The Making of a Highlander (Midnight in Scotland #1) - Elisa Braden Page 0,57
to that.”
Mrs. MacDonnell entered with tea and informed John she’d readied a bedchamber for his guest. When they were alone again, Robert eyed him with a speculative light. “You could be happy, too, you know. Perhaps the solution is the same for you as it was for me.”
“A wife?” He snorted. “For the thousandth time, I don’t want a—”
“Was she so very special, then?”
His chest tightened. He took another drink. “Who?”
“You know who.”
He rubbed his jaw. Then his eyes. They burned. God, he was tired. “Special? No. That’s the problem. She was entirely commonplace.”
She was Jacqueline Marchand, a half-French diamond-of-the-first-water who, as it turned out, had muddied her waters rather thoroughly before entering her first London season. He’d met the stunning beauty at Almack’s seven years earlier.
John was seven-and-twenty by the time he decided to return from his extended grand tour to partake in the season. Naturally, his mother and father were over the moon.
“About time, son,” his father had cheered, hazel eyes twinkling. “A wife is just the thing to settle a man’s restlessness. No need to seek splendors abroad when you’ve a fine woman at home.”
Mama had cooed and fussed, insisting he hire a tailor and a valet. “Oh, you’re the image of your father, dearest,” she’d wept, patting his lapel. “My sweet, handsome boy. A husband. And soon, a father, too?” She’d waved her hands and clutched her handkerchief, squeezing him so tightly, he’d thought she might crack a rib.
For a while, he’d let their excitement infect his thinking.
He’d entered Almack’s one cool April evening with an odd shiver of anticipation. Perhaps he’d find a woman to love the way Robert loved Annabelle, he’d thought, or the way Papa loved Mama. He’d scanned the crowd of watercolor misses with their shy glances from behind fluttering fans. Could the one in the pink dress be her? Would the one with the yellow sash make him long for home more than the next shore?
He didn’t know. But the adventure of it all had turned his head.
Then, she had walked into the room. Her hair wasn’t an extraordinary color, merely a dark shade of blonde, looped in fetching curls along her cheeks and adorned with a sparkling tiara. But her face. Her face had been exquisite. Full lips that trembled just so. A petite nose and long lashes. She’d been slender. Remote. Graceful. A moonlit nymph glistening among gauche pretenders.
He’d wanted her with all the vigor and blindness of a man in thrall. He’d persuaded an acquaintance to perform an introduction. Like a trout after juicy bait, he’d trailed her the rest of the evening, ignoring all the other young ladies who angled for his favor. Who would notice mere mortals when Jacqueline was near?
After that night, her hook was truly set. Every event she was rumored to attend, he’d wheedled an invitation. Every waltz a hostess promised, he’d positioned himself to claim. Within a few short weeks, he was planning their wedding. St. George’s, of course. His sister, Jane, had married there. The breakfast would be at his family’s townhouse on Grosvenor Street. He’d wear his midnight superfine tailcoat, the one Eugenia and Kate both agreed fitted him best.
He still remembered Jacqueline’s voice, like gossamer satin. Her skin, glowing with a blush that seemed almost otherworldly. He remembered kissing her in her uncle’s parlor, the taste of marmalade still on her lips, sweet with a hint of bitter. He remembered her sigh as she insisted they must wait. Wait until marriage. He wouldn’t wish to disgrace her, would he?
God, his blindness had been stupefying.
He’d been on his way to beg her uncle for her hand, stupidly imagining how their babes might look with his eyes and her nose, when he’d discovered her naked and moaning beneath another man.
The father of the babe she carried, as it turned out.
Romping inside a stall of her uncle’s stable, the pair hadn’t heard him enter. But he’d heard everything. Jacqueline giggling as she never did for him. Panting and grunting as she never would for him. Declaring the man between her thighs her “amour” as she never had with him.
And afterward, he’d punished himself by hiding. Lingering. Listening. He’d heard the man chuckle at the idea of being kept like a mistress.
Where will you keep me when you are Lady Huxley, my love?