He wanted her. It surprised him how much, although their love had always burned with carnal fire. He’d imagined that now he was older, spiritual need would consume earthier urges. But here in this warm kitchen, he was far too conscious of her beauty. His fingers itched to undo the thick red hair confined in its practical bun. Every night since he’d lost her, he’d dreamed of touching her dewy white skin. He was afire to explore her fascinating female shape. The generous jut of bosom that her modest dress did so little to conceal. The graceful inward curve of her waist. The graceful outward curve of her hips.
As a girl, she’d been a luscious armful. She was still a luscious armful.
“Sit down and tell me where you’ve been all these years,” he said peaceably and began to eat the slab of fruitcake. “Wherever it was, you’ve learned how to cook. This is delicious.”
The young Rhona had done her best to run her father’s house, but after her mother died when she was five, she’d grown up a rough and ready housekeeper. Something clearly the years had remedied. This neat, well-organized kitchen screamed efficiency and good housewifery.
She didn’t move, and her gaze echoed her earlier hostility. “Is that it? ‘We’re destined to be together, and by the way this is a good cake?’”
He’d noticed that his composure disturbed her. He liked her disturbed, and not just because the flush in her cheeks and the flash in her green eyes reminded him of the girl he’d fallen in love with. When she was disturbed, she stopped trying to raise barriers against him and he caught a glimpse of her confusion and turmoil at meeting him again.
“It is a good cake,” he said and pushed his empty plate toward her. “Could I please have another piece?”
It was odd. His awakened hunger for Rhona as a physical presence had awoken other physical needs. He’d tasted the food and the brandy with a kind of wonder. Both had a flavor and richness that he couldn’t remember experiencing since he’d lost his beloved.
When she rolled her eyes, he wanted to laugh. He hadn’t felt much urge to mirth in years either. Here in this snug kitchen, nigh on two decades of ice melted from his soul.
Although while he appreciated the homely comforts, it was the woman who made him feel like a living man again. Beneath his placid manner, a desperate fear stirred. If she exiled him back into the cold, what would he do? Losing her once had almost destroyed him. He wasn’t sure he’d survive losing her twice.
She turned to the bench and cut him an even bigger slice. She also cut herself a smaller piece. With an irritated bump, she set both plates on the table.
“Here. If you’re staying for Christmas, I hope to heaven that I’ve got enough supplies in the larder to feed you.”
Malcolm eyed her, reading how torn she was between irritation and attraction. “Am I staying for Christmas?”
“It’s tomorrow. You’ll be here for breakfast at the very least,” she said grimly. She filled his glass with more of that excellent brandy and topped up her own glass as well.
“What a lovely thought.”
He meant it. His parents had always kept a lavish Christmas, with parties for the crofters and neighbors. After Rhona had gone, he’d absented himself from the celebrations. Partly to punish his parents, partly because he couldn’t bear all the jollity and goodwill when eternal winter reigned in his heart.
Since his father’s death, he’d kept up the tradition of parties for the tenants, but he always made sure he was away. For him, Christmas was just another empty day in an empty life.
Malcolm decided to go on the attack about where she’d been all these years, or else she’d dodge the topic until doomsday. “How was it that I never found any trace of you in London? I had an army of private agents looking for you. But Rhona Macleod had disappeared in a puff of smoke. I know London is a big place, but I should have heard something.”
Rhona sat down opposite him and tore her fruitcake into lumps without eating it. She avoided his eyes. “I changed my name.”
He hadn’t thought of that. He should have. “What to?”
“Sarah Ashley.”
He frowned. “That’s an English name.”
“Yes.”
Something tugged at the edges of his memory. “Wasn’t there an actress call Sarah Ashley?”
She raised her eyes to meet his, and as he stared into those green depths, he realized the astounding truth, although it still made no sense. “You went on the stage.”
“Yes.”
“But you left Dun Carron with a thick Scottish accent. How the devil could you make a career in the theater?”
Even he, wrapped up in grief and fear and anger, had heard of the famous Mrs. Ashley, the queen of Drury Lane. Not that her fame encouraged him to book a seat to see her. Entertainments such as the opera and the theater hadn’t been part of his Spartan life.
“Clearly someone trained me in how to sound like a wellborn Englishwoman.” She was watching him with more of that wariness, judging his reaction. “I told you before that I was only almost respectable. A lot of people view actresses as little better than prostitutes.”
He pushed away his empty plate and started to join together the pieces of what she told him. “This man you married—”
“Samuel.”
At last he had a name for the toad. “He was the one who trained you.”
“He saved my life,” she said, without a hint of the theatricality that had apparently dominated her existence while Malcolm had been combing the slums looking for her.
“But you’d never expressed any interest in the stage,” he said, still bewildered. If she had, he’d have remembered and tried to find her among London’s acting companies.
“I was a crofter’s daughter from the far corner of the kingdom. I’d never seen a play, let alone set foot in a theater when I got to London. I may as well have wished to fly as wished to become an actress.” A familiar bitterness rasped in her voice. “Anyway, why should I wish to become an actress, when I already harbored the dream of loving you for the rest of my life?”
“You always had a lovely singing voice.” She’d sung the solos at the local ceilidhs and in church. “And you were a good dancer.”
“At an amateur level. I needed lessons in both singing and dance before I made the grade, but I was a quick learner.”
He wasn’t surprised to hear that. He’d always admired her cleverness. She must have been a quick learner when it came to her elocution lessons, too. Mrs. Ashley was famous, yet he’d never heard a hint that she was born in Scotland.
What was frustrating was that the Theatre Royal was but a stone’s throw from Seven Dials and London’s other slums. There must have been many occasions when he was mere yards away from her. The missed opportunities created an acrid weight of regret in his belly. If only he’d known!
“But you were pregnant when you left Dun Carron.”
“Yes.”
“That must have interrupted your acting career.”
“It did. But by that stage, I’d married Samuel.”
Malcolm told himself not to be angry. She’d stayed safe, which meant he owed her husband a universe of gratitude.
She went on in a matter-of-fact voice as though she didn’t recount wonders. “Your father’s money didn’t last long in London, especially after someone stole my purse the day after I arrived. I tried everywhere, but I couldn’t get work.”