Page 76 of The Last Debutante
“I know what I wish,” she said. “I wish I had come to Scotland before Mamie shot you.”
He arched a brow as he stroked his fingers up to caress her earlobe. “So do I,” he said with a wry smile.
“She wouldn’t have shot you had I been there, and I never would have come here. I wish I had never come to Dundavie.”
Jamie’s hand stilled in surprise. And disappointment. He had thought that perhaps she liked it here. “It’s no’ a bad place,” he said, perhaps a wee bit defensively.
“No,” she said, her eyes locking on his. “It’s the very best place. And I shall miss it more than you will ever know.”
His mind was racing, his questions looming larger. He moved his thumb to her lips, brushing against them. One thought was crystal clear. “Stay,” he said. “Stay at Dundavie. As my guest, as my—”
“As your friend?” She smiled sadly and pressed her hand against his heart. “You know I can’t do that.”
But Jamie wasn’t going to stand for that, or the meaning behind it—not in this moment. He abruptly grabbed Daria in a tight embrace and kissed her. It wasn’t a gentle kiss; it was one brimming with confusion and hope and want.
He loved her. Everything suddenly seemed crystal clear to him: he loved this English rose.
He moved without conscious thought, picking her up and setting her on the wooden bench. He kissed her mouth, her cheeks, her brow. He playfully bit her neck and kissed the hollow of her throat as he filled his hands with her breasts. He was slender moments from losing control, from making love to her, and damn it all, hewantedto lose control. He wanted to take her. His mind and heart warred, his thoughts telling him that he couldn’t abandon his principles to satiate his burning need, and his heart insisting that he could.
When Daria slid her hands down his arms and to his waist, then intentionally brushed against his cock, Jamie sucked in a breath. He moved over her, drifting down with her onto the low table, Daria on her back beneath him. He groped for the hem of her gown and slid his hand under her skirts, touching the smooth skin of her leg, sliding in between her legs, pressing against her sex, his self-restraint holding by the thread of a spider’s web.
Daria’s breath was shallow, her skin flushed, and he thought she had never looked more beautiful. He kissed her again as he pressed himself against her. It was all too much. The desire in him was bubbling like a witch’s cauldron. He had never felt so incapable of restraint—but Daria had done something to him, had sunk down into his skin, her person knitting with his.
He abruptly lifted his head and closed his eyes.“Mi Diah,”he said, emotion raw in his voice, and he held himself above her, his arms taut with his restraint. “I canna be so careless with you,leannan.”
Daria’s lashes fluttered; then she rose up, grabbed his jaw with one hand, and kissed him with as much passion as he’d just shown her. “Be brave.” She wrapped her arms tightly around him and kissed the corner of his mouth.
It was a delicately small kiss, but it rocked Jamie to his depths. He had no defense against her. He was hopeless, hopelessly in love. He stroked her hair, kissed her mouth, her temple.“Daria,”he whispered into her hair. “Tha gaol agam ort.”
“What?” she asked laughingly, and kissed him, her hands stroking over his body, exploring him as he moved against her.
Jamie was lost in the feel of her body, the scent of her skin. He wasn’t certain how or when he’d freed his cock from his trousers, but the tip was pressed tantalizingly against her damp folds, and he could feel himself spiraling to the steady beat that was coming from somewhere...
Something made him focus on that beat.
It was not a siren call. It was coming from the door.
He rose just as Daria did. He stood up, pulled her from the table, and quickly adjusted his clothing as Daria turned her back to the door to adjust hers, smoothing the hair from her face.
“Stay here,” he said low and stalked to the door, his mood gone black for having been interrupted, and perhaps even blacker for having found himself in such a compromising position.
He threw open the door and glared down into the face of one of the young footmen. The young man spoke in rapid Gaelic, pointing toward the main keep.
“Aye,” Jamie said when the lad had delivered his message. He shut the door and turned around, pressing his back against it.
Daria was standing on the small path, her color still high. “What is it?” she asked, her voice full of trepidation. “Has something happened?”
“Aye, something has happened,” Jamie said. “Your rescue has come.”
Twenty-three
THE WORDS DIDN’Tmake sense to Daria. She did not want to be rescued. What she wanted, with a strength that squeezed the breath from her, was for Jamie to make love to her.Madness. She was filled with madness. She stood on the edge of ruin as it was, but to invite the final push off the cliff?
“Who?” she asked angrily.
“English.” Jamie shoved a hand through his hair. “He knows only that they are English and they’ve come for you.”
Her parents? Of all days, of all moments, they came for her atthismoment? She should be overwhelmed with gratitude, happy that she would at last be rescued from her captivity. But she was neither of those things. She was disappointed, recalcitrant, cross. She pressed her palm to her forehead as she tried to gather her thoughts.
