Authors: Shannon Drake
Emerald Embrace (23 page)
“Ah, in Virginia?”
“Yes, in Virginia. You’ve copied the Americans.”
“How dare you presume such a thing, milady? The Americans have copied us,” he told her. And she laughed, and he started to lead her back to her chair.
Suddenly, she sobered, for an old woman stood in their path.
She was withered and small, and looked ancient. Her eyes were pale blue, watery and rheumy, and she stood with a long bony arm extended, pointing at Martise.
“’Tis ye!” she exclaimed. “Aye, All Hallows’ Eve will come, and the spirits will rise, and ye will be next! Ye’ve come to taunt, to delve, and the devil will take ye. Run, lass, lest yet be like the others! Swept away by his fire in the night. Taken from the cliffs, dashed downward into an eternal hell! The laird of the darkness has chosen ye, and yer blood will feed the rock and the earth!”
Her hand fell. Everyone was silent, absolutely silent. Nothing could be heard except the crackling sounds made by the various fires.
Bruce stepped forward. “Mattie!” he murmured. And the old woman burst into tears and allowed Bruce to take her gently into his arms. He led her from the circle.
Martise looked into his eyes. “She should go,” she said.
“Aye, she should,” he agreed, and disappeared with the woman. Martise, standing alone and shivering, felt an arm slip through hers.
“Mattie,” Elaina whispered. “Poor woman, she lost a daughter a year ago or so, and she hasn’t been the same since. You mustn’t mind her, Martise. She means you no harm.”
Martise nodded. “I didn’t think that she meant me harm,” she said. No. Hadn’t Elaina listened? The woman said that she had been chosen by the laird of darkness.
The laird of Creeghan.
She wanted to run, to hide. The night had been so beautiful, and now it was nothing but nightmare.
Then Uncle Peter was with them, smiling grimly. “Well, Mattie has managed to put a damper upon another fine eve, so she has. Bruce will sit with her till she calms once again. We should head now for home.”
Martise was agreeable. She wanted only the solace of her room.
But they did not travel alone. MacTeague said that he would come back to the castle and await Bruce for one last drink. He rode silently beside Martise while the others rode ahead, yet when they reached the courtyard, he held her back when the others entered the castle.
“What is it?” Martise asked.
He looked at her earnestly. “Ye do need to go, milady. I’m sure that Bruce would agree with me. It’s dangerous here. He has told me himself, he thinks that you should leave.”
Martise watched Jemie and Trey move away with the horses, wondering if either of the boys had heard the exchange. “Why are you telling me this? You’re the one who said that Mary died of heart failure, and nothing more. You assured me that she wasn’t murdered—”
“Mary wasn’t murdered, Martise. But someone was.”
“What are you talking about?” she cried in dismay.
“The girl bricked into the wall, Martise. This is confidential. You mustn’t say anything at all. You—”
“Well, of course, she was murdered!” Martise said, feeling a rise of anxiety. “She was murdered years and years ago! And walled in and—”
She broke off because he was shaking his head. “Nay, lassie, she was not. She’s been there no more than a year and a half. I’m not a fine pathologist, but I’m a fair enough doctor to know a young corpse when I see one. The poor wee thing has been sent down to the city now so that the fancy doctors can take a good look. I can assure you of this—she was murdered within the castle walls, and that spells danger for anyone, especially an outsider.” He stopped speaking because they could both hear the sound of horse’s hooves clattering up behind them. He swung around, and together they watched as Bruce Creeghan came up on the massive bay.
He leapt down from the horse, quickly and easily, leaving Martise with no true answer to the question of what a Scotsman might wear beneath his kilt. He strode toward them. “Ah, MacTeague, glad you could come. Did you tell my guest that it was time she leave this place?”
“I did, indeed,” MacTeague said solemnly.
Martise didn’t know if MacTeague had confronted Bruce with his accusations. She didn’t even know if MacTeague suspected Bruce.
But who else …?
She was shivering. Both men noticed, and MacTeague suggested they go inside.
“Warm brandy will sit well,” MacTeague suggested.
Bruce’s arm touched Martise, and she jumped. His smile was mocking, and she remembered that she had danced in his arms all night and forced a smile in return. A flirtatious smile, teasing, inviting. One meant to allay his suspicions about her thoughts.
They walked into the hall and found that Peter, Ian, Conar, and Elaina were there. Hogarth had already warmed brandy, and blue-patterned crockery mugs awaited them. MacTeague and Bruce and Martise joined them by the fire, and they talked a while, reliving the evening, until MacTeague said his good-nights, bowing to Martise.
“Good-bye, Lady St. James. I do hope you choose to leave soon.”
She smiled, feeling wooden, like a puppet jerked around by strings. Bruce was staring at her, gaze cutting through her, golden and bright. She wanted to shout at him. To scream and shout and tear her nails into his flesh and demand to know the truth about everything that was going on. But he just watched her, and she was careful beneath that scrutiny.
“Perhaps, Dr. MacTeague,” she murmured, and felt his kiss upon her hand, and then Bruce walked him to the door.
“Well, I’m for bed!” Elaina announced.
“And I,” Ian said wearily. Bruce was striding back into the room, where he poured himself a straight whisky and tossed back his head to swallow it neat. “What about you, O great laird of Hallows’ Eve?” Ian asked.
Bruce shook his head. “I’m going to change. Then I’ll be in the library, working on accounts. And I’m afraid, Ian, that you’re going to be with me. For the first hour, at least. We need the count on the wool shipments for Flanders.”
Ian swore beneath his breath. Bruce was turning toward Martise, but she was already on her feet.
“Well, then, good night, all, I am going to turn in. I’m afraid that I can’t help you.” She smiled as Bruce walked in her direction. “We’ll talk tomorrow,” she said hastily, and then turned and fled up the stairs.
She paced her room for what seemed like hours, paced it and paced it. She weighed the evidence, and was very afraid.
The girl in the wall …
She had been murdered, and recently, by someone inside the castle. Someone here was a murderer.
She had to go. She didn’t know where. Maybe to Edinburgh. Somewhere where she could perhaps find help.
Martise clenched her fingers into fists. She didn’t want to flee. It was the coward’s way out.
She had no choice. To stay, she would be a fool. Falling further and further beneath Creeghan’s haunting domination.
She stopped her thinking and began to shed her clothing, convincing herself that there was no other way. She slipped into the long white gown that Holly had left out on her bed, but could not crawl beneath the sheets.
The emerald! she thought, with rising dismay. But was the gem worth her life? Was even Eagle’s Walk worth her flesh and blood? What good could she do, rotting beneath the earth?
Or within the cold stone walls of Creeghan Castle?
She tentatively opened her door, then listened at the next one. Bruce was in the library with Ian, and he would be there for some time, he had said. This was her last chance to find the emerald.
She stood still, waiting, she knew not for what. Then, from the great hall far below, she heard the clock chiming midnight.
Midnight. The witching hour.
She didn’t hesitate but ran along the castle corridor, her gown trailing, soft and ghostly, to the master’s tower.
Throwing open the doors to his room, Martise raced in and scanned the area, admiring the dragons, the insignias, the beautifully carved one atop the armoire, the claw feet supporting the furniture.
A single candle burned on his desk. A single flame to lead the laird to his bed.
The desk! She rummaged through it. Whisky, tumblers, inks, blotters, nothing! Nothing!
She sank to the floor, dismayed, desolate. Time! She needed time!
And she was wasting it. Martise leapt over to the bed.
Desperate, she wrenched aside the covers. She tugged at the pillows and searched beneath them. By God, where was it, where was it? No brilliance greeted her eyes, no stunning, lustrous green.
“Lady St. James!”
Soft, taunting, the wicked drawl came to her in the night, and she spun around, a cry on her lips.
He was there. Smiling with a cruel twist to his lips, a satyr’s grin. And his words came huskily, wrapping around her.
“Are you so eager, then, to share my bed that you would ready it for me?”
She didn’t answer, just stared at him. But then his voice snapped out again, rich, deep, a quiet tone of thunder. “Well?”
“No!” she cried.
But his eyes burned into her, never leaving her, as he strode surely into the room.
Laird of Creeghan
S
ince she had come to Castle Creeghan, since that very first night, he had known she was living a lie.
But what she wanted and why she had come, he couldn’t say. Sometimes the suspicion and the accusations lay open and naked before them. And sometimes they remained hid and they politely danced around them.
And sometimes …
Sometimes the wanting had gotten in the way. He had thought himself hardened, jaded. He hadn’t thought a woman could get through to him, any woman. But she had. And he wished he didn’t know the things he did: that she couldn’t possibly be the woman she claimed to be. That Lady St. James had died in Richmond, soon after her husband.
And so he had known. From that first blustery and tempestuous night when he had swept her up onto his bay, he had known that she had come … as a spy, as a thief … as a lie. But from the first moment he had seen her, seen the sweep of her lashes over the liquid blue dazzle of her eyes, he had known, too, that he wanted her. The intrigue and her beauty and the sweet sound of her voice haunted him in his dreams.
But he was living a lie himself.
Creeghan was his, and the responsibility was his, and even the death, if it came to it, was his. He belonged to rugged tors and cliffs; he had been born to the wind. She did not belong. And yet, she had come from the war-torn Confederacy, of that he was certain. She had to have learned something of hardship.
So what was she? A gold digger, a fortune seeker? Despite her angel’s face and flaming hair, her soft smile of innocence, was she a harlot or a thief?
Aye, she was after something.
Something she believed to be in the castle, something she wanted badly enough to risk her life to obtain. What?
He intended to find out.
She played him for a fool time and time again. He had listened to her lies. But he had let her slip through his fingers.
No more.
Tonight… tonight, he had her. Here. In his bedroom. Tearing apart his very bed.
And still, she somehow seemed the innocent, rather than the deceiver. She was dressed in white. In a long white gown that was edged in fine lace, beautiful. Soft, whisper-thin fabric that molded to her form, that enhanced and teased at the lush secrets of her body, secrets he had just begun to discover with his touch.
She stood there, elegant, hair waving and cascading down her back. It enhanced the shimmering blue of her eyes and shadowed the finely chiseled loveliness of her features. And the light teased over that white gown, darkening the proud rise of her breasts and swirling around the haunting shadow at the apex of her thighs. And even as they stared at one another, her chin rose, and he felt the temper rise within him as well as the passion. She was still going to deny everything. Deny that she was searching for something, deny that she was an imposter.
Not tonight. By God, tonight she would deny nothing.
He slipped off his frock coat, hanging it over the back of the desk chair. He stood before her and faced her in the white ruffled shirt and ebony riding breeches and boots he had donned upon their return from the games.
Tonight, she would answer him. He smiled and placed his hands on his hips, watching her. “Then, pray tell, dear lady, just what are you doing between my covers?”
Her lashes fell over her eyes.
“I … I … uh …” she began. Her voice faded and he smiled, lip curling mockingly, then arched a brow politely, waiting for her to go on.
She had barely moved. He could see her agitation in the rapid rise and fall of her breasts. In the pulse throbbing swiftly against her throat.
She was beautiful. Her flawless cream-colored skin, her sky-colored eyes, the long, smooth curve throat … her breasts, rounded, firm, peaked with the exquisite rose tips that had taunted him beyond the devil’s own imagining. And staring at him, so defiantly, she was ever more appealing.
He gritted his teeth. “Yes?”
“My … earring!” she said.
“You lost it in my bed?” he said incredulously. His smile deepened with the heat of his anger, with the swirl of passion deep inside him. He fought for control, fought to ease the tension. But he felt on fire. Felt the fire in him, remembered it in her laughter, in her taunting eyes.
She had known. When she had left him tonight, she had meant to flirt and tease, and cast him off guard. He spoke softly, tauntingly, in return. “Nay, my lady! I promise you, I would have remembered the occasion.”
She inhaled and cast him a withering glare. “Lord Creeghan, I meant no such thing. I thought perhaps it had caught upon some piece of your clothing—”
“You are not wearing any earrings,” he interrupted her. He casually sat at his desk, crossed one booted leg over the other, and waited, hands together, fingers tapping against each other.
“How very rude of you to notice,” she commented, and in the soft slur of her defense, he heard the strength of her Virginia accent. Oh, he knew that accent. Knew it well. He’d spent so much time there, with so many Virginians. And like a Southern belle she was playing him for some gentleman fool.
But these were the Highlands. She would not play him so.
“But alas, Lord Creeghan,” she continued sweetly, “when I lost the one, I removed the other.”
“So, you think you might have lost the one upon my person earlier?” he asked politely.
She flushed angrily. “Perhaps—”
“But why would you assume that I had been in my bed already?”
“Sir, I say that you are no gentleman.”
“And madam, I say that you are no lady.”
He rose swiftly, with purposeful, lazy menace. She stiffened warily, watching him.
He must have come too close because she cried out softly and sought to run by him. He reached for her and missed her arm, but his fingers curled around fabric, the silk of her gown, and it was wrenched from her shoulder as she tried to flee, but then she caught herself up, twirling back to face him.
Too late, perhaps, for the gown was already off her shoulder, and her breast was bared to him in all its naked and candlelit splendor. His gaze moved from the seduction of that naked beauty to her eyes.
Bright and blue, they returned his stare, widening. He didn’t know what she saw in his face, but it must have been a warning. Perhaps it was the soaring flame that kindled in him. Perhaps it was a memory of the constant friction and tension that had risen between them.
Perhaps it was simply the fire, the desperate, searing fire, that was ignited and created there. Perhaps spawned of anger and spun to passion, he did not know.
“No!” she murmured.
But there was no denial. Not this night! He had vowed it.
His hand fell upon the bared flesh of her arm, and he swept her hard against him. He caught her chin and tilted back her head and kissed her lips, and then availed himself of the long white column of her throat. She was warm, and the taste of her flesh was sweet, and the flowery scent of her soap that lingered was an essence that seemed to sweep him to madness. It was his anger, no …
It was his desire, stark and hot, and simmering too long in him. Potent, tearing into his soul, it ripped into his muscles and his loins, and he could not let her go.
She moaned and pressed against him, and he felt the soft pressure of her breasts, the rising pulse of her heartbeat. She was mercury against him, soft and fluid and exciting, and she trembled within his arms. Her fingers touched upon his shoulders, then threaded into his hair, and the touch ignited his senses.
His lips moved further down, stroking her collarbone. His tongue created a trickle of fire upon her naked shoulder, and at the sound of her gasp, he shuddered, and felt the need sweep through him with an urgency both dark and desperate. He wanted her there, now. Spread out upon his bed in all her golden glory and beauty. She was his, and the lie was still there between them, and so, tonight, he would brook no denial.
“No!” She pulled away from him, hair tumbling wild and free She shook her head, backing away.
“Martise!”
“No! Leave me be!”
His fury and tempest built. “Lady, you have lied and cajoled and taunted me for the last time! If nothing else, by God, I will have the truth!”
She cried out, but there was no mercy in him. And he seized her ruthlessly. She beat against him, but he ignored her touch, he could scarcely feel it. By God, he would have answers!
His hands gripped her waist and he carried her across the room, throwing her upon his bed. She tried to sit up, but he fell atop her, anger now unleashed and free.
“What are you doing in here?” he demanded.
She seethed as his captive. She gritted her teeth and snapped out, “I told you.”
“Liar!” he charged.
She tried to strike out against him, but he saw it coming and caught her hand, pinning it to her side. He straddled her and stared down at her, teeth gritting against the growing extent of his rage. “Tell me the truth!”
“I have told you—”
“Lies!” he finished.
Lies, indeed. She did not bother to answer him. She twisted beneath him frantically.
Yet as she did so, she played more havoc upon his senses. Her gown was wrenched up high along her thighs, and her limbs were long and sinewy and soft beneath the hardness of his. The gown had fallen again from her breast, that sweet morsel he had tasted before.
Then Martise suddenly went still. And her eyes were on his, huge, furious, yet not afraid. Nay, she was never afraid, this one.
He smiled grimly and secured both her wrists with one hand, high above her head. He waited, watching her eyes, then allowed his gaze to travel over the body bared to him. Inwardly he groaned, and wondered at the magic, at the silvery beauty that captured and held him, when he never should have fallen at all. It was in her voice, in the grace of her walk …
It was in her eyes. Eyes he met boldly now.
She did not fight. And so he touched her, using his free hand. He wrapped his fingers around her breast and explored the nipple with the pad of his thumb. Fascinated, he watched as the color deepened, as the sweet pebble hardened to his touch.
Then he lowered his head against her, and took it into his mouth, and felt the satiny texture with his lips and tongue, breathing in the erotically feminine scent of her.
A cry escaped her and he felt her trembling, and he knew himself that they had gone too far this time.
They would not turn back. His loins were burning, hands ached to know more and more of her, nay, he needed just to be one with her, to fill her with his seed.
He moved against her body, freeing her wrists. And he caressed her with his lips and tongue, stroking with his fingers, exploring the length of her. Her fingers curled hard into his hair.
Then he rose, pulling her with him, annoyed now by the silken garment that had so enraged his senses. She stood before him, those eyes on him, and he swept the garment from her shoulders so that it fell to the floor in a soft, swirling cloud of white.
Then he stepped away from her. He had to see all of her. To drink in the beauty of the woman. And then he thought, Fool! She will run again, she will deny.
But she did not.
She remained there, naked and proud. The moonlight swept in to spill over her shoulders and touch them with ivory, while her hair took on the glorious colors of a sunset, spilling over her high, firm breasts.
He emitted a guttural cry, and felt indeed as if Castle Creeghan might house a beast, for all thought had left him except the stark necessity to possess her. The sound of his cry was harsh and hoarse, and brought her to life.
She was going to flee …
Nay, lass! he thought with determination, and pulled her back into his arms, and his lips descended upon hers with force and hunger … and seduction. And when he released her from the liquid magic of his mouth and tongue, it was only to bear them upon her again with the swiftness of Mercury.
He encircled her breasts and sank before her on his knees.
He would have her, all of her. With no inhibitions, and no denials, and he would taste all the sweetness she had to give.
His lips moved over the bareness of her belly, and with a savage tenderness, he demanded more. He felt her quivering tension, felt her fingers fall upon his head. He caught her hands and, holding her, sought the very heart of her womanhood, the soft dark petals and the tiny bud of her desire.
She cast back her head, gasping. He boldly demanded still more, taking her with ever greater intimacy, and knowing sweet, haunting triumph in the tremors that began to shake her body, in the whimpers and denials that escaped her lips.
She fell against him, spent and confused, and he quickly swept her into his arms.
“Aye, lass,” he whispered gently, laying her on the bed. “No denials this night, the truth between us. All of it.”
She did not move as he shed his clothing and came down beside her.
“What I have done?” she murmured.
What she meant, he wasn’t sure. He caught her chin and held her eyes to his. “‘What I have done,’ my lady? You are a liar, and perhaps a thief, but a beautiful one.”
“No!” Color flooded her cheeks. She tried to rise, and he knew that he would never let her. He caught her firmly against him, letting her know the fullness of his arousal, then finding that his temper was fading, and the fascination was taking flight.
He studied her eyes, the beautiful blue orbs that so enchanted, that raged like the sea, and softened to a sky on a cloudless day.
“Martise, what are you, witch or angel? I am enchanted against all wisdom, desperate to have you against all sanity.” His lips found hers again and he kissed her heatedly, burning now, and fevered and savagely demanding in his touch. And her fingers knotted into his hair again as he bore down upon her, his body pressed, nay, formed, to hers.
He buried his body between her thighs, and as his lips held hers, he probed her with his maleness.
He felt her tension again, and he stroked her and spoke softly to her. And then he could bear no more. The wind had swept into him, and was part of him, and he had to have her, or be damned. He moved swiftly, entering into the warmth of her body, startled, and pausing only slightly when he felt the resistance, when he discovered her maidenhead. He groaned, for it could not matter, not now, not this night.
