It was sometime after midnight. Caitlyn could not sleep, though the rest of the household was long abed. Connor had ridden off on Fharannain after stomping out of the office and had not yet returned. She was becoming more and more convinced that he would not return that night. Visions of him in Meredith Congreve's bed made her grit her teeth. Huddled in a quilt before the banked fire in the kitchen, she waited, her expression increasingly grim. But it was beginning to look as though his comeuppance would have to wait for another day. At the thought, she wanted to gnash her teeth.
For hours the scene in the study had replayed itself in her mind. How dared he say such things to her, and before Liam too! Besides being a coward and a hypocrite, he was a cad! And she meant to tell him so before he was very much older! And if it turned out that he had spent the night making love to Meredith Congreve, she might well split his skull for him and be done with conversation altogether!
Honesty forced her to admit that there was a small grain of truth to his accusation. Some people might just possibly construe her actions as those of a woman throwing herself at his head. She had done most of the running, and she had asked him to kiss her (though not the first time!) and told him she loved him-but what else could one do with a man like Connor, who through some misguided sense of honor refused to follow his-and her-natural inclina- tions? She was an innocent, but she knew enough to know that the fire that blazed between them when they touched was no ordinary thing. Even when they were merely within sight of each other, the tension that vibrated between them was a tangible entity. But of course, contrary and pigheaded as always, Connor had to take it into his head that something so elemental and strong was also sinful. She had no such reservations. Despite his faults, which were many and varied and which she could spend the better part of the night enumerating, she loved him. She meant to have him-if she didn't murder him first! Jezebel, indeed!
She was in the middle of a great yawn when she heard a footstep on the stoop. Swallowing the yawn, she stood up, hugging the quilt around herself and looking expectantly at the door. From the parlor, the clock struck two. A fine time to ge getting home, to be sure!
Clearly he was trying to be quiet as he stepped into the kitchen, closing the door behind him. Just as clearly he did not at first see her in the shadows beside the fire. Droplets of water shone on the blue-black waves of his hair and clung to his buff superfine coat. It must have started to rain only in the past few minutes, because he was not wet through, merely sprinkled with raindrops. The banked orange glow of the fire illuminated him faintly, casting a huge black shadow over the wall behind him. Broad-shouldered and tall, his hard-muscled legs clad in close-fitting black breeches and riding boots, he was formidable-looking enough without the added specter of the huge black shadow at his back. But as he came into the room, stepping softly with the object she guessed of not rousing the house, there was something furtive, almost guilty about his movements. Obviously, wherever he had been, he was wishful of no witnesses to his return home. At the realization, Caitlyn's chilled-over temper began to heat anew. For where else could he have been, acting so ashamed, but with his mistress?
" 'Tis a fine time for you to be coming in!" she said shrilly, taking a step forward and fixing him with blazing eyes.
In the act of walking toward the fire to warm himself,
Connor started and stopped dead, head swiveling around as his eyes found her. A chagrined look descended briefly over his face before he tried to cover it up with anger.
"What the devil are you doing up?" he growled. His brows came together in a devilish scowl, and his eyes narrowed as they met her accusing gaze. " 'Tis gone two in the morning."
"I'm well aware of the time, thank you. Where have you been?"
He resumed his walk toward the fire. Holding out his hands to the glowing peat, he said over his shoulder, " 'Tis none of your business, miss."
"Is it not?" Incensed, she took a couple of steps toward him, until less than two feet separated them. The accusation emerged of its own volition: "Have you been with that woman?"
He took a long look at her, standing there wrapped ridiculously in a faded blue quilt with just the ruffled neck and hem of her plain white nightgown showing above and below it, bare of foot, her long hair streaming unconfined down her back, her blue eyes blazing at him while she quivered with temper. He sighed. "Stop bedeviling me, lass, and take yourself off to bed. I'm in no kind of mood for your tantrums."
"Tantrums! And I suppose your displays of temper are righteous anger?"
He sighed again as if mightily ill-used and turned away from the fire. "If you won't go to bed, I will. Good night."
"Come back here! I've a great many things to say to you!"
"No doubt you have, but I'm not inclined to listen. You'll have to hold your spleen till morning."
"I…" Their conversation was conducted in hissed whispers as she followed him down the hall to the stairs. She broke off abruptly as she watched him lift a foot to the bottom stair, miss his mark, and stagger sideways until his shoulder made contact with the wall and he was able to right himself.
"Connor…" she began, frowning. He was never clumsy. But before she could finish speaking he had found his balance and was climbing the stairs, his movements a trifle slow and deliberate, but adequate. She followed him almost to the door of his room, watching his every move. Was it possible that he was injured, or ill? There was that in his movements that spoke of a carefully orchestrated striving for normalcy. And now that she thought of it, his speech had been somewhat forced too, though nothing that she would have picked up on, had she not been witness to that uncharacteristic stagger.
"Connor, wait!" she said urgently as he entered his chamber without a backward look. When it seemed he would shut the door in her face, she shoved against it. To her surprise it flew open to bang against the wall as he went staggering back.
"Shhh!" he said, leaning against the wall. She could just see the bright gleam of his eyes through the darkness. From his chamber on the other side of the hall, Cormac's resounding snores continued undisturbed, and Caitlyn was sufficiently acquainted with the sleep habits of the rest of the d'Arcys not to fear waking them with anything less than a bloodcurdling scream. Still, just to make sure, she gently closed the door, then turned to lean against it for a moment, looking at Connor consideringly. He didn't move.
"What is wrong with you?" she demanded, stalking toward him.
"Sweet Jesus, how you plague a man! Will you let me be?" But he didn't move away from the wall, and Caitlyn's alarm grew.
"Are you hurt? Are you ill?" She reached up to lay a hand against his cheek to test for fever, her eyes running worriedly over his tall frame, only to have him catch her wrist and pull her soft palm away from his face.
"I'm neither hurt nor ill, and I want to go to bed. Now will you please go away?" Still holding her wrist, he bent his head toward her menacingly as he spoke. For the first time Caitlyn got a whiff of his breath. Whiskey! Standing stock-still, she stared up at him through the darkness. She was close enough so that her quilt brushed his legs. At the
expression on her face, he looked suddenly conscious, and lifted his head a little.
"Connor d'Arcy, have you been drinking?"
His eyes shifted. "A wee dram or two with Father Patrick…"
"You have been!"
"… does not constitute drinking, precisely, to my mind."
"You're drunk!"
"I am not drunk. Merely tired. And if you will excuse me, I would like to go to bed. Alone, if you please."
At this barb Caitlyn's anger, forgotten in the face of her worry, flared up again. She pulled her wrist from his hold and stood glaring at him.
"You're a swine!"
"So you've said before. But at least I'm not enough of a swine to dishonor a young girl living under my roof under my protection. Not yet, anyway." This last, muttered under his breath, was obviously not meant for her ears.
"Connor…" He was still leaning against the wall. As she spoke he straightened up to stand away from it, not quite steadily on the balls of his feet. His hands were on his neckcloth, untying it and pulling it away from his neck.
"Go to bed, Caitlyn. Please." He dropped the neckcloth on the floor and leaned against the wall again. He seemed so exhausted, or so much the worse for drink, that despite her anger she felt another twinge of worry for him.
"Do you need help getting undressed?" This was asked with all the exasperated concern of a mother for an erring but beloved child.
He laughed, the sound tinged with irony. "Help getting undressed is just what I don't need. Go to bed."
"But-"
"I called you a Jezebel, remember? You should be furious at me, not asking if I need help."
"I was furious." Remembering her grievance, Caitlyn scowled at him. "I am furious. Besides being a swine and three kinds of sons of a dog, you are a loathsome, no- good, dirty spawn of the devil! You-"
"I didn't mean it," he said, stopping her in mid-tirade. Something in the look in those aqua eyes made her heart speed up.
"Connor…"
"Go to bed."
"If you think to get away with that meager excuse for an apology…!"
"I'll do better in the morning. Go to bed."
"I don't want to go to bed." The soft protest narrowed his eyes. He straightened up from the wall again, put his hands on her shoulders, and tried to turn her about. She resisted, reaching up to close her fingers around his wrists. With neither of her hands to hold it in place, the quilt slid to the floor, leaving her clad only in her thin nightgown. His eyes slid down her body, seemingly drawn like a magnet despite every effort of will, before returning to her face.
"Caitlyn, for God's sake…" There was an almost desperate look in his eyes as she moved her fingertips lightly against the bronzed skin of his wrists.
"I want my apology now." Her voice was husky.
"I apologize. There, are you satisfied? Now go to bed."
Caitlyn sniffed. "Do you think that little bit will make up for die dreadful things you said to me?"
"I've forgotten what I did say. I was rather angry at the time. Tomorrow I promise you a handsome apology, but-"
"I remember," she said, interrupting him ruthlessly. Her fingers continued to move over the hard bones of his wrists, and her eyes lifted to his. He was frowning down at her, his brows a forbidding V. But there was a restless glitter in his eyes, and he made no further move to turn her out of the room.
"Besides calling me a Jezebel, you accused me of throwing myself at your head."
"Don't you?" The dry murmur was robbed of its sting by the way his eyes watched the movement of her lips, as if mesmerized.
She shook her head. His eyes rose to meet hers, and she felt as if she would be trapped forever in those aqua depths.
"Just because I said, 'I love you, Connor…' " Her voice was a soft caress; her eyes never left his. At her words, tiny embers at the backs of his eyes began to blaze. Her hands left his wrists to slide up his arms, her fingers moving lightly over the still-damp cloth of his coat until they touched his shoulders. Then, slowly, her eyes still locked with his, her hands slid behind his neck.
.. and 'I want you to kiss me, Connor' "-she tilted her face toward his while his hands automatically came to rest on her waist-"… that doesn't constitute throwing myself at your head. Precisely."
"Not precisely." His voice was unsteady. Beneath her fingers, the skin of his neck felt as if it would burst into flames at any instant.
"If I really wanted to throw myself at your head," she continued, her words scarcely above a whisper, "I would…" She hesitated, her tongue coming out to moisten her lower lip. The blaze in his eyes exploded into a full-fledged conflagration.
"What?" The single word was hoarse.
She smiled at him, tremulously, going up on tiptoe to touch her lips to his.
"Do this," she said against his mouth. And kissed him.