackburn,” he whispered. Just that.
Without answer, she lifted her chin in unconscious assent.
She did not know whose lips touched first, but when his brushed hers, warm and tender, she melted.
Her hands slid up his arms, tightly muscled under his sleeves as his lips caressed hers.
The kiss was dreamlike, magical, swift as sunlight spilling out and vanishing.
Then logic overtook whatever wild force stirred. She pushed him away, and he stepped back, hands raised for an instant.
“Sir,” she said. “I do not know—”
“Nor do I,” he said. “We must get you upstairs to rest.”
“Aye. But—I am not—please do not think me—wanton because of the painting.”
“Not at all.” He swept an arm to guide her toward the door, reached for a candle burning it a dish, and opened the door. She stepped out on the landing ahead of him.
“Madam,” he said, his voice quiet in the darkness, his face glowing and hollowed by candlelight to hard, spare, masculine perfection, softened by the beautiful indigo eyes, the tender mouth hers had tasted. “That was my fault entirely. It will never happen again.”
She nodded in silence. Never? Her body still thrummed. She wanted that kiss to happen again, very much, and could hardly allow herself to think it.
Turning with a sweep of skirt hems, she took hold of the rope banister and stepped up. Her ankle’s stabbing protest made her wince, and she took the next step gingerly.
“May I help? We cannot have you fall again.” His hand cupped her elbow, and they went up carefully, step by step, in silence.
*
Never again, he had promised. But he wanted to kiss her again, and never stop. Desire drove hard through him, startling in its demand. Aedan fought it with cool reason and the customary shield he kept over self and heart. He escorted her politely, slowly up the stairs, feeling like a cad.
He was at a loss to explain what had come over him.
Finding himself alone with the woman whose painted image had taken hold of his imagination was hardly enough to override his usual caution in most matters.
He was not one to give rein to fancy. Still, something powerful drew him to this young woman, and he had to be careful.
The girl had come too damn close to tapping his dreams and his tightly held reserve. The only woman he had ever yearned for lived safely in a painting, but now she was here.
As laird of Dundrennan now, he could not risk allowing himself to fall in love, plain and simple.
The old family curse declared that love dangerous for the laird—and the woman he loved.
He would not knowingly put a woman in that position, and so he was determined never to marry.
His predecessors had married of course, had families and heirs.
From what he knew of the family tree, many wives had died in childbirth or otherwise, and one calamity after another had befallen Dundrennan. That had to end somehow.
From what he knew, only those who did not especially love their spouses had come through the years without disaster.
His parents had not been very fond of each other, despite years together, despite the children they conceived.
His father had mistresses and his mother kept a limited existence, icy with her husband, but loving to her children.
Aedan did not want to endure the strain of such a relationship.
For him, it would be love—a true, deep love for his wife, their children, their life together—or nothing.
That decision was safe, and he was not inclined to change his mind.
Let his brothers have loving marriages and children.
They were not the lairds of the estate, but could continue the line.
Ah, but Christina Blackburn—she did not fit his plan, not in the least. For years, her image had fascinated him, but it was a pale reflection of the woman.
Mrs. Blackburn might hide behind spectacles and dull colors, but real fire hid in her smoldering gaze and sensual presence.
He wanted far more than to kiss her. He wanted to awaken the enchantress.
But that was a risk he could never afford.
Distracted by his thoughts, he nearly stumbled on the next step as Christina Blackburn reached the upper landing and stopped. She set her hand to the door handle just as he reached past her to unlatch the old iron mechanism.
Their hands touched. It felt like warm, gentle, much-needed lightning.
“Your door, Mrs. Blackburn,” he said, pushing the door open, which swung into the room. As he reached, his chest met her shoulder in the small space of the platform. More lightning.
“Good night,” she said, stepping into the dark room. She turned toward him, adjusted her spectacles, and began to speak, but closed her lips on it. Her eyes were large, limpid, filled with something unsaid.
God, how he wanted to kiss her again. Falling in love had nothing to do with it, he told himself.
What if a kiss could dissolve the spell the briar maiden painting held over him?
What if one more kiss could prove that he felt only lust, and nothing more?
Lust he could master. But he struggled against the deep, heartfelt feeling that pulled him to her.
It felt like love, like destiny. Yet he hardly knew her. He had to master that, too.
“Well,” he said, and he cleared his throat. “If you take these stairs again, wear more sensible shoes. I would not want to think you might fall without anyone knowing. We were fortunate this time,” he added.
“Thank you for your help.” Her chin lifted. “I will be careful.”
“You could take the main stairs to the library,” he murmured.
“I could,” she said. “Or I can be very careful on this one.”
“It is a wicked medieval staircase. I should have it closed off.”
“I rather like it, though,” she said.
He smiled. “Then I will leave it open for Mrs. Blackburn to take with great care.”
She nodded with a full smile. It was dimpled and impish, unexpectedly so, lending a touch of whimsy to her beauty. He caught his breath.
As she shut the door, he turned and went quickly and surely down the old steps he had taken all his life.