Did admitting that he didn’t know how to be a duke equate with some sort of weakness? It didn’t feel that way. Nothing he’d said would prevent him from doing his duty. “Why shouldn’t I?” he asked aloud. “I’m a plainspoken fellow, and I don’t feel the need to lie about who or what I am, Miss Blackstock.”
“Ach, I didnae lie, either. Nae a man asked if I was still Kieran, and I didnae volunteer the information. So ye keep yer high horse oot in the stable.”
He grinned. “A sensitive subject, is it? I don’t have a high horse, but I’d be willing to commiserate with you here in private.” Deliberately he sent his gaze down the length of her and up again. Moving up to her, Gabriel hooked his finger into the lace neck of her gray gown. She smelled of heather. He’d never found that arousing before, but he did now.
When she lifted her face to look up at him, those soft-looking lips parted, his cock jumped. He tugged her up against his chest, very aware that only a thin muslin gown and a towel separated them.
“So ye mean to have me, do ye?” she murmured, chocolate-colored eyes meeting his.
“I’m a man with an appetite,” he returned in the same tone. “You sent me into a bog, and the entire time I couldn’t stop imagining you peeling yourself out of that muddy gown.” He leaned down, capturing her mouth in a hard, heated kiss. Her mouth was just as he’d imagined, soft, warm, and molding against his. When her hand dug into his damp hair, the tight rein he held on himself loosened just a little. Three weeks of his world spun off its axis, but this,this,he knew how to do.
Her mouth retreated from his just a little. “I’ll have to do as ye demand, Yer Grace,” she stated. “I suppose it’s better me than one of the maids.”
Gabriel scowled. “I’m not ‘demanding’ a damned thing. You kissed me back. I felt it. A man and a woman. You and me.”
Her gaze remained on his mouth. “A duke and an employee,” she corrected.
“What? So now I can’t have a woman if I outrank her? That’s ridiculous. And you’re not my employee, anyway.”
Finally she met his gaze. “I’m yer employee until ye dismiss me.”
Fuck.“That’s a fine use of strategy, Miss Blackstock,” he countered, “but your hand’s still in my hair.”
Swiftly she withdrew it, her fair cheeks flushing a pretty pink. “I was trying to keep my balance.”
“No you weren’t. And now you know for certain what I want. I believe you want it, as well.”
She opened and closed her mouth, then belatedly shoved away from him. “I most certainly dunnae yearn fer your touch, Lattimer.”
And yet she remained alone with him in his laird’s bedchamber. Reminding her of that fact wouldn’t benefit him, however, so he didn’t mention it. She’d used some sound strategy, even if it did rely on him being of good character. He couldn’t count that as a compliment, but it was close to one. If she wanted this to be a game of wills and wits, she was welcome to try to stand against him. “We’ll see about that,” he said aloud. “I’m not often wrong.”
“Well, ye are this time. I dunnae even want ye here in Scotland. This isnae the place fer anyone to be fumbling aboot like a wee infant. I ken ye have a bushel of other properties south of Hadrian’s Wall, and I wish ye’d gone to one of them to learn how to be an aristocrat.”
“And yet I’m here because of you, Miss Blackstock,” he returned, noting just to himself that she still stood close enough to touch. Gabriel curled his hands into fists, but that did nothing for the warm rush of lust still humming just beneath his skin.
“Me?” she retorted. “How the devil could ye be here because of me when the first time ye knew aboot me was when ye dragged me oot of the mud?”
“Because old Lattimer’s solicitors wrote you five times asking for the estate’s financial report before you finally answered—and that was only to threaten them. I am now responsible for this property. The ‘knife in the gizzard’ reply didn’t give me much of an idea of what might be amiss here, but it did suggest something was wrong.” Nor did having a hot-tempered female as a steward satisfy his requirement for a responsible leader who could stand in his stead.
“Ye’ll have all yer facts and figures, then. But ye willnae have me.” She turned on her heel. “Good night.”
The view of her swaying backside nearly made him consider suggesting once again that she stay. For the devil’s sake, he hadn’t had a woman in… weeks. And tonight that seemed like a very long time. He caught her arm, twirling her around to face him and dragging her up against his chest. “Good night,Your Grace,” he murmured, brushing the pad of his thumb along her lower lip. So soft, so free of the tired cynicism that marked most women of his acquaintance. If he was the Beast of Bussaco, she was some sort of sharp-tongued angel. He’d never met her like. Leaving her be, unless she expressly ordered him to do so, was out of the question. And he’d spent better than a decade assessing people at a glance. She might claim not to be interested, but everything about her said she was lying. And so until he figured her out, until he had her, he’d sooner give up breathing than this hunt.
Her shoulders squared. “Good night,Yer Grace,” she enunciated, glancing at him and then away as he released her. Taking two quick steps, she opened the door and then very firmly pulled it closed behind her.
Gabriel eyed the door for a moment after she left, weighing whether to go after her or not. Strategically it made more sense to give her the night to think about him, to remember that kiss. He couldn’t be the only one to think it had been rather spectacular. The bulge in the front of his towel certainly agreed.
As for the ghost of MacKittrick and his curse, he had a feeling that at least one of those things had more to do with Miss Blackstock than a dead Jacobite after revenge. And if any Highlander tried to slip in and kill him tonight, they would serve as a warning against anyone else attempting it again.
Blowing out his breath, he finished toweling off and then pulled a clean shirt over his head. At least Kelgrove had stuffed an extra shirt into his travel bag. Once he’d blown out the candles and banked the sputtering fire, he climbed the trio of wooden steps pushed up against the side of the bed and rolled beneath the heavy, soft covers. With every movement he seemed to sink farther into the plump mattress beneath him, until he began to feel as if he were about to drown in satin and feathers. Despite the chill in the air and the wind whistling down the fireplace, the heat from his own body surrounded him, closing him in a baking, goose-down coffin.
“Damnation,” he swore, sitting upright and flinging sheets and quilts and pillows off the side of the bed. He tried lying back again, but immediately began to sink into the mattress once more. “Bloody hell.”
After ten minutes of hot, wallowing torture he sat up again, swam his way to the edge of the behemoth, and slid to the floor. Christ. He’d fought Frenchmen who put up less of a fight than that damned bed. Breathing hard, he lay down on the pile of blankets he’d shoved onto the stone floor. “You can take the bed, MacKittrick,” he muttered aloud.
So this was his first night as a duke in his own castle. As he contemplated his situation, he couldn’t deny one thing—parts of it felt familiar. A foreign land, surrounded by hostile forces who wanted him either gone or dead and didn’t much care which one it was, and him with the assignment to bring order out of chaos. And the fact that the opposing forces were led by a supremely desirable black-eyed female with dusky hair? He would manage her just as he’d managed every other obstacle in his path before now. This was about sex and it was about war, and he was a damned expert in both.
Chapter Four
