Midnight Secrets (22 page)

“Remember what I said I would do if I found you in my rooms again without an invitation? What price should you pay for your insatiable curiosity today?” He whispered softly into my ear as he pressed his hard body firmly against my bottom and into every curve and dip from my calves to the nape of my neck. Heat erupted everywhere as my pulse raced as fast as my mind ran
through
and
from
the consequences he intimated.

“Oh God,” I whispered, dropping the cloth. “I’m sorry. They said you went to the village.”

“And so I did. But I’m back and just in time, it would seem.”

“Uh, perhaps a few minutes early. Do you think you could leave and come back in just a moment?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Would you shut your eyes and count to ten, then?”

“Not a chance, my wandering rose. You made a choice. Are you brave enough to see it through?”

I swallowed hard and squeezed my eyes shut. “Do your worst, and let’s be done with it.”

His chest heaved as his laughter rumbled. “Do you think that’s how it’s done, lass? Vampires have a much better way.”

Embarrassment that he’d clearly heard my whispered comment moments ago added more flame to the fire raging inside of me. “There are no such things as vampires.”

“Aren’t there?” he whispered. “You make me think differently. There are many places I’d love to put my mouth on you, Cassie. I’m feeling very hungry for your flesh and the heat of your blood.” His lips, then his teeth, brushed the side of my neck and gave a little nip to my skin. I shivered all the way to my toes.

I tried to ignore what he said, tried to ignore how he made me feel. Surely, practical logic would see me through this blunder. “No. There are no vampires. I said that because of the heat. When I touched the shroud it was hot just like the crypt in the book and I, well, it gave me pause.”

“Book? Crypt?” He stepped away and swung me around to face him. I could tell he’d been out riding. His dark hair was windblown, issuing an invitation to touch and tame in much the same way the pain I’d seen and heard in him had urged me to soothe. But there was no soothing the fire that glittered in his green eyes, least none that a gentle hand could accomplish. “You’re reading
Powerful Vampires and Their Lovers
?” He spoke very slowly and distinctly, making the deed sound so risqué that I couldn’t own up to it alone.

“Certainly not. I’m teaching Bridget to read, and that’s the book she chose.”

“Indeed.” He flashed a devilish smile and cocked a querying brow as he advanced toward me. Good Lord, my heart took flight at the predatory look in his eyes as my stomach fell into a bottomless pit, wrenching everything in between. “So, it was of little interest to you when Armand lured his woman to his crypt?”

Reaching out, he tugged off my cap then slid his finger down the side of my neck, spreading fire to places inside of me that I didn’t even know existed. My breasts seemed to swell and grow heavy and wanting. My breath caught when he skimmed along my collarbone to the center of my chest and stopped at the buttons of my dress.

He deftly unbuttoned the top two. “You read how Armand wanted to feast upon his love as Solomon feasted, and you thought or felt…nothing?” A third button fell swiftly beneath his determined advanced.

I was sure that I would faint at any moment, or erupt in flames as he undid two more buttons. It seemed I was tied to a stake and burning. I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t move. My dress gaped, leaving only my gossamer chemise to cover my heated breasts like a whisper of mist trying to hide the sun. I wavered on my feet.

“Breathe, Cassie. I’ll not let you off so easily.” He pulled the edges of my dress further apart. Grasping my hips, he drew me to him, looking down at what he’d uncovered. I sucked in air, desperate for it, and winced as I felt the silk of my chemise stretch tightly over the sensitive tips of my breasts.

“You make me hungrier than I have ever been.” He stared deeply into my eyes.

Whatever fears this man generated, whatever doubts he fostered, disappeared as my desire coalesced into a dark, almost obsessive need for his kiss. My lips parted. He bent his head and I felt the fire of his mouth upon mine. The power of his want consumed me as each kiss went deeper, demanded more, and gave more. Then he left my lips, kissing his way down my throat and bending me over his arm. Stepping impossibly closer, he pressed the bulk of his leg between mine, holding me captive as his mouth closed over the tip of my breast through the silk of my chemise.

“Oh, God,” I groaned, falling more into his arms as my knees gave way. Leaving one breast, he claimed the other, groaning deeply as he suckled until my breath rasped and my body shuddered with the need for more. Then suddenly he pulled back.

“What?” I whispered, trying to think, trying to remember why I shouldn’t give myself over to this unbelievable pleasure.

“You’re mine.” His voice was fierce. He scooped me into his arms and walked determinedly out of the round room, despite his hitched stride. Cool air brushed over my dampened chemise, tingling my breasts, and sending an urgent warning to my mind.

“I think…we…need…to…talk about this.” My speech lasted the length of a short corridor where armor and weapons passed in a blur. Then he backed his way through double doors and tossed me on to the biggest bed I’d ever seen, with the softest counterpane I’d ever felt. He followed me onto it, pinning me down before I could even bounce.

“You should have thought about that before you walked through the dragon doors, lass. No maid comes to a man’s rooms without this crossing her mind. You’ve done it twice, almost three times since coming here, and I think it’s time I help you find what you’re looking for.”

“What did you say?” Outrage wiped any fear or desire from me. “You think I deliberately entered the round room to entice my way to your bed?” I pushed against his shoulders, trying to escape, but made little progress. Finally, I looked him directly in the eye and planted my finger in the middle of his nose, pressing him back.

“Do you think you’re the only reason a woman might be tempted to go where she shouldn’t? You’re no different from that odious fairy, prancing about seducing unsuspecting virgins. Let me up immediately!”

Staring at me, as if confused, his green eyes shadowed with want and something deeper, a loneliness I didn’t want to see. He slid to the side, letting me go. I rolled from the bed and stood staring at him a moment, oddly feeling as if I didn’t want to go.

“I’m sorry.” I ran for the door.

“Cassie!”

I halted with my fingers wrapped around the dragon handle.

“You might want to button your dress before leaving. And if you’re daring enough to come back at midnight tonight, I just might show you what I do in the round room.”

My fingers fumbled on the buttons of my dress as my ire grew. “I know exactly what things you’d like to show me. Well, not exactly, but you’ve given me a pretty good idea today. Whatever you may think of me, Sean, I’m not that.”

“Are you a virgin then?” he asked from just behind me.

Startled, I swung around, backing to the door, wondering how he could move so silently. My cheeks flamed at the serious question in his voice. It didn’t matter I had intimated I’d run from a scandal. It didn’t matter that I had been brazen enough to intrude into his privacy. And it didn’t matter that I’d shamefully responded to his advances. What mattered was the sting of his question against my character. Then I recalled his answer to my honest question before regarding his character.

“It doesn’t matter.” I cocked my brow at him. “You barely know me so you wouldn’t believe me if I told you the truth, and at this point it would only ease your conscience, not mine. Besides truth isn’t really that important, is it?”

He stepped back as if I’d hit him. I took the opportunity to duck out the door, thinking that maybe I’d stretched way too far to make a weak point and now everything would come crashing down. Thankfully, I found my mob cap on the floor of the round room and thought I would escape from this investigative disaster without further harm. But when I slid open Sean’s door to make sure the corridor to the art room was clear, I came nose to nose with Sir Warwick.

He stared at me a moment, then a slow grin spread across his face. “A skirt.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me down the corridor.

“Sir, begging your pardon. Is there a problem that I can help you with?” I hissed, trying to slow his pace by stumbling. Dragging my heels would have been too overtly disobedient. At the door to the gentlemen’s lounge he stopped.

“I win. I told you it was a skirt that had the boy up and about during the day, Dartraven. Just caught the wench slipping from his quarters. That’ll be a hundred pounds.”

I thought I’d already suffered the worst fires embarrassment had to offer. I was wrong. This was so bad that my face and body went completely numb with shock.

The Earl of Dartraven stared at me for a long moment, looking far from the amused man the other night. Then he glared at his crony. “My apologies for a so-called gentleman’s inexcusable and unbelievably cruel behavior. Please leave us, miss.”

I barely managed a curtsy without falling before I stumbled my way across the hall and into the art room where Bridget worked.

She took one look at me, dropped her rag, and came running.

“Blimey, Cassie, whatever is wrong? Are ye ill?”

All I could do was nod and sit on the floor just inside the door. And truthfully, I did feel as if my insides had turned themselves wrong side out. Sir Warwick was clearly no gentleman, and it made me ill to think he had something he could hold over my head. I would have preferred an axe.

Chapter Eleven

Sunday brought a heavy fog that the morning sun was just starting to dissipate. Bridget and I huddled together, clinging to the forested edge of the path, each thankful of the other’s presence as we hurried to the village. This was our first full Sunday off. I should have been smiling instead of having my heart so full of the troubles at Killdaren Castle and guilt that I hadn’t worried more about my sisters’ archeological expedition last Sunday. It occurred to me, in hindsight, that I should have been worried enough to sneak back to the village to see them. But my mind had been consumed by those at the castle.

Even now, I couldn’t walk away from them. In fact, even if I had discovered the truth about Mary’s fate, I wouldn’t be able to leave. Not yet. Bridget was part of that. Rebecca was part of that. But Sean was the center of it. My thoughts of him were like the waves of the sea tossing to and fro at the whim of the wind, so caught up in the current, there was no escape other than to see the storm through.

After overhearing the conversation between the Earl of Dartraven and Sir Warwick, I told Bridget that I’d gone to the round room to discover what Sean did there at night. Then I lied. I told her I’d become frightened over a noise and left before discovering the secrets of the round room, and that Sir Warwick had caught me leaving Sean’s quarters, and assumed I’d been in the Killdaren’s bed. She commiserated with me over the situation and thought it best to keep quiet and see if the whole thing would just disappear. The discussion left me feeling worse. It seemed as if more and more lies were making the cloud over my head bigger and darker.

And Sean made it harder for me to think with any semblance of propriety. I hadn’t taken him up on his offer to join him in the round room last night, and he’d deliberately goaded me by spending the entire night in the round room, making the awful screeching noises a number of times. I’d had as little sleep as he. I yawned heavily several times before I parted with Bridget on the outskirts of town with plans to meet her that evening.

The humid breath of morning had dampened my skin, dress and cap, making me appear as unkempt as a wet alley cat, a condition that would most likely send my sisters into another fit of worry when they saw me.

Upon my approach to Seafarer’s Inn, I thought I heard my sisters’ laughter tinkling in the wind, and I shook my head at how easily the mind could conjure things held dear, making them seem so real. Passing an overflowing patch of sea pinks near the dunes and craggy rocks of Seafarer’s Point, I snatched two handfuls to take to my sisters and became distracted arranging the bouquets as I walked. So it wasn’t until I nearly stumbled upon the party breakfasting on the terrace of the inn that I realized the laughter I’d heard
was
my sisters’.

My sisters and three men! I ducked behind a potted tree before being seen.

“Colin, what say you? Is this not the most divine breakfast beverage imaginable?”

“It is indeed, Ashton. Sets a glow upon these ladies that rivals the beauty of this morning’s sunrise.”

“And such an extraordinary sunrise, too, Mr. Drayson.” Andromeda laughed rather oddly, as if she couldn’t help herself.

“Most beautiful,” Gemini said.

Then she and Andromeda giggled, unusually loudly. Whatever was wrong with them?

“What did you call this juice, Lord Ashton? I’m having trouble remembering the odd name.”

“A cocktail, Miss Andrews. It’s an American invention. A Professor Jerry Thomas wrote an entire book of such concoctions.”

“I’d love to try every one of them,” Gemini said.

“This one is quite enough,” Andromeda said. “In fact, I don’t think we should do any more sampling of the juice. Cassie is coming today, and I’m not exactly sure she’d approve of our sunrise adventure.”

“I remember you mentioning at dinner last night that you had an older sister. She isn’t staying with you at the inn?”

“Well, yes and no,” Andromeda said. “She’s a journalist working on an important story.”

I barely heard Andromeda’s declaration. The blood drained from my face as I popped out from the side of the tree. That deep toned voice. That slight Irish burr. God in heaven, it couldn’t be!

I gasped as I stared right at Sean. He looked my way and smiled.

“Don’t be shy, maid.” He called out to me. “I’ll pay you for the flowers if you’ve enough for these lovely ladies this morning.”