Emerald Embrace (35 page)

“One never knows what Hogarth might have supplied, Mistress St. James. He is a very keen and astute fellow.”

“Too keen,” she commented dryly.

“He is our only other conspirator in this charade, Martise. But never mind, we’ve only to talk. So come,” he said, “indulge me while I bathe.”

He turned around and left her against the door, striding with the confidence of a sleek and muscled cat across the room to the bath. He opened that door, and within seconds she heard him sinking into the large tub.

She could have turned away. No ropes bound her, no arms held her, not even the power of his eyes kept her there. But she walked on through the dressing room and perched upon a hamper. From her spot she could see his shoulders and head and neck, but little more. It seemed a comfortable enough position.

He knew she was there.

“The full moon comes tomorrow night,” he told her.

“And it coincides with All Hallows’ Eve!”

He shook his head with irritation. “You are still convinced there is witchcraft, and there is none, I tell you.”

She was standing, angry. “You don’t want to believe that there is witchcraft, and you have blinded yourself! I tell you what I saw—”

“And I tell you that it is a ruse to cover some other crime.”

“What other crime?”

“Wreckers,” he said softly.

“Wreckers?” She came to his side.

“The Lady Mae will be sailing near our shore tomorrow night. I’m sure her captain has not thought of All Hallows’ Eve.”

She was shivering suddenly. “The last ship—it was on the night of the full moon. But I don’t understand! Wouldn’t they need darkness for the ship to cast upon the rocks? Oh, you must be wrong! I saw those men in their cloaks making their circle about the fire. And the girl, the poor girl buried within the castle wall! What has she to do with such a thing?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “But it’s by the light of the full moon that one usually sees the other lights appear upon the cliffs. Perhaps the men need some light to carry out their devilish deeds, to set the traps, to lure the ships. There have never been any survivors.”

Suddenly she remembered the sailor who had washed ashore near the caves. With his last, dying breath, the man had whispered, “Creeghan.” And then Bryan had come … and the man had died.

She almost leapt up. He caught her wrist. Her eyes betrayed her as she stared into his.

“What is it?” he demanded harshly.

“Let me go.”

“Nay, not when you’re afraid of me again like this. What, what is it, tell me!”

She tugged upon her wrist, trying to rise, trying to escape him. He rose with her, and as he pulled her back, his foot slipped and they both came floundering into the tub, Martise soaked to the teeth and locked within his arms.

“Now look what you have done!” she charged him.

“No matter.” His arms tightened around her. “What is it that you’re not telling me?”

“My God, my clothes are soaked. How shall I explain—?”

“I’ll bring you clothing,” he said. “Talk to me, Martise.”

His words were warm against the dampness of her ear. His hand wedged beneath her breast, holding her tight.

“But how shall you explain—?”

“I am the laird of Creeghan. I never need explain,” he said with exasperation.

She spun in his arms, heedless of his wet, slippery body, or the pain of his hold upon her. “Aye, you are the laird of Creeghan! But there are certain things that you must explain. Like dead men, Laird Creeghan. Dead men who lie upon your shore!”

“What are you talking about, lass?”

Tears stung her eyes. “The sailor! The sailor they found on the shore. He whispered your name. And he was alive. And then you touched him. And then …”

“And then he was dead,” Bryan finished, mouth in a tight line. And he added bitterly under his breath, “So now I am a murderer again—and you are a thief!”

“I’m not a thief—”

“And I’m not a murderer! I’ve told you that oft enough!”

She exhaled slowly. They were close, her gown covering them both in a sodden cocoon. “He spoke your name!” she whispered.

He arched a brow in disbelief. “He said ‘Bryan?’”

“No, no! He said, ‘Creeghan!’”

“But that could mean anything!” Bryan told her with exasperation. “Creeghan is the castle, and Creeghan is the village, and the fishing dock, and the land. Girl, he did not accuse me—” He broke off, and ended softly, speaking almost under his breath. “He accused someone, something, within Creeghan.”

“He was alive—”

“I took the body to Edinburgh, Martise, and had him examined by an expert. No one could tell me the true cause of death, though exposure was a part of it. There was a wound, a horrible wound to his temple. Perhaps he was struck with some weapon—and perhaps he crashed upon the rock. Not even the doctor in Edinburgh could tell me that.” He stared at her sharply. “So you thought that I had killed him while you lay in the cave.”

“I thought nothing—”

“You’re lying.”

“I am soaked, and I would like very much to get out.”

He shifted, coming to his feet, bringing her along with him. So much water was caught within the folds of her clothing that the tub seemed barely filled. Waves of water cascaded from her. He smiled, but she thought that the humor was gone from his gaze. She tore her eyes from his and tried to draw up her skirt, wringing water from it.

He spoke her name, and she looked back to his eyes. His hand moved over hers, fingers curling so that she dropped the skirt. Then his touch moved to the tiny buttons at her throat and he began to undo them. When the gown lay open to her waist, he slipped his fingers beneath her shoulders and peeled the wet material down.

Martise shivered, standing in chemise and petticoats and corset and pantalettes and hose, but she did not move. He reached for the limp laces of her corset and untied them, and tossed the garment heedlessly from the tub. And she watched him still as the delicate ribbons of her chemise came undone, and that garment, too, was cast to the floor. The cold air moved over the dampness of her bare breasts, and his eyes still met hers while his hands cupped and curled beneath the fullness of the mounds.

He bent his head, and his lips pressed against the deep and shadowed valley he had created, then wandered lightly over the full globes, licking away the remnants of water that clung there. She lifted her hands, bracing herself upon his shoulders, sighing softly. His mouth moved, hot and wet. It covered a cold and achingly sensitive peak, and a soft sound escaped her. Her fingers tore into his sleek ebony hair and she pleaded softly, “Bryan, no!”

His whisper moved against her flesh. “Because we are not married—yet?”

“No, because I shall fall and perhaps drown,” she told him honestly.

He looked up into her eyes, laughing. “Mistress, how could I not force this?” he murmured, and he swirled her around, untying her petticoats, shoving them down in the water, and then releasing her pantalettes.

“Bryan—” she protested anew, but he was busy picking up the volumes of material, wringing them, and tossing the whole sodden bundle from the tub. Then he stepped from it and pressed upon her shoulders so that she went down to take the position that had once been his. He went to the cabinet for a huge towel to wrap about his hips and when he turned back to her, he had a lump of rose-colored soap in his hands.

“Well, ye canna deny, lass, that you’re already halfway there. And I did have dreams of a rose-scented bride.”

She didn’t have a chance to protest. He was kneeling at her back and his hands were upon her, stroking the soap over her shoulders.

“Someone in this house is guilty,” he said softly.

He spoke again of the mystery within the castle. Of life and death. And now, it seemed, they were conspirators in truth. The lies were over between them, and the suspicions, and the things once best left unsaid. It was like her dream, for even as he spoke of the danger, she felt the stroke of his touch. If she had turned to see that he had grown horns, she could not have moved. Soap, sleek and silky, scented like roses, moved over her flesh with the sensual brush of his fingers behind it. Slowly, evocatively. She wanted to lie back as he eased the tension from her neck and shoulders.

She closed her eyes.

“Robert McCloud,” she said aloud.

“Robert!” he said sharply.

She nodded. “I’ve noticed him since I came to the castle. He—he stares at me peculiarly.”

“He is a man, and you are a very beautiful woman.”

“No … he stares insolently. As if he knows something. Secrets. And there is his scar, and the manner in which he behaves. And—”

“Martise, I brought Robert here from Glasgow. He grew up an orphan on the streets with nothing; and trust me, Glasgow can be a cruel and vicious place. He had a way with horses, and he was loyal to me. I brought him here.”

“But he knew that I was riding out. And he warned me to stay away from the forest. He is guilty, I know it!”

“I thought that a man was innocent until proven guilty, even in the aftermath of war, in the States,” he said.

“But you don’t know the way he looks at me! And if he is not guilty, then who?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But if the cloaked figures you stumbled upon in the forest are involved, then it is more than just one person.”

She shivered violently. He pressed his lips against her shoulder, then his kiss moved up the length of her neck as he wound her hair high, and held it from her flesh to bare it.

“There are your cousins!” she whispered.

“Aye, if I am not guilty …” he agreed against her flesh. The soap moved over her within his grasp. Over her breasts, sweeping below, to her waist, to her thighs, between them. She gasped softly, and tried to keep speaking, seeking his hands to cease the flow of sensations that were only heightened by the fading heat of the water and the mist of steam that surrounded them.

“What are you going to do?”

“Do?” he said, and joined her in the tub, pulling her to her feet. He stood before her, taking her hands into his. “I am going to discover the truth,” and he pulled her into his arms, and his lips formed hotly over hers. He kissed her with a searing passion, drawing away to bathe her face with the touch of that kiss, joining his lips to hers once again and drinking so deeply from her that his tongue reached every sweet crevice of her mouth.

He drew away, her chin cupped in his hands, and bathed her lower ear with the searing damp moisture of his tongue. Against her naked flesh, she could feel the hard pulse of his desire. She caught hold of his arms and felt the tension and ripple of muscle within them, and cried out again.

“I shall fall!”

But he caught her up in his arms, and as her fingers entwined about his neck, he looked down into her eyes and promised her, “I shall not let you fall.”

He stepped from the tub, and his long, sure strides brought them from the bath and through the dressing room and into the bedroom, and there, soaked and gleaming, he laid her down upon the bed. He stared at her for a moment, eyes caressing the length of her, the damp but glorious tangle of her hair, the deep rough peaks of her breasts, the slimness of her waist, the flair of her hips, and the golden shadowed valley of her sex. The long, long limbs that stretched out beneath. Her flesh was touched here and there with tiny droplets of water.

“A rose-scented bride,” he said, crawling atop her, his great throbbing rod now a pulse that could not, would not, be denied.

He curled his fingers inside hers. Blue eyes like a cloudless day, lazy, just dazzling with a subtle humor, met his. “We are not married yet!” she reminded him huskily.

“So?” he murmured.

He parted her thighs, resting his body between them, then lowered himself. He pressed his lips against the inside of her knee and slowly moved that caress along her inner thigh.

She gasped out loud as he moved along and found the flower-scented center of her very being. With his touch he stroked and parted the hot, damp petals, and seared them anew with the hunger and pleasure of his mouth.

She cried out loud, gasping words that had no meaning, protests that had no substance …

And deep, deep searing ecstasy that could not be hidden or denied.

With a longing, a yearning, a thunderous need deeper than he had ever known before, he brought himself high against her, and there looked into her eyes while his sex teased the burning warmth.

“You said—” she whispered.

And he smiled, his lips a curl of fascination, for he knew it was more than her beauty that drove him on so deeply, that it was her whispers, her sweet burning passion, the honesty of this, at least, between them.

“Be damned with what I said,” he told her. And he plunged within her. Deep. So deep that he felt he went into her forever, more than his body, more than his heart …

All of his life.

Then the blinding desire swept hold of him, and he thought no more. A wind ripped through him, the wind that was part of Creeghan, part of himself. Wild, raging, passionate, untamed … and soft and sweet and low and whispering. She met him in ardor and urgency. Damp and musky, their flesh rubbed together, ground hard together, and their breath mingled with the kisses they gave and received until their lips could touch no more, until his hands were still upon her shoulders, until there was no more play at all… just the last, shattering thrusts.

He rose above her, watching their bodies where they met, and then the climactic waves washed over them. The flow of their passion, spent, mingled as their breath had done, and he groaned out the depths of his ecstasy and desire, and fell hard against her. His arms about her, he rolled, and carried her with him so that his weight would no longer bear down upon her.

And they were silent as the last pink streaks that had heralded the dawn faded away.

Daylight had come. Full daylight.

Their wedding day.

“Does it matter so much?” he asked her.

“What?” she said softly.

“That we were not wed now?”

“No,” she replied. But her eyes did not meet his. She looked across the room to the dragon that sat atop the armoire. “We shall not truly be wed at all later, not truly.”