Once Upon a Tower

Page 49

She stretched in a way that outlined her magnificent breasts and nodded. The words burst from him. “When were they finished?”
Edie didn’t lie to him. She looked him straight in the eye and told him that they’d ended four days ago. Yet she hadn’t mentioned it to him. She hadn’t once touched him, or let him know in any way.
He felt a wave of nausea that must have shown on his face, because Edie said, “Should I have informed you, Gowan? I thought if you wanted to come to my bed, you would have asked. Or just come.”
She looked genuinely confused.
He managed a smile and left for breakfast.
Sometime later, Lady Gilchrist appeared downstairs, looking like a lush Frenchwoman, dropped by accident in the Scottish Lowlands. Her fetching bonnet dipped over one ear with just the right élan; her skirts were a tad short, exposing slippers whose ribbons crisscrossed up her ankles.
When they were all in the inn’s courtyard, ready to leave, he announced that he would ride alongside the carriage. Relief flashed through Edie’s eyes, giving him another wave of nausea. He handed his wife and her stepmother into the carriage and leapt onto his horse as if the Furies were behind him. He needed the wind screaming in his ears so he couldn’t listen to the bitter, cynical voice in his head.
He’d always condemned both his parents for their despicable morals, but now he fancied he understood them better: they’d probably found themselves alone in the middle of a marriage.
There was nowhere colder, nor lonelier.
Even angry as he was, he still yearned to touch Edie, to kiss her, to make love to her. Given the chance, he would follow her as a falcon does the falconer, as if there were a string about his leg. And yet she didn’t want him. That was manifestly clear.
If she were a falconer, she’d toss him into the sky and tell him not to come back. The realization made Gowan’s heart thud heavily in his chest. He didn’t even notice that his horse’s flanks were white with foam. Finally, he slowed to a walk, but he couldn’t stop his mind reeling from point to point.
Edie did care for him. During the last ten days, they had had conversations about everything from the castle sewers, to his aunts’ piglets, to the state of the empire, to the future of the pound note. Even when she was studying her musical scores, he found himself interrupting to ask her opinion, drawing her into the conversation, making Bardolph wait to see whether she had thoughts about the future of coal or the economical implications of the new blast furnaces.
When they sat at meals, time flew, even when she talked about music, which he hardly understood. But he loved to see her excitement and the way her slender hands gestured in the air as she told him about the “blasted” Boccherini score, and then looked so guilty for cursing that he couldn’t stop laughing.
Yet caring for him and wanting to make love to him appeared to be two distinct things. After his horse had cooled down, Gowan spurred him again, widening the distance between the carriage and him, creating a space between his mindless, sensual need and his wife. He felt like a wild animal, howling into some dark night.
It wasn’t as if Edie had ever refused him her body. She hadn’t. She even enjoyed it . . . he thought—no, he knew—she enjoyed it. At least, parts of it. But he ended up feeling like a heartless bastard. No matter how many times he told himself that she found pleasure bedding him, he didn’t believe it. Some part of him felt like a rapist while taking his own wife. That was the raw truth of it.
He was pushing his horse harder than he ought, but he couldn’t run from the truth. Every time he made love to Edie, he felt a kind of raw openness, as if her slightest touch turned him vulnerable. There was a touch of magic about it.
Yet she did not feel the same.
In fact, he had the shrewd feeling that Edie felt that kind of joy only when playing the cello. Whenever he could, he fobbed off Bardolph in order to listen to her. He’d even learned to recognize a few of the tunes she was working on. Though she wouldn’t approve of the word tunes. They weren’t “tunes” to her; they were arpeggios and barcarolle and the like. The words were like arcane formulas that only she knew.
That was when he saw the passionate, brilliant woman he wanted in his bed and his arms. When Edie played, her eyes went soft and unfocused, her lips parted, and her body swayed. The sight ripped him open with longing. Seeing her drop into that ecstatic state woke a dark monster that drove him to try harder and harder in bed.
He had kissed her in her most private places until she writhed in his arms. He had caressed her every curve; he had whispered endearments in her ears. He had kissed her like a man possessed, which he was. None of it seemed to matter.
There was a wall between them, a separation. He only had to look into her eyes to know that whatever erotic excitement she felt in their bed was nothing to what she felt with that damned bow in her hand.
Music was her true love.
He had his horse back at a walk by the time he neared his estate. He heard a whistle in the woods, and whistled back; one of his sentries had spotted him.
A moment later the man trotted out from under the shadow of an oak tree, doffing his hat.
“Maclellan,” Gowan said. He wanted to smile, but couldn’t quite manage it.
The man fell alongside, giving a succinct report of events during Gowan’s absence. A wild boar had attacked near the granaries; a hunting party had shot it the next day. The carcass had been butchered and the meat was drying, ready to be made into boar stew next winter. One sentry had fallen from the battlements and broken his shoulder, but he was healing well.
This was nothing that Gowan hadn’t already learned from his daily reports, but he had found that one often learned more from hearing a report again in person. He asked about the clumsy sentry.
“The lad’s not handy with a gun,” Maclellan reported. “I’ve my worries about that. His father had perfect aim, but the lad doesn’t. I think he’s a sentry to please his da, but his heart isn’t in it. I’m worried he’ll point that gun in the wrong direction one day and shoot his own foot off, or worse. I’ve in mind to let him go, but his father will be right grieved to see him leave.”
“Let’s try him in the stables,” Gowan said. “Perhaps he has a hand with animals. We can use him somewhere.”
They rounded a bend and there before them lay Castle Craigievar, the centuries-old stronghold of the Clan MacAulay. The noon sun shone down gold over its ancient walls, battlements, and drum towers. Sentries caught sight of them. He heard the blare of a trumpet. As they made their way down the drive, the MacAulay banner—argent, a crimson dragon grasping a sword—was slowly raised above the keep.
The Duke of Kinross was back in residence.
Gowan pulled up his horse. His heart lifted as he watched the flag unfurl, the dragon’s lip curling with fury. This was his place, where he was master. All would be well here.
He could woo his wife into loving his bed.
Of course he could.
He just had to try harder.
Twenty-six
The minute the groom closed the carriage door, Layla pounced. “What on earth is happening with that delicious husband of yours?” she cried. “Here I am, springing to the rescue like Sir Galahad himself. Tell me all.”
Edie burst into tears.
Layla hugged her, but Edie had held her tears for too long. After a while, Layla said, “Darling, that’s my last handkerchief, so unless you want me to rip something off my petticoat, you must stop blubbering. I’ll be brutally honest and admit that my petticoat is trimmed with Alençon lace, so I would rather not turn it to handkerchiefs.”