Chapter Sixteen
“YOU ARE UP EARLY.” Jack strolled into the breakfast parlor, where Robert had just finished his meal, and glanced ostentatiously at the clock.
“Well, you did tell me it was a match of convenience, I suppose.” He slid into a seat and reached for the coffeepot.
“You look rough,” he added, with mock sympathy. “Uncomfortable night?”
Robert glared at him. “I’m up early because there is much to do before we are ready to sail for Golden Isle.”
Jack grinned, unabashed. “Of course. And all of it more important than seducing your wife.”
Robert threw down his paper with a bad-tempered slap. “I told you last night to mind your own damned business,” he growled. He stood up. “You’ll find me at the harbor. When you have stopped wasting time.”
He went out. The May morning was bitterly chill, but he welcomed the cold. It helped to clear his head and subdue other parts of his body. He liked the early morning when the light was still rising and the air was fresh. It was a time he had always relished.
It was a time that now gave him the chance to think about Lucy.
As he strode through the quiet streets of the awakening town, he thought of the way she had responded to his kisses, the way she had kissed him back, and touched him with innocent curiosity and delight.
She had been half-seduced, until her memories had turned her cold and driven her from the bed.
He had seen how it had happened, watched her withdraw into herself and reerect all the barriers she had used to protect herself in the past. Well, he was going to tear down those walls.
He could not allow the tragedy of the past to destroy their future.
As he turned the corner down to the quayside, the wind buffeted him fiercely.
It had chased all the clouds away, and out to sea he could see Golden Isle floating on the horizon.
He squared his shoulders. He had married Lucy to save his inheritance, and the isle was a part of that.
The previous night he had been brought hard and fast to see his responsibilities. He would not shirk them now.
He spent all day at the quayside loading provisions for the voyage, talking further to McCall about conditions on Golden Isle and discussing with Jack the plan to lure Wilfred Cardross into a trap.
Eventually, when the cold sun had sunk behind the mountains to the west, he walked back to the inn with Jack, aware of exhaustion in his limbs, conscious that he had pushed himself to the extreme of physical exertion in order to block out all else.
One look at Lucy was sufficient to bring back every one of those frustrations.
She was sitting in the firelit parlor, talking in a low voice to her sister as they finished their evening meal together.
They had evidently been shopping, for Lucy was wearing a new gown.
Even Robert, not precisely versed in the ways of fashion, could see that it became her tremendously.
It was a rich, deep brown, threaded with gold, with a low neckline that framed in pretty white lace the upper curve of her breasts.
Her red hair was piled up on her head, but tendrils escaped to curl against her neck.
It looked as though she had been painted in autumn colors, vivid and bright.
Unlike the previous day, when she had been pale and strained in her wedding gown, now she glowed, her eyes a deep sapphire blue in the shadows.
Beside him, he heard Jack give a low whistle of appreciation. Lady Mairi, Robert thought, looked as though she welcomed that as little as he did. He gave Jack a glare while Mairi stood up in a rustle of silk.
“You are back at last,” she said, her tone making it clear that she thought Robert had shamefully neglected his bride. “You must forgive us for taking dinner without you. We were hungry.”
She slipped past them, taking care to keep as much distance from Jack as she could, even, Robert was amused to see, moving her skirts carefully out of the way so that they did not brush against him.
A moment later Jack seemed to pull himself together with a jerk and walked off after her. Robert closed the door behind them.
Lucy had got to her feet too. For all her elegance, the expression in her eyes was uncertain. Robert remembered the previous night, when she had told him she did not know how to be a wife, and felt a pang of tenderness.
“There is plenty of the beef left,” she offered. “If you are hungry.”
Robert was starving, but there was something he preferred to do first. He crossed the room to her, caught her in his arms and kissed her.
He sensed the surprise in her and the slightest hint of resistance.
Then she made a startled sound in the back of her throat and he felt that resistance melt and she kissed him back.
It was almost enough to make him forswear his dinner in the need to take her upstairs and make love to her.
With an effort he hauled himself back from the brink and released her.
Hell, if he gave in to his desires, he would terrify her anew and the small amount of progress they had made would be completely undone.
“I should wash too,” he said gruffly, “and eat.”
She nodded. Her cheeks were rosy red, her eyes bright as stars. She chewed her bottom lip between her teeth, watching him. Robert smothered a groan as he felt his body tighten to near intolerable tension. He groped for the doorknob, needing to put distance between them.
“I’ll just...” He waved a hand vaguely, reversing from the room, almost colliding with Isobel, who was coming the other way with a tray of food. He apologized, cursing himself for a clumsy fool. One way and another, his wife was tying him in knots.
He could see Lucy looking at him, a tiny frown between her eyebrows, as though she was worried about him.
“Are you feeling quite all right?” She took a step toward him, reaching out. He jerked back from her.
“Nothing that some hot food will not remedy.”
Her hand fell to her side. “Of course.” She smiled at Isobel, dropped him a flawless curtsy and went out.
Robert ran a hand through his hair, cursing himself anew.
He would far rather Lucy had stayed to talk to him even if there had been a danger he would have fallen on her rather than on his meal.
Now he had upset her, confused her perhaps.
Truth was, he was feeling so very on edge himself that he was doing nothing to reassure her.
He threw himself down into his seat and attacked the beef bad-temperedly. Who knew that this marriage business would be so damned difficult?
* * *
LUCY PACED HER bedchamber. Mairi had helped her to change for bed—in the absence of a maid they helped each other—and now she was wishing she had asked her sister to stay.
Any company would have been welcome. She had picked up her book and tried to read again, but the words seemed to make no sense.
She could not concentrate. All she could think was that she had no idea why Robert had kissed her so deliciously and then backed away from her as quickly.
That morning he had sworn he would not allow her to place barriers between the two of them, and although she was trembling inside, she had been willing enough to try to make a leap of faith.
For the sake of her marriage and the future of the Methven estates, she knew they could not live locked into separate, barren existences.
She could feel a tiny part of her heart opening each day, shedding a hint of light.
She trusted Robert not to hurt her. That was a start.
So she had been prepared for him to come to her tonight and to take things a little further than they had done before.
And then he had flinched from her as though she were a plague carrier.
Men. She had absolutely no understanding of them, and at the current rate of progress she would never have any.
She heard steps on the stair and jumped to her feet. The floorboards creaked on the landing; she heard the low exchange of words as Robert bid good-night to his cousin. She waited. She realized she was holding her breath.
The door of the room opposite closed, the latch dropping with a decisive click.
There was silence. Lucy sat down again in the armchair.
She could hear nothing but the ticking of the clock on the chest and the crackle of the fire, loud in her ears.
Her fingers dug into the velvet of the arms as she waited, as the tension ratcheted up inside her.
Time passed. Her bare feet grew chilled.
He was not going to come to her. He was not even going to bid her good-night.
Quickly, before she could think, before she allowed herself to be afraid, she banked down the fire and grabbed the candle from the stand.
She opened the door and stepped out onto the landing.
Chill draughts wreathed about her ankles and set her shivering.
She tiptoed across the landing and knocked lightly on the door of Robert’s chamber and, without waiting for a summons, walked in.
He was sprawled in the chair before the fire, a glass of brandy at his elbow. He looked up at her and he did not smile. Decidedly he was not pleased to see her.
This was a mistake.
The frightened kick of her heart almost sent her straight back through the open door, but some imp of stubbornness drove her on instead.
“You did not come to bid me good-night,” she said. She shut the door, placed the candle carefully on the dresser. “Only this morning you said you would fight for a future for us, yet now you shun me.”
There was a silence so long that for a moment she thought he was not going to answer her. Then his gaze lifted to hers. It was a very bright, glittering blue. She wondered if he was drunk, and her heart skipped a whole beat.