Lady of Seduction (7 page)

His lips met hers roughly, urgently. She felt the sweep of his tongue against her lips, and she opened to him. He tasted of
the rain, and of something dark and secret that she craved so much. She tangled her fingers in his hair, loosening it from
its tie until it spilled over her hands like silk.

He moaned deep in his throat as her tongue tangled with his, and the sound drove her to even dizzier heights of maddening
desire. She pushed his shirt out of her way so she could touch his naked skin and feel the hot, vivid life of him under her
hands. The roughness of the old scars abraded her palms. The lacy pattern of them traced from his face, along the side of
his neck, all the way to just below his breastbone, marring his otherworldly perfection.

She remembered the flames and the terrible crash of the warehouse roof as it caved in. The way Grant lay so still on the icy
pavement after Conlan dragged him from the inferno, barely breathing, his skin blackened.

Somehow all that horror, which had been so vivid to her for years, seemed the distant dream now. For here Grant was, in her
arms, the most
alive
person she had ever known. He made her feel alive, too, as if she had been
asleep all her life, trapped in some kind of gray stasis and now she was free.

He moved her hand roughly away from the scars, like he couldn’t bear her touch on them, and his kiss deepened. There was no
seductive art to it, as she would have expected from a man who was once the most notorious seducer in Dublin. There was only
a hungry, desperate need that matched her own. She fell deeper and deeper into him, drowning in him.

But he suddenly tore his mouth from hers. Caroline gasped and tried blindly to pull him back to her, to seek more of these
new, intoxicating feelings. He resisted her, all his muscles tense, and she opened her eyes to stare at him in hazy confusion.

He looked back at her with horror in his eyes, as if he had never seen her before until she landed here in his arms. Caroline
felt like a freezing wind suddenly washed over her, chilling the heated passion into terrible, sick shock.

He lowered her to her feet and stepped away from her. As she stared at him, aghast, he held his hands up as if in mute apology.
Those scars, so pale and faded, seemed to stand out against his skin in a stark reminder of who he really was and all that
had ever happened between them.

“I told you that you should stay in your chamber,” he said hoarsely.

Caroline nodded. She couldn’t find her voice to answer him, and what was there to say? This place was making her truly mad.

“Come with me; I’ll take you back to the house,” he said. He turned away from her toward the cave’s entrance, drawing his
shirt back into place. But she knew the scars were still there, always.

“It’s still raining,” she said.

He glanced back at her over his shoulder. That old mask was back in place, the passion, anger, and confusion hidden behind
cold blankness.

Caroline had to learn to hide her turbulent emotions as well. Who knew how long she would have to stay on this island with
him?

“Do you really want to stay here in this cave?” he said.

For one crazy instant, she
did
want to stay there. She wanted to drag him back into her arms and make him kiss her again, so she could see if those emotions
were real. To see if she, the Dowager Lady Hartley, could actually feel that way. But then she wasn’t sure if she really wanted
to feel that way at all. It was too foreign, too frightening.

She had to retreat and do what she did best—study the problem and come to a rational solution.

“No,” she said. “I want to go back to the house.”

“Very sensible.” Grant held out his hand to her. “Stay close to me. The path can be rather treacherous.”

Just like everything else on this island, Caroline thought.

G
rant held on to Caroline’s hand as they made their way down the path, but he did not glance back at her. He felt like Orpheus,
allowed to take his love Euridice out of the underworld and back to life as long as he didn’t look at her until they emerged
into the sun.

Yet Orpheus had been weak and given in to temptation, just as Grant had when he kissed Caroline. Orpheus watched as Euridice,
and all his hopes and dreams, faded back into oblivion. Grant didn’t even remember if he had hopes and dreams. None that didn’t
involve ambition or revenge anyway. Long ago, in those few moments he spent with Caroline, he could feel the soft, bright
warmth of her youthful enthusiasm and her joy in his books. For an instant then, he had glimpsed what it must be like to feel
free and to find true, pure pleasure in the world.

All that vanished in a flash, and he was left only with the tantalizing wisp of a memory. And with the knowledge that he had
hurt one more person—the last person he ever wanted to see wounded.

Like Orpheus, Grant couldn’t help but glance back at
Caroline. She had drawn her wet shawl up over her head in a futile attempt to keep some of the rain away. Her dark hair clung
to her shoulders and across her forehead, and her face was so pale that a few golden freckles stood out across her nose. She
looked back at him steadily, her large brown eyes calm.

Her lips were ripe and red, as if crushed by his kisses. He could still taste the sweetness of her, feel how soft and yielding
her mouth was under his. She was so startled and eager when they touched, and she wrapped her legs around him to pull him
close, as if she had imagined such a moment just as he had.

He couldn’t lose control like that ever again. He had hurt her once, and that was enough.

“Not far now,” he shouted over the roar of the wind and rain. It battered against the rock cliffs and whipped at the ocean
far below. No boats could put in there for a few days yet, until the storm subsided and the waters calmed. Caroline was trapped
on Muirin Inish, and he was trapped with his lust for her.

Caroline nodded, and her fingers tightened on his. She glanced uncertainly down over the ledge of their narrow path. Surely
there was nothing like this in her safe life of Dublin libraries. He would see that she was returned in one piece to her life
as soon as possible.

They turned a sharp corner, and Caroline’s boot suddenly slipped on the wet gravel. Her hand slid from his as she tumbled
toward the edge of the path—and the sea below.

Panic seized Grant, cold and furious, and he lunged forward to seize her around the waist.

For an instant, they both hung suspended over the roiling
abyss, halfway between life and death. Then he pulled them back to the precarious safety of the path. He pressed his back
to the cliff and held Caroline close against him.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he could hear the frightened catch of her breath.

I won’t hurt you again, Caroline
, he thought. She was the one drop of goodness he had seen in his life, and he didn’t want to lose that. Even if she was far
from him, she had to be there in the world.

“Are you well?” he said against her ear.

She nodded but still held on to him.

“Let’s get back to the castle then,” he said. “You’ll catch a cold.”

“Better that than falling into the sea again,” she said.

They quickly made their way down to the rocky beach. Grant led Caroline around the path that led back to the steps of the
castle. They didn’t speak again until they stepped into the empty foyer.

The echoing silence of the house was deafening after the howl of the storm. Grant shook back his wet hair and slumped against
the wall. Caroline wrapped her arms around her waist, shivering. She looked exhausted, and self-loathing rose up in Grant
again.

“Have you had enough of adventure yet, Caroline?” he said.

She laughed and reached behind her to ring out the sodden braid of her hair. The movement pulled the wet fabric of her bodice
close to her breasts, outlining their soft shape and the darkness of her erect nipples. Grant tore his stare away from them.

“I have had enough of being cold and soaked to the skin,” she said. “But adventures—I don’t know. I think I
could get used to them. It’s certainly a change from having adventures only in books.”

“Books are a great deal safer.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. Grant glanced back at her to find her bright, avid gaze focused on him. “There must be something
very dangerous indeed in one book—
The Chronicle of Kildare.
”

Before he could answer her, Mrs. McCann came bustling in with her keys jangling. She took in their pitiful, soaked state with
astonishment.

“Sir Grant?” she said. “I thought you were in the library, my lady.”

Grant pushed himself away from the wall and gave the housekeeper a warning look. “It seems our houseguest was not being looked
after and decided to go wandering, Mrs. McCann.”

Mrs. McCann flushed. “Her ladyship said she did not require anything else, and Maeve has many duties to see to.”

“Well, now I think I require a hot bath and a copious number of towels,” Caroline said. “I’m sorry for the trouble I caused.
I will just go back up to my chamber now.”

She hurried to the stairs and dashed up them, leaving behind a small puddle of rainwater from her hem at every step. At the
landing, she stopped and looked back down at him.

“Thank you for saving me, Grant,” she said. “Again.” Then she disappeared, her footsteps fading until he heard the faraway
slam of her bedroom door.

Grant turned back to Mrs. McCann, who watched him with a stern but worried frown. “She can’t be allowed to wander around,”
he said.

“There are very few servants here, Sir Grant, as you
know,” she said. “None of us has the time or training to be a guard, especially to a fine lady.”

Grant saw her message—if he wanted Caroline kept close and safe he would have to do it himself.

“Go and see to her now,” he said. “Perhaps she will join me for dinner, and we can come to an understanding for her visit.”

He followed Caroline up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time as he turned at the landings and went to his own turret
chamber on the floor above Caroline’s. He shed his wet clothes and tossed them away as he caught up a towel from the washstand.
Roughly toweling his hair, he went to peer out the window at the gray sea and sky beyond.

Night was coming, creeping toward Muirin Inish with its black, smothering cloak. He usually welcomed the night. He could hide
inside of it, from everything but himself. Now Caroline was there, her presence close to him even when she was in another
room, and he suspected he couldn’t hide from her. Not for long.

He looked at the wooden floor under his feet and imagined Caroline just below. He envisioned her slowly lowering herself into
a steaming bath, her tall, slender, pale body naked. He saw her long neck, bared by her upswept hair, the delicacy of her
shoulders, the softness of her breasts. She glanced back over her shoulder at him, an inviting smile on her lips…

“Mac an donais!”
Grant growled. He brought his fist down hard on the stone window ledge, obliterating her sensual image.

If only he could lock her away in the dungeon until this was all over. But he suspected she would find a way to escape that
as well.

Grant threw the towel to the floor and turned to grab a clean shirt and breeches from the wardrobe. He caught a sudden glimpse
of himself in the one looking glass he allowed in the room, the small shaving mirror over the washstand.

With his hair slicked back, the fading gray daylight was stark on his ruined face. The burn scars traced a spider web over
the left side of his face and neck, all the way down his torso. They made a mockery of his old nickname among certain ladies
of Dublin Society—“Apollo the ever-bright.” Once his looks had brought him a great deal in life. But now they also made a
mockery of his erotic daydreams of Caroline. She could do so much better.

C
aroline sat down heavily on her bedchamber chaise. Her whole body ached, and her mind felt weighed down with exhaustion after
her adventures of the day. Yet she was still oddly restless, unable to sit down for long or make any sensible plans at all.