He dragged his mouth from her lips to her ear and bit her lobe. “Let me pleasure ye, lass,” he whispered, moving his finger faster.
Mared opened her eyes, saw the sun behind the trees. Diah, her body wanted it, more than she’d ever wanted anything, and she could feel herself coming perilously close to ecstasy. Yet it seemed wrong somehow, so wrong to want him, so wrong for him to want her. There was little that would make her his more completely than this, and as much as she desired him, she did not want to marry him. But his finger was moving faster and harder, and her skin seemed to be melting away from the bone.
“Let me pleasure ye,” he said again, his voice gone coarse with desire. Mared was frantic to feel the eruption that was imminent, and just as frantic to stop this and move away. She gasped at the spiraling sensation and opened her eyes, her gaze landing on the black wool of her housekeeper’s gown. It was the gown that broke her from her trance, and she brought her hands up to his chest, pushing as she cried out “No!” at the exact moment she erupted with pleasure and her body disengaged from her mind. Mared caught a sob in her throat and brought her hands to her face, mortified by what had just happened and utterly astounded by the pleasure of it.
Payton was still near enough that she could feel his body stiffen, could feel his head lift away from her, his hand fall away from her body. And even though he was standing very near, she suddenly felt alone and very cold.
She opened her eyes. Payton was rubbing his forehead, his jaw clenched. When he realized she was watching him, he stooped down, picked up her gown and pushed it into her hands. “Ye’ve chores to attend,” he said gruffly.
She couldn’t bear the look in his eyes, that mix of disappointment and resignation, and perhaps even a wee bit of disgust. The light had gone out of them, that burning, deep light that had made her feel woozy and desperate to be near him.
He turned to leave, and as he walked up the hill to Murdoch, Mared panicked again. “Payton!” she called out to him. Her cry clearly startled him; he jerked around to her. But Mared couldn’t find words to explain the vicious conflict of emotion battling inside her. She was so stunned, so mortified, so alarmed by her actions that she just couldn’t find any words at all.
He waited, but when she could not speak—or would not, as it must have seemed to him—he mounted Murdoch in one long stride and took him by the reins, sending him on through the brush toward Eilean Ros.
He did not look back.
Thirteen
D ays passed after that hot afternoon without Mared’s catching even a glimpse of Payton. She recognized that it was her doing, and though she wanted to see him, she had no real cause to see him. Her feelings for Payton had changed somewhat—but she still wanted her chance to live life on her own terms.
One Sunday, Mared donned her green walking gown and her boots and marched off to church to meet her family. After services, the Lockharts returned to Talla Dileas, where her family insisted on hearing every detail of her servitude to Douglas. Mared assured them she was being treated well. She did not tell them that she had refused to take on the role of housekeeper completely and had, in fact, managed to bypass, for the most part, the hard work that housekeeping entailed. Frankly, her family seemed much more interested in the way Douglas lived than in her housekeeping responsibilities.
Later that afternoon, when Mared accompanied Ellie and Anna to the gazebo, Ellie asked her how she truly fared.
“Quite well,” Mared said with a halfhearted shrug. “He leaves me well enough alone.” He left her completely alone. For all she knew, he’d up and moved to Edinburgh to avoid her.
“Oh?” Ellie asked, exchanging a look with Anna.
“Aye. I think he scarcely cares if I should live or die,” Mared said with a sniff of indignation.
“That seems odd,” Anna said thoughtfully. “He was so very caring before…now.”
Mared shrugged and drummed her fingers against the railing.
“What of the supper party?” Ellie asked.
Mared stopped drumming her fingers. “Supper party?”
“The supper party he is hosting in a few days.”
Her stomach clenched. “What supper party is this?” she asked, her voice noticeably less sure.
“Oh,” Ellie said, turning a wide-eyed look to Anna. “We assumed you knew. W-we declined, of course,” she said quickly. “We didn’t think it was proper, with…you know…” Ellie put her hand to her nape. “The situation,” she muttered.
“What sort of supper party?” Mared asked suspiciously.
Ellie rubbed her nape harder. “A rather large one. More than a dozen guests, I should think.”
“Who?”
“Who?”
“Who is invited to attend?” Mared demanded impatiently, turning fully to face her sisters-in-law. The two of them glanced at each other from the corners of their eyes. “Who?” Mared asked, a little louder.
“Miss Crowley,” Ellie said. “And her family, I believe.”
The knot in Mared’s belly tightened a little more.