Julia James - The Lady Most Willing

Robin’s reply was terse and unintelligible.

“I know you and Byron think I’m nothing but a half savage,” Taran went on, “but at least I don’t reduce lassies to tears.”

“Do you think I enjoyed that?” Robin ground out.

“How could a man tell with you? Always ready with a quip and a laugh, and all the while the lassie looking as pale as the survivor of a massacre.”

“You overstate the case.” His tone was thick with emotion.

“The hell I do!” Taran shouted. “That she has feelings for you is as clear as fresh blood on new snow . . .” He trailed off and when he spoke again, his tone had changed from bombast to true shock. “Dear God, laddie, ye dinna actually seduce the poor wee creature? I know I encouraged you to do so, but only if you had honorable intentions. If you dinna plan to marry the girl, then you are a bloodier blackguard than I—”

“Stop! I did not seduce her!” Robin thundered. “For the love of all that’s holy, what do you take me for?’

“Who you are,” Taran snapped in reply. “ What you are.”

For a moment Robin was absolutely silent. Carefully, Cecily shifted in the chair, craning toward the rail to hear better.

“My past has nothing to do with Cecily and myself,” Robin said. “I would never do anything to harm her. Never .”

Cecily’s heart began to beat faster. She slipped from the chair to her hands and knees and crept to the rail to look down. Below, she could see Taran standing halfway down the short aisle leading to the altar. Before him, black curls gleaming in the afternoon light streaming through the chapel’s rose window, Robin paced like a caged beast.

“Cecily, is it?’ Taran asked musingly. “Well, it looks like for all your proposed good intentions, you’ve mucked up a grand bit, laddie, for the lady is heartsore and that’s a surety.”

“No,” Robin said emphatically. “She’s not.”

What did he mean? How could he make such an assumption?

“You’re wrong,” Taran said flatly. “I saw her watching you this afternoon. She could fain take her eyes from you.”

“No.” Robin stopped pacing, raking his hair back with his hand. The very set of his shoulders suggested resignation and weariness. “This afternoon I asked her to pretend that she loved a man like me and tell me how her father would react if that man asked for her hand.”

“And?” Taran prompted.

“She said the point was moot, because she would never ask her father to approve someone like me.”

What ? No. No . She hadn’t! Cecily’s brows furrowed, thinking back fiercely, trying to recall her exact words before Marilla, with her impeccable sense of timing, had interrupted them. Robin had just said, “Let us say you are in love with someone of my ilk,” and she had agreed, and then he had asked how her father would react and . . .

Her eyes flew wide. She had said the point was moot, and been about to say she would not ask her father’s permission because the only thing that mattered was if he loved her. But those words were not what Robin’s imagination had supplied. He had heard what he thought he deserved to hear.

“I don’t know why she would say such a thing when it’s so clearly a lie. Maybe she’s afraid of her parents. But if you were man enough, you’d find the way to persuade her to ignore her parents’ wishes and elope with you.”

“Dear God, Taran, have you not heard a thing I’ve said? Do you not understand? I love the girl , damn you and your plans and your machinations! I love her. I would never come between her and her family. I would never ask her to elope. Indeed, I would never . . . I should never have . . .”

Cecily’s heart began beating madly, a heady warmth rushing through her, filling her. The very blood in her veins seemed to carry joy with it, suffusing her every fiber with happiness.

Below her, Robin’s hand clenched into a fist at his side. “If she were my daughter and a man like me pursued her, I would horsewhip him within an inch of his life. I would sell him to a press gang and hope he died on foreign soil in some futile war.” He laughed bitterly. “But, as has been said, the point is moot.”

“It’s only moot if ye don’t do something aboot it, lad.”

“Enough,” Robin said, his voice weary. “Your man returned a few hours ago. The pass will be open by daybreak. I’ll stay to see that no one suggests there be any reason I should have left, and after that, I’m gone.”

Without another word, Robin brushed past Taran and disappeared, his uncle following.

On the balcony above, Cecily dropped back on her bum with a thump. Her hands slipped from the rail to her lap, her unseeing gaze fixed on the small marble altar below.

Robin loved her. Her heart swelled anew at the thought, became complete and whole and filled with unlimited potential, the future suddenly an invitation to a glorious adventure, the rest of her life a love story waiting to be told. Whatever her father’s objections, however reasonable and heartfelt, they would somehow find a way past them.

The only question now was how she would find her way past Robin’s own objections.

Her gaze drifted to a chapel window, the bare vines outside covering it like latticework, and suddenly, she knew: she was going to climb the ivy.

Chapter 28

Late that evening

Cecily bullied Hamish into bringing her hot water, then washed off all the chapel dust, then offered Mrs. McVittie her pearl ear bobs to tell her where Robin had his chambers. The scrawny, stooped old Scotswoman cackled like a witch and asked what she would do with pearl ear bobs and then, with a toothless grin, told her the location anyway.

But now, creeping up the cold stone staircase, shielding the flicking candle with her hand, it occurred to Cecily that the old lady might have been teasing her, because why would Robin stay in the abandoned part of the castle?

The corner room above the bailey tower, the old lady had said. Well, here she was and there was the door leading into that room, a thin line of light delineating the bottom. She pulled the blanket she’d draped over her shoulders closer and, taking a deep breath, pushed the door open.

Beyond was a small chamber, lit by the glow from embers in a tiny hearth in the opposite wall. It was a monkish room with only a few pieces of furniture. A large wingback chair stood facing the hearth, turned away from her and a narrow bed had been pushed hard against the wall.

She did not see Robin at once, and for one terrible moment thought he’d left after all. But then she saw a man’s hand appear over the arm of the chair, the long fingers curling over the carved end.

“If that draught is you, Taran, come to lecture me some more, go away,” Robin said tiredly. “If it is Hamish, leave the bottle on the table, and my thanks. And if it is Marilla, I am sorry, my dear, but I am not receiving tonight. Or any night. Or day, for that matter.”

She took a breath. “What if it is Cecily? How is she to act?”

The fingers tightened reflexively over the chair’s arm. For a moment he did not reply, and then in a very careful voice he said, “Sensibly. By leaving. At once.”

She smiled at that. “But it turns out I am not sensible. Or dutiful. Or circumspect. Or any of those things for which I have been admired. So I believe I will stay.” She let the blanket slip from her shoulders to the floor.

He stood up, slowly and without turning at once, as though carrying with him a great burden, and once erect pulled back his shoulders. He was wearing only a white lawn shirt, the sleeves rolled up over muscular forearms, and a pair of skintight buckskin trousers that showed his athletic figure to great, distressingly great, advantage. A little thrill raced through her at the sight of his tall, broad-shouldered form silhouetted against the fire.