Scandals Bride

'She doesn't seem to see any need for a husband.' Her eyes darted to Catriona, then returned to his face. 'It seems odd, I know, but she has been running the manor for six years now, and I gather everything goes smoothly.' Another darting glance lingered on Catriona's elegant dark lavender gown. 'She certainly seems to want for nothing, and she's never made any claim on the McEnerys.'

'I'm surprised,'-Richard affected his most indolent drawl-'that there are no local aspirants to her hand. Or does the valley boast only a few souls?'

'Oh, no. The population's quite considerable, I believe. But none of the young men would look to Catriona, you know.' Mary regarded him earnestly. 'She's their 'lady,' you see. The lady of the vale.'

'Ah.' Richard nodded, although he didn't see at all, but there was a limit to how far he could question even sweet Mary without raising suspicions. But he wanted to understand who and what Catriona Hennessy was, and how she'd come to be so. She was an intriguing 'lady' on a number of fronts; he'd been so bored, she was a breath of fresh air-a fresh taste to his jaded palate.

He glanced her way and saw her look sharply at Algaria O'Rourke as the older woman struggled to suppress a yawn. The conversation that ensued was easy to follow; Catriona, moved by concern, pulled rank and ordered her watchdog to bed. Richard quickly looked away-and felt, a second later, the older woman's suspicious glance. But she went, passing the tea trolley on her way. The butler stationed the trolley before Mary.

'Let me help.' Richard collected the first two cups Mary poured. 'I'll take them to Miss Hennessy and…'

'Meg,' Mary supplied with a smile. 'If you would be so kind.'

Richard smiled and moved away.

'Meg? Miss Hennessy?'

Both turned in response to his drawl. Meg's eyes fixed on the cups in his hands. 'Oh! Ah…' She swallowed, and turned a delicate shade of green. 'I… don't think so.' She cast a desperate glance at Catriona. 'If you'll excuse me?'

With a helpless look at Richard, she hurried across the room and slipped out of the door.

'Well!' Brows high, Richard looked down at the tea. 'Is it that bad?'

'Of course not.' Catriona relieved him of one cup. 'It's just that Meg's increasing and a bit fragile at present. The most unexpected things turn her stomach.'

'Is that what you've been so earnestly discussing?'

'Yes.'

Richard met Catriona's gaze over the rim of her cup as she sipped; her head barely topped his shoulder, yet her manner proclaimed her belief that she was as powerful, if not more powerful, than he. There was no hint of feminine weakness, or any acknowledgment of susceptibility.

Lowering her cup, she eyed him evenly. 'I'm a healer.'

The declaration was cool; Richard affected polite surprise. 'Oh?' He'd assumed as much, but better she think him an ignorant southerner, a gullible Sassenach, if she were so disposed. 'Eye of newt and toe of frog?'

The look she cast him was measuring. 'I use herbs and roots, and other lore.'

'Do you spend much time hovering over a bubbling cauldron, or is it more like a well-stocked stillroom?'

She drew a tight breath, her gaze on his steadfastly innocent expression, then exhaled. 'A stillroom. An encyclopedic one.'

'Not a cave, then.' Bit by bit, Richard drew her out-and with each factual answer, her fridigity melted a fraction more. He held to his harmless, bantering pose, letting his gaze touch her face only briefly, politely. Her hair drew his eyes more frequently, a magnetic beacon. Even among all the redheads in the room, her crowning glory made her stand out. The soft curls shimmered in the candlelight; those about her face and neck jiggled as she moved, exerting the same mesmeric attraction as dancing flames. They held the promise of heat-Richard felt an overwhelming urge to warm his hands in them.

He blinked and forced himself to look away.

'Naturally, there are some things not available locally, but we send out for them.'

'Naturally,' he murmured. Shifting so he stood beside her, supposedly scanning the room, he glanced swiftly at her profile. The ice had melted significantly; with her flaming tresses and those gold sparks in her eyes, he felt sure there'd be a volcano beneath. For the first time since joining her, he focused intently on her face. 'Your lips taste of roses, did you know?'

She stiffened, but didn't disappoint him; the look she shot him over the rim of her cup held fire, not ice. 'I thought you would be gentleman enough to forget that incident entirely. Wipe it from your mind.'

There was compulsion in her last words; Richard let it flow past him. He smiled lazily down at her. 'You have that twisted. I'm far too much a gentleman to forget that incident, not even its most minor detail.'

'No gentleman would mention it.'

'How many gentlemen do you know?'

She sniffed. 'You shouldn't have grabbed me like that.'

'My dear Miss Hennessy! You walked into my arms.'

'You shouldn't have held me like that.'

'If I hadn't held you, you would have slipped and fallen on your luscious-'

'And you certainly shouldn't have kissed me.'

'That was unavoidable.'

She blinked. 'Unavoidable?'

Richard looked down, into her green eyes. 'Utterly.' He held her gaze, then raised his brows. 'Of course, you didn't have to kiss me back.'

Color rose in her cheeks; she looked back at her cup. 'A moment of temporary insanity, immediately regretted.'

'Oh?'

She glanced up, hearing danger in his tone, but wasn't quick enough to stop him from stroking, not the nape of her neck, so temptingly exposed, but the coppery curls that caressed her sensitive skin. Unobserved by the company, Richard caressed them.

And she shivered, quivered.

Then hauled in a breath and thrust her empty cup at him. 'I find the company entirely too fatiguing-and the journey here was boring in the extreme.' Her words were couched in sheet ice, her tone a chill wind blowing straight from the Arctic. 'If you'll excuse me, I believe I shall retire.'

'Now, that,' Richard said, taking the cup, 'I didn't expect.'

She paused in the act of stepping away and shot him a suspicious glance. 'What didn't you expect?'

'I didn't expect you to run away.' He looked down at her as she studied him, and wondered how she did it. No hint of volcanic heat remained, not even a tiny glow of feminine warmth; she was encased in polar ice, colder than any iceberg. And the air had literally turned chill-the lady of the vale could give the ice-maidens of London lessons. He let the ends of his lips curve. 'I'm only teasing you.'

It came to him then-no other man had-no other man had ever dared.

She frowned, measuring him and his words. Eventually, she exhaled. 'I won't go if you keep your hands to yourself and don't mention our previous encounter. As I told you, that was a complete and utter mistake.'

Catriona imbued the last words with conviction, but, as before, it had little effect. He seemed immune, as if he could deflect her suggestive powers easily-an observation that did little to settle her skittish nerves.

When she'd walked into the drawing room and seen him there, his blue gaze direct, as if he'd been waiting for her, she had, for the first time in her life, literally felt faint. Dumbfounded. And… something else. Something more akin to searing excitement, something that had made her nervous, aware, set alive in a way she'd never been before.

For the first time in a long while, she wasn't sure she could control her world, her situation. She was not at all sure she could control him.

Which, first and last, was the crux of her problem.

She watched as he set their empty cups on a side table, and wished he'd been forced to keep them in his hands. Hands she'd already spent some time studying; long-fingered, elegantly made, they were the hands of an