A Highlander for Christmas (15 page)

And so much joy in simply holding her. Jared could barely breathe with the force of it—and with the painful sense of familiarity that followed.

Beside them a row of Venetian glass paperweights exploded over the floor in a cloud of glittering fragments. Dimly, he heard wind snap at the windows, banging the fragile colored panes. The very stones of the abbey seemed to shake in their distress.

“Broken,” Maggie whispered. “All of them broken.” She shoved at his chest. “What’s happening to me?”

“To us,” he said harshly, his hands spanning her shoulders. She felt perfect, he thought. As if she belonged right there, nestled at his chest.

He wanted to feel her this way often. He wanted to guard and protect her always.

Madness
.

She swayed, and his arms tightened. Slowly, he drew her head against his chest, knowing it would make the pain lessen. She was dizzy, exhausted, but she still didn’t back down an inch. She only raised her head and studied him as if through a long, blurred tunnel. “Why won’t you let me go?” And then her eyes closed.

He didn’t answer. God help him, he
couldn’t
answer.

He didn’t want to let her go, not ever again. His jaw clenched as he had a sharp impression of horses at the gallop and the clamor of angry soldiers. Almost like a memory, he thought. As if once before he’d let her go, and something terrible had happened.

There was only one thought in his mind as he carried her up the shadowed stairs to her room. He could not let her be harmed again.

~ ~ ~

The moat shimmered. Clouds veiled the moon.

Virgo rising.

Saturn trine Uranus.

The walls of high stone groaned softly, heavy with centuries of memory and travail. Quiet yet not quiet, they waited, never impatient. Never forgetting.

Somewhere in the night came the low peal of distant bells as Jared settled Maggie in her bed beneath a sea of damask covers. Her eyes were closed, and she did not see how he straightened the white linen pillows and spread another blanket across her body. When he was finished, something held him still, too deep for naming. The play of moonlight on her hair, perhaps, or simple curiosity to watch her vibrant features relaxed in sleep.

By the bed he stood, drinking in the sight of her, a man too long cheated of beauty and wonder. Moonlight left his face in shadow, gaunt cheeks a reminder of nights of hell, and days of pain in a box.

He wouldn’t think of that now. Now was for wonder and imagining. Dear heaven, he thought, how beautiful she was. How lost in sleep with one hand curved against her cheek and her hair spread wild upon her pillow.

Desire wrenched at his chest, silent as dreams too long buried. Heat flared as he saw the etched line of her cheek and the outline of one silken thigh.

He should go. There would be no peace for him in watching and wanting.

And yet he stayed, caught by magic. Wishing that for one night he might be a different man. A hero with happier eyes and a soul that did not bear the weight of sadness.

Jared stiffened, struck with the sudden sense that they were not alone. Energy rippled—like an intelligence that he could not define. He scanned the room, frowning at the velvet curtains, the small gilt mirror, the roses in a silver vase. Suddenly he smelled roses everywhere, rich and glorious, perfuming every corner of the room. It was an illusion, he knew, but one just as real as any other part of the night’s magic.

He should turn away. He should return to his work, scanning the three new files from Nicholas and then trying to sleep.

He did none of those things.

The magic held him. And yes, the wanting.

Too aware, too restless for sleep, he stood in a bar of moonlight and watched her. Wanted her. When she twisted against the pillow, he ignored all reason and smoothed a strand from her cheek, shuddering as the contact sent him down to meet the racing pattern of her dreams. They were fleet, filled with colors and yearning, images that left her harrowed, breathless, caught by trailing sadness.

For dreams, they felt very old.

Jared stiffened when she shoved back blankets and linen, rose warily to her feet.

“Maggie?” he whispered.

She did not turn, did not hear, framed in moonlight and unaware that he stood mere feet away. Somewhere a bird cried a shrill lament, and Jared felt the skin pull taut, prickling across his shoulders.

Dreamlike, she reached for the table beside the bed and cradled her hands around emptiness. Empty still, her fingers rose, as if to lift a candle high. Her white gown flashed as she padded barefoot to the door, eased it open, and listened intently, each movement filled with caution.

Jared followed her down the hall and along the spiral stairs to the great front hall, where she stopped, head cocked to listen. Satisfied, she crept along the wall to the rear corridor.

Where was she going now?

The thick oak door to the cellar loomed in the shadows. She made a ghostlike movement as if to set a candle on the floor, then shoved at the door. Frowning, she put her shoulder to the wood, surprised that it did not move.

What purpose could she have here?

His only answer was the sight of her digging at the outline of the heavy door, almost as if searching for a lock or knob that did not exist.

Jared inched closer. Curious to see what she would do next, he slid back the shiny new high-tech bolt and pushed open the heavy, climate-controlled door. Shadows stretched before them, covering the broad stone steps spiraling down to the wine vaults, part of the abbey’s original foundation. Instantly she plunged ahead, oblivious to the shadows, with the sure step of someone who knew the passage well. But how was that possible?

Jared followed her down, flicking on a switch as he passed. Light poured over damp stone walls lined with rack after rack of dusty, priceless bottles. At the foot of the stairs she stopped. Her head cocked, and then she sank to her knees, carefully tracing each hand-hewn block.

Almost as if she was looking for a particular one.

Enough, Jared thought. If this was a trick, it made no sense at all.

He was within a breath of telling her so when she gave a low sigh of discovery. Oblivious to dust and cold, she sank flat beside the wall and dug at a pale square gleaming in the overhead light.

Wood shavings dotted the floor beside deep ridges, and nearby tracks had been cut out by some heavy machine. And that, Jared decided, made no more sense than anything
else
in her silent, trancelike movements.

But Maggie seemed more determined than ever, digging blindly at the stone and caking her fingers with grime and dust that could have been a century old.

“
Stop
, Maggie.”

Still she crouched, dragging her fingers along the sharp rock and keening softly. Now Jared saw the silent tears that mottled her cheeks and dotted the dust while tremors rocked her shoulders. Last of all he saw the dark stains on her palms where the sharp granite had cut deep welts.

“Gone,” she whispered, sliding to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut. “Every jewel. But who knew of this place? Who dared to watch me
here
?”

She rocked back and forth, speaking in broken whispers, hands to her head. Now blood joined the tears on her cheeks, and Jared could bear no more.

She was still whispering as he raised her to his chest.

And she was still entirely oblivious to his presence as he carried her back up the cold steps to her room.

This time he had no thought of leaving.

Carefully he cleaned her face and hands and settled her back into bed, then turned to scan the room. The couch would do well enough for a man who had learned to accept mud and cold cement at his back and beatings every night.

The moon was sinking now. Silver light dusted the floor as he tugged off his shirt and stretched his long frame on the velvet cushions. He still had no explanation for Maggie’s unconscious wandering. He hoped that Nicholas could provide some clue to the desperate, dreamlike search he had just witnessed.

Until then, she wouldn’t leave his sight for a second.

Virgo rising.

Saturn trine Uranus.

Outside the moat shimmered and clouds veiled the moon.

A dream—or much
more
than a dream?

Sunlight brushed the room. Somewhere a bird sang with noisy abandon.

Morning
, Maggie thought. If there were birds and sun, it was probably time to wake up. She opened one eye and peered over her pillow at the bright room. Light flashed off gilt mirrors and crystal vases. She stretched, then caught herself with a wince.

Not good. Her whole body ached, as if she’d had an argument with a truck and lost. For some reason the soles of her feet felt tender, and she couldn’t seem to focus.

She touched the embroidered linen pillowcase, then traced the heavy damask coverlet. She was in one of the most beautiful bedrooms she’d ever seen in the most impressive house she’d ever visited, and she felt as if she was recovering from a grade-A hangover, even though she never drank.

Actually, Maggie couldn’t remember
what
she’d done before her disturbing discussion with Jared. Even those details were blurred. Oddly, she didn’t remember climbing the stairs or getting into bed. She didn’t even remember putting on a nightgown.

She frowned down at the covers, searched for a moment, then gave a soft sigh of relief when she touched a flowing white gown. Now the problem was why she didn’t remember putting it on.

That particular mystery could wait, she decided. First she wanted a hot bath, some steaming English tea, and—

Her body went rigid.

First
she wanted to know whose naked chest was stretched out over the sofa a few feet from her bed.

A man. Definitely a man, judging by the tight, sculpted muscles untouched by the crumpled sheet that had just fallen to the floor.

Maggie took a jerky breath. So what if there was a man in her room? So what if he had nice—okay,
extraordinary
—thighs and a face that ought to be outlawed?

She sat up with a jerk.

A face like Jared MacNeill’s.

Maggie bit back a groan as pain lasered across her forehead. Her knees felt tender, too, along with her fingers. What was Jared doing in her room, gorgeous, half naked, and entirely asleep?

She closed her eyes, struggling to clear her tangled thoughts. She was mature. She’d
seen
men in various states of undress.

So maybe none of them had looked half as good as he did. Maggie admitted that she’d never seen a stomach like that—washboard flat and rock hard. So what if soft black hair dusted his skin right down to the opening of his worn jeans? So what if they were stretched taut and fit him like a second skin?

She sank down with a strangled sound as Jared turned restlessly to his side, straining the already deep opening of the jeans even wider.

The man was built, Maggie thought, closing her eyes on a reedy sigh. No male should look that good. It was downright indecent.

Not that she was going to look at him again. Or allow that gorgeous chest to throw her off stride. She was going to slide out of bed, clear her ragged thoughts under a nice pounding shower, then confront him calmly about what had happened last night and why he was sleeping in her room.

Calmly
, she thought.
Very calmly.

Her hands were sweating as she eased back the covers, and she was fairly certain someone could have heard her heart pounding in the next county. So much for calm.

Thankfully, her uninvited guest appeared to be oblivious.

She lowered one foot to the floor, shimmied out from beneath the covers, and stood up. Holding her breath, she took a careful step away from the bed.

No sound behind her. So far so good.

Slowly, she thought, keeping to the balls of her feet. Only another yard or so to go.

Linen whispered. Maggie nearly screamed at the sound of Jared clearing his throat.

“You dropped this, I think.” He was right behind her, holding out the white cambric belt of her gown.