Darkest Dreams (24 page)

Dashing into the other room, I gathered my clothes, wondering if I could chance running down the corridor to the water closet to make myself presentable.

Alex caught my shoulders from behind and pulled me back against him. “What is it?” he whispered softy. “What did I do to upset you? Did I hurt you in some way?”

Oh, God. I fought back the tears. My seeing into his thoughts in an unguarded moment wasn't fair to him. I didn't ask for promises of love, nor did I give any. He would never marry because of the life sentence he'd given himself, and I would never marry because of what had just happened now. “No,” I whispered. “I'm just overwhelmed. It was so much more that I ever imagined it being, and I need time alone to think about what happened.”

He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me back against his chest. He kissed the top of my head. “I feel the same way. Do you really need to be home for tea with Cassie?”

I shook my head, unable to speak. He turned me to face him.

“Then why don't you refresh yourself and have tea with me?”
 
The earnest need in his eyes and in his voice for my company surprised me. It didn't quite fit in with the thoughts I'd read. Confused, I nodded.

“Good.” He exhaled softy and bent down, kissing me gently. “You're right, it was a bit more than tea. And it was a bit more than lovely. It was amazing. Unlike anything I've ever experienced before. Just in case you're wondering. There's a back way to the bathroom through my bedroom.”
 
Why did what I had seen in his mind not match up to how he was acting now?

I followed him, clutching my clothes against me with one hand and holding his pants I'd wrapped around me in place with the other. Passing through his room, I glanced again at the black silk counterpane, remembering its softness and the feel of being in his bed, wishing I hadn't seen into his thoughts and that I was still blissfully lying there next to him and he was saying that what he'd felt was amazing.

Opening a door, he led me into the water closet. “Would you like a bath? I've hot water that runs through the pipes so there's no need to disturb the servants.”

“A bath would be good,” I said, finding my voice. This all felt very strange, but as he crossed the room to the resplendent white tub I didn't argue. I looked for a place to set my clothes. Then, locating a towel, I wrapped that around me and set his pants aside as well. At the vanity, I sat down and began unbuttoning my boots. I'd made it half way when Alex, wearing a towel wrapped around his waist, knelt at my feet and brushed my hands away. “Let me,” he said.

He deftly slipped the buttons loose from their moorings and slid off my boot, doing the same to my other foot. After that, he eased his hands up my legs to untie my garters and to slide off my silk stockings, his every touch becoming more sensual and lingering just a little longer than the last. Already I could feel my desire for him stir again. Glancing down at him, I saw the heat in his gaze had rekindled as well. He stood, holding out his hand to me, and I knew it was more than just a request to lead me to the tub. It was a request to touch him, to trust him to touch me, and I placed my hand in his after hesitating but a moment. I realized in that instant that it didn't matter what he felt or thought. I'd wanted to know him, I'd wanted the opportunity to love a man fully before I spent my life alone, and Alex was that man. I'd chosen him. Fate had chosen him.

He led me to the immense white porcelain tub that was still filling with steamy water and the scent of sandalwood and spice. Loosening the towel from around me, he let it drop to the floor and kissed me, gently at first, then hungrily.

He stepped back, searching my gaze. He must have found what he wanted, for he dropped his towel and stepped into the tub. Sitting with his back against the smooth, comfortably curved porcelain, he tugged me into his lap. I landed with a splash and a gasp. Wrapping his arm beneath my breasts, he slid me against him so that I sat in his lap with his legs stretched out beneath mine, even though the tub was large enough that we could have sat side by side. He cradled my head between his chin and shoulder and stretched his arm out alongside mine, twining his fingers with my own. Sunlight filled the area, making the room even steamier than the heat rising from the water.

I shut my eyes, enjoying the intimacy of the moment, thinking that if marriage had been in my future, I would have wanted things to be like this. He traced his finger over the serpent ring curling around my finger.

“What's sailing like?” I asked.

He didn't say anything for a long moment, and I thought he wasn't going to answer. Then he brushed his lips against my head and spoke. “At the bow of a ship, facing the elements with the sun beating upon your face and the wind at your back? It is like racing over rough terrain on a huge horse one has little control of against wild wind. Sailing the seas is a wager with God and nature that a man has no assurance of how the journey will end, but he will take every chance he gets because feeling the power of the wind carrying him across the sea is worth every risk. It makes a man feel more alive and more human than anything else, except for one thing.”

“What is that?” I asked, wondering if I had read Alex wrong. What if he raced his horses at breakneck speed not because he was trying to end his life but to make himself feel alive?

“You just shared that one thing with me. Care to sail again?” he said softly as he slid his fingers over the tips of my breasts and kissed my nape.

I gasped, arching toward him, feeling the press of his hardening arousal against my back. One word, one look, one touch and I wanted to feel everything I had just felt all over again. “How often do people…go sailing?”

He rubbed a bar of fragrant soap between his hands, filling my senses with his heady scent. Dropping the soap in the water, he cupped my breasts, bathing them with excruciatingly pleasurable strokes. “With you, Andromeda, every hour sounds about right to me. I'm an excellent captain, so you can relax. You're in expert hands.” He snaked one hand down my stomach and slid a slick finger directly where I tingled the most, magically finding that one single spot that made me ache for more.

“Every hour?” I gasped as he brought his knees up on the insides of mine and spread my legs wide. How did anyone ever do anything else? Why anyone ever did anything else was my last coherent thought, for Alex slid his fingers inside me again, and he rubbed that special place until my whole body throbbed to the rhythm of his touch. My head fell back against his shoulder, and his lips sought mine in a deep, dueling kiss where every thrust and parry made us both winners. I barely felt his slight lifting of my hips. I only knew the satisfying moment his hot, urgent sex thrust into me, and he rocked insistently in and out. He had one hand rubbing over the hardened tips of my breasts and his other hand cupping my sex so that his fingers vibrated with growing intensity directly on that very sensitive place where my whole body and soul became his. Stars exploded, and time disappeared beneath the burning pleasure shuddering through every fiber of my being.

This time when Alex followed me to heaven, his pleasure sent a sharp spasm through me that was so dizzying, the bursting stars blinded me, leaving me dazed. His whole being was caught up in the experience. At that moment nothing else mattered to him. He wanted nothing more than to be inside me and to stay inside me, driving himself into every part of me. I became his whole world in an instant, and I decided that was all that mattered. Whatever his thoughts would be a minute from now or a day from now, we'd shared something special, and deep inside him that meant as much to him as it did to me.

 

 

I didn't have any regrets, but I did feel awkward as I left Dragon's Cove. It wasn't anything that Alex did or said. He'd been very attentive, the perfect lady's maid in helping me dress. We even shared tea, during which I ate twice as much as I usually did. There were moments that I'd find him looking at me in a puzzled way, and moments when things became too quiet, like there were things that needed to be said, but neither of us was willing to say them.

And there was nothing to say. We both had to content ourselves with the situation as it was. We had no future.

Still, as the dark towers of Dragon's Cove and its crashing waves disappeared behind me and the sounds of the birds singing and bees searching for nectar in maritime forest unfolded before me, I knew I was returning to Killdaren's Castle a different woman. A woman who was both more and less than what I had been this morning, for Alex had not only opened a whole new world to me, but he'd taken a part of me captive as well. It wasn't just my heart; I think he'd laid claim to that long before today. It was part of my soul that was missing, a part of me that was still tangled up with him and that moment when his driving force sailed us into an unknown sea.

I didn't have long to dwell on my melancholy state. The buggy pulled up to the castle's rear door and, rather than going inside and facing everyone just yet, I took the path into the gardens and accidentally stumbled into eavesdropping on a very private conversation between Stuart Frye and his mother. She was expressing her outrage over the efforts of Cassie, Bridget and me to clear her and Jamie of murder charges. I was surprised to find she'd been released from jail. Cassie must have had some impact on Constable Poole after all.

“All of you should have just left well enough alone,” she said.

“No,” said Stuart. “You shouldn't have confessed to a crime you didn't commit. You shouldn't have made up lies about Mary's death thinking to save Jamie.”

“I had to. He's different, and they would have killed him on the spot. He's a child inside. I had to protect him. Now they will hang him for sure. There's unrest among the villagers. So much so that I think Constable Poole had me brought back here. I think he's afraid of a mob and most likely didn't want to have a woman hung on his watch. I still have to face charges for lying to the authorities.”

“Jamie is innocent, and I will find a way to prove it,” Stuart said. “I'll speak to Sean about hiring more guards to keep him safe, and you need to stay here in the castle.”

“How can you be so sure he is innocent?” said Mrs. Frye. “He had Mary's body in the burial ground beneath those cursed stones he was always at.”

“If Mary's death had just been an accident, I'd think Jamie at fault,” said Stuart. “He might have pushed her or squeezed her too tight when trying to help her, but you know as well as I do that if Jamie's life had depended on him carving Mary with a knife, he would have killed himself first. Besides, he was fifteen when Helen died. There's just no way he did it. He cried for a month when a horse had to be put down.”

“It doesn't matter. The only way to save Jamie now is for the real killer to be caught red-handed while Jamie is in jail. I'm sure the killer isn't foolish enough to do that.”

“I'll find a way to save my brother no matter what. That I promise.”

Stuart's grim pledge had a note of assurance in it that sent a shiver of warning down my spine. I hurried back to the castle and into the warmth of the kitchens. Mrs. Murphy had the staff running about, preparing a special servants' meal in honor of Mrs. Frye's return. She'd been the vigilant housekeeper at Killdaren's Castle for years, finding that she'd lied to protect Jamie, had everyone welcoming her back with forgiving arms.

Rather than retreating to my room and my thoughts, I went in search of Cassie to escape them. I also understood for the first time just why I felt as if I had lost my sister in some small way after she'd met and married Sean. Sean had led Cassie to the new and exciting world Alex had opened up to me, and part of her belonged to him in a special way.

I found Cassie, Bridget, Prudence and Gemini together in the library. Each of them had a book in hand and were searching through the pages as if the world would end if they didn't find what they were looking for. All except for Cassie, who paced like an angry tigress in front of the fireplace.

“What's wrong?” I asked, stepping into the room.

“What's right?” Cassie demanded, throwing her hands up. “My husband doesn't credit me with any intelligence whatsoever. Constable Poole came today, escorting Mrs. Frye back here. He spent two hours with Sean. Two hours discussing my cousin's murder and Lady Helen's death, and my dear husband won't tell me a word of what was said. I'm supposed to knit stockings and not concern myself. I've never knitted a stocking in my life.”

“You did learn how to knit scarves, if I remember right,” I said.

Cassie glared at me, almost breathing fire like a dragon herself.

“He's only trying to protect you,” Prudence said. “You should appreciate the fact that he loves you so much. I'm not sure the earl spared me a glance after he learned I was with child.”

“I think the earl feels a great deal more than he lets anyone see,” Cassie said. “He's too afraid that he'll curse someone else. I don't mean to be ungrateful about Sean's attention, but…” She groaned. “Considering I have plans for a number of children, I'm going to be a prisoner in my own home for the next ten years. The doctor swears that I am fine, and I am, but Sean won't believe it.”

“Maybe you should just rest and let the men solve this mystery,” I said. My sister was more agitated than I'd ever seen her.

Cassie gaped at me. “Andrie! Whose side are you on?”

“Your side, of course. But Sean is right in that you don't need to do anything dangerous.”

“We're not,” Bridget said. “But we are going to prove that women are capable and don't need to be coddled. Stuart has the same problem that Sean does.” Bridget held up the book in her hands, letting me read the title.
Druid Magic Through the Ages
. “Tonight we're going to scour the library to see if we can discover any significance to the symbol, and tomorrow after tea we're going to take a little ride.”