Nicola Cornick – The Lady and the Laird (страница 8)

She was in big trouble.

She squeezed past her cousin and out into the aisle. It was now packed with wedding guests, all milling around and chattering. “Excuse me,” Lucy said rapidly for a third time, trying to carve a path through the congregation toward the nearest door.

She threw a look back over her shoulder. Several people had ambushed Robert Methven on his way down the aisle, presumably to ask him what was going on. He was answering courteously enough, but his eyes were still fixed on her, fierce and focused. As he caught her gaze, Lucy saw a flash of grim amusement light the deep blue depths. He knew she was running from him and he was coming after her.

It was only as she reached the church door, out of breath and with her heart pounding, that she realized her tactical mistake. She should have stayed inside, surrounded by people. Robert Methven could not have interrogated her there. She would have been safe. Except she suspected that he was the sort of man who would simply have picked her up and carried her out of the church had he wanted to speak to her in private. He would not care if he outraged convention.

Galvanized by the thought, Lucy started to hurry down the uneven path toward the lych-gate. The road beyond was blocked with carriages. The little village of Brodrie had seen nothing on the scale of this wedding since the laird had married thirty years before.

“Lady Lucy.” There was a step behind her on the path. Lucy froze. She wanted to run, but that would be undignified. It would also end badly. She could not run in her silk slippers and Robert Methven would be faster than she was.

She turned slowly.

“Lord Methven.” The moment of confrontation had arrived too soon. She felt completely unprepared. “I am sorry,” she said. “Sorry for your...” She paused.

“Loss?” Robert Methven suggested ironically. “Or sorry that your brother is such a blackguard that he elopes with another man’s bride?”

His voice was rough edged, rubbing against Lucy’s senses like skates on ice. No educated man, no gentleman, spoke with a Scots accent, but there was a trace of something in Robert Methven’s voice that was as abrasive as he was. Perhaps it was the time he had spent abroad that had rubbed off the patina of civilization in him. Whatever it was, it made Lucy shiver.

He was blocking the path in front of her and he did not move. As always, his height and the breadth of his shoulders, the sheer solid masculine strength of him, overwhelmed her. This time, though, Lucy knew she could not allow herself to be intimidated.

“Lord Methven.” She tried again. She smiled her special smile. It was composed and sympathetic and it gave—she hoped—no indication at all of the way in which her heart thumped and her breath trapped in her chest. “I know that Lachlan has behaved badly—”

“Damn right he has,” Robert Methven said. “He is a scoundrel.”

Well, that was true, if a little direct from a gentleman to a lady. But then Methven was nothing if not direct. Lucy could feel the hot color stinging her cheeks. Generally she had far too much poise for any gentleman to be able to put her to the blush. Perhaps it was because Robert Methven was so blunt that she felt so ill at ease in his company. On a positive note, however, he was blaming Lachlan for the letters so she was perfectly safe. He had no idea she had been involved.

“You look very guilty,” Methven said conversationally. “Why is that?”

Suddenly Lucy felt as though she was on shaky ground after all.

“I apologize for that too,” she said shortly. “It is just the way I look.”

Methven’s firm lips tilted up in a mocking smile. Lucy felt mortified. She never lost her temper and was certainly never rude to anyone. It simply was not good behavior. Yet Robert Methven always seemed able to get under her skin.

“I like the way you look,” Methven said, shocking her all the more. He raised one hand and brushed her cheek with the back of his fingers. The constricted feeling in Lucy’s chest increased. It felt as though her bodice had been buttoned so tight she was unable to draw in her breath at all. The skin beneath his fingers burned.

“I thought you looked guilty because you knew about the elopement,” Methven said. His hand fell to his side. “I thought that you might even have helped the happy couple?”

Lucy felt the breath catch in her throat. Under his gaze she felt exposed, her emotions dangerously unprotected, her reactions impossible to hide.

“I...” She realized that she did not know what she was going to say. Methven’s cool blue gaze seemed to pin her to the spot like a butterfly on a slide. She felt helpless.

She took a deep breath and pressed one hand to her ribs to ease the rapid pound of her heart. Her mind steadied. She hated to lie. It was wrong. But she told herself that she had not played any part in the elopement. Not directly.

“I had nothing to do with it,” she said. She could feel her blush deepening, guilty flags in her hot cheeks. “That is—” She scrambled for further speech. Methven was watching her silently. His stillness was quite terrifying, like that of a predatory cat.

“I knew that Lachlan was in love with Miss Brodrie,” she said. Already it felt as though she had said too much, as though she were on the edge of a slippery slope. “That is all. I didn’t know about the elopement, or the love letters—” She stopped, feeling her stomach drop like a stone as she realized what she had said, what she had done. A wave of heat started at her toes and rose upward to engulf her whole body.

“I did not mention any love letters,” Robert Methven said. His tone was very gentle but the look in his eyes had sharpened.

Once again there was silence, acute in its intensity. Lucy could hear the soft hush of the breeze in the grass. She could smell the cherry blossom. She was captured by the look in Robert Methven’s eyes, pinned beneath that direct blue stare.

“I...” Her mind was a terrifying blank. She could think of no way out.

“I hear your brother is no scholar,” Methven said. There was a harder undertone to his voice now. “But you, Lady Lucy...you are a noted authoress, are you not?”

Panic tightened in Lucy’s chest. She could hear the anger hot beneath his words.

“I...”

“So very inarticulate all of a sudden,” Methven mocked.

“Methven, my dear fellow.” The Duke of Forres was hurrying toward them down the path, Lucy’s sisters behind him. The rest of the wedding guests were spilling out of the church now. “My dear chap,” the duke said again. “I don’t know what to say. I do apologize for the incivility of my son in running off with your future wife. Frightful bad manners.”

The moment was broken. Lucy drew a sharp breath and drew closer to Mairi’s side for comfort and support. She could feel herself shaking.

Robert Methven’s gaze remained fixed on her face. “Pray do not give the matter another thought, Your Grace,” he said. “I am sure I shall find a way to claim recompense.” He bowed to Lucy. “We shall continue our conversation later, madam.”

Not if she could help it.

Lucy watched him walk away. His stride was long and he did not look back.

“Very civil,” the duke said. He sounded surprised. Evidently, Lucy thought, he had missed the implied threat in Robert Methven’s words.

Lucy knew better. There was nothing remotely civil about Robert Methven, nor would there be in his revenge. It was not over.

CHAPTER THREE

LUCY HAD NOT wanted to attend the wedding breakfast, but her father had, for once, been adamant.

“Methven has invited us,” he said firmly. “The least that we can do is support him. This way we minimize the scandal of your brother’s appalling behavior and ensure that there is no more bad blood between our families.”

So that was that. Lucy sat through the banquet fidgeting as though her seat were covered in pine needles. She had no appetite. The food and drink turned to ashes in her mouth. She could barely swallow. She endured the gossip about Lachlan and the stares and the whispers with a bright and entirely artificial smile pinned on her face while inside, her stomach was curling with apprehension. She was seated a long way down the table from Robert Methven, but she could feel him looking at her, feel the heat of his gaze and sense the way he was studying her. Yet when she risked a glance in his direction, he was always looking the other way and paying her no attention at all. It could only be her guilt that was making her feel so on edge.

The meal ended and the dancing began. By now the wedding guests were extremely merry because the wine had circulated lavishly. Dulcibella’s elopement with the wrong bridegroom had almost been forgotten.

“Damned fine celebration,” Lucy heard one inebriated peer slur to another. “Best wedding of the year.”

Lucy sat with her godmother and the other chaperones, awkward and alone on one of the rout chairs at the side of the great hall of Brodrie Castle. Lucy hated the fact that at four and twenty she was still required to have a chaperone simply because she was not married. It was ridiculous. She knew it was society’s rule, but nevertheless it made her feel as though she were still a child. And since she had no intention of marrying, she could foresee the dismal prospect of being chaperoned until she was old enough to be a fully fledged spinster of thirty-five years at least.