… absolutely.
—from Michael Stirling to his mother, Helen, three years after his departure for India
The following morning was, to the best of Francesca’s recollection, quite the worst of recent memory.
All she wanted to do was cry, but even that seemed beyond her. Tears were for the innocent, and that was an adjective that she could never again use to describe herself.
She hated herself this morning, hated that she’d betrayed her heart, her every last principle, all for a spot of wicked passion.
She hated that she had felt desire for a man other than John, and really hated that the desire had gone beyond anything she’d felt with her husband. Her marriage bed had been one of laughter and passion, but nothing, nothing could have prepared her for the wicked thrill she had felt when Michael had placed his lips to her ear and told her all the naughty things he wanted to do with her.
Or for the explosion that had followed, when he’d made good on his promises.
She hated that this had all happened, and she hated that it had happened with Michael, because somehow that made it all seem triply wrong.
And most all, she hated him because he’d asked her permission, because every step of the way, even as his fingers had teased her mercilessly, he had made sure she was willing, and now she could never claim that she’d been swept away, that she’d been powerless against the force of her own passion.
And now it was the morning after, and Francesca realized that she could no longer differentiate between coward and fool, at least not as the terms pertained to herself.
She clearly was both, quite possibly with an immature thrown in for bad measure.
Because all she wanted to do was run.
She could face up to the consequences of her actions. Truly, that was what she should do.
But instead, just like before, she fled.
She couldn’t really leave Kilmartin; she’d just got there, after all, and unless she was prepared to carry her northward flight straight past the Orkney Islands into Norway, she was stuck where she was.
But she could leave the house, which was precisely what she did at the first streaks of dawn, and this after her pathetic performance the night before,
when she’d stumbled out of the rose drawing room some ten minutes after her intimacies with Michael, mumbling incoherencies and apologies, only to barricade herself in her bedroom for the rest of the evening.
She didn’t want to face him yet.
Heaven above, she didn’t think she could.
She, who had always prided herself on her cool and level head, had been reduced to a stammering idiot, mut-tering to herself like a bedlamite, terrified to face the one man she quite obviously couldn’t avoid forever.
But if she could avoid him for one day, she told herself, that was something. And as for tomorrow—Well, she could worry about tomorrow some other time. Tomorrow, maybe. For now all she wanted to do was run from her problems.
Courage, she was now quite certain, was a vastly overrated virtue.
She wasn’t sure where she wanted to go; anywhere that could be termed out would probably do, any spot where she could tell herself that the odds of running into Michael were slim indeed.
And then, because she was quite convinced that no higher power was inclined to show her benevolence ever again, it began to rain an hour into her hike, starting first as a light sprinkle but quickly developing into a full- fledged downpour. Francesca huddled under a wide-limbed tree for shelter, resigned to wait out the rain, and then finally, after twenty minutes of shifting her weight from foot to foot, she just sat her bottom down onto the damp earth, cleanliness be hanged.
She was going to be here for some time; she might as well be comfortable, since she wasn’t going to be either warm or dry.
And of course, that was how Michael found her, just short of two hours later.
Good God, it figured he’d look for her. Couldn’t a man be counted on to behave like a cad when it truly mattered?
“Is there room for me under there?” he called out over the rain. “Not for you and your horse,” she grumbled.
“What was that?” “No!” she yelled.
He didn’t listen to her, of course, and nudged his mount under the tree, loosely tying the gelding to a low branch after he’d hopped down.
“Jesus, Francesca,” he said without preamble. “What the hell are you doing out here?”
“And good day to you, too,” she muttered.
“Do you have any idea how long I’ve been looking for you?”
“About as long as I’ve been huddled under the tree, I imagine,” she retorted. She supposed she should be glad that he’d come to rescue her, and her shivering limbs were just itching to leap onto his horse and ride away, but the rest of her was still in a foul mood and quite willing to be contrary just for the sake of being, well, contrary.
Nothing could put a woman in worse spirits than a nice bout of self- derision.
Although, she thought rather peevishly, he was certainly not blameless in the debacle that was last night. And if he assumed that her litany of panicked, after-the-fact I’m sorrys the night before meant that she’d absolved him of guilt, he was quite mistaken.
“Well, let’s go, then,” he said briskly, nodding toward his mount. She kept her gaze fixed over his shoulder. “The rain is letting up.”
“In China, perhaps.” “I’m quite fine,” she lied.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Francesca,” he said in short tones, “hate me all you want, but don’t be an idiot.”
“It’s too late for that,” she said under her breath.
“Maybe so,” he agreed, demonstrating annoyingly superior hearing, “but I’m damned cold, and I want to go home. Believe what you will, but right now I have a far greater desire for a cup of tea than I do for you.”
Which should have reassured her, but instead all she wanted to do was hurl a rock at his head.
But then, perhaps just to prove that her soul wasn’t immediately headed for a toasty locale, the rain did let up, not all the way, but enough to lend a hint of truth to her lie.
“The sun will be out in no time,” she said, motioning to the drizzle. “I’m fine.”
“And do you plan to lie in the middle of the field for six hours until your dress dries off?” he drawled. “Or do you just prefer a slow, lingering case of lung fever?”
She looked him straight in the eye for the first time. “You are a horrible man,” she said.
He laughed. “Now that is the first truthful thing you’ve said all morning.” “Is it possible you don’t understand that I wish to be alone?” she countered.
“Is it possible you don’t understand that I wish for you not to die of pneumonia? Get on the horse, Francesca,” he ordered, in much the same tone she imagined he’d used on his troops in France. “When we are home you may feel free to lock yourself in your room—for a full two weeks, if it so pleases you—but for now, can we just get the hell out of the rain?”
It was tempting, of course, but even more than that, damned irritating because he was speaking nothing but sense, and the last thing she wanted just now was for him to be right about anything. Especially because she had a sinking feeling she needed more than two weeks to get past what had happened the evening before.
She was going to need a lifetime.
“Michael,” she whispered, hoping she might be able to appeal to whichever side of him took pity on pathetic, quivering females, “I can’t be with you right now.”
“For a twenty-minute ride?” he snapped. And then, before she had the presence of mind to even yelp in irritation, he’d hauled her to her feet, and then off her feet, and then onto his horse.
“Michael!” she shrieked.
“Sadly,” he said in a dry voice, “not said in the same tones I heard from you last night.”
She smacked him.
“I deserved that,” he said, mounting the horse behind her, and then doing a devilish wiggle until she was forced by the shape of the saddle to settle partially onto his lap, “but not as much as you deserve to be horsewhipped for your foolishness.”
She gasped.
“If you wanted me to kneel at your feet, begging for your forgiveness,” he said, his lips scandalously close to her ear, “you shouldn’t have behaved like an idiot and run off in the rain.”
“It wasn’t raining when I left,” she said childishly, letting out a little “Oh!” of surprise when he spurred the horse into motion.
Then, of course, she wished she had something else to hold onto for balance besides his thighs.
Or that his arm wasn’t wrapped quite so tightly around her, or so high on her ribcage. Good God, her breasts were practically sitting on his forearm.
And never mind that she was nestled quite firmly between his legs, with her backside butted right up against—
Well, she supposed the rain was good for one thing. He had to be shriveled and cold, which was going a long way in her imagination toward keeping her own traitorous body in check.
Except that she’d seen him the night before, seen Michael in a way she’d never thought to see him, of all people, in all of his splendid male glory.
And that was the worst part of all. A phrase like splendid male glory ought to be a joke, to be uttered with sarcasm and a cunningly wicked smile.
But with Michael, it fit perfectly.
He’d fit perfectly.
And she’d lost whatever shreds of sanity she’d still possessed.
They rode on in silence, or if not precisely silence, they at least did not speak. But there were other sounds, far more dangerous and unnerving. Francesca was acutely aware of every breath he took, low and whispering across her ear, and she could swear she could hear his heart beating against her back. And then—
“Damn.”
“What is it?” she asked, trying to twist around to see his face. “Felix has gone lame,” he muttered, leaping down from the saddle.
“Is he all right?” she inquired, accepting his wordless offer to help her dismount as well.
“He’ll be fine,” Michael said, kneeling in the rain to inspect the gelding’s front left leg. His knees sank instantly into the muddy earth, ruining his
riding breeches. “He can’t carry the both of us, however. Couldn’t even manage just you, I fear.” He stood, scanning the horizon, determining just where on the property they were. “We’ll have to make for the gardener’s cottage,” he said, impatiently pushing his sodden hair from his eyes. It slid right back over his brow.
“The gardener’s cottage?” Francesca echoed, even though she knew perfectly well what he was talking about. It was a small, one-room structure, uninhabited since the current gardener, whose wife had recently been delivered of twins, had moved into a larger dwelling on the other side of Kilmartin. “Can’t we go home?” she asked, a little desperately. She didn’t need to be alone with him, trapped in a cozy little cottage with, if she remembered correctly, a rather large bed.
“It will take us over an hour on foot,” he said grimly, “and the storm is growing worse.”
He was right, drat it all. The sky had taken on a queer, greenish hue, the clouds touched with that strange light that preceded a storm of exquisite violence. “Very well,” she said, trying to swallow her apprehension. She didn’t know which frightened her more—the thought of being stuck out of doors in the storm or trapped inside a small cottage with Michael.
“If we run, we can be there in just a few minutes,” Michael said. “Or rather, you can run. I’ll have to lead Felix. I don’t know how long it will take for him to make the journey.”
Francesca felt her eyes narrowing as she turned to him. “You didn’t do this on purpose, did you?”
He turned to her with a thunderous expression, matched rather terrifyingly by the streak of lightning that flashed through the sky.
“Sorry,” she said hastily, immediately regretting her words. There were certain things one never accused a British gentleman of, the foremost of which was deliberate injury to an animal, for any reason. “I apologize,” she added, just as a clap of thunder shook the earth. “Truly, I do.”
“Do you know how to get there?” he yelled over the storm. She nodded.
“Can you start a fire while you wait for me?” “I can try.”
“Go, then,” he said curtly. “Run and get yourself warm. I’ll be there soon enough.”
She did, although she wasn’t quite sure whether she was running to the cottage or away from him.
And considering the fact that he’d be mere minutes behind her, did it really matter?
But as she ran, her legs aching and her lungs burning, the answer to that question didn’t seem terribly important. The pain of the exertion took over, matched only by the sting of the rain against her face. But it all felt strangely appropriate, as if she deserved no more.
And, she thought miserably, she probably didn’t.
By the time Michael pushed open the door to the gardener’s cottage, he was soaked to the bone and shivering like a madman. It had taken far longer than he had anticipated to lead Felix to the gardener’s cottage, and then, of course, he’d been faced with the task of finding a decent spot to tie the injured gelding, since he couldn’t very well leave him under a tree in an electrical storm. He’d finally managed to fashion a makeshift stall in what used to be a chicken shed, but the end result was that by the time he made it into the cottage, his hands were bleeding and his boots were dotted with a foul substance that the rain had inexplicably not managed to wash off.
Francesca was kneeling by the fireplace, attempting to spark a flame. From the sound of her mutterings, she wasn’t meeting with much success.
“Dear heavens!” she exclaimed. “What happened to you?”
“I had trouble finding a place to tie Felix,” he explained gruffly. “I had to build him a shelter.”
“With your own two hands?”
“I had no other tools,” he said with a shrug.
She glanced nervously out the window. “Will he be all right?”
“I hope so,” Michael replied, sitting down on a three-legged stool to remove his boots. “I couldn’t very well slap his rump and send him home on that injured leg.”
“No,” she said, “of course not.” And then her face took on a horrified expression, and she jumped to her feet, exclaiming, “Will you be all right?”
Normally, he’d have welcomed her concern, but it would have been far easier to milk it if he knew what the devil she was talking about. “I beg your pardon?” he asked politely.
“The malaria,” she said, with a touch of urgency. “You’re soaked, and you’ve just had an attack. I don’t want you to—” She stopped, clearing her throat and visibly squaring her shoulders. “My concern does not mean that I am more charitably inclined to you than I was an hour ago, but I do not wish for you to suffer a relapse.”
He thought briefly about lying to gain her sympathies, but instead he just said, “It doesn’t work that way.”
“Are you certain?”
“Quite. Chills don’t bring on the disease.”
“Oh.” She took a bit of time to digest that information. “Well, in that case…” Her words trailed off, and her lips tightened unpleasantly. “Carry on, then,” she finally said.
Michael gave her an insolent salute and then went back to work on his boots, giving the second one a firm yank before gingerly picking up both by
the tops and setting them down near the door. “Don’t touch those,” he said absently, moving over to the fireplace. “They’re filthy.”
“I couldn’t get the fire started,” she said, still standing awkwardly near the hearth. “I’m sorry. I haven’t much experience in that area, I’m afraid. I did find some dry wood in the corner, though.” She motioned to the grate, where she’d set down a couple of logs.
He set to work igniting a flame, his hands still stinging a bit from the scrapes he’d incurred clearing the bramble out of the chicken shed for Felix. He welcomed the pain, actually. Minor as it was, it still gave him something to think about other than the woman standing behind him.
She was angry.
He should have expected that. He did expect it, in truth, but what he didn’t expect was how much it would sting his pride, and, in all honesty, his heart. He had known, of course, that she wouldn’t suddenly declare her undying love for him after one episode of relentless passion, but he’d been just enough of a fool that a tiny little piece of him had hoped for such an outcome, all the same.
Who would have thought, after all his years of bad behavior, that he’d emerge such a hopeless romantic?
But Francesca would come around, he was fairly certain of that. She’d have to. She’d been compromised— quite thoroughly, he thought with some measure of satisfaction. And while she’d not been a virgin, that still meant something to a principled woman like Francesca.
He was left with a decision—did he wait out her anger, or did he needle and push until she accepted the inevitability of the situation? The latter was sure to leave him bruised and gasping, but he rather thought it presented a greater chance of success.
If he left her alone, she would think the problem into oblivion, maybe find a way to pretend nothing had ever happened.
“Did you get it started?” he heard her ask from across the room.
He fanned a spark for a few more seconds, then let out a satisfied exhale when tiny orange flames began to flicker and lick. “I’ll have to nurse it along for a little while longer,” he said, turning around to look at her. “But yes, it should be going strong quite soon.”
“Good,” she said succinctly. She took a few steps backward until she was butted up against the bed. “I’ll be right here.”
He couldn’t help but crack a wry smile at that. The cottage held a single room. Where else did she think she was going to go?
“You,” she said, with much the air of an unpopular governess, “can remain over there.”
He followed the line of her pointed finger to the opposite corner. “Really?” he drawled.
“I think it’s best.” He shrugged. “Fine.” “Fine?”
“Fine.” And then he stood and began to strip off his clothing. “What are you doing?” she gasped.
He smiled to himself, keeping his back to her. “Keeping to my corner,” he said, tossing the words lightly over his shoulder.
“You are taking your clothes off,” she said, somehow managing to sound shocked and haughty at the same time.
“I suggest you do the same,” he said, frowning as he noticed a streak of blood on his sleeve. Damn, but his hands really were a mess.
“I most certainly will not,” Francesca said.
“Hold this, will you?” he said, tossing her his shirt. She shrieked as it hit her in the chest, which brought him no small measure of satisfaction.
“Michael!” she exclaimed, hurling the garment back at him.
“Sorry,” he said in his most unrepentant voice. “Thought you might like to use it as a cloth to wipe up.”
“Put your shirt back on,” she ground out.
“And freeze?” he asked, lifting one arrogant brow. “Malaria or no, I have no wish to catch a chill. Besides, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.” And then, over her gasp, he added, “No, wait. I do beg your pardon. You haven’t seen it. I didn’t manage to get anything more than my trousers off last night, did I?”
“Get out,” she said, her voice low and furious.
He just chuckled and cocked his head toward the window, which was thrumming with the sound of the rain against the glass. “I don’t think so, Francesca. You’re stuck with me for the duration, I’m afraid.”
As if to prove his point, the small cottage shook down to its foundations with the force of thunder.
“You might want to turn around,” Michael said conversationally. Her eyes widened slightly in incomprehension, so he added, “I’m about to remove my breeches.”
She let out a little grunt of outrage, but she turned.
“Oh, and get off the blanket,” he called out, peeling off his sodden clothing. “You’re soaking it.”
For a second he thought she would plant her bottom even more firmly against it, just to defy him, but her good sense must have won out, because she stood and yanked the coverlet from the bed, shaking off whatever drops she’d left behind.
He walked over—it took only four steps with his lengthy stride—and pulled the other blanket off for himself. It wasn’t as substantial as the one she held, but it would do. “I’m covered,” he called out, once he was safely back in his corner.
She turned around. Slowly, and with only one eye open.
Michael fought the urge to shake his head at her. Truly, this all seemed rather after the fact, given what had transpired the night before. But if it made her feel better to grasp at the shreds of her maidenly virtue, he was willing to allow her the boon… for the rest of the morning, at least.
“You’re shivering,” he said. “I’m cold.”
“Of course you are. Your dress is soaked.”
She didn’t say anything, just shot him a look that told him she did not plan to remove her clothing.
“Do what you wish, then,” he said, “but at least come sit near the fire.” She looked hesitant.
“For God’s sake, Francesca,” he said, his patience growing thin, “I hereby vow not to ravish you. At least not this morning, and not without your permission.”
For some reason that made her cheeks burn with even greater ferocity, but she must have still held him and his word in some regard, because she crossed the room and sat near the fire.
“Warmer?” he asked, just to provoke her. “Quite.”
He stoked the fire for the next few minutes, carefully tending it to ensure that the flames would not die out, stealing glances at her profile from time
to time. After a while, once her expression had softened a bit, he decided to press his luck, and he said, quite softly, “You never did answer my question last night.”
She didn’t turn. “What question was that?” “I believe I asked you to marry me.”
“No, you didn’t,” she replied, her voice quite calm, “you informed me that you believed we should be married and then proceeded to explain why.”
“Is that so?” he murmured. “How remiss of me.”
“Don’t take that as an invitation to make your proposal right now,” she said sharply.
“You’d have me waste this fabulously romantic moment?” he drawled.
He couldn’t be sure, but he thought her lips might have tightened with the barest hint ofcontained humor.
“Very well,” he said, in his most magnanimous tone, “I won’t ask you to marry me. Forget that a gentleman would insist upon it, after what happened—”
“If you were a gentleman,” she cut in, “it wouldn’t have happened.” “There were two of us there, Francesca,” he reminded her softly.
“I know,” she said, and her tone was so bitter, he regretted having provoked her.
Unfortunately, once he’d made the decision not to taunt her further, he was left with nothing to say. Which didn’t seem to speak well of him, but there it was. So he held silent, pulling the woolen blanket more tightly around his barely clad body, surreptitiously eyeing her from time to time, trying to determine if she was becoming overchilled.
He’d hold his tongue, forked though it may be, to spare her feelings, but if she were endangering her health… well, then, all bets were off.
But she wasn’t shivering, nor did she show any signs of feeling excessively cold, save for the way she was holding up various sections of her skirt toward the fire, vainly attempting to dry the fabric. Every now and then she looked as if she might speak, but then she’d just close hei mouth again, wetting her lips with her tongue and letting out little sighs.
And then, without even looking at him, she said, “I will consider it.” He quirked a brow, waiting for her to elaborate.
“Marrying you,” she clarified, still keeping her eyes on the fire. “But I won’t give you an answer now.”
“You might be carrying my child,” he said softly.
“I am very much aware of that.” She wrapped her arms around her bent knees and hugged. “I will give you an answer once I have that answer.”
Michael’s nails bit into his palms. He’d made love to her in part to force her hand—he couldn’t get around that unsavory fact—but not in an attempt to impregnate her. He’d thought to bind her to him with passion, not with an unplanned pregnancy.
And now she was essentially telling him that the only way she would marry him was for the sake of a baby.
“I see,” he said, thinking his voice uncommonly calm, given the hot rush of fury surging through his blood.
Fury he probably had no right to feel, but it was there nevertheless, and he was not enough of a gentleman to ignore it.
“It’s too bad I promised not to ravish you this morning, then,” he said dangerously, unable to resist a predatory smile.
Her head whipped around to face him.
“I could—how do they say it,” he mused, lightly scratching his jawline, “seal the deal. Or at the very least, enjoy myself immensely while I try.”
“Michael—”
“But how nice for me,” he cut in, “that according to my watch”—he was near enough to where his coat lay on the table to pluck his pocketwatch out into the open—“we’ve only five minutes to noon.”
“You wouldn’t,” she whispered.
He felt little humor, but he smiled all the same. “You leave me little choice.”
“Why?” she asked, and he really didn’t know what she was asking, but he answered her, anyway, with the one bit of truth he couldn’t escape:
“Because I have to.” Her eyes widened.
“Will you kiss me, Francesca?” he asked. She shook her head.
She was only five feet from him, and they were both sitting on the floor. He crawled closer, his heart racing when she didn’t scoot away. “Will you let me kiss you?” he whispered.
She didn’t move.
He leaned toward her.
“I told you I wouldn’t seduce you without your permission,” he said, his voice husky, his words falling mere inches from her lips.
Still, she didn’t move.
“Will you kiss me, Francesca?” he asked again.
She swayed.
And he knew she was his.
