The Capture of the Earl of Glencrae (40 page)

“I want you to ravish Miss Cynster.”

The clear, definite, decisive demand damned her beyond recall. He scowled. “I've kidnapped her, brought her here—as you demanded. I've done what you wanted, and now this?” Lowering his head, he looked her in the eye. “Give me one good reason why I should—why I should do it, and why I should believe you'll hold to your word this time.”

They argued; she would have grown suspicious if he'd simply agreed, but regardless he wanted to hear it all from her lips—her offer, her demands, her promises, and the malignant desires those revealed. He pushed her and heard it all—and it was exactly as Angelica had described it, as, in his heart of hearts, he'd known all along.

It wasn't easy to listen to the vitriol, to the blackness that spewed out, but he needed to hear his mother condemn herself before he acted—before, ultimately, he brought her down.

He'd already thought further than even Angelica had; once this was over and the goblet once more in his hands, he'd have to banish Mirabelle, imprison her in some comfortable place where she could do no more harm to herself or anyone else. And that place could not be in the castle, not even on clan lands, but that was a decision he didn't yet have to make. For tonight . . .

Finally, she glared and belligerently stated, “If you don't do as I wish, I swear on your father's grave that I will
not
give the goblet back in time for you to save your precious clan.”

His gaze on her face, in the corner of his vision, Dominic glimpsed movement in the shadows at the bottom of the stair, where it met the gallery. Head rising, drawing a tight, genuinely furious breath, he looked—and saw McAdie.

Dominic nodded. “All right,” he said to his mother, “but I want a witness to our agreement.” Raising his voice, he called, “McAdie—come up here and stand witness for the clan.”

The forcibly retired steward might be Mirabelle's toady, but Dominic entertained no doubt as to McAdie's loyalty to the clan. When alerted by Angelica's earlier question, he'd asked his senior staff about the old man, they'd admitted that no one had told McAdie the truth about Angelica, which explained his puzzlement; he didn't understand why Dominic had brought her to the castle and imprisoned her. Letting the old man see the real caliber of the lady for whom he misguidedly entertained a certain regard might save McAdie from getting further involved in Mirabelle's schemes.

Mirabelle had whirled to look down the stairs. After a fractional hesitation, McAdie started slowly up. As he neared, she asked, “Were you looking for me?”

McAdie nodded. “Aye, my lady.”

Dominic wondered why but wasn't about to ask. McAdie reached the landing and bowed slightly. Dominic nodded crisply. “McAdie, my mother and I are about to voice an agreement of great importance to the clan. I'm asking you to bear witness for the clan. Are you willing?”

McAdie straightened. “Aye, my lord.”

Shifting his gaze to Mirabelle's face, Dominic stated, “I am only going to make this offer once. There will be no negotiation of terms—you either agree to the offer as I make it, or you refuse it. Understood?”

She hesitated, but she knew he had to give her what she wished. She nodded. “Very well.”

“I, Dominic Lachlan Guisachan, Earl of Glencrae, will accede to your specific demand that I ravish Miss Angelica Cynster on the following conditions. One, you will not be allowed to witness the act, but I will agree to allowing you into the room immediately afterward to visually confirm. Two, the ravishment will be carried out in a place, and at a time, and in a manner of my choosing. In return for agreeing to your demand,
immediately
the deed is done and confirmed, you will surrender to me the Scottish coronation goblet.”

Mirabelle opened her mouth, then shut it. She frowned, then said, “The goblet isn't in the castle, but it is close by and I can give you the directions to where it's hidden immediately the deed is done.”

He nodded. “Immediately the deed is done and confirmed, you will surrender to me the directions to the goblet's hiding place.” He paused, ran through his evolving plan in his mind, then asked, “Do we have an agreement?”

Eyes glittering, Mirabelle nodded decisively. “Yes. If you'll do as you state, I'll return the goblet.”

“McAdie?” Dominic glanced at the old man. McAdie looked shocked; even in the poor light it was evident he'd paled. More gently, Dominic prompted, “Do you bear witness to the agreement?”

McAdie blinked, then nodded. “Aye. I do so bear witness.”

Dominic looked at his mother. “Done.” He turned his back on her and opened his bedroom door.

“When?” she asked.

He glanced back, saw again the stomach-churning eagerness in her face. “Tomorrow.” He paused, then added, “After lunch.”

Opening the door just wide enough, he went in, shut it, then locked it. Turning, he saw Angelica, still clothed, lying on the bed. She arched her brows at him. Walking to the bed, he halted beside it. “You heard?”

“Tomorrow, after lunch. But the door's so thick I couldn't hear any of the rest.”

Sinking down beside her, he repeated the agreement. Meeting her eyes, he concluded, “So now we have to plan your ravishment.”

Lolling beside him, she grinned. “I'm all ears.”

He stretched out on the bed, like her still clothed, the better to think. Crossing his arms behind his head, he did, then grimaced. “In all honesty, I seriously doubt I'll be able to perform as required.” He glanced at her, met her eyes. “We'll most likely have to fake it.”

Her expression now serious, she arched her brows. “That would be seriously dangerous given your mother is hardly a virgin herself and we can't risk her even questioning that anything about this ravishment, not even the smallest detail, is fake. This is our last throw of the dice—if we fail in this, we won't get another. However . . .” Wriggling higher in the bed, she leaned over him and trailed her fingers down the center of his chest. “If you will simply surrender yourself into my hands”—fingers trailing lower still, she demonstrated—“then as long as we lock the door, and no one else can see, then I'm utterly, unassailably confident that I'll be able to convince you to have your wicked way with me.”

Eyes closing, Dominic's lips curved, but all he said was, “We'll see.”

“Is that another challenge?”

“Take it as you wish.”

She chuckled, sultry and sweet, and set out to convince him that she was up to it.

M
irabelle and McAdie didn't speak until they reached the safety of her tower. Halting inside the stairwell, she swung to the old man and eagerly asked, “Well? Is he here?”

“No. A boy came with a message—apparently the gentleman has returned from his trip, but is unable to attend you tonight.”

Mirabelle's face drained of all expression. “Damn him—I wanted to gloat. He didn't think I'd be able to force Dominic to do as I wished, but I've finally triumphed over my intractable son. I'm one step away from gaining my revenge . . .” Lips compressing, she paused, then slowly smiled. “But perhaps it will be even better this way. Come up.” She started up the stairs. “I'll give you a note. You can take it across tomorrow morning, then he can join me for my moment of ultimate glory, when I'll have even more to share with him.”

McAdie toiled slowly up the stairs in her wake. His head was spinning; he could barely believe the agreement he'd been called on to witness. He was shocked by what the laird had agreed to do, but he fully understood why. He couldn't claim any moral high ground; he knew full well the importance of the goblet. Beneath his long-held rancor over the laird's dismissal of his services, in his heart he held nothing but respect, albeit grudging, for the man Dominic had become.

A pity he hadn't remembered that sooner.

Before he'd told Mirabelle the combination to the safe.

While he was horrified by what the laird had been forced to agree to, he was even more horrified by his own unthinking role in the unfolding drama.

As for his role as go-between and doorkeeper for the countess and the “gentleman” she'd taken as her lover . . . he'd originally agreed because he'd felt sorry for her in her isolation, because he'd seen her and himself as both suffering from the neglect of the Guisachan in showing them far less respect than their due, but over the months he'd grown increasingly uneasy. Not because of the countess's interest in the gentleman; her motives were clear enough. But the gentleman's interest in the countess . . . to McAdie, the man's motives were worryingly suspect.

Of course, he wouldn't—couldn't—say anything. He stood beside the countess while she wrote out her missive at the pretty desk in her sitting room. He'd chosen the desk himself, long ago, smitten by her face, by her smile. She had been so beautiful when she'd first come there, he'd been agonizingly jealous of Mortimer, yet she hadn't once looked his way. She'd never seen him as a man, only as someone to give orders to, to use when she wished.

He hadn't minded, not until now.

Now . . . he was starting to wonder just how much of an unthinking old fool he'd become.

Chapter Twenty

B
reakfast in the great hall was a tense affair. Dominic and Angelica stuck to their agreed roles. He had no difficulty behaving appropriately; anger and frustration rolled off him in waves. He deliberately lowered the shield he usually kept his temper screened behind, and let the chill touch of menace, of violence barely restrained, reach out and spread.

For her part, Angelica kept her head down. While she no longer cringed, she definitely shrank, projecting the image of a woman who knew herself to be weak and helpless, and potentially subject to unspeakable threat; she conducted herself as if her entire being was focused on slipping past a dangerous, ravenous animal unnoticed.

Hungrily, greedily, avidly and intently, Mirabelle watched and delighted, while everyone else saw and wondered.

Dominic had already spoken with Scanlon, Jessup, and Mulley, with Brenda and Griswold, with John Erskine and Mrs. Mack. He and Angelica had agreed that no one else needed to know that anything dramatic was afoot, and even those—his closest and most trusted staff—knew only that he and Angelica wanted the keep cleared of everyone but them, Mirabelle, and McAdie immediately after luncheon ended. Dominic had opted for that time precisely so that he would be able to ensure a clear field—one on which no one else would be involved in any way.

Immediately breakfast ended, Angelica slid out of her chair and found Mulley waiting to escort her back to the store room and lock her in.

Inside, she paced and thought, planned, and considered. Like any play ever staged, her ravishment would benefit from being plotted and structured, and Dominic had proved adept at following her cues. “Just as well.” The skirts of the drab, dun-colored gown Mirabelle had provided swirling as she turned, she paced before the locked door. “Clearly one of us is going to have to lead, and given how he feels about this, it won't be him.”

Dominic had elected to take the boys out hunting with Scanlon and his lads; he would leave the group and return to the castle in good time to meet with her before luncheon.

“So,” she murmured, “I have three hours to come up with a workable script, and then decide how much of it to tell him.”

O
utwardly, luncheon was its habitual, unremarkable event, but about the high table feelings ran high. Frustration, anger, and building expectation mingled with heightened awareness and burgeoning uncertainty.

Mirabelle had disrupted Dominic and Angelica's plan to meet by insisting Angelica spend the latter half of the morning with her in her sitting room. Although until then Angelica had taken her meetings with Mirabelle in her stride, this time, knowing what Mirabelle had set in motion, what she'd demanded Dominic do, and that she was gloating over and savoring—indeed, all but salivating over—what she expected would be Angelica's upcoming terror, distress, and devastation, had literally turned her stomach.

She'd had no appetite to speak of when, in Mirabelle's all but triumphant train, she'd slipped into the great hall and, giving Dominic, slumped and glowering in his huge carved chair, as wide a berth as possible, had slid into the chair on his left.

Pushing food around on her plate, she found herself unexpectedly trepidatious; they had no plan, no agreed series of actions. In what happened next, they would have to play their parts spontaneously.

For the first time in the entire charade, she felt nervous.

This was their last gambit, the last and final act. They had to get every single little gesture right, and Mirabelle had just made their task harder.

By the time the plates and platters were being removed, an unfamiliar knot had formed in the pit of her stomach.

Then Dominic pushed back his chair and rose. Everyone fell silent; expectation gripped the hall. He glanced over the faces, his own a mask, then spoke to the assembly. “As some of you already know, I've declared the rest of today a minor festival day for the castle. There'll be archery and other contests in the bailey and in the forests to east and west. I want everyone outside, enjoying the afternoon—I don't want to see anyone back in the keep until it's time to get dinner ready. I've some business to attend to, but I'll join you all soon.” Raising both arms, he waved everyone out. “Now go, and enjoy the afternoon.”

Excited, happy chatter welled, engulfing the hall. Under cover of the noise and the rush of activity as people left the tables and headed for the main door, Angelica started to edge out of her chair.

“Stay where you are.”

She froze at Dominic's growl; the final act in their charade had begun.

He remained standing, watching the others leave. Silent and still, fingers lightly touching the table, he waited . . .

Shrunk down in her chair, Angelica leaned forward enough to glance past him. Mirabelle, still seated, was looking up at him, her face all but radiant with expectation of a twisted, malignant joy . . .

Stifling a shudder, Angelica looked down. She'd performed in charades too numerous to count. Never before had her pulse hammered in her throat, had her nerves cinched to such excruciating tightness.

Finally, the last stragglers were shooed out by Mrs. Mack, who followed them outside into the weak sunshine. Gradually the keep fell silent, until the only sounds to reach them were distant, muted by the thick stone walls.

Dominic pounced.

He seized her arm, hauled her up and out of her chair.

The squeak he'd surprised out of her had been perfectly genuine. Shocked, as he tugged her forward instinct kicked in and she pulled back. “No! What—”

“Shut up. If you know what's good for you, you'll come quietly.”

“No! Let me go!” She threw herself back and succeeded in knocking over her chair. It crashed on the flags, the sound reverberating through the hall.

Dominic's jaw set harder than stone. With more force, he yanked her forward, ducked his shoulder, and straightened with her caught over it.

She struggled furiously. “Stop! You can't do this. Let me go!” She pummeled his back with her fists, wriggled and bucked and tried to kick as if she didn't care if he dropped her; she knew very well he wouldn't.

Undeterred by her resistance, he strode off the dais and into the gallery. When she redoubled her efforts, he slapped her on her bottom hard enough to make her shriek. “Stop it!” he snarled. “You'll only end hurting yourself.”

The slap was followed by a knowing, kneading caress, an arousing reassurance that made her gasp and momentarily distracted her.

Recalling her role, she hauled in as much breath as she could and screamed, “Help!”

With his shoulder pressed solidly into her lungs, the best she managed was a weak cry.

“Scream all you like,” he said. “No one will hear you.”

Her gaze fell on Mirabelle. His mother had leapt up from her chair and was trotting after them, her eyes drinking in their performance, her lips parted in delight.

Revulsion rolled through Angelica. She wriggled anew, dragging in breath to appeal to the manic countess, “Help me! You can't let him do this.”

Mirabelle smiled, and every ounce of her maliciousness, of her vindictive spite showed. “Oh, yes I can—he's doing this for me. He's so big, too—I'm so looking forward to hearing you scream. My only regret is that your mother won't hear it, hear her darling being ripped apart, but I'm hoping that later you'll describe the moment to her in all its horror.”

Angelica was struck speechless.

As Dominic swiftly climbed the stairs to his room, her struggles weakened, lessened.

She managed a realistic sob as he reached his door. “No, please—don't do this.”

“Stop fighting, be sensible, just lie there and take it, and I'll make things as easy for you as I can. It shouldn't hurt too much.” Dominic set the door swinging wide. “Just follow the old advice: Lie back and think of England. It'll be over soon enough, and then you can go home.”

Swinging around, he slammed the door in Mirabelle's face and slid the bolt into place.

And exhaled.

Walking further into the room, he halted and lifted Angelica off his shoulder, letting her slide into his arms.

She wound her arms around his neck, looked into his eyes. “Lie back and think of England?”

Inexpressibly relieved to see laughter in her eyes, he shrugged. “It seemed apt.”

She searched his eyes, then, lips curving, arched a brow. “So . . . what now?”

“I was hoping you might have some suggestions.”

“Oh, I do—I definitely do.” She raised one leg, waited until his hands cupped her bottom and he lifted her, then she wound both legs about his waist. Levering herself up so they were face-to-face, eye to eye, lips to lips, she murmured, “Let's start with this.”

She kissed him, and within three heartbeats he learned that his fears had been groundless.

They could do this. Together they could, and would, and all would be well again.

Between them, between his kisses and hers, between the artful tangle of their tongues and their slowly rising hunger, the fires ignited and the heat between them rose.

And filled them.

Supporting her with one arm, he raised his other hand to her breast, claimed, kneaded, and caressed.

She murmured something incoherent, then drew back from the kiss, looked into his eyes. “She's doubtless got her ear pressed to the door, but she can't hear us, can she?”

“No, but she'll hear a scream.”

She licked her lips; her gaze fastened on his. “We're not usually that noisy, so we're going to have to make an extra effort.” With a wriggle and a slow undulation of her spine, she pressed the heat between her thighs to the reassuringly rigid rod of his erection. “You're going to have to give me a reason to scream . . . with appropriate feeling.”

He wouldn't have thought it remotely possible, but she'd made him grin. “Let me see what I can do.”

He trapped her lips in a kiss, although who caught who was moot, and desire and passion flared anew, flared higher. Within seconds, their hands were everywhere, tugging this, unbuttoning that. He staggered the two steps to the bed and tipped her down. She let her arms slide from his neck, let herself fall back to the mattress. She was already nicely flushed, lightly panting.

“We can't take too long.” She'd already tugged his shirt free of his waistband. Now she reached for the buttons there.

He blocked her and reached for the buttons closing her bodice.

“No—rip it.”

He met her eyes.

She grasped his wrists and shook them. “She gave it to me.”

Gripping the fabric, he hauled the halves apart, ripping both gown and chemise to her waist, exposing her breasts, unmarked but swollen. Swooping, he set his mouth to her flesh, set his hands and fingers cruising. She'd wanted him to make her shriek and moan; he set himself to the task with his customary devotion.

She exaggerated, of course, but she took her cues from his ministrations, from his deliberate and ruthless assault on her senses. The sounds that fell from her lips urged him on; within minutes they were creating the sort of racket that would have convinced even the most hardened and cynical listener that a ravishment of the first order was taking place.

His mouth on her gave them her first scream. Her second, when he thrust swift and sure deep into her body, was simply perfect.

Her skirts rucked to her waist, her hips gripped and anchored in his hands, her legs wound about his hips, he leaned over her and rode her hard and fast; eyes gleaming from beneath her heavy lids, she was with him every heart-pounding second of the way.

And she'd been right. Nothing could touch them; no charade, no pretence however sordid, could even reach, let alone mar, the reality they'd already created.

In perfect harmony, they focused on their joint goal. And raced for it.

She didn't hold back, and neither did he. He rode her up the slope at a breakneck pace, all the way to the peak, and sent her flying. Head back, body bowing, she screamed. Her sheath gripped, a scalding velvet vice, and pulled him with her. On a hoarse shout, he let go, let her take him—then let her pull him down, into her arms, and hold him.

For that one blissful second.

Then they both dragged in huge breaths. Pushing back, he disengaged. She reached up and ran her fingers through her hair, disarranging the long strands, leaving them tangling wildly about her face, throat, and exposed breasts.

Breeches rebuttoned, he turned to the bedside table, picked up the knife he'd left there, and nicked his thumb. Returning to her, he let the blood well, then smeared it down the insides of her thighs, mixing it with his seed so that it glistened damply.

“Thank God you remembered—I'd forgotten.”

“Every little detail,” he murmured.

Stepping back, he sucked his thumb and surveyed her.

She arched her brows. “How do I look?”

He reached for her skirts, artfully draped a fold over flesh he saw no reason to let his mother see, tweaked her ripped bodice so the rip was even more evident, then waved at her. “Look ravished.”

She obliged, falling limp on the disarranged counterpane, head to one side, palms upward in helpless defeat, limbs in a boneless sprawl, her legs spread wide, hanging over the side of the bed . . . he shook his head in honest admiration. “Perfect. Don't move—I'm going to let her in.”

He crossed to the door, took a firm grip on his temper, his revulsion, his protectiveness, and held them all back, then he slid the bolt free and opened the door.

Mirabelle stood immediately outside. The look on her face . . . for a moment, he closed his eyes.

Turning from her, he opened them, waved at the bed. “As you demanded—Angelica Cynster, thoroughly ravished.”

Mirabelle walked toward the bed. He walked beside her, intent on ensuring she didn't touch Angelica—that, he wouldn't stand for.