A large oil painting of her graced his bedchambers at his newly inherited castle, Dùn Cuilean. Since his arrival there a month before, he’d been captivated by the portrait and the woman it portrayed. With a wry smile, he admitted that he’d spent most of his nights staring at the portrait over his fireplace, wondering who she was and what she’d been thinking during the long hours of posing while the artist worked.
If he were entirely truthful, he’d also admit that he’d secretly lusted over the unknown woman who might have lived a hundred years past for all he knew. His disproportionate attraction was most peculiar. Not at all like him.
Never had he thought to meet the woman who inspired his desire and imagination so thoroughly. He’d never imagined her beyond oil and canvas. Yet here she was in flesh and blood. Her pulse beat visibly in her slender neck, and his fingers itched to feel that life beating through her.
“This is the marchioness?” He couldn’t help but ask the woman’s maid, who lingered nearby. He felt a fool for doing so and compounded his idiocy by adding, “My cousin’s wife?”
“Yes, my lord.” Lady Ayr’s maid, Mandy, bobbed a curtsey and departed when Ian waved her off.
Ian had met his cousin Robert, only a spare handful of times. The last more than a decade before. He couldn’t imagine that pretentious, unappealing gent ever winning the hand of a woman like this. As alluring as her portrait was, it didn’t hold a candle to the marchioness in person. She was extraordinarily beautiful. Her was hair golden brown, her skin flawless and creamy from her high cheekbones to the curve of her jaw. Brows of darker brown arched over eyes, now closed. Similarly dark long lashes fanned out against her pale cheeks. Her straight nose led down to full rosy lips that parted with a sigh even as he studied her. How breathtaking she was, he thought, even as his pulse increased in response to the visual buffet before him and an unwelcome arousal stirred.
As lovely as she was, this woman was a recent widow, and for the time being, his guest and responsibility. The old Conagham of Ayr, as the locals referred to their resident marquess, had been active and hale by all accounts despite his years. Certainly not a man one would expect to drop dead of a heart attack in the middle of a dinner with the prince consort. Not well done of him at all. Prince Albert, it seemed, was a pleasant man who hadn’t taken it personally.
With no warning, Ian had become Marquess of Ayr and laird of the clan Conagham a score of years earlier than anticipated. After just one short month in residence at Dùn Cuilean, he still wasn’t entirely certain as to the extent of his responsibilities, so when he’d received a letter from his cousin’s widow, begging him to allow her to come ‘home’, he’d capitulated without argument.
At the time, the greatest consideration he’d given the matter was to think it curious that a society matron would willingly give up the season in London to reside in Cuilean’s isolated locale. Surely no marchioness of his imagination would choose such a situation of her own accord, and he wondered what might’ve prompted her to do so. Before seeing her, he’d thought she was probably just getting old. Tired of the bustle of London and looking to summer somewhere cooler and quieter…
Now he didn’t know what to think.
Ian hadn’t imagined the marchioness like this at all. Looking at her now, so wounded and still, he cursed himself for not arriving on time to pick her up from the train station. The marchioness had left word that she’d taken a hotel room in Glasgow, but on his arrival there he’d found only the lady’s father and servants, who had directed him to the Exchange. He’d arrived just in time to see Lady Ayr’s maid and coachman racing across the road.
A chill had run up his spine when he had seen the lady lying in the street. If he’d been more prompt, the accident might never have happened at all. Guilt weighed upon him.
The marchioness drew in a deep breath at that moment. Her chest rose and her breasts strained against the bodice of her gown. She turned her head toward him, her eyelids fluttering, and Ian held his breath. A moment later, he found himself drowning in eyes that were a mosaic of flecks of pure green near the center melding into azure blue at the edges of her irises. Those mesmerizing eyes flared as she gaped at him much as he was staring at her, and for a moment, Ian felt his heart stop. Never had he felt more like a fool than he did gawking at the young lady before him, but he could not bring himself to look away.
“Am I dreaming?” Her low honeyed tone sent a shiver of pleasure across his skin, leaving goose bumps in its path.
“No, my lady. I am Ian Conagham. The Conagham of Ayr.Er, the marquess. Lord Ayr, take your pick. Your husband was my cousin,” he clarified, forcing his arousal aside. Surely she would expect her husband’s heir to treat her with detached respect, not tethered lust.
“I’m not… I don’t feel right.” She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue in a gesture that clenched every muscle in Ian’s body and sent blood pounding in his ears until he could hardly hear her. “Like I’m dreaming or something. Foggy. Disoriented. I can’t explain it. Are you a dream now? You’ve always been a dream before.”
Ian didn’t know how to interpret her words. Was she saying that she had dreamed of him? Or that everything now seemed a dream? “I deeply apologize for not arriving at the Exchange earlier so that this incident could have been avoided. You were hit by a wagon, my lady.”
“That’s what I’ve heard.”
Her tone was so dry that Ian stifled a chuckle of amusement. It must have shown on his face, though, because the corner of her mouth drew up just a bit as well. “Do you remember who you are?” he asked. “Where you are?”
Mikah truly didn’t know how to respond as she stared up at his beguiling face. On one hand, she was awash with confusion, while on the other, with him in her sights, all felt right with the world. As it should be.
As it was meant to be.
Ian, he’d said. Lord Ayr. She finally had a name to put to the face she’d known for so long. She ached to touch him and make certain he was real. Masculine beauty such as his surely had to be the work of her imagination. He had fairly dark skin, as if he were Spanish or Italian, but not olive toned so much as swarthy. Mikah tasted the word on her lips. Swarthy? She was certain she’d never used it before, yet was equally certain she had. The dichotomy brought a furrow to her brow, but she pushed the nagging confusion away to study the handsome lord some more.
His face was angular, with smoothly planed cheeks and a strong jaw and chin that held the shadow of a beard he could never entirely shave away. There were crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes that lent a hint of humor to his solemn expression. Thick brows arched low over dark eyes that seemed permanently narrowed as if against a bright light. His lips were full and lines around his mouth that indicated he laughed often. Though his dark hair was sprinkled with a fair amount of gray, she thought it had to be premature, as he appeared to be only in his early to mid-thirties.
He was almost Clooney-esque, she thought, though the thought made no sense at all even as it did. It was as if half of her understood the reference while the other half wallowed in confusion. Gorgeous. Virile. There was another of those words that tasted odd on her lips.
She couldn’t understand why her thoughts were so jumbled; yet perhaps the blow to her head explained it all. “What did the doctor say?” Mikah murmured, as if she was suffering a hangover and loud words might make her head burst.
“He thinks you’ll be fine,” Lord Ayr answered. “Though he worries about your memory loss as he could find no other damage beyond the single injury to your head. The marquess reached out and took her hand in his. The intimate contact startled her and she looked down at her small pale hand in his large one, his tanned skin sprinkled with dark hairs. The brush of his rough fingers against her palm sent tingles up her arm. Her schoolgirl-like response disconcerted Mikah. It was like being thirteen all over again and coming face-to-face with your teen idol. Giddy, jittery, silly…and horrifying in retrospect. She could only hope he wasn’t aware that she was nearly awestruck by him.
“Do you know who you are?” he prompted kindly when she remained silent.
Grateful for the distraction, Mikah focused on the problem at hand and analyzed his question much as she had everything in the few hours since the accident. Her internal befuddlement each time she considered it was unsettling. Did she know who she was?
Yes.
The problem was, there were two answers.
