Lois Greiman (8 page)

“D
efine
with
,” Chetfield said. His voice was low and as deadly as a serpent.

In the hallway, Charity pressed her back to the wall and held her breath in starving lungs.

“She was but assisting with me bath,” said the Highlander. “’Twas naught more devious than that.”

“So you are not attracted to our Cherry?” Chetfield’s staff rapped against the floorboards as he paced inside.

Charity fisted her hands, heart pounding against her ribs. Why hadn’t he left? Why?

“Attracted to her! Nay. Of course not,” said the Celt, but his tone was off, his denial foolish.

Charity gritted her teeth and cursed in silence. Fool of a Scotsman! Where the hell had he learned to lie?

“So you’ve no desire to take her to your bed?”
Chetfield asked. His tone was level, devoid of passion, but there was death in the air.

She could wait no longer. Pushing herself from the wall, she pasted on a wide-eyed expression and strode noisily into the bedchamber. “Is everything all right in here?” she called out and stepped unceremoniously into the bathing room just as the Highlander glanced down, apparently checking the strategic placement of the pitcher. Chetfield’s eyes were gleaming. Roland made some kind of indescribable noise deep in his throat.

She blinked. “Mr. Angel…” she gasped, tone rife with dim dismay, “whatever are you doing up and about?”

The Highlander glanced at Roland, but whatever weapon he’d brandished had already been hidden back inside his coat. “I was just…” He cleared his throat. “Me bath was growing chill…I thought I might…” He glanced at the pitcher, moved it a little. “I thought I might fetch some hot water.”

That was the best he could come up with? “By yourself?” she asked, and shifted her wide-eyed gaze from one man to the next. “Mr. Angel, are you feeling right in your head? Have you forgot that you are sore wounded?”

He gave her a grin, looking all the while as if
he might fall flat on his face. Idiot! Short of tying him onto a steed, she’d given him every chance to escape.

“Now that ye mention it, I do remember something aboot pain, lass,” he said.

Quips? Now? She should have let the creepy little bastard have him instead of sending Chetfield in to save him. She’d planned to do just that. Would have, in fact, if he hadn’t been gazing up at her with those damned soulful eyes just minutes before. “I’m certain Mr. Roland would have been happy to help you. Wouldn’t you have, Mr. Roland?”

“Certainly,” said the bastard, and Chetfield laughed, jarring the tension like a buffeting wind.

“Charity, my dear,” he crooned, “why don’t you run and fetch one of my old tunics to save our young friend from any further embarrassment. Unless you wish to spend the rest of the day hiding behind a pitcher, Mr. MacLeod.”

“Nay.” The Highlander cleared his throat. “Nay, a tunic would be much appreciated.”

Charity delayed a moment, but there was nothing for it. She had little choice but to do as ordered. As for the Celt, he would have to learn to survive without her. Still, once out of sight, she raced up the stairs, yanked a garment from
the wardrobe, and flew back down the steps. Reaching the bedchamber door, she steadied her breath and strode inside, but despite her rush, the Highlander’s face was increasingly pale. Chetfield was just lowering his cane, stepping back, looking smug. She felt herself blanch, but hid the emotion behind a blank expression.

“Ahh, there you are, my dear, and not a moment too soon,” Chetfield said. “I’m afraid our young friend is weakening.”

For a moment her naïve façade almost crumbled, but her survival instincts were strong. “Mr. Angel,” she said, grabbing his arm, steadying him. “Are you quite all right?”

“Aye.” Taking the tunic from her, he draped it in front of him and set the pitcher aside, but his hands were unsteady, his gaze caught on the two villains who stood not far away. The burn on his abdomen was oozing again. Bloody bastards. “Aye. I but need a moment.”

“Yes, you rest,” Chetfield crooned, and turned toward his servant. “Mr. Roland and I have things to discuss,” he added, and in a moment they were gone.

The Highlander watched them go, then drew a careful breath and tried to wrap the garment around his waist, but his uncertain fingers lost their hold on the fabric. It slipped to the floor.

“Oh,” she breathed, watching it fall. He closed his eyes, looking for all the world as if he might pass out. From embarrassment or fatigue, she couldn’t be sure, yet there seemed nothing she could do but retrieve the garment.

Bending, she gave him a glance on the way down and felt her eyes widen. So her weird, lurid dreams hadn’t exaggerated his appeal, she thought, and remembered to blush as she cleared her throat and straightened.

His fingers brushed hers as she handed off the garment, but even now his hands could not function properly. The tunic slipped back to their feet. She would have laughed if she’d dared.

“Mary and Joseph,” he murmured, but it was no great chore to fetch it back. She straightened, remembering not to smile. He reached to take the tunic once again, but she cleared her throat, averted her gaze, and tightened her grip.

“Perhaps I should hold on to it until you reach your bed,” she suggested.

He was, she noticed, starting to sweat. “And mayhap I should don the tunic before Chetfield returns and kills me with a glance,” he countered.

“Master Chetfield?” She would never be the actress her mother had been, but this once she would give it her all. “Oh no, you’ve got him
all wrong,” she said, and urged him toward the door. “The master, he looks fierce at times, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“How about a Scotsman?”

“What’s that?” Who was this man? The gentle shepherd with a softness for orphaned lambs or the naked rogue with a hardness for…her?

“I dunna believe he is over fond of me,” he asserted.

“Oh no.” She furrowed her brow. “You’ve got the wrong impression altogether. It’s just the pain that makes him a bit snappish at times.”

“Pain,” he murmured.

“In his hip.” She made certain to drop every “h,” to keep her tone girlish, her eyes wide. There were only two things that made a woman less threatening than naïveté. And that was breasts. She happened to display all three. “From the goring, you remember. ’Tis the reason he limps at times.” It was a lie, of course. But the truth would do him no good. “Are you all right?” she asked, eyeing him. “Ye look terrible pale again.”

“Aye, lass, I be fine,” he said, but he didn’t look fine. He looked as if he’d seen a ghost. As if he knew the truth of Chetfield’s injury.

“You mustn’t try to do for yourself again. Not until you’re full healed.”

“Do for meself?”

“Fetching the water,” she said. “Roland would have surely got it for you.”

“This Roland.” He tripped, blanched, took a careful breath. “Ye’ve known him for some time, ye say.”

“Ever since I come to Crevan House.”

“Six months ago.” He’d reached the bed and closed his eyes as if in silent thanksgiving.

“Aye.”

“Which was well after Chetfield’s father was killed.” Taking the tunic from her hands, he draped it in front of his body and turned carefully. She held his arm lest he fell face first onto the hardwood. “Tell me, lass, the villain what killed the old master, did he steal anything of import?”

She shrugged, mind spinning. Why the devil did he ask? “As I said, I weren’t here at the time.”

“But ye must have heard. Tales like this…they tend to wander.”

Wander where? She’d spent a lifetime dredging up those stories. “Master Chetfield is still as rich as the regent,” she said.

“So ye didn’t hear that he’d lost something terrible precious?”

“Why do you ask?” she inquired, no longer able to hold back the words. She’d gotten little
enough out of him when she’d awakened him from his dreams some nights before. Indeed, she had hoped for more, but he had fallen asleep, leaving her with naught but suspicions and her own erotic imaginings.

“I hate to think a thief had taken anything of great value from someone ye care aboot,” he said, but he was lying. He had to be. Chetfield had had him beaten. She was sure of it, and no one could forgive that. Not even a Scotsman with angelic eyes and a devilish smile. “I understand why they call you Angel,” she said, and touched his brow. “Did Cook’s potions ease your pain a’tall?”

“I be still alive.” Twisting carefully, he drew his legs onto the bed and let his eyes fall closed. “Thanks to ye,” he added, and looked at her.

Charity yanked her gaze from the bunched tunic. He had an unearthly allure, true, but he held no interest for her. Perhaps he was harmless, just an innocent shepherd as he vowed to be, but perhaps he was more…or less. Either way, neither his heaven-blue eyes nor his satyr’s smile had any bearing on her. She would do as she must, play her part, even if it demanded that she pretend interest, for surely even he would not be so foolish as to stay and incur Chetfield’s wrath. Surely even he would realize the eerie old
man’s obsession with her and get himself gone before it was too late.

“Lass,” he murmured. She watched his lips move. It was no great chore. “Mayhap it would be wise if ye did na look at me such.”

She blinked and blushed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

His silvery eyes softened. His mouth, lovingly sculpted by a master craftsman, tilted up at the corners. “Yer lord would skin me alive if I so much as touched yer sleeve, Charity.”

“You’re talking crazy,” she said, and reached tentatively for the tunic that hid some of his finer parts.

Perhaps it was thoughts of death that made him tighten his grip on the garment. Perhaps he wasn’t as daft as he seemed, but when she tugged, he relented. The fabric slid away, exposing all. It was quite a lot. Nevertheless, she managed not to stare. Instead, she grasped the garment in both hands and opened the neck hole.

“I’m talking about
them
,” he said, and tilted his head toward the door.

Her heart clenched. What did he know? How much? “Them?”

“The lot of them. They’re bloody—” He stopped himself, gritted his teeth. “They’re not what they seem, lass.”

Why had he come here, she wondered wildly, but wrinkled her brow and reached up to touch a cool hand to his forehead. “Are you feeling feverish again, luv?”

He grabbed her arm, fingers hard against her skin. “Ye’ve got to leave this place.”

“What are you talking about? Master Chetfield ain’t nothing but kindness itself,” she said, and wondered if, in the end, he would survive her lies.

“S
o ye finally wake, do ye?”

Keelan sat up. The room was dark and silent, but he could see Toft’s face as clear as sunlight. The girl was not in his chamber, only in his dreams. He had seen little of her in the past few days. She had left his chamber some nights before without heeding his warning. But now, without her bonny presence to muddle his thoughts, he knew it was for the best. Knew her safe departure would surely cause his death. The idea gnawed at his guts like a greedy hound. The old man shook his gnarled head. He was smallish and bent, with a face like an ancient gnome. “Ye have followed yer daft plan, then, I see.” Keelan put a hand to his throbbing head. “How did ye find me?”

Toft snorted. “I have a gift. Did ye na ken?”

“Aye, well, it took ye a good while to get here. Yer talents must be wearing thin.”

“’Tis seemingly better than ye can do, lad. What have ye done with yer gift?”

“Go back to where ye came from, old man.”

“Ye disregarded me warnings, and now ye look like the devil’s own.”

“It’s fine I be.”

Toft chuckled. The sound reverberated in the deep shadows of the room, almost soothing. Almost nostalgic, though Keelan would rather take a lashing than admit it. “Yer ribs ache and yer head throbs like a bleeding war drum.”

“Stay out of me head.”

“Here ye are then,” Toft said, and nudged Keelan’s elbow.

Glancing up was painful.

“Drink it,” Toft said, tilting a fat-bottomed amber bottle at him. The contents smelled of verbena.

But Keelan only laughed. “I think I’ve taken enough potions from me kin already, gaffer.”

The old man’s face remained sober. “Ye think yer mum did it to spite ye, lad? Ye think she put ye to sleep because she was evil?” He leaned forward, gritted his crooked teeth. “Nay, she made ye drink to keep ye safe. Sent yer body
back to the Highlands so that ye would na suffer the same fate as she. So that ye would sleep until it was safe for ye to rise. She was courage itself, boy. Courage and cleverness. And she did it naught but for love.”

The memories pounded in Keelan’s head. Failure, cowardice, foolishness. “I need no such love,” he rasped.

“Ye dunna ken what ye need,” scoffed the other, and touched the bottle to Keelan’s arm again. “Drink it. Lady Colline mixed it with ye in mind.”

A rivulet of shame washed through Keelan. O’Banyon’s bride had taught him much, never knowing why he coveted such herbal knowledge. Never knowing he hoped to trick an old man, to take the treasure his father had lost many long years ago. “She knows where I be?”

Their gazes met. “Nay. Nor her husband or the Celt, na till I deem it best to tell them,” he said, and thrust the bottle forward again.

It was a threat of sorts, but Keelan ignored it. “As it happens, I’ve na wish to sleep for another seven score years, old man.”

“If ye dunna get a chance to heal ye will sleep forever, ye daft bugger.”

“Daft am I?” Keelan shifted to his feet, the pain
almost unnoticed. “I’ve found him!” he snarled. “Lord Chetfield’s heir.”

“Chetfield’s—!” Toft began, then snorted. “Is that what ye think he be?”

Keelan narrowed his eyes, thinking. “Aye. I ken he is. A distant relation, true, but me da’s blood be on his hands nevertheless.”

The old man shook his head. “Sure ye have lived too long to be this foolish, lad.”

“What the devil are ye talking aboot?”

“Drink the brew and I’ll tell ye.”

“Ye’ll tell me either way,” Keelan said. “Or have ye come all this far distant by yer unearthly means only to stand there and shake yer head at me?”

“The ol’ man be dangerous,” Toft croaked.

Keelan chuckled sardonically. “Dangerous he is, but who be ye calling
old
, gaffer?”

“So ye truly dunna ken.” Toft shook his head. “Can ye be so dense? Have ye na heard him speak?”

Something clicked in Keelan’s mind. Something curdled in his belly. “What about his speech?”

“Drink the potion.”

Keelan’s scalp tingled eerily. “What is it ye ken, ye stubborn ol’—” he began, but Toft stepped forward and pushed the bottle against his hand.

Their fingers brushed. There was a spark of something unknown, almost painful, and then he was gone.

Reality settled around Keelan. He was alone. Memories struck him hard, tearing at his mind, but he eased them back, shutting them in a corner, out of sight, quiet. The old gaffer had claimed kinship when first Keelan had stepped from the shadows. His uncle, he’d said. But it had been a lie. In truth, they were cousins of sorts. Keelan’s mother had had a twin sister. A sister with whom she had shared her worries through time and distance. A sister who had traveled from the Highlands to London to retrieve her nephew’s body. A sister who had borne a son to watch over Keelan’s tomb. It was that son who had sired Toft, who had entrusted him with ancient secrets, who had made him vow to look after his elders.

Keelan drew a deep breath and glanced about. The lambkin lay curled against his side. So the nightmares were true. He was at Crevan House. But so was the maid called Charity. Her image came to him as sweet and gentle as a song. The memory of her skin against his only hours before smote him. Why did she remain there? Surely she could see she was in danger? Surely she realized circumstances were not what they seemed.

That her innocence…nay, her very
life
might well be forfeit if she stayed.

But no. She was trust itself, open to the world. Soft and warm and loving. To be protected and nurtured and—

He stopped himself with a rasp of disgust. He was no protector. No warrior. That much he had proven a hundred years past. Reaching out, he pulled his blankets aside and pushed his legs over the edge of the mattress. Agony went with him, threatening to drown him in its dark undertow. He waited for the worst of the pain to pass, then forced himself carefully to his feet. He didn’t swoon like a flirting debutante. A favorable sign. Instead he took a couple of tentative steps around the room. The lamb watched him from the bed, eyes dark and shiny as beads, little head resting on obsidian hooves. Outside the window, a rook cawed. Lifting his arms, Keelan stretched the muscles in his back and managed to refrain from passing out. Good. Excellent. He would not be speedy, but speed was unlikely to save his tattered hide anyway.

Stealth was what he needed. Stealth and wits.

He had come to the right place. His scalp tingled, but that had nothing to do with the facts. ’Twas logic and inquiries that had brought him
here. Chetfield was the man he sought. Chetfield with the oddly familiar voice.

Have ye na heard him speak?

The memory of Toft haunted him. But he turned it aside.

Bending one knee carefully, Keelan tested his muscles. He would be unlikely to beat Lambkin in a battle of brawn, but the past years had made him crafty. Or perhaps it was deeper than that. Perhaps it was his mother’s Scottish blood, thick as stew, flowing through his veins. For she had been wily. Oh aye, she had been that.

Keelan put his hand on the door latch. It made not the slightest noise as it opened, yet Lambkin raised her little head with an inquisitive bleat.

“Ye stay,” he whispered. She blinked bicolored lashes and settled back down, curling her neck over knobby knees once again.

The hallway was quiet. Keelan’s bare feet were just as silent against the wooden floorboards. For he had learned much over the past decades, much about deception and bitterness and heartbreak. But also about caution and self-preservation and planning.

During the daylight hours, he had taken to shuffling carefully about the house, insisting that he must exercise his poor tattered muscles.
But in truth he had felt the need to learn about the manor’s sprawling design.

He had come far, and he would not leave until he gained the treasure. The treasure that was rightfully his, that had been taken from his father so many long years past. But what was it exactly? And where? Perhaps not here at all. But Sir Stanton, his father, had spoken eloquently of it in the letters to his beloved Iona. ’Twas not a thing easily set aside, not even for a bold privateer. How difficult, then, for a cowardly bastard like Chetfield to leave it be?

Nay, it would not be found on some distant estate. It would be close to hand, well hidden, mayhap, but near enough to gaze upon, to touch. Thus, Keelan would search the house. He would begin at floor level, avoid Chetfield’s upper chambers as long as possible, and search the south rooms where the silvery moon would afford him some light.

The floorboards were blessedly quiet beneath his feet, though each step was more painful than the last. If they found him unconscious on the woolen rug, would they put him from his misery or drag him outside for more torture? ’Twas impossible to guess. Best to stay alert then.

Near the foot of the winding stairs something creaked. Keelan jerked in that direc
tion, heart pounding. The house stretched on forever, cast in shadows of varying darkness. Each was the shape of a baron with a soul as black as Satan’s. Keelan waited to die, to be killed with naught more than a glance, but nothing happened.

Finally, unable to bear the torturous immobility, he stepped woodenly into the nearest room and pressed his back to the wall, heart pounding like a hammer against his battered ribs. Reaching to his right, he curled his fingers around a brass candlestick. It felt solid and heavy in his hand. He raised it above his head and waited. Minutes stretched into eternity. Night shifted wearily away until every fiber burned with exhaustion.

Unable to remain motionless another moment, Keelan forced himself to step away from the wall. A dozen unseen eyes watched him, a dozen voices whispered in his head, but he began his search nevertheless.

The room held musical instruments. A pianoforte. A lute. A gracefully arched charsach that looked to be as old as he, but though Keelan examined each piece, none seemed to be of particular value.

He moved silently on. The next chamber was a sitting room that boasted broad windows on
each side, but little else. He searched it rapidly, then stepped back into the hall.

But a flicker of movement caught his eye. An apparition floated down from above.

Keelan jerked back in terror. But the ghost failed to notice. Instead it turned at the bottom of the steps and hurried away, clutching its dark skirt in one hand and glancing behind. The face was pale and oval.

Charity? He almost rushed after her, but she was already gone, hidden from sight, vanished into the shadows.

Exhausted and confused, Keelan held his breath, waiting, mind churning, but the apparition did not reappear. Thus he finally crept back to his borrowed room. Easing open the door, he stepped inside. It was not until then that something leapt at him.

Keelan lunged to the right. Pain crashed through his shoulder. He raised his arm to ward off the next blow, but all that greeted him was Lambkin’s plaintive bleat. The little ewe had but leapt from the bed to greet her master, who, being the brave soul he was, had slammed his shoulder into the doorjamb.

“Mary and Joseph,” Keelan whispered, and picked up the lamb, shutting the door shakily behind him.

“Time to rise, lad.”

Light struck Keelan’s eyelids like a well-honed claymore. He raised a hand, moaned at the pain in his skull, and gazed at the shimmering blue square of sky just revealed by Cook’s cheery arrival.

“And how is our ugly patient this morning?”

He blinked against the light. “Have I done something to offend ye, Cook?”

She stared at him a moment, then laughed heartily and reached behind him for the pillow. “Here now, what’s this?” she asked, and glanced at the floor.

Keelan turned his gaze. A heavy amber bottle sat beside the bed—the bottle from his dream. His blood felt cold, but she was already lumbering toward it. There was nothing he could do but reach down and snatch it up.

“’Tis naught,” he rasped. The glass felt cool and smooth against his fingers. “Naught but a bit of something for me parched throat,” he said as he gripped the bottle tighter and turned the conversation aside. “It hardly seems worth getting meself torn to shreds if folks be still waking me for na good reason.”

She stared at him a moment, then snorted. “’Tis time for breakfast.”

The bottle felt heavy in his hand, conjuring up a hundred chilling memories. His stomach twisted. “I dunna want breakfast,” he said, but she was already shifting the pillows against the scrolled metal of the headboard.

“Glad I am to hear it for I’ve brought nothing but a few nuggets of grain and a nip for your lambkin there.”

“Mayhap that could wait until—”

“Oh, quit your moping, boy,” Cook said, fiddling with the blankets. “You’ll not win our little Cherry’s heart by whining.”

He snapped his gaze toward the door, certain Chetfield would be there, had been there the whole night past. “I’ve no wish to win her heart.”

“What part were you hoping for then?” she asked, closing a fleshy hand around his arm and shifting him back against the pillows. Pain ripped him in twain. Holy hell, there was no need for Chetfield to bother killing him. His cook was doing a fine job of it.

“What say you?” she asked.

He managed to glance up through the circling stars. She was scowling, her chins bunched tight beneath her pursed mouth.

He tried to think through the pain. “What?”

She propped her fists in the region of her
waist. “Listen, lad, you’ve got some impressive attributes.” She nodded toward his nether parts. “That I’ll admit, and I’m no prude by any stretch, but Charity’s dear to my heart. I’ll not see her bruised and tossed aside.”

He shifted carefully, trying to breathe. “I dunna think meself able to toss anyone aboot just now.”

Her brows lowered. Her voice did the same. “I ain’t jesting, boy.”

She glared down at him, then waddled away to glance down the hall and shut the door behind her.

Keelan refrained from shifting back as she approached the bed again, but good sense suggested he was a fool. She could tear him limb from limb if she so desired.

“What are your intentions?” she asked.