Fascination -and- Charmed (45 page)

A hard gallop brought them to the fortifying wall at the base of Kirkcaldy’s mound. Arran raced through first, drew up, and wheeled around to await Grace.

As she joined him, a figure in a flapping gray cloak hurried from the nearby gatekeeper’s lodgings.

“Arran,” Grace cried. “Look. It’s Struan.”

In an instant Arran was off his horse and striding to embrace his brother. The two laughed and thumped backs and then simply clung to each other.

“Damn, but it’s good to see you,” Arran said at last. “You took off with barely a word, and there’s been barely a word from you since.”

“I had matters to attend,” Struan said, walking toward Grace. He placed his hands at her waist and lifted her to the ground. “Let me look at you, little sister. Yes, you are even more beautiful than before. This marriage is agreeing with you, and well it should if I am not to rattle your husband’s teeth.”

“Hah!” Arran clapped Struan’s shoulders—and frowned. “You look different.”

“I’ve been in Dorset,” Struan said, as if answering a question. “I came by a small holding there some years ago, and I’ve been putting it into proper order. Now I’d like to help at Kirkcaldy awhile, if that would suit you.”

Arran’s lips had parted and remained so.

“When I returned early in the year, I intended to speak to you of these matters, but there were certain other ... well, you were otherwise occupied, and I wanted to do nothing to interfere with that.”

Arran’s mouth snapped shut.

“We are so happy you’ve come back,” Grace said. She scowled at Arran. “Aren’t we, Stonehaven?”

“She always calls me Stonehaven when she’s out of sorts with me,” Arran said plaintively. “She can be a very hard woman.”

“No doubt.”

“You want to come back to Kirkcaldy?”

“Yes.”

Arran ran his fingers through his hair. “What of your calling? How does the church view lengthy absences on the part of her priests?”

“When I came before, I intended to speak of this.”

“So you said.”

“I am not a priest.”

Grace paused in the act of stroking the chestnut’s neck.

Arran appeared bemused. “What in God’s name are you talking about?”

“I left the priesthood three years ago.”

“And you never said a word until today?” Arran thundered.

“Don’t shout at me, you arrogant bastard,” Struan roared in response. “The reason I let you keep on thinking I was wedded to the church was because if I hadn’t, you might never have married again after Isabel. You were so filled with rage and self-pity that you wanted to shut yourself away with your precious music and foresake the world.”

“You
lied
to me.” Arran’s jaw jutted.

Struan’s chin matched his brother’s. “I didn’t lie. I merely failed to give you certain information. I decided that if I did not hide the fact that I was no longer a priest, you would step back and wait for me to marry and produce a Stonehaven heir for you. I wanted you to find your own happiness, you cabbagehead! I wanted you to learn to
love.
”

Arran raised his fists, and let them drop to his sides. He looked at Grace, held an arm toward her.

She hurried to him and flinched at the power of his embrace.

“Seeing the two of you together makes me very happy,” Struan told them quietly. He stroked a blond curl away from Grace’s face. “I’m not too sorry I deceived the two of you. It was worth it to see how you are together. Can I be of service to you, Arran?”

“By heaven,
can
you be of service?” Arran grinned and his eyes glittered with satisfaction. “As of this moment you are my right hand and my left.”

“I’m so happy you’ve returned,” Grace said, making up her mind to say what she was bursting to say. “And I have something to tell, too. Arran is to have an heir—in early spring of next year. There. What do you think of that?”

“Wonderful,” Struan said. He kissed Grace’s cheek and shot a hand in Arran’s direction. “Congratulations, brother. Many congratulations.”

Arran didn’t seem to notice Struan’s hand. “I’m going to have an heir,” he said as if trying out the words for texture and sound. “I’m going to have an heir.
I
’
m going to have an heir!
”
With a whoop, he swept Grace from the ground and whirled her around.

She laughed down into his face and then shrieked with excitement.

Arran frowned, caught her up into his arms, and studied her closely. “Do you feel well? Did you call in the physician? We must ensure an appropriate nanny is engaged forthwith. And a tutor. Yes, a tutor must be chosen with great care.”

Grace caught Struan’s eye and they chuckled. “Perhaps we should attend to the birth before the tutor,” she suggested.

“You did not
tell
me,” Arran said suddenly, and glared. “You did not tell me, and when you did, it was in front of my treacherous brother.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, not sorry at all. “It seemed the appropriate moment.”

“A man who
posed
as a priest.”

“I did not pose,” Struan said mildly. “I merely failed to deny that I was a priest.”

“You wore clerical garb.”

Struan crossed his arms and rolled onto his toes. “I wore conservative garb.”

Gently Grace threaded one arm through Arran’s and one through Struan’s and let their deep voices rumble over her head.

Her hair shone silver in the candlelight. With difficulty, Arran stopped himself from leaving the piano and going to take her into his arms. They’d left his bed barely an hour since, and she was still flushed from their lovemaking.

“What shall I play for you?” he asked.

“Surprise me.” She leaned over one of her delightfully awful paintings, her brow puckered in concentration.

The melody of “Grace” flowed automatically from his fingers, and their eyes met. She set down her palette and brush and came to stand beside him.

“This has been a perfect day,” she said. “I’m so glad Struan has come back to us—even if only for a while. He ought to marry and have children of his own.”

“Yes.” He stopped playing and raised her hands to his lips. “Our child will be lovely. As lovely as you are.”

“Stop flattering me and play.”

Arran kissed her fingers slowly, one by one, and turned on the bench. He pulled her between his knees and studied her face. “I can never flatter you enough.”

“Stop.” Her smile slipped away. “I love you, Arran.”

“I love you.”

She took a breath, and so did he. There was no need for more words.

It was as if the air between them changed shape, shifted and settled, aglitter now and faintly singing.

“I’ve just remembered something,” he said when he could finally speak again. “Would you please marry me?”

She blinked. “I already have, you buffoon.”

“How very good of you. I’m almost certain I forgot to ask.”

The End

Keep reading for the next book
Charmed
by Stella Cameron

For Suzanne Simmons Guntrum

and the “twin” we share

We are all in the gutter, but some of us

are looking at the stars.

—Oscar Wilde

Cornwall, 1789

“They will kill you for this,” Guido told her. Doubled over, he gasped with every running step he took. “Kill
us!”

Rachel didn’t laugh. She usually laughed when he tried to guide her. “They’d likely kill us if they caught us,” she agreed, darting behind a thick hedge brilliant with summer leaves even in the mist of a damp Cornish evening. Holding the bundle she carried to her chest, she said, “But we’ll not be caught. Why did you come to look for me? I did not ask you to follow me this night.”

“I saw that you were gone and I was worried.” He knew she did not want his concern, yet he could not help but tell her. “Miranda saw you. She saw you meet someone. And afterward you came this way with…with something in your arms.”

“Miranda sees too much that does not concern her. And she says too much. So does Milo. They should keep their eyes and their minds on their spells. I have already told you I agreed to do what I was asked to do. Now it is done. Enough of this talk.”

Guido shook his head. If only she would let him care for her.

In the cover of the hedge, they crouched, side by side, and looked up at the fantastic, soaring pattern of white stone towers and turrets that was Franchot Castle.

“I cannot believe you found a way inside that fearsome place and that you did not get lost,” Guido said, thinking of the hundreds of rooms and passageways and staircases and halls that made up the great building on its hill above the sea. “It is a miracle you were not noticed. Why would this friend of yours ask you to do such a thing?”

A whimper came from the bundle and Rachel raised the child to her shoulder. “I said nothing about a friend,” she told him. “I said I knew her and that she wanted me to perform a service for her. She has already paid me well for this. I have more gold than we could gather in a year of passing our cup at the fairs.”

“The fairs are good to us,” he grumbled.

“We travel from town to town. We have no home and we are scorned by all who look upon us.”

“People are glad when we come.” This argument was not new. “Each year they await us. We make them happy and we are happy enough ourselves.”

She gave a short, harsh laugh. “
You
are happy.
You
are not the one around whose body the snakes curl.
You
are not stared at by men who do not come to see the snakes.”

He felt peevish. “I am the snake man. You are my assistant. When you came to me, you were glad enough for a place where you could be safe from that creature who used you.”

“I am not safe,” she muttered. “I will never be safe.”

He wished he could calm her, please her, but there was no pleasing Rachel, and she wanted nothing from him but the meager security he could offer. She did not want what he so desperately longed to give her—his love.

“Come,” he said, his throat tight from breathing too hard and his heart still pounding from terror. “Soon the child will be missed and all at the castle will be alerted. They will come for us, and the first place they will look is the camp. What shall we do? I should have stopped you.”

“You could not have stopped me, because you did not know what I intended to do—and they will not come. They will never know what I have done, I tell you.”

Turning their backs on the castle, they continued on, stooping low. The baby cried now, softly but steadily, and Rachel made clucking sounds.

“I ask you again,” Guido said.
“Why
did the woman ask you to do this?”

“I told you, as a service and she paid me.”

“You anger me with your deliberate foolishness, Rachel. The woman wanted the child taken from its mother. For what reason?”

“The child’s mother is dead now,” she reminded him. “And I cannot answer your question, because I do not know. Anyway, it is of no interest to me. We should go by separate ways now. It will be best for me to enter the camp alone and from a different direction than expected.”

He coughed. The moist air of Cornwall always tightened his lungs. “You will not be able to hide the child from the others.”

“I know.” She looked anxiously about. “Please leave me.”

“What will you say? What if they guess who he is?”

“He is
nobody
now,” she hissed. “He is nothing, just like us.”

“He is a—”

“Hold your tongue! And leave everything to me. We will have money to buy a better horse now—and perhaps new shoes for ourselves.”

“The child will need—”

“The child will need nothing.” Her voice had lost its life.

He grasped her arm and pulled her close. “Babies grow. Soon he must be clothed, and he will also eat. The more he grows, the more he will eat.”

“He will not,” she declared, her black eyes burning into his.

A coldness curled inside the man’s belly. “Boys have large appetites.”

“Yes, but we shall not be concerned with such matters. I was paid well, my friend.
Very
well.”

A small flare of hope warmed him. “I suppose that is why the parcel the woman gave you was large—because it contained so much gold. It must have been heavy. Quickly, take me to the place where you hid the gold. We must get away from here.”

“The parcel did not contain gold. It held a child. An infant boy.”

He rubbed a hand over his eyes and made himself concentrate. “You took the child into the castle? Then you brought him out again?”

Hunched over, Rachel began to walk once more. “I took
a
child in. I brought a child out.”

The meaning of her words became clear, and his heart turned in his breast. “You are mad, truly mad, if you think they will not notice the difference.”

“They will not.” She laughed shortly. “They are people who pay strangers to care for their babies. Those strangers—if they should notice something amiss—will never admit that they allowed their charge to be stolen and replaced with another infant.”

Guido took a shallow, difficult breath and said, “And now you are to pass this child along to someone else? Someone else who will worry about food for a growing boy? You were paid a great deal for a task soon to be over.”

“No. And yes. The task will soon be over. I was paid a great deal because I am to ensure that the child disappears.” She splayed the long fingers of one hand over the writhing baby. “The woman said to be certain the body is never found.”

London, 1823

“His Grace the Duke of Franchot,” the footman announced nasally from the entrance to the packed music room.

“He is here,” Calum Innes said, so softly that only the man to whom he spoke could hear him. His next breath seemed the most difficult he’d ever taken. “His Grace the Duke. The man who is living my life.”