"The devil!" In spite of his resolve to remain indifferent, Alex had to clench his teeth to keep from denouncing the aristocracy.
"It's for the best, though it took time for me to realize that. Now Isabel and I are the best of friends. She belongs with Justin, not me. I was only in love with the idea of being a bride-with planning a big wedding and buying a trousseau." Helen ruefully shook her head. "How silly I was. Now, I like my freedom. Instead of being saddled with a husband and a family, I've traveled all over Europe and Africa and Asia. I'm only telling you this because…"
She remained silent so long he prompted, "Because."
"Because I wanted you to know how grateful I am to you for making love to me."
He felt as if he'd been punched in the gut. "Grateful?"
"Why, yes." Her voice lowered to a throaty murmur. "You made my first experience so very beautiful. And I wanted to thank you for that."
He had the violent urge to push her up against the wall and show her another beautiful experience, to hell with the cold and the wrongness of it and whoever might be watching. She stood looking at him, admiration and longing in her clear blue eyes. He could feel himself sweating despite the cold. He did not want her to gaze at him like that, as if he were some sort of hero. Didn't she know a heartless rogue when she saw one?
He deserved to be kicked in the balls, not thanked.
"Fine," he muttered. "Now stay away from me."
Pivoting on his heel, he stalked off and left her standing in the gateway. He had no time to coddle ladies who romanticized the act of copulation. Especially not an English lady who was accustomed to being pampered. The sooner she realized sex was not all sweetness and roses, the sooner she would flee back to England and he'd be rid of her-
Something cold and wet slammed into his head. He clapped his hand to the back of his hair and found melting, icy particles that dripped down inside his collar.
The chit had hurled a snowball at him.
He wheeled around. Another cold missile smacked him in the face. He blinked, shaking his head. Sputtering, he wiped the snow from his eyelashes and saw her hastening toward him.
"Pm so sorry," she said, spoiling the apology with a giggle. "I really don't know what came over me… Alex, are you hurt?"
A mad impulse made him fake a groan and keep his hands over his eyes as if he were in pain. He waited until she ventured within arm's reach. And then he lunged.
Uttering a cry, she danced backward to elude him, then spun around and ran. She was surprisingly quick on her feet. He didn't stop to wonder what foolishness came over him. He gave chase through the courtyard, pausing only to scoop up a handful of snow which he lobbed at her.
She squealed when the snow rained over her neck and shoulders. The direct hit slowed her as she swiped at the worst of it. She bent down to snatch up more ammunition, but he caught her before she could throw it, tumbling her down into a snowdrift.
She squirmed and. fought for freedom, laughing all the while. And to his astonishment, he chuckled along with her. They rolled in the snow like children until he caught her flailing arms and their mock battle altered to carnal awareness.
He looked at her.
She looked at him.
Her bosom heaved from the exertion of their play. Their breaths mingled like fog in the frosty air. Her cloak was twisted around them, lashing him to the softness of legs and hips and breasts. He lay nestled in the cradle of her thighs.
She had ceased laughing. A womanly warmth curved her lips, and her gaze dipped to his mouth. She desired him, he knew it with fierce exultation. A small adjustment of their clothing and he could be inside her…
He could let himself be ensorcelled by an Englishwoman.
The thought chilled his hot blood, and he threw him-self off her. He abhorred her brand of femininity. It was an invitation to trouble.
She sat up, too, brushing the snow from her cloak. “Alexander?" she said hesitantly. "Why do you dislike me so?"
"I dinna dislike you." His answer came swiftly, automatically.
"You do. You're kind to Gillie and Abbott, but you would as soon have left me stranded in the coach. Whenever I come near you, you draw away."
"We fornicated last night. I dinna recall drawing away."
She flinched at his crudeness, but kept Her eyes on him. "I'm not speaking of physical closeness* but the closeness of friends. I wondered… do you fear being hurt again?"
Her words riveted him. "Again?"
"Your bedchamber with all the pretty furnishings… and then that abandoned dining table"-she bit her lip- "well, if you lost your wife, it's understandable that you'd feel reluctant to be close to another woman."
Her wrongful assumption hit him like a blow. He shot to his feet. "I've never been wed. So you can keep your foolish sympathy."
He marched away, but her footsteps pattered behind him. "Was it a clan war, then?" she asked. "If your people were called to battle in the midst of a meal-"
"There was no war," he snapped over his shoulder.
"Then what?" she persisted. "Please, I don't mean to pry-"
"Then dinna ask prying questions."
"But we have only this one day together. I want to know how to reach you. I want to understand why you despise me."
In the shadow of the tower, Alex wheeled around to face her. Lady Helen stopped, too, still in the sunshine, snow clinging to her crimson cloak from their mock tussle and bits of ice sparkling in her sunlit hair. Even now, he felt a dangerous softening inside him. Damn her, he-had to make her see. He had to show her once and for. all that he had no use for a female of her ilk.
"I despise you because you're an Englishwoman. Because this is all a game to ladies like you. You want to play with your Scotsman before you go running back to the comforts of the city, just as my mother did."
"Your mother was English?"
"Aye." The admission tasted sour in his mouth. He did not wish to probe the chilling emptiness in his chest. But this pesky female provoked him beyond endurance. "She came here, all agog at the romantic notion of marrying the laird of the MacBruts. But one hard winter in the Highlands was enough for her. On the evening of their first wedding anniversary, my father planned a big celebration here at the castle. When he went to fetch her for the party, he found the note saying she'd gone, that she couldna bear the hardships any longer. So she'd fled like a coward back to London."
Lady Helen pressed a gloved hand to her cheek. "You must have been just a baby."
"A bairn only a few months old."
"Did she never come back to see you?" A hurting, black well opened in him. "Aye, once when I was a lad of eight. She brought me presents, trying to buy my affections, then left again after a week, never to return." Despising the old ache of pain, he slammed a lid over the memory. " 'Tis a blessing the bitch died a few years later, though my father never stopped bemoaning her loss. 'Twas he who ordered the castle left forever as it was when she lived here."
"Did she never write to you?"
"Nary a once. And my poor besotted father kept hoping nil the day he died. He couldna believe his pretty wife liked the frivolous amusements of the city better than her own husband and son."
"I'm so sorry," Helen said, her gaze steady on him. But you're wrong to assume that all Englishwomen are like your mother."
He scorned the false compassion softening her face. Shi did not understand. She was blind to her own shortcomings, starry-eyed and wrapped in fantasy. "The Enlish try to steal all things Scottish. You wear our plaids and visit our mountains and pretend they're yours. You play here a while, then you scuttle on back to your own civilized world."
Helen shook her head. "I'm not averse to hardship. In my travels, I've encountered far more inhospitable circumstances than a broken coach and a ruined castle." She looked him up and down. "Not to mention a Scotsman with a beastly disposition."