The Earl's Enticement (Castle Bride Series) (12 page)

“I. . .” Adaira pulled her chin to her chest again. Shame kept her from meeting his gaze. “Thank you.”

She blinked against the moisture burning in her eyes. Turning her head to hide her tears, she moved past him, hurrying to Fionn’s stall. “Goodnight, my. . .”

Lord Clarendon snaked his arm around her waist. Catching her unawares, he hoisted her off her feet.

CHAPTER 13

Adaira released a yelp. Her heart surged to her throat. Though she struggled against him, his embrace remained unyielding. She fought against the band of steel squeezing the breath from her. “What are you doing? Put me down!”

With both hands, she pried at his lordship’s arm. She twisted her neck to glare at him. His gaze clashed with hers. A self-satisfied smile, no, it was more of a snarl, curled his firm mouth.

“I’m giving you the spanking you deserve.”

“Now? Are you off your head?”

Adaira clawed at him and kicked her legs furiously. One heel connected with his shin. He grunted.

“There’s no time! I have to get back to my bedchamber,” she hissed between clenched teeth.

“You little hellcat. You can spare a minute, so I can teach you an overdue lesson.” In one fluid move, the earl tossed her over his shoulder.

Adaira wriggled and jerked, pounding his back with her fists. “You pigheaded oaf, put me down! A groom will hear us and tell my father.”

“Good,” his lordship said. “I’ve already had one discussion with your father regarding you. I’ve no qualms about having another. Especially since you’re not supposed to be here, and you still haven’t revealed your accomplice.”

He rendered a stinging slap to her buttocks. “That’s one.”

“Ouch. Get your hands off me. Ewan will kill you. Father will kill you.
I’ll kill you
!”

His hand was so large, the entire right side of her bum throbbed. She didn’t dare scream. Instead, she beat his back with all her might. He didn’t even flinch. She could feel the rough ridges from his scars through his fine linen shirt.

His lordship chuckled deep in his throat. The foxed lout was enjoying this. “I think not, vixen.”

He plopped onto the stool with such force, the air whooshed from her lungs. Her knees bounced against his chest. She reared up to keep her head from smacking the post behind the stool.

He deftly swung her from his shoulder. She caught a glimpse of his face before he turned her over his knees. He looked pleased-as-punch, the rotten bugger.

“You damnable merry-begotten cur.” She struggled against his immovable grip, condemning him to every sort of punishment in hell. Her curses would have burned the ears of the most hardened Scot. Turning her head, she caught the curious stares of the horses. Where were the blasted grooms? Surely someone had heard the commotion.

As if reading her mind, his lordship drawled, “The stable hands won’t be coming to your aid. I paid them quite handsomely to . . . er . . . be discreet.”

“I’ll tell Ewan they did nothing while you assaulted me,” she vowed, overcome with fury.

“You’re going to tell your brother you disobeyed your father and went to the stables? I’d wager he won’t object overly much to a mere spanking considering what I could have done—still can do—to you for imprisoning me.”

She shoved against Lord Clarendon’s marble hard thighs.

A chuckle rumbled through his chest again. “You’re a strong little thing.”

He pressed her shoulders into his lap with his forearm and struck her again. “Two.”

Four more sharp blows fell on her
derrière
. Tears flooded her eyes.

“There, that should teach you a long overdue lesson.”

The earl’s tone was gruff. Surely that wasn’t remorse in his voice?

Adaira rolled off his lap, then curled into a ball beside the soiled straw. Burying her head in her arms, she sobbed uncontrollably from humiliation and pain, because no one had come to her aid, because she couldn’t tell anyone about the spanking, because Vala and the colt might have died, and . . . because she’d imprisoned the wrong man.

She could very well hang for foolishness, if the earl was determined she get her due.

“Oh hell.” Suddenly she was swept into his lordship’s arms and cradled across his lap.

Adaira pressed into him, needing this comfort. Although, why she sought it from him was wholly baffling. Maybe her wits had flown. Trying to staunch her tears was futile. The dam had broken. She could no more contain her rasping sobs than she could harness the moon.

Except for when she’d been attacked four years ago and when Grandmother died a year later, she hadn’t been this desolate.

Lord Clarendon tucked Adaira’s head beneath his chin and cuddled her like a wee bairn. “It’s not as bad as all that. I but swatted you a half dozen times.”

“Vala—” She snuffled noisily against chest, soaking his shirt. A scrumptious trace of sandalwood lingered on the fabric. His chest hairs tickled her cheek.

“Is fine, as is her foal.” His lips moved against her hair, warming her scalp with little huffs of air as his hands rubbed the length of her spine.

“You’re not Edgar.”

He stiffened for a moment, then released a gusty sigh. “No. I told you I wasn’t.”

Utterly terrified, Adaira whispered against the curly hair poking from vee of his shirt. “I could go to prison. I. . .” she choked on a low moan of anguished regret, “could hang.”

His hands stilled. With his forefinger, he tilted her chin upward until her gaze met his. No trace of his prior fury remained. The tenderness on his gorgeous face took her aback.

“You’ll not go to prison or hang. I give you my word, vixen.” He wiped the tears from her cheeks with his finger. “But I will out your co-conspirator.”

His gaze sank to her lips. Dipping his head, he kissed her.

The earl’s lips were soft, warm, and tasted of whisky. He smelled heavenly. Horse, and leather, and sandalwood. Why wasn’t she afraid? She had no urge to pull away. In fact, his mouth wreaked all sorts of havoc with her thoughts and her body. Her pulse kicked to a rapid staccato. Her stomach tumbled and churned in an unfamiliar fashion.

His tongue grazed her lips as his hand brushed the side of her breast. She gasped against his mouth. The next instant, she was abruptly, and none too gently, planted on her feet.

“Fiend seize it! What am I doing kissing
you
?” His voice hardly above a whisper, Lord Clarendon’s tone was filled with self-loathing. His prior gruffness had returned in full force.

Adaira stared at him stunned, her mind a whirl of confused emotions. One moment he was swatting her bum. The next, he kissed her like a man long-starved. Then he thrust her away as if she were covered in oozing pox sores.

“You need to return to the keep.” His lordship surged to his feet. He shoved past her to snatch his waistcoat and jacket.

She tottered unbalanced for a moment.

He stomped several steps along the stable before turning back to her, impatience written on his face. “Come along. Stop dawdling.”

Adaira started for him, still wobbly on her feet. Blasted kisses. She was all muddled, and he stood there seemingly unaffected, except for the return of the sour scowl to his face. Not the reaction a woman wants when she’s been soundly kissed. Maybe he found her kisses unsatisfactory.

Another mark against her.

She stopped before him, her gaze resting on his mouth. She started to lick her lips. Catching herself, she closed her mouth and met his mocking gaze. Heat swept her cheeks.

Och, it was certain he knew what she was thinking. Boor.

His brows arched, and one corner of his mouth inched upward cynically. “Stop acting like you’ve never been kissed before. No chaste maid kisses like you just did.”

Adaira punched him.

Father bursting into Adaira’s chamber awakened her. Head muzzy, she fought to remember the lovely dream she’d been having. Someone had been holding her in his arms, kissing her senseless. Oh, it had been beyond wonderful. Intense blue eyes filtered into her memory.

No! Now the scunner was invading her dreams.

She dared to open her eyes a crack. Father was in high dudgeon, seldom seen wrath flashing in his dark brown eyes. Before she could sit up or wipe the sleep from her face, he demanded an explanation.

“Why did ye leave yer room last night, Adaira, after ye gave me your word?”

She caught her breath. How did he know? Had the earl told him? What explanation had his Royal Pomposity given for his split lip? Not the truth, for certain.

Scooting to a sitting position, she brushed her hair away from her face. “I only. . .”

“Nae, daughter! Ye were not to leave yer room.” Her father threw up his hands and turned from her in angry frustration. He spun back around to face her, his hands planted on his hips. “Aren’t ye in enough trouble already, damn it?”

Her breath left her in a whoosh.

Father had sworn. In the presence of a woman.

Adaira stared at him stunned. He was livid. Oh, but she’d done it up brown this time. She was in suds to her neck.

“Did ye think I’d not find out? Brayan saw ye and the earl leaving the stables.”

She’d just bet he did, God rot the rat. What was
he
doing prowling about in the wee hours? Spying on her? Her breath hitched. Had he seen—?

Lord help her if he had. The notion was too horrid to contemplate.

Father ranted on. “When I questioned his lordship, he said ye’d been desperate to check on yer mare. The man was so mortified to have been caught soused and half-dressed with a cut lip from plowing into a post, he begged
my
pardon.”

Plowing into a post? She clenched her bruised hand. What a pile of horse . . .
codswallop
.

“The man needed some privacy, and I don’t blame him for tossing back a few.” Father brushed a hand over his eyes. “For the love of God, Addy, last night he learned his brother killed their mother!”

Adaira winced.

She flung aside the sheet, then swung her legs over the side of the bed. She hopped to the floor, completely unconcerned about appearing before him in her chaste white nightgown.

“Father, I. . .”

He held up his hand, although it wasn’t the gesture that effectively silenced her. No, the glint of unyielding steel in his usually warm eyes did. Ire darkened his gaze to obsidian. Despite the lingering heat of yesterday, a chill gripped her. This was a side of her father she’d not seen before.

“Lass,” he leveled her with a penetrating look, “yer mother and I are done up with ye. We tried to be understanding when ye started parading about in men’s breeches. We even encouraged your unladylike interests in horse breeding and fencing, hoping you’d eventually find yer own path to happiness.”

Blowing out a gusty breath, he broke eye contact with her. His focus sank to the floor while he rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “Ye’ve been discontented and troubled for nigh on four years.”

Adaira padded to him on bare feet. He lifted his weary gaze to hers. Laying her hand on his solid arm, she searched his eyes. “I know I shouldn’t have gone. It was foolish of me.”

The memory of his lordship’s kiss was far more disturbing to her than the blow she’d landed him. Or the swats on her bottom.

Pray God, his lordship hadn’t revealed that, too?

No, that would paint him in a less than admirable light. His lordship’s sole purpose seemed to be to ridicule and disparage her. She reluctantly conceded she’d given him sufficient fodder to fuel that fire. Dash it all, enough to fuel a blaze for the annual Guy Fawkes Bonfire Night celebration.

Father stared at her, his expression pensive. Melancholy softened his craggy features. A sad half-smile skewed his mouth.

“Ye are always sorry afterward, lass. It’s time ye act yer age. Yer mother was married, bore a child, and was widowed by the time she was onescore, scarcely five months older than ye are now. Seonaid is more mature than ye at times.”

Inwardly, Adaira flinched. That stung. Her sister was but six and ten. He stepped to the door and withdrew the key from the inside lock.

“No!” Adaira gasped, immediately comprehending the significance.

Once he slid the key into the outer keyhole, he moved back to the center of the room.

She grasped his thick forearm. “Don’t do this,” she begged.

She’d stay in her room, but there was something about being locked in. . .

She shuddered. It was too much like prison. The whispers of Newgate’s horrors still haunted her, even though the earl had given his word she’d not be jailed.

In some small measure, she understood how he must have felt as her prisoner. The helplessness. The powerlessness. Entirely at someone else’s mercy. Her father was her jailor, and she hadn’t a doubt he loved her wholeheartedly. She’d been a hostile stranger to the earl when she imprisoned him. He’d also been injured. An injury she’d caused.

“I give you my word, I’ll stay in here. I. . .” She gulped past the lump pressing the back of her throat. “I know I made a mistake.”

Father slowly shook his head. “Nae, ye’ve made one unfortunate choice too many. Now yer mother and I, Ewan, and Lord Clarendon too, will contemplate a solution.”

Nibbling her lower lip, she plucked at her nightgown. She sent her father a hesitant glance. “Does
he
have to be involved?”

The earl would demand full accountability without a jot of mercy.

Do you truly deserve any
?

It was evident Father knew without asking who
he
was. He angled his head. “Aye. It’s his favor we seek. Ye’d best hope he’s not a vindictive man, Addy. It does not bode well for ye if he is.”

He strode to the door. With a hand on the latch, he said, “Even though Ewan’s a viscount and laird of Craiglocky, the Earl of Clarendon wields far more power. He’s a very influential peer, and he knows it.”

She nodded in reluctant agreement. Why couldn’t the earl have been some plain unremarkable milksop, more interested in insects and tide pools than conventions or decorum? Why did the man have such a rigid sense of propriety?