Lois Greiman (14 page)

C
harity laughed. She couldn’t help it, for honesty seemed so out of place here, unlikely and unexpected, as if he were truly the gentle shepherd whose soft burr whispered from her dreams.

Angel. She could not set aside the name, though in the harsh light of reality she knew it could not be his. Still, it had suited him, back at Crevan House. Back in hell. He had seemed like a ray of sunlight in the midst of darkness. Like kindness personified, cuddling the scrawny lamb to his side, giving her that heart-shattering grin, part rogue, part motherless lad. But that was all past now. He was not what he seemed. And the dreams…The lurid images that left her damp and desperate, they were not for him, but for a gentle, oddly old-fashioned lad who did not exist.

He shifted his heaven-blue gaze back to the fire. “How did you learn of the treasure?” he asked.

“What treasure is that?”

He glanced up. Emotion sparked in his eyes as he drank her in. She almost blushed again, but now for her ridiculous modesty. She was not a timid woman, but there was something dangerous here.

“The staff,” he said. “I thought at first that it was naught but a walking stick with a hunk of lead on the up end.”

“What makes you think differently now?”

He snorted. “Call me numskulled, lass. But mayhap ’tis the fact that ye took that and naught else when ye hammered out Chetfield and took off like an Irish Thoroughbred.”

She shrugged. The firelight danced dully on the head of the staff. How many nights had she lain awake trying to ferret out the mysteries of it? Of Chetfield. But she hadn’t planned for the Highlander. Couldn’t have foreseen him. “Perhaps I simply have a fondness for walking sticks.”

He nodded in agreement. “Aye, of course. Ye’ve a strange longing for canes and the like. Thus ye risk yer life with a mob of murderous thugs in the hopes of adding to yer collection.”

“Call me eccentric.”

He poked the fire. It flared, tossing light across his beautiful features—broad cheekbones, dark skin, generous mouth. There was hardly a scar to be seen. If she believed in white magic, she would think it had a hand there. But there was only evil. Only the dark sort.

“Ye could have been killed, lass,” he rumbled. “Or worse.”

“Worse?” She forced a laugh. “Truly, Scotsman, what’s worse than death?”

His gaze settled on her, making her heart race. “Torture’s not as enjoyable as ye might think.”

She remembered the sight of his wounds on the morning after his arrival. She had known what to expect even before she opened the stable door, had known by the gleam in Roland’s predatory eye. Her stomach had roiled, only to have the sickness multiply a thousand times at sight of the Highlander’s sweet, ravaged face. “No one made you come to Crevan House,” she said.

“So you knew all along.”

She gave him a blank stare. It had been honed to perfection long before she dared venture into Chetfield’s dark shadow. “Knew what?”

If her naïve act angered him, he did not show it. In fact, he smiled a little, one corner of his
lovely mouth lifting. “Ye knew ’twas the old man and his ugly bastards that had beat me to the verra door of death, despite yer wide-eyed concern.”

“Of course I knew.” Guilt she’d thought long dead flared up, spurring anger in its wake. All had been going well until he’d shown up bludgeoned on her doorstep. No one had yet been hurt. She’d not been discovered, though she had spent countless breathless hours searching the estate, dredging up every secret, every hideous truth. Her carefully laid plans had been moving along just so. And they hadn’t involved him stepping half-naked into her heated dreams, blue eyes laughing as he brought her to life night after restless night. Neither had they entailed a skittering trip cross-country with no food and less hope. The boat had been naught but a precaution, if worse came to worst. But she had seen him behind her fireplace screen and knew his life would be forfeit if she did not act.

She almost closed her eyes to the overpowering memories; for a moment she had thought him lost, drowned beneath the darkling waves. “Surely you didn’t think even Charity was so daft as to believe you had truly been set upon by some unknown beast.”

Something flared in his eyes, a smattering of the gentleness she had seen in Angel’s. But she would not be so foolish as to believe it again. “Not so daft as kindly,” he murmured.

She refused to acknowledge his regretful tone. “Kindly will get you dead, Highlander. Don’t you know that?”

“Aye,” he said. “In fact I do. I but thought you too softhearted to agree.”

She laughed. “Softheaded, you mean.”

He poked at the logs. “Tell me, lass, what has made you so cold?”

“I think it is the fact that I’ve been all but bare-assed in the rain while I—”

“I did not mean it quite so literal.”

She inhaled carefully, calmed herself, pushed the terrifying memories behind her. “I like to breathe, Scotsman. I see to myself and expect others to do the same.”

“Then why did ye try to convince me to leave?”

He was watching her, eyes steady. She fought to hold contact, though there was nowhere safe to look. Even his neck was appealing. And his arms. And his back. And…Lord help her.

“What are you talking about?” she asked, tone marvelously steady.

“Ye tried to get me gone. Indeed…” He
paused, thinking. “Methinks ’tis why ye kissed me. So that he would send me away.”

Well, he had those damned eyes, didn’t he? Those damned soulful eyes that could make her want to laugh or cry at a moment’s notice. “Perhaps I was trying to get you killed instead.”

“Or mayhap ye truly are drawn to me.”

“Well…” Her heart was thrumming madly, her breath short in her chest, but she skimmed her gaze insolently down his rain-soaked form. “You
are
well hung, Highlander.”

He glanced up, eyes flashing. “What?”

“I said…” She smiled, paused. If only she had been so convincing on stage. But theater had only been a tool, a way to learn, to delve for secrets long hidden. “That’s horse dung, Highlander. Have you seen that hunk of gold? I wasn’t about to share it with the likes of a wayward Scot.”

He was staring at her as if he might well be going mad. As if she had tortured his dreams just as he had hers. She would have laughed at the idea if she hadn’t been so damned tired. But her back ached and her feet throbbed.

“So ye knew all along I was after the treasure?” he asked.

“No one could be as appeal…as…
appall
ingly
naïve as you seemed.” Dear God help her. “Besides, I’ve always been the suspicious sort.”

He grinned, probably knowing things he should not know—that she had imagined him in her bed a dozen times, had felt his fingers like cool magic against her feverish skin.

“Suspicious? Ye, lass? I would na have thought it.”

She gave him a dismissive shrug.

“Then ye must na be the sweet maid, but the other.”

She didn’t bother to glance at her bare breasts, but they should go far to prove she was not the innocent fool he had once thought her to be. Nor was she the child left to cry, broken and alone, at her mother’s grave site. She was a woman of cunning and strength, a force to be reckoned with. “A fine guess.”

“And what might your name be?”

“Some have called me Guinevere.” In fact, she had played that part at Drury Lane. But she would never be the actress her mother was. That rare, shining jewel that drew men like drones to her side. All manner of men.

He canted his head at her, thick lashes cast low over quicksilver eyes. “What of yer da then? What did he call ye?”

Anger flared in her soul, but she was far too accomplished to let it slip past her veneer. “You may address me as Charity.”

The fire crackled in the ensuing silence, then: “I wish to know what yer sire called ye, lass, na what the ghoul called ye.” He had placed his arm over Lambkin’s back and absently stroked the animal’s little shoulder. She felt strangely weak at the sight.

She was silent for a moment, then: “They both called me Charity, for that was my given name.”

“Ye mean to say there was one thing ye did na lie aboot.”

“That and the fact that you’re an idiot.”

“Ye did na say I was an idiot. Indeed, ye kissed me.”

“That was because Roland was about to enter the room, and I was hoping he would toss you from the window.”

“How verra charitable of you,” he said, and grinned. “But regardless, it’s happy I am to meet ye, Charity lass.”

“Really?” She cleared her throat and turned away from his smile, hoping to find something less dangerous, something to do with her hands. “I would have thought after the beatings…” She found a log, strode to it, and tugged it near
the fire. “And the burns…” She glanced toward him. He was staring at her nether parts. It made her feel marginally better, safer. “And the near drowning…meeting me wouldn’t be all that wondrous.”

“Well…” He shrugged. The hint of a grin peeked forth. “Ye dunna wear an abundance of clothes.”

No, he was not the guileless soul she had once thought him to be, but he had a rare ability to smile in the darkest of hours. “Which of course makes the beatings well worthwhile,” she said.

He opened his mouth as if to argue, then: “Aye.”

“Men,” she mused, seating herself on the log and letting her knees fall open a fraction of an inch, “are strange.”

He stared. “Have ye known a good many of them then, lass?”

Why did he ask? Did he care? Did he hope—But she locked away her girlish thoughts and scowled at the remains of her severed gown. A four-inch strip had been torn from the center.

“Men,” he said. “Have ye known many?”

She had known him, in her dreams, in her heart. And she was a fool. “It’s mine,” she said finally, and reaching down, untied the lace from the gathered bottom of her drawers before pull
ing it free. “The staff.” She caught his gaze with her own. “It’s mine. And it shall remain so.” Bending, she snagged the simple reticule close and drew out her knife.

Angel raised his brows, but she only used the tip to poke tiny holes in the fabric of her bodice.

“Because ye stole it first?” he asked.

Memories assailed her. Sharp and ugly. But she would not share the truth, for she had a mission and she would not fail. Not even for an angel that made her jaded heart soar. Certainly not for him. “’Tis as good a reason as any,” she said, setting the blade aside and shoving the lace diagonally from one hole to the next.

He nodded, touched his fingers to his scalp, and winced.

“Does your head hurt?”

He grinned, that glimpse of angelic devil so close to the surface. “Everything hurts, lass.”

She shrugged, unconcerned, though even now, even knowing he hoped to take her one treasure, she longed to touch him, to slip her fingers into his hair and soothe his aches. “Perhaps you hit your pate while falling from the boat.”

His eyes glistened. He was no fool. No one to be trifled with. “I think I may have been pushed.”

She shrugged, shoved back the memories. He’d
been unconscious when they’d reached shore. Unconscious, maybe dead, causing her stomach to twist in knots with her heart. Not knowing whether he was the silver-eyed lad who whispered from her dreams or a dark-haired devil come to foil her plans, to ruin her life. She had, in fact, considered sending him downstream alone and wondered now if she should have done so. He knew things. What things, she was not certain. But more than he admitted, that much was sure.

“Where’d you hear of it?” she asked.

“The treasure?” He glanced up. She knew what he saw, tight breasts and a tighter waist. For a moment his breath seemed to stop. But he didn’t try to pretend otherwise. “It’s something of a legend,” he said, and stroked the lamb. “People talk.”

No they didn’t. Few remembered there had ever been a treasure taken from the depths far off the coast of Madeira. Fewer still knew of Chetfield, of his treachery. Of his evil. “What people?” she asked.

“Are you wondering who else you have to worry aboot?”

“Perhaps I should stock up on oars.”

He chuckled. His teeth gleamed in the firelight. His dark hair glistened. Sometime during
their journey, he had bound it behind his neck with a strip of fabric, and for a moment she couldn’t look away.

“It’s mine,” she said, lifting her arms and carefully slipping the newly repaired garment over her head. The drawer lace crisscrossed crazily between her breasts. She pulled it tight and tied it with a scowl. Two inches of flesh remained visible between the gown’s edges.

The Highlander shifted uncomfortably. She caught his gaze.

“Mayhap we could share,” he said, returning to their conversation, but his voice sounded hoarse.

She smiled at the sound. “Perhaps you don’t know me.”

“Mayhap I’d like to,” he countered, and pushed himself to his feet.

Their gazes locked. Her breathing escalated beneath his regard, and for a moment she almost forgot about the staff, about her mother, about Chetfield, but he passed her by. “Ye stay,” he said to the lamb, and stepped out into the rain.

Charity watched him go, then hurried to the mouth of the cave and glanced outside. He was already disappearing through the underbrush. For a moment she considered slipping off in the
opposite direction, but even as she thought of it, her knees trembled with fatigue. Yet she would not be caught unawares, would not allow him to snatch her treasure while she slept. Retrieving the staff, she glanced outside once more, then slipped along the rock wall to hide it beneath a dozen years of fallen leaves. Only a few minutes had passed when she carried a plain, knobby-ended stick into the cave and piled a trio of logs near the doorway. Then, after placing the would-be staff in the distant shadows where a casual glance might suggest it was the treasure for which many had died, she pulled the strap of her reticule back over her head and curled up near Lambkin.

But dreams came despite her fatigue. Angel, kissing her, teasing her, laughing as he raced past, a dark-haired child giggling madly on his shoulders.

A noise woke her with a start.

“Fie me,” he complained in his unique, antiquated manner, stumbling over the pile in the doorway. “Are ye trying to kill me, lass?”