Her nostrils flared. “That will be challenging.” Her voice came out tight and offended.
“I think we can do it.” He let the words hang between them, his double meaning clear. “In fact, we can begin, if you like, by making this carriage ride more interesting.”
There. Now she knew. He wasn’t so loyal to Autenberry that he would not pursue her. In fact, he wasn’t loyal to Autenberry at all. It wasn’t in his nature to deny himself something he wanted. And he wanted her.
“You’re incorrigible.” She let out a huff of breath and wrenched her gaze back to the window.
He chuckled again, satisfied that he had planted the seed in her mind. It would grow.
The invitation was there. She need only take it.
Alone in a carriage with Struan Mackenzie was every bit the bad idea she feared it would be. It was too late, however. Her sister was already gone in the carriage with the duchess and the other girls. Unless she wanted to jump from a moving carriage, Poppy was stuck. Alone with a man who was much too dangerous to her senses.
And he was dangerous. Just because she didn’t fear for her life did not mean he posed no threat. There was more than one way to pose a danger. She had their time in the alleyway to serve as a constant reminder of that.
Shivering, she burrowed deeper into her cloak.
“Here.” He lifted the great fur blanket off the seat beside him and unfolded it. Shaking it out slightly, he draped it over her.
She shook her head. She wasn’t shivering because of the cold, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. “You don’t have to—”
“Don’t be stubborn. I can hear your teeth clacking. You need a new cloak. This one is worn thin.”
“It was my mother’s.” She lifted her chin, an undeniable edge of defensiveness creeping into her voice.
“Sentimentality is good and well until you take chill and sicken.”
She choked back the impulse to tell him the truth—that she couldn’t simply go purchase a new, warmer cloak. That kind of expenditure would require setting money aside for months. And right now Bryony had needs that came before her own.
They rode in silence for a good while and some of the tension began to ebb from her shoulders. Perhaps they could pass this journey in relative peace and without incident, after all. She stared out the small crack in the curtains, at the sliver of world awash in winter gray.
“Where’s your mother that she does not need her cloak?” he asked suddenly.
She started, her gaze returning to his. Was he interested in such things about her?
“She’s gone,” she said after a few moments. Conversation with him made her uneasy. He made her uneasy. He seemed to enjoy discomfiting her. She didn’t know what he would do or say next. “For twelve years now,” she continued. “My sister’s birth was . . . difficult. She was never very strong after that. Every cold, every ague, took its toll and left her weaker. She finally succumbed to consumption.”
The coach swayed with a comforting rhythm. Her hands stroked the velvet squabs restlessly.
She had never been in so fine a carriage. Even her brief time in the duchess’s carriage had not treated her to such luxury—and she had thought that was the finest carriage she would ever grace. Her fingers stroked the fine seat. Struan Mackenzie might not be highborn, but he certainly had wealth to spare if he could possess a coach the likes of this.
“I lost my mother, too,” his deep voice rumbled across the space between them to confess. “When I was ten and four . . .”
Awkward silence fell.
“I was two years younger than that,” she volunteered into the quiet. “I still remember her voice . . . things she said and did. How she liked to garden. In the spring she would smell like the soil, loamy and floral. But her face is less clear to me. That’s the most unsettling thing. I search my memory for her face and it’s always hovering, just beyond my reach.”
“Have you no portraits or sketching of her?”
“Sadly, no.” She gave a wobbly smile and looked down at her hands. “But the reverend’s wife says I favor her.”
“Then she was beautiful,” he quickly returned, almost as though the words had been unthinking on his part.
Her head whipped up at that. No one had called her beautiful before. That was reserved for Bryony.
He looked at her only a moment before turning his gaze to stare out the crack in the curtains that had held her attention earlier, almost as though he regretted uttering the compliment.
Poppy didn’t know what to say. She studied him for a moment. Hoping to change the subject, she inquired, “What happened after your mother died? Did you go to live with your father—”
His face hardened. “The Duke of Autenberry didn’t want anything to do with his lowborn son. I only met him once. A few months before my mother died. He was visiting friends on the estate my mother once worked as a maid.” His fingers clenched on his thigh, clearly recalling bitter memories. “They sacked her when she began increasing with me. Can’t have an unwed girl cleaning the chamber pots.” His lip curled. “Never mind it was their houseguest who pursued her as relentlessly as a bloodhound. It was she alone who bore the burden. My father ruined her and then left her. No family would take her in after that. She was soiled goods.” If possible that lip only curled further, revealing a flash of white teeth within the shadowy interior. He reminded her of a wolf. She shifted uneasily where she sat across from him.
She trembled, listening raptly, horrified as an image of his childhood in all its ugliness took shape before her. “Then what happened?”
“She made her living the only way she could. As so many before her have.”
“You grew up like that? With her . . .” It was too wretched to say. Although it was not something that hadn’t crossed her mind before. The constant strain of pinching pennies, fretting about the future for both herself and Bryony. How could such a fate that befell on so many hapless females lacking finances or protection not have crossed her mind as a dreaded fear?
“Aye, different men.” He nodded, his eyes taking on a faraway quality. “A slew of them coming and going . . .”
She sucked in a sharp breath.
He shook his head with a muffled curse. “My apologies. It’s not a fit subject. I don’t know why I’m telling you this.” He sounded bemused. “I’ve never talked about it with anyone. Perhaps it’s because of those eyes of yours.”
“My eyes?”
“Aye, they beg a man to spill all. Everything. Hold nothing back.”
“They do?” Her fingertips brushed her upper cheek. The afternoon was a day for revelations, it seemed.
“Aye,” he repeated. “That is when they’re not flashing as though you wish to maim me.”
She gave a small grunt of laughter, stifling it. “Well, you do wage a good argument for justified maiming.” She sobered, picking at a fraying thread along a seam in her dress. “I don’t mind you talking about your mother. Perhaps you do so now for the very reason that you never have. Everyone should have someone to confide in.”
“And you want to be my confidante, Miss Fairchurch?” His voice adopted a husky pitch that made her stomach roll. If possible, it seemed that the air grew thicker, the confines of the coach tighter.
“It’s something to do to pass the time during the journey,” she said with forced brightness.
“I could think of other things to do.”
Her face burned, understanding precisely what things he referred to.
They lapsed into awkward silence for some moments and she feared she had killed the impulse in him to confide in her.
And then he began talking again.
She released a small anxious breath.
“One of my earliest memories is taking care of her after one of her gentlemen callers decided he needed to rearrange her face.” He tapped the edge of his nose, and she wondered if he was even aware that he was doing that. Or was he seeing his mother, seeing her face when it had been rearra
nged.
Poppy winced, visualizing him as a little boy trying to help his mother, the one adult who should have taken care of him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice shaking.
He turned his attention from the window and fixed his stare on her once again. He stared at her for a long time, his gaze deep, curious, as he assessed her. “What do you have to be sorry about? You were a little girl then, caught up in your own world doing little-girl things. Even once your mother was gone, I presume there was a father there for you?” At her nod, he continued flatly, “My own father is dead now. He was the reason I came to London.”
She frowned. “How is that?”
“I had to show him. Let him know I made something of myself even without his help. I wanted him to know that I wasn’t rotting in an unmarked grave like my mother.”
She flinched.
“I even entertained the notion of taking revenge on him.”
Her expression must have revealed some of her disapproval. She regretted that. She shouldn’t judge. She couldn’t know what he’d endured. She couldn’t begin to understand how he felt. Then or now.
“Should that surprise you?” he asked, that corner of his mouth kicking up, tempting her with his non-smile. “I thought marrying some fine blue-blooded lass would be the final revenge. Flaunting her in my father’s face . . . going to all the same functions that he and his real family attended. I thought about doing that very thing for a long time. Even after I learned my father was dead, I thought about it.”
For some reason this confession made her feel a little hollow inside. “You’re looking to marry an aristocrat?” she asked numbly, feeling awkward and inadequate sitting across from him. She twisted her hands in her lap. A poor shopgirl like herself shouldn’t be worth his time and yet here he was stuck in a carriage with her.
“Thought as in past tense. Not anymore.” He chuckled harshly. “I shook off that fit of madness, thankfully. Can you imagine? I was contemplating shackling myself to a blue-blooded miss simply to prove that I was as good as my sire. And he’s dead.” He laughed roughly. “I suppose I thought he could see me from where he’s burning.”
Relief coursed through her. And sadness. She was perversely and selfishly and wrongly glad that he still wasn’t on a mission to marry, but she felt sorry for him, too. He seemed so . . . alone. For all his money and power, he was alone.
She studied the big shape of him across from her. His legs took up a great deal of space, nearly touching the bench where she sat. It was difficult to reconcile such a brawny man with the words she was hearing from him. He looked invulnerable, but he was so obviously embittered.
She moistened her lips before speaking. “It can’t be good for you to keep this festering inside you.”
He was silent for a moment. His eyes black as a graveyard in the confines of the carriage, and she was quite certain he did not appreciate her advice. He leaned forward slightly, propping one elbow on his knee in a gesture that felt faintly menacing. “My mother took me to him once, you know, as I mentioned. Presented me as though he might be proud at the sight of me.” He laughed harshly again. “I was the spitting image of him. Resembled him even more than Marcus. Ironic that.”
So Autenberry saw his dead father when he looked at his bastard half brother? That must be a struggle. What else did he see when he looked at Struan? His father’s infidelity? The sting of betrayal? Suddenly the fight outside Barclay’s made a little more sense. As difficult as Struan’s life had been, this couldn’t be easy for Autenberry either.
Struan continued, “My mother wanted him to acknowledge me. Take me home with him. Can you believe that? She still believed in fairy tales after everything that happened to her.”
“She was your mother,” Poppy said slowly, thoughtfully. “She loved you and wanted the best for you. Yes. I can imagine that.”
“Well, that didn’t happen. Instead he left us to starve and freeze through a Highland winter. My mother was already weak. Too few meals over a long period of time . . . years. She would always see to me first. Food and clothing, shoes, went to me first.”
Poppy nodded slowly, tears clogging her throat as he uttered all of this so impassively, his face a stone mask. Wouldn’t she do the same if she were a mother? Would she not do the same for Bryony?
“She never saw the spring,” he finished.
She inhaled, uncertain how to proceed after his admission. She had to tamp down the urge to reach across the space separating them and touch him, to offer some measure of comfort. For him or yourself? She shook off the question, pushing it down deep inside her.
Undeniably, she did not trust herself with him. Not after last night. There was too much tension between them, too much temptation wrapped up in him. He was a magnet for which she could not resist.
“You do have family that cares about you or you wouldn’t be on the way to Autenberry Manor. The dowager duchess, Clara, Enid . . . she’s your half sister,” she reminded him.
“I scarcely know them.”
“As of now,” she acknowledged. “But they clearly have no wish to remain strangers.”
He chuckled, still managing not to smile as he studied her contemplatively. “You are full of sunshine. I wager you’ve never met a soul that didn’t like you. You’re a rare thing, kitten. Not everyone is like you.” He exhaled. “I’m on the way to Autenberry Manor because my half brother is in a coma. When the duke wakes, that invitation shall be revoked and I’ll be cast out and heading back to Town.” He shrugged. “Or Scotland. A stranger yet again to the Autenberry clan.”
She shook her head. “Lord Strickland thinks when His Grace awakes you two could put everything behind you and become at the very least friendly—”
“Does he now?” Amusement laced his voice. “I’m the bastard son. The dirty evidence of the late duke’s indiscretion. Autenberry admired his father greatly and I’m evidence that his lauded father was far less than the great man he believed him to be. Trust me, my brother didn’t want me around before his coma. He won’t want me around after.”
She lifted her chin, thinking of the duke coming into Barclay’s every week. His ready smile and kind words didn’t match the man that Struan was describing. “I think you’re wrong.”
“Oh, that’s right.” His lips curled in a sneer. Something sparked in his dark moss eyes that made gooseflesh break out across her skin. Her stomach quivered and her breath caught. He leaned forward, draping his wrists on his knees so that his big hands with their long, tapering fingers dangled loose on the air. She tried not to stare hard at those hands, those fingers. Tried not to remember how they felt on her. “He’s your perfect prince of a man,” he bit out, his brogue hard and clipped.
“I didn’t say that. No one is perfect.” Autenberry just happened to be close. At least the notion of him that she had created in her head was close to perfection.
“Oh, you’ll admit that? I’m shocked. Your fiancé isn’t perfection?”
She flushed, not about to malign a man in a coma . . . especially one to whom she was supposedly affianced. “That’s not what I said either. You’re twisting my words. Autenberry is quite nearly perfect.”
“Quite nearly? So he’s imperfect?”
“Stop it!” she snapped.
“Is it his kissing technique?” He angled his head. “Is that where he falls short?”
She flushed hot. “I didn’t say he falls short and his kissing is . . . is perfectly fine.”
“Fine?” Mockery again. “Well, that’s a ringing endorsement.”
“He’s splendid! Brilliant!” She tossed her hands in the air, astonished that she was even having this conversation. Why was it that around this man all sense of propriety failed her? “A glorious kisser!”
“That a fact?”
“Yes.” She should stop now, but she kept going, the words flying out like barbed arrows. “Who do you think taught me to kiss? The duke is more than adequate.” She didn’t know where these lie
s were coming from. Mackenzie did something to her. Made her not even recognize herself.
“Oh?” The word was uttered with such stillness. Almost too quiet. It should have warned her. “And what else did that brother of mine teach you?” he growled, reaching across the seat to seize her waist with both hands.
Before she could get out a word, he plopped her on his lap, her skirts a froth of fabric around them.
She squeaked, her hands coming up to balance herself on his shoulders.
“I have an idea.” His brogue, deep as the forest of his eyes, dragged across her skin, a physical caress. “Why don’t you just show me?”
Chapter 17
His mouth slanted over hers. Liquid heat rushed through her as his hand curled around her jaw. His other hand slid inside her cloak, the broad palm spanning her back.
Air escaped her nose in rapid little pants. The sound was embarrassing. It gave away just how affected she was, just how devastated she found his mouth on hers . . . his hand on her . . . his voice—
“No running away this time, kitten. No interruptions,” he growled against her lips. “We’ve plenty of time in this carriage for you to show me everything my damn brother taught you.”
His growly words should offend her. Outrage should have her pushing him away, but the way his mouth worked over hers, hot and punishing, hungry, as though she were the last meal he would ever eat, had her hands doing other things.
Instead of pushing him away, her fingers relaxed and crept up his shoulders to curl around his neck and tangle in the too-long strands of his hair. The dark gold strands felt like silk, the ends soft as feathers brushing her palms. Did Vikings have hair this soft?
She ran her fingers deeper into his hair, her nails scraping his scalp, and he gave a low sound of pleasure. “Keep touching me,” he breathed into her mouth, his air filling all the little hollows inside her.