Page 20 of Waiting for a Scot Like You
Mr. Dixon stamped a foot in approval. “I’ll tell Sue.” He tromped off toward a trim little farmhouse.
“I’ll help retrieve Miss Bradbury’s luggage,” the major said and moved toward the carriage.
Jeanie clambered over the fence to put on her spencer, and once she’d donned the garment, Beatrice brought her in for a hug.
“Ah, Jeanie, I’m glad for you.”
“Thank you so very much.” Jeanie stepped out of her embrace. “Only...” She looked around, and then, taking Beatrice’s hand, led her a short distance away. “It will be just you and Major McCameron for the duration of the trip.”
“I own that relations between us were not quite agreeable when we began this morning, but we seem to be thawing toward one another.” She wouldn’t mention how she still felt the brush of his fingers against hers, even hours later, or how his understated humor combined with his wry smiles made her belly flutter. “Things should be pleasant enough between us for the duration of the trip.”
“Might be wise not to tell him exactly where you are headed,” Jeanie whispered.
Beatrice smothered a giggle. “My lord, no. I said the situation was thawing, but somehow I doubt he’d be particularly tolerant if he knew that I’m en route to a gathering where my every erotic need shall be met, and in abundance, by a number of willing partners.”
She glanced over her shoulder. The major was reaching up to take Jeanie’s valise from Green, his movement smooth and athletic. She hadn’t been able to see when he had been folded up in the carriage, but now she noted again that Major McCameron’s physique was excellent—muscled and lean and exquisitely masculine. There was a kind of vital energy within that seemed barely contained by his garmentsand the tame countryside surrounding him. In battle, he must have been a marvel to behold.
She’d felt the hard ridges of his abdomen and the blunt power of his hands. What would it be like to learn more of him, to discover all the parts of him that were taut and strong? He kept himself tightly controlled, but what if he loosened his grip on that control—and focused his singular intensity on a lover?
As the thoughts uncurled in her mind, he turned to face her, and she was caught on the azure blue of his eyes.
Her stomach leapt and awareness danced through her, and it dawned on her then that in her determination to make Jeanie happy, she had just consigned herself to miles and miles alone with the major.
The prospect was both alarming and thrilling.
Chapter 5
The sun dipped below the horizon, with a faint orange glow against deep indigo heralding the end of what had been an extraordinarily strange day.
Duncan silently exhaled as the carriage came to a stop outside an inn.
Without the presence of Lady Farris’s companion, the interior of the carriage had grown paradoxically smaller. He’d been aware of the countess’s every movement, every quiet exhalation and shift of her limbs. How could he now catch her scent when before it hadn’t teased his senses?
She didn’t know it, but thanks to his keen hearing, he’d been able to catch every word of her conversation with Miss Bradbury. Including the fact that at the end of this journey, Lady Farris would be attending a sexual bacchanal.
You couldn’t be a man in the upper echelons of society without learning about clubs dedicated to sex and wine-soaked orgies held in picturesque ruins. Whenhe and the other members of the Union of the Rakes had been much younger men, Rotherby had thrown a few wild parties. Such riotous behavior was not entirely unknown to him. He wasn’t easy to shock.
Yet knowing that Lady Farris, the woman who sat opposite him in the carriage and whose neck and fingers he’d begun obsessing about, was on her way to be a part of an orgy...
He’d been half-stunned, half-aroused for the past few hours.
His mind filled with too many images of her in the throes of ecstasy. Worse still, instead of faceless lovers, he picturedhimselfas the one making her gasp and moan.
Thank God they arrived at The Jewel Inn before he drove himself mad trying to understand what any of this meant.
He was out of the carriage almost immediately, but this time he knew better than to offer his hand to help Lady Farris down. Touching her now would only lead to more confusing sensations and thoughts. So he waited as Green leapt down to assist the countess.
A hound of indeterminate lineage came out to sniff at their heels. He patted the dog on its head and chuckled when it gave his hand a lick of greeting. When he looked up, he found Lady Farris regarding him speculatively.
“Ma’am?”
“You don’t laugh often,” she murmured, “which is ashame, because it’s quite nice. Reminds me of the way whisky tastes. Rather . . . rough . . . but smooth.”
It was a good portrayal of whisky, but heat rushed to his face to hear her describe his laugh. As though she’d been listening carefully to it, to him. The notion was excruciatingly, delightfully intimate.
He cleared his throat, then motioned for her to proceed him. “Shall we go inside?”
As they walked, he caught sight of the stables and saw that they were nearly full. A busy night, and the loud chatter from the taproom’s open windows proved that the inn was likely almost completely occupied. Still, the countess’s air of gentility and wealth would make certain that there would be some room left for her.
