Once Upon a Tower

Walking into the room she had been pleased to see Iris Smythe-Smith, who was quite good at the cello, having somehow succeeded in avoiding the influence of her family’s quartet. And then she had felt an odd prickling in her shoulder blades, so she had turned her head. And there, walking toward her, was her future husband.

It was as if her eyes grabbed the image of him and gobbled it up. He had muscled legs, beautiful legs, twice the size of the Englishmen’s in the room. His chest was wide and his shoulders looked even wider thanks to the plaid thrown over one shoulder.

And his face . . .

It was rough-hewn, not beautiful, a warrior’s face with a strong chin. But his eyes were most astonishing. There was no polite emotion in them: just blazing possessiveness.

She felt, suddenly, as if he were looking straight at her, and as if he were the first to do so in her whole life. As if he looked into her soul and saw the real woman. Her heartbeat thudded in her throat.

The duke went on one knee before her. He took her hand, peeled off her glove, and kissed her fingers.

For a moment, Edie felt dizzy. The mere touch of his lips was a voluptuous promise. This was the kiss that a knight errant gives his lady before he gallops off in her defense. The kiss that a courtier gives the queen of his heart. Kinross had abased himself before her. And yet, in the act of kneeling at her feet, he had only asserted himself as a man born to command.

Then he rose, towering over her. How could she have not noticed that the man was the size of a Scots pine? Perhaps she did notice. But not really. She hadn’t seen that he was so big in every way. And ruthless.

He looked like the sort of man who saw a woman and decided on the spot to marry her. And not for practical reasons, either.

That idea was utterly shocking—and delightful.

“Lady Edith,” he said, and she remembered that Highlands burr. It rolled over her skin like a love song.

“I prefer to be called Edie,” she said, forgetting to draw her ungloved hand out of his. And then: “Your hair is red!”

His right eyebrow flew up. “It always has been. Though nothing compared to that of most Scotsmen, my lady.”

“I have never liked red hair,” she said, stunned because this hair . . . this hair she did like. It was the color of blackened steel with fire burning in its depths. It was the red of a banked kiln at night, of a coal.

His laughter rumbled through the room and as if by a signal, the people around them turned away, judging that the drama had come to an end.

“You didn’t know that my hair is red, and I had no idea that you are a musician.”

“I play the cello,” she said lamely.

“Which instrument is that?” he said, his forehead creasing in a frown.

“What? Which instrument? You don’t know?”

His eyes searched hers, and then his laughter enfolded her again. “I suspect that you have a great deal to teach me, Lady Edie.”

Edie frowned at him. “Are you jesting, or do you truly not know what a cello is?”

“I know very little about music in general. My grandmother did not approve of frivolities, and I’m afraid that she put music into that category.”

“Music is not a frivolity!”

“She found it unnecessary to daily life in the way that shelter and meat are.”

Edie debated whether to inform her future husband just how far ahead of bread music came for her. It didn’t seem like a point she had to make at the moment. He had great composure, this duke of hers. She saw flashes of deep emotion in his eyes, but at the same time, he was so ducal.

And male.

And in that moment, she realized that she didn’t really care what he thought of music. She was more interested in what he thought of the claret dress. Some female part of her purred with satisfaction at the way he still held her hand.

He smiled down at her, his gaze so potent that her heart sped up once again. “I believe that it is time to repair to the dining room.” He drew her hand into the crook of his arm. She hadn’t even heard the butler announce the meal, but the other guests were arranging themselves to proceed to dinner.

Kinross looked at her with all the fierce interest of a musician with a new sheet of music, a score never played. And she felt the same.

It was very strange.

The smile that curled her lips came from her heart. The duke—Kinross—was the epitome of imperturbability, and yet, for a moment, she had caught sight of a flash of vulnerability in his eyes.

She was not alone in this whirlpool fever of desire and curiosity.

They moved toward the other guests, who were forming themselves into a procession, according to the customary rules of rank. Her father and Layla had taken their places toward the front; Kinross, as duke, moved ahead of them. They ended up just behind the bride and groom, Lady Honoria Smythe-Smith and the Earl of Chatteris.

Kinross leaned close; his breath was warm on her ear. “Are you as musical as the bride and her relatives?”

Laughter bubbled out of Edie’s mouth. “No!”

The touch of his arm sent a shock down her body. “Better or worse?”

That made her laugh even more. “What if I were to say worse?” She looked up at him from under her lashes, enjoying the flirtation.

A slow smile grew in his eyes. “Could I bribe you not to play?”

“Never. Playing the cello is the thing I love most in the world.” She added, “You might as well know that it’s the only thing I do truly well.”

“You dance very well.”

“That’s part of being a musician. I was terribly ill the night we met; did you guess?”

He shook his head. “I had no idea until you wrote me about it.”

“I had a high fever. I felt as if I were floating from place to place.”

“I think dancers are sometimes described as levitating.” His eyes crinkled with laughter. “I did think that you were marvelously graceful.”

“I was afraid I might topple over,” she confessed. And then: “I think the only part of the evening I truly enjoyed was our waltz. You waltz very well.”

“As do you, my lady.”

He was manifestly a duke. It showed in every lineament of his countenance, the unconscious grace of his every movement, in his air of authority. But at the same time . . . there was something else about Kinross as well. She cocked her head, trying to work out what it was, but the doors to the dining room were pulled open and the line began moving forward.

The meal passed in a tumble of conversation—with an older gentleman to her left, with Kinross to her right, then back to the man on her left.

When they weren’t speaking, Edie kept stealing glances at her fiancé. He appeared dispassionate, as if one could never read his feelings in his face. Yet she thought she’d glimpsed a vulnerability. It made her wild to talk at great length, and see if she could tease it out again.

Kinross’s face was harsh in repose. But when his eyes met hers, the ferocity in them disappeared. She didn’t know what was there, but it felt untamed and new. No one had ever looked at her that way.

Of course, he was not truly looking at plain Edie, who played the cello. He was seeing Edie dressed up as Layla.

The duke moved his leg, and his thigh brushed up against hers and remained there. It had to be accidental; a gentleman would never do such a thing. He glanced at her, his eyes wickedly suggestive, and turned back to his conversation. It wasn’t an accident.