Awaken the Curse (2 page)

The Other had their stories of the Imnada too. Frightening tales of base treachery and battlefield betrayal. Raised on accounts of the Lost Days when Arthur, the last and greatest king of the Other, reigned over a land rife with magic, they were taught to despise the name of Lucan. They cried when Arthur was struck down from behind by the blackhearted shifter at the final battle and cheered when Lucan received his just deserts at the hands of the Fey-born, his heart ripped out, his body scattered to the crows. And if any sympathized with the doomed Imnada chieftain or regretted the vengeful carnage that followed when the Other spent their rage on the whole of the Imnada race until no shifter remained, none spoke it out loud.

The legends of the nightwalkers had excited her father, but the obelisk had become his passion. The mysterious stone carved with Imnada runes stood upon a remote ridge within a clearing. Those living nearby avoided the place, claiming the area was haunted, which of course only made Father keener. And in turn, Enid gloomier.

Then the accidents had started. Small annoyances like broken harness straps and lost supplies, which grew in severity as the months passed and Father’s work on the obelisk intensified. December brought a rock fall that nearly buried Father on an upper mountain trail. Two weeks ago, a musket shot missed him by inches as he returned from the clearing just after dusk. And then, three days past, he departed one morning and never returned. No word. No sign. As if the mountains swallowed him whole.

Each dawn, Cade had left the house to search, only to come home at sundown empty-handed. Until tonight, when he arrived carrying James’s half-frozen blood-spattered body.

Katherine’s eyes strayed to her bedchamber window. “Lord Duncallan believes Father’s sheltering from the storm and will return as soon as the weather clears.”

“For your sake, I hope so, miss,” came Enid’s pessimistic response as she drew a nightgown over Katherine’s head, tying the ribbons at her throat.

“You don’t believe it?”

“The professor’s been asking a lot of questions. Creatures out there are listening. They feel when things are stirred up, and they don’t like it.” She turned down the bedcovers. “If His Lordship knows what’s good for him, he’ll head back to London Town quick as a wink. No good ever came from mucking about with the nightwalkers. No good at all.”

Katherine sighed, taking a seat at her dressing table, brushing out her hair as a way to calm her mind and soothe her nerves. A hundred strokes. Then another. Katherine needed a lot of soothing. “We’ll send Cade north over the mountain tomorrow to ask for news.”

“And what are we to do with His Lordship?” The maid paused in putting Katherine’s clothes away to offer her a shrewd glare.

“Do with him?”

“Not proper him being here without the professor at home. Mayhap he can go stay with the French gentleman at the Hall.”

“Monsieur d’Espe? I doubt he’d appreciate an uninvited guest dumped on his doorstep. I wouldn’t worry. My virtue is completely safe from Lord Duncallan. Besides, he’s hardly in any shape to play the dangerous seducer.”

Enid sniffed. “That’s as may be, but men is men. Show me a chap that don’t take advantage of a girl on her own, and I’ll show you either a corpse or a molly.”

Katherine choked back a laugh despite the tightness across her back and the pounding at her temples. Enid had a point. James’s reputation could never have been labeled saintly, but not even the most disreputable rumors swirling around her father’s handsome student had prepared her for the raw masculinity of the actual man. He’d been every girl’s fantasy. Every father’s nightmare.

Charmingly seductive. Heartbreakingly dangerous.

Thank the gods Enid knew nothing of their scandalous past or she’d have packed James off to the chevalier d’Espe still bleeding and unconscious.

“It’ll be all right. I grew up sharing a house with my father’s students,” Katherine explained. “Until his retirement, I spent every term with one or two undergraduate boarders. More in the summer months.”

“Aye, but you were a child then. Now you’re all grown up, and that young gentleman in the spare room don’t look like no student. A regular out-and-outer, and him with those handsome looks. Enough to turn any girl’s head, that.”

“Yes, he is rather nice to look at, isn’t he?” Katherine said with a sour smile. “But he
was
a student—once. One of my father’s most promising until . . . well . . . it doesn’t matter now.” She bit down hard on her words. “I know you mean well, but I think it’s best if Lord Duncallan stays. We’re awfully isolated. A man about the place might be smart when Cade leaves to search for Father tomorrow.”

Enid gave a grudging nod, her fears over nightwalkers trumping the impropriety of having a strange man in the house. “I suppose, but I’d still sleep with one eye open if I was you.”

With a final sniff, she departed, leaving Katherine alone, lip caught between her teeth as she stared hard at her reflection. Enid was right. She wasn’t a child anymore. The first blush of youth had slipped away while she wasn’t looking. Too busy staying busy to notice. She had turned all her energies to assisting her father. Making herself indispensable, whether it was keeping the household running smoothly, organizing his lectures and notes, or simply lending an ear in the long, quiet evenings when the silence grew deafening. For years, this had been enough. She had been content with her lot and with her life. But tonight, for a few minutes, Katherine had remembered the quick, vibrant girl who’d been deliciously happy and completely in love. A stupid, foolish girl who’d trusted a man and been burned for her self-indulgent folly.

A man who now slept a few tempting footsteps away.

She closed her eyes on a sigh and a roll of her neck. By the gods, but what had she done to deserve such a punishment? Since James’s betrayal, she’d been good. More than good. She’d been docile to the point of servility. Never once straying by even the slightest misstep, obeying every rule and toeing every mark. Was it too much to ask that she never lay eyes on the callous bastard again? Never look into those gold-flecked brown eyes and relive her humiliating gullibility? Never hear that smooth, deep voice and recall his endless stream of lies?

If only Father hadn’t written that dratted letter. If only James had refused the invitation. If only the blasted man had never walked into their parlor on Holywell Street six years ago with his mop of dark hair one couldn’t help but ache to run fingers through and those heart-melting, deep-set eyes. All he’d done was smile and ask her name, but that had been enough. Enough for both of them.

Giving herself a shake, Katherine stuck her tongue out at her maudlin reflection. If she’d a pound note for every regret, she’d be rich as a duchess. No, she would take comfort in the fact that an elegant man-about-town would hardly want to spend more time than necessary tramping about the mountains like a shepherd. James would quickly grow bored and flee home to London with nary a backward glance.

Just like last time.

Lying down upon her bed, she shifted from her back to her stomach, struggling to get comfortable. Punched her pillow. Stared out the window at the snow, listening to the hours tick over on the clock in the hall.

Midnight.

One o’clock.

Two.

It was no use. Her mind spun in endless circles, her body too taut for sleep. It was too late to ring for a cup of tea. Enid had retired long ago. Besides, even if she appeared with tray in hand, it would most likely be accompanied by another sour dose of suspicions and plots. Easier just to do it herself.

Katherine rose, wrapping her robe tight around her and sliding her feet into slippers against the perpetually cold floorboards as she took up her candle.

The passage was dark, but a glimmer of light flickered up from downstairs. Eerie shadows leaked beneath the study door, and the wind chose that moment to moan around the house like a banshee’s wail. The ghostly combination lifted the hair on Katherine’s arms and at the back of her neck, but she merely raised her candle higher as she pushed wide the door.

An enormous humped and shadowed shape sat in her father’s chair, sending an icy shiver along her already frazzled nerves. Then the chair swiveled with a screech of rusty joints and a frustrated mutter, and she recognized James as he shoved a hand into his rumpled hair.

“Lord Duncallan, what are you doing here?” she asked, releasing her held breath even as the prickly tingle continued up and down her limbs. “You should be in bed.”

He lifted his head, the candle’s flame reflected in his dark eyes, carving hollows over his chiseled features. Even with a gray sickroom pallor, he managed to exude an easy confidence, a startling magnetism. Then he ruined it with a twitch of a smile and a brazen stare. “Is that an invitation?”

She wrapped her robe tight across her body, but it didn’t stop the tingle from spreading. “What do you think, my lord?”

“I think we know each other well enough to dispense with the formalities, don’t you . . . Katherine?”

All he had to do was say her name and butterflies the size of cannonballs bounced in her stomach, but she squashed the traitorous sensation with ruthless efficiency. “I think being alone with you is bending the rules more than enough. Enid’s certain you’re after my virtue.”

“Did you tell her she’s too late?” he asked quietly.

Fury burned her throat and churned her stomach. “What do you think?”

He shook his head as he fingered the pages of the book he was holding. “You don’t want to know, but your secret is safe with me.”

His gaze drilled straight through her, and she tightened her hand on her candle. “You’re too kind, my lord,” she replied curtly. “If I was at all concerned about your intentions, you’d be sleeping in the stables with Cade.”

He gave a snort of amusement. “I suppose you
are
past the age when chaperonage is strictly necessary.”

“ ‘Past the age’?” If looks could kill, Lord High-and-Mighty Duncallan would be dead ten ways to Sunday. “You know very well how old I am.”

His amusement ripened into an actual smile, as heart-meltingly dangerous as ever. “A gnarled old twenty-two last August, if my math serves.”

“Twenty-three, thank you very much.”

“I stand corrected.”

“That’s new. You were always horrid at admitting when you were wrong.”

“That’s because I never was.”

She tightened her grip on the candle, fighting the urge to beat him senseless, and yet this sparring felt better than the chilly reserve of earlier, as if something hard and hot had finally loosened in her chest. “Have it your way. I just want to know what you’re doing in Father’s study . . . James.”

“There. Was that so hard?”

She folded her arms, glaring down her nose at him.

He unfolded from his chair and came around the desk, still smiling that slow, lazy smile that had always set her stomach flipping. “My shoulder hurts like the devil, it’s too bloody quiet, and I finished my novel. I decided to review your father’s notes on the obelisk. It
is
why he asked me here.”

“I wish he hadn’t. I don’t know what made you answer his letter or, worse, come all this way to assist him. Not after . . . after what happened.”

There. She’d said it right out. No more beating around the proverbial bush.

“Call me perverse . . . curious . . . bored. Or all three at once. I’m sorry you didn’t want to renew my acquaintance.” He placed a hand over his heart. “I’m crushed.”

She smothered a smile. It wouldn’t do to offer him any encouragement. “I doubt that very much. You’re a wealthy titled gentleman. Women probably fling themselves at you.”

“I wouldn’t say fling, exactly. Nor would I say wealthy. Duncallan may be an old title, but it’s never been a rich one.”

As he spoke, he closed the distance between them until she had to look up to meet his gaze. He’d always been tall, but now broad shoulders complemented his height, and his face had lost the smoothness of youth to become square jawed and lean, his dark eyes and curled lip giving him an almost piratical expression. It made her very aware of her state of undress, the thinness of her robe, the lack of layers between them.

“I’m grateful for Father’s sake.” She took a step back. “Since leaving his teaching post, he’s grown very lonely. There are few here equal to discussing his work.”

He stepped forward. “He always has you, doesn’t he?”

Was that resentment she noted or wishful thinking on her part? This conversation was quickly veering into places she didn’t want to go and dredging up memories she’d thought she’d locked away. She shuffled away again. “A daughter is hardly the same as a colleague.”

He followed after as if they took part in some strange silent dance. Lifted his free hand as if he might caress her cheek—or slap it, his eyes blazing with some indefinable emotion. Lost in his gaze, she swayed close, awaiting his hovering touch. To feel the press of his hand against her ribs, the warmth of his caress at the small of her back.

“Who knows, Katie love?” he murmured. “Had things worked out differently, he might have ended with both.”

A silly endearment last whispered when life stretched golden and beautiful in front of her. How dare he throw it down between them like a gauntlet? She stiffened and backed away, angry with him and furious at herself.

She crossed to the desk, absently straightening papers. Stacking books. Anything to put a safe distance between them. Enid had been right about James. Katherine would have to be on her guard. Even after all that had passed between them, he still managed to wreak havoc on her self-control. And now he knew it.

“Since you’ve taken it on yourself to muck about with Father’s papers, have you discovered anything?” She made her best attempt at breezy disinterest, though desire coiled in the pit of her stomach and her heart galloped.

His smug expression and offhand shrug told her he recognized her ploy and was amused by it. He rested a hip against the desk, one leg swinging. “He’s managed to sift through an amazing amount of information, but is he certain it points to the Imnada?”