“You'd have made her proud,” he told her.
“A titled husband and a gaggle of bairns is what would've made her proud,” she retorted. “No, I'm lucky Uncle Humphrey is so patient with me. Though I suppose it's less about his patience and more that he likes keeping me about to fetch the more obscure tomes from his uppermost shelves.” She gave a resigned shake of her head. “Either way, I'm thankful. There aren't many men who'd abide a self-appointed spinster for a niece.” His eyes narrowed thoughtfully, and the scrutiny unnerved her. She shifted her attention back to her meal, needing to break the connection.
Cormac gestured to her bowl. “You've a bit of dinner on your knuckles,” he said, a broad smile spreading across his face.
She groaned. Finally, the man smiles, and the only cost had been her dignity.
Marjorie pulled her hand up. Dark brown sauce glistened on her thumb and two of her fingers. She hesitated. She had no napkin, just the clothes on her body. With a defiant shrug, she simply raised her knuckles to her mouth and quickly licked them clean. She shot Cormac a challenging look, daring him to say something.
His face went blank. “You liked it, then? Your stew?”
“Yes, thank you,” she replied in an exaggeratedly ladylike tone.
He stood abruptly, gathering the bowls and placing them outside. “I imagine the day has caught up with you,” he said, bustling around her.
She stood and dusted off her skirts. “I suppose it will eventually, but I don't seem to be tired yet.”
“Good night, then.” He lay on his pallet with his back to her, his movements stilted, as he pulled his plaid over his shoulder.
She plopped onto the bed, stunned at his sudden shutdown. Could it mean that this arrangement unsettled him as much as it did her?
You'll not get off so easy, Cormac.
A purposeful smile curved her lips. She'd enjoyed their conversation and wasn't nearly done. She lay on her belly, pulling the last of the pins from her hair. She tossed them haphazardly, one by one, onto the side table.
“Would that we were having a grand Aberdeen adventure, rather than searching for Davie,” she ventured. Though silence greeted her comment, she hadn't really expected him to answer. Which was fine —
listening.
She contemplated her clothing for a moment. Finally, at a loss, she simply blew out the stub of candle on the side table and stretched out on the bed. Her outfit was restrictive, but she was uncertain what to do about it. She hoped she'd eventually fall asleep despite the uncomfortable bodice and layers of skirts. At least the heavy arisaid would keep her warm.
“This inn is more pleasant than I expected.” She shifted, feeling free to give a sharp and unladylike tug to her bodice in the darkness. Better. The dried heather of the overstuffed mattress crackled as she scooted under the blanket. “And it's more comfortable, too.”
She attuned her ears to the silence, taking in the sound of distant voices downstairs, the creak of timber as Cormac turned, the rhythm of his breathing.
“Gormelia,” she mused after a time. “It's a strange thing. Having a new name like this. Almost as though we could be anybody, do anything.”
She brought her hands to her belly, tracing up and down the hard lines of her stays, wishing she could be free of the blasted things altogether. At least what she currently wore was far simpler than some of her gowns.
Tomorrow, though, she'd need to dress in her best, if their act was to be convincing. She looked forward to the pretense. “I wish we really were a wealthy lord and lady. Not in search of slaves, of course.” The thought brought her mind to an inevitable place, a place she'd gone to innumerable times before: her, married to Cormac, a half-dozen children between them.
It was Cormac's own fault, mentioning his sister's notions of marriage as he had. Marjorie wavered, but she had a question she simply had to ask. And although she knew the real truth of the matter, she had to know if he'd face that truth, if he'd answer her honestly.
“Do you ever think what might have happened if… well… if Aidan were still here? Do you think… Cormac, would we have wed, you think?”
The only response was his muted snore breaking through the silence.
He woke that night, his heart pounding. The memory of Aidan's scream echoed in his skull. It was a dream he hadn't had in a while, but he supposed all this talk of saving Davie had brought it back.
It had taken him hours to fall asleep, in truth. Marjorie had been going places in her mind that pained him, and so he'd feigned sleep in order to find some measure of peace.
But peace had been long in coming.
Sharing a room with her had been a critical error. The place was entirely too small. When he'd opened the door to see the lone mattress, dark thoughts spilled into his mind in a crazy rush. The mere sound of that mattress giving beneath her weight had been enough to pull the blood to his groin, hardening him to the point of distraction. Rolling Marjorie onto that bed was all he could think of. Pinning her beneath him, kissing her as he had on the beach. Only next time, he wouldn't stop kissing her.
Next time, he'd push the cloak from her shoulders, shuck the bodice from her breasts. Would she giggle and be playful, or would desire simmer in her eyes?
He sat up in the darkness and wiped the sweat from his brow and tried to wipe the dream from where it lingered in his mind. He was a boy again, stuck in blackness, hearing Aidan's terrified cries.
“Cormac?” Marjorie's voice was such a familiar thing, but she spoke now in a drowsy whisper. It was a novel sound, tinged husky and mellow. “Cormac, are you all right?”
He looked up at her. The moon had risen full and high, and it shone in their room, casting a white light on the side of her face, down the side of her body.
Desire ripped through him.
No, I am not all right.
She'd forsaken her Aberdeen finery for the day, dressing instead in a simple arisaid. He sucked in a breath.
She'd somehow managed to remove all that tartan wool in the night. His eyes roved down her body. The blanket clung close to her legs, and he realized she'd stripped her layers of petticoats as well. And her bodice, too.
He swallowed hard. Marjorie lay there, staring openly down at him, wearing only her sark and the moonlight.
Desire tore through him at the sight of her, but so, too, did fear — fear for his very soul. Because he'd never stopped caring for her. Only now he was a man, with a man's needs. “Cormac?” she asked again.
“Good night, Ree,” he said, his voice tight. “Get some sleep.”
Chapter 15
Marjorie fell back asleep almost at once. But Cormac had tossed and turned with the sleep of the damned, as though he were off to face the hangman in the morning instead of the Aberdeen quays.
Finally, he rose to look at her. Her bare arm stretched across the bed, silvery in the moonlight. It was lean, pale like ivory, and it mesmerized him. For all her posturing, she was so delicate, so vulnerable.
He longed to touch her, to feel the velvet of her skin under his fingers. He could stroke that arm. He'd draw his hand to her shoulder where he'd pull her blanket down, reveal the rest of her. He could climb into the bed, pull the blanket over them both. Beneath the bedding, she was barely clad…
He clamped his eyes shut.
He needed to remain focused, on his guard, which meant not imagining her naked body beneath gauzy linen. It meant not kissing her, not dreaming of holding her close in bed.
Gathering his wits, Cormac wandered to the window, estimating dawn was still over an hour away. Marjorie's breathing was slow and even, so quiet he needed to strain to hear. He'd let her rest a while longer.
He shut his eyes and leaned his head against the windowpane, tilting it to catch the light of the setting moon on his cheek. He recalled the madness that had accosted him earlier, just there at the window. Like a fool, he'd gone to stand behind Marjorie. The mere feel of her before him, jiggling and grunting to unlatch the damned glass, had him yearning and ravenous, like some cursed rutting beast.
And then she'd pinched herself and sucked her thumb into her mouth, and the look of her rounded lips had been so erotic, it'd been all he could do not to pull her tight to him and grind his base flesh into her backside. Later, too, she'd licked her food from her hand like some sort of wild, carnal creature. Just a mouth, merely her fingers, and yet the sight of each had his thoughts spiraling to dark places where her tongue played along his flesh.
The young girl he'd once adored had grown into this spirited, impassioned woman, this sensual woman. And she was driving him mad, igniting desires he thought he'd doused long ago.
She'd always been a wonder to him, her boldness and her bravery, and so the adult she'd become was no surprise.
He considered her laughter, her crusading ways, her passions.
Her kiss.
He'd been forced to recount that ridiculous incident with Bridget to get it off his mind, grasping at humor to eradicate the pain of his longing. And then she'd asked about his battles, and he'd clung to that same humor to hide the pain of his past.
She'd sat so close to him on the bed, though, and she'd kept edging closer still, until she was laughing and swatting at him as she'd done as a child. Only this time, Cormac wanted to do much more than simply engage Marjorie in a playful tussle. What if he'd simply grabbed her and crawled atop her? Would lust have replaced the laughter in her eyes?
Those eyes. Her eerily vivid blue-green eyes had been riveted to him for the telling of his tale, as intent on him as when he'd taken off his plaid.
His muscles clenched with the memory. The way she'd watched him had nearly been his undoing. He'd wanted to ask her to undress him instead. To tell her to undress him.
And how she'd stared at his pallet, as though it were evil itself. Had he read disappointment on her face? For the briefest moment, he hoped she'd say something. Invite him to her bed. But she didn't.
And of course she didn't. She was good and proper. Too good and proper. Too good, at least, for one such as him.
