John. “Why don’t I call on you tomorrow, Mistress Sutherland? I’ll tell you tales of the English court that will make your head turn. But now I must be private with Jeanne. ’Tis a family matter.” He smiled charmingly, and Moira blushed again, tripping over her skirts as she backed away.
“How could you?” Jeanne spoke through clenched teeth.
John pulled her into a small retiring room off the main hallway and looked around. It was furnished with a table and chair. He waited to release her arm until he’d closed the door tightly behind them. “How could I what?” he asked.
“Moira Sutherland is little more than a child. You deliberately set out to win her regard with no thought for her feelings at all.” Jeanne was furious. “She’s half in love with you already. You, the greatest profligate in Scotland.”
He looked bewildered. “You wrong me, Jeanne. I was merely being polite.”
“Polite!” She pronounced the word scathingly.
He watched in fascinated silence as her breasts rose and fell beneath the square décolletage of her gown.
“Have you no shame, John? You kissed her hand. You wooed her with your smile and promised to see her again. Women far more experienced than Moira have succumbed to your charms.”
His eyes widened in mock horror as he clasped his hands across his heart. “Will her father be posting the banns then?”
It was then that Jeanne Maxwell, a woman known the length and breadth of Scotland for her beauty, her wit, and her cool self-control, lost what was left of the last tenuous threads of her temper. Taking the steps necessary to bring her within inches of his face, she lifted her hand and slapped him, hard.
His eyes narrowed to mere slits in the dark tan of his face. Jeanne was suddenly, desperately afraid. John Maxwell had spent five years at the English court, but he was still a Scots border lord. Such an insult demanded swift retaliation. Her hand flew to her throat, and she swallowed. What could have come over her? Only once, in her entire memory, had she behaved so outrageously. That was the day, five years before, when John had left for England. Her face was pale and her eyes wide as she waited to see what would happen next.
He lifted his hand to the mark already reddening his cheek. Slowly, the fury faded from his eyes. “I was told you had outgrown that temper of yours.”
Relieved, she asked, “Why would anything about me be of interest to you, John Maxwell?”
“You know the answer to that as well as I.”
She could no more stop the blush from rising to her cheeks than she could deny the dawning awareness in his eyes.
He laughed triumphantly. “You can’t hide from it, Jeannie. I knew in London when stories of the ‘ice maiden’ began to surface. I could scarce believe they were speaking of the Jeanne Maxwell I knew.”
She lifted her chin and stared defiantly into eyes the exact color and shape of her own. John Maxwell was only a second cousin, but he looked enough like her to be her twin. “What are you suggesting?” she asked calmly.
The wary look on her face stopped him. Jeanne still didn’t trust him. She wasn’t ready for a declaration. Perhaps she never would be. Pushing aside the cold fear that always accompanied such misgivings, he smiled gently. “I meant no harm, lass. Can’t a man miss his favorite cousin and ask of her now and then?”
“It isn’t at all like you,” she said doubtfully.
He lifted her chin, forcing her to meet the silver purpose of his gaze. “Perhaps you don’t know me as well as you think.”
“I know you well enough,” she muttered. “What did you wish to tell me?”
Frowning, he dropped his hand and stepped away from her. “I merely wished to pay my respects,” he replied. “How is your mother?”
Jeanne stiffened, and her face assumed a cold, implacable expression. “Very well, thank you.”
John nodded. “I’m glad. She’s had a difficult time of it.”
Two red spots of color stained Jeanne’s cheeks. “I might have known your first consideration would be for my mother.”
There was no mistaking the rage in her voice. Faith, what ailed the woman? He had merely asked about her family. “Flora was always good to me,” he began. “Is it wrong that I ask after her well-being?”
Jeanne’s eyes were the color of ice above a frozen gray tarn. “Not at all,” she said. “Perhaps you’ll be pleased to hear that she is now a widow.”