To Tempt a Scotsman (31 page)
Improper. Always improper. Alexandra Huntington Blackburn was an unnatural girl. She had finally come to believe what her governesses had told her and what her Cousin Merriweather had screamed at her. Really, it had been obvious to everyone else. Why had it taken her so long to realize?
Collin turned her toward another introduction and she tried her best to be bright and lovely. She wanted to make him proud. She wanted him to watch her and see a lady and a wife. She wanted things to settle into place.
Why wouldn't they just settle into place?
Another gentleman approached her husband and, even in her musings, Alex blinked and stood straighter. The man had tears in his eyes. She was quite sure she had never seen the like. The older gentleman took Collin's hand in a hearty hold, shaking his head as he did so.
"Lord Waterford?"
"We had to put her down, Westmore." "What?"
"Devil's Drop. She snapped her foreleg right in half in a post hole. Just a week ago." His jowls trembled. "A damn shame, I tell you. Pardon the strong language."
"My wife," Collin murmured, placing his hand beneath the man's elbow. "A mare of ours," he explained, meeting her eyes and angling his head toward the library.
Alex nodded, cringing as the man pressed his hand to his chest.
"By God, she was a fine one. You should have seen her, Lady Westmore."
Still nodding, she watched her husband stride away, his head bent close to Lord Waterford, the better to hear the details of the accident. Her heart ached in sympathy as she remembered the pain she'd felt when her first pony had been put down, remembered looking into her sad, wise eyes and knowing they'd soon be lifeless.
Tears welled at the memory, and she blinked hard to force them away as a sudden weariness descended. It must be after one, hours past her normal bedtime, but the guests plowed on, bright and cheerful around her. Jeannie's smile flashed toward her through the crowd of dancers, drawing a quick lift of Alex's lips before her friend disappeared again, swallowed by the festive storm.
The relative quiet of the foyer beckoned, and she slipped past the milling people toward the realm of quiet conversations and murmured laughter. Relief cooled her warm cheeks for just a moment. . . The barest moment of calm before she saw him, before she watched in shock as his blond head came up and his eyes focused on her with narrow pleasure. Blond hair, cold eyes. But not St. Claire. Not the threat she'd half expected.
Robert Dixon. Heat returned to her cheeks like a gust of bellowed flame, and the feel of that blush only made the warmth prickle. He would look at her pinkness as a sign of guilt, when she felt nothing more than disconcerted. He would relish the thought of her embarrassment.
She watched him smile, watched his eyes sweep down to delve the shadows of her cleavage as he made a quick excuse to his companion and stepped away. Alex turned a foot, began to pivot, but pride stopped her from fleeing. She had no reason to run from this scrap of a man, she told herself as he approached, but she truly did not wish to speak to him. Not when his hazel eyes were so coldly lit.
So pride would not let her leave, but now, as he took his time approaching, it looked as if she waited for him, as if she gave him permission to join her. Her flat glare of disgust did nothing to dim his satisfaction or the curl of his lip.
"Lady . . . Westmore, is it now?" She pressed her lips hard together. "A pleasure to see you again."
She neither spoke nor offered a hand. A cut of the utmost dignity. It only served to brighten the amusement in his eyes.
"Come now. Aren't you happy to see an old friend from home? I insisted to Lord Bonnet that we attend as I was sure you'd be here."
"I think I made clear that you were not to come near me."
"A misunderstanding, I believe." "How so?"
"How so?" He leaned in, eyes darting down her bodice as his lips crept close to her ear. "I can see now that you were only disappointed at my lack of persistence."
Alex inched to the side and did her best to look down her nose at a man taller than her. "Move away from me."
"Imagine my shock at finding out that the oh-so-demure Lady Alexandra had given herself over to no less an animal than an illegitimate Scotsman."
Her fan struck his elbow with a satisfying whack. "You go too far."
"On the contrary."
She felt the hot slide of his fingers curling around her arm, gripping too tightly, but she dared not pull away— two faces had turned in their direction. There was enough talk already about Collin's wife. She would not cause a scene over this snake's injured pride.
Smiling at the woman nearest her, she hissed through her teeth, "Unhand me."
"You'd give yourself to that scoundrel St. Claire and fall into bed with a damned stud farmer, but you turned me away like a supplicant, you little bitch."
"Let go."
"I hear tell that Blackburn is little pleased with you. Does he resent paying such a high price for ill-used goods?"
"Let go this instant or you'll regret it." Alex felt limp with shock when his fingers actually loosened and fell away.
"You're damned lucky your brother is a duke. You wouldn't be so—"
"Will you introduce me, Lady Westmore?"
Her husband's voice sounded so close that Alex jumped, spinning to find him only a yard behind her, his gray eyes flat. "Collin!"
"Yes."
She blinked, wondering if he'd heard, but no . . . He would be hot with rage if he knew. He stepped forward to join her and his eyes were positively icy when they swung toward Dixon. A thumping like a rabbit's heart took up inside her chest. What was she to say? Not the truth, certainly, not unless she wanted a husband on trial for murder.
"Um." A glance showed her Mr. Dixon's pale face. "Yes. Of course. Mr. Robert Dixon, this is my husband, Collin Blackburn, Lord Westmore. Mr. Dixon is a friend of my brother's."
Collin did not take the man's hesitant offer of a handshake. In fact, he looked at the hand so fiercely that Dixon yanked it back and gave no more than a murmured pleasantry before spinning away.
Alex's nerves hummed with anticipation of some-thing dire.
"Are you ready to leave?"
"Yes!" she gasped and slid her hand over his hard arm. "Yes, let's go."
They slipped past the guests, Alex trailing behind his straight back, mind spinning for a way to deflect his anger. It didn't matter, really. She wanted to leave. And perhaps he'd only sensed her dislike of the man she'd been speaking with.
Her heeled slippers pinched her feet and provided no cushion against the granite underfoot as they hurried past the milling crowd. By the time Collin retrieved her cloak and called the carriage, she could do nothing more than collapse into the cushioned seat with a sigh.
"I forgot to say good-bye to Jeannie."
"Who was that man?"
"What?"
"Don't play dumb, Alex." "Why are you angry?"
"I don't know, perhaps it has something to do with stumbling upon my wife in an intimate conversation with a man I've never met."
Her teeth ground hard together as she searched his face in the dim light of the carriage lamp, looking for a sign of. . . of something. Something that wasn't there.
"Was he one of your lovers?"
"What? Collin—" A hard shake of her head freed a spark of anger from all the guilt and self-pity she'd been hiding under. "That doesn't even make sense." She watched the frantic working of his jaw, the muscles that clenched and released, thrown into prominence by shadow. "Why are you asking me this?"
"Just answer the question."
"I will not! That question is not relevant."
"We both know you were no innocent when you came to my bed."
"I was a virgin!"
"Do not play coy."
"Coy? Am I speaking to an idiot? Why are you so suspicious? How could you ask me of lovers when you know you were my first?"
His eyes filled with harsh passion and his flat mouth thinned even further until the lips that had kissed her disappeared. "The first, yes. The first to have you there."
Her heart beat once, twice. Rage froze, crystallized with a suddenness that chimed like glass in her chest. "What?"
"You know quite well that there is more to making love than just sex."
Her teeth clattered together, a hard click in the quiet rumble of the space. Heart tearing, she worked words past her lips. "What are you . . . What are you asking me?"
"Just tell me who he is, and don't repeat that shit about him being a friend of the duke."
"No. No, I want you to tell me exactly what you mean. Put your ugly thoughts into words so we can both hear them, so you can finally taste them on your tongue."
"Alex—"
"No! Are you asking if I have ever . . . If I have ever taken that man into my mouth? Or, or. . ."
"Alex—"
"Or perhaps you mean something more vile yet? Perhaps you're asking me—your own wife—perhaps you're asking if I played at sodomy?" She watched with sick satisfaction as his body twitched. His eyes widened from their slits of rage and she thought she saw pain. Good. It couldn't begin to approach what she felt.
"What, did you think I didn't know about that trick? Perhaps there are other things I know that you're not aware of. I am a wee whore, after all." A throng of emotions played over his hard face, but Alex saw it all through a steady blur of hatred.
"You'll never tell me about your past, even when I ask."
"Oh, and how many women have you had, Collin? And what parts of their bodies did you stick yourself into?"
"It's not. . . You never asked. I'll tell you about my past if you like."
"No, I'm not a beast like you. What do you want to know? You want to know who that man was to me?"
"I just. . ." He threw his big hands up into the air before crossing his arms tight over his chest. "Yes."
"Well, let's see. Mr. Robert Dixon. Yes, I did kiss him, I remember that. He stuck his tongue into my mouth. What else? Oh, then he decided that I had granted him the liberty to do what he wished and he pulled up my shirt, dropped his trousers, and tried to have me."
She smiled at his sudden shift, smiled as he sat forward with a shout.
"Oh, yes. Of course, I encouraged him and I am a whore after all, so I can only be glad he was too much of a gentleman to give chase when I fell to the ground and crawled away, else I might have lost my virginity to a different bastard entirely."
Her eyes narrowed as his fist rose, but she did not cringe, not even when it swung toward her to pound on the roof of the carriage. "Turn this damn thing 'round!" He pounded again.
"Stop it," she growled, bouncing in her seat as they shuddered to a halt. "Stop it. You have no right to play my defender now."
He closed his eyes. Opened them again.
"Sir?" a voice called.
Alex leapt to her feet and slid open the window. "Go! Drive on!" They drove.
"You cannot ask me to ignore him."
"I am not asking for anything. If I want to beg protection from a man, I will go to my brother and send him after you. You are the only man who has done me injury, my lord. You have revealed yourself." Her words stirred laughter in her mouth. Revealed yourself. She saw again the red jut of Dixon's manhood. A giggle escaped. The sound seemed to wound her husband. He cringed, rubbed a hand hard over his eyes.
"Alexandra. Wife. I'm sorry. I don't know why—"
"The same reason you always have, I suppose. Your suspicion of my very nature. Your hatred of me."
"Oh, God. I don't hate you. I love you. It is eating away at me."
"You love me?" Those precious words twisted from her lips like the vilest poison. "How dare you."
"Caitein, I'm sorry. I just, I feel mad with you sometimes, as if I have no control over my life."
Thank God for her anger. She could feel terrible things lurking beneath it, not yet revealed. Some piece of her had broken off in a jagged chunk that scraped and wounded. My God, could she never make a wise choice in her life? She had given everything to this man. Everything. And he thought her no better than a rutting cat, rubbing herself against every male in her reach. Caitein, he called her. Caitein.
"When I saw you with that man, and I knew there was something between you. . . Please, will you forgive me my words?"
"And what of your thoughts? Shall I forgive those also, do you think? A lot of forgiveness for how often you think them."
The familiar heat of his fingers took her hand and pulled her toward him. She yanked away.
"Don't. And don't speak anymore, I can't stand to hear it." She met his eyes dead on and saw a twinge of panic spark from their silver depths. "Tomorrow perhaps," she hissed when his lips parted, "when I don't wish to scratch out your eyes."
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