Beyond the Highland Mist (36 page)

Adam had brought Adrienne here to reject the Hawk, and of course, to claim the beauty for himself. Rarely was such a stirring mortal creature born as that woman. Even the King had commented on her perfection. What sweet revenge, to wed the Hawk to a woman who would never love him, while Adam made her his own. To cuckold the man who’d humiliated the Fairy King. But it seemed that he’d been as wrong about Adrienne as he’d been about the Hawk. Underestimated them both, he had.

She loved the Hawk as intensely as the Hawk loved her.

Adam drew up short, and grinned craftily as inspiration
struck. What a tiny revenge that would have been to merely cuckold the Hawk.

A new and truly devastating possibility now occurred to him.

Lydia and Tavis were sitting on the cobbled terrace of Dalkeith when the Hawk and Adrienne arrived late that night.

Deep in the shadows, talking softly and sipping sweet port, they watched the younger couple ride in, dismount, and link hands as they moved toward the terrace. Lydia’s eyes shimmered with happiness as she watched.

Adrienne said something that made the Hawk laugh. When he pulled her to a lazy halt and kissed her, she tugged the thong free from his hair and flung it into the night. What started as a tender kiss deepened hungrily. Long moments rippled by as the kiss unfurled. Lingering and savage and hot, the laird of Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea and his lady kissed. Beneath an almost full moon, on the lawn directly in front of the terrace, they kissed.

And kissed.

Lydia’s smile faded, and she shuffled in her chair uncomfortably. She forced herself to draw a deep, difficult breath and willed her heart to stop that ridiculous thundering. She’d thought her body might have finally forgotten such passion. Little chance of that.

“That’s quite a kiss, I’ll say.” Tavis’s rich brogue rolled over her.

“Qu-quite … a kiss.” Lydia swallowed. How long had it been since a man had kissed her that way?

Tavis moved imperceptibly closer and Lydia glanced sharply at him.

Then her gaze turned speculative.

Tavis MacTarvitt was one fine figure of a man, she noted. How did it come to pass that she had failed to see that before now? And why that secretive smile on his face? she wondered. “What are you smiling about?” she snapped.

“ ’Tis a fine night on Dalkeith, I’ll say,” he offered benignly. “They’ve come home. And it looks to me like we’ll be having wee bairns around here soon, and I’ll say that again.”

“Hmmph.” Lydia snorted. “Have you figured out how to make coffee yet, old man? I’d love to have a good cup for her in the morning.”

“Milady.” His gentle gaze chided her. “I’m a man of talented hands, remember? Of course I can make coffee.”

Talented hands.
The words lingered in her mind a moment longer than she would have liked, and she stole a surreptitious peek at those hands. Good hands, they were, indeed. Broad and strong, with long, clever fingers. Able. They tanned soft hides and tenderly pruned young roses. They brushed her hair gently, and made tea. What other pleasures might those hands be capable of lavishing upon a woman? she wondered.
Och, Lydia, you’ve been wasting many fine years, haven’t you, lass?
the true voice of her heart, silent all these years, finally found its tongue.

Lydia subtly shifted closer to Tavis so that their arms rested lightly side by side. It was a soft touch, but it was meant to tell him many things. And it did.

Deeper in the night, when Tavis MacTarvitt laid one aging yet still strong and capable hand atop hers, Lydia of Dalkeith pretended not to notice.

But she curled her fingers tightly around his, just the same.

It was early in the morning, the time when the cool moon briefly rides in tandem with the sun, that Adrienne felt the Hawk slip from the hand-hewn bed in the Peacock Room. She shivered in the fleeting coolness before the covers draped snugly to her body again. The spicy scent of him clung to the blankets and she buried her nose in it.

When they’d ridden in last night, the Hawk had swept her into his arms and vaulted the stairs three at a time, carrying his blushing wife past gaping servants. He’d called for a steaming bath to be delivered to the laird’s bedroom and they had bathed in scented, sensuous oil that clung to their bodies. He’d made fierce and possessive love to her on a mound of tangled throws before the fire, and oiled by the fragrant blend, their bodies had slipped and slid with exquisite friction.

Adrienne had been claimed and branded by the man’s hand. Conquered and ravished and utterly devoured. She had willingly dismissed all conscious thought, become an animal to mate her wild black charger. When he carried her to the bed, she’d run her hands over his body, over his face in the sweet afterglow, memorizing every plane and angle and secreting that memory away in her hands.

But somehow between the magnificent lovemaking and the sleeping, a silence had fallen between the lovers. It lay there, a stranger’s gauntlet downflung in their bed. She had felt it grow into a fist of silence as she’d gotten lost in fears over which she had no control.

Desperately, she’d threaded her fingers through the Hawk’s. Perhaps if she held on to him tightly enough, if she was tossed back to the future, she might take him with her.

She had spent many stiff hours pretending to sleep. Afraid to sleep.

And just now, as he slipped from the bed, she felt the fear returning.

But she
couldn’t
hold his hand every minute of every day!

She rolled silently onto her side, peeped out from the pile of covers, and marveled.

He stood at the arched window, his head cocked as if listening to the breaking morn and hearing secrets in the cries of the wakening gulls. His hands were splayed on the stone ledge of the opening, the last rays of moonbeam caressing his body with molten silver. His eyes were dark pools of shadow as he gazed into the dawn. His stern profile might have been chiseled of the same stone used to build Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea.

She closed her eyes when he reached for his kilt.

The silence unfisted and wrapped its fingers around her heart as he left the Peacock Room.

Hawk stood in the doorway on the second floor, his eyes dark with rage.

Rage at his own helplessness.

Bringing her back to Dalkeith had been a mistake. A big mistake. He knew it. The very air inside Dalkeith seemed charged, as if someone had sloshed lamp oil all over the castle and now lay in wait, ready to drop a lit candle and step back to watch their lives be devoured by the ensuing inferno. No question remained in his mind—Dalkeith was not safe for her.

But she’d disappeared in Uster too.

Then they’d just have to go farther away. China, perhaps. Or Africa. At least get the hell out of Scotland.

Damn it all! Dalkeith was
his
place.
Their
place.

Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea had been his entire life. He’d endured so much to have this time. To come home. To watch their sons play at the cliff’s edge. To watch their daughters race through the gardens, little feet pattering across mosses and cobbled walkways. On a warm day, to bathe their children in a clear blue loch. On a balmy summer night, to seduce his wife in the fountain beneath shimmering stars.

He deserved to spend the remainder of his years walking with Adrienne over these hills and vales, watching the sea and the seasons’ eternal march across the land, building a home rich with love and memories and adventures. Every bit of it—damn it—he was a selfish man! He wanted the whole dream.
Should have stayed away, Hawk, and you know it. What made you think you could fight something you can’t even name?
He closed his eyes tightly and swayed in the dark. Give up Dalkeith for her? His head fell forward, bowed beneath the weight of crushing decisions. A sigh to extinguish bonfires shuddered through his body.
Aye.
He would wed her at the Samhain. Then he would take her as far away from here as they had to go. He’d already started to say his goodbyes in a strained silence. Goodbyes took some time, and there was much he needed to bid farewell at Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea.

To risk staying where whatever forces commanded his wife? Patently impossible. “We can’t stay,” he told the silent, waiting room—the one room he needed to bid farewell most strongly. His nursery. “Running is the only intelligent thing to do in this case. ’Tis the only sure way to keep her safe.”

He rubbed his eyes and leaned an arm against the door-jamb, struggling to tame the emotions coursing through him. He was captivated, bound beyond belief to the lass sleeping innocently in his bed. This night shared with her had been all he’d ever dreamed he might one day know. The incredible intimacy of making love to a woman whose very thoughts he could read. It wasn’t just making love—tonight when their bodies had melded together in passion, he felt such complete kindred that it knocked him off balance. If nothing else, it shifted and tumbled his priorities into perfect position.
She comes first.

Hawk’s jaw tensed, and he cursed softly. His eyes wandered lovingly over the cradles, the carved toys, the soft woolens, and the high windows opening to a velvet dawn. He could give her a babe—hell, she might carry his already. And someone or something could rip her and the babe right out of his arms and his life. It would destroy him.

Dalkeith would prosper without him; Adrian would make a fine laird. Lydia would summon him home from France. Ilysse would keep his mother company and Adrian would wed and bring babies to this nursery.

He would suffer no regrets. He could have babies with Adrienne in a crofter’s hut and be just as happy.

The Hawk stood a few moments more, until the flicker of a smile curved his lip.

He closed the door on his old dream with a gentle smile and a kind of reverence only a man in love fully understands. A room had never been his dream at all.

She
was his dream.

“Hawk!” Lydia’s lower lip trembled an unspoken protest. She averted her gaze to study an intricate twining of roses.

“It must be done, Mother. ’Tis the only way I can be certain she’s safe.”