Alanna (When Hearts Dare Series Book 2) (28 page)

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she slid into bed with him. Panic etched the corners of her heart.

“What’s wrong, Alanna?”

She couldn’t tell him—at least not tonight. “I’m so sorry for you.”

He grew still.

“Oh, God,” she moaned. “I know how you hate to hear those words.” She reached up and touched her fingertips to his mouth. “But Wolf, I now know how the Guthries must have felt when they constantly repeated them. Feeble as they are, ‘I’m sorry’ are the only words I can find.”

He kissed her forehead. “It’s all right, go back to sleep.”

Holding her in his arms, he smoothed her hair until she drifted off to sleep. But not much later, she awoke, alone and knowing it was his absence that stirred her. She surveyed the room in the dim firelight. His trousers were missing, but his shirt was still there, so she knew he couldn’t have wandered far.

She slid from the bed and padded over to her trunk. Fumbling in the dark, she managed to find her robe and gathered it around her, then slipped barefoot into the hallway.

Old Chinese stood in the middle of the long vestibule with the Great Pyrenees by his side. He nodded to the stairwell and toward the great hall below. Bear gave a whine. Alanna tapped her thigh and the dog escorted her down the stairs.

When she spied Wolf, bare-chested and slouched in a chair before a blazing fire, her heart gave a lurch. He held a glass of whisky. His hair hung loose and his long legs were stretched in front of him. A thumb traced slowly back and forth over his bottom lip as he gazed into the leaping flames.

She sat in the chair opposite him, tucked her legs up under her robe and set about regarding him for a long while.

After a time, he turned to her, leaning against his fingers pressed to his temples. “It gives me great comfort to see you sitting there.”

“I was concerned I might be intruding,” she said, engulfed in his compelling gaze.

“They’ll come after you.”

“They?” Already she fought the dread forcing bile into her throat.

His lashes swept slowly over his eyes. “Your father. He’ll send someone for you. I’ll guarantee he’s pissed off with the note you left saying you intend to marry me and that you carry my child. He couldn’t stomach leaving you with me—especially since this is the very month you were set to marry Hemenway.”

“He wouldn’t dare come after me, not under the circum . . . stances.” She bit her bottom lip. “I’ll never go back to Father.”

She drew her robe tighter and shivered. Wolf opened his arms, reminding Alanna of the night in Boston, in his hotel room, when he’d invited her to join him on the bed.

“Come sit with me, darlin’,” he whispered in a husky voice, while a slow and lazy smile tilted the corners of his mouth.

When she crawled into the warm comfort of his arms, he drew her to him and regarded her as if she were a visitor from the heavens. He caressed her with the tips of his fingers, lightly shaped the curve of her hip before his hand spread across the round curve of her belly.

“I’ve felt the quickening already,” she said, taking great comfort in the gentle movements of his strong, masculine hand.

“Quickening?”

“The first movements. It’s like a butterfly fanning its wings inside me.”

A slight grin caught one corner of his mouth. “And when will you have our child?” He trailed kisses across her neck.

“Late October,” she answered, breathing in his heady scent.

His eyebrow rose as he counted backward. “Hmmm, must have happened right away.”

“You’re not angry?”

Wolf’s brows shot together. “Why would I be?”

“You said you didn’t want children. You asked me if I knew how to take precautions, and I did.”

He only shrugged. His hand slid under her knee and he planted a soft kiss at its crook.

Delicious.

She ran her fingers through his hair. “You look so much like the painting of Alexander MacGillivray in the upper hallway.” She sighed. “And your father as well. The resemblance is remarkable.”

“So I’ve been told.” Humor danced in his eyes. “Except for my mother’s mouth.”

And my father’s eyes
. Her body gave an involuntary shudder. All pleasure drained from her.

Wolf slid his hand to her chin and forced her to look at him. “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head, and leaned into him. How she wished Old Chinese had not told her the truth. Why did she have to tell Wolf everything? But it should not be Old Chinese, or Aiden, or Mrs. Guthrie who told him. In her heart of hearts, she knew it had to be her. She only hoped he wouldn’t hate her in the end, because something magical, something more real than she’d ever hoped for, had built between them in the long, harrowing weeks of their separation.

“Alanna?” Wolf gave her shoulder a small shake. “What’s the matter with you? If it’s your father you’re worried about, I won’t let him take you back.” His eyes searched her face. “There will be plenty of precautions taken. I’ll have guards stationed around here in the morning.”

Alanna heaved a sigh and leaned her head into his chest.

“We can marry tomorrow,” he said.

She stiffened at his words.

“You don’t care for the idea?”

“I love it,” she whispered.

Wolf drew her head away from his chest. “Well then, what’s wrong? Is there something I should know? If so, you’d better clear the air. Right now.”

“No, Wolf.” She tried to struggle free. But he held her tightly to him. “Give me a week.” Tears stung her eyes. “Please. Let’s simply be with one another before we talk seriously. I . . . I want you to show me everything you know of Dunmaglass. I’d like to know what life must have been like for you when you were a child. It’s important to me.”

With a bend of his head, Wolf’s face was so close to hers, his eyes so penetrating and demanding, it dizzied her. “Fine. But what of our wedding?”

“In a week.”

“One week.” He glanced across the room at the clock. “To the hour. And then you will damn well tell me what has you acting so edgy.”

Alanna shifted in Wolf’s lap and nestled her cheek against his chest.

“Aren’t we doing things a little backward?” He slipped into his teasing voice as he stroked her hair. “If you wait too long, our child can take an active part in the wedding.”

She smiled and drew an invisible cloak over her miserable feelings.

“That’s better.” He ruffled her hair. “You were making me worry.” He settled her head against his shoulder. “You asked if I’d hate you for carrying my child. How could you possibly think I could hate you?”

You may.
Alanna closed her eyes.
In one week, you just may.

Following a long walk around the property, Wolf escorted Alanna back inside the castle through a secret passageway leading to the second-floor corridor. She felt as though she’d stepped into a fairy tale. To think he’d been born here, surrounded by an entire clan ready to love and serve him, only to end up alone most of his life. How very sad.

“I’ve one last thing to show you before it gets too dark.” Placing a hand at the small of Alanna’s back, he guided her to a door, opened it, and urged her inside. “This is a duplicate of the room I occupied at boarding school.”

Books, fencing foils, trophies, and clothing, just as he’d left them when he’d struck out on his own, gave her a deeper insight into him. She picked up the fountain pen and rolled it between her fingers. Even with him standing behind her, she felt as if she were snooping. She flipped open a ledger and found a detailed list of offensive Saxon words alongside their more refined Norman counterparts scrawled in a youthful script. “What’s
this
?”

A ghost of a smile touched Wolf’s lips. He folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the door’s frame. “That’s how I learned to curse.”

Heaven forbid. “And how old were you when you ciphered this?”

A glitter of the defiant rebel sparkled in his eyes. “Eleven. That’s when I decided life was little more than a game, so I decided to play by the Old Saxon rules.”

Dear Lord, even his cursing hadn’t been happenstance. “So your shocking language was the instrument you’ve used to release anger in a controlled manner.”

A chuckle rolled up from somewhere deep in his belly. “That’s a nice way of putting it.”

“There’s no need for this kind of front any longer, Wolf.”

He stepped fully into the room, and the look in his eye sent her whole body tingling.

“Ah, but I like using bad words.” He backed her toward the narrow cot that had once served as his bed. “Especially with you spread out under me.” He set her hand to the front of his trousers and against the hard length of his arousal.

Her breath caught. “Oh, Wolf. Not here.”

“Why not?”

“What if someone should happen by?” Cool air hit her legs. When had he lifted her skirts? “We . . . we should go to our bedchamber.”

“Oh, we’ll get there, darlin’. This won’t take long.”

 

 

The moon, shining through the vast, starry night, spilled a path across the bedchamber floor. Alanna slumbered. Her hand atop his chest rode the rhythmic rise and fall of his breath. God, it felt good to have her next to him. He held her close and drifted off into another dream.

He was a small boy again. This time he stood beside his mother’s bed, not wanting to look at her face. He knew she was dead. He heard the echoing footsteps of the murderer returning. Wolf lunged under the bed. The door opened. His heart pounded in his chest, and he fought a moan. An earring fell from his mother’s ear and hit the floor with a deafening crash. He reached out to grab it, but it exploded and shattered crimson glass over him that turned into streams of fresh blood.

The intruder entered the room, and Wolf saw the familiar black hair and thick, stocky neck. The open door caught his eye, and the pant legs of the other man who stood guard. Wolf peered past his mother’s dangling arm, and recognized the face of the stranger in the hallway.
Oh, God,
he moaned, disbelieving the man’s identity, but unable to bring himself out of the nightmare.

Utterly terrified, he returned his focus to the murderer. The killer swirled around and stared at Wolf, his eyes glowing red and snapping with hatred.

“Aaagh!” Wolf came awake with a horrendous explosion from his lungs. He sprang from the bed.

“Wolf!” Alanna jumped to her feet, clutching a corner of the sheet to her chest.

“Did you know it was your father who murdered my mother?” he bellowed as he yanked on his trousers and stuffed his feet into his boots.

In the silent seconds that they faced one another, she turned a sickly white, her eyes wide as an owl’s. “I—”

“Goddamn it, you knew, didn’t you?”

“Only recently. That’s what—”

Her words slew him as if she’d plunged a knife through his heart. “Get out. Get the hell away from me.”

“Dear God, Wolf. Please let me explain—” Alanna donned her robe and backed away.

“Explain?
Explain?
You should’ve done that a helluva long time ago.” In that instant, all the horrible pain he’d locked inside himself exploded like a keg of dynamite set alight. He snatched his knife off the bedside table, let out an ugly roar, and attacked the bed as if it were every person who’d ever done him harm. Mindless with rage, he sliced through pillows, linens, and mattress. Feathers flew around the room amid a flood of cursing and Alanna’s cries for help.

The door crashed open with a loud bang. Aiden rushed in with Mrs. Guthrie behind him.

“He knows!” Alanna cried. “He saw it all in a dream.”

“Get her out of here,” Wolf ordered between heaving breaths. “I don’t want to see another Malone for as long as I live. I want Old Chinese.”

Aiden grabbed Alanna by the arm and shoved her toward Mrs. Guthrie. “Take her away.”

Old Chinese stepped through the door.

“You!” Wolf turned on him. “It was you outside my mother’s door, you cowardly, murdering son of a bitch!”

Old Chinese stood stoic, unflinching. His obsidian eyes glittered bright at Wolf as though he could see right through him.

Wolf raised his knife.

Aiden stepped between the two. “Don’t do something ye’ll regret to yer death, Wolf. Ye don’t know the truth of it all.”

“Get out of my way.” Wolf kicked at a small table and kept kicking until it splintered.

“He didn’t do what ye’re thinking. He’s an honorable man. He was nae in cahoots with Malone, lad.”

New fury caught hold of Wolf as a different kind of betrayal set in. “You know too, don’t you?” His eyes flickered from Aiden to Old Chinese. Sweat trickled down the side of Wolf’s face. His lungs burned and his breath came ragged in the silence. “Every goddamned one of you knew. Why the hell didn’t anyone tell me? You
all knew
what I needed to find out.”

Aiden stepped forward. “I know ye’ve been wronged, and I know ye’ve endured a world of suffering, but hurting him will nae bring yer mother back from the grave. She wouldna want that, and ye know it.” Aiden’s eyes held steady on Wolf’s. “At least give yerself the grace to hear us out.”

“Go on.” Wolf drew in another heavy breath. His voice was flat, but his stance was still that of a ready warrior.

“Old Chinese didna go to yer house that night for a killing,” Aiden said. “He went to try to prevent one.”

“Well, he did a piss-poor job of it.” Wolf swiped an arm over his face, his eyes fixed on Aiden’s, but he was aware of everyone, including Alanna and Old Chinese. Especially those two. The liars.

His brain began to work again, and a layer of calculated ruthlessness kept him steady. “Come now,
Cousin
Aiden. You know full well Old Chinese is a trained master. I don’t think he’d go somewhere with the intention of preventing a murder and then stand in the hallway jerking off while it took place.”

Alanna’s whimpers distracted him. He caught a glimpse of Mrs. Guthrie hovering over her.

With a sudden and terrible dawning, he realized he’d been the last to know. After all these years of wondering, it came to this—the only people he cared for knew the truth. A great, indefinable pain surged through his veins. His glance flickered to Old Chinese, to the women in the hallway, and then to Aiden. Betrayal, ultimate and complete, shattered the tender part of Wolf’s heart—as well as his disciplined, reasoning mind. Cold, lethal hatred, a desire for the ultimate revenge, took charge once more.

“Alanna, get back in here,” he bellowed. “I have something to say to you.”

Mrs. Guthrie’s panicked voice reached his ears and then silenced as Alanna walked into the room and crossed in front of Aiden, her head held high.

Currents of raw emotion flashed through Wolf like lightning through a midnight sky. “You knew damn well what you were doing, didn’t you?” His gaze raked her body in loathing. “That’s why you lied and said you’d taken precautions, isn’t it?”

Her head barely shook back and forth in denial. “Please, Wolf. You . . . you’re not being rational. I love you. I—”

“How could you do such a thing? How could you mix my mother’s blood with that of her murderer in a child of mine, and then have the nerve to say you love me?” His eyes grazed her stomach. Bile filled his throat while a new kind of pain wrenched his heart.

Her body shuddered and her trembling fingers slid to her throat. “Oh, God. I didn’t know until just before I sailed here.” Tears filled her eyes. “I would never do anything to purposely hurt you, Wolf. I love you.”

He could barely hear her for the rage pounding in his ears. “Don’t you
ever
say those words to me again. Don’t you even think them.” He moved closer, until her heat permeated his skin.

Alanna stared mutely, tears cascading down her cheeks. Her hand slid to her belly.

“That’s enough!” Aiden cut in and stepped forward.

Old Chinese grasped his arm and held him back. “It’s me Wolf wants to destroy, not Alanna.”

In her closeness, in the scent of her, Wolf faltered. Fresh pain washed through him. With vindictiveness, he fought its presence, or any tender feelings for her. “I should cut your heart out.”

Her spine stiffened. “You just have.”

“I said that’s enough!” Aiden jerked away from Old Chinese’s hold and dove toward Wolf, batting at the arm that held the knife. “Leave her be if you canna listen to reason. For God’s sake, man!” Fire flew from Aiden’s eyes as he faced Wolf. “It wasna yer mother Malone came to kill, you bloody fool. It was you!”

Saliva tinged the corners of Aiden’s mouth. He punctuated the air with a finger pointed at Old Chinese. “And he was with Malone because he tried his damnedest to see that Malone didn’t drag yer mother all over hell and back trying to find ye. He did not know you were hidden in the same room. He did not know how drunk Malone was, or that he’d go so far as to attack yer mother. The door was closed when Malone killed her, and he left with Old Chinese not knowing until all of Boston did.”

Aiden stood aside and held Alanna by the arm, putting empty space between her and Wolf.

Old Chinese continued to stare unflinchingly into Wolf’s eyes with a look that was both deep and mysterious. It was this regard that threw Wolf, for it seemed to be one of unconditional love.

“Look at him, Wolf.” The pain in Aiden’s voice was raw as he pleaded. “Don’t think this man hasna suffered every day of his life for having missed yer hiding place. And don’t think he hasn’t cursed himself for missing Malone’s drunkenness. That’s what did it, Wolf. It was drink that sent him over the edge, because the man standing before ye already knew the intensity of Malone’s hatred for ye.”

“Why me?” Wolf asked, his emotions frozen.

Old Chinese moved a little closer. “Because he is not a Malone. He’s a MacGillivray.”

Wolf’s shoulders jerked. He glanced from Old Chinese to Aiden and then to Alanna. Mrs. Guthrie was in the room, her back to the wall, her eyes closed, and hands clenched in prayer.

“Due to terrible rivalry between brothers, his family was banished to Ireland by Alexander, the chief, right before the Battle of Culloden. Malone’s line would have become lairds after Alexander’s demise, but they’d been ordered not to return to the Highlands to claim their due until the fourth generation—yours.”

Wolf turned and stared at Alanna’s blue eyes rimmed in black, so much like his own.

“That’s right,” Aiden said. “She’s yer cousin, four times removed. Her father being yer third. Had she been a son, she would have had legal right to what is yers when yer grandfather passed. Nothing could ever have belonged to Malone under Alexander’s terms, but it could have been Malone’s through his son, or so he figured. He spent his life with one goal in mind—to win back his family name and place of honor in the Highlands. So when Alanna was born instead of a son, he went looking for ye.”

Wolf recalled Malone’s insistent words aboard ship—“I’m not Irish, I’m Scots-Irish.” He could see his arrogant sneer as plain as if Malone stood before him. He shuddered.

“I know you’re in pain, lad. It wouldn’t be natural for ye not to be.” Aiden’s voice broke. “And it has to be even worse to know the truth of things, because it’s not a stranger who has the ability to hurt ye worst. That terrible power is held only in the hands of those ye love.”

Wolf tossed his knife aside. He stepped forward, back into Alanna’s space, but his heart was a block of ice. “You shouldn’t have kept this from me. Not for one minute.”

“I was trying—”

He lifted his hand, silencing her. “I trusted you.” He peered deep into her eyes and felt nothing but the chill running through his veins. “You were all that I honored in life, all that was best in my world, and you betrayed me.”

He glanced around the room. “Go. All of you. I don’t ever want to see your faces again.”

Alanna walked past him, opened her trunk, and drew out a leather pouch. She handed it to Wolf. “I found these at Brookline, hidden beneath the scarves. You’ll find the clippings that went missing from the library archives in here, and a small box. When I found them, I went directly to Old Chinese. He brought me to you. I have no excuse for not immediately telling you what I knew other than fear, and for that I apologize. But I swear, Wolf, I knew nothing of what my father . . . of . . . of the cause of your circumstances, before your seed was planted in me.”

The isolated world Wolf had lived in most of his life closed around him once again. He stepped back from her. “Leave me.”