“Which it is today, so let’s make the most of it.” He offered his arm and she took it, linking their arms and allowing him to draw her close.
With her skirts brushing his boots and his senses highly aware of her slender form pacing so close beside him, they walked around the old kirk with its tall spire, past the Brig o’ Doon, and out along Harbour Street where the breeze grew more brisk and carried the scent of the sea.
“I have to admit,” Niniver said, “that I was very glad to have you there to help send Mr. McDougal on his way. If I’d come with Sean, I would most likely have been eating alone, and I would never have got rid of McDougal—he’s a persistent sort.”
“Trust me,” Marcus dryly replied, “the pleasure was all mine.” A second later, he tipped his head her way. “I admit I’m rather enjoying being your champion and sending importuning suitors packing.” A smile on his lips, he met her eyes. “I believe the role becomes me.”
She chuckled and looked ahead. “Oh, it does. It makes use of that dark Cynster menace you project so effortlessly.” Three paces on, she said, “Tell me—are all your… Are they cousins? Those of your age who came for Thomas and Lucilla’s wedding?”
“Cousins of sorts—some are first cousins, others second cousins, and some are close connections.”
“Ah. Well, are all your cousins like you?” Swinging to look into his face, she widened her eyes. “I know they all look rather like you, but are they equally menacing?”
He looked at her, his expression implying that the answer was obvious. “They’re Cynsters. We all have a very good line in menace.” He paused, then added, “Even the females.”
She laughed.
He grinned and decided he loved the sound of her laughter…as he registered the thought, he realized he’d never heard her laugh before he’d gone to stay at Carrick Manor. Then again, over recent years, she hadn’t had much to laugh about.
He vowed to change that.
But first, he needed to change her mind about marriage. He had to convince her that marrying him would not carry any of the risks she so clearly—and accurately—foresaw. Any other man, and she almost certainly would find it difficult to believably hold on to her position as lady of the clan, and from all he’d gleaned from Sean, Ferguson, and Edgar, once she was sidelined, it was very likely the clan would, indeed, fracture and fall apart.
Even though he didn’t belong to a clan in the same sense, he was a Cynster—he understood what family meant, and he understood what clan meant to her. She also seemed to have a deep-seated loyalty to her father’s memory and his legacy; she’d mentioned that several times.
He had to find a way to make her see him simultaneously as an effective champion and as no threat. As a man who was willing to support her position, rather than undermine it.
That she viewed him as menacing…helped in one respect, but possibly not in the other.
They reached the Esplanade and started pacing southward along the paved walk above the beach. The wide sweep of Ayr Bay stretched to the horizon; today the water was pewter-blue, flecked with just the occasional white crest thrown up by the playful breeze.
“Are your brothers and younger sister at home—at Casphairn Manor—at present?”
Niniver’s question drew his gaze to her face. Dozens of fine tendrils of silver-gold hair danced about it, a living frame, and the touch of the breeze had brought color to her normally pale cheeks.
“Annabelle has already gone south to stay with our ducal relatives for the Season. She and Louisa—Lady Louisa Cynster, the duke’s daughter—are two of a group of four Cynster girls who…for want of a more accurate term, hunt together.” He felt his lips twist in cynical but amused appreciation, then met Niniver’s intrigued gaze. “I have heard that a certain stratum of the marriageable gentlemen of the ton go in fear for their bachelor state.”
She searched his eyes, and correctly concluded he wasn’t joking. “They sound quite…fearsome—your female relatives.”
He saw the opening and seized it. “In my family, the women tend to be as powerful—in all the ways that truly matter—as the men. I can’t think of a single lady in the family who is a meek and mild sort, and although our inclinations might be otherwise, we males have learned to live with that.” He kept his expression open and sincere. “We’ve learned to accommodate ladies who insist on handling their own reins.”
She looked ahead. A few paces on, she observed, “That’s not the norm.”
“For others, perhaps. But for us, it is.” A genuinely rueful laugh escaped him. “We’ve learned that we really don’t have a choice—it’s adapt, or live a very lonely life.” Truer words he’d never said.
“Hmm.” After a moment, she returned to her earlier question. “What of your brothers?”
“As far as I know, Calvin and Carter are at home. I imagine they’re hiding, hoping to avoid the first rush of the Season in town. I suspect they’ll both go down eventually, to meet with their friends, or perhaps they might head to Edinburgh.”
She glanced at him. “Now you live at Bidealeigh, do you miss having them—your brothers and sisters—about?”
He had to think before he could answer. “Not so much them, specifically—they’ll always be there, close enough, dropping by, writing letters, and so on. As family, we won’t ever lose touch. But I do miss having others about.” He’d only just realized how much—how lonely he’d been at Bidealeigh, all on his own, and how much more comfortable—more in his natural element—he felt at Carrick Manor. “I’m used to a large household, with people to interact with. With things—events, issues, problems—occurring most of the time.”
“You’re used to being busy.” She nodded decisively. “I’ve realized I far prefer to be busy, as I am now, rather than sit helplessly on the periphery, as I used to.”
Several paces on, she asked, “Why did you call your estate Bidealeigh? I always wondered. That wasn’t the name old man Hennessy used, was it?”
“No, but Bidealeigh was an older name for the property, from before Hennessy’s time. The name could be taken to mean ‘a place to wait,’ and for various reasons, that seemed appropriate.”
They’d reached the end of the Esplanade, and in unvoiced accord, they turned to head back to the inn by cutting through the town. After crossing the road and regaining the pavement on the other side, Marcus went on, “When Lucilla and Thomas married, it was simply time for me to move out. It wasn’t that Thomas and I clashed, but rather that he needed not to have me there, distracting and confusing everyone, while he was learning to take on the duties my father performs, but which I, in the past, have carried. Me remaining in the Vale would have simply added an extra layer of difficulty—and irritation—for both Thomas and me.”
She asked about the sheep he was breeding and his other activities at Bidealeigh. All were questions he could easily answer; while one part of his mind was thus engaged, he grasped the chance to rapidly reassess where exactly he and she stood. What he’d learned from the day. What he’d yet to accomplish.
While he’d originally assumed his best way forward would be to see off her suitors, and then subsequently to focus on winning her, the events of yesterday had made that simple plan untenable. First, protecting her had already escalated his possessiveness to a degree that it was no longer a simple matter reining in the impulses that possessiveness provoked. Compounding that, she’d decided to pursue a passionate connection with him. Exactly what she had in mind—how far she intended such a connection to go—he wasn’t yet sure, but, in the circumstances, he couldn’t rely on his own control holding, not if she challenged it. And he didn’t think he could count on her drawing back.
So managing their evolving relationship fell to him. And it seemed obvious that he would be wise to convince her that she would be safe marrying him before their escalating passions reached the point of becoming irresistible and sweeping them away.
The notion of not being in control, of being swept away by passion, w
as alien to him, yet with her…he simply wasn’t confident his control would hold. Not against her, not if she set her mind to overcoming it.
That was a sobering realization. He needed to convince her that marrying him would pose no risk to her position as clan leader, or to her life as she wished to live it. That he wanted to ally himself with her, to become a part of her life, not pull her into his.
As he’d intimated, while living at Bidealeigh, he’d been waiting—waiting for the right place, his true role, to manifest. As it had, with her.
He didn’t need to convince himself of that; he knew in his heart it was so.
They’d returned to the busier thoroughfares. Drawing her closer, he steered her protectively through the crowds. He thought back to what he knew of the events leading to his parents’ marriage—not a lot—and what he’d seen of Lucilla and Thomas’s road to the altar. Yet in both cases, his mother’s and Lucilla’s positions had been unassailable; those had never been under threat.
Not so with Niniver.
As the Tam O’ Shanter Inn hove into view, he realized that in Catriona and Richard’s marriage, and also in Lucilla and Thomas’s, the essential challenge had been that of naturally dominant men finding their way to accepting and embracing a supportive role. With him and Niniver, however, he already knew the ways and was entirely willing to assume such a role.
The challenge before him—and her—was to get her to accept that he could.
To trust that, despite his strength, he would always support her and never undermine her.
He had to get her to trust him.
Niniver strolled under the stable arch of the inn and inwardly sighed. Their day was coming to an end. True, it would take several hours to ride home, but riding was an exercise she and Marcus both enjoyed; they wouldn’t be talking, and she wouldn’t be gaining any further insights into his life.
But she couldn’t complain; the day had been wonderful. So much more relaxing than her visits to Ayr usually were. With Marcus beside her, she’d felt able to be entirely at ease, without keeping constantly alert for danger. For dangers like McDougal. Because Marcus had been there, McDougal had been nothing more than a momentary irritation; if Marcus hadn’t been there, McDougal would have been a pest and, most likely, would have ruined her day.
Instead, she’d experienced her most enjoyable day in months, possibly in the past several years.
She and Marcus halted in the stable yard. She drew her arm from his as the stable lads went to fetch their horses. As he turned to talk to the stable master, she let her gaze drift over his face, over him.
Her senses were growing accustomed to being close to him. They no longer skittered at his nearness; rather, they thrummed with anticipatory pleasure.
That her senses saw him as a source of pleasure should be no surprise, but his impact on her went deeper. In his company, she felt comfortable and assured, far more so than she’d ever felt with anyone else.
She could ask questions of him, about him, about his family, and he would answer. Those questions he’d asked of her, he’d asked with an interest that had encouraged her to answer equally openly.
It wasn’t, she realized, as the stable lads brought out their horses and she twisted to unhook the long train of her habit, simply that she didn’t feel threatened by him, but that with him she felt—and, indeed, knew—that he would protect her. That she didn’t need to fear others because he was there, by her side. That she could rely on him.
That he cared about her in a way, and to an extent, that few others did.
A stable lad angled Oswald beside her. Marcus walked across and halted before her. Releasing her train, she straightened—and his hands closed about her waist.
She met his dark blue eyes.
The corners of those fathomless eyes crinkled as he smiled at her. “Ready?”
She nodded.
He gripped and hoisted her to her saddle. After steadying her, he released her.
She settled her boots in her stirrups and flicked out her skirts, and wondered if the sudden constricting of her lungs was wholly due to the effect of his touch, or whether the realization of how much, how very much he had come to mean to her, how close she and he had so easily grown, was also stealing her breath.
Raising her head, she caught his eye.
He turned his gray’s head for the road, and she brought Oswald around. Side by side, they rode out, and set off along the highway back to the estate.
CHAPTER 7
Several hours later, the sun was sliding down the western sky, throwing elongating shadows across the macadam as they followed the wending ribbon of the highway back toward the Carrick estate.
Marcus rode easily alongside Niniver, reining Ned back whenever the big gray took it into his head to surge. Oswald, Niniver’s raw-boned bay, was older and more mature; he ignored Ned’s thinly veiled challenges and seemed content to stretch his legs in the alternating pattern of canter and easy gallop they’d been maintaining.
They were currently galloping, the horses’ long legs fluidly eating up the miles. Niniver was an excellent horsewoman; Marcus didn’t feel compelled to keep a close eye on her. Of course, because she was Niniver, his senses still remained on watch, yet it was pleasant not to feel the need to be hyperalert and on guard every second.
He’d intended to use the long ride to think of how to gain her trust, but the peace of the countryside, the crisp fresh air, the gentle warmth of the westering sun, and the rhythmic motion of riding combined with the simple pleasure of being with her and enjoying those things together to lull him into a mental daze where simply existing seemed enough.
Where thinking too much felt like something akin to sacrilege.
From the gentle curve of her lips and her relaxed expression, he deduced she felt the same.
They reached the northernmost edge of the Carrick estate. The entrance to the drive lay half a mile further on.
Crack!
Both horses reared. One of them screamed.
Ned went wild. Marcus wrestled with the gray. The powerful horse twisted and bucked.
Oswald bolted.
Marcus couldn’t spare even a glance Niniver’s way—not until he had Ned under control.
Ruthlessly, he hauled, all but wrenching the big gelding into obedience under tight rein.
Then he glanced around—and swore.
Oswald had leapt the low stone wall bordering the road and was thundering across the fields.
Marcus’s fields; that was Bidealeigh land.
Niniver was clinging to Oswald’s back, but she wasn’t strong enough to rein the big bay in…and the area they were heading into was pockmarked with rocky outcrops, eruptions of granite boulders that littered the fields.
If Niniver fell…
If Oswald fell and rolled…
Marcus didn’t stop to think. He’d already brought Ned’s head around. Easing the reins, he drove his heels into the gray’s sides.
Ned shot off in Oswald’s wake. He soared over the low stone wall, then landed and raced straight on.
Marcus leaned low over Ned’s neck. Riding with hands and knees, he urged the huge horse on.
Oswald was strong, but older and slower; steadily, Ned gained ground.
But not fast enough.
Marcus knew his fields, knew that not far ahead lay a narrowing where the valley turned. A place where a bolting horse would veer sharply. And where there were rocks all around.
Ned was gaining. He had settled and was no longer panicking, but he remained intent on running Oswald down.
Marcus started to hope. They might just make it in time for him to grab Oswald’s reins and slow the big horse—
One of Oswald’s hooves slid off a rock. The bay lurched. Nearly thrown, Niniver yelped.
Marcus suddenly had to make a decision—which side? Offside would be easier for lifting her free of her saddle, but if Oswald veered, she might fall to the onside and he might not be able to reach over the horse and catc
h her—
He opted for the onside.
Oswald veered. Niniver screamed. Losing her grip on the reins, she started to topple.
His gaze locked on her, Marcus pushed. Ned answered with a burst of speed.
Dropping the reins, Marcus leaned forward as far as he dared and reached—
Grabbed, and caught Niniver. With a massive effort, he pulled her up and away from Oswald; between her kicking and him tugging, they freed her boots from her stirrups. Then he hauled her up and into his arms as Ned followed Oswald into and through the narrow turn.
Niniver gulped air and clutched at Marcus.
Freed of her weight and racing out of the neck of the valley, Oswald kicked up his heels, then bolted again.
Ned followed, but the weight of two people on his back slowed him.
Juggling Niniver across his saddle, Marcus locked her to him with one arm, and with his free hand seized Ned’s reins.
To his relief, the big horse responded and slowed.
Marcus’s heart was thundering.
So was Niniver’s; when he glanced at her, he could see her pulse pounding at the base of her throat.
She was white as a sheet. The eyes that swung up to meet his were huge, their expression stunned and dazed.
“Are you hurt?” The most important question.
Awareness slowly returned to her eyes as she catalogued her limbs. Then she grimaced. “My left ankle.” She was breathless. “I wrenched it coming out of the saddle. But other than that…” Her gaze lifted to his face, animation returning to her own. “Thank you. I’m hale, whole, and alive—thanks to you.”
He held her gaze for a moment, struggling to fill his lungs, battling to find his mental feet. Then he bent his head and kissed her.
He had to kiss her. Had to claim that much, at least.
Had to reassure the prowling, snarling beast inside him that she was there, safe, still his.