If You Desire - Cole Kresley (книга регистрации .TXT) 📗

"Why have you no' gone about getting your own?" he snapped.

She drew back. "Alas, there's an intermediary necessary for 'getting' them—he's called a husband."

"Seems like you should no' have been so stringent about your 'qualifications' for a husband, then."

"You make it sound like it's too late—I'm only twenty-seven! My mother had me when she was twenty-nine. There is no reason for me to settle. Or therewas no reason to settle—oh, I'm confused. I swear, it'd be so much easier if I was either completely married or completely single."

"But right now, you're half-married to arough Scot ?" he grated.

That had really gotten to him. "They don't mean anything by it."

He looked away and plucked a piece of grass as he asked, "Were you…were you shamed to have me here as your husband?"

"Oh, heavens, no!" she said, then wished she'd been a little more poised—and a little less exclamatory—in her answer, even as his grim expression eased somewhat.

She didn't care what her cousins said. She'd always found Hugh's rugged looks handsome. He dressed simply but well, and he had good manners for all that he didn't talk much—and for all that his handshake was a "bit excruciating," as Robert had told Sam, who'd told Jane.

"Besides, rough Scot is a lot better than what they call Robert." When Hugh raised his eyebrows, she said, "They call Robert the laughing quack. He thinks the two of you are fast friends, by the way. He told me he got a good sense about you, though he couldn't wrangle more than two words out of you. He's usually right about these things."

"Good sense, huh? Then why…?" He never finished the question, as he'd caught sight of Lawrence starting the bonfire. "There's to be a fire?" He eyed his surroundings warily. "Here?"

She nodded. "We eat supper out here whenever the weather's this nice."

"I ken that." His gaze was watchful as Belinda and Sam began setting out food and wine.

"We will stay, won't we?"

He swung a look at her as if she'd just asked him to drink from the Thames.

They intended to sit out here. All of them. Together. Oh, no, no.

"No, we canna stay." He rose, pulling her up with him. This, Hugh would not do.

He and his brothers had been invited to attend those fireside dinners, but they'd never accepted, all of them too uncomprehending of the strange behavior of this family. Men drank readily and smoked cigars in front of their wives, trilling laughter sounded throughout the night, children slept draped over their parents wherever they'd fallen asleep, not waking even at the loud laughter.

How many nights had the three brothers sat out on their terrace, listening, giving each other looks of bewilderment?

Now he was to be on the other side of the cove, for the fire?

He must have shown how dismayed he was, because she sidled up to him, a smile playing about her wine-reddened lips—the lips he'd burned to sample when he'd pressed her against the house just minutes ago.

"I'd really like to eat here tonight," she said.

He shook his head sternly.

"Please?" she asked in a soft voice, making him wonder which was worse—that she could manage him, or that they both knew she could.

She took his hand, easing them back down to the blanket. "We'll just sit here." He knew she was manipulating him, but he was also aware she would clasp his arm and mold her body to his as they sat. Withstand the fire; get this attention.

He would win this one.

Leaning close, her breasts soft against his arm, she trailed her hand up to the back of his neck, then made slow, lazy circles with her nails. "This is not so bad, is it?"

Not with her, but the others had all convened—from nannies to bairns to couples—all lazy on blankets around the fire, with delicacies spread about on china dishes. Though Jane prepared him a selection, and the food smelled delicious, he had no appetite.

Once the children had dropped off—with the wee lass Emily bundled in a blanket and curled over Jane's ankles—and the nannies had retired, more bottles of wine surfaced. The talk grew lively and the language turned frank, even in front of the ladies, evenby the ladies.

Hugh glanced up when he heard Robert say, "At least Hugh knows what she's like. Imagine if he'd married her without having known her for so long."

Samantha said, "Well, I'm sure he knows that Janey's the wildest of the Eight."

"I am not!" Jane cried.

"Does Hugh know about the Russian prince?" Samantha asked, and Jane gave a self-satisfied smile.

Hugh's no' sure he wants to know about the Russian prince….

But Samantha had already begun. "Just this spring at a ball, a horrid old lecher of a prince stuck his hand down Charlotte's bodice. Little Charlotte was so mortified! So we all went on the offensive, spreading rumors about his eleventh toe of a male appendage." Samantha's eyes were glinting with amusement. "But Jane merely watched from the side like a tigress sizing up prey, waiting for the right moment. I saw the whole thing happening. As he strolled past her, she flashed him a come-hither smile. His attention was so fixed on her that he never saw her foot sweep out from under her skirts to trip him. He crashed face first into the gala-size punch bowl."

Hugh felt the corners of his lips quirking. Fierce lass.

Belinda added, "Jane sauntered up to us, brushing her hands off, and remarked"—she mimicked Jane's sensual voice—"'Darlings, all men bow before the Weyland Eight. Or they fall.'"

Hugh raised his eyebrows at Jane, and the words slipped out: "They bow, do they?"

"Weren't you listening?" she asked with a saucy grin. "That, or they fall. And the big ones like you fallhard ."

No bloody kidding.

Everyone laughed. After that, the conversation devolved into a dirty limerick contest. When Hugh found himself on the verge of grinning, he grew guarded. He forced himself to draw back. That's what he did—he was always on the outside, looking in. Always. It wasn't difficult—he was so different from these people, it was like night and day.

Everyone here was so bloody comfortable in their own skin, so settled and sure in their relationships, affection displayed openly, unconsciously. Samantha laughed with her lips pressed to Robert's neck. Belinda and Lawrence held hands to walk ten feet to go retrieve her shawl.

What would it be like if he belonged here, if Jane truly were his? What wouldhe be like without the constant shadow of theLeabhar over him? How he envied this life.

One family so blessed, one cursed.

When he exhaled, Jane absently stroked the back of his neck with her nails, as though she sensed he needed it.

He stared into the fire. Just weeks ago, the woman his brother loved—the only one he'd ever loved—had almost died. Because of Court's brash actions, the two of them had been hunted down by the Rechazado.

Two had followed Annalia's brother to the MacCarrick home in London, and had seized her, dragging her outside. When Court had charged after her, one shoved a gun against her temple so hard she'd been bruised. Court could do nothing to help her, could only grate out a strangled plea to Hugh, who, as usual, had been on the periphery and able to back away.

Hugh had made it upstairs to his room, snatched up his rifle, and drawn a bead from the second-story window. Never had a shot meant so much—he knew his brother would be destroyed if the girl died.

Hugh had succeeded in killing the target in a way that prevented the man from firing, but Annalia had had to crawl away from the dropped body that still clenched her. Before Court could get to her, she'd slipped in the pooling blood, crying softly.

And as he'd seen Court rushing to her, Hugh had been shamed to feel relief—that he himself had never risked Jane. He remembered thinking, "I'll die before I expose Jane to something like this."