Chapter Seven #3
She did not glance in Robert’s direction once, and Robert was amused to discover that her indifference annoyed him, as did the attentions to her of the handsome young man.
He had never given a damn about a woman before, never experienced any sort of jealousy.
This woman, though, was different. This woman was his even if she was not yet aware of it, even if she thought him the very least suitable husband in the world.
He had intended to talk to Lucy again after dinner with some vague idea of what his grandmother might have called wooing, but he was beginning to see that his cause was hopeless if he approached it in the conventional sense.
Lucy was not indifferent to him; she felt their attraction as fiercely as he did, but she was fighting it for reasons of her own.
As far as he could tell, she was averse to marriage with anyone but especially with him.
His honor revolted at the thought of forcing any woman into marriage with him, but for the first time in his life he was facing a choice between his honor and the survival of his clan. He knew which he had to choose.
He did not linger over his port and courteously evaded the efforts of the drawing master to extract a portrait commission from him.
When the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing room, however, Robert saw that Lucy was already leaving.
He wondered if she was retiring early for the night, but there was something purposeful about her that aroused his curiosity.
He gave her a few moments, then discreetly followed her out of the drawing room.
He caught sight of her figure disappearing up the main staircase and along one of the wide upstairs corridors.
When he reached the first floor, she had vanished.
Then a door opened furtively, farther down.
Thoroughly intrigued now, Robert waited.
A maid peered out. Her gaze swept the corridor in both directions and, frowning, fixed on him.
Without giving him the chance to speak, she jerked her head to indicate that he should enter the room.
“You’re early,” she snapped. “My lady is not ready yet. Wait in there.” Another jerk of the head indicated a door on the right.
Robert felt as though someone had dropped a bucket of ice-cold water down his back.
Shock, fierce and wicked, ambushed him. Lucy was expecting a visitor to her rooms, a male visitor.
No wonder she had hurried away from dinner with such alacrity.
No wonder she had looked furtive. That perfectly proper conversation with the handsome artist’s model had evidently been anything but respectable.
They must have been making an assignation.
He was startled by the cold anger that possessed him.
Not a week ago he had sworn he would marry a lightskirt if it would save Methven; he had simply not imagined that the lightskirt would be Lady Lucy MacMorlan.
At Brodrie she had sworn to him that she was innocent.
His instinct had told him she told the truth.
He closed his eyes for a second. The words of the erotic letters danced on his closed lids, mocking him for a fool.
Of course Lady Lucy was not innocent. How could she be?
She had tried to play him before, manipulate him with her charm and her wit.
Deceit ran in her veins and he was a fool to trust her word in anything.
The maid was waiting for him to move, one eyebrow raised in exasperation. “In your own good time,” she said.
Moving automatically, Robert stepped into the dressing room and heard the maid shut the door sharply behind him. Immediately he pressed his ear to the panels. Through the wood he could here the sound of voices, muffled as though underwater.
“The gentleman is here, milady.” The maid spoke as though the word gentleman was, in this case, a vulgar insult. “I have asked him to wait in the dressing room.”
“Thank you.” Lucy sounded her usual serene self. She had definitely been expecting this visitor. Robert felt his heartbeat increase.
There was the sound of rustling and then the maid’s voice once more. “This isn’t right, milady. I know it’s not my place to say so, but I have to speak up.”
“Nonsense, Sheena.” The smoothness in Lucy’s tone was slightly ruffled now. She sounded nervous. “It is medicinal. Lady Kenton recommends it and she is most respectable.”
Medicinal? Robert had heard lovemaking called many things in his time, but medicinal was not one of them.
“I don’t like it,” the maid said. “It’s downright heathen, that’s what it is.”
“Oh, Sheena.” Lucy sounded indulgent. Her voice was fainter as though she had turned away. “No more of your nonsense. Help me to disrobe, please.”
Disrobe? Robert groped for the edge of the dressing table to steady himself.
Lady Lucy MacMorlan was disrobing to welcome a male visitor to her chambers.
His heart was positively galloping now and so was his imagination.
Riotous images of Lucy greeting her lover completely naked hurtled through his mind.
So did visions of Lucy, her body pale against the tangled sheets of her bed, her hair released from the diamond pins and spilling over her shoulders and across her breasts.
He could see her lover beside her, reaching for her. ..
He swore, briefly and fiercely, under his breath.
“Ma’am...” The maid was making one last effort, pleading.
“Bring him in now, please,” Lucy said crisply.
A moment later that the door opened and the maid’s black-gowned figure bustled in. Her cheeks were blazing red and she kept her gaze averted from him.
“Milady says you are to come in,” she snapped, making it clear that if it were her choice Robert would be drummed out of the castle and probably the town, as well.
Robert followed her into the chamber. It was a large room with a huge bay window facing the sea.
The thick velvet curtains were pulled back, and the evening sunlight drifted through the window in a dazzle of gold.
It fell on the woman who was lying on a wide velvet chaise positioned in the center of the bay and burnished her bare skin to rose-gold.
For a moment Robert thought that he had stepped directly into his own fantasy.
Lucy lay on her front with her face turned aside, eyes closed as though she were asleep.
There was a blanket covering her demurely from the waist downward, but above it her back was bare.
It was curved in the same elegant arch as the bay window.
The line of her throat was another pure curve against the velvet cushion, vulnerable and tempting.
Robert wanted to trace the tender indentation of her spine and run his lips over the roundness of one shoulder.
He wanted to drop his lips to the dip in the hollow of her back and taste the skin there.
His throat dried to sawdust. His mind was a jumble of thoughts and images.
The curve of her buttocks and the long line of her legs were visible beneath the silken blanket.
Her arms lay slender and pale by her side.
She did not open her eyes or address him.
He wondered crazily if she was waiting for her lover simply to start making love to her. Then the maid spoke.
“Well?” she said. “Aren’t you going to begin the massage? My lady will catch her death lying there like that whilst you waste time.”
In that moment Robert caught sight of the phial of oil on a table beside the chaise. The scent of lavender, sweet and faint, caught his nostrils. He saw the towel folded over a small wooden-backed chair.
The relief shattered through him.
He had been mistaken for a masseur. It must be another of the Highland Ladies’ extraordinary pastimes.
“Well?” the maid said again.
A gentleman would have explained it was a case of mistaken identity. A gentleman would have stepped back, made his excuses and left.
Robert stepped forward.