Once Upon a Tower (31 page)

Bardolph couldn’t hate him with more virulence than he did himself.

“I didn’t mean to do it,” Gowan said, staring fixedly at the legs of the chair before him. “I love her.”

Silence.

He wasn’t even sure Bardolph was still there. Maybe he was waiting for the right moment to kick him in the kidneys.

“I love her so much.” Gowan’s voice broke, and for the first time since the day after Molly had disappeared beneath the floodwaters, he lost control. With the raw cry of a soul in pain, he said, “I love her more than—”

A rough hand grabbed his left arm and hauled him to his feet. The agony was so acute that he shouted involuntarily.

“Jesus, Mary, Joseph, your shoulder is dislocated!” Bardolph exclaimed.

“Ribs. I was thrown from my horse.”

“That’s not a good enough excuse for staying away for two weeks,” his factor said, stepping back and folding his arms over his chest.

Gowan turned away. “The truth is that she’s better off without me. I’m turning into my father.”

“Your mother was an inebriate long before she married your father. The household knew it within a week. It’s a miracle that you weren’t born with your brains as addled as an egg.”

Gowan absorbed that.

“You still have a chance.” Bardolph’s voice dropped to a growl. “She hasn’t left. I did my best for you, you ignorant, ungrateful sod. I bought you time to come home by kitting out that tower. Every man in this bloody castle would have walked on their knees to Palestine for a touch of her lips, and you left her here alone, crying for you.”

Why hadn’t he turned around ten paces from his own front door? Why had he ever left the person he loved most in the world sobbing as he turned his back? Regret was a poker to his heart, sharper and fiercer than the pain in his arm.

Gowan went back out the front door, not even noticing the footman who pulled it open.

When he reached the tower, he leaned against it, taking refuge from the rain and trying to put it all together. He’d hurt Edie so badly that she lost confidence in her ability to love a child—a curse rose from deep in his heart—and he’d somehow convinced her that she had behaved distastefully in the grip of pleasure.

So she was leaving him. Of course she was leaving him. He straightened, but staggered as his cracked rib shrieked a warning.

Edie was the only person in the world who mattered to him. His mother and father were gone; they had been too troubled to love him, and what love he had for them had burned away. Molly was gone. His aunts were cordial, at best, and Layla had adopted Susannah.

But Edie loved him. She had said so, and he had to believe that: believe the three words that she said just before he left her. If she loved him, she might forgive him. There was a heart of darkness lurking behind his ordered life, but he was banishing it.

He had to tell her. He had to put that heart at her feet.

Intimacy was something they should have explored together, but his determination to follow a flawed plan had destroyed it. He was so desperate to please her that he ruined everything between them.

If he had just admitted his ignorance, she would have trusted him. They could have found a way together. But he had been afraid: afraid to fail, afraid that she would despise him, the way his father had. That was the truth of it.

He fell back a step and looked up at the tower. It loomed tall and gray in the dark, its silent bulk attesting to the men who had died climbing it in a vain attempt to impress their beloveds, if the tales were true. The only one who made it past the second level was the black knight, who, according to legend, still walked the battlements.

Edie hadn’t gone back to sleep. A soft glow came from her casement. She’d unlatched the window after he left, and it stood ajar.

If he called her name, she would close the window against him and keep him out.

He tilted his head back so the rain struck his face. Romeo climbed to Juliet’s window, didn’t he? Of course, he probably had use of both hands and intact ribs. Gowan managed to close his left hand into a fist with no more than a grunt of pain. So his wrist hurt: it still did as commanded.

He started climbing quickly, but slowed almost immediately. The stones were slick with rain, and the ascent was considerably harder than he had anticipated. Halfway up it occurred to him that he might not make it to Edie’s window. But there was no way down except by falling. Whether he would survive another fall was an open question.

Even as the thought came to him, his right hand slipped and all his weight swung from his left for a moment before he caught on again. A deep grunt broke from his lips; he’d never felt pain like this before. A second later, Edie looked out the window.

Her figure was blurred by the rain on his eyelashes. But he could see her cheek, illuminated by the glow of the fire behind and to her left. She peered down and out.

Then she shrieked. “Gowan!”

He couldn’t spare breath for a word, not even for her name.

“No! Go back down, Gowan. I demand that you go back down!”

He clung to the wall, cheek against the cool wet stone, and listened to his wife. When he caught his breath, he lifted his head and said, “I love you.”

There was a second of silence, and then she implored, “Please, Gowan, please go back. I’ll let you in. I’ll do anything. Please don’t keep climbing up. I’m so afraid.”

“Can’t do that. I love you, Edie. More than anyone. More than—more than—” He reached up with his left hand again. Cold, fierce determination filled him.
She
was there, above him. He could not allow her to leave him.

Edie leaned out the window, her face glowing against the dark stone. “You’re so beautiful,” he said, his breath catching between words. “The most beautiful woman I ever met. Like a fairy. Goddess.”

“Drunk,” she said to herself.

He was moving faster now. He didn’t care about the ground, dwindling below him. His wife was leaning as far as she could out of the window, her golden hair falling forward over her shoulders and down the gray stone of the tower.

He had to rest for a moment because his wrist was on fire, and his ribs were shrieking with pain. “You cannot leave me,” he said, the words coming from his mouth somewhere between a command and a prayer. He reached, and hauled himself up a little farther.

“I know I’m shite in bed,” he said, not looking up because he was afraid the weight of his own tipped head would tear him from the wall. “But I can improve. We can stay in the bedroom, the two of us, for a year and a day. No footmen, Edie. I promise you that.”

He reached up again with his left wrist—that was the worst and a grunt broke from his lips despite himself.

She was sobbing and the sound of it drove him higher.

“I’m your falcon.” The words exploded from his heart, the way they had come to him when he’d stared into the loch and tried not to think about her . . . and had failed.

“Gowan, you’re out of your mind,” Edie cried, leaning out the window so far that her entire upper body was visible.

“Don’t fall!” he shouted, his voice exploding into the rainy silence around them.

“I won’t. Just please, please, Gowan, you’re close now. Just two or three more moves.”

“It’s this bloody wrist,” he told her. “I might have broken the damned thing.”

He heard her gasp, but he was pulling himself up again. “You’re not mine,” he told her, just below her now, almost within reach. “I’m yours, lass. You’re a net that I’m tangled in.”

“No poetry,” she cried, reaching down again, and then he felt her touch on his wet hair, so he pulled himself up again.

Once more.

And again.

Then over the windowsill.

The Duke of Kinross had done that thing that no man had done in six hundred years: he had conquered the unclimbable tower. In the rain. With two cracked ribs and a broken wrist. With a broken heart and a stubbornness inherited from generations of Scottish lairds.

Maybe those ancestors were at his shoulder, and pushed him up those last few feet. Or maybe it was the golden sweep of her hair, like Danaë’s gold, summoning him in the rain. Or maybe it was the nightingale sound of her voice.

Or maybe it was just Edie.

The Edieness of his wife. The way he loved her, bone deep, every musical note that made up her gorgeous, stubborn, generous, joyful soul.

Forty

G
owan might have passed out, just for a moment; he came to himself to find that he was kneeling on the floor, Edie in his arms, and she was sobbing against his shoulder.

“No,” he whispered. “Don’t cry,
mo chrìdh
. I’m sorry,” he blurted out, self-recrimination roughening his already hoarse voice. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

She raised her face, and his heart cracked open at the sight of her eyes. His body hurt too much to stand up, just yet.

“You’re soaked!” She slipped away from him and came back with a towel, warm from hanging before the fire. Then she started pulling off his sopping garments until she saw the binding around his ribs and stopped in horror.

“I made close friends with a ditch,” he explained, standing and stripping the rest of his wet clothing off.

“Is it painful?”

He shook his head, taking the towel from her hands. Edie watched wordlessly as he dried off his legs, then his torso and arms. Finally he lifted his arms, albeit with a wince, and gave his wet hair a rough tousle before he wound the towel around his waist. He had an erection, of course. It hardly registered anymore, not when he was around her.

But she fell back when he stepped toward her. He stopped. “I didn’t mean to say that you wouldn’t be a good mother, Edie. You’ll be a wonderful mother. I need only think about you with our child in your arms and my heart melts.”

Her eyes were shuttered, and he couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

“I should never have made arrangements for Susannah without asking you, but the outcome seemed inevitable. Even so, I’ll never do anything like that again. I will always ask you about the smallest thing that might interest you.” It was a vow.

“Susannah and Layla, and now my father, too, are happy,” Edie said. The sound of her musical voice made a purr of joy ripple through him.

“Please forgive me,” he said, taking another step toward her because he couldn’t stop himself. “I’m a hotheaded fool, and I was in the grip of a feeling of failure. I hate myself for having been cruel.”

“You said no more than you believed. Though I do think you’re mistaken about my capacity for motherhood.” A very small smile lit her eyes. “Susannah and I have come to appreciate each other much better in the last fortnight.”

It was like a dagger to his heart. Why hadn’t he been there? This was his
family
. He had been such a fool, keeping himself in the Highlands when his heart, his reason for living, was here.

He cleared his throat, finding it difficult to shape words. “There was nothing revolting about the way you found pleasure, Edie. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. The only problem was that I knew instantly that I had failed to give you that pleasure before. I’m so
sorry
about that.”

Her lashes swept down. “I don’t really want to talk about it, Gowan.”

“We must talk about it,” he said desperately. “I can’t let you go, Edie. I can’t.”

“I know,” she said, unexpectedly.

“You do?”

She nodded. “You succeed at everything you do, Gowan. Now you have to succeed at bedding me because you cannot bear the thought of failure. Or,” she added, her brow darkening, “of letting something you purchased slip away.”

“I was mad to say such a thing. I should have been at your feet, thanking you for accepting my hand, and instead I was preening myself for having bought you, as if you were just another feather in my cap.”

Her face didn’t move, but he saw the pain in her eyes.

“I don’t deserve you.” The words were wrung from his heart. “I failed you in bed, and then I blamed you because I was ashamed.”

Finally, finally, she stepped toward him and her hand curved around his cheek. “You didn’t fail me in bed, Gowan. You mustn’t think that way. We are simply not compatible.”

“We are compatible,” he said stubbornly.

“You must accept that sometimes the world doesn’t go the way you wish,” she said gently.

He wanted to howl at that. Go the way he wished? With his parents . . . the dog he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about . . . the work that never ended. Without Edie, he faced day after day of toil. What hadn’t bothered him before felt like a sentence of ten thousand years of dark loneliness. After knowing her, and loving her.

“Please,” he said hoarsely. “Give us another chance, Edie. Please.”

There was a long moment, and then she asked, “Why did you climb the tower?”

“You wouldn’t let me in, and I had to be with you.” It was that simple.

A smile wobbled on her lips. He could see that kiss tucked in the corner of her mouth, the one that she never gave away, the one that made her so kissable.

“If you leave in a carriage, I’ll be in the carriage that follows,” he vowed, his voice low and intent. “And when you reach home, if your father bars the door, I’ll climb up to your bedchamber. It’s got nothing to do with the marital bed, Edie. You are all there is for me. From the moment I entered that ballroom and saw you, I knew that.”

He took her hands and turned her palms to his lips. “I can’t live without you. You’re my lodestone and my North Star.” Very gently, he placed a kiss on first one and then the other of her palms.

Edie felt as if the tornado that was Gowan was whirling around her, imprisoning her in the still heart of his storm. What woman could resist? She fumbled for all the things he’d said that had broken her heart, and couldn’t remember them . . . except for one.

Her eyes fell before his as she searched for a way to put the unsayable. “Don’t,” he whispered, and his hands were on her back, pulling her close. “Don’t push me away.”

“It must be said.”

His voice was infinitely tender. “What,
mo chrìdh
?”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to be what you wish in bed,” she said, telling him the truth of it. “Maybe if I’m drunk. But I really . . . I don’t want to drink too much wine. I was sick after you left, and I felt dreadful the next day, and I can’t play if I feel like that.”

“I’ve come to understand that my attitude toward liquor is bollixed up,” he told her, wrapping his arms around her. “When you were tipsy . . . it turned me a bit mad because of memories of my mother.”

It felt so good to be in Gowan’s arms. When Edie had looked down and seen him climbing the tower, her heart had stopped. The very thought made her move closer to him, her arms circling his waist, her cheek to his shoulder, nuzzling close. With his arms around her, it felt as if the world had settled back into place. “I dislike drinking to excess, and if that’s the only way I can enjoy our bed . . . I can’t do it. I’m sorry.”

“If you don’t want to bed me ever again, I accept it,” he whispered, kissing the top of her head. “It hurt, and I failed to give you pleasure. The only thing I couldn’t accept is if you left me.”

In this moment he probably believed what he was saying, but he was wrong. Edie knew her Scotsman. Gowan would spend the rest of his life trying to give her pleasure in bed. She thought about that, and felt her lips curve. It wasn’t something many women would complain about.

And she was keenly aware that she was pressing against a sleek, strong, unclothed male body. He didn’t indicate in the least that certain parts of him were rigid, but Edie could feel him through the towel.

Her hands tightened around his waist. Still, she stood frozen, afraid to make a move, to promise something that she couldn’t fulfill. He would expect her to have that paroxysm of pleasure. The very idea made tension rise in her chest.

“Shhhh,” he whispered, his big hand rubbing gentle circles on her back. “We don’t have to do anything, Edie. We probably shouldn’t. My wrist is injured.”

“It’s not only your wrist. You have cracked ribs, too.”

“They don’t hurt much. Bardolph sent word that you were leaving me. I had to come.” He tipped her chin up so their eyes met. “I would climb the tower again, Edie. In a heartbeat.”

A feeling of peace settled over her. Gowan was alive, not dead in a ditch or broken at the base of the tower. What would she have done if he’d fallen? The thought was so terrifying that her heart hiccupped and she turned her lips to his neck.

“Edie, sweetheart,” he said, his voice a little strangled.

“Do you remember that last time we went to bed, and you said that it was about me?”

He nodded.

“And then, later, you said that I lay there like a pancake—but to be fair, Gowan, you
told
me to lie there.”

His throat worked. “I should shoot myself for that comment. My father told me that about women. I was so angry that I turned into him for a moment.” His eyes went pitch black with remorse.

“I don’t want you to focus on me. I don’t want to have to worry about whether or not I achieve a
petit mort
.”

“What would you like?”

“I would like to explore you. And I don’t want you to even touch me, not like that. Just for tonight?” she asked. “Please? It’s so much pressure.”

“I never wished you to feel anything but pleasure.” Stern lines bracketed his mouth.

“So let me decide what we will do? Just so this once I needn’t worry about succeeding?”

He cupped her face. “There’s no success or failure between us, Edie. I would love you if we never went to bed together again.”

Her smile wavered. “And if I’m never able to succeed in bed? You won’t . . .”

He shook his head, his eyes never leaving hers. “It’s
not
a question of success or failure. Love does not measure such things, except in kindness: and I was the failure in that respect.”

“No, you weren’t,” she breathed. “I love you.”

The joy that flared in his eyes was so sensual that she caught his head in her hands and brought his lips to hers. When they broke apart, her breathing was tremulous and she could see his chest rising and falling rapidly.

“I should bathe first,” he said hoarsely. “I’ll go to the castle and—”

“You smell like rain, and leather, and a bit like sweat,” she stated, giving him a sultry, lazy look. “I like it. Better than I like almond soap. You smell . . .
male
. It makes me want to lick you. All over.”

A curse escaped his lips but he managed to stop himself from lunging at her. Joy was like a scorching brand through him. He wanted to howl at the heavens, fall on his knees, throw himself on—

No.

“I’ll do whatever you want.”

“If there’s any licking to be done,” Edie said, “I’ll do it. No touching me that way until tomorrow evening.”

A look of near agony passed through Gowan’s eyes. “I am not to touch you all night and day?”

“Not unless I give you leave.”

He lowered those long eyelashes of his, but she thought she caught a flash of satisfaction.

“And I shall not permit it,” she stated. “I promise to try again tomorrow night. I do promise, Gowan. But for the moment, I just want to put that away.”

“As you wish,” he said, faint reluctance underlying his words.

Still, she had no worries about whether she could trust him to keep his word. He might lose his temper again someday—and she still had to make it clear to him just how unwelcome
that
would be—but he would never be unfaithful, and he would never be untrue.

With a smile happier than she’d ever seen, he said, “Do with me what you will.”

Edie felt a pulse of excitement. It was like the dreams she had, in which Gowan wasn’t making love to her, but she was making love to him instead. Now he stood very still, with his hands on his hips and a smile teasing the corners of his lips. Smooth shoulders, one marked by a dark blue bruise, led to a heavy plate of muscle that crossed his chest, punctuated by small, flat nipples. Just below it the white cotton bandage wrapped tightly around his ribs. Below, stomach muscles marched down in regiment. A thin line of hair ran down the center of his stomach and disappeared under the towel. And everywhere there were scratches and bruises.

Although his eyes blazed with hunger, she knew he wouldn’t move until she gave her permission. And she was enjoying herself. Slowly she backed up, eyes roaming up and down the whole of him, until she reached the bed. He said nothing, just waited. It was the most erotic thing that Edie had ever experienced, knowing that this magnificent, powerful man was entirely at her service.

If she directed him to kneel, he would kneel. Not that she wanted him to kneel, but the power she held over him was dizzying. She licked her lips, and his eyes followed the motion. A blaze of fire went down her legs. She clenched her knees together, wondering what to do next.

“What would you like me to do?” His husky voice broke into her thoughts. His fingers were on his towel. “Would you like me to remove this?”

Edie took an unsteady breath, then nodded slowly.

He threw the towel off, and it was better than she remembered. His private part was long and thick. She wanted . . .

What did she want?

“Anything you’d like me to do, my lady. Anything at all.” His voice lapped at her like velvet. But at the same time, she could feel her busy mind starting to get in the way of pleasure. What should she do?

He must have seen the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, because he sauntered around to the other side of the bed and stretched out there. “You see,” he said, “I am not touching you.”

She acknowledged this with a nod.

“But perhaps you’d like to remove your robe?”

She wasn’t sure about that.

“I won’t touch you,” he said. Though he added, “Unless you ask me to, of course.”

She managed to collect herself. She might as well remove her robe, because it was awkward to be clothed next to a naked man, especially a naked man to whom she happened to be married. It felt wrong, somehow. So she removed it, leaving only her nightdress. Then, before she could rethink it, she pulled off her nightgown and threw it to the side.

To her utter horror, the desire in his eyes instantly disappeared and a curse exploded from his lips.

She looked down at herself. “What’s the matter?”

“I can see your ribs!” He burst from the bed, and his hands spanned her body just beneath her breasts. Then he jerked her against him and wrapped his arms around her. “I’ll never leave you again.” It was a vow.